A few April 2009 Events from Shanna

So Sam pretty much covered our amazing Kotzebue trip, so I thought I would share a few exciting things that have happened in my life during the month of April.

The first thing is for my job, I get to travel to one of our regional villages in my region. The village is in the middle of the ocean on St. Lawrence Island. Savoonga is the village and it has about 900 people there. While I was out there for work this time past time, someone had just gotten a polar bear. I wanted to tell everyone on the blog that I shot it, but of course all of my friends in Alaska would know different b/c that can't be possible b/c I am not native. Polar Bears are in a sense a protected animals and can only be taken by an Alaska Native thru subsistence or anyone if they are in danger of the bear. Obviously I was no-where in danger of this bear as it was just hanging on the "wood clothes line" :) It was my first polar bear that I had seen in the "wild" or hanging in a village. I'm going again this week for work to both of the villages (Gambell and Savoonga) on the island. They are catching bowhead whales right now which is a very common thing that they catch to harvest and eat. Hopefully I will be blessed in getting to go see one!!!

Another thing that was great fun for me this month was hanging out with my 13 year old "little sister" friend who I like get to hang out with if I am lucky, a few times a week. One Saturday we went on our routine swim after my pottery and then we came to my house for supper and we dyed Easter eggs. I haven't dyed eggs since I have been home at my mom's!! This year I learned something too....You can dye eggs with food coloring, a small amount of vinegar and boiling water. My mom always bought the "easy" egg dying packets, and this year they sold out of them at AC (our grocery store) so I was forced to use liquid food coloring. Wow, the things you have to learn in order to improvise in a vill, huh? :) We only had 11 eggs to dye, but man it was so fun!

That same weekend I also made my Easter Kuspuk. I didn't have enough fabric and since we have no place to buy fabric here in Nome, I had to make it work. I had to scrap the sleeve and use all of my scraps for the trim on my hood....but luckily, I am just so good (yeah right) that I was able to blend it all together and you can't even tell that I had to "patch"! It turned out awesome and is so beautiful!!! And the best thing is that I did it all by myself!! I have also made a really pretty sundress for Sam and I's trip but I can't show anyone yet b/c it is as much of a secret to Sam as our final destination of our trip for his 30th birthday at the end of the month!!

The other night I got to go to the Brownies and Daisies (Girl Scouts) group meeting for work. I talked about nutrition, sugar in drinks and You are What You Eat, so since I eat blueberries every morning with my oatmeal, I of course, had to dress for the occasion. The entire thing was so FUN!

AND LASTLY.....It is SPRING in Nome, Alaska!!!! Some people in the lower 48 were I come from say that Spring is when you can pull out your spring jacket or when flowers start to grow and bloom, but we say it is spring when you can see the roads, it starts to get muddy and you get to pull out your "mud boots" or "rubber boots"....and when the snow starts to melt. We don't get to pull out our spring jackets yet, but YAY, the snow is starting to melt, it is getting muddy, I can run outside, I can maybe consider walking or biking to work and I have giant icicles hanging from my house. Oh, and it is WARM at 20 degrees! :) It's spring!!! YAY! :)

A Giant Icicle on my Deck.