Congratulations Tim and Beth

Tim and Beth were married on October 13th and being that I am such a nice brother, I flew to Wisconsin for a week to be there for this. Of course it was a lot of fun to visit with friends and family and I was sad to come back to Koliganek. If I hadn't come back Anuska (my sub) would have killed me so I guess it is better that I'm back! That said, it is nice to be back into my regular flow of craziness. . .school, sports, water/power outages, weather. . .

I also got to see their new baby Della!!! And hold her!! And feed her!! And pretty much hog her to myself because I was only there for a week! She's very cute.

Vince

For those that did not know, Vince was hit by a four wheeler in September?? I was moose hunting for the weekend and Molly was with Vince when it happened. He had broken his leg so Molly flew to Dillingham with him and put him on a plane to Anchorage. In Anchorage a vet picked him up and did surgery to remove the bone fragments and insert a new ball joint to fit in his socket. Two days later he was on his way back home and we picked him up at the airport. For the next few days he didn't move much and would hide under blankets. After that he was back to normal except he didn't use his back leg much. Now he is using it almost like the accident never happened. It's not fair, my dog got to go to Anchorage and I didn't!!

Our once free dog has become one of our most expensive possessions!! It wasn't as bad as it seems because we have had to fly him to Dillingham anyway to be neutered and get some shots, but he had all this done in Anchorage.

Molly in Juneau

I had to fly home after Tech Camp, but Molly flew to Dillingham, to Anchorage, to ???, to ???, and to Juneau. She is in a program taking a set of math classes to get her math certification. She'll have to tell more, but she went to Juneau for these classes and it sounds like she had a great time learning and getting free stuff! She was supposed to come back yesterday, but was weathered in in Dillingham so hopefully she will be back today.

Only two planes came in yesterday and they were filled with our volleyball girls and wrestling boys coming back from tournaments. They told me that they were flying really low and could still only barely see the ground because of the fog. Scary!

Tech Camp

Last week Molly and I went to New Stuyahok with the entire high school for two nights for a technology camp. We flew there on Sunday and went to different technology sessions during the school days on Monday and Tuesday. We learned about podcasting, web design, book making, and photography. The sessions were great and we learned a lot. However, the evenings were not so much fun.

We slept in three classrooms in the school which was ok, but we had to pack everything up each morning before classes could begin. This wouldn't have been too bad, but it is very hard to get all the high schoolers to go to sleep by. . . ever! In the future I hope we have our own tech camp at our school because this was a bit of an overload for Molly and I.

2007-2008 School Year

School has been cruising along since mid-August now and we just finished the first quarter. It's a little different from last year because the middle schoolers stay together all day with one teacher and the high schoolers switch between Molly and I. It's funny to think about the fact that Molly and I are the only high school teachers. It's really nice on days when we want to rearrange the schedule because we don't have to worry about anyone but ourselves.

All in all there are 24 high school students that we share. I teach physical science, government, algebra 2, health, and keyboarding. Molly teaches English (1,2,3,+4), art, pre-algebra, algebra, and Russian. It's enough to keep us busy.

Caribou

The day before I shot my moose, we saw a heard of about 20 caribou crossing Cranberry Creek. As the ran up on to the shore I shot this small caribou from about 3 yards away. It was really neat to see the caribou so close, but it isn't exactly what I imagined when I though of shooting a caribou. The picture shows Ron's son Conner who was with us that day.

Moose Hunting

I was fortunate enough to get moose this fall!! He's not exactly a monster, but he sure tastes good! I got this moose in the last hour of the last day of the season. Ron was driving the skiff and I saw him up a small slough. We approached to about 75 yards before I was sure it was a bull. I lined him up in the scope, pulled th trigger, and heard a "CLICK." Crap!! I didn't have a shell in the chamber!! I frantically put a shell in and opened fire. He ran 15 yards back into the willows and I had him!!