September 27, 2016: Happy Hanky

I ran again today! (Yay for me).  I went 9 miles, beginning and ending at Meg and Kyle's house.  When I got back, I saw Henry looking out the window.  I tried to scare him, but he obviously doesn't find me too terrifying.  I also love that he is doing the same pose as the monster on his shirt. (Monster? Animal from the Muppets? I can't tell). 

September 25, 2016: Barometer

I love this picture.  It was the accidental shot as I was setting up my camera timer.  It makes me happy.  

We hiked Barometer today.  I haven't attempted this beast of a mountain since last summer when it nearly gave me an anxiety attack.  A year later, I felt like it was time.  I can happily say that Barometer no longer terrifies me! I feel all grown up.  There was still a point when I was over it and just wanted to get to the bottom.  The sides of this mountain are so steep and craggy.  There are crosses along the path honoring people who have died climbing and for a majority of the hike I am usually imagining my body somersaulting down the side of the mountain.  Even so, I really enjoyed the climb today.  Good company, fantastic views, a decent work out, and we even got to see bears at the bottom of the mountain.  Three of them! A mom and two cubs met us at a fork in the path.  This was the first time I have seen bears here while on foot.  I felt relatively safe because there were six of us in our group.  The bears seemed curious at first and then completely indifferent to us.  As exciting as it was, I don't need the experience again.  I prefer seeing them out my car window, or across a river bed or something.    

September 24, 2016: coolest kids ever

Rockstars.   I love babysitting my dudes. 

September 23, 2016: get well soon

During our writing time, the kids are allowed to work on any kind of writing they want.  They love making cards.  This is a get well soon card that one of my kids made for someone.  Can you tell what her friend has?!  It has been going around the island!! 

I also love that she wrote ages above the people in her picture.  And the adult's age is unknown :) 

My other favorite card I have seen is a thank you card that a kid wrote.  On the inside it said "Thank you for letting me play with your toes."   I am assuming he meant "toys" but I don't judge either way. 

September 22, 2016: blessings

It was another rough day today for me emotionally, so I spent some time on the phone with my dear friend Jo.   I appreciate her for a lot of reasons, and one is that she stays up really late, so when I am in crisis mode at 8:00 here, she's still awake in Chicago :).   While walking and praying, I got to see this view.  It was a good one.   I was reminded tonight of the little blessings.  Good friends.  A room full of amazing kids this year.  Grace and peace.   New beginnings.  Our God is an awesome God. 

September 20, 2016: DBarb

This picture is random.  I was looking through a teaching book I borrowed from my coworker, and saw this picture.  The man in the photo looks exactly like my boss from my first school in Chicago.  So much so that I took this picture and sent it to my roommate just to see if she thought the same thing.  She did.  Minus the outfit. 

September 19, 2016: training wins

It's no secret that I'm a terrible trainer.  At this point, I still haven't looked up my training plan that I should be following.  I ran a couple miles last week, but nothing substantial, so I decided I needed to do something big today.  I ended up running 7 miles total, with a mountain in the middle.  Boom.  Now I probably don't need to run the rest of the week. 

September 18, 2016: getting real

This was the last day of the women's retreat.  While I really enjoyed meeting new women and hanging out with the awesome ones I already knew, this was a  tough weekend for me.  I've been feeling a bit on the depressed side the last week or so, and I didn't do much to take care of myself during the week.  By the time this weekend came, I was in full depression mode, and I usually need lots of alone time to process, pray, cry the ugly cries and feel the necessary feels to get me out of it.  Not easy to do on a weekend trip with a bunch of other women.  So I was just moody.  And when I get moody, I get all sad and poetic and slightly overdramatic.  We had an hour or so of free time and I decided to walk along the beach by myself.  I kept running into these stranded jellies that had washed ashore during low tide.  Being in a delicate state of mind, I literally cried for these jellyfish that were all alone, separated from their friends; they seemed so frail and helpless.  I am fully aware of how ridiculous this is.  Welcome to my mind when I'm not feeling my best. 

I kept walking and I ran into more jellies that were still in the ocean.  I wanted to frantically yell at them and tell them to swim their little bodies further into the ocean so they wouldn't get stuck on shore.  I didn't though, because even in my delicate state of mind, I refuse to go into the full realm of crazy.  A little later in the day, as we were all boarding the boats to head back to Kodiak, I saw my friends Kinsey and Shannon walking along this same beach and throwing something big and squishy back into the ocean.  I didn't ask them what it was, but I am fairly certain it was a jelly fish, and that makes me smile. 

September 17, 2016: problems

That is brownie number four which was tucked into my sleeping bag pillow for a nighttime snack.  I needed an intervention today.  I actually woke up this morning with a candy bar under my neck.  (I think it was in my sweatshirt pocket and somehow came out and worked its way up my sleeping bag while I was sleeping).  I can't stop eating chocolate.  Something about being on "vacation".  

September 16, 2016: wrecking ball.

This was my attempt of taking a panoramic selfie of Kinsey, Shannon, and I on the buoy swings at Camp Woody.  We are here for a women's retreat for the weekend.  As you can see, I totally nailed it.  Kinsey's body is spliced in half and I didn't even make the picture.  

September 15, 2016: <3

This kid is the funniest! 

September 14, 2016: What. The. Heck.

This is the water bottle that nearly killed me. 

Ok, that's a little dramatic, but I hope you are ready for a really bizarre story.  This morning, I pulled into the school parking lot and realized I had never filled up my big water bottle I use every day.  I don't love the water at the school, so I was relieved when I remembered I had some random water bottles floating around my car.  I was pretty sure they were left over from the Eco Challenge, so I decided to fill my bottle up with a couple of those.  I grabbed a couple bottles and opened up the back of my car so I could make the transfer. After opening the bottles and dumping them in, I smelled a really strong scent of gasoline.  Our school is right next door to the fire department, and I saw a couple guys milling around outside, so I assumed that they had fueled up a truck, or maybe were in the process of spray painting something, so I didn't think much of it.  When I went inside, I saw Michele and asked her if she smelled the gas outside.  She said she hadn't.  Still, I didn't think much of it.   I ate my breakfast and got ready for the day.  After a few minutes though, the outside corners of my mouth were tingling and starting to feel numb.  I felt like I could still faintly smell gas.  I was a little nervous I was going crazy.  

About an hour into the school day, after finishing my chai tea, I reached for my water bottle and took a big swig from the straw.  It was totally filled with gasoline!! I ran into Michele's room, (while totally still having an eye on my kids) and made her smell it, just so I knew I wasn't crazy. She confirmed, it was definitely gasoline. 

During lunch I walked outside to see where it came from.  I found one of the water bottles I used to fill my bottle up.  It totally smelled like gas.  The only thing I can figure is that someone put a gas filled Dasani bottle in my car when I wasn't there.  Who does that??!!  The nasty note guy? (See Monday's post if you haven't read it already).  I know I don't always lock my doors, so at some point someone placed it in my car.  I'm a little freaked out by that.  It seems pretty malicious.  We have lots of people on drugs and lots of riffraff running around Kodiak.  Still.  Gas water bottle is pretty low. 

Side note: swallowing gasoline makes you belch huge, nasty, gasoline tasting burps.  Grossest sensation of my life.  Thank the Lord for flavorful chicken taco bowls to mask the burp flavor.  

September 13, 2016: training run for real

Training is so much more fun when you have beautiful scenery and beautiful friends.  Even if the run is all hills and you feel like a slow grandma. 

September 12, 2016: warning: swear word in this post!!

So some of my friends decided to meet at Abercrombie and walk together.  When I got back to my car, I found this nice note on it.  Yikes.  True, I probably parked a little too close to their vehicle by Kodiak standards.  I'm used to Chicago parking, where we can wiggle out of a parking spot if we just have a good 6 inches behind us.  I honestly don't remember how close to this guy I was parked, but I don't remember it being that close.  In Kodiak, there is a Facebook page called "Say what you want Kodiak" and people rip each other to shreds on there.  I was always nervous that I'd end up on there for some reason or another.  I checked tonight- nothing yet!  

September 11, 2016: rough life

I volunteer in the 2s and 3s room once a month during church.  They are an adorable mess of children!  We usually have 11-12 toddlers running around.  It's a lot of playing, a lot of problem solving, a lot of singing, a lot of fun.  A two hour whirlwind of tiny humans "sharing" toys, shoving toy cookies into the back of semi trucks, hauling sea creatures across the land in wheelbarrows, making bonfires out of matchbox cars and Legos, dancing wildly to kiddie Jesus tunes, and showing you the same cool lobster toy 157 times.  Today I was picking up after most of the kids had left, and I turned to see this little guy, nearly passed out on the carpet from exhaustion, along with the other leader in the room.  I died!  I feel the same way, guys. 

September 10, 2016: Alanna's quartet!

Way to go, Alanna! Tonight I got to see her amazing talent as she played viola in a recital.  This was a faculty concert, so most of the musicians are teachers in the school district, but Alanna is part of a quartet with some of the faculty members, so she played tonight as well.  It was beautiful.  I get to hear her practice some nights (which I love) so tonight was amazing because I finally got to hear it come together! Well done, musicians! 

September 9, 2016: chair eater

I can't even. This kid definitely belongs in my family. Weirdo to the core.  

September 8, 2016: a new Barometer

Even after seeing Barometer almost daily, I love that I can say that I've never seen it quite like this before.  That's the beauty of this island; we see the exact same landmarks day after day, but Kodiak has a way of making it seem fresh and new.  I'm so thankful to be living in a place that encourages exploration.  And for friends who accompany me on these journeys. 

September 7, 2016: training. Kind of.

I'm running a half marathon in November.  I'm in week 3 of training.  I think.  I have run once before today.  ONCE! It's been beautiful outside, so of course I'd rather play than run.  I've also been in crazy school mode, so I haven't made running a priority.  To punish myself for my laziness, I made myself run up Pillar Mountain today.  I ran for 3 minutes and walked for 1 all the way up this beast.  The view was a great reward.  Maybe I'll be more diligent from here on out.  Probably not though :)

September 6, 2016: nailed it

Today we began our writing workshop time.  We talked about how some of the best stories we can write are true stories about things that have happened to us.  In the beginning of first grade, we are all about sketching and labeling before we write sentences.  Yes, I know how to spell rainbow and kayak.  We model phonetic spelling in the beginning so that the kids are comfortable trying spelling on their own without being afraid to use big words they don't know how to spell.  I modeled how to sketch and label a story about something that happened to me.  I chose to write about yesterday's adventure on the kayaks with my two friends.  It's really hard to tell which picture is the real thing and which one is my sketch.  

September 5, 2016: day off!!

Happy Labor Day! We have such a short school year in Kodiak that we don't get many of the federal holidays off (which I am not complaining about.  I love getting out at the end of May!) We do get Labor Day off, which is so nice! The beginning of the school year is CRAZY so it's so helpful to have a long weekend right after the first week to rest up, (I slept for 13 hours on Friday), get caught up, and go have fun with friends.  I spent the morning with Kayla hiking Termination.  That's where this picture came from.  Termination itself is not my favorite hike to do, but the views are my favorite on the island.  I just love coming through mossy, enchanted looking forests onto beautiful beaches with mountains in the background.  I get really sappy when I hike out here.  

September 4, 2016: fog. Man, I'm struggling with creative titles...

It's hard to catch how cool something looks when you're driving down the road and hanging your phone out the window of your car.  It was incredibly foggy this afternoon and looked incredibly cool coming around Dead Man's Curve.  Take my word for it. 

September 3, 2016: first place!

Congratulations to Alanna for a first place prize at the Kodiak fair for her pickled fiddlehead ferns! She won first place in the "pickles and others" category and her ferns were a contender in the merit award for overall best canned item.  She's a rockstar. 

This was the first fair I have been to here in Kodiak.  We watched the rodeo, and it was also my first rodeo experience.  You know I enjoy any activity that involves country music, boots, and belt buckles. Fun times! 

September 1, 2016: chillin

He was totally pulling his weight tonight :)

August 31, 2016: maybe birds aren't that bad...

Can you see this crazy looking bird? It has a blackish brown body and a long, bright red beak. They are called black oystercatchers.  This was the first time I have ever seen them.  Yes, I hate birds, but they are very cool to look at from a distance- and Kodiak has some very cool looking ones!