Thanksgiving

Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all had a lovely day with your family and friends. I enjoyed my Thanksgiving with the staff. I started my morning with a workout over at Danielle’s place with Danielle and Nicole. We do a Jillian Michael’s workout dvd called Ripped in 30. It is an intense workout. The first week my body was so sore and everything hurt. Now going into the next week I am still a tad sore but not to the point where I can’t move. We get together almost everyday to workout now leaving a day off here or there when needed. Anyway, so we did our workout and then I went home to shower and start baking. I made sugar cookies, peanut butter cookies and Mississippi mud brownies (all from Betty Crocker). After all the baking was done I borrowed the truck and headed up to school for a few skype dates. First I called my Chicago family. They were all over at Aunt Dana and Uncle Kevin’s for dinner. It was great being able to see and talk to everyone. Then I was able to skype my Pittsburgh family. It was nice seeing everyone, made the holiday seem less lonely and far away from the family since I got to be apart of their day/evening. Dinner was schedule at Ed and Cal’s for 4pm. We had a wonderful meal with tons of food. Everyone brought something so that no one person was cooking all day. There was a nice big turkey, mashed potatoes, yams, creamed corn, rolls, baked ziti, green bean casserole, stuffing, a carrot salad, cranberries and I’m sure there’s more I’m forgetting. For dessert there were my cookies and brownies as well as pumpkin and apple pie. We were all stuffed and bloated. The meal was delicious though. We played Catch Phrase and Cranium. We shared a lot of laughs and some interesting stories about living in bush Alaska. It was nice and helped me not miss home too much. Around 10pm we all went home and I went straight to bed. I was exhausted.

Well if you can believe it we got the truck stuck again yesterday afternoon. We were getting ready to leave school for the day when Ron came in saying that the trucks front left tire was low and that we needed to take it around back to the shed where the air compressor was. Ron was looking at Danielle and me as if we knew what he was talking about but we had no idea. My excuse was that I’m still the newbie here and I have no idea where or how to do this. Ron looked like he really wanted to go home and that this was the last thing he wanted to do but he decided to show us how to do it so that next time we knew. Keep in mind that we have over 2 feet of snow on the ground right now and the road to the shed was not plowed. Danielle starts driving the truck around the school and towards the back where the shed was when the truck decides there is too much snow to continue. Ron had the look like “you have to be kidding me”, in a joking way of course. I was thinking “oh no, not again”. We all go into school looking for a shovel. Ron discovers one in the janitor closet and back outside we go. Ron’s shoveling and Danielle and I are pushing snow way with our hands and feet. Ron hops in the truck to try to get it out. He is able to get the truck out on the first try and then plows through the snow to the shed. Ron shows us how to fill up the tire with the air compressor and then we hop back in the truck to get out. Luckily we didn’t get stuck again. Poor Ron always has to help us poor females in distress.

I’ll be home in 26 days! I can’t wait. We only have 23 more days till school lets out. We are finished in the afternoon of the 22^nd. Our flights are scheduled to leave the village at 3pm with Iliamna Air. They will fly us into Anchorage where Danielle and I will stay until our flight on the 24^th. We are leaving the village early to get to Anchorage because if we get a storm, we could be trapped here and miss our flights home. So we leave the village as soon as possible and stay in Anchorage so that there is no way we can miss our flights back home. We are scheduled to leave around 2:30am from Anchorage, getting into Seattle around 6:30am. Then we board another plane around 9:30am and get into NJ around 5:15ish pm. 10 hours in a plane is going to be exhausting. I’m going to crash when I am home. I can’t wait though. I miss my family and friends!

We’re under a blizzard warning starting today. We are to expect high winds as much as 35mph with 1-3inches of snow causing visibility issues. I hope it’s not as bad as the weather people are calling for. I’ll keep you posted if any more interesting stories come about. 

Bonjour!

Hello from the North Pole,

            I woke up this morning to another 4-5 inches of snow on top of the already foot 1/2 of snow we’ve had from the past week. According to Danielle this is already more snow then they had last year. Joy! The snow is so fluffy. The only way I can really describe it is to say it’s like walking through Splenda sweetener.  I have more then enough of my fair share of snow and it’s only November.

            This past weekend, Danielle and I decided to go to school to watch our Friday shows. Every Friday, we go to school and watch Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice. This particular Friday, we had a mini blizzard hit us (surprise surprise). We are driving to school and the wind is picking up, the snow is blowing everywhere, and it’s freezing outside. We arrive to school safely but Danielle is second guessing our decision since the storm was picking up and becoming a white out. We decide to try to get through Grey’s Anatomy before heading home. We were about 10 minutes into the show when we lost power. Danielle and use our computers as flashlights to pack up our stuff and head to the truck. Driving home was a bit scary since we couldn’t really see in front of the truck. Danielle had shared stories with me previously about people from the village who have died from being hit by atv’s and cars in the middle of white outs. Danielle was very worried because she did not want to hit anyone. I was doing my best to keep an eye out for any trouble ahead when I saw a small flashing light blinking at us about 20 feet ahead. I tell Danielle to be careful someone is up ahead. She slows down and sees that someone’s snow mobile had broken down. She gets out of the car to see if they need assistance. We find out that the person in trouble was Scott, one of the aides at our school. His fuel pump was flooded and he was trying to get off the road with his snow mobile. He said he was fine and not to worry. Luther, the town drunk, was also there making small talk with Danielle asking what her Christian name was. She had to explain to him that they had met several times and politely try to get out of conversation with him. Luther is a whole other story entirely. Anyway, Danielle and I get back on the road and get home safe. We decide to hang out at her place and watch one of her Netflix movies. We are very lucky because we are the only houses in the village to be hooked up to generators!! Yay!! Life is good.
            Now it’s Saturday. Danielle and I decide to try our shows again. We had a lot of snow come from the past few days and no one really plows up here because they all have snow mobiles except for Danielle and I. We’re driving to school and we’re going about 7mph in the snow and sliding a bit here and there. Danielle makes the big turn to head into the school and guess what?!?! She drives us right into a snow bank, in the bushes. Dun dun dun! She tries going forward and backward but there is no use… we’re stuck! Danielle and I laugh and exchange looks like “Ron” haha. She tries her computer to see if we are close enough to the school to get a signal but no. We get out of the truck and start walking to school in a foot of snow or more.  We get inside and call Ron on the school phone. Ron answers and Danielle says “Ronnn, I kinda got the truck stuck.” Ron’s response “how stuck?” Danielle “pretty stuck, I opened the car down and the snow is coming in the truck. Ron “I’ll come down with a shovel.” Danielle “Thanks Ron!!!” Danielle and I walk back to the truck and try pushing the snow away from the truck. Danielle gets on her knees and tries to pull the snow away with her hands as I try kicking it away with my boots. Ron shows up with a shovel and we start at it. After a couple minutes we get the snow enough away to try to get the truck to go. Ron gets in and gives it a try. However, the truck gets more stuck and the back right tire is now somewhat in the air. We get back under the truck pulling more snow away and then Ron tells Danielle and I to get in the back of the truck and put our weight on the back tire to get it to touch the ground. We do as he says and he tries again. No use. We pull more snow away, get back in the truck and try one more time. Danielle and I are holding onto the side of the truck, sitting in cold, wet snow. Danielle makes a comment which she may not appreciate me saying but I have to say it because it was so funny that when I laughed it hurt. Danielle giggles and says “I sure did pick a bad night not to wear underwear, I’m getting such a draft!” We laugh so hard because this night turned into quite an adventure. Ron finally gets the truck out of the snow drift. We cheer and hop in the truck as Ron hops back on his snow mobile. Ron is about to pull away when Danielle puts the truck in gear and guess what people? We go no where! We are stuck again! Danielle yells “Ron!!!” We start laughing so hard because we are in disbelief that we are stuck again. Ron comes back over and tries to tell Danielle to switch gears. She tries switching gears and nothing happens. Ron starts pushing the truck on the side of the car saying if you get it to go.. Just go! Nothing is happening, Danielle and I are still laughing and Ron is outside the truck in the cold pushing the truck. Finally, Ron’s in the back of the truck pushing saying “Goooo, gooo!!” The truck starts going and we can hear Ron as if he were a whisper saying “Just keep going”. We are driving home in first gear, 7 mph, swerving. The road we drive home has a somewhat steep slope on the one side. Driving home the slope was on my side and as Danielle was swerving, I told her to swerve towards the other side just incase. Finally, after what should have been a 5 minute drive or less, turned out to be 10-15 minutes, we are finally home. Danielle and I go inside to her apartment and relax for the night, trying to get warm and dry off. She makes us some hot cocoa and we settle in for the night. I could not believe what an adventure that turned out to be but I know that this adventure would only happen to me or Danielle. We are not too lucky when it comes to these sorts of things.

            Anyway, I slept on my arm wrong on Wednesday of last week and was in excruciating pain until Saturday. I stayed home from school on Thursday to try to rest my arm and get it better. I went to the clinic here in the village and they gave me a cheap sling to help keep my arm from further injuring myself. Come Friday I find myself in tears in front of my co-workers because the pain is more then I can handle. I was taking a ton of ibuprofen to help keep the pain down. By Friday night I sent my mom an email asking her to call a doctor and ask them what I should do. I was terrified I really hurt myself and would have to pay over $300 to get a flight into Anchorage to get checked out. I had barely gotten any sleep since Wednesday because the pain was too much to bear. I wake up Saturday morning to an email back from my mom saying to call my aunt Dana who is a massage therapist. I get on Skype and I am able to hold a signal long enough for her to tell me that my muscles had contracted and was up against my nerve causing me the pain. She walked me through how to do trigger point therapy on myself. After hanging up with her I spent the day working on my arm, massaging it and doing trigger point therapy. By the end of the night, I was feeling a lot better. Sunday comes around and I continue doing the therapy but this time I am stretching out the muscles giving myself 90 seconds for the brain to send the signals down my arm and into my muscles. Apparently it takes that long for the brain and the muscles to talk to one another. Now it’s Monday and I can move my arm again, there is no pain. The only pain I feel now is weakness pain as if I worked out too much. I am so thankful to have my arm back to almost normal and to have the pain gone. So thank you Aunt Dana!! You’re the best!!

            Other then that, I will be back home in Pennsylvania in 40 days! I can not wait to be back home with my friends and family. I miss you all so much that sometimes the days are long and lonely. I hope you are all well! I’ll see you in almost a month!

Xoxo