Pilot Point Carnival 2017 Day 2

We awoke this morning with the excitement of Carnival Day 2! The day started off with breakfast at 9am. With the band playing till late last night a lot of people mosied in and out till about noon for breakfast. We had very yummy biscuits and gravy with an egg. After breakfast we eagerly awaited the plane drop! 

The plane drop is where a small local aircraft flies over us and drops candy, and cardboard money! While the weather is pretty chilly today (4 with wind chill), that didn’t stop the whole village coming out and standing on our frozen lake waiting for the plane to fly over head. 

Once the plane came it was a frenzy of running in waist deep snow trying to grab as many card board pieces as possible! The card board pieces have money about a wrote on each one. 

The pilot flew over about 5 times, scattering bags of cardboard money and candy. Everyone was racing to fill their bags! 

It was so much fun and laughter echoed off the snow covered banks! I’m proud to say that I walked away with $21.21 as well as a free soda! Ben with just a little less but a free pretzel and a free smile! 

The next activity is smelting, but with out homdas or snow machines it’s to hard for us to get out to the smelting ponds so we are sitting this one out. We don’t really mind considering it has started to snow and blow more. 

After that we had a relaxing night until dinner. Yummy Turkey legs and corn on the cob! Such a great dinner followed by a live band and dancing! 

We danced the night away till about midnight. Not to many pics since it was pretty dark in our gym. 

Day 2 was a great success and we’re ready for the events tomorrow on our last day! 

Pilot Point Carnival 2017 Day 1

Every year our village hosts an annual winter carnival. Since the day we arrived the kids have told us all about it! So needless to say we we’ve been so excited for this weekend. 

Day 1 started out on Friday the 17th. We let the kids out early since our first event started at 3pm and there was a lot of setting up to do. 

First event of the evening was our own Chopped Jr! We had six kids test their cooking knowledge which is slim to none. We had 3 judges just like on the show, our preschool Aide (Michael), our PE Aide (Warren) and yours truly, me! 

The kids were given hamburger, canned salmon, kidney beans, cranberry sauce and ….. frog legs! Yes, frog legs! As a judge I was a little worried but we had an adult at each table so I figured I’ve probably ate worse! I hoped! 

The kids actually surprised us and made some great dishes! We had an Eskimo mix up, a froggy burger, spaghetti, a mix of meat sloppy joe, a hamburger, and the winning dish was Curry Goulash. There was not a single dish that wasn’t pretty tastey! 

After Chopped Jr. , we started a poker run around the village along with a scavenger hunt. Unfortunately no one in our caravan won but it was still fun!

We ended the night with a band and dancing! 

Needless to say that day 1 of PIP Carnival was a hit!! Looking forward to day 2! 

Smelting … and sunshine!

Okay, so I know you’re probably thinking… “Girl, where have you been?”. Well to be honest, since Salmon season has stopped we haven’t really had much going on, and I know you wouldn’t want pics of us laying on the couch watching movies. I’ll admit… cabin fever got to me! With the sun setting by the time we got off work we definitely got used to doing nothing. This weekend we finally decided to get off our butts and do something!

Today the sun was shining, and pretty much no wind so there was no better time to get out and do something! Since winter has hit we’ve heard all about how we needed to go smelting! Smelting? What’s Smelting? It’s ice fishing for small little smelt! See picture below! The weird thing about smelt is they strangely smell just like a fresh sliced cucumber!? Odd I know! Trust me they do though! If I could post the smell I would! 

Friday night, the other teacher (Hannah) and I adventured out first on our own. Both are husbands we’re already committed to other activities when we got the call from a friend in the village. So we ventured out on the ice road/tracks in the snow on our own. We crossed over frozen ponds and tundra, snow drifts and ice.

We met with some locals that showed us the ropes. You take a small stick with fish line and a barbless hook, toss it in the hole, give a flick of your wrist every few seconds and bam! Once you feel the fish bite you pull up as quickly as possible. Give the smelt a little flick, he falls right off and you’re ready to do it all over again!

After our little adventure with just us girls we decided this morning to bring the boys! Now we were professionals and we could show them the ropes! 😉

After about an hour we brought home 19 good size smelts! Now to cook them up! To clean them all you do is cut the heads off just behind the front find and pull out the guts. We battered them in some fish fry mix and grid them. The good news is while they smell a lot like cucumbers they don’t taste like it! They had a light sweet taste and while they were good, there were a lot of bones that we couldn’t get passed so I don’t think they will become a regular dinner for us.

Have you ever tried smelt or do you happen to know a different way to cook them up? We would love to hear what you think!

Pilot Point #3 MY CLASSROOM!!!

Ok so I waited to post my classroom till it was done… I think for now it is! Lol who knows though cuz I’m always changing my mind lol. Anyway here are some before pics 

Just your basic classroom, pretty boring really. Now for the after pics! I’m actually pretty happy with the way it turned out considering I’m in Bush Alaska!! 

So yeah! That’s my classroom! I’ve technically already moved the kidney table to another corner but it’s all trial and error so I’m sure ill move it 10 more times! Haha 

No-see-ums…. Ugh!!

So living in Idaho we’ve always had pests, mainly mosquitos and flys. But I can tell you that I have officially encountered the most annoying pest out there… The No-See-Um! They are a fly looking bug but itty bitty (hence the name) and they bite! Good lord they are terrible! The worst part is their bites itch for days but are almost painful to scratch. Seriously they are one of the worst bugs! 

You have no idea how long it took me to get this picture. We have screens on our windows but the little buggers can get threw them! It’s like clock work at dusk when they start creeping to the Windows. It’s even worse when you take your dogs out and they think they need to prance through the tall grass. So while Pilot Point is green and beautiful, that green grass comes with these pests! But I guess it could be worse… Right! 

Pilot Point part 2-Housing

Ok so for part 2 I’m going to show housing… Mainly for 2 reasons. 1 .For My family and friends who wanna know where I’m living and 2. For teachers thinking about coming up to Bush Alaska to teach. I know one big thing that was on my mind no matter what village I went to was, “what’s housing like?” So here is what housing is like in Pilot Point! 

My house is a duplex. My part is a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment that for some may be small but for Ben and I just coming from our tiny house is perfect for us. There is a 4 bedroom house that my fellow newbie teacher to Pilot Point, Hannah and her husband Cody with their dogs, are living in. It’s pretty huge so we’re actually glad we didn’t get that one.  The apartment next to mine is a small 1 bedroom apartment that is used when the principal, counselor or others from the district come to our school. 

So here are pictures of our apartment. I took these right after we arrived so all our baggage and crap are in the way. After I get it fully set up I’ll try to take pictures of it looking more like home. 

One nice thing is that the apartments are fully furnished, so everything you see here is everything it came with! 

Our house on the outside

Our kitchen, small but perfect

Our bedroom thats actually pretty good size!

Of course the bathroom

Our spare bedroom with exercise bike included!

Our living room and dining table

Us after flying all day!

So that’s it! If there’s anything you wanna know or wonder just ask! 

Until next time! 

Pilot Point part 1

Ben and I (and the girls) have finally made it to Pilot Point, Alaska! It was a huge mix of emotions before we arrived but I’m happy to announce…. We love it here!! For those that still don’t know where I’m at, here is a picture. 

I’m that little star. Now the cool thing about our little village of 70ish people is its actually not that small! It may be low in population but it’s really spread out and beautiful!! The people also have been super nice and welcoming!! We’ve only drove around (yes, we have vehicles to drive) a little bit I wanted to share some pics of the village. In my next couple posts I’ll post of our home and the school. Here are pics of the village for you to enjoy! 

One thing about Pilot Point is the weather has been very unpredictable! One minute it’s clear skis and sun shinning then next it’s pouring rain, then back to sun. Well there is our village, of course I’ll be posting more as we go.. But right now I’m working on my classroom for post 3. My next one will be on our house.