The Story of Cat's Life: November 2011

Hi my friends! Yes I have survived the big storm that made history on Tuesday night into Wednesday. It was crazy! The worst of it was while we were sleeping, but the build up of it was crazy!

Everyone told me a storm was coming and I didn't think it would come because we've had clear skies and calm waters. But sure enough the storm came. Shows how the sea can be unpredictable if you judge by looking at it.

So after school on Tuesday Jori and I went down by the helipad and it was just crazy how high the waves were and how strong the wind was. Probably was not the safest place to be but we weren't there long. Later that evening when it was dark we were hanging out down by the helipad with the construction workers and Tim. I stayed by the digger since I'd had enough adventure for a while.

Later when we were hanging out at home, Joe called me. Mind you I didn't know who it was at first all I heard when I picked up the phone was "Rutabagas" I was like "Rutabagas? What?" The voice said "good you heard me, it's Joe." He's so hilarious! So he called us to let us know the city was going to be shutting off the power due to the high winds, which was a good idea because Jori went down to the school to get her laptop and the power lines were sparking! Plus the house was shaking really bad and the noises were creepy! So I made the decision of sleeping at the school after the power was turned off because of how much the house was shaking and the noises. Willis of course stayed at the house, he's used to it, but we babies went down by Sandra and Joe. It was fun though, little mid week sleep over!

Although sleeping at the school was only a little bit better than sleeping at the house since it was shaking as well, but the sense of more people around was a comfort. The next morning was a little hard to get moving because I probably only got about four hours of good sleep because I won't lie I was a little freaked out. Hurricane strength winds would freak and sane person. Although Jori didn't think it was bad last night; oh boy, did I give her crap when I found out that the construction guys lost two containers one of them containing steel beams! Yeah the wind and waves did that! Plus the waves and wind moved the container they use to burn garbage from the top of the hill on the south side of the island down to the beach where they dock the boats!

The next day the wind died down a little, but the waves were amazing! A surfer's dream! I've got plenty of pictures! So it's a good thing I live on a mountain because the flooding would have been bad, but no one was really affected too much, at least what I know of. And the poor construction workers lost a third container because of the waves. There's a video of it that one of the guys shot. It's actually the video that has made the news! It was just crazy.

Also Wednesday I started out the day with three students and ended the day with one. It was a crazy day. In the morning JR and I had Rene, Faith, and Damion. So Reading was spent writing about the storm, making feathers for the bulletin board turkey. They also helped me paint, hang up and cut out the letters for it. They were so helpful! Math was spent doing worksheets since I couldn't think of something else. By lunch time Becky came down to school to get Rene and Faith; said it was getting to dangerous out there. The waves were just huge, never came near the school, but whatever. So I had Damion the rest of the day. We spent the rest of math time playing dominoes, which was actually really fun and math related; then I had Damion do his skills tutor and pallet like normal. Science was spent watching the waves for a half hour and checking the temperature online. Then I had him have free choice. It was quite the day! I was actually really tired even though I only had one student, but lack of sleep was the reason for that.

Now I can say that I've survived a storm with hurricane winds. But here's the video and some pictures of the storm and the awesome waves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0DNnKlc9kM

Tuesday afternoon, when the storm was heating up

Tuesday Evening

Hold me!!!

Had to move the boats, later they had to move them higher due to the waves

Levi, one of the construction workers

Jori checking out the waves from the digger

Wednesday

The sun is trying to peek through

Hi all! I can't believe the month of October is over! Where has the time gone? No idea, especially since I'm 25 now. I'm a quarter of a century old, how crazy is that?

My 25th birthday was a good one. I was a little worried because it could have gone the other way since I was away from home and family; but actually was a good one. For starters the Friday before my birthday care packages came! My mom sent me a cake, chocolate chip cookies, candles (a 2 and a 5), fudge, and two loafs of pumpkin bread! My mommy loves me LOTS! Also I got my movies, part of my costume, and some presents. My family got me a Vera Wang necklace and earrings; but the earrings are going to be exchange for different ones since I don't wear that style of earrings. It was great!

The Sunday before my birthday Jori, my amazing roommate made me dinner and my wonderful principal, Sandra, made me a cake! So my birthday meal was meatloaf and scallop potatoes. It was really good! But before we ate the meal it was quite the adventure making the it. Since our house is unlevel the grease from the beef leaked into the oven and was smokin' up the house. I suggested that we put a cookie sheet under the pans, but Jori didn't understand what I meant since we don't have a bottom rack so she just left it in the oven, until there were a couple of flames that sprung up. At that point I took the pans out of the oven and put cookie sheets under them and put them back in the oven. After I did that Jori knew what I meant before; little bit of a blond moment. I think it was also the fluster of company over and dinner smoking. But it turned out just fine! It was a really delicious meal!

Then after the meal it was cake time. So the we put the candles that Mom sent me and took some pictures. While taking pictures the frosting was melting off the cake since the house is so unlevel the frosting was going off to the side. If you look closely in the pictures you can see it!

It was so nice to have Joe, Sandra, and Willis over for my birthday! It was a great evening; eating meat loaf, cake, and watching Despicable Me. Lots of fun:) Then on Monday the kids made me cards during lunch and wished me a Happy Birthday like every 5 minutes. They were so cute!

Then the week of my birthday Gina made the journey to Diomede to visit me. She was suppose to be here that Wednesday, but the helicopter pilot was whatever and didn't fly until Thursday. Not only was Gina suppose to be here that day, but Sandra and the high school girls were suppose to fly out to start their journey to Anchorage. But the helicopter flew on Thursday thank God! But Gina was well taken care of by my new friend in Wales name Stacey! I'm so glad she had her covered that was really nice and wonderful of her!

So Thursday was the start of our four day weekend; technically we had inservice on Thursday and Friday, but we really didn't have to do anything. But Thursday Becky and I cleaned and organized the stuff under trampoline, which looks much better now and I know where stuff is; so if I need something I know where to go. Well, after cleaning we went down to the helipad to see if Gina came in. Well, she didn't come in on the first one, but Sandra left on the first one and met up with her in Wales. Becky called someone in Wales to see which run Gina would come in on and I didn't know she was calling until I heard Becky say, "Hey you got a white woman over there named Gina? When she coming over?" I was laughing so hard because of how Becky said you got a white woman. It was so funny. So after she made that call we found out that Gina was coming on the third run. So I had some time to kill.

In the time I waited I finished up cleaning at school and started dinner, since Gina said she hadn't eaten very much in the past two days. Then I hung out with Jori and the girls, who were beading for a bit. Then I looked at the clock and decided I should shut off the oven so I don't burn dinner. As I'm walking to the house I'm thinking that helicopter is gonna come as I'm at the house and I won't be there. And I was right! Sure enough helicopter was coming in I was about half way up to the last landing before the door to our house. So I ran up to the house, ran to shut the oven off, and ran all the way, in the snow, to the helipad. The whole time I'm running I'm pretty much talk to myself saying "don't fall, don't fall, don't fall." I finally made it to the helipad and ran right into Gina! We hugged for a bit and I was so happy I to see her! Then it was the chore of caring the bags up to the house, thank goodness Jr, Heather's dad, helped us.

Later I found out that Gina was suppose to be on the second run, but two of my students' mother made a stink about a white woman going before here and was cussing and just being a hmm, starts with a "b" and rhymes with witch. But I let it go, for the most part because Gina made it just the same. But some people can be so rude and selfish; makes me mad!

Gina's visit was fun and too short! We climbed up about half way to Shoe and walked around the village. We also kept Joe company since Sandra was gone to Anchorage with the high school girls! Friday we went down to the school and played Uno and a new card game called Golf. It was a lot of fun!! Gina had a great time and it was fun to play Uno with my sister again! Saturday was Joe's birthday so Jori cooked hamburgers and I baked him a cake. After dinner we went down to the school to watch Boondock Saints, since his TV is bigger than ours. Haha, men. Then Monday came around, back to school. Gina spent the days in bed or inside catching up on shows. Seems lazy, but she needed a little alone time, no kids, no hubby, and no dogs. It was nice having her here, I didn't want her to leave:( But all good things come to an end.

On the Wednesday she was going to leave she came down to school and hung out with the kids. The kids loved her, especially Marcus! After we got back to school from the helipad Marcus cried for about a half hour. I think it was because of Gina leaving, I don't think he deals well with good-byes and he was tired so it built up. He had about the same behavior when he Alan the counselor left. Poor thing. I told Gina if she comes back, which she wants to, that she can't leave until the school year is over because Marcus missed her so much!

So after Gina left I had a little period of adjustment. I missed her and the mail was being stupid again! The pumpkins or my costume hadn't come yet. Part of my costume made it in time for Halloween, but the pumpkins didn't. Stupid greedy pilots. Also the day Gina left it was a good thing she got on the run she got on because the helicopter didn't make it back and three of our high school girls were stuck in Wales for a week. Friday was a good day though. We had our attendance awards and parent teacher conferences.

Along with the attendance awards we had the cheerleaders do a couple cheers and my class did some of their songs from Shake the Wiggles. They all did a great job! And I was surprised how many parents showed up, which was a nice surprised. When it came to the conferences I only had two parents, our aide, Andrea, and my kindergartner's mother, which is kinda funny since she doesn't show up. Oh well, I'm a strong believer in karma... Any who it was really night to be done with school around 1 on Friday since Gina leaving and all the excitement of the week.

So I spent most of the weekend watching Halloween movies since Halloween was on Monday. I watched The Thing, Dracula II: Ascension, and of course The Lost Boys! The Thing was pretty good, and I liked Dracula II now I want to see Dracula III, but it's not streaming on Netflix so I'll have to wait. I might change my Netflix plan, but every time I think I should add the DVDs to it the mail gets all messed up, so we'll see. Oh, and when I watched Dracula II, I started it around 10:30 in the morning and the movie didn't get over until around 6 in the evening. Stupid bandwidth that we deal with! It was so painful, but if i was just watching the movie I would have given up around noon, but I was lesson planning and doing other stuff so it worked out for it to buffer a lot. But still that was insane!

The Halloween came! Jori and I wore our costumes all day. Also it was kinda creepy and cool when we got to school the lights went out including the back up generator, so the school was DARK. It lasted about 20 minutes. Happy Halloween! Then all day the kids kept thinking I was a butterfly, I said I don't have antennas so I'm not a butterfly. I wish I had my wand so they would have known, grr stupid mail. It was fun day! In the afternoon the kids played on some Halloween games, like Pin the Face on the Jack-O-Lantern, and Ghost, Ghost, Witch. They loved Pin the Face on the Jack-O-Lantern! Then we did some pudding painting and that was a lot of fun! After the pudding painting we had a little costume parade. None of the kids had their own costume at school or none at all so the school had some thank goodness. So we had the kids pick one out to wear for our costume parade around the gym and through the construction workers' house. Then the kids did some trick-or-treating after school. I think all the kids came by our house twice, which seems greedy, but where else are they going to go. It was a great day!

Then on Wednesday the mail came and they brought all of it, I guess the good pilot was flying so all the mail was brought to the island. The pumpkins, our garbage can, our trick-or-treating candy, my Mary Kay order from Tina, my new boots (since the new ones don't fit and I realized that too late, stupid me), and my Victoria Secret order came as well! So Thursday all the pumpkins made it to the school so instead of social studies we carved pumpkins. Oh my gosh did the kids ever have fun!

Oh I almost forgot Wednesday night Jori and I were on our way home and as we were saying bye to Tim he told us he was making us each a plate for dinner. So he told us to come back in about 45 minutes so we came back after our workout and we didn't get home until close to 9! We just talked with Tim and some of the other guys that came in the kitchen. It was nice and we had fun! Also we did the dishes for Tim since he does so much for us! We are really gonna miss him this winter.

Sorry if this is all jumbled, but I've been at this for almost the entire movie of El Dorado and I don't feel like rereading it again! But you know me! I'm jumbled and all over the place any way. Well until next time! Here's the pictures of my adventures!