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Saturday, December 13, 2008

SCHOOL FINALLY STARTS....


Good morning folks. It is 36° this wonderful dark morning. Today is our first day of school for the elementary classes. The Jr High and High school boys are still helping with hay and straw harvest so that school has been postponed for a few more days. The girls always hate that because, being girls, they want to start school; plus they hate all the odd jobs we find for them to do to keep them busy. The boys, being boys, love getting to postpone school. We had an impromptu work afternoon on Saturday to finish harvesting the garden. It went smoothly and was a sunny afternoon with lots of black flies. (The black flies are simply horrible this year; fortunately, they will soon freeze.) Well, last week was busy. I guess you figured that out. It was the first week of school for the elementary classes; high school classes are having a hard time getting going between finishing up the hay & straw and with the upcoming EMT class. We woke up to a smattering of snow on the ground on Sunday morning. Some of the snow is still on the ground right now, but not much. It is all very messy and cold out. It was 5° this morning when I got up. It is 29° right now at 10 pm. Patrick has gone to Valdez for several days to tune pianos in the area. We’ve had snow here off and on for the last few days. It hasn’t been very much until today. We’ve gotten about two inches of wet snow today from little teeny flurries. It is presently 34°. We have lots of people out on the roads, so I sure hope the roads are okay for driving. (Judy and Steve went to town; Jon went to town; Sis Margaret, Sis Wenda, Sis Jannis, and Sis Cathy P went to town; all the guys working in Delta; etc.) A lady has come down from Tok to teach an ETT class. Many of the high school kids are taking the class. They are taking the class in the elementary school so often throughout the day, there are emergent situations that the ETTs have to take care of. My fifth graders look on and listen in absolute jealousy because (until test time) it seems like an awful lot of fun. My 3 older kids are in it and they will hopefully be fully certified EMT's by the new year....great!! Lots of opportunities for that up here in the Last Frontier... LATER... Hello! It is 26° this fine night. We did get a smattering more snow this weekend. Most of the ground is sufficiently covered so that dirt doesn’t show or get tracked in. The ETT course ended on Saturday night. Everyone passed! They had a really good time, but they also all worked very hard. Everyone was exhausted. Pat Lou arrived home last week from his couple of months of meat packing in the wild North Country. He was up in places like Deadhorse, AK. Patric Sr.k has come home from his five day trip to Valdez for tuning pianos. Today we had a surprise guest at service. Prins and Linda Samuels came out to share about Prins’s recent trip of six days to India. He preached on new beginnings and that when we only have a pile of ashes, we can still give that to God and God can use those for something. And his report about his time in India was very interesting. Tomorrow Jon is taking some kids to Tok to further their EMT training—Joseph, Pat Lou, Peter, & May. LATER..... Hello. It snowed a little more in the last couple of days. At least the dirt is mostly covered now so we don’t have brown puddles everywhere. Hello. It is 4° tonight as I prepare to send a short note your way. It was 4° this morning when I got up – wonder if it ever warmed up today (I think it did). Today was a prestigious day for the loggers. Awhile back they bought the equipment to begin manufacturing wood pellets. They had to invent several parts to make their pellet machine. They finally got it all put together. Today the spit out their first pellets!!!! They have a few kinks to iron out, but they are sorta rolling! Joey, Peter, May, Pat Lou, and Jon came home for the weekend, but have returned to Tok to finish their EMT training. Saturday is going to be a tough day of tests. Angela Macias from Whitestone is taking the course with them. Abby and Peter Rotundi brought Angela out here last night and then Angela went the rest of the way with our kids to Tok. They are all staying at the instructor’s house. One of our horses, Sadie, is very sick. Tony has given her a bunch of antibiotics, but that doesn’t seem to be doing the trick. Now, the ETT’s are trying their hand at intubating the horse and feeding it molasses water. It’s been sick for nearly a week now. It may have to be put down. LATER..... Hi. We’ve had quite a bit of snow lately, maybe even a couple of inches. Everything is beautiful, all clothed in white. Tonight it is 5°. The loggers have made their first bag of sawdust pellets. They were pretty excited. We finally had to shoot the sick horse, Sadie. It just wasn’t getting better. Once a horse lays down, it usually doesn’t get better. Imagine our surprise when we woke up yesterday morning to -24°! It was terrible. The generator wouldn’t start properly; the tab batteries wouldn’t charge right so the tabernacle was cold. We had all sorts of unexpected problems. And, the place was like a ghost town yesterday – it seemed like everyone was gone (maybe because they were). All the EMT trainees were down in Tok taking their tests. Allyson took a carload of kids down there to be “victims” for the EMT testing. Thomas and the girls went to town to pick up Jeni, but they took Margaret and Brad to the airport and Chris to Fbks for his class. Of course, all the Millirons except Seth Fouse and the kids have gone to Arizona for Nathan’s wedding. Bill and Kathy went to town for appointments; Carolyn is in town awaiting the birth of the Geyer’s grandson. And, Merlin had gone to work. Today, there still seemed to be several people missing, but I guess some have come home. And, the temps warmed up to -10° by last night. Today is is a nice 8° And, so winter is here; there’s no going back. Have a great week LATER...... This morning it was -6°, but tonight it is hovering at 6°. It was pretty windy today, making life pretty miserable for those that had to be outside. Pat Lou has had to go into town again to get his car fixed. It's and old one and has many maladies....but it gives him "wheels"...so he is not getting rid of it too fast....hope he doesn't sink $$$ in it. Folks have started to come back from their various trips to visit family and friends in the L48. (other states besides Alaska). Robin has made another milestone in his reading and is quite pleased with himself. He is now working on First grade material in some of his subjects. His therapists are all pleased with his progress... He takes active part in Music, Art, Physical development, and some of the elective classes in the afternoon like Science, Civics and Health. He enjoys school but works on his own schedule which sometimes is trying on everybody else since it tends to be much slooooooower.....but he definitely makes his goals on the other end. I am attaching a picture of where PatLou went hunting and guiding for most of the summer. It is on the Brookes Range and quite remote. Hunters come from all over and usually have $$$ to spare so he got some big tips and came back pretty pleased with his adventure. No more for now, hope you are still awake at the end of this. God bless and take care. Gri et all (Pat, Pat Lou, May, Annie & Rob) Dry Creek \ AK

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