We got funding for another year!

Hi.  I haven't really ever written details on this blog about my plans or the status of my employment/service.  Mostly because the majority of readers is family and they know my plans, but now it seems there are no readers so I can just talk about whatever.  SAGA is the umbrella organization for lots of non-profit programs including YABAH, which I have been apart of for 10 months now.  SAGA has decided to let YABAH go as they felt it was not in the best interest of their organization to oversee the continuation of YABAH.  Since then, the director of our program, Karen, has applied for grants independent of any host organizations.  She received notice this week that the grant has been approved!  Details will need to be worked out, but this means I will doing whatever I can to help make another year and another house completed.

On another note, I've been looking into my adventurous departure from Alaska along with a project that will begin hopefully in March.  I will not give you any details, but I will show you what books I have recently purchased.  :)

The House

The house is coming along nicely.  We're nearly finished with the decks.  They're looking pretty sweet.  We're also nearly finished with the siding.  After that, we will move on inside and do the tongue-and-groove pine ceiling, cabinets, and flooring.

These are the pump jacks that we use to work a whole side of the house. They are much easier than using scaffolding that you have to move back and forth and watch out for the soffit when moving it.  All you have to do is set them in place, anchor them to the roof and then stand on the plank and pump up with your foot.

These are two pictures of the deck.  As you can see, it wraps all the way around to a door coming out of the garage.

A hike through the snow

Today, Ben and I went for a nice hike up Gavan hill.  I purchased some snow shoes last week and told Ben I wanted to go hiking with him through some snow.  Today, we left about 10 o'clock and made it to our destination around 1 pm.  There's no real defined peak of Gavan hill, it's a much different formation than the surrounding mountains.  However, it was quite a hike to get to the top and there was a lot of snow.  I loved the snow shoes.  They were lots of fun and made it quite easy to stride through the fluffy snow.

Ben and I started talking about how good a burger sounded on the way down.  I picked up some ground beef on the way home.  I grilled some onions, mushrooms and the burger with a little Worcestershire sauce, broiled the buns, added some Tillamook Monterey Jack cheese and voilà!  It was delicious!

The city of Sitka down belowMt. Edgecumb on the leftSelf-portrait

I drew where I work on SketchUp

It should be in Google Earth soon.

Photos from this weekend

It's four o'clock right now and it's pretty dark outside.  This weekend was a pretty busy one.  YABAH had a spot in the Alaska Native Heritage day parade.  When we met up for the parade everyone agreed it would be best to drive the van instead of walk in the snowy/rainy weather.  We tied our banner to the side of the van and I drove it from one end of Lincoln St. to the other.  Lincoln St. is the street that runs right through downtown.  It starts at Totem park, near the Sheldon Jackson College, and ends close to the bridge.
After the parade there were continued festivities in the Alaska Native Brotherhood Hall.  There were Tlingit dancers with their extravagant robes, and other dancers from the far corners of Alaska.

A short blog! Maybe...

I had written out this long blog about how this "adventure" blog just turned into my "life" blog and that a life blog is harder for me to share... but then I realized I'm in Alaska and I need to toughen up and blog.  :)  Haha.

Let's see... where did I leave off?  Well, you may know that when I got here, it was arranged that I'd live in the dormitories of a dormant school.  During the summer, I was notified that the dormitories were going to be closed and we were all going to be evicted.  Fun.  Actually, it turned out to be a really good thing.

I've been attending Sitka Lutheran church. In September, I became the organist when the piano player left to attend university in Oregon. I said I'd do it for free since I came up to be a volunteer anyway. A couple members of the church suggested that since I'm a volunteer and I need a place to live, I could just live in the apartment that's dedicated to the church's summer volunteers. Plus, they said I could use the volunteer car! Things worked out nicely.

A couple weeks ago, I ran a 10k. Since then, it has been snowing and I haven't ran. I'm still riding my bike often, however.


I'll now post some pictures.  Have a good day!

Our race went down the road, nearly to the base of Bear Mountain.

We started at Whale Park.

This is right by where I live now.

Working on the house

We had a very rainy week and some of us were working on the roof all week.  We built the hip and valley of the intersecting roofs, then we applied the plywood sheathing, and last we laid the roofing felt paper.  Friday was the day we finished the felt paper and it was a gorgeous day.  The participants get Friday afternoons off so there were just a few of us that finished up the felt paper on that gorgeous afternoon.

These three peaks are known as the sisters

  There are also 3 sisters on the Dingle Peninsula in IrelandThey got snow this weekMe being sillyMary (another SAGA employee) was visiting from JuneauBen making his important phone calls