Its been 2 months since I've posted.... Phew!!! I'm not so good at this whole blogging thing. January seemed to whiz by. I stayed plenty busy between coaching and teaching first grade and after school program. It was the first of February before I knew it.
In January we traveled first to Kotlik for a weekend of games. We only had 6 eligible players, but they worked hard and won one out of three games against Kotlik and Scammon.
Emo is the rival here, much like North Lake and Paisley are rivals. There are many people who are good friends, even some family (up here EVERYONE is related), but when it come to basketball they're serious. The first night in Chevak we played Emo and lost by 3 points. The girls weren't used to Emo's aggressive playing. As they were settling down for the evening I heard talk of revenge and working harder to beat them in the morning. We played them again and the girls were awesome. We beat Emo by 7 in overtime.
The first weekend in February we held home basketball games. We hosted Mountain Village, Kotlik and Emmonak. The girls had an awesome time playing their hearts out in front of their friends and family. I never realized how important those home crowds were when I was playing ball, but the girls sure played at a different level for their home crowd.
After the home games, I got really frustrated. Of the 11 girls on my team prior to home games, only 2 or 3 came to practice the week after those games. Holy moly, Batman! At the end of that week we had a conversation and 6 girls signed a contract saying they wouldn't miss any more practices unexcused.
That weekend we went to Emo for a visit to Marta and Cody and to watch Emo's potlach. The following Monday I was back down to 4 girls at practice. Holy anger happening. So we're at 5 or maybe 6 because a few were gone for being sick and not coming to school.
This weekend was our home Potlach. Friday was a vacation day for our school because of Potlach. So Jana and I took off toward Emo to play a little bit and meet up with Sam and Joshua and Marta and Cody for dinner. ON the way back to AUK for Potlach we stopped along the bank of the river and shot the 44 mag. So fun... Videos will be posted when Jana gets home and I steal them from her. :) We made it home about 9 and headed to Potlach. We watched many friends do their first dance and laughed with some natives until 2:30 in the morning. By that time we were STARVING!!! So we came home and made tacos. Then it was time for Jana to start packing--she had to leave at 9 in the morning, so packing began about 3:30. I helped her iron and pack and the joint effort stopped around 5. At that point we had a short discussion on the perks of whether to sleep or just stay up for the remaining 3 hours until we'd be getting up anyway... We stayed up.
That night was complete and total ridiculousness. The 4 hours between finishing packing and her leaving for the plane we got lots done... By lots I mean lots of laughing and ridiculousness... We had a nerf gun war, taught ourselves how to juggle with a youtube video, talk and laughed at the dumb things we were saying because we were so delirious. At 7:30 we might have been having second thoughts about not going to sleep, but we survived the ordeal. And I'm currently working on a video of my life in Alaska, so more clips from the ridiculousness of Friday night will be added.
Yesterday, the day I started this post, I went to Nunam to pick up a friend, Brittnay. Prior to leaving I really thought "maybe I should find someone who knows how to get there to show me the way." But then I figured, "I have my GPS and it can't be that hard... There is a trail and lots of people came over for Potlach last night, it'll be okay." So off I went... And boy oh boy was I lost....
But since I had my GPS and my brain turned on, I was able to find my way to Nunam okay. :) Picked Britt up, headed to AUK to get gas then off to Emo to say hi to Sam and Joshua and Marta and Cody. Seems like there was a bit of a trend this week. haha!! We came back to AUK and surprised Michael and Sarah with Brittnay's presence... Had an eventful night of karaoke and playing cards. It was a great little break.
Today is a lazy day... Laundry, taking my friend's dog for a walk, making sure I am ready for work to start again tomorrow. :) Haha.
Now that I'm caught up to date I will put it on my weekly to do list so I remember to post occassionally. :) Hope you are all well.
XOXO
Sammy Jo
No comments:
Post a Comment