thanksgiving

We had Thanksgiving at our house this year. Mark and Katie from NACTEC came over and Katie brought her friend Karis who teaches in Koyuk. We made the turkey, Kath's mom's stuffing, corn casserole, and the pumpkin pie. Katie and Karis brought mashed potatoes, yams, and green bean casserole. Everything was tasty! Soon you will see documentation of the cooking of the turkey. NOTE (JennyCase, this is for you): at least one picture is of a raw turkey.

Here's the bird. 22lbs, 99%thawed

Beard (check out the hair) washing off the bird.

Orange slices

Beard (note the hair on the other side of his head) cleaning the garlic

This is where the orange slices and garlic goes.

Somebody else is busy in the kitchen.

Kath's mom's STUFFING (best ever!)

Poultry seasoning is the KEY ingredient.

Stuff Stuff Stuff

Ready to go in the oven!

All done by 8:09 AM. We are usually still sound asleep at this time.

The first baste.

Cue sunrise. WHAT?! you might be thinking--they did all that prepping, stuffing and basting before sunrise?!

Yes, we did b/c sunrise that morning was at 11:08am. I admit that I broke my own rule of not wearing pajamas out of the house to take this photo. However, it was taken from my deck so it's only half broken.

More basting.

It's DONE!

Beard approved.

YUM! (I might have this same pose and clothing from last year).

Other things, not so Thanksgiving-y that have occurred recently:

Mark got a new apartment.

Right on the sea--nice view!

Fred and Julianne sent us dolphin lights.

Oooh, pretty!

We get some nice colors up here. This is the mountain behind the NACTEC house.

Graders are brought out to do this to the ice so cars and trucks can get traction. You can see where it's been grated and where it hasn't.

The non-shiny area has been grated. The grader makes paths for cars to drive on in slippery parking lots. This one is in front of the school.

This is behind the school.

This is a grader. At the NACTEC house, kids kids use simulators to learn how to drive them.

The school district gave us these to put over our boots to walk on the ice. They come in VERY handy. Not go good on tile floors though...

These are the tracks they make. There are metal coils on the bottom. Some have metal spikes.

What I don't have pictures for:
I recently finished 2 books: One Thousand White Women and Let's take the long way home. 1,000 was a very good read (thanks Kath) about white women being traded to the Cheyenne tribe, if it would have actually happened. The other is a book, I think written as therapy, by a woman who had recently lost her best friend to cancer. It was a quick read about friendship but I don't think I'd actually recommend it.
For work:
Monday we start Session 6. We have 18 kids coming in to do welding and driver's ed. We're starting a future planning segment for the students where we find out what their future plans are and show them the options for how they can follow through with them. Session 7 is our final session before xmas break and it'll be a career exploration session for junior high kids.