After three months of summer holiday I am back to school. So far it is still just teachers, but children are back on Wednesday. I am busy getting my classroom set up and we are all having to complete various trainings. It is really nice to be in the same school, in the same classroom, with the same year group two years in a row. This is the first time this has happened since I was a second year teacher! It really makes things a lot easier. We have four new staff members this year which is nice and it is interesting to hear some fresh ideas. I am looking forward to meeting my new class on Wednesday and getting started.

Paul and I went for a very nice walk down a trail by Resurrection River on Monday and picked blueberries. We got enough for some tasty blueberry muffins. Last night Paul took me for a meal at the Roadhouse (where we had our wedding reception) and we had the best pizza ever. It was shrimp with a peanut sauce and a sweet Thai chili sauce, it sounds like an odd combination but it was delcious.

I hope everyone is well! Love April and Paul

This morning while folding watching I glanced out the front window in time to see a black bear strolling across the road in front of our house! I was very excited and then immediately distraught when I realised Paul has the camera at the office! The bear proceeded to head into our next door neighbours back yard before going into the yard of the house directly behind our house. It walked very casually up the steps and across there front porch before climbing over the rails and heading to our back fence. It hauled itself over the fence and wandered through our back yard. (By this stage I had rung Paul to tell him to get over here with the camera!) Evie was on the window sill with me watching and growling at the bear- she was very brave from a distance but I don’t think so much if she had been on the ground with it! It then climbed our other fence and spent a good ten minutes snacking on our compost. By this stage Paul was back so we managed to get a couple of photos. It them lumbered back off across the neighbours yard. We thought that was the end of it but about an hour later we were outside weeding and putting down more sand when it crossed the road again about 50 meters from where we were working and headed around to check out the other side of the neighbourhood. It was not worried about us at all and so we just kept gardening. What was a little ironic though, was that last night I made Paul drive to some bear viewing sites in the hopes of seeing a bear (with no luck) only to find out from our neighbour this afternoon that the bear had been on our front porch last night! So I have finally seen my bear from my house and that is close enough for me!

On the 30th of July Paul and I celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary. Paul met me off the ferry from Kodiak in Homer at 7:30am and then took me back to our lovely beach front B and B. We spent a very nice morning going out to breakfast and wandering around all the art galleries they have in Homer. We bought a very nice piece of art that will hang above our fireplace. Then Paul surprised me with a trip to the Homer spa. There we both enjoyed massages which was a great treat. I have put a couple of photos from our trip in the summer 2008 album.

This last week I was lucky enough to get to go to Kodiak Island. I went over with Mary, Howie and Rachel to stay with Paul’s Aunt Judy and cousin Hailey. Kodiak is an eight hour ferry ride from Homer, which is about four hours from Seward in the car. It is pretty big island and is famous for the Kodiak Brown bear which are suppose to be huge. We had a great time and were lucky enough to have beautiful weather for most of the four days I was there. We spent a lot of time berry picking, taking in the scenery and enjoying the beaches. We made a lot of jam with the salmon berries that we picked. I have put photos of the trip in a Kodiak folder in the summer 08 album. The photo on this page is my six month belly shot, as you can see the baby has started to grow and every day I look a little bit more pregnant. I hope to see some comments from you on these posts so I can see who is reading our website!

Last Tuesday a few of us walked a small part of the Harding Icefield trail. It was a great hike and I would like to try it again sometime and do more of it. One of the people I went with was a friend from school, Beth and her 8 month old daughter Olivia. I have put some photos of the hike in a folder in the summer 08 album.

The other weekend we finally had a beautiful sunny day so we took the opportunity to go and spend the night on Fox Island. Paul and I went over on the boat with Joe and two of his friends, Tanner and Marcus. We spent the evening barbecuing, enjoying the sun and then roasting marshmallows on the beach. The following morning we decided to try our luck fishing for silver salmon. Paul was the most successful, catching both the first and biggest fish. I also caught a good sized silver salmon. See more photos from our trip in the summer photo album.