Artsy Fartsy 2nd Graders

Now that basketball season is over, I have a life again!!  And I'm going with that as my excuse for not updating in... whoa... literally months.  Despite the drama, the basketball girls managed to pull together to finish out their season; I couldn't be more proud of their teamwork and support of each other to the end.

If you steal the coach's phone and blow it up with selfies of your beautiful faces, she will post them.

In other news, my 2nd graders have become little artists!  Our school counselor has given up some of her time to help the little ones create sea portraits, aren't they adorable!?

We have also been exploring different mediums, and painted the snow as an afternoon activity!  Some decided to build little snowmen or other structures with the snow they collected, but most decided to paint the mountain behind the village...

They sure were cute little artists!

We're also learning how to count in Inupiaq!  I'll just leave this here for you to try to figure out the pronunciation, because you have just as good a shot at it as I do... Good luck... 

The kids rock at saying them correctly though! 

Although it's been too cold and windy to do much outside recently, my roommate and I ventured out with our snowshoes one weekend.  We bundled up in our assorted fur covered outerwear, so that barely any of our faces were exposed, and even still managed to get icicles in our hair, eyelashes, and on our eyebrows in the subzero winds.  The kids, however, didn't seem to be too bothered by the freezing temperatures or wind.  We had a following of quite a few kiddos from both of our classes; they enjoyed throwing a tennis ball for my roommate's dog to chase around the frozen tundra.  And rolling like little frozen noodles down the snow drifts....

The sun was absolutely blinding which made looking at a phone screen impossible, and the day was so frozen and clear that my camera battery died from hypothermia shortly after we started out, but I managed to snap these few pictures first!

This place I call home, holds such harsh and untouched beauty.  

But what an amazing beauty it is.