MISSOULA!

Missoula is a city that is not afraid of color. That thrives off of communal creativity and embraces the eclectic.


Hand-painted tile murals lined one building's parking lot

Ventured to Missoula over the long weekend and absolutely loved it. So funky and full of treasures. Ended up staying in the most gorgeous apartment in town (which belongs to our friend Fr. Jim's sister friend who is in the hospital and was so gracious to offer her home when we were looking for somewhere to stay.) Visited the Missoula JVs and got to share JV stories and hear what it's like to live in a place totally different than St. Xavier. They're awesome and I'm so glad we got to hang out with them. Checked out a bunch of the unique shops downtown and went banjo-hunting for Sarah. Went to the coolest fro-yo bar with Laura & Martha (Missoula JVs) where you serve yourself and put on all the toppings you want and pay by the ounce.. YUM! Also went to a really quirky place called Food for Thought for breakfast... caught up with Rich from the Missoula Catholic Worker House who was at our first retreat... and just walked around a lot and explored the city. Got a much-appreciated dose of city-culture and free spirit.


All of these boxes around town were painted fun... this was my favorite


The Clark Fork River that runs through Missoula


FRO-YO! Something we do NOT have in St. X!!


The view from the rooftop patio of Sister Dot's gorgeous apartment


Wall-length windows look out at the mountains on all sides... it was beautiful!

OH, and we went to IDAHO! In an attempt to visit the Hot Springs in Lolo, we kept driving and were so close to the border that we just went into Idaho. We were all excited about jumping between time zones and being in two places/times at once. Way exciting!

Don, Sarah, & Matt in two times at once! Is it the Twilight Zone?! No, just the Montana/Northern Idaho border!

Us Saint Xavier JVs


Traveling back through Montana... au revoir, Missoula!

Forever in our hearts...

It has been a very sad time back home and for me way out here- we lost a very important part of our family this week. He was the most special dog anyone could have ever known and touched lots of hearts. I can't believe he's no longer here... but I know he will always be with us.

Love you forever, Wilson.<3

Mardi Gras!

As I've come to realize, every holiday is reason for celebration here at Pretty Eagle. Fat Tuesday proved to be no exception. In third grade we made some dazzling masks... and then the lower grades marched in a goofy little parade walking around the school banging on instruments. The best part was probably the cafeteria, which got all decked out with balloons & decorations, the servers in fancy Mardi Gras masks, with a big buffet of Cajun foods--including alligator! Luckily they were serving plain old pizza too, for those of us unadventurous enough to dive into the seafood and jambalaya. (One of the second grade boys realized I wasn't eating any of the crawfish and began teasing me by sticking the claw in my face... agh!!) It was a fun day and definitely one of the more festive Fat Tuesdays I've experienced!

















Happy Mardi Gras!

Hitting the trails

Went cross country skiing for the first time yesterday! Figured it was something I had to do while out here in Montana. But it's so oafy trying to move with 5 foot planks on your feet! I'm glad I tried it, but it's not really my cup of tea... (I'd much rather sit WITH a cup of tea and watch everyone else ski! ...haha)





We went in Red Lodge, a skiing/mountain town west of us, about 25 miles from the Wyoming border. If anything it was beautiful day, traveling the trails through the woodsy hillsides under a sunny bright blue sky.

Next up: Missoula next weekend!

"Indian Singing in 20th-Century America"

We wake; we wake the day,
the light rising in us like sun--
our breath a prayer brushing
against the feathers in our hands.
We stumble out into streets;
patterns of wire invented by strangers
are strung between eye and sky,
and we dance in two worlds,
inevitable as seasons in one,
exotic curiosities in the other
which rushes headlong down highways,
watches us from car windows, explains
us to its children in words
that no one could ever make
sense of. The image obscures
the vision, and we wonder
whether anyone will ever hear
our own names for the things
we do. Light dances in the body,
surrounds all living things--
even the stones sing
although their songs are infinitely
slower than the ones we learn
from trees. No human voice lasts
long enough to make such music sound.
Earth breath eddies between factories
and office buildings, caresses the surface
of our skin; we go to jobs, the boss
always watching the clock to see
that we're on time. He tries to shut
out magic and hopes we'll make
mistakes or disappear. We work
fast and steady and remember
each breath alters the composition
of the air. Change moves relentless,
the pattern unfolding despite their planning--
we're always there--singing round dance
songs, remembering what supports
our life--impossible to ignore.

-by Gail Tremblay, in Reinventing the Enemy's Language

Happy Valentine's Day!

It was a great Valentine's Day at Pretty Eagle! With balloons and treats galore, it was a festive day in the classrooms. Then at 2 o'clock everyone went to the gym for the Box Social. Students decorated boxes and there were prizes for best valentines box, most traditional, and best Disney box.






The elder who came to MC the box social and push dancing


The 3rd grader who won the prize for most traditional box
In the boxes everyone was supposed to put a meal for two, so after the judging they invited students to share their box "with an elder." 5th grader Delanie shared her box with me and it was so fun- I thought it was a really special tradition to take part in (I'm not sure where the idea of the box social came from or when it started but I think the St. Labre schools are the only ones who do it.)


After the lunch was push dancing, which was great too. There were four drummers (one of whom was only two feet tall! cute little baby drumming!) and kids K-4th then 5th-8th danced in a contest. Some of the students got dressed up in their outfits which was awesome. It was just such a fun celebration!


After school I did my first dance club class which was pretty fun. The girls are excited for it and haven't stopped asking me about it so I'm glad to do it with them.




Valentine's fancy on the playground!

Then after dance club Sarah & I went over to the boys' basketball game. It was SO intense! It was a really good game and I think the first one all season where they didn't hold the lead the whole time... they still won with 91 points but it was real close. It was also kind of tense because it was our Crow team vs. a Northern Cheyenne team... there's big rivalry between the two reservations, even when it comes to Jr. high basketball. The best part was the spontaneous cha cha slide dance-off at half time, when there were four little Cheyenne boys dancing in the middle and a line of Pretty Eagle kids dancing on the side started getting closer and closer and it turned into a dance battle. It was an entertaining half-time show! haha

Cha-cha slide dance-off!



Happy Valentines Day!

Great Falls, MT

Just got back from our JVC Northwest winter retreat in Great Falls, MT. It was a wonderful weekend with a wonderful group of people. The theme of this retreat was social justice (each retreat focuses on one of the four JVC Northwest values- so last one was community, this one was social justice.) Our facilitator was the director/founder of Hopa Mountain, an awesome nonprofit out of Bozeman that "invests in rural and tribal citizen leaders who are working to improve education, ecological health, and economic development in their hometowns."

A group photo taken from Sarah's camera. That old man in the middle is George from the Ursuline Center (see below why he's the greatest!)


Each community had the chance to dream & design small changes that can make a big difference, in our service, our schools, our communities. A main point was to avoid deficit thinking- focusing on the 'problems' that need 'fixing'- and instead looking at the strengths of a place or situation and imagining what 'could be.' Here in St. Xavier, us JVs are going to be focusing this last half on integrating the value of stewardship into the culture of Pretty Eagle, based on the school's strong commitment to living out Catholic and traditional Crow beliefs and values. It was a great time of re-orientation, in general, a re-planting into the four values of JVC and how we hope to continue to grow this year. And, overall, just a lovely weekend!



The Ursuline Center was a fabulous, huge old building. When Mother Raphael was living she had a beautiful art studio in the central tower (which they have preserved as part of the history of the building.) We got to go out onto the roof from the art studio which was pretty neat.


The lovely Hays ladies posing by the tower.


What a space for a studio!

The man speaking to the group is George Di Giorgio, resident caretaker of the Ursuline Center. He gave us a tour of the building and the little museum parts. He also has some of the most incredible stories any of us had ever heard- like building a sailboat to escape his home of Chile during political unrest, joining an expedition to Antarctica at 17 where their boat got frozen in and trapped for a year, leading the Canadian syncronized swimming team to an Olympic gold medal (that one was by accident), being in 3 movies and dating movie star Stefanie Powers, and my favorite, going to rescue a boat by a small island near Fiji, I think?, unknowingly marrying a girl from the island, and then tricking her to go back to the island and nullifying the marriage. Ha! These among many, many more that we had the joy of hearing from him. Now, as he told PBS when they wanted him to come out to Manhattan to interview him for a documentary on the Antarctica expedition and he said no- "I'm old, I've lived here for 8 years, I'm practically a nun." (So they came to him. The episode should be out by summer.) Oh, the people you meet!





At the Great Springs in Giant Falls, Montana.


The springs were steaming since they stay at 54º year round.

Montana claims the world's smallest river is here at Giant Springs, right off the Missouri. It's even shorter than Sarah! ;) ha ha...




Montana magic: on the drive back we saw at least 10 bald eagles... wow!

Party Weekend!

This has been quite the party weekend... started on Thursday with 5th grader Cecily's birthday party, then Father Charlie's 70th birthday party at the church hall, then the BEST 10th birthday party ever- a dance party at Reno Hall in Crow for Colton, 4th grader whose family we are close with. Tons of kids from school were there and lots of families that we know. The local celebrity Supaman was the DJ and he did a bit of live rapping in the middle of it- everyone loves him! He knows how to get the crowd going and raps about things that matter. The party was so fun with lots of dancing- I spent most of the time dancing with one of my favorite little second graders Erica.. I always end up finding the little kids who don't stop dancing! At one point I asked her who one of the little boys standing off to the side was- she goes "I don't know, but whoever he is, he's not getting into the beat!" haha!

The gift basket I put together for Colton :)

To round off our party weekend was Super Bowl Sunday. Our 5th grade teacher grew up in Maine and is a hardcore Patriots fan, so we planned to have a little party. Well, as the game was starting we found out that her TV didn't have the channel- a Super Bowl party without the Super Bowl... classic. Hilarity ensued as we piled the pans of chili and cheese dip and bowls of snacks into our van and sped off to a nearby hotel in Hardin where her daughter works. She let us into a room and we had our Super Bowl party off location but in style. Even though the Patriots lost, it was a fun time!

Was hoping to share some photos from Colton's birthday party, but I have to wait to get them from Don. For now here's a picture of the fun Super Bowl cake I made :)

Reservation Blues

Just finished Reservation Blues. I just can't get over how pinpointedly Sherman Alexie brings the truth, wit, and reality of this brazen society onto the page.

Makes me want to go write an English essay. (Not kidding... I'm a dweeb!)