Real Proud Kinda I Am...

Jason surprised us with his successful bounty of one whole Martin. You realize that he's waited two years for this moment. This definitely displays much more patience than the average trapper, American, teenager, well everyone. As I was home surfing the internet, he bursts through the door, "Guess what I have behind my back?" "Maybe a lynx or fox?" I reply. His expression at the time would draw an audience since the suspense was growing. Out comes the Martin in the usual Martiny style, frozen with snow in it's mouth and teeth showing. Well, all kinds of accolades began to come from me. Jason grew up in Alpena, Michigan with one sister, mom, dad, and a dog. My family consists of grandparents, uncles, adopted brothers, and half brothers and sisters. You get the point, my culture was just a little different from his background. We appreciate the differences, rather than feel seperated through them. Jason, through his trapping, identifies himself more and more with the Native culture. "See babe, I'm Native." I don't believe he's disowning his upbringing, but Grandma Slwooko sure treats him like her own!

Typical Day

Rather than tell about the special events or happenings, today might be best described as a cookie cutter day. 6:00 am--alarm goes off, Jason/Myra hits snooze, 6:30 am--get out of bed, etc...you get the point. As far as work, technology has allowed me to refocus and reenergize motivation in the classroom (both the students and myself). For example, quite a few classes are creating story boards using Comic Life. Well, I was hoping to get some planning done, when Romay and Kemper decided to interrupt me with picture taking. You really don't operate by your own schedule with kids arounds anyways. Here's to another day closer to summer break!

Man's Best Friend and Worker...

Snowmachine Exhaust...nose tingling from the crisp air...airplanes buzzing around...kids playing with hay...tourist with cameras...people expectant and dressed warm...Iditarod!

Laser Lights

Skiing was in the tentative plans for our family, but it turned out to be a bit windy and cold. So, Romay and I stayed occupied by playing with our best friend, Kemper. Romay went down to the Serum mushers and "borrowed" some dog booties, next thing we know, Kemper is sporting green and black lookin' socks. Kemper has quite a hard time maneuvering himself with those things on. Next, we took out the laser light and watched him chase it on the linoleum floor, more like gallop without getting anywhere! Kemper is a yellow lab and you can't really talk about the Harris' without Kemper in the picture. In fact, I might get more offended with someone bad mouting our dog than myself. Anyways, Romay is looking to play with photobooth, here is her picture along with myself.

More GLV-KKA trip pics...

I couldn't help but share some of these other photos we took from our GLV trip. In one of these, you can see the young ice where the older ice had split. At night, the young ice has the appearance of thinly crusted ice, deceiving and is quite black lookin'. Plus, Elim has the right conditions to be able to crab, which you see Jason checkin' out the pots. We've been lucky enough to get some from Mar's brother. We're lookin' forward to the mushers coming through and let's not forget the teachers sacred holiday, spring break.

BRAVO

I'm a little behind in posting new material. Bravo, remember those machines? Well, we own one now. Jason and I drove to Golovin through the Iditarod trail a few weekends ago to aquire this beast from the Golovin school. The pictures tell it all. We saw some beautiful country, except right outside of Golovin we crossed sheer ice (the pic with my boots). Got to Golovin, ate a quick lunch, visited the Savoonga girls b-ball team who happened to be there, loaded up the Bravo on the sled and started back home. Can I just say how insane I was by the end of the day, we made it back to Koyuk averaging 15 mph with the Ski-Doo towing the Bravo. We did spend the night in Elim on the trip out to GLV with our "daughter" Marlene. We had a few good laughs and ate pancakes and it was my first time eating turkey bacon. Original. Now the Bravo is in the shop, Jay will do some welding and give it some major TLC so that Ethan and Romay can cruise around the country with their Momsis and Dad.