Winter Is On Its Way....

So....it's getting a bit chilly now. I think we've broken 40 once or twice over he past week, and aside from the mornings it's been raining I've walked to school through frost. And today, as I mentioned on my facebook status, there was frost still on the ground (albeit in the shade) at about 4:30 this afternoon. Oh yeah, and around noon the puddles were iced over. I think winter is near. I know that I'm not quite ready for it. I don't like there's been a summer up here. I'm not sure it's been over 70 since I've been here. And I'm pretty sure I could count the times it's been over 60 on my two hands. So, I kinda wish I had had some more nice days before winter started to kick in. On the positive side the days have been pretty nice, just a bit chilly.

The really noticeable thing however, is the daylight. When I flew into Anchorage on July 25 sunrise was 6:06am, and sunset was 11:47pm. Fast forward to today (less than 3 months later) and sunrise was 9:19am and sunset will be at 7:54pm. That's a lot of sunlight that is no longer with us.

What big events have happened since the cross country meet? I really should keep up with this thing a little better.

Anyways...tried to do a little hunting this weekend. Didn't work out so well. We boated around looking for birds, but didn't see many. The ones we did see we weren't able to get. And my shotgun decided not to fire any of the 3" shells I bought. So that was fun. We also shot at a beaver for a while, but we weren't able to get him either. Then we were going to go the next day, but Tim had his gas stolen, so that put a pretty quick halt to those plans.

Which reminds me...a fun little "adventure" I had somewhat recently was wiring up teaching housing for satellite TV. Tim asked me to help lay some cable for just this reason a couple weeks ago. Thinking it would just be a few hours, I agreed. Well, it turned into 5 or 6 hours one night, and then another 6 hours (ish) the following morning. The really funny thing is that I'm not even going to have TV...sometimes I wonder how I made it this far in life. I'm hoping, however, that my good deeds will pay off when there's a program I greatly desire to see (i.e. Wings' game).

Hmmm...I'm doing Fantasy Hockey again, which is nice. I got off to a great start, but my team kinda tanked today, which ticks me off. Also, in even more exciting news, I just got 80 lbs of cat litter in the mail today. So now Squeaks can poop in comfort for the rest of the year.

Getting really excited about Thanksgiving & Christmas. Sounds like I'm gonna be heading into Anchorage w/ a handful of the new teachers for Thanksgiving. That'll be nice to get into a real city, see some of my older (in years of friendship terms) friends, and hang out with some of the new ones. Christmas will just be nice in general. See the family, the friends. Do a little skiing, drive my car, go to Short's, eat at a restaurant, go to a movie. Except it'll go by like nothing. Oh well, it'll be a lot of fun. I think Lane said we're in the 60s for # of days left until I come home.

I really love this place at night. I love it when I'm at the school late or watching a movie at Dorothy's and I have to walk home. It's so quiet, and still. And the lighting gives a really, really nice atmosphere. Almost spooky But I love it. I usually just stop and look around for a few minutes. Maybe having very little sunlight in winter won't be so bad, because it really fantastic here at night time. Anyways...should probably get to some lesson planning done. Hope you guys are enjoying my blog, and hopefully I'll get posts up more frequently. Take care, and God bless!