Preschool

I can not believe how big my little man is getting!  We have mastered potty training.  His latest excitement is peeing like daddy - standing up.  This has lead to some interesting messes, but whatever keeps him out of diapers is just fine by me!  
This past week we hit another milestone with Luke.  PRESCHOOL!!  We got word that the school district here was opening up a new preschool class for 3 year olds.  Thankfully since Mark works for the school district Luke was bumped to the top of the waiting list.  It seemed to take forever, but Monday I got a call that Luke could start school Thursday.  We were a bit nervous about how Luke would react to the news that he wouldn't be going to Tata's house (the babysitter)anymore.  We spent the days leading up to Thursday talking all about how great preschool is going to be.  It worked because Thursday morning when we stopped at Tata's house to drop off Gianna, Luke just waved to his sister and announced that he wasn't going to Tata's because he was going to preschool.  
So we made 2 big mistakes that morning.  First, we didn't drive to the preschool the day before so we knew exactly where it was. Second, we looked it up on MapQuest.  The second mistake may not sound like such a big deal to all our friends in the lower 48, but I know all our Bethel friends are shaking their heads wondering what we were thinking.  MapQuest up here is NEVER correct.  But instead of just saying it is unable to map our location, it will pinpoint a spot.  Keep in mind the road map it shows is accurate, complete with most road names.
So we started driving toward what we thought was the preschool.  Luke was in the back seat repeating "I go to preschool, I go to preschool..."  We drove out almost to the end of town before we realized MapQuest had again lead us astray.  At this point we turned around.  At that point Luke thought he was no longer going to preschool and had a complete meltdown.  He started screaming at the top of his lungs "I wanna go to preschool!"  Mark was stressing because it was ten after eight and he had an 8:30 check in time at the airport.  I'm trying to use the not so reliable internet on my phone to look up a phone number for the school so we can find out where they are.  Finally we made it to preschool.  Luke hasn't mastered walking on ice (which is everywhere here) so he made Mark carry him into the school.
When we walked into the classroom I thought sure Luke would take off and never look back.  There were all kinds of toys and books and crayons.  But Luke clung to Mark and buried his head in Mark's neck like I have never seen that boy do before.  It took us about 10 minutes before he would finally go to the teacher and we were able to sneak out.
Thankfully we live in Bethel, and only in Bethel could Mark call the airport and check in over the phone so he wouldn't miss the flight, which was canceled about 2 hours later anyway due to the weather.
  

Freeze up on the Kuskokwim River

A quick up date on our weather.  The sun rises around 10:00 AM and sets around 5:00 PM.  It's strange going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark.  The temperatures have dropped considerably.  Our highs are often in the single digits and our lows below freezing.  Factor in the wind, which usually blows about 20-30 miles per hour, and we have had several days in a row of -25 degrees!  Tomorrow is supposed to drop even lower and drive the temp to -35 degrees!  Its hard to describe how cold that is.

All bundled up, but it was only about 25 degrees out this day

I mentioned earlier that we have ice everywhere.  We were supposed to get several inches of snow last week, but somehow with a temp of 26 degrees all we got was freezing rain.  The next day we managed to get a dusting of snow, but the temp rose just enough to melt it all, which then refroze that night and has remained frozen ever since.  Its a slippery world out there right now, and I don't think its going to change much till spring!