We really are here

I know..... some of you out there are thinking , "uhmmmmm hummmm.... I knew she wouldn't write." Well, let me tell you ..... it's been a little crazy in the Ward household for the last month. Things we never dreamed about have happened and the big things we had planned on.... fell through. BUT, we are in Alaska and we think most of our stuff is here, too.

I am teaching K, 1, 2, and 3 grades. My youngest is 5 and my oldest is 12 1/2. We start school with breakfast at 8 and class at 8:30. Joe teaches 3,4, and 5 grades. Kindergarten gets out at 2, 1-2 out at 2:30 and my third graders leave my classroom at 3:00. When all my kids leave me they go to computers for 30 minutes. Joe's kids have Mountain Math from 3-4 and then computers until 4:30.

All of our kids are considered to be ELL. First language is Yup'ik. Yup'ik is NOTHING like English. Hannah has already received her Yup'ik name from her teacher. It was her mother's name. It starts with a Q and that's as far as I get. I still cannot say it even though my high school choir kids have tried to teach me. They have a good laugh when I try. Oh, I tried some handbell jokes on them ----- fell flat. It was sooo sad that even though they can speak English and read English but inuendo just doesn't make it. Makes me wonder how much they enjoy television. It's all in English.

I have choir for high school from 3-4. We have some handbells but hope to receive more this next week. They just pass materials around from school to school depending on whether they have a teacher that can use them. If anyone is reading this and has handbell music (easy) or easy piano music (esp. Christmas) arrangements and wouldn't mind sending them. We would really be grateful.

The days have gotten shorter here. We can tell. It is dark when we come to school at 7:30. It is dark before 11:00 at night, too. Neither of those statements were true 3 weeks ago.

We ordered meat last week from Bethel. We had bought food before we came up (see previous post) from SpanSalesAlaska. Then we bought food at Sam's and Wal-Mart and brought it with us on the airplane in coolers from Anchorage. Last week we ran out of meat so we called Bethel (our hub) After 3 calls we had ordered chicken, hamburger, roast, potatoes and apple. Oh, and bacon. YUM! Anyway, we now have $12 chickens + shipping in our freezers. Shipping for 28 miles was $40. Total cost $270.30. Ouch. And they had no lettuce. Haven't had a salad in a month. Don't know why we bought Ranch Dressing.

Okay, enough for now. Please write. We miss everyone. We talk about you ALL all the time.