At first I was afraid...................But I survived!

Well, I sent the final group of kids packing yesterday and it feels great!!!!! It's so tough to deal with high school kids. That is definitely one of my least favorite age groups. The younger kids don't get as bored as fast as the older kids and the older kids need a lot more supervision then the younger kids. We had 24 kids and ended up having 3 couples that I know of forming over the 10 days. Now that we are done with camps I will spend a couple of weeks wrapping things up and getting ready for the new grant period come September.

RSVPs are coming in the mail daily. We have been getting about 5 a day. Thank you to all that have sent them back. Those that haven't - where are they!!!!! Just kidding. You still have time. I'll be heading back south on August 15. I'll be in Minnesota for a few days and then back home. I have to go to Brookings to finalize a few details for the wedding.

Well, I'm going to go. I took today off to recuperate and try to get my cough under control. Last week I almost lost my voice for a few days. That sucked especially when I had to raise my voice to the kids.

Catch you all later ~ Amy

Dirty Jobs

Well, this blog doesn't have anything to do with doing actual dirty jobs, but it does have to do with the TV show Dirty Jobs. Mike Rowe and the Dirty Jobs crew came in to Bethel this morning to start getting things ready for swabbing duck butts! Yes you read that right, swabbing duck butts. There was a get together tonight at the Deputy Managers house (Doug) and Mike Rowe himself was there. Of course I had to do the star struck take a picture thing so here are a few from the night.
This is Mike wearing a Lynx hat that belongs to Doug's son Dalton. Dalton was the one who had the idea of sending Dirty Jobs the email about the duck swabbing. One email was all it took to get them interested.
And here of course is the obligatory photo of the "star" with the little people. Excuse the expression on my face. I believe someone said something and I laughed a little too hard! I told Mike that I had to do the "touristy thing" and he said that it was his pleasure and that he was the tourist.

For those of you that haven't seen the show basically what they do is go around the country doing jobs that people contact them about that they think are "dirty" jobs. This guy is just as funny in person as he is on TV. Doug (the Deputy Manager of the Refuge) brought up the idea of putting VITs (vaginal transmitters) in the moose that Eric works with and Mike seem interested in the idea. How knows, come April they may be back here following Eric around with his moose work!!!!!

Well, that's about it for my night. I'll post more later ~ Amy

We Finally Hit 70!

Well, I think summer is officially here. Yesterday we hit 70 degrees and today we were 77. It was almost too hot. Actually it was too hot. We road our bikes into town to check out the small festivities at Pinky's Park. They were selling some food, jewelery and had some music but that was it. We managed to stay maybe 1/2 hour before we decided to leave. We had one of the guys Eric works with come over for supper. We won't have any fireworks because the sun doesn't set until 12:28 am.

We have some exciting news for the YK Delta. Mike Rowe from Discovery Channels Dirty Jobs will be here doing some work on the Tundra. Every one from Eric's work is invited to go over to one of the managers houses to hang out with the crew from the show on Monday night. I'll keep you posted.

I will be finishing up wedding invites tomorrow and should be able to get them into the mail on Friday. I'll be glad to get those done but kinda sad because I've enjoyed working on them. Well it's 9:20 pm so I think I will get going so I can surf the web a little more before I go to bed. Later ~ Amy

Update

Well, I have no kids this week and I am enjoying my time away from the. We have another group coming in on Sunday but until then I will enjoy the freedom. I have to work tomorrow but because of the July 4th holiday I have Wednesday and Thursday off and I have built up enough comp time to take Friday off so I get a 5 day weekend.

Eric and I ordered a few shirts and pants to try to decide on groomsmen and groom outfit and I think we have made a decision. Here's what the Groomsmen will be wearing.
And here is what the groom will be wearing (except he will be wearing black pants, not BROWN!). The shirt has a pinstripe towards the from of the collar and match ones of the cuffs.
Here's a picture of all the the wedding attire together.
Well, I better get going. I'm almost done with all of the invites. They should go out in the mail this week. I'm excited to get them off the table and in the mail. One less thing to worry about. I'll write more later ~ Amy

2 Down 3 To Go

Well, I finished my second camp yesterday and I'm happy to say I survived! This past week we had just over half of the kids return from last year and let me tell you they were a handful. The camps themselves went much more smooth then last week. I'm hoping they each get a little better. The first week we had all the students stay even though we had a few homesick kids. This week, we had 2 that didn't show up and 3 that went home sick (not homesick).

As far as wedding things go, I'm almost done with the invites. I have to do a few more things with the envelopes but they should be ready for the mail in a few days. I think we have found the groomsmen outfits. Here's what we are thinking.
We are still debating on what Eric is going to be wearing. He'd like to try to find a black shirt with white collars and cuffs. I'll keep you posted on that. Well, I better get back to the laundry. I have to get most of my weekend stuff done today because I'll have to work late tomorrow afternoon and evening. Later ~ Amy

I'm Alive and Kicking

Well, I know it's been awhile since I've updated. I've been busy getting things ready for my camps for work. I just finished my first camp (29, 11 & 12 year olds!) and we had a successful week. It started last Sunday 2 hours earlier then expected with me NOT ready. Village planes sometimes don't follow the schedule very well. That early arrival threw me off for the first few days. After being extremely overwhelmed on Monday evening, I recovered and pulled off a good week. I am happy to say we didn't have any kids go home homesick. In the past at least 1 kids has gone home homesick on the second day. We had kids crying, but they stayed! Hopefully that says something about the way I'm running the camps. I guess I'll have another try come Sunday afternoon when the second group of 11 & 12 year olds come in. We will have 32 of them this time. We keep them busy in the mornings by having them do classroom type activities (such as Robotics, Science, Reading, Writing, etc). Afternoons are busy exploring different careers and doing some field trips. Evenings consist of Kayaking, playing at the local park, games and shopping. Kayaking and shopping are the 2 biggest things for the Village kids. I guess last year they had a couple of girls who got their ears pierced and didn't have permission to do so. Glad that hasn't happened yet!!!!!!!

Well, I better get going. It's 10:45 pm and I should probably get some sleep because I've been working 12-14 hour days since Sunday and I can tell I'm getting sleep deprived. I'll try to write more this weekend. ~ Amy

It's a bird, it's a plane, well, it's a crocheted plane!

Well, I finally had an opportunity to make another graph afghan. I had alot of fun doing this one and it didn't take very long to do it either. Here it is:
This was made for a co-worker of Eric who is a pilot with the Fish and Wildlife Service. Him and his wife had a little girl about a month ago. I think it turned out pretty good and I love how the colors turned out. I was a little skeptical when I got the yarn in the mail but it worked out.

I spent some time this past weekend working on the invitations, with the help of the Itty Bitty Kitty. I got all of the inserts printed and cut and a majority of them assembled. You should have seen Skeeter (also known as Itty, Bitty Kitty) watching the printer. She was so amazed at the paper going in one end and coming out the other. Here's a picture of her watching.
Well, it's 9:50 pm and lighter then light outside. I do believe the official sunset tonigh is 11:58 pm. We are almost to our daylight high point. We will gain roughly another 1/2 hour in the evening and another 1/2 hour in the morning and I think that's it.


I guess I should start getting ready for bed. We try to force ourselves to be in bed by 10:30/11:00 so we still get enough sleep. I usually wake up about 5:30/6:00 because of the light but force myself to stay in bed until the alarm goes off at 6:30. Skeeter usually comes to cuddle me in the morning. She loves to lay on my chest and put her head up by my chin and just look at me. It's really quite cute. I'll have to try to get a picture sometime. ~Amy

11:00 pm and it's bright as day

Well, it's going to take some getting used to it being light until midnight! The sun rises about 5:45 am and doesn't set until midnight. I think I may have to resort to using an eye mask pretty soon. Actually it hasn't been too bad yet. My body tells me that it's time for bed around 10:30 or 11:00 pm so as long as I don't give myself an excuse to stay up it's okay.

I spent the day today working on the wedding invitations. I printed inserts, cut them all apart and did some glueing. I also got most of the envelopes addressed. Here's a mock up of the invites. The front is going to have some sort of monogram on it, I think. A lady from work is working on one this weekend for us!
Well, with the sunlight has come the birds. We have a few bird houses around our house and the cats love to sit in the windows and call to the birds. Little do they know that the windows aren't open so they can't hear them. Here's a picture of the kitties in the window.
Well, I suppose I should try to get some sleep. It's nice that we have a 3 day weekend. I love my job, but at the same time, I love my weekends and time off. I better enjoy it now because once June 10 hits, I'm a slave to work (except for Saturdays).

Wedding Dress

I know I haven't written in awhile, but it's worth it I promise. Today you will get a preview of "the dress". It's really hard to capture all of the details on the dress, but I tried. I won't make you wait any longer. Here they are:

Full dress

bodice

Side view of dress

Close up detail of beading

So, what do you all think????? I absolutely love it!!!!

I have all of the invites folded I just need to print up the inserts, cut and assemble. And then of course stuff all envelopes and address everything. I have roughly 2 full weeks to get all of this accomplished. I'll get pictures of the invites as I assemble them. More later~Amy

Cats, Cats and more cats!

Okay, there is actually only 2 cats, but the title Cats and Cats just isn't that catchy! We've gotten some good pictures recently of Skeeter and Chubbs. Here's a few of Skeeter:



Can you find the real animal in the picture below? I just couldn't resist taking this picture of Chubbs. He looked like he fit in with the rabbit, ducks and grouse.

Well, I better get going. I'll do more either later today or tomorrow. ~Amy

Skeeter

I just picked Skeeter up from the vet. She had to get spayed and she was also declawed. I took the afternoon off to spend with her. Actually it was to make sure Chubbs didn't groom her to death! She's been a sweetheart curled up in my lap almost all afternoon. She's sleeping over the computer trying to help me out. I'll try to get some pictures of her soon to show you all how big she's gotten. We've had her for 2 months and she's more than doubled in size! Well, I need to get going so I can pick Eric up at work. I'll try to update soon! ~ Amy

April Showers bring May Potholes??????

Well, I know it isn't May just yet, but the other day when Eric and I were driving around we noticed so may new potholes in the road. The thawing with the rain is starting to cause major potholes in the only paved road in the city. It's like a regular rollercoaster between swerving to miss potholes and the heaves that the thawing is causing. I was going to take some pictures yesterday to show all of you what I mean, but apparently the city must have known because they have filled in all of the potholes!

On another note, last week Eric finished collaring his moose. They darted 38 cows and calves. They gave them beautiful neon orange necklaces to wear. It took them all week to get these collared. As far as his taxidermy goes, he ordered a Fleshing Machine to help with the hides. He sent in the hides of his lynx, rabbits and foxes to get tanned. Once he gets them back he should be able to start on mounting some of them.

I ordered some paper samples to try to get the invitations worked out. I have to get these done within the next month because once June rolls around I won't have any time to do them, let alone think :-) I have Raquel on a mission to find me some yarn. I won't say what it's for, that's a surprise ;-) I'm hoping the dress I ordered will be in the mail soon. I'm excited to see how it looks.

Signing off for now ~ Amy

Wedding Details Coming Together

For those of you that want a quick "light" update, we are up to around 14 1/2 hours of sunlight. The sun has started to come up around 7:30 am and sets around 10:30 pm. It's funny how easily your body can adjust to the longer days than the shorter days.

Okay, we have finally got most of the plans together for the wedding. The wedding party is all on board. Eric has chosen 4 of his buddies. These are listed in no particular order yet: Jeremy Duckwitz, Josh Miller, Brett Amdor and Kevin Monteith. The lucky ladies paired up with these guys are Wendy Finnegan (my sister), Alethea Caraway (my best friend), Shawnda Hildebrande (Eric's cousin) and junior bridesmaid Brinley Mathern (Eric's niece). Bridesmaids dresses have been ordered and almost everyone has gotten theirs. Still trying to decide on what the groomsmen will be wearing. I found another dress and have put in an order. If all goes well, I should have it in 2-3 weeks. Here's a picture of the dress.
For flowers I think we are going with something simple. Calla lily bouquets is what I'm thinking. Along those lines, I am thinking that the details for the cupcakes will be Calla Lilies also.

I am in the process of ordering paper for the invitations. They are going to be simple pocketfolds. We've got a pretty hefty guestlist going as of right now.

Well it's time for me to start making super so I will talk to you all later ~ Amy

Flashback to the Past

Okay, I'm not sure how many of you readers out there will remember this, but the other day when Eric and I were at the grocery store we saw some bottles of Clearly Canadian! I didn't realize that they made this stuff anymore. It makes you wonder if it is still a popular drink or if it is just that slow to work it's way up to this area!

Happy Easter to everyone out there. Not much happens here on Easter. Yesterday there was an easter egg hunt for the kids but that's about it. We didn't even get Good Friday off.

The kitten (who we have officially named Skeeter) had her first vet visit yesterday. She got a booster, wormer and the rabies vaccine. Next month she will be spayed and declawed. Poor girl. She's my little sweetie though. She sleeps above my head on my pillow. There's been a few times when she would stretch out and end up with her head on my shoulder.

On other note, we have a new pet for a few weeks. Once again we are dog-sitting for Sadie. It's been an interesting few days for Sadie and the kitten. They are starting to finally warm up to each other. Chubbs on the other hand is not warming up to Sadie yet. He will sit in the middle of the hallway and won't let Sadie into the living room. She's too scared to do anything about it.
Well, it's about time to feed Sadie so I'll sign off for now. I promise I'll do a wedding/crochet update soon!~Amy

Fiascos oh my!

Hello All,
Well, I survived the weekend, but let me tell you it was touch and go for awhile starting late last week. The first fiasco was the bridesmaids dresses! I finally found the perfect one after searching online for 2-3 months. I decided to order them and the were completely gone from the website. I was lucky that they were available from another company and the girls have finally got them ordered. Here's what they look like.
The second fiasco, that I'm still trying to work out, is my dress. I thought I had found the perfect dress. It's Ivory instead of White, but I didn't imagine it to be as "yellow" as it was when I opened the box. I was so disappointed. Here's the picture from Nordstroms and then the picture of the dress beside the bridesmaids dresses.
These pictures portrait the dress much "whiter" than it is. So the search is on once again for a dress for myself. I'm leary of getting anything that says "ivory" now, so it will only be white for me!

Okay, I'm off to look on the web for another dress. ~ Amy

Let it Snow!

Waqaa (hello),

First of all let me start out by saying Happy Birthday to my sister Raquel and my brother Nick. They both ended up being born on the same day. Now on to the good stuff.........

Woke up this morning and it was blowing snow. The schools were cancelled by 7:00 am. Eric and I kept listening in the hopes that there would be more cancellation, but there wasn't. We had a 3-4 foot snow drift in our driveway. Good thing it was the light fluffy stuff.

This past weekend I took a sewing class on making the traditional "qaspeq". It's pronounced kus-puk. They are shirts that both men and woment wear. I haven't gotten a picture yet, but I will soon. I'm trying to make another one, but I'm going to modify it a little. They are pretty boxy shirts and I like mine more fitted. We'll see what happens.

This coming weekend is the big Camai festival. It's a big dance festival where natives from around the region and elsewhere come and dance. They also have native arts and crafts and food. I'm going to see if I can find a video camera and take some footage to send home. If I do get a camera I'll try to take video of the town also.

Well, I need to go so I can watch Deal or No Deal. There is a lady from Alaska on tonight. She is wearing some of the traditional clothing and so are some of her relatives. I guess they are also doing some native drumming. She's from Dillingham, which is way south of here, but still Alaska is Alaska, just like South Dakota is South Dakota!

Tangerciqamken atata (See you later).

Life In Alaska (Bethel to be exact!)

Not much has been happening in the big city of Bethel. A couple of weeks ago we did receive a 100 gal oil voucher for free. The oil company Citgo from Venezuela for some reason or another gave Alaska a bunch of free oil. When oil is almost $4.50/gal and you run through it like water you don't ask why you are getting it. You just take it and be glad that you are getting the support from somewhere. We are probably already through most of that 100 gals. Temperatures in the morning when going to work have been below zero (usually 5-10 below). They warm up to about 5-10 above by the time we get home from work.

We are up to 12 hours of sunlight. Sun comes up around 8:30 am and sets about 8:30 pm, but we can still see outside until 9:00 pm. I was actually enjoying going to work in the light then congress had to do the early time change, so we will be going to work in the dark for at least another week, maybe two.

I'm staying busy with work. I've been going to talk at the High School and Middle schools about our summer camps. That has been fun. I enjoy getting out and talking with these kids, especially the 5th to 8th graders. The college is wrapping up it's Spring Break week. Staff actually got yesterday off. That was a nice change. Eric has been keeping buys with work. The past couple of days he was in Hooper Bay, a small village along the coast of Alaska. Tomorrow he is leaving to do some Fox trapping with a couple of the guys from work for work, so he's relaxing today and taking it easy.

For those that are curious about wedding details, we have finally booked a reception/dance location for the wedding. It will be at the Staurolite Inn. It ended up being cheaper for both rental and food. I am in the process of getting a block of rooms reserved. Once that is done, I'll let the wedding party and family know so they can get reservations made. I've been searching high and low online to try to find a bridesmaid dress I could tolerate that wasn't ungodly expensive to no avail until yesterday. I thought I found the perfect Bridesmaid dresses but I wanted to ask Eric his opinion before I did anything. Last night when he got home I showed the 2 dresses to him and he actually liked them, so I thought today I would go online and order one of each to see which one I liked better in person. Yeah, great plan but unfortunately for some reason the website is not coming up! I hope it's just a temporary glitch! It better be. I hate to think I have to start the search all over again. Poor computer probably feels the same! As for my dress, I have decided to order one. I've tried to find a pattern that I liked, but the ones I found that I likes, I didn't like once I started making them. I should probably order that here soon, but I'm trying to decide on the size to order. I've put on a little weight since we moved up here and I have been trying to lose it. The smaller size will be a little snug, but I think the larger size is just going to be too big and since it's a halter dress, I don't think it can be altered right. Who knows! Well, I'm going to get this published before I forget. If your lucky maybe I'll write more today or tomorrow! ~ Amy

Addition to the Family

Well, I guess I know better now for letting Eric go to Anchorage unsupervised. He brought us home a little kitty. She is a feisty little thing. Eric likes to call her a squirrel. Apparently she's an escape artist. She somehow got out of the kennel on the airplane and was wondering around. She loves to pounce around like any little kitten. It's okay, but she turned on the alarm last night and it went off at midnight!!!! Here's a couple of pictures of her. Chubbs and her are still getting to know each other. Since she still has claws, he doesn't get too close. He did hold her down the other day and clean her a little.I think it's good for Chubbs to have another around. It gives him something to chase and keeps him company during the day while we're gone. Well, it's getting closer for bedtime. I'll keep you all posted on the new kitty. This weekend I'll do a post all about wedding plans! I know, some of you are thinking it's about time.

Ivory Earrings, Beaver Hats and Hair Coloring

Eric got me a pair of ivory earrings for Valentine's Day. They are the cutest things in the world. Check them out.Eric and I are learning how to sew Beaver Skin hats. It's actually alot of fun and we are enjoying it. We are working on a hat for Eric first as a trial run. We'll do mine after we work out all of the kinks with Erics ;) Here's a couple pictures of us working hard and then the classic Eric shot.
Well, I finally did it. I colored my hair and I went darker instead of lighter. I love how it looks. The picture above shows the original color. Everyone at work said that it's the perfect color for me. Here's a few pictures. Don't look at the expressions on my face. I took them myself. I'm also putting in a picture of a hat I made. Let me know what you think (about the hair and the hat). I'll try to have Eric or someone take a better picture of me so you can see the hair better.
Well, it's getting close to bedtime. I'll write more later ~Amy

Vegas Update

Hey ~ I made it back from Vegas alright. The training was excellent. Vegas itself was nice to see, but I don't need to go back anytime soon. Too many people. Here's a few pictures I took. This first on is a few from my hotel room.
Here's a picture of the outside of my hotel at night when all of the lights are on.
These last 2 are of the fountains at the Bellagio and of M&M World at MGM Grand.

Well, I'm going to sign off for this post because I don't want it to get too big to publish. ~Amy