Coaching the Baby Braves

Last year, I coached high school girls basketball. It was a fun experience getting to work with kids that I don't otherwise see throughout the day, travelling to new villages, and being where I love-on the basketball court. However, this year I decided not to coach high school for various reasons I won't go into here. However, when my principal mentioned the need for a 4-6th grade basketball coach, I jumped at that opportunity.

My early years of basketball are still some of my favorites. I had many coaches between 4th and 8th grade, all of whom molded me into the aggressive, competitive, crazy player I was for 9-12th grade. This experience helped me to decide that elementary coaching really is where I want to be right now.

We started the season with 33 players. Here they play co-ed basketball in elementary and I was at first SUPER overwhelmed by the number of kids. However, I fell back on the drills we used to run when I was a player and practices ran pretty smoothly. Shortly after practices started, I got a list of those students who were eligible to play this season. In high school, eligibility is determined by academic progress, attendance, and behavior. In elementary, eligibility is determined by if the kids get their physicals, attendance, and behavior. About the 3rd week of practice my team was cut down to about 18 players, all based on whether they'd gotten a physical this year.

This size group was much more manageable. We worked a ton on the fundamentals of defense, both zone and man-to-man. We didn't get much ball handling or shooting instruction because we had 3 or 4 basketballs depending on whether they were returned after P.E. classes.

My team got to travel 3 times to 2 different villages. We first went to Kotlik--which I already blogged about. Next, the first of March we traveled to Sheldon's Point or Nunam Iqua. The kids had a great time and made big improvements from the first game played Friday afternoon the last one Saturday just before lunch.

Our downriver tournament was the 3rd weekend of March and we went back to Nunam. We were in a double elimination tournament, and we lost both games. However, we came home with what I believe the be the best award--Sportsmanship.

All three times we traveled, the hosting staff and parents had very nice things to say about Alakanuk students' behavior and respectful attitudes. My team was very polite and respectful and people noticed. I am so extremely proud of them for their awesome behavior!! :)

I am excited for another year of coaching these little kids who are so eager to play, so happy to learn, and so stinking energetic! :)

Not all the kids, but those who traveled for Downriver tournament to Nunam.

Listening hard, or hardly listening?? You decide. :)

Mid-Feb to Mid-March... Potlach, birthday, weekend trips, basketball travel

So, last blog was almost a month ago already! Holy cow. Its funny that my to do list includes: blog potlach, blog elementary ball to Nunam, blog moose cutting, blog birthday, blog MOU trip... I'll just try to combine them all into this one post...

Our school hosted Special Olympics for our district on Thursday the 21st. It was so fun to watch the kids bwling... They asked for staff volunteers to bowl, and you know me... I jumped right in! :) I was bowling next to Jana Mae so of course we were being a bit competitive. Haha. I bowled, strike on the first throw... Of course I turned to Jana with a grin that said, "How'd you do? I beat ya!"Haha. My students loved watching the other kids compete and cheering for them.

Potlach was on February 23rd. I LOVE Potlach. It is so crowded, full of kids, adults and elders enjoying the dancing, each other's company, and the gifts that were passed out. I didn't get many pictures from potlach, but Holly and Culea both did a nice job blogging and adding some pictures, so the links to their blogs are: http://nathanielandhollyrogers.blogspot.com/2013/02/potlatch-eskimo-dance.html and http://mynewyupikhome.blogspot.com/2013/02/potlatch-traditions-of-historic-culture.html. I didn't make it all night this year like I did last year, but I was able to watch my coworker do her first dance and watched a sweet family of kids, 2 of which are on my basketball team, and one who will be in my class next year. During the dancing, I got the joy of holding and cuddling and laughing and playing with lots of little kids. It was an evening of enjoying my new home, laughing my fabulous community, and making many new awesome memories.
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The first weekend of March my elementary basketball team traveled to Nunam Iqua (Sheldon's Point) for the elementary basketball weekend. The kids played LOTS of basketball and I saw huge improvements between the first and last games of the weekend. It was so fun to watch the kids play and visit with their cousins and friends. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the weekend, but it was cool. I don't have any pictures to share either because I guess I just spent toooooo much time coaching. Ha!


Obviously my favorite day of the year is March 5th. Its a great day. This year was my 25th birthday, a corner as Aunt Marge says. I never realized til this year, but Mom turned 50 and Granny Norma 75... Maybe Jinky too? Kind of cool. Anyway, it was a good day... My kids sang to me, some coworkers came in with their classes to sing to me, I had dinner at the cafe and Sarah made me birthday cake. :) Sadly, my 25th birthday marked the end of my "absolutely no added sugar" deal... I'm proud to say I went 6 months without dessert. It sure made me realize that even though the desserts might taste really good, I don't need to eat it every night.

Best wrapping job ever... :) Harry Potter complete series, hard back. :)

Jana's students were rehearsing a "Little Mermaid" version of Happy Birthday for me... This was one of their hats...

New necklace from Sarah...

All in a days work... :)

Jana's awesome birthday card for me. :) So cool and creative!

My Badass Badge... Jana wrote my name on the back,
 as if anyone had any question about who it would belong to...

Hahaha. Apparently I'm not the only thing thats old in my classroom... The date on this I think was early '90s.

 In January, Jana and I were talking about taking a weekend trip to visit some friends. We were going to do a random weekend, but were both too tired to take the 4 hour trip... So we waited until this past weekend. Friday was an inservice day so we loaded up, gassed up, sent texts to let them know we were headed, got batteries in the GPS and said a prayer that we wouldn't get lost. Ha! It took us about 4 hours Friday afternoon in WARM temperatures... I think it was around 37 when we left AUK. We drove through rain and snow. The trail was hard to find in places and slushy/mooshy/bad in other places. But we made it! It was a fabulous weekend of relaxation with some wonderful friends. There was lots of laughter, some ninja training, adults open gym at the school, DELICIOUS food, an EPIC, ABSULT, ridiculous dance party, and lots of great memories. Thanks again Sam, Josh, Jamie, Genise, Kristy, Kyle, and Jana Mae for all the good times! I've got some pictures on facebook, I'll try to get them posted on my blog too.

This week has been a week of playing catch up... Its also the last week of elementary basketball. Its sad to see the season ending, but I am also excited to have more time to devote to my classroom and my ski doo! :) We are currently sitting in Nunam for the Down River tournament. We have a few hours until gametime, and my kids are excited, but getting super tired of sitting and waiting. We were supposed to play almost 2 hours ago, but the charters are behind so teams were missing starting members... Sort of reminds me of that trip in FFA when Mr. P was driving the mini bus and the tire blew... Haha! Just one of those circumstances that you just go with the flow, right?! :)

Oh, I almost forgot to mention.... Contracts are due tomorrow. Its sad that a few of my really close friends in my village as well as others in my district are leaving. It will be interesting to see who replaces, I am super excited for the new year and what exciting changes might happen. Yes, that means that I'm back for another year or ten... Ha! I love it. All the negatives pale in comparison to the wonderful people in my community, the adorable and sweet students I teach and work with K-12, and the fabulous adventures I have around here. :)

Thats a lot of talk and not much for pictures, sorry. I'll try to post better throughout the last 9 weeks of school.

Moose Hunting Video--preview!

Elementary Basketball travel to Kotlik

2 weekends ago I took 10 4-6th graders to Kotlik for some basketball games. It was so fun to see their excitement for travelling, but let me tell you, they're a ton more work than the high school girls.

Last year, my high schoolers would play their hearts out, hang out with friends but when I said lights out at midnight, they'd be super ready for bed... These kids-PHEW! I don't even know... Lights out at midnight meant fall asleep by 4 AM... UGH!! But all in all, we had a good time, won a game and made it home safely without being weathered in...

Here are a few pictures. I always love seeing the pictures the kids take when I give them my camera...

Isn't this how ALL coaches coach? ;)

Watching friends from other villages play ball.

Which coach over the years did I learn this from? Hmm... Uncle Ban? Luann? Kelly? Shelly? Marty? Tracey? Jim? Jon? Brian? Oh, wait that isn't a coaching face? Thats just Sammy being sassy... Oh, I see. Okay.

These kids make me laugh all day.

A-U-K BRAVES!

A little bit of action...

I'm not sure if this was just out of boredom or if they were making a curtain... I love it.

Kotlik has cable in their school so we watched some Disney channel between games and meals and such. :)

100th Day of School!

So last Tuesday was our 100th day of school... We spent the afternoon counting cereal, popcorn seeds, and used our 100 chart to count by 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s, 20s, and 25s.

We were super interested in watching the popcorn pop in the air popper...

We're clearly CRAZY about the 100th day of school!

Putting our cereal in ten piles of 10. 

Here are a few pictures of my kiddos loving our 100th day of school celebration!

Techie treats

Many of you have been very supportive and generous in my educational endeavors. Since the beginning of time (March 5, 1988) you've been there as a support-both emotionally and financially-for me and from the bottom of my heart, I thank you!


My most current big project has been to get iPod touches for every student in my classroom... I've managed to secure funding for 9 through the Donors Choose website, purchased 2 because I found a killer deal, and currently have another Donors Choose project for the final 3 to complete my class set for this school year. The whole point of this project is to put every minute of the school day to use as a learning moment. In a traditional classroom, throughout the day there are anywhere from 1-20 minutes essentially lost. These may be minutes when one student has finished early, has no other work to finish, but not enough time to go choose a "fast-finisher" activity. These could be the minute or two when the whole group finishes early and the teacher has students pick up garbage before lining up or transitioning to the next activity. The intent is for these ipods to be ready to use with educational games to practice reading and math skills that are also entertaining and engaging. Here is a link to my Donors Choose project, go check it out. www.donorschoose.org/scarlon

Kind of fun to watch them all light up and start charging at the same time. :)

Anyway... So here I am with all these iPods and so many possibilities! However, I was struggling to manage the apps on them, keep them charged, etc. It was very time consuming, but well worth it. After discussion with my friend Sam (the guy who inspired this project, and our awesome Ed. Tech. coordinator) he shows up with a big white box that has the capability to sync and charge 20 iPods at a time. How freaking lucky am I to not only work with such awesome people, but to have access to tools that make my job and life easier! Sam spend quite a bit of time helping me to set up my 9 iPods and showed me what to do for the next batch of them that come in. Thanks so much Sam for your help and your inspiration for this project.

Sam turning on the parasync unit. 9 iPods beeped and
started charging simulatenously.

I'm Goin' on a Moose Hunt!

So, many of you know that since I've been an Alaska resident for year in August, I was SUPER DUPER excited to go kill a moose. It seems strange, even to me, that I was so stoked because I've never shot any game while still living in Oregon. I suppose you can credit my eagerness of shooting a moose to my new Alaskan spirit, or perhaps I wanted to be the coolest niece/cousin in the eyes of some family members, or perhaps I just never took the time to go deer or elk hunting with Uncle Goonie. At any rate, I was stoked.

This fall my friend Bummer was kind enough to take me out by boat a few times to look for moose. We saw a few, but none that I really got excited about shooting at. I must admit that I was a little nervous about being a terrible shot and missing the moose completely. The fall hunting season was here and gone in no time. It was a fabulous experience going out and seeing so much country from the front of the boat. I enjoyed many good laughs with some seriously fabulous people. I had sore muscles from the excitement of hunting/the long days bouncing on the water/the chilliness when it rained and we got soaked to the bone. It was my first day of hunting that I gave myself the nickname BA. We were sitting on the bank somewhere eating a snack around dinner time and Mary (Bummer's mom) was mentioning to her sons about someone they know who'd recently changed his last name. Well, I was in a bit of a sassy mood (shocker, I know!) and I say, "Oh! Did you guys know I recently changed my last name too? I changed it from Carlon to BA." From that point on, I was nicknamed. I am okay it it, because I really am pretty awesome--and obviously very modest too.

It was disappointing when October rolled around and I still hadn't shot my Bullwinkle. The river was starting to freeze up... I was super busy with teaching and coaching... And my guide, Bummer, moved to ANC. But I decided that it was all going to be good... I would have PLENTY of time after the snow fell to shoot my monster moose. Well, as things go, before I knew it I was on a plane south to Oregon, still with no moose to call my own first catch.

After break I kept telling a few sweet kids to have their dad call me so we could go moose hunting. I'd occasionally see Greg at the store, the PO, school or around town and I'd ask him when he wanted to go. It seemed as if we could never really get our schedules to match up well. FINALLY I saw him and he said make sure you've got a full tank of gas, lets go on Sunday.

February 3rd was a big day... For most of the country, people were stocking the fridges with beer, the coffee tables with snacks, and gearing up in their preferred team's fan gear. But not this girl, oh no. I was ready for some adventure. I geared up, grabbed my guns, warmed up my machine and set out with Jana to wait for Greg to come along. While we were waiting, we met up with another friend. He took us a bit by the river and we spotted a moose. Jana shot and missed. Moona shot and hit it once, then missed but the moose wasn't down. So I aimed and dropped that beast in one shot. I was so proud of myself at that moment and all I could this is, "Man, Uncle Clint and Uncle Goonie are gonna be so proud of me." We cruised over toward the moose and since Moona hit it first, it was his moose. Greg showed up. I helped him and Willie cut the moose up while Jana got some awesome video and Moona ran home to get his sled.

Moona's moose...

After Moona got back, Greg and Willie took off with Jana and I following closely behind. We were on the hunt for a moose. Going into the day, I prayed for a safe but fun day out on my machine. I prayed that both Jana and I would be happy with whatever outcome of the day. I told myself that if Jana caught her moose and I came home empty handed, I would be happy for her and I hoped that she would be if the tables were turned. (Funny that we were discussing this at midnight after we'd caught our moose and she'd had a very similar prayer and thought that morning too...)

After a while, we split into 2 pairs. Greg and Jana went one direction while I followed Willie (he had his wife Juanita with him too) in a different direction. I don't know much of what Jana and Greg saw, but we didn't see much for quite a while... All of a sudden we came through a big flat and stopped, off about 150 yards away was a big old moose. We stopped and I aimed. I shot high... First thought, "Well, glad I had a good shot earlier today, but thats probably my only good shot today." While I was aiming a second time I realized I was out of ammo... Rookie mistake! In the process of reloading my gun, my moose took off. Soon I heard 2 shots. I looked at Willie and all I could think was, "Holy crap, I don't know which way those shots are coming from or headed." As it turns out, it was just Jana and Greg around the way a bit. So, we cruised over toward them and found out Jana had just shot her moose but that the mama moose was hanging around and they were waiting to see if she'd clear out. We waited a bit longer and then walked into Jana's moose. The snow was pretty deep and the moose was in the "trees."

Jana and her moose! She shot it with a Tikka 30-06.

Thats some pretty good shooting to hit the little willow branch too! :)

 While we were in taking pictures and getting the sled into Jana's moose, little Greg hollered that there was another moose. Greg Sr., Willie and I took off toward the machines where little Greg was sitting. Turns out this was the momma and she'd soon have the same fate as her calf had. I took a few shots at her, knocked her down. I started walking toward her, but to the side too because I was a bit freaked out that she'd jump up and charge me... She was down after I think maybe 4 or 5 shots... So I was walking toward her and the snow was getting to be more of a hassle to get through. Greg was on my machine with Jana on behind him. He cruised over by my moose with Willie following on Jana's machine. Willie picked me up and we drove over to my beast. I shot another shot out of my gun and the moose was still thrashing around. I was out again, so I shot a round out of Jana's gun and she finally quit moving. Willie put 2 kill shots into her head with my .44 mag pistol and she was finally done for. At this point I exchanged a few high fives, squeals of excitement, and congratulations with Jana, Greg Sr. and Willie.

A blurry picture of me and my moose... She was a big, fat cow. Literally.
I shot her with my Remington Model 94 30-30. 

 This is when the work really set in. Willie and I got to work gutting and quartering my moose while Jana and Greg went to get Jana's taken care of. It soon was getting dark, but we quickly and effeciently got our moose in the sled and were ready to head home. It was quite the ordeal getting back to the house... The sled was so heavy that Greg had a hard time not getting stuck. We had to form a line of machines to pack the snow down enough for him that we'd make it where we needed to go. I was the caboose in our ski doo train.


We got back to our house about 10:30 Sunday night... We were giddy and giggly and ridiculous. We called some special friends and of course our daddys to let them know what we'd accomplished. We also recorded the story on video to include in our upcoming documentary of moose hunting with Sammy and Jana. :)

Here are a few pictures of the day... It truly was a perfect day to go riding/hunting. I'll post another blog soon with pictures of cleaning up and delivering the moose.

Two of my favorite toys... Both have been good to me.

Playing around waiting for our friends... Beautiful day. This is Jana... Sort of reminds me of the Tall Man in Lakeview.

Couldn't have asked for a better day... It was the the teens, beautiful sky, warm sun on my face...

Ready to rock and roll!

Printing hunting licenses at the last minute? Yes, yes we were...

At the end of the night... My 30-30 on my right side, Jana's 22 on my left side. Her 30-06 across my lap and my .44 on my chest. I was ready to get anything that came my way... :)