Battle of the Books 2010

My team just finished up this years Battle of the Books. This year's team work really hard. We meet at least once a week during lunch to study and they meet on their own.

I decided to take the role of coach a little bit more seriously. Here's what they had to do when

they missed questions

.

On the 26th of January we competed in the district battle. They did very well and beat the 2nd place team by over 30 points. Since the total points possible was 128, that was a pretty big win.

Here's a picture of the team during the battle. Popcorn was a favorite treat during the competition.

Celebrating the Win.

Showing off the medals they received.

Posing with their district trophy.

We made it to the state competition. They made it all the way to the second round of the tournament where they took 10th place. Here's a picture of them in the sate battle.

Sun Again!

Once again it's that time of year. The sun choose to show it's face over the horizon. We had a teacher inservice planned for Saturday during that time. Luckily, even the administrators realized what an important day it was and allowed us to have an extra long lunch so we could go out and see it. Fred, R.J., and I drove out to a spot where we could get a good view of it.

Fish Bowl

Have you ever felt like you were in a fish bowl and that a lot of people were staring and watching you. Well, I had that experience this week at work. I received an e-mail on Monday telling me that about fifteen administrators from across the district would be in my room on Wednesday afternoon to observe. What they were there to observe I wasn't told, and I still don't know. They came in right before my last class started on Wednesday. Since that's one of my small classes, there were more administrators in the room than students. I have to admit that I was quite nervous about it. It's really hard to act normal and natural when there are a lot of people watching you when you don't know why. I even had a couple students comment that they were nervous too. One students said out loud in front of all of them, "I can't work with all these people in here." The good thing is, that I couldn't have picked a better day for them to come observe. I had the students working on a survey project and acted great. It looked like a perfect assignment. The students were applying math into a real life situation, they were graphing, calculating , and even writing about their discoveries. What's weird is even now I have no clue why they were there. I haven't heard a thing back from anyone. I guess I couldn't have done too bad or I would have heard for sure.

Shoveling Job

I haven't been using the front door to the building where I live this week and everyone else in my section of the building has been out of town since the start of the week. So, Thursday after the Thanksgiving dinner at the church this is what I saw when I was dropped off. I have to admit I was a little surprised at how deep it was. There was noway in. Luckily I have another door around the corner that wasn't blocked. I only had to wade through thigh deep snow to get to it. But, on the bright side, I was able to open it.

So, this morning I got up and shoveled. First, I shoveled out a path from the door I was able to get in. Then I went around and tackled this entrance.

The snow was almost as deep as the shovel was tall.

Finally, about an hour later, my door was accessible. Yeah! I didn't even feel bad about skipping my run today.

By the way, these pictures were all taken around noon. You can tell there's not much light left here.

Stake Visitors/Busy Weekend

Last Saturday and Sunday we had a bunch of visitors from the stake up here. The Stake Relief Society President, the Stake Primary President, the 2nd counselor in the Stake Presidency and the counselors wife were all here. I ended up with a pretty busy weekend. I picked them all up at the airport, and then had a presidency meeting with my counselors and Sister Wappett, the Relief Society President. We all had lunch, which I had prepared that morning. Then Sister Wappett and I went and visited some sisters. After that, I went home and made treats for the sisters meeting that we had Saturday night while Sister Wappett was helping with a Primary activity. Then all the stake visitors, my counselors, and the Branch President's wife all went out to dinner. (The Branch President was conviently out of town.) From there, we went

to the branch house for the meeting.

Sunday was full too. I picked up Sister Wappett and Sister Burkholtz, the Primary President, and took them to church. In church both of them spoke and the 2nd counselor put in a new counselor in the Branch Presidency. Following church we had a potluck. After the potluck, while there was still a little light, I took Sister Wappett and Sister Burkholtz out to take some pictures of Barrow. We took pictures at the standard tourist spots and of some ice fishermen we saw. Then I went visiting with Sister Wappett again. Then I sent them off. It was a packed, but enjoyable weekend.

Here are some pictures from the weekend. From their expressions & what they are wearing, you can tell it's a normal Barrow winter up here.

Sister Burkholtz & Sister Wappett at a traditional picture spot.

In the background you can see the ocean and the pack ice that has moved in for the winter.

Ice Fishermen & Women

Halloween

Even up here in the middle of nowhere, Halloween is a big deal for kids. Even some high school students still dress up. We adults celebrate the holiday too. On Halloween I went over to Brandi's house for some a night of Halloween treats and scary movies. All the girls in attendance dressed up, but none of the guys did. (I'm just glad I had the costume left over from our John Wayne party last year.) Here's a picture of me, Brandi, & Fred.

Fight

I'm sure it wouldn't surprise anyone to hear that there was a fight at the high school last Thursday. After all, it's a high school. Those things do tend to happen. As usual, two guys got a little over excited about something. They sent each other some nasty e-mails early in the morning. Later during lunch they ran into each other, traded insults, and ended up in a loud shouting match that was broken up the the Principal and Vice-Principal before it came to blows. They were both hauled into the office were they were lectured and one was sent home for the rest of the day. I'm sure you all witnessed that in school. No big deal right?

Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that the two guys involved were teachers.