Read the post below before you look at this little movie clip. The post below explains the movie clip.

What a fun day we had!!

Yukon Reading Quest

Each year at our school, we mirror the Yukon Quest sled dog race with a Yukon Quest Reading Race. The kids pick about 6 teams and a teacher and they read and read and see how many pages they can get at the end of about two or three weeks. It is a really fun and awesome way to get kids to read. But the kickoff day is the most fun. All the kids and teachers and many parents participate in sled races with the kids as "dogs" and the sponsoring teacher is the "musher". For the last four years I have been the race "veterinarian" and have been at the Dawson City checkpoint with a mandatory 2 minute layover. Here are some fun pictures of the day. Of course, no fun day would be complete without lunch. So we had hot dogs, chili and hot tang. Yum!!

The kindergarteners taking a potty break before the race. Mrs. Wease keeps them in line!!
The school grounds serve as the race course. These flags are all the checkpoints where each team has to get the initials of the parent or person who is standing there.
One of the other parents at her checkpoint.
And they're off.....
Heidi N. acting like a fiesty lead dog!!
And the last team crosses the finish line.
Grant on the back of the sled, holding onto the girls. :)
Pretty Katie
Pretty Heidi and the fur hat her daddy got her in Ft. Yukon. :)


Here I am checking out the "dogs" and making sure they can continue the race.
Then it's time for food!!!

Freezer full

This is just a preliminary report about the buffalo hunters and the hunt. Drew got a 5-6 yr old bull buffalo this morning. They just got home a few minutes ago - it's 10:20 p.m. We are looking forward to having a freezer full of meat. Thank you Lord!! I'll post a few pictures of the scenery and the guys and the buffalo, then, in a few days, I'll try to tell you the details of the hunt. Thad, my cousin, went with them to help with moving the buffalo and dressing it out.

Scenery in and around Delta Junction, Alaska

A proud moment

Drew was holding the head up by the horn, he said, "it's harder than it looks".

My cousin, Thad, with Drew and the buffalo. Thanks Thad for your help!!

Another proud moment.

Punching his tag.

Valentine's banquet

Last night the juniors of our school put on a Valentine's banquet. It was lots of fun, as usual. We had a blast with our friends who sat at our table, Bob and Elayne, Steve and Tracey and Don and DeeDee. It was all topped off by Bob flipping the cherry off the spoon and hitting Steve in the arm with it.
Clarissa played the harp.
....and did a great job!!!
Mr. Nutter spoke on the five love languages.

Many of the junior's moms made a delicious meal... chicken, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, pasta salad, corn and green bean casserole, salad, and brownies for dessert. It was really awesome. Sorry I didn't get pictures.... too busy eating, I guess.

Then we had a pie auction. Oh my word, we ended up with 3 pies, a german chocolate cake and an afghan. It was really fun, as I've mentioned before.... especially watching Don and Bob bidding on the same Key Lime pie. :)

Our loot.

Heidi, my cousin (not my daughter) made this afghan that I bid on and got. It is really pretty and soft. I slept with it wrapped around my feet last night. Very nice, fluffy and warm.

Valentines flowers

I haven't had time to post the beautiful roses Andrew bought for me for Valentine's Day. So here they are....

There were a dozen. He's a sweetheart!

Update on my new job

Just a quick note to let you know about my new job. (with the Pregnancy Center) I am now signed off to do limited obstetrical ultrasounds. I have been having a ball this week, fine tuning my skills. They haven't taught me how to find the gender of the baby, we aren't even allowed to tell the parents, but today I was able to tell on a couple of different scans what the gender was. It is so fun to run over that area of the anatomy and see what you see. My instructors were smiling at me as I took a really looooooong look at the area and ran the transducer over the area a couple of times really slowly. They knew what I was doing even though I couldn't tell the parents. :)

Anyway, God has shown himself strong to me this week as I wondered how I was going to do what was required of me to do in this job and thought I was not going to have another nurse there to help me. He has supplied another nurse from MY church who is already a good friend and now I get to work with her. She is awesome and is picking the info up really fast. And she thinks it's just as fun as I do. It has been such a blessing!! We have learned a few things about each other that we otherwise would have had no way of knowing. :) heehee

Well, to those who asked, there is the latest.... thanks for asking. :)

Yukon Quest

Well, it's that time of year.... time for the dog races and today was the start of the toughest of them all.... the Yukon Quest. It is a 1000 mile race from Fairbanks to Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. Each year it starts in the town where it didn't start the year before. (how confusing is that?? I can't figure out how else to say it.) This year was Fairbanks' turn. So Andrew took the boys down to the Chena River to watch the mushers take off. It was about -25 F.... very COLD!!! Bbbbrrrrrr! He got some great pictures, I was so proud of him. Could it be that MJ has started a new career for himself?? (#23) I doubt it... he is, no doubt, basking in the Carribean as we speak!!! Notice the ice fog? It has been terrible.... very hard to see in the early mornings before it gets light. Here three of them are in their warm muskrat and beaver hats Daddy bought them in Ft. Yukon. Nice and toasty!!!! Here is Taylor.... the only time he is ever an angel. :)
These guys that do this are tough old birds. They have to have all the supplies they will need until the next check point. They have to be prepared for anything and everything... and in weather like this, it can turn very dangerous!! My hat is off to them!!!

Playing with Dad

It usually starts the minute Dad gets in from work. One of the boys will pretend like they are going to hug Daddy and as soon as they get close they just HAVE to go for the hat. They grab it and run or grab it and throw it as far as they can and that starts the whole thing. And once one boy is having fun with Dad they all have to join in. This is what it looks like. But you know, Andrew can still take all four of them on and win!! Maybe not for much longer, but for now he usually can get them all immobile without too much difficulty. I think Drew got his head in a headlock between Dad's legs and then it looks like he was getting a wedgie. UGH!! (Andrew just told me that he doesn't "do stuff like that". :) So he wasn't giving Drew a wedgie.

The fight is on

Drew is studying about ancient Greece in school. We are hearing all about the Spartans and other greek things. Last Friday Miss Kerley had them bring in Greek food, such as, Feta cheese, for them to sample. I looked and looked for Baklava in several of our bakeries around town but couldn't find any.

But yesterday, Drew convinced Andrew to buy Smarties - you know the sweet tart candies? I don't know if he told Andrew what he was going to use it for or not, but as soon as they got home they started sorting out the different colors and separating them. Then each boy got their own cross section of all the different colors and they started setting them up for war. I heard words like "Spartans" and "Cavalry" (actually they said "Calvary" but I knew what they were meaning) I also heard "Achilles", "offense" and "defense". I wonder what they would have done had they known that the Spartans were getting eaten (sneakily) by their mother? :) I tried to wait until I knew they were dead already but sometimes they were in formation and they looked too good to pass up. Well, this took up a good bit of time last evening and I was pretty proud of the imagination they showed. The smarties, I mean Spartans, that weren't eaten were saved in plastic bags until the next time a war breaks out.... or Mom gets hungry. :)

Now you know I'm crazy...

I got this e-mail this morning about the best kept auto secret. It said that you can look on your gas gauge and tell if your tank is on the left of the vehicle or on the right. You know how many times you might be in an unfamiliar vehicle and don't have a clue which side to pull into the gas station in order to fill the tank. Well, this e-mail said, if your tank was on the left the picture of the gas pump on your gas guage would have the pump handle on the left and vice versa. So I checked my vehicle.... WRONG. My gas tank is on the left and the gas pump picture showed the gas handle on the right. BUT, right above it, I had NEVER noticed it before, were the words Fuel Fill with an arrow to the left. Now, I can remember in MY vehicle which side the tank is on but you never know on other people's cars or in rental cars. Maybe this info is always right in front of us, we just never see it. OK, it's a thought....

What I am doing....

I thought I would get on here and let you know what I have been up to lately. I'm so excited about it. I think I told everyone about me volunteering at our Pregnancy Center. But this has led to an actual position with the Pregnancy Center(PC) as the Nurse Manager. That is NOT what I am most excited about though. This week I have been in training to be a nurse sonographer (in limited obstetrical ultrasound - my SIL, Melodie, will know what all that means since she is so very medically trained herself), but for all of you others ;), it just means that I am learning to do a limited scope of ultrasounds on pregnant ladies. Limited scope just means I am not learning how to tell the sex of the baby or how to find a cleft lip, etc. I am learning how to take a couple of measurements, find the heartbeat, find the gestational sac and the yolk sac and maybe a couple of other things that aren't coming to mind at this point. I am having a ball, I just love it. Do you remember how fun it was to see your own ultrasounds when you were expecting? Well, just think of how it would be to get to do that all day long. Of course, these are appointments that are set up specifically to train the nurses and it won't be all day long every day after I get trained (although I guess it could be, on a busy day). Anyway, the hardest part is learning how that baby is laying in the uterus and how I can get the best picture. If you think of it pray for me to have an easier time learning this. I have to think so hard and just when I think I have it, my mind gets blocked again. I am just thrilled with this opportunity and I feel like I'm doing OK, maybe even well, considering I have only had 4 days of experience so far, but I know I have alot to learn. So if you wonder why I'm not posting as often as I used to... that is why. If yo haven't noticed much of a difference in my posting then don't worry about it. :)

Ouch

We had a great calamity Sunday morning while we were getting ready to go to church. Taylor was up on a chair in Drew's room and decided to jump off. However, his middle finger got caught somewhere on the chair (I still haven't figured out how it happened) and his fingernail was ripped right out of the nail bed. It was awful. His fingernail was still attached at the end of his finger though, so we left it there for the time being. He was one sad boy!! And we were sad Mommy and Daddy. So we had it all clean and bandaged but it got pulled more on Wednesday, just as we were pulling out of the garage to go to church. (the devil was really fighting) It bled and bled and Andrew and I both agreed we had to take the nail off or he was just going to keep catching on things and eventually would pull it off but with more pain than if we purposely did it. So Andew got the nail off and we got the bleeding stopped but it has been such a sad thing for him and for us to deal with. Has anyone ever had this happen to them before? Will the nail grow back like normal or if the nail bed is damaged will it not grow back, or maybe grow back abnormally? I know Andrew has lost a nail or two before but I think it has been from a hammer blow not like this.