Haiti #3

Hello everyone. Well I talked to Kerry today for about 20 min and she sounds good. She's tired from the long hours and the heat, but feeling fine and eating well. She said the heat and humidity are pretty bad and feeling sweaty and sticky all day is getting old. On her journey from Port-au-Prince to Jacmel, which covered 81km of dirt roads in about 3.5 hours on a 1970s school bus with vinyl seats...some of which weren't even bolted down (of course does it matter when you are averaging less than 20mph?) she got to see a lot of the countryside and a more extensive view of the damage from the earthquake. She said the countryside has some beautiful aspects to it, but it has been so badly worn and denuded of all burnable materials that it is really pretty ugly, and then throw in the amazing devastation from the earthquake and the whole place looks really bad. She didn't talk much about their current living conditions although it is in a hotel of some sort rather than a tent. She did say that the people that run the mission houses in Haiti have been feeding them really well. In fact she said that they had a ham of some sort (roasted maybe?)the other day and it was the best she has ever had in her life. So food and clean water have not been an issue, which is a good thing. As one would expect she has mixed emotions about the mission. Good feelings from helping so many people, yet some frustration that her group isn't more efficient and utilizing its resources in a better manner. I'm sure she'll have more on that when she returns.
On Saturday they are going to another refugee camp to administer aid there. She said if its anything like the last one its going to be a very long and difficult day. Then on Sunday morning they are getting back on the bus to head to the airport in Port-au-Prince where they fly directly to JFK and then she'll spend the night there before heading back to Alaska on Monday. If I hear anymore I'll put it up, otherwise expect a short report once I hear from her in NY and then she'll have to post a big debrief for us all to read.
We here in AK are definitely looking forward to having her back. Storm

Haiti #2

Hello All. I just talked to KM on the phone and she is doing great. They worked in a refugee camp today and she said it was just like on the UNICEF ads. Nasty conditions, tons of people, lots of flys, oppressive heat etc... She said it was her hardest day of work in her life and she saw over 350 patients. Fortunately she doesn't stay there full time, they get to retreat to the mission to eat and sleep in relative comfort. So far the trip has been everything that she hoped, very rewarding, tiring, and full of new experiences. So far she has access to plenty of clean water and more than enough food. Tomorrow they leave the Port-a-Prince area and head over to a smaller city called Jacmel. I may not have any updates for the next few days as Jacmel is much more rural and may not have phone service....it may not have the same comfort level as PAP either, but we'll get some info on that when we hear from her next. That's it for now. See Ya, Storm

Helmet Cam link

I have been trying to get this link to work for almost a week. Hopefully I've got it now. I know some of you have seen this on Facebook, but I wanted to put it here to since its my first try at video editing. However youtube chose the music, they said my choice was copyrighted and they changed it. Oh well, enjoy. Storm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unZNgOwUwhY

Okay this is starting to really piss me off. You will have to cut and paste it to make it work. The hyperlink function is not being my friend. Sorry

Spring Break!

Hello everyone, its Spring Break in Alaska and for us that means lots of snow, lots of daylight and lots of fun. On Saturday we skied locally, on Sunday we went out to Willow for the start of the Iditarod, Monday we went tubing, and Tuesday we are headed to Alyeska for another day of skiing. Alyeska has received over 6 ft of snow in the last week so that could be a lot of fun. Wednesday I think we will take a well needed break from all our Spring Break fun. I don't have too many pictures, I'm having some trouble keeping track of all 3 kids while also making sure Grammie doesn't fall in a ditch or something and get lost, plus I forgot to bring the camera tubing...so not a lot of photos, but here are a few.

Haiti Update 1

Hello readers, KM has now spent a day and half in Haiti and I have spoken to her once and had numerous texts and here's the report. So far the weather has been great (that means no rain!!) her lodging situation is really good so far. Her tent mate is awesome and they are getting along famously. There is plenty of bottled water available and lots of food too. She was eating chicken nuggets and fries for lunch and some rice and beans for dinner. So at the moment she is wondering why the heck she hauled a whole bag full of 'camping' food down there. She worked triage on Monday and saw nearly 250 ppl. She says the people are great and the area they are in is beautiful. There are lots of roosters around their basecamp and apparently they crow at all hours of the night, she said it's hilarious yet frustrating at the same time. I think that about covers it. She'll be in this same area for most of the week and then they travel over to Jacmel for a few days before they come home. Rumor has it that the situation in Jacmel might not be as comfortable, we'll know soon I guess. For those that read her Facebook page this is all the same stuff, but I know there are some ppl that are only in one spot so I'm posting it both places. Also a huge thanks to all her friends and co-workers that have offered encouragement and support for this trip...your generosity is amazing and greatly appreciated. I'll post more when I hear from her again. Thanks, Storm

More Fur Rondy Pics

Here are few more from last weekend. I also put in 2 of the TalVista Lodge which is about 75 miles off the road system. Its a really nice set up with little cabins you can rent for the night. They said its a 'low snow year' so I took a picture of the snow on the roof of the cabins so you could judge for yourself. Storm

Feb 2010

Well, we sort of fell off the blog train again...sorry about that. Not a lot going on here. February was ridiculously warm and melted a lot of our snow, we are all hoping El Nino will be gone by next winter that's for sure. We want our snow and colder temps back!! But we did a little skiing, cubscouts, playing outside etc... Last weekend KM and I participated in the Running of the Reindeer during the Fur Rondy festival in Anchorage. It was a ton of fun with all sorts of nutty costumes. The Reindeer don't really seem to care, they just sprint through the crowd and head for the rest of the herd at the finish line, then they stand around and sniff everyone's pockets to see if you have any food for them. I've included a bunch of pics from the last month. No the kids don't really care about the Pittsburgh Penguins, however they do like Penguins in general so those jerseys were a big hit. Of course the star of Team Canada that scored the winning goal against the USA normally plays for the Penguins so that's the name on the jerseys. We had some really wild cloud formations so we took some pics off our deck. Our days are rapidly getting longer, gaining 5m44secs a day, here in a week or so we'll have more daylight than the lower 48 and it will stay that way until sometime in Sept. Spring Break is coming up so we should have lots of fun and even have some pics to post for you. That's it for now. See Ya, Storm