Mural...

here is a link to my sister-in-law's blog, "deKay dreams". i did some paintings at her house in my nieces room and she took some pictures and posted all about it. i need to make sure i get over there and take some pics as well! :)

official substitute teacher...

I'm a substitute teacher! Because of the holidays it took a little while to push all of my paperwork through the proper channels. I had a training class last week and then my first job on monday. I got to be a music teacher at an elementary school. we didn't actually sing anything. the teacher had left a movie to watch, so that's what we did. then today school was cancelled because the weather decided to warm up and rain on us. so that turned the whole road system into a massive ice skating rink. when shawn drove to work this morning he said that he saw a bus sideways, i'm assuming off the freeway. not that safe at all. so i stayed home today and did things around the house and prepare a few lessons for school. i'll get to actually teach someday! :)

cccolddddd.....!!!

it's been freezing up here!! we've been dealing with -10* to -20*F this week and last week. way too cold! i really miss the warm sunshine. so yesterday i went out to start my car (after not running it for two days) and it would not start. luckily a friend was nearby and came over to jump me but the car would still not start. and then my extension cord was way too short to actually reach the car to plug it in. for the past few days shawn has been ultra worried and so has been running his car every night for a bit because his car doesn't have a plug. so the moral of this story is to listen to your husband! don't be so over confident next time. :)

me and shawn went out to go ice skating on friday but after we were outside for 20 minutes our faces were frozen so we decided not to go. on saturday we were more prepared and took lots and lots of gear and went hiking so that i could go and take pictures. the following pics are a summary of my last week:

this is at the end of our hike on saturday. we were outside for several hours (i'm not sure how long). i wanted to see how big the ice chunks on my eyelashes would get so i resisted the urge to clean the ice off. it was getting so bad that everytime i blinked my eyelashes would stick together so that it was a pain to get my eye all the way open again.

here's a pic of shawn and our new puppy, denali. she's really a great dog and listens and is very calm. she's only about 3 months old or thereabouts.

this is a pic from the trail that we were walking down. beautiful! you might have to click on the picture to get the full effect, so that you'll see it bigger.

this is from friday. me and shawn drove out to ship creek, which is the corner of anchorage that touches the ocean, where they have all the cargo shipped to and from anchorage. it's also right next to the train station. this tree stood out incredibly well. the frost all over the tree contrasted so starkly to the blue sky.

my mother does a lot with the cub scouts and last week she had her neighbors come down to take some of the boys and their families dog sledding. it was incredibly cold so the turnout was low and those that did stay didn't stay long. i showed up because i could :) and i really wanted to try my hand at mushing. hehe! all the kids got to go by themselves on a quarter mile loop with one dog pulling them and the adults got two dogs. we did have a couple of people that fell off but the snow is a nice cushion. this pic is of my mom coming in at the end of the loop.

this pic is from the day after christmas when my whole family went to my brother-in-laws family cabin. these trees look like they're topped with marshmellow cream. :)

this is a view of the sleeping lady (mountain on the top of the pic) from ship creek.

here is another pic from our hike on saturday.