Foster Parenting in the Alaskan Bush

 

After leaving Anchorage I flew to Dillingham, Alaska for new teacher in-service with Southwest Region School District before flying on to our villages.  Here were are having a culture camp at the superintendent's house on how to cut fish.  We had just come back from hauling in fish nets at the beach.  As you can see southern Alaska in the Bristol Bay area has more trees and is more tropical in climate than the northern region where Norton Sound is.

 

        Well after one year teaching in Wales, Alaska I left for two reasons; the most predominant being that after spending 6 months living in a classroom before I could move into the new 2 bedroom teacher housing they had told me would be finished 5 months prior, district would not guarantee me that I could keep it the following year.  In fact they went as far as to tell me I might have to have 1 bedroom or share, so bye bye my dreams of foster parenting (and all of those hours and time spent completing course work as well).  So I told them to kick the bucket and went on my merry way and thus found myself accepting a job at Clark's Point School in Southwest Region School district where I wasn't just guaranteed 2 bedroom housing but was told that it was at a 2 teacher school as well, MY FAVORITE!  YAY!!!  As you can see it didn't take long for the village children to warm up to me and come knocking on my door asking to come inside and play dress up with my clothes, play with my cats, cook meals with me or read some of my children's books.  I think it's clear they're having quite the adventure don't you?

 Two sisters in our school decided to have a contest while visiting in my house about who could create the best Ms. Mirabelle using play dough.  Here is entry #1.  Look she even wrote my name in play dough.

And here is entry #2.  I'll let you decide who the winner is.

 After my homestudy it didn't take long for OCS to call me about a placement of 3 brothers.  Oh how excited I was...oh how much I didn't know was in store for me.  Here they are enjoying a bedtime story to themselves.

Even Gwendolyn thought it was a good idea.  I think she deserves a prize don't you for tolerating such uncomfortable handling.

 

Pardon me, it's hard to keep underwear straight with whose is whose with 3 boys to keep up with but I think it would be a good guess to say these aren't his.

Is it just more or has my house gotten a lot messier since these 3 boys arrived?  Yikes!  Better clean it up before OCS does a home check but every time we do it gets messier the next day.