For those who haven't heard, we recently added a new member to our Snyder family. Bodie came to us all the way from the New Hope Cattle Dog Rescue Shelter in AZ. He went from 80 degree temps to AK, during (ironically) the worst winter Unalakleet has had in decades... but he has been the perfect addition to our family; he is an awesome dog! Part blue healer, part catahoula; he's mellow but playful, protective and watchful but gentle and easily accepting of new friends, very tolerant and obviously handsome. We got very lucky... he's been a blessing already. He wasn't sure what to think of all the snow at first, and when it's blizzarding outside, we can barely convince him to get off the porch, but he has a lot of fun playing in the snow when the temps and wind are reasonable (-15 F or warmer including wind chill). Yesterday, DJ and Jake took Bodie across the ice at the mouth of the river so he could run free, and Bodie spotted a rabbit... Woo-hoo!!! off he went. He had great fun in the chase, but is well-behaved enough that when a snowmachine approached and Jake called to him, he halted pursuit and came right away. He also got an "owie" as Daniel put it... broke one of his nails (the dog clippers still haven't arrived yet) on the ice... it bled at first, but it is healing. We also found a tic on his ear shortly after his arrival... quite the news for us, as tics aren't a common problem here, especially in the dead of winter. In any case, getting Bodie has been a great success all around, thanks to Bodie (he's awesome), all the people who dealt with us and Bodie who are connected to the New Hope Shelter (esp. Katie & Robin), Gayle (our Anchorage friend who picked him up from the airport after his flight from AZ and had him play with her dogs Snoop & Sebastian until she put him on the flight to UNK), Ted and Jim (our personnel director and sup. from our district who took Bodie from Gayle and saw him out to us), and of course Ginger, who inspired us to find Bodie in the first place.
So, as you can see from our picts (the first one below is of our store and old post office--you can only catch a glimpse of their roofs because of the drifts), we've had a lot of snowfall... more than normal. We've also had incredible storms with crazy high winds and 0 visibility, as well as huge temp. fluctuations. The sea level of our village always goes up a few feet during the winter, and we get drifts from the wind... but this year is a little bit crazy. School was even canceled for a day, and we had an early release due to weather--to our knowledge, that's the first "snow day" in the history of our school. 
Speaking of school, here are a few picts of my school spirit and fundraising efforts. Our mascot is the "Wolfpack" or "Wolfy" and so my music students did pawprint facepainting, and I made sugar cookies to match. -Fun for the little kids, anyway. BTW: if you've never tried to make black frosting, I highly recommend using dry powder rather than liquid... but it still takes a lot if you want to get it dark. 
We've been enjoying every moment of nice weather available when Jake and I aren't working. Although summer is definitely our favorite time in UNK, winter can be a lot of fun here too when the temps rise a bit and the winds die down at the same time. Deej and I took his TONKA Dump Truck out in the backyard... makes a great snow hauler. :-) And we have a perfect-for-a-3-year-old sledding hill (a 4 ft drift with a sheer drop one side) just off our back porch, so that's been fun.
We've been enjoying every moment of nice weather available when Jake and I aren't working. Although summer is definitely our favorite time in UNK, winter can be a lot of fun here too when the temps rise a bit and the winds die down at the same time. Deej and I took his TONKA Dump Truck out in the backyard... makes a great snow hauler. :-) And we have a perfect-for-a-3-year-old sledding hill (a 4 ft drift with a sheer drop one side) just off our back porch, so that's been fun.
Since becoming Full Circle Farm clients, we have not only been able to enjoy fresh produce on a regular basis--we also have been able to get varieties that are rarely to never at our store (leeks, artichokes, coconut, apples that are actually crispy, fresh green beans, super-sweet citrus fruit, etc.), and we've also been exposed to some obscure fruits and veggies that we haven't even heard of until now: persimmons, sunchokes, cara-cara oranges, and purple potatoes, among other things. So in honor of our love of FCF, we post this picture of Jake's purple potato soup. It looks questionable, I know, but it was actually quite tasty (once we stopped looking at it and smiling in dismay-this picture really doesn't do the very PURPLE color of the soup justice).
And it just wouldn't be a post on our blog if we didn't include a shameless collection of DJ and JD pictures. We know we're biased, but we just can't get enough of them. Hope you enjoy. 
All is well with us. I just had my spring break this week, but aside from a few minutes of this post and one nice shower Jake gave me time for (shaving my legs is almost as rejuvenating as a workout, and much more relaxing), I have not had many non-sleeping moments of ME time. Gone are the days when break from work means a true break... but the time with the boys all week has been great; I'm very thankful for it, and look forward to 8 weeks from now when summer vacation starts. DJ starts school next year, so this is our last summer to enjoy both boys at home before he starts meeting more friends and wanting to play with them instead of us. He's already very excited about starting school, and he still has 5 months to wait.
Jake and I are planning to be in Western WA June 22/23-July 1, and Eastern WA July 2-9/10. If you'll be in the region and would like to meet up with us, just give us a ring, email, or you can even post a comment here; we'll do our best to see you on our trip! Love you all. Take care.
Janelle
