My NEW home!

The picture above was one I took yesterday morning while waiting to leave the hotel we stayed at for the last day of in-service in Bethel.  It was a beautiful morning with the sun rising through the fog. 


Our last day of in-service in Bethel was good.  One even that I thought was really cool was the fish cutting.  Three of the women that work for the district showed us how they cut different fish (silver, king salmon, and I can't remember the third).  This is a big part of our students lives and is done in families. Here are the beginning (left) and ending (right) pictures.


So after in-service concluded at 3:15, we all headed out to our villages.  My flight left Bethel at 4:30pm.  I was a little apprehensive leaving, especially if you asked any of the people I rode to the airport with! Haha..I was repeating my mantra of the trip, "everything will be great!" :)

The ERA(airline) terminal is pretty small and when it is time to board they announce over the intercom that you need to meet your pilot at the door.  Once you meet your pilot (ours was Kevin), you walk out to the plane.  So the pilot, Jeff(the one other new Kwethluk teacher), two women(one was carrying a baby), and myself headed out.  

There were at least 15 planes lined up on the runway of varying sizes.  The largest probably held 20-25 passengers and the smallest held 2.  Being my awesome self, I decided to take a couple pictures of the runway and all these planes.  As we were walking I picked out one smaller plane that I thought looked cool (and we were approaching) to snap a photo of.  Well, it turned out that was our plane! I could not believe that we were going to FLY in that small of a plane.  

The picture on the left is where the pilot sat and the picture on the right is the emergency procedure card.  There were 3 rows of 2 seats each.  The ride went surprisingly well (as nervous as I was) and kind of felt like a small roller coaster going up and down.  The best thing was that our flight lasted 10 minutes! It would have been shorter, but we had to circle around once because there were people (on their way to pick blueberries) walking on the runway.  Absolutely one of the coolest experiences of my life. Here are some pictures I took on the flight.

The first three are over Bethel.

These (I believe) are of the Kuskokwim river.

You can also see mountains in the distance on the last pictures. Not sure which mountains though.

Then, my first glimpse of Kwethluk! The orange building is the school (I am pretty sure).

 I live closer to the left side of this picture (which I think is the south side of town).

The picture above (I'm pretty sure) is where the Kwethluk river (which is right out my front door) meets the Kuskokwim river.

After we landed, Jeff and I rode in to town with Yogi who is one of the janitors at the school.  On the way we saw many people out blueberry picking! After a little chaos, I figured out where I was living and had some help carrying my stuff across the boardwalk (can't get to my house with a car!).  I got pretty lucky because the picture below is the view out my front door! This is the Kwethluk river.

And here is the front of my house! It's actually a duplex that used to be the school.

We have 3 bedrooms, one bathroom, a large living room, a kitchen/dining room, pantry, 2 storage closets and a large laundry room with a freezer.  So after I made it to the house it was finally time to unpack!! I was so ready to be done moving around.  My journey had begun almost a week ago (last Thursday) and I was glad to get settled. So here are the before pictures of my stuff in my room.

I stopped for a short snack break when I unpacked a bag of Twix! 

And here are the results, well close enough! :)

Below is Cooper, my roommate's dog. He tried to help too!

I got pretty much everything unpacked and had a great night's sleep in my own bed with my own covers!

This morning I woke up and came in to the school to get a look at my classroom.  I also made a stop at the post office! I finally have an address which is:

PO Box 145

Kwethluk, AK 99621

(I will be accepting any baked goods (or store bought goodies :) ) , but please no alcohol because that would get me fired!)

For those that are curious, the Kwethluk mascot is the Kings! Also, I have a picture of the gym.

I didn't take any pictures of my classroom, but they will be coming! So stay tuned. I am finally ready to leave my classroom for the day and get some supper at home.  Have a great night!

P.S. I apologize for the length of this post. So many exciting things to report on! :)