Time and Temperature
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Monday, January 5, 2009
Not all fun and games
It has been a very cold week here in Bethel. We had temperatures in the minus 20's, and windchills in the minus 50's for almost a week. The pipes at Terrence's office froze and flooded, the pipes in an adjoining apartment to us froze (causing us to lose water) and even the pipes at Subway froze. It makes me feel as though Bethel might be somebody's unstable experiment, can people really live here? Of course people did live here for thousands of years succesfully, but had a very different lifestyle. They survived in this harsh environment without all of the comforts that we have now, central heating, snow machines and electricity to name just a few. I realize that the worst of winter is yet to come, February and March are the coldest months, and the snow doesn't melt until May. I cannot imagine what winter would of been like here even a hundred years ago, how long and difficult it must of been. James and I didn't even leave the house today, with a minus -46 windchill it didn't seem wise.
We are persevering though. We read lots of books and watch a few movies. Jamie bought a dart board with his Christmas money from Grandma Jane. We had some friends over for game night and karaoke on Saturday, and I am learning to knit. Terrence and Jamie are reading a chapter of Voyage of the Dawn Treader every night, and we are starting to exercise more at the teen center. It is a strange feeling when you wake up in the morning and you know that you have to make your own fun, no Children's Museum or Chuck e Cheese is going to do it for you. On days like today you just have to get through it, and dream about summer, which right now seems like a fairy tale to me.
It is strange to actually long for grass, for leaves, for a warm breeze. I thought I knew what winter was, I grew up in Michigan, they do have them there. We thought we were so tough having lived in Marquette for five years, but that wasn't anything compared to this. It has been cold and the ground has been covered with snow for over three months already, and we have at least four more months to go until spring. Yikes! I am hoping that living here will give us more appreciation for the warmer seasons, similar to how living in a wig-wam made us content with even the smallest apartments.
Friends tell us that the summers here are phenomenal, that the twenty-four hours of daylight are intoxicating and there is nothing else like it. That there is, in the end, some kind of balance between the long, dark winters and the amazing summers. We hope to be able to spend a lot of time out on the river, hopefully doing a lot of salmon fishing and bird watching and letting Jamie play outside until all hours of the night (which is still day!). This is truly, a place of extremes.
We are persevering though. We read lots of books and watch a few movies. Jamie bought a dart board with his Christmas money from Grandma Jane. We had some friends over for game night and karaoke on Saturday, and I am learning to knit. Terrence and Jamie are reading a chapter of Voyage of the Dawn Treader every night, and we are starting to exercise more at the teen center. It is a strange feeling when you wake up in the morning and you know that you have to make your own fun, no Children's Museum or Chuck e Cheese is going to do it for you. On days like today you just have to get through it, and dream about summer, which right now seems like a fairy tale to me.
It is strange to actually long for grass, for leaves, for a warm breeze. I thought I knew what winter was, I grew up in Michigan, they do have them there. We thought we were so tough having lived in Marquette for five years, but that wasn't anything compared to this. It has been cold and the ground has been covered with snow for over three months already, and we have at least four more months to go until spring. Yikes! I am hoping that living here will give us more appreciation for the warmer seasons, similar to how living in a wig-wam made us content with even the smallest apartments.
Friends tell us that the summers here are phenomenal, that the twenty-four hours of daylight are intoxicating and there is nothing else like it. That there is, in the end, some kind of balance between the long, dark winters and the amazing summers. We hope to be able to spend a lot of time out on the river, hopefully doing a lot of salmon fishing and bird watching and letting Jamie play outside until all hours of the night (which is still day!). This is truly, a place of extremes.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
A Bethel Christmas
James Made This Eskimo Finger Puppet In Yup'ik Class
James' Class At The Christmas Show...They Represented Jamaica
More Christmas Show...These are Yup'ik Dancers
James Gave Santa Some Cookies At A Holiday Sing Along. He was very excited!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Thankful
Wow... so far I have given out almost eighty pairs of mittens. Everyone has been so generous in sending them in. The kids have been delighted over them. I want to thank everyone so much.
Here are some pictures of my family on Thanksgiving. I can't believe how big Addie is, or how grown up Patrick, Nathan and Reilly look. It makes us miss you all the more to see how fast everyone is growing up. - Megan
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Weather
Another week begins in Bethel. Nobody in my household wanted to get out of bed this morning. It was not because we went to bed late. I think we could just sense that it was freezing outside, and we knew the sun would not rise for another four hours. However, because our alarm clock read 6:30 am up we went. Long underwear, clothes, snow pants, face mask, hat, gloves, boots we emerge out into the cold dark night, only it is technically morning.
The weather report tells us that it is –1 degree, and – 23 wind chill. The prediction for today's weather says the wind chill may approach –15. This kind of weather report is frustrating when you are trying to figure out whether to wear regular balaclava, or polar balaclava. I swear Jamie could probably make better weather predictions thanthe ones we get around here. It is unsettling not to know if or when it is going to get warmer, or just how cold it is going to get by the end of the day.
Most places in the US where you can get minute by minute accounts of the weather any time you want on The Weather Channel or on your computer. Not here. There really isn't any point to reading the predictions, they are almost always wrong. Itisn’t anyones fault that they are so bad, there is too much empty barren space, without enough weather stations and too few people to really bother with. It is a bewildering experience not having reliable weather reports, but I have gotten used to it and have begun devising my own way of predicting the weather. We know it is going to be cold until May, so that does simplify things. It probably won’t be warm enough to rain, so that leaves the possibility of snow. As far as the temperature goes the only accurate one to go on is the current temperature, and if it is night you can generally predict it will get colder before it gets warmer. Without much daylight the range of temperature is pretty small so their probably won’t be too many dramaticfluctuations. The most important factor of course, is the wind. Which is not even predicted, so you have to go on the current report. If it is windy at all, then we know we need all of our warmest gear and you better gird your loins because it's nasty out there. -Megan
The weather report tells us that it is –1 degree, and – 23 wind chill. The prediction for today's weather says the wind chill may approach –15. This kind of weather report is frustrating when you are trying to figure out whether to wear regular balaclava, or polar balaclava. I swear Jamie could probably make better weather predictions thanthe ones we get around here. It is unsettling not to know if or when it is going to get warmer, or just how cold it is going to get by the end of the day.
Most places in the US where you can get minute by minute accounts of the weather any time you want on The Weather Channel or on your computer. Not here. There really isn't any point to reading the predictions, they are almost always wrong. Itisn’t anyones fault that they are so bad, there is too much empty barren space, without enough weather stations and too few people to really bother with. It is a bewildering experience not having reliable weather reports, but I have gotten used to it and have begun devising my own way of predicting the weather. We know it is going to be cold until May, so that does simplify things. It probably won’t be warm enough to rain, so that leaves the possibility of snow. As far as the temperature goes the only accurate one to go on is the current temperature, and if it is night you can generally predict it will get colder before it gets warmer. Without much daylight the range of temperature is pretty small so their probably won’t be too many dramaticfluctuations. The most important factor of course, is the wind. Which is not even predicted, so you have to go on the current report. If it is windy at all, then we know we need all of our warmest gear and you better gird your loins because it's nasty out there. -Megan
Monday, December 1, 2008
James' Play
Here are some pictures from James' play. It was really fun to watch the kids work so hard and have such a good time. James loved it, and was quite good at it, drama must run in the family.
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