Second Softball Game

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Here are some more softball photos. I bet your all excited. Uyaana's team, the Maniilaq Bulldogs did much better this time around. They WON! I forget the score, but they won by one run.




Woo baby! He hit it!




He made it to first base, but the next batter struck out and that was three outs. Oh well.




Hmmm...does anybody's else's kid play softball while wearing an NRA cap?




During this game he played second base.




Oops. That one went between the legs. He did have a pretty good play later in the game where he stopped the ball and threw it to first for the out.




So this turned out to be a pretty good game. The kids were happy after last weeks big loss.





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Kotzebue Clean Up 2009

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Saturday June 27th was the annual Kotzebue spring clean up. After eight months of snow and wind there is a lot of trash lying around. The city of Kotzebue pays the kids $1 a bag for trash they collect. Here's Uyaana with his haul. He had forty bags.




Here is another kid hauling his bags to one of the tree drop off sites.




People spent the day picking up trash from their yards and all around town.




One of the drop off sites was at city hall. A volunteer counts the bags as they are thrown into the dumpster. They then give the kid $1 and a raffle ticket for each bag they turn in.




The clean up was held about two weeks later than usual this year because we had so much snow. There were still some snowbanks in town well into June.




The yellow bags are donated to communities all over Alaska by Alaskans for Litter Prevention And Recycling (ALPAR)sponsored in part by ConocoPhillips Alaska, Inc.




The city of Kotzebue, the Northwest Arctic Borough, the Lion's Club, and other local businesses contribute the money towards the $1a bag.




For the raffle Alaska Commercial Co. store donated several bicycles, Rotman's store donated eight $25 gift certificates and Maniilaq Injury Prevention program donated several bike helmets. All the tickets were put int he big red tumbler and Ernie drew names for the prizes. Here are the bike winners....


















Congratulations to the kids who won prizes and thanks to everyone who helped out cleaning up our town.

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Black-legged Kittiwake

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Random Shots on a Beautiful Day

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These photos were taken on Jone 23rd. The official high temp for that day in Kotzebue was 69F degrees.




As far as I am concerned anything above 60F degrees is excessive. I didn't move to the arctic to sweat.




By the time these photos were taken at around 8:30pm it had cooled down to about 62F. As you can see the tundra is turning green and the flowers are blooming. Here is some Dwarf Fireweed.




This is the blossom of Labrador Tea. If you take a few sprigs of Labrador Tea leaves and a couple of Lipton Tea bags and throw then in a pot of boiling water for a couple minutes it makes a delicious tea.




Cottongrass.




This is the flower of a Cloudberry plant. Around here people sometimes call them "salmonberries" but that's not what they are. Salmonberries actually grow on a bush. The Inupiaq word for cloudberry is Aqpik.




As you can see the tundra is finally getting green, although there is still some snow here and there.





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3rd Base

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Thursday evening was Uyaana's first softball game. He was playing third base.




Of course being totally new to softball he has barely any idea idea what to do.




His team lost 10-2.




But he said he had fun and that's all that matters.

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Birdseye View of Kotzebue

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