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.

in the kitchen

Yesterday Beard bottled beer and decided to use the rotokeg for the rest of the beer. First time. He put it outside to get cold and whatever else had to happen. When he brought it in, he got one pint of it and BANG! beer was EVERYWHERE. Dripping off the cupboards, in drawers, on the fridge. The cupboards and drawers were CLOSED and it still got in, even to the back wall. The power of beer.

This was BEFORE the explosion.

Today Beard made a yummy egg slop breakfast that we enjoyed with our 1/2 price sourdough english muffins.
For dinner I suggested he try this recipe: http://gardenofeatingblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/dinosaur-kale-with-cherry-tomatoes.html

Ours kind of looked like this.

We substituted dinosaur kale with whatever kale came in our Full Circle box and cherry tomatoes for roma tomatoes and the bullion cube for homemade broth. We put it on top of some leftover pasta. GOOD STUFF.
We were still hungry and craving something sweet so I decided to use up the rest of our pumpkin to make more pumpkin muffins. This time I added walnuts AND cut up dark chocolate kisses. I amaze myself.

See--I know where the kitchen is.

Other things that have been happening:

A gift from Jen's birthday box started sprouting.

We had the pleasure of walking through a giant blow-up colon at the health fair.

Beard learned that he has 18 years left until his first colonoscopy.

Me an a polyp.

things are different here

In Nome we do things a bit different than in other places we've lived.
We don't lock our house or our truck.
We get to talk to the UPS guy, Kenny, on the phone before a package is delivered.
We sparingly watch TV on the internet b/c we only have so much "space" to use.
I leave "work shoes" in the office and at the NACTEC house.
We take vitamin D everyday.
I drop my students off at the airport so they can go home and wait to call their principal until I see the plane take off.
We take advantage of business trips to ANC to fill up our totes with goods we can't get here or are outrageously priced here.
Our brewed ends up being half the price of buying cheap beer here.
We receive a CSA box once a week and pick it up at the church.
We check out books using our names only, no cards.
Our home is very comfortable b/c we do not pay heat ourselves.
We have a PO box.
We use ATMs b/c the grocery stores do not give cash back.
Going anywhere takes longer than expected b/c you see someone you know/recognize and they want to talk.
We never find everything we want on our shopping list.
My students say, "I joke" instead of just kidding. They joke a lot.
There isn't a lot going on here so the health fair becomes a big deal.
We finally have a washer and dryer of our own in our own house and can do laundry anytime.
We voted for a republican.
We workout/swim regularly
We are both employed in jobs we were educated to do.

some happenings

*Note: These are kind of out of order.

A dredge outside of town.

Looking for beach glass (gillies).

It was really sunny.

Home cooked meal with Thomas--using the place mats and napkins him mom sent.

Last month's flight to Teller

The meal--yum! Four kinds of greenery in that salad.

Sprouts ready for the oven.

Our neighbor brought us over some canned moose. "Just put it on some rice. Don't worry about how it looks."

We ordered Brussels sprouts from Full Circle this week.

Nom nom nom

In the storm.

I believe it's called a white out.

Beard driving into town during a snow storm.

Other cars driving in the snow storm.

Our front porch

One of my NACTEC students

Making pizzas at NACTEC