Not a good week!

This has been the weirdest week. Stressful and yet some things went so much smoother than I thought they would. First, DH was in an accident early in the week. He stopped a little hard when a light turned yellow and the gal behind him thought he would just blow through it. (So many here think yellow means to speed up. Arrrgh!) The rear of his car is crunched just enough to need fixed, but amazingly, the tail lights still work. After some brief concern about possible whiplash, DH seems to be fine though.

The story doesn't end there though. You see, the other driver left the scene, called the police and reported she had been in an accident and that supposedly DH left the scene, and is uninsured. Well, thankfully there were witnesses that gave the police her plate number as being the runner in the Hit and Run, plus DH waited until the officer arrived proving he hadn't fled. And to top it all off, she works for the Department of Public Safety (State Troopers) just like DH. All in all, that girl is in a world of hurt as she was arrested (but not held) and could still end up loosing her job.

After all that excitement, DH had to take a work trip to Juneau. This is where life was good. The kids were well behaved and the days flew by. We had school and Aikido to keep us busy. I sure wish I could get some photos of the boys at Aikido to share.

Then yesterday, the landlord replaced our furnace. It took 12 hours with no heat and limited hot water after they had to disconnect the water heater too. I was pleased the house didn't drop too low, but it was cold even as the kids went to bed. At least we came out the other end with a safe furnace that will hopefully be a little more fuel efficient.

Another Field Trip

We are having field trips galore this month. Our latest was a trip to the Alaska Native Heritage Center. This is a wonderful place with lots of fun things to do, and going as a school group really makes it worthwhile. We had the center to ourselves and they provided wonderful activities. We watched a movie about Raven the Creator, danced and made bead necklaces. Then we had a quick tour of the houses that our native ancestors lived in. (Personally, I wish we had spent more time on that part of the tour, but it was lunch time by then.) Although the picture is not great, you can see some of the dancing. The first dance is "Build an Igloo" and the second is "Raven the Protector". Enjoy the video and don't forget to turn on your sound:

Outing!

For weeks now, we have tried to make a trip to the Anchorage Museum. First, there was a child sick, then Daddy was sick, then there were conflicting obligations. But on Friday, we finally made it. There has been a very nice exhibit on Mammoths and Mastodons since some time last spring. They leave after the coming weekend. When the boys worked very hard writing a Compare/Contrast paper about these creatures and elephants, I wanted to reward them with a visit. It turned into quite the day.

We started with a trip to the Library, where we gathered our reading material for the next few weeks. This was followed by a stop at the park right behind the library where the ducks gather. We fed the ducks and then watched them play as we ate our own lunch.

When we were done eating we headed off to the museum. Most of my pictures didn't turn out because you are not allowed to use the flash. This one,
the flash accidentally reactivated. That is just the rear thigh bone and it's one of the smaller species at that. Once we were through this exhibit (which we went around at least twice), we proceeded downstairs to the Arctic Studies exhibit, on loan from the Smithsonian. This was more interesting for Daddy and I, but there were some things the kids enjoyed viewing. We also stopped by the Anchorage history exhibit. The kids liked this more than the arctic studies, especially since they have full sized boats and replicas of different housing.

By the time we were through this we were almost ready to go home, but to leave we walked through a couple of art exhibits where I took this one photo of a sculpture that was really fascinating. Seen live, the mittens looked as though they hung in mid-air. You really had to look hard to see the filaments that hung from the ceiling! Well done to the artist who created this wonder.