Hey Everyone,

So, Ben and I don't have a whole lot to report. We had a pretty quiet week. I was exhausted on Friday however. My Kinders have started being mean towards each other and have been getting into fights. It has made for a long week. I ended up spending a morning teaching the kids about kindness. I had to do AIMS testing all week which I have to take kids out of the room individually and test them in a minute over letter recognition, letter sounds, nonsense words, and sounding out words. We did this in October and man have the kids learned a lot. There were some kids who at the beginning of the year knew 5 letters in a minute and this time around knew 55 letters in a minute. It almost brought tears to my eyes. I was proud of them!

Ben is going to Seward on Wednesday which is right outside of Anchorage. He will be there for 6 days as a male chaperon for the Ocean Bowl. Our school didn't make it, but some other schools in the district did and the asked Ben to chaperon. Who would turn down a free trip to Anchorage? I already have a list of fun items for Ben to pick up while in town. :) As for me, I'm already thinking up of some traps in case of any intruders. I know where the handgun is and let me tell you, I know how to use it. :) haha. I will be fine. They have security cameras up outside the schools now that start recording with motion. Last week they caught a couple of kids egging a teachers house.

Ben and I went out for a ride on the snow machine today. We went out on the tundra a little bit looking for some ptarmigan. Ben had his 22. Did I mention I shot the 22 for the first time. I almost think I could even shoot a ptarmigan without crying. Alaska might be turning me into a outdoorsy woman, which would make Ben very happy. I don't know that I will ever be able to shoot deer or moose...but who knows. We'll start with birds. After going on the tundra we went on one of my favorite trails which goes through some trees. We stopped where the trail met the river and just sat for a little bit. There is something so peaceful about being there. It's very quiet and you can see for miles. We saw quite a few snow machines going out in hopes of catching some moose.

Anyways, that's all for now. As I said before, we don't have a whole lot to report. Ben and I really enjoy it here. Every day gets a little bit easier and feels a little bit more like home. We have made really good friends here and have a great church that we go to. I'm going to start going to Eskimo dance practice with one of my friends who is from Mountain. I think eskimo dancing is beautiful and well, we'll see how much I learn. :)

Thanks for reading!

Ben and Anne

P.S. I can't figure out how to flip the pictures above, but that is our snow machine! :) (It's fixed)