BRRRRRRRRRRRR!

I know, I know, we live in Alaska so of course it's going to be cold. But, it has been COLD the last few weeks. Two weekends ago, it was around 35 below, and tomorrow night we're supposed to have wind chills to 50 below. Can you understand why I am saying "Brrrrrrrrr" yet?!

The world at 35 below:

Ready to head out:

In fact, it was so cold one night that I put my key in the lock and tried to turn it, and my key snapped in half! Luckily, it broke off far enough down that I could pull it out. But... seriously?!

As a result of the seriously cold weather, we have obviously not been out to camp. So, we have been enjoying our time at home together instead!

More Winter Fun

We had an amazingly "warm" weekend this past weekend with temperatures around 30 degrees! So, of course, we had to get out and enjoy it. We headed out Friday after school and spent Friday night camping, followed by a morning of drinking coffee, reading, snowshoeing (me) and cutting wood (Michael). Saturday afternoon, we headed home and had a beautiful, sunny ride home.

My logger man (it was "warm," remember?!):

No, that's not a nude-colored shirt :).

View out the front of the tent:

The ride home:

We woke up on Sunday and it was another gorgeous day. We decided our lesson plans could wait and that heading out and enjoying the weather was more important. So, Michael and I and our friend Charlotte headed up the river. I did some more snowshoeing and Michael threw on his snowshoes and .22 and hiked around looking for rabbits.

Snowshoeing (notice all of the animal footprints around me):

We went out across the water when we headed out snowshoeing, to the Noatak River. You can see the trail that we took down the middle of the picture. (We take the same trail to camp.) That's me on my snow machine down there!

Just another day in the life in the Arctic!

Camp

With Michael not coaching basketball, our goal has been to get out in the beautiful Alaskan country as much as possible (via snow machine). One of the things that people often do is to set up a camp somewhere out in the country to go to on the weekends, etc. Some camps are actual cabins, some of them are special tents called Arctic Ovens, and some of them (like what we stay in) are wall tents. All of these options are, of course, equipped with wood stoves. Our camp belongs to some good friends of ours who let us use it whenever we want to. The camp is about 30 miles out of town, which is about a 1 1/2 hour snow machine ride. It is so amazing to be able to get out in the beautiful country. Every time we go out, it is always incredible to me how vast the country is. We are completely removed from all technology, with no way to contact anyone, just surrounded by the land. We almost always see some wildlife: moose, fox, rabbits, ptarmigan, or caribou. It was about 10 degrees out when we went this time, which felt amazing compared to 25 below, which is what is was last time!

The tent:

Enjoying camp:

Michael being manly and cutting down a tree for the stove:

Snowshoeing!

Loading up the sled to head back home:

Pit stop on the way home:

We feel so lucky to be able to have such amazing experiences on a regular basis! Are we temping you to come visit, yet :)?

Apologies!

First of all, I sincerely apologize for being M.I.A. from the blogging world for the past, oh, 4 months. When we moved here 2 1/2 years ago, my goal was to do a post at least twice a month. I definitely failed at that! So, here is a quick recap of our past four months:

• My volleyball team won our regional championship. It was Kotzebue's first volleyball title since 1992. We went on and competed at the State Tournament in Anchorage.
• Michael's parents, along with my Mom, Lauren, and Anna met us in Anchorage for the State Volleyball Tournament. It just so happened that Anna's volleyball team at Seattle Pacific was playing against University of Alaska, Anchorage the same weekend as our State Tournament. What great timing! I was even able to take my team to watch her play. Such an awesome weekend with family!
• We hosted a Thanksgiving of about 25 people at our place. We had an insane amount of food, which was awesome. It was the next best thing to spending Thanksgiving with our family... we spent it with our Kotzebue family instead.
• We spent Christmas up in Kotzebue. We did a lot of sleeping and watched a lot of Christmas movies. (And yet, I was still unable to blog during that time... don't ask.) We missed our families, but it's always nice to just spend time together.
  
• Michael is not coaching basketball this year (WOO HOO) so he has spent a lot of time over the past few months getting out on his snow machine, hunting, and just enjoying life in Alaska!
• Here we are, halfway through our 3rd year in Kotzebue, and still loving life in the Arctic!
  

Flying in AK: A Home Video

Michael got a chance to go out to Kiana on September 18, to coach at the Middle School Cross Country Championships. He filmed the flight from Kiana to Kotzebue and put together a quick video. Enjoy!



Or you can watch it on YouTube if you want to see it a little bigger!

Valdez

Like I have said so many times before, coaching in Alaska is just about one of the coolest things I get to do. I get to visit so many amazing places that I would never in my life have seen otherwise. Two weekends ago, we got to head off to Valdez for a volleyball tournament. I am sure many of you have heard of Valdez; it is where the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline ends, and the site of the famous Exxon-Valdez oil spill. It is also one of the more beautiful places that I have had a chance to visit. Valdez is surrounded on three sides by huge, snow-capped mountains, and the fourth side is beautiful blue glacier water. It is exactly the picture that you would have in your mind when you think of Alaska. We flew into Valdez (yes, our travel budget is outrageous), which was neat because we got a good view of everything, including the storage facilities for the oil. Plus, on our drive from the airport we saw a brown bear right along the side of the road! Here are some pictures of this beautiful town:

Where the oil ends up:

Flying into Valdez:

Getting off the plane:

Views around town (the day after we arrived was BEAUTIFUL!):

Oh, yes, we were there for volleyball. I have a great group of girls this year, and now that I am in my third year of coaching I have coached many of these girls for their entire high school career. The girls did great at the tournament, and I am really excited for what this season holds! We have our one and only home weekend this weekend, and then we are heading two more tournaments before regionals, which is the first week in November.

Caribou!

Our freezer was definitely getting on the empty side in the meat department. So, Michael was out at camp a few weeks ago and he came back with a caribou! Now, those of you who are hunters in the lower 48, keep in mind that we have no meat processors here, other than yours truly. We have also come to, in a way, rely on the meat that we get from here. In fact, we don't bring and hamburger or chicken up with us, we just eat whatever meat Michael brings home. (That's my man, being the provider!)
So, Michael goes out to camp and shoots the caribou... that's the fun part. Then has to huff the meat back to the boat, bring it home, unload it from the boat, and get it into our place. Then, the real work begins. For a caribou, it usually takes us about 4 hours of cutting, grinding, and packaging to process to whole thing. We have a handy meat-grinder attachment that goes onto my KitchenAid mixer, and we have our own vacuum-packer. Michael usually cuts the meat off of the caribou, and then I work on grinding and packaging. (My, how far I've come.) We end up grinding about half the meat into burger, and the rest of it becomes roasts and stew meats.

Burger on the left, meat ready to come burger on the right.

Packaging it up.

Having the time of my life... can't you tell?!

We have definitely become better at this process in the 2+ years that we've been here. Plus, the smell of raw meat doesn't really make me want to vomit anymore, which is a perk. Organic caribou, straight from the tundra to our freezer!