ManniE

Sunday, April 21, 2013

The Newest Schirack's Farm Themed Baby Shower

My sister Tiffannie is ready to give birth any day now to the newest addition to the Schirack family. Her mother-in-law supplied the farm and guests and we supplied the food and games. We can't wait to meet the newest little fellow to join the family. Thank you Tristan Schirack for giving us another reason to have a little fun. You are already loved to pieces!

FOOD
Seeing as our mom is Betty Crocker, Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray all rolled into one, the food was nothing short of tasty! This isn't all of the food, us rookies pitched in too, but to give you an idea of how good it all was here are some pictures......

GAMES
Scooter and I racked our brains for some farm themed games to entertain everyone. Of course, we had a diaper raffle, along with an "Aww Game" (ask Scooter about this one) :) and these two below.

Tymann's Duck Pond

We wanted to involve Tymann somehow, and if I remember right Scooter came up with this one. Tymann loves "duckies" so we thought it wouldn't be a Schirack farm party without a duck pond. Everyone that showed up got a ticket for a duck in Tymann's duck pond, and when his time came Tymann picked someone's "lucky ducky".

The Clothes Line Game
What do you do when you need to dry your clothes on the farm (or in the village) :) you hang them on a clothes line right? I found this game online. You get a basket of baby clothes, and a pretend baby (in this case it was a 20 pound bag of rice) and you see who can hang the most clothes in a certain amount of time. We did 30 seconds, sounds easy right.....you try it :)

GIFTS
Tiffannie got a lot of very nice gifts. Among them was a very special gift, which is a part of the Schirack family tradition. Tristan and Tymann both got blankets made of blocks stitched by members of the family. I am very disappointed in myself for not getting better pictures of these, so here are a few of the better ones of them and her opening gifts.

SOME EXTRAS

COME ON OUT PEANUT! WE CAN"T WAIT TO MEET YOU! <3

Monday, February 25, 2013

Eek-Bethel

Nope, it's not an expression, it's where I spent this last week. They are both communities in the coastal western area of Alaska.

Eek is a small fishing community by the Kuskokwim River consisting of about 300 people. Fun Fact Time! Eek is one of my favorite village names, it's right up there with Chicken, Alaska. They are both just so.....odd. So here's the real fact (well not sure if it's an actual fact, but I was told this by someone from another village a few years ago), apparently EEK was the airport code for a longer native name that they used for the village, and the pilots couldn't pronounce it so instead they would just call it by the airport code, which was EEK. It just stuck and eventually, came to be officially known as Eek.

Bethel is more of a hub community, with a population of about 7,000, Bethel has some of the big city luxuries that most villages don't have. For example: restaurants, hotels, multiple schools, museums, multiple grocery stores, 50 cabs for the 15 miles of road, etc. you know the essentials. Alaska Airlines even sends a jet up daily. Bethel is the most un-village village that I have been to. Although, Bethel was more luxurious I thoroughly enjoyed them both.

I was there with two other volunteers from Washington providing a free tax assistance service to the residents. Below are some pictures from our adventure. Some highlights Eek and it's no running water, -10 but feels like -30 temps, PIZZA, and we were also joined by another team who got weathered in Bethel, so our team of 3 doubled to 6! PIOHA!