Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Hello everyone,

There is not too much new here. We successfully finished our report cards and had our first set of parent teacher interviews. I will admit I was a little nervous, but everything turned out alright. I can now officially say Report Cards are not my favourite part of the job. They are a lot of work and are very time consuming.

Over the past few weeks there has been a lot of snow and been very cold. In the low spots the snow is about a foot, in other areas it is up to my knees. Greg and I love all our snow gear. It keeps us so warm. Our snowpants are amazing. They are really light weight but they keep us so warm. I am able to keep really warm with all my snow gear on. A lot of people always comment on how I bundle up. Then they comment about what I am going to look like in January and February when it gets really cold.

The Christmas festivities have definitely begun around here. The Northern is all decked out and slowly the school is getting decorated. I am sure we will see a ton of decorations go up this week. Next Friday is the Christmas Parade. The school staff split into two teams and decorate a float (a bus) and drive around town to give out candy (we get a whole day off school for this event). This year the male and female staff are competing against each other. I will post pictures after the parade of our floats.

There are only 19 more days until we come home (12 more teaching days). Please pray that the weather cooperates so that we are able to fly out on Dec. 16th. I am so excited to come home that if we don't fly out on that day I am going to be really disappointed.

Can't wait to see everyone, and join in the holiday festivities at home.

Greg and I on the ice on Saturday morning.

Greg standing on the little lake. The outer edges are frozen but you can see that the middle is not frozen yet.

Cold Weather (And that's saying something)

So, an update of this week and the happenings of Deer Lake. On Monday, report cards are due, so we have been extremely busy this week writing comments and preparing grades. On top of this, Julia has been away, so the students have been a little off, in terms of behaviour. We have actually handled the week pretty well, with regards to the stress. On Tuesday, Claire was feeling a little stressed so we went for a walk at 9:30. It was really nice outside. It was snowing but with no wind, making it a beautiful night. We still haven't seen the northern lights, but apparently the upcoming months is the time to see them. During our walk we put on all our winter gear to see how it will work and we were quite warm. Our snow pants are amazing and the other gear has been good. Special thanks to Lori Thwaites for gearing us up at home.

The weather has drastically changed. The temperature today was -21 Celsius. Quite cold. There isn't a lot of snow right now, maybe 4 inches or so. Apparently, this time last year the lake was already frozen and there was three feet of snow. The wind rips through your clothes and chills in a matter of seconds. The students are still wearing sweaters and pants, no hats or mitts. Most have coughs and attendance has dipped down. Not surprising.

We have been trying to order satellite because the cable has been somewhat disappointing and expensive. We can actually save money and get over 100 more channels by buying it. So we ordered it online and received an email saying a P.O. Box isn't enough of an address to set up the satellite. I emailed him back explaining our unique circumstances and that a P.O. Box is all we have. He still replied that every house has to have a number. I then decided to phone someone at get this dealt with. After holding for 14 minutes, I had a debate regarding that every house has to have a number. In Deer Lake there are trailers that were used by construction workers building the new school five years ago. They have now been turned into homes. As well, people build shacks or sheds with whatever materials they find or can buy and build a home. Some houses in Deer Lake have numbers, but we figure this is just for them.

After talking to R.J., Julia's husband and director of education, said to make some address up. So for those of you following along at home, according to Shaw Direct, our new address is Unit #3 Teacherage, Duck Lane, Deer Lake, ON.

Update

So we figured we should provide an update, as it has been some time since the last time. This week we booked our flights home for Christmas. Exciting! It seems more real now that there is a way booked home. We have been warned that our flights are tentative as it depends on the weather. Speaking to another teacher, she is a Native from Kenora and has been in Deer Lake for five years, she informed us that twice she was delayed, one for later in the afternoon and the other for the next day. It will be disappointing to miss our flight, but we are prepared (me a little more than Claire, actually nix that A LOT more than Claire).

We did have an answer to prayer this week. Claire has been feeling really anxious lately, about school and the students and doubting her ability and impact on the students. Being away from our families also did not help her. On Wednesday we had a staff meeting and afterwards, back at our place, Claire had a huge breakdown. During this time, Claire prayed for help. Not 15 minutes there was a knock at the door and it was Julia, our principal. She came in and stayed for over an hour, chatting and providing background stories. There was no reason for her to come and has never done this before. What an answer to prayer!

The week has flown as it is a short week. In lieu of Remembrance Day, our school has tomorrow off. We have report cards to complete and midterms to write for the grade 9s. As well, the Mission Air guy was unable to come last night, so he is flying in tomorrow afternoon. Every payday a man comes in with a ton of groceries and food he sells. The prices are steep, comparible to the Northern, but are fresh. One thing he brings in is fast food. You can buy a Big Mac from MacDonalds for $10. A bucket of 10 piece chicken from KFC for $40 or a Little Ceaser's pizza for $10. You can also fax and order in before an he will bring in anything you want. This week we ordered a head of Broccoli to eat. The Northern has them, but they are pretty disgusting. The tops are already brown.

We are getting pretty excited for Christmas and the new experiences Deer Lake has to offer. We found out that the community has a Christmas parade where the school dresses up two busses and goes through the community handing out candy and food baskets to the elders in the community. The school also puts on a formal dinner and concert for the community. We are looking forward to experiencing their traditions and events involving the community. Last week there was a feast put on by Tikanagon, the child services of the North. We found out some awful truths there about the situation with foster children and the harsh reality of how it works. As an example, there is someone from the community who fosters children and was given a baby boy to look after for a while. She was given his boy, born in another community, and does not know his name, birthdate and any other personal information. All she knows is that for the time being she is to look after this boy. Pretty sad.

All in all our stay here has still been good and we have learned so much. We continue to look forward to the things we have yet to learn.

Field Trip to the Dam

Today I took my students on a Visual Arts field trip. The objective of this field trip was for the students to sketch a landscape. They will later have to take this landscape and transfer it into an oil painting. I am really excited to see how their paintings turn out. We went to the Dam and the students had an hour to sketch various landscapes. I really wanted them to paint a piece of their home. The bus ride was about 15 minutes long. The roads are very bumpy due to potholes, so needless to say it was not a smooth ride.

My grade 9 class with me. These are a great bunch of kids.