Santaland Diaries

We've been having a wonderful visit with family and friends. In honor of the holiday, I'm sharing one of my favorite Sedaris stories... "Santaland Diaries" from Holidays on Ice. Enjoy! (I'm not totally sure it's kid appropriate, though.)

Cool Travel Pictures

This is taken outside of Anchorage and was a runner up in the Frommer's Photo Contest for travel pictures. The article has all the cool pictures.

Don't Forget the Truck

Wreaths? Santa hats? Nativity scenes? Yesterday I caught this funny NPR segment about trimming the truck, as well as the Christmas tree. (You can read it too, but it's funnier to hear it.)

Heading Home

I'm heading home tonight. John's already there-- in the much warmer weather. I'm excited to see my family, friends, and home! I won't be back to Alaska until 2011... how crazy! Both John and I are so happy to spend the holidays with our families, but are sad to leave Nelson and Hayden in Anchorage--no matter how good the caretakers :)

7 below

My new cold weather record is 7 below... this was the temperature when we left just after 7am this morning. (We left early to go to breakfast at Snow City Cafe. Judd kindly treated us as his hosts. What a nice surprise!)

MOOSE

I forgot my cell phone at home today. When I ran home to get it, I drove right past a moose. It was right there on the sidewalk! Here are a couple of pictures. I took them from the car and you can see just how close I was :) It was pretty neat.

P.S. on Root Beer Floats

If I had purchased root beer float ingredients the night before I needed them AND I was in Arizona, I'd leave the soda in the car and take the ice cream inside.

Last night, I left the ice cream in the car... and took the soda inside. Quite a unique experience.


Also, this semester I had an APU student who did his practicum in my classroom. He brought presents to me and the class today. He gave me an Alaska mug and the class got a new electric pencil sharpener and mechanical pencils. My, my-- that was the *perfect* gift for the kids. It was generous and appreciated.

Root Beer Floats and A Fairbanks Clerk Named Judd (sung to the tune of the 12 Days of Christmas)

Today is the kids' last day of school before break. My students have worked really hard with their behavior to earn 3 puzzles. We've decided to combine the puzzle prizes-- root beer floats, movie, and holiday party-- in order to have a whole day of festivities. My kids and I are very excited.

The Fairbanks and Juneau clerks are also in town. We're hosting Judd at our house. He's here from Fairbanks and says that, after 40 below 0, 10 degrees feels like "a gentle caress"... well, maybe not ;)

It is chilly here, but not terrible. It's like being in Arizona in the summer--just the opposite end of the spectrum... either way you blast the air. :)

Cookies

This year all the clerks decided to make each other baked goods as holiday gifts. John and I made 3 types of covered pretzels--vanilla, chocolate, and spicy cinnamon chocolate, Mexican wedding cakes (are these different than Russian tea cakes), and Magic Cookie Bars... YUM!!! Here are the recipes for the last 2.

MAGIC COOKIE BARS

1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup butterscotch flavored chips
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/3 cups flaked coconut
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350°, (325° for glass dish). Line a 13x9-inch baking pan with a sheet of foil, making sure to cover the sites well. Place the butter in the baking pan and melt it in the oven. Sprinkle crumbs over butter; pour condensed milk evenly on top of crumbs. Top with remaining ingredients in order listed; press down firmly with fork. Bake 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool. Chill if desired. Cut into bars. Store covered at room temperature.


MEXICAN WEDDING CAKES

1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups all-pupose flour
1 cup finely chopped almonds or pecans
1/4 teaspoon salt
powdered sugar

Pre-heat oven to 325 F. In a large bowl combine 1/2 cup powdered sugar, butter and vanilla. Blend well. Stir in flour, nuts and salt until dough holds together. Shape into 1-inch balls. Place inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 15-20 minutes until set but not brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheets. Cool slightly and roll in powdered sugar. Cool completely and reroll in powdered sugar. I had to add some milk... the proportions of wet to dry weren't sufficient to create a dough. I also chilled the dough before rolling it into balls.

The Icicle Twist

This past weekend Steve and Tammy hosted a Murder Mystery party-- The Icicle Twist. We all had a fun time.

I was Alicia Tomasini. I was terrible at staying in character. Mykael and Rebecca both played it big-- as did Dario, though he had a bit harder time with his complicated accent.

Needless to say, lots of laughter ensued. And I bet, if you read the title again, you too could deduce the murder weapon ;0

Sounds of Star Wars

The other day NPR ran a story on the new book-- Sounds of Star Wars

Not only did the book sound very, very cool... BUT it was also proposed by the company my sister works for-- Becker-Meyer. Pretty awesome!!

Alyeska Pics Part 2

This past weekend we went to Alyeska... and this time we skied. Well, John, Aesha, Dario, and Michael skied. I skied for a bit, but had a headache and retired to the lounge.

The Coat Pile

Often in t.v. and movies I have seen the "great coat pile"... often fodder for coat mix-ups and teenage misadventures. Never had I actually seen a coat pile up. It never even donned on me that I hadn't seen one until I had to dig through one tonight to find John and my coats. All these new experiences :)

John and I came across the pile at my staff holiday party. It was held at Elaine's house up on the hillside of Anchorage. It was lovely of Elaine to host us and we all had a nice time.

DIBELS Awesomeness!!!!!!

DIBELS stands for Dynamic Indicator of Basic Early Literacy Skills. You may remember me talking about it during my earlier post about the use of the metronome.

Today was our big mid-year benchmark. We took the test at the beginning of the year and had some pretty disappointing outcomes. All the students were nervous... and maybe just a bit excited to see how they were doing :)

The kids did FANTASTIC!!!!! ALL of my students improved.

Scores are given in words correct per minute. The goal was 105 wpm. Except 1 of my students who improved only 4 words, all of my students improved at least 10 wpm. The class AVERAGE growth was 24 wpm which is incredible... about a 20% increase. I'm so, so very proud of my students. What a great way to start the weekend!!

Holiday Wishes

This evening John's Justice, Morgan, her husband and daughter had us, her other clerks (Steve- and Tammy- and Rebecca- and Henry), as well as their extended family and her Judicial Assistant (Sonja- and Matt) all over for dinner. We had a wonderful meal-- appetizers to desert and drinks. They sent us each home with an ornament. It was a lovely evening.