Barb's Blog

Friday morning I headed out of Valdez and met up with an old Northway friend.  Rita Abel.  She parked her car in Glenallen and jumped in with me.  We talked the whole way into Anchorage where we met up with another dear friend from Northway days, Chris Standley.  Together the three of us went to the Beth Moore Conference being held at the Achorage Baptist Temple.  (ACS: Anchorage Christain School).  Over 1500 women attended the two day event.  It was awesome.  Beth Moore is such an inspirational speaker.  It was great connecting with Rita and Chris and spending time together diving into God’s word.  Very powerful.  Rita and I got out of Anchorage by late afternoon today and I arrived home in Valdez around 9:00.  Bill was making a fresh batch of guacamole and stir fying some late night dinner.  Perfect timing!  Katie was the first to spot 2 killer whales on one of the Stan Stevens boats today.  She’s turning into an eagle eye of sorts.

A close friend of ours died in a plane crash Wednesday evening.  It’s still difficult to believe it really has happened. Don Spitler arrived with his family in Northway back in 1977.  (The same year Bill and I began teaching in Northway).  Over the years Bill and Don trapped, hunted, drove school buses and coached kids together, supported each other in school student/parent issues.   He was instrumental in bringing basketball to Northway School.  Northway basketball was on fire while Don spear-headed the program.  It was basketball games that packed the Northway School gym with elders down to babies and everyone in between.  The Spitler/Cronk basketball legacy was known around the state for many years.  Don was bright, funny, goal oriented and driven.  He seemed to eat, sleep, and breath hunting, but he loved his family and doted on his grandchildren.  We will miss his spirit, his sense of humor, and wonderful adventures.  I know he died doing what he loved, flying the beautiful Alaskan interior, taking pictures of a summer sunset.  But that doesn’t make it any easier.  My prayers go out to his family and friends.

I can honestly say I’m beginning to get into the summer mode. The weather has been spectacular, until yesterday. Hot and sunny. Yesterday and today a little rain off and on which we really needed. It gave me an excuse to stay inside and sew. I’m almost done with a quick lap quilt for Bill’s neice Rebecca.  She graduates this year.  It’s lots of funky colors.  I’ll take a picture of the top when I get it done.

I’ve been transplanting perenials and enjoying digging in the dirt.  I am getting some columbine, delphinium, and foreget-me-nots from a friend. Her garden has gone wild with them so I decided to “help her out” a little. I’ll take free perenials any day!  I’m playing around with making a little sitting nook on the shady side of the house for those afternoons when the heat is too intense, but it’s just too nice to go inside.  Right now I’ve just leveled off an area and thrown some of the cement blocks down and one of the lawn chairs.  We’ll see what transpires…..

We currently are housing one of the high school exchange students. Her name is Vivian and she comes from Taiwan. She’s a real sweetie and it’s been fun having her with us.

We took Vivian and another exchange student from China out for a boat ride on Costello’s boat the day before yesterday. We were able to come up to two very friendly otters who were quite curious and not at all concerned by us. We watched them for probably 5 minutes before they got bored of us and swam away.

I’ve been trying to get up every morning and bike out to Robe River Subdivision. Yesterday Sheri Beck and I were on our way back to town when we spied a black bear down at the base of the mountain near where we needed to bike. We chose to take another route home…..

All for now. I’ll try to post some photos in the gallery.

We have finished up our Round Robin Quilts! 6 of us began this quilt project back in the fall. The center wreath in the photo below is what I made. I said I liked scrappy quilts and supplied as much Christmas fabric as I had tucked away. None of us have seen our original block quilts since the first month. Each person in the group had a month to add a border to each quilt. We had our unveiling this past Thursday at the Mai Tai. Check them out! This first one is the one I will end up with because I created the center block. Janai had not quite gotten her last border on, but you get the idea.

This next one is Cindy’s. She supplied all the batik fabrics and wanted a rainbow effect.

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This next one is Danae’s. She gave us orange and purple fabrics to use and wanted to “step out of her confort zone”.

Round Robin Quilt 4 is Jody’s. Jody has a wonderful eye for fabric choices. She supplied all the fabric for us and said, “I love scrappy quilts. Suprise me!”. I think this is one of my favorites!

Chanin’s is truly art in my mind. She began the quilt with a beautiful paper-pieced center. I set it on point and added four more small paper-pieced flowers. Flying geese designs followed and it began taking on a Japanese flavor. Beautiful!

Janai also wanted a Christmas quilt. But she specified no larger than wall hanging size.

This last photo is the whole group each showing off the quilt they will end up with. This project really stretched me. I learned lots of new techniques and sometimes had to scurry to keep up with the time allotment.

Bill and I just arrived home after a fast and furious trip to Anchorage.  We didn’t get out of town on Friday until after 5:00.  Bill had a couple of “bushfires” that he needed to deal with at the college.  The trip in was uneventful and we arrived at Chris Standley’s for a cup of tea then to bed.  We took Chris out to Wasilla on Saturday morning to pick up Aron’s senior pictures and a bakery stop for coffee and fresh rolls.

Bill and I headed on to town were he had a chance to go to the Flying Trade Show and I was able to have a few hours to shop 5th avenue mall at my leisure.  A co-worker from school was in one of the hospitals and I was able to visit her for a while before Bill and I headed on to our friends Tom and Marina.  It was wonderful having time to share with them as Tom is in the final stages of brain cancer.  He’s doing amazingly well and his attitude says fathoms about his faith in God.  We were able to meet his mother and brother as well as connect with their boys and of course Marina. A very special evening!

We met up with Bill 3 at his hotel near midnight and had some nice gab time. We asked if we could crash at his hotel with him.  It was wonderful having a little longer with him and not have the 40 minute drive back to Eagle River.

Dan Eide joined us for coffee at Bill’s hotel Sunday morning then we took off to shop and meet up with Mark Standley.  After a Costco trip and drive back to Eagle River, we picked up our suitcase, had another brief chat with Robin and Chris then headed for Valdez.  The trip home was uneventful.  Which is always a good thing.

All for now.

It’s hard to believe only 18 days of school left this year.  The time has flown by.  I’m beginning to take off some of this winter’s weight.  This is the most I’ve ever weighed, and it’s been a struggle trying to rid myself of the extra pounds.  The good weather has helped me get a little more consistant excercise.  I’ve averaged at least a 30 minute brisk walk once or twice a day pretty steadily for the past 2 weeks.  Hope I can keep it up and hope the pounds start to dissapear!

Diane and I walked this morning and came across an individual sleeping in his sleeping bag beside the bike trail.  Made us jump! Not much farther down the trail we came upon a fat old porcupine waddling down the side  hill.  His quills were at the ready, but Rudy seemed unconcerned.

Jane and I walked for about 30 minutes after school today.  As we headed towards Eagle Quality Store we noticed the sky swarming with large birds. As we got closer we realized the birds were eagles and we counted over 20 flying around the area landing in trees near the store.  Pretty cool.  Reminded us a little of that old Alfred Hitchcock movie, “The Birds”.

Bible study tonight, then had a nice telephone conversation with Bill 3 who helped me set up a new picture album in the  gallery for our blog site. Check them out.

This week and next I have created 6 Sea Week centers for the kids to rotate among during library classes.  Even the older kids seem to be enjoying the change of pace.

Visiting author, Terri Sloat, will join our school Thursday for presentations.  Tomorrow I will get the library spruced up for her and help the Literacy Association fine tune things for our Thursday night “Family Reading Night”.

All for now.  Time for bed.

It’s one of those incredible blue sky Alaskan spring days. The constant drone of small bush planes heading in and out of Valdez is the red flag that this is the May Day Fly In. The third annual, no less! Not suprisingly, I haven’t seen much of Bill. He’s pretty much been camped out at the airport since Saturday morning. Good for him! Over 150 planes of various sizes, age, and performance are all taking turns “strutting their stuff” so to speak. Poker Runs, short field take off and landing competitions, outhouse flour bombings, acrobatic displays, and free rides are only the half of it. Along with that are a vairety of food boths, face painting, “The Blessing of the Bikes”, a few vintage cars spruced and polished and on display. A regular carnival atmosphere. And the weather couldn’t have been much better.

We were saddend to find out about a good friend of ours at the fly in. Tom Jarvis. The family has since moved a time or two, but we’ve always kept in touch. They’re the type of people that it doesn’t matter how long you are out of touch, you know when you get back together, it’s like it was yesterday. Tom was diagnosed with an inoperable brain cancer in December. Their faith in God is amazing. Though I know this past few months have been hurendous, the stress, fear and anger that so many of us go through in difficult times, is not there. They have band together as a family, and with the help of close friends, loved ones, their church community, their doctors and nurses, and above all, God, they are making it one day at a time.

It’s very humbling to watch their strength and dignity. Times like this really put life into perspective. My prayers are with their family. I hope Bill and I can be a support for them.

Low key Sunday. Nice church service today. Good sermon. Bill off to the airport to put letters up on the Civil Air Patrol building. The May Fly In is next weekend so the CAP boys are sprucing things up for the weekend event. Jane and I went walking. Then I came back and worked on AkASL business and relaxed with a movie. We made Boston Baked Beans with the left over Easter spiral ham. Yum! Bill and I tackled the computer room yesterday. It looks much better, though now we need to actually address those bills and file some paper work! We were invited out to dinner last night at some people from our church’s home. Fun getting together with some new people. Yesterday’s 4 or 5 inches of snow is thankfully melting quickly!

Today was Friday and an inservice day to boot.  No kids!  Nice to have a break from the normal week.  We had an interesting inservice on Autisim and personality detatchment.  The afternoon was pretty much left for us to work on what we needed to.  There were 5 one-act plays at the college this evening so 2 friends and I went to the Tai Rest. and on to the plays.  Some were better than others, but it was nice to have a little live entertainment in town.  Tomorrow I tie into my round robin quilt and Bill and I will tackle the comptuter room sometime during the day.  We also are heading to the Health Fair first thing in the morning for a blood draw to get some testing done.  That’s an annual event for us.  The DVD player isn’t working so I must have done something serious to it when I double stacked the 2 DVD’s last week.  DRAT!  All for now.

Dad scored tonight.  He was invited out after work to go shrimping with a couple of guys.  They pulled 10 shrimp pots and got somewhere around 70 shrimp.  We feasted on 2 dozen of them after he got home.  YUM!

Got Rudy out for a nice long walk.  It ended in a snowy-sleety mess, but felt good to get some fresh air.

Bill helped me get the Easter pictures up on the photo gallery tonight.  Don’t know what I was doing wrong.

Tomorrow is an inservice day.  No kids, so no prep time.  I’m meeting a couple friends for breakfast before hand.  It’s past my bedtime.  All for now.  Good night!

I’m finally sitting down to write in my blog. We had a wonderful Easter! The only thing that could have made it better would have been having Katie join us! Erin did a great job humoring me with a walk every day. We pounded the pavement, sometimes as much as an hour and a half at a time! I had hopes of wearing off a few winter pounds, but all the great holiday food compensated for the few caleries I managed to burn I think. The time flew. Very fun!

Erin had brought down an unfinished “raggedy quilt” that she tied into the very first day. She continued to work steadily on it and completed it before returning back to Unalakleet! Quite the task master I’d say. It turned out great. Perfect to snuggle up in. Take a look on the gallery to see her handy work.

Bill 3 flew in Friday night after helping out at the job fair in Anchorage. He’s really spreading his wings with the technology. It’s fun seeing how he is branching out in what he loves to do. Luckily the weather was fine the evening he flew in. In fact, the weather was spectacular, blue sky and warm breezes. It was great having his techy expertise around the house for the weekend. He got our new scanner set up and ready to go, took a look at my ailing Ipod, and the big excitement: he set up our old imac for my mother. He tried to make it as user friendly as possible so all mom has to do is turn on the machine, click a button, and be able to recieve email from Bill & Erin, Bill & I, or Katie. He also set up buttons so she can easily access each of our family blog sites to read what we’re up to. He even enlarged the buttons and put our faces on the ones that represented our blog locations. Now we just need to keep our fingers crossed that she’ll give it a good chance.

Erin and Bill were in charge of supper Saturday night. Bill flew in after his 2 days of conference for the telephone company in Anchorage just in time. We were treated to some awesome home-made salsa, enchiladas and some exceptional cream brule. YUM!! (No wonder those pounds did not dissapear after all that walking!)

Easter service was very nice at church. There was a good turnout and the choir sang some fun songs. We actually had enough voices so it sounded pretty good. I tried to twist Erin’s arm to join us, to no avail. Next time maybe….. We invited Steve and Teresa Richardson for Easter dinner. Their kids are all out of the nest and we were pretty close to Bill 3’s and Steve’s April 28th birthday so we thought we’d better celebrate that as well. I asked Bill 3 what kind of cake he wanted for the occation. Fruit Pizza was the cake of the day. Take a look on the gallery for a peek.

Steve treated us to a private showing of his photography currently on display at the museum. He has a real gift. There were several pieces I would love to have! Bill and Erin gave us one of his prints for a Christmas present this year. We need to get it framed and up on the wall.

All for now. Time for bed.