Home Sweet Home

THIS IS OUR HOME (and our 4 wheeler!)!!!

This is the 'new teacher housing' area. There are 3 buildings. Each building has 2 'homes' inside. Each home has 3 bedrooms.

Below is the view we have walking out the front door... NOT the greatest but I'm ok with it :) It's a view of the back of the school.

SO I realize the outside may seem like nothing special... BUT it is GREAT here!
When you walk into the house there is a storage/coat room- very convenient! I forgot to take pictures of the 'arctic entry' BUT it's basically a big wooden room with dog kennels and stand up freezers.

Here are some pictures I took of the living room, dining room and kitchen at different angles just to show it off :) As you can see, the doggies have a lot of space and everyone is happy!


can't you see how happy they are?!



My new room! I have 2 twin beds which I pushed together to make into a King Size bed and of course I had to buy new bedding for a new house! There is even a closet... with doors in my room! It's simply amazing :)



Can you believe that in bush Alaska, we have our own washer and dryer?!

(I decided not to take pictures of Rachel's room... she MAY not appreciate that so I guess if you really want the rest of the tour you need to come check it out yourself) :)

The bathroom has a flush toilet. Enough said.


Over the summer I found a table cloth at Cabit Design which I purchased for the house. (You all should check out Cabit Design-- it's got some pretty sweet stuff!) The kitchen table it probably visually my favorite part of the house. Rachel's salt and pepper shakers matched the tablecloth perfectly!

I absolutely LOVE our kitchen. We have a lot of cabinets and counter space and we EVEN have a dishwasher! Unbelievable!


We even have a spare bedroom in this house which means we are dying to have company! The spare bedroom is also known as the workout room where we have a bike and an ab rocket. HOPEFULLY those get put to use this year. Doesn't Moose look so happy in this picture?!

Below is the view looking out of our kitchen window. TUNDRA! Endless tundra as well as the boardwalk to the tower.

Life in Kong, 4 Wheeler Adventure and a Rescue Mission

SOooooo this blog consists of a few random events. Sorry if it skips around too much... if I felt like typing more I would make it flow better but I have been working on it for 2 hours and I am ready to go home! My next blog will include pictures of the XC meet in Toksook Bay and here in Kong.


These are some pictures from when I was headed to Kong in August. Garnet and I met in Anchorage and traveled to Bethel together from there. We stayed at Megan's condo in Anchorage and called a cab to the airport in the morning. I warned the cab company that we had A LOT of stuff so they sent a big van. We repacked the van trying to fit all of our stuff so many times. The cab driver was going to call another van in and I said, "Where there is a will there is a way. If we wait for another cab we will be late!" SOMEHOW we managed to cram everything in and I was smooshed against the door of the van BUT we made it to the airport with time to spare. Here is our awesome packing job...

This is a picture of all of our stuff at the airport... 3 dogs, 4 suit cases, a box, a cooler and 2 people. Still hard to believe we managed to cram everything into one van!


Our friend Bernie had a throw party for her son who shot his first birds!

Rachel caught one of the birds that the little boy had shot. Her and Michele were so excited!


Eddie made it to Kong! Eddie is Michele's fiance-- he is uncomfortable with dogs but starting to form a friendship with Moose.

Moose is friends with anyone-any shape or size. He whips this little puppy around while they play and the puppy pins him down somehow!


Our new ride finally came in! We named her 'Sassy' I wanted to name her little beast but the others voted Sassy. It fits though :)


On Saturday Sheila called me while I was working at school and invited Garnet, Rachel, and I to join her on a 4-wheeler trip towards the Bering Sea. It was such a beautiful day and a new adventure- how could we resist?! We ended up going all the way to the ocean. Rachel fished at the mouth of the river while the rest of us went berry picking. Sheila had never gone that far by herself and wasn't sure if she new the trails... but we made it to and from with only a few minor mix-ups! It was SUCH A FUN day! You wouldn't believe the mud/water that those 4-wheelers can get through! I took a lot of pictures so get excited! None of the pictures show exactly how it looks/feels in person- you just have to come visit to experience it! It took a little over an hour to get there and an hour to get back.
On our trip we took a break near somebody's summer fish camp out on the tundra next to the river.

Here are lots of pretty pictures from my day out on the tundra. It was absolutely beautiful weather! I didn't even wear a jacket outside!







This is a picture of Sheila and Garnet berry picking near the fish camp.

Just another one of the MANY mini lakes out on the tundra...

This cute lil guy was out with him mom fishing with Rachel.

Sheila Berry Picking...

View of Kong!

One of the students stopped by to give Rachel some bait because she had none.

Edge of the mouth of the river- so pretty!

This little boy stopped by with his sister who gave Rachel the bait. They came by boat.

This was a boat out fishing by the mouth of the river-- so many people were out because it was such a beautiful day!!!

Rachel finally caught herself a fish!

A few of the students who met up with us-- they had the bait for Rachel

Sun was starting to set (this was around 8:30-9:00) --it was our cue to head back to Kong since we didn't know the trail!

Here is a view of Kong from the Bering Sea

Below is the Bering Sea-- hard to tell because the tide was out but you can see the mud and the water is in the distance.

Sheila and Rachel on the way home-- Bering sea to the right

Almost home so we had to stop to pick berries-- the berries by the ocean were gone because the birds ate them all. The closer you get to the village though, the more berries you find.

I mainly picked cranberries- Sheila is going to make a jam-- this is the bucket and berry picker I used


On the way home Sheila's 4-wheeler got stuck twice. Garnet and I went to help pull her out the first time and I sank in the 'muck' past my knees! Gross but a lot of fun!



A few weeks ago Garnet and I had to go to Bethel for a 2nd year teacher inservice. We left Friday after school. Everything was going as planned- we loaded onto the plan and headed down the runway getting ready to take off. We got about half way down the runway- about to the point where you start to head up- and a flock of seagulls sprang up in front of the plane! Our plane hit two of them so the pilot had to hit the breaks and go back to the drop-off area to check the plane. When one of these small planes hits a bird it could cause serious damage therefore they are supposed to have a mechanic come out to check the plane before it can leave the ground. The pilot turned around and said, "We may as well introduce ourselves now- this could take a while." About an hour later a 'rescue' plane as they called it showed up with a mechanic to fix the other plan and to take us to Bethel. Garnet and I made it safe and sound.. just a few hours later than expected. Below is a picture of Tommy, our Grant Aviation agent, after he rode down the runway to pick up the dead birds.

Morning walks and Cross Country

Here are some pictures from one morning on my mile walk to school. Typically it is raining on the morning walk (it has rained SO MUCH this summer) which makes for a very dreary walk. On many of these walks I have questioned, "WHAT the heck am I doing here- how did I get to this point in my life that I am walking a mile to school in the rain on a broken, slippery boardwalk?!"


YESTERDAY these thoughts finally ended because our new fourwheeler came in. We got a red Honda Foreman 500 (Rachel, Garnet and I all split the cost) and we named her Sassy. Rachel plans to paint orange flames on it. Should be pretty sweet.
Housing is supposedly looking really positive and our principal is hoping to hear something official SOON! Who knows when soon is but I hope it means this weekend! Setting myself up for failure, I know, but still...
As soon is we are moved into the new houses I will be ready for company ;) We have a NYO tournament and our cultural heritage week the same week in october this year. I'm just saying.... IF someone wanted to visit, that would be the PERFECT time!
I'm currently in Toksook now with 8 Junior High kids for a cross country meet in the morning. It was a really bumpy ride because of the wind and rain. A few of the kids even needed puke bags- bleh! Toksook is where the course goes up the mountain. Since it has rained so much, the trail is pure mud and extremely slippery. On the way down the mountain I totally wiped out and the whole right side of my body was covered in mud. Kids got a good laugh out of it at least. Ok well it's 9:40 and the kids are driving me crazy now. They are a great group but I forgot how wound and full of energy junior high kids are. These kids can't sit in one place for more than 3 minutes. Then they insist they need to go to a different room for 2 minutes then a different room again. Gosh I feel old and annoyed- I have threatened them with bed time a few times already! I'll post the outcome of the race tomorrow!
THANK GOD it is a 3 day weekend plus an inservice day on Tuesday. I will enjoy a much needed break from kids already :)

2nd Year in Kong

I’m BAaaaAAAACkkkkk!
WOW so much has happened since the last posting! Middle of May I headed home for my summer break and the first week of August I returned to Alaska. Rachel and Sheila came back with me to tour the mid-west as neither one had ever been before. Sheila experienced her first concert, farm, casino and the list goes on! It was a GREAT time having them in town and especially having Sheila experience the life and the culture I come from since usually she is the one teaching me about hers. I’ve heard Sheila tell many stories about the trip ever since I’ve been back here in Alaska.
Moose got to spend lots of time with his ‘grandparents’ this summer while I did A LOT of traveling. THANKS MOM AND DAD! I visited a total of 12 states over the summer (Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia and Alaska! The trips were so much fun but BUSY! I went to Colorado with Lori to visit the Lords. Nebraska to visit Nick, Ross and Jenn. Florida with the Frey girls. Tennessee with the Kuntz side of the family. Chicago to visit Diana and Dan! Kentucky to see Cassie and found a dress for Diana’s wedding :O) As soon as I unpacked a suitcase I packed it right back up again. Somehow I managed to also get some quality family time in there as well. It was so nice to be back. Some of my best friends even got married this summer! Congratulations Anne and Dan Smith as well as Colleen and Alex Lowe!!!!
I decided to go back to Alaska a couple of weeks early because I wanted time to move into the new house and school as well as go fishing and berry picking. This was a very good and bad decision all at the same time.
Let’s start with the bad news… when I got off the plane in Kong… I was brought right back to my old red house… a mile from the school. NOT IMPRESSED. ALLLLLLL of our stuff was packed away in boxes. These boxes were supposed to be at the new house, but no, back at the old house. Apparently the new houses didn’t pass code so the district wouldn’t buy them yet and no one knows when or IF we even will buy them. THEREFORE no one can tell us if we should unpack everything or not. This REALLY irritates me because I spent the last 2 weeks of last school year staying up until about 4 or 5 am to pack my house, classroom and do school work. Did I get paid extra, of course not. Did I care… no… because I was excited to get to move to a new house with flush toilets, a dishwasher, washer and dryer. INSTEAD I can’t find anything because it is boxed away and worst of all we had to bring out the honey buckets again ☹

The situation is really frustrating which is a lot of the reason I haven’t blogged yet and communication is difficult because I can only get online when I’m at the new school since we cancelled internet in our house and don’t want to pay a reinstallation fee. We were told we would be in new housing and even chose which unit we wanted. We were also under the impression that our old houses were ‘unlivable’ because the district wasn’t allowed to sell them when we moved out and the houses were supposed to be moved to the dump due to the asbestos. The new houses are BEAUTIFUL inside and the old ones are not so much. UGH SO FRUSTRATING. Not only was the housing screwed up… but there was only one key available to the new school. ONE! For all the teachers and principal and maintenance guys to share. I couldn’t work late at night like I usually do because 1. I didn’t have a key and 2. I didn’t want to walk a mile in the dark and get attacked by a person or wolf or something. Stranger things have happened. My classroom looked like a disaster because at the end of last year we had to just dump things out of boxes and reuse the boxes since we ran out. Here is a picture…

I will post pictures of the completed room soon.

Although we have ALL been really frustrated and annoyed with the housing situation, the good news is that I have GREAT friends in Kong. Can NOT thank Sheila ENOUGH for everything she has done for us. We did not cook the first week back (hoping that we would be moving soon so we didn’t unpack anything) and Sheila cooked us some fabulous meals. She even threw a welcome home meal for us and a welcome to Kong meal for the new teachers. We had some AMAZING fresh Salmon and Halibut. It was absolutely the best fish meal I have ever had… no exaggeration what so ever. There are two new teachers this year and Michele returned as well. The two new teachers are Patrick and Dustin… I’m sure you will be hearing more about them. They are a lot of fun and I think we will have a GREAT staff out here this year. Lots of fun already! We actually went on a fishing trip with Rod last week! He took us in his boat (only some of us could fit so it was Dustin, Patrick, Michele and me who tagged along) down the river to the Bering Sea to his special fishing spot. It was about 16 miles away if I remember correctly. It was so awesome because we fished near a sandbar where seals like to ‘hang out’ and some were even swimming right by us. Rod taught us to net fish and we went out at 1:30pm then returned to Kong around 9:00pm. We caught 63 Silver Salmon! He also took us Halibut fishing for a little while but no luck… not really the right timing for Halibut. While we were net fishing, a seal came up and started eating our fish in the net. Almost got itself killed! Right in front of me. I was going to be a little sad if I saw the seal get shot or harpooned. Rod ‘let’ us do all the work and when we returned we were the ones who cleaned the fish. NOT very well I might add. We cleaned what we wanted to keep and Sheila announced over VHF that we caught fish and gave the rest away. It was such an amazing experience really. Look at all my pics!







School started yesterday, Tuesday. On Monday night there was a village meeting which all the teachers attended. We had to introduce ourselves and when Sheila made her introduction she talked a lot about her summer in the Midwest and in Maine as well as the hard work we teachers have contributed to school and the community. It meant a lot to hear her talk about all of our cultural experiences over the past year and how much we do want to be invited out and be a part of the community. Other people from the community were also very welcoming to us and happy to see us back for another school year. Even though I have been grumpy about housing for 2 weeks straight, I am happy to see everyone again and thankful that I have such great friends out here.
My second year of teaching is starting out very well so far. The first day was rough just because I have worked day and night for two weeks straight and the exhaustion all hit on the first day of school. I felt so sick just because I was that tired. On the bright side though the day went very smooth. Everything I wanted to get done, I finished ahead of time and I think my kids are off to a great start. This year I have organized things better and they know my expectations/routines the very first week of school. Last year at this time I still hadn’t met all of my students.
The cross country team started practice my second day back in the village. I have had about 19 sign up so far but not all 19 are at practice every day. Things will start getting serious next week because our first meet is Labor Day weekend. They seem to be off to a good start though!!! The team consists of all Junior High and only 2 high school students so far. I haven’t had time or energy to run with them much but hopefully that will change next week. We have three meets scheduled. The first one will be at Toksook Bay and the last one at Bethel in hopes of going up against more competition to see how the kids to. We will have our first meet in Kongiganak September 10-11. I’m pretty excited to be organizing this and a little nervous too! We have named it the Kongiganak Tundra Trot. The whole race will take place on the tundra because the boardwalks are too dangerous. Boards often break on our mile walk to/from school (one of the kids I was with one evening went running on the boardwalk, slipped and had a huge gash in her leg. Seriously the deepest wound I have ever seen. We spent 4 hours in the clinic that night as they tried to clean the drying mud out of it. Poor kid! Lots of screaming)! Anyway, it should be an interesting race since the mud just sucks you in sometimes and there are little ponds everywhere! Speaking of mud… last week I was walking when my little 1st grade student was riding a bike and saw me. He got really excited and yelled at me to wait. I waited he came riding fast but wasn’t looking where he was going. He rode right off of the board walk into a huge pond of mud!!! He landed and sank to his hips in the mud and wow was he unimpressed (as I would be too!) He and his bike were stuck in the mud and as we tried to help he started throwing mud! I felt so bad for the poor kid but it was quite a sight to see!
Welllll I think I have bored you enough. My new address is:
Amanda Frey
Ayagina’ar Elitnaurvik
100 Tassak Way
Kongiganak, AK 99545

Miss you all!
P.S.- My Yup’ik speaking and listening skills are improving. I sit in the Yup’ik 2nd grade class a lot this year with my student and I have learned how to say the days of the week and some of the months! Just in the past 2 days. I can also count to 5 and say the number ten. I’m getting there!

Let me know if you want to come visit! Our first meet would be cool to see but the Cultural Heritage Week/2nd Annual Tommy Phillip NYO meet are the same week in October this year. Should be a REALLY cool time to come if you ever plan on it.

ALSO! I did not edit this because it is too long for me to reread at the moment. Sorry for any mistakes!