Termination Dust

Hey everyone! Sorry for the long break without a new blog. Two weekends ago, I went to Seward which is about 3 hours south of Wasilla. It was a blast. The ride down on the Seward Highway was UNREAL. It's supposed to be one of the prettiest highways in North America, and the mountains/ocean were unbelievable. Saturday consisted of exploring the Alaska Sea Life Center and a 3 hour cruise of Resurrection Bay which is absolutely gorgeous. On the cruise, it was raining at certain points, and the sea got really rough. I don't get seasick which is great, but there were at least 10 people puking off the back of the boat. So gnarly. On the cruise, we saw Dall porpoises, sea lions, and bald eagles. After the cruise ended, we were walking on the dock and saw a cute little sea otter just chilling in the harbor eating some clams. He was just floating and eating..so cute. I had phenomenal halibut for dinner on Saturday night at this cute little restaurant called Chinooks. Sunday consisted of early morning picture taking of Resurrection Bay and a trip to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center on the ride home. There were moose, bald eagles, musk ox, caribou, reindeer, brown bears, and lynx. There was one reindeer that was definitely in heat and it kept making this god awful noise. It was standing at the fence just staring and making that noise at the poor female reinder. I felt like I was in Jurassic Park. The bears were super cool...they were huge! They were just walking around and doing bear stuff. This past weekend I hung around the valley and went to dinner with my friend Carrie. On Sunday morning, I met up with some friends to watch the Pats game at 9 am at the bar. So far school is going well, I had an awkward moment today at our staff meeting after school. Tomorrow is Bosses' Day so all the staff got the principal and vice principal presents...everyone had to submit one word describing the principal and vice principal. The words were made into this really great picture and framed. So today at staff meeting, they opened their gifts, and each one read the words that described them. Well, someone described the vice principal as a "hustler" and when he read that, I let out a loud Brittany laugh and almost fell off my chair. No one else laughed. Typical...I'm so inappropriate. So plans for this weekend include dinner/drinks with the ABA teachers tomorrow night, Mighty Matanuska Brewfest with school friends on Friday night, Talkeetna on Saturday (barring any snow), and relaxation on Sunday. Here are some Alaskan concepts/terms... *termination dust=the first dusting of snow on the mountains *working on the slope= working in Arctic Circle for the oil company *snow machine= snow mobile (you will get laughed at if you call it a snow mobile..I learned that the hard way) One of my kids told me a story about her neighbor's chihuahua got snatched up by a bald eagle and eaten in a tree. I had to work hard to keep my poker face during that story. I will update the next post with lots of pictures. Lots of love, B