Hello everybody!!! Once again, it's FREEZING out here with a noon time temperature of -20! We're able to bundle up and not really notice the cold, but the Minnesota in me thinks I can still fill the car... I mean snow machine, with no gloves on what so ever. The good thing about the cold is that Anne won't worry as much if I (yes, this is Ben) decide to go on the river.

I made it back from Seward safe and sound. The morning I was to leave, all planes were on weather hold, but being in the bush, they threw me on the back of a snow machine and I rode the 20 miles to the next village over, where planes were still flying. Long story short, the teams I was supposed to be chaperoning never made it to Anchorage that day... I was very happy. This meant I had a full 24 hours to myself without having to keep track of a bunch of high schoolers. I decided to order Domino's and stay in for the night... the urban jungle of Anchor town kinda scares me at night, especially with an empty 15 passenger van. Upon waking the next morning, I watched a Steven Seagal movie, ate some cold pizza, and stopped by the Sportsman's Warehouse to look at guns and other equipment. Looking at guns is a nice way to kill 3 hours. Eventually, I had to do what I was getting paid for, and pick up the kids and 2 other chaperons. The Tsunami Bowl was great, and we all had a great time. We played around with some crabs at a University of Alaska, Fairbanks lab, gave/watched 20 presentations, and the teams I was with each won 2 out of 5 quiz bowl rounds. That's pretty good for students who are taking integrated science when they're facing kids who have AP courses and Oceanography as a class (the questions are all about ocean science.) Eventually we headed to Anchorage where we took the kids to the mall and to the movie theater. Monday morning we left Anchorage for St. Mary's (the village 20 miles from Mountain,) and 2 hours later, we were in St. Mary's...kind of. We were circling St. Mary's for 2o minutes waiting for the weather to clear, which never happened, and eventually we turned back for Anchorage. One more night of civilization for the crew. The next day we made it to St. Mary's, and once again, planes weren't flying to most villages. One team stayed in St. Mary's (I haven't heard from them since), the other team made it home, and I had to take a mail plane to Mountain since they technically weren't flying in Mountain. I could tell why when I landed. It's normal for the planes to come in cocked to the side, but normally they straighten out when the wheels touch down. This wasn't the case on this flight. The plane slid at an angle for a good amount of time (while buzzers and red lights were flashing) and eventually we stopped. I was glad to be home.

It's funny how different people received me as I came to school 1/2 hour before the end of the day. As I walked in, a group of my students shouted from the window of their Yupik class, "Ah, Mr. Harvey's back!" This wasn't a happy "Ah," but an annoyed "Ah." On the other hand, as I walked into the room to say hi to my lovely wife, her kinders jumped from their chairs, ran to give me a group hug, and exclaimed, "WE MISSED YOU MR. HARVEY!!!" I love kindergarteners.

Contracts for next year came out on Friday, and we've already signed them. We'll be bringing them to the district office on Monday, along with some reimbursement slips for praxis tests (yup, LYSD pays for those!!) and gas from my Tsunami Bowl trip.

We decided to give our Valentine's day presents to each other a week early. Neither of us like to wait for surprises, so we ripped them open. Anne got a photo album and some pens... along with A NEW CAMERA!!! I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty excited for it too. I figured since I got a moose/deer/foreign invader rifle for Christmas, she deserved something a little nicer than flowers (which I did get her a rose!)

It's about 6:30 right now, and it's still light out... I have a feeling I'm going to get spring fever a little early, even though there won't be a thaw anytime in the near future. Anne just made me cheesecake, and I'm pretty excited. We have a few more weeks of teaching before our "spring break." Our spring break consists of 3 in service days at the beginning of March...yay (I meant that to sound like Eeyore saying it). One of these years we'll start writing in our blog on a more regular basis, but until then, enjoy the bimonthly stories from the bush.

Ben and Anne