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A couple of days after receiving notification that the USCIS have received my forms for adjustment of status and employment authorization document, I received an appointment to provide my biometric data. It never detailed biometrics were required for the EAD, but guess it’s something they’ve just implemented (as with pretty much everything else to do with the immigration process, they’re constantly changing things leaving you jumping through moving hoops). As expected, the only centre is in Anchorage, and the first time something moves quickly with the paperwork results in having to postpone the appointment – would cost $650 round-trip on flights to get me into Anchorage for Monday 16th April Not impressed when it’s simply a case of once again giving my fingerprints and providing a photograph, especially since I was requested to provide 2 photographs for both sets of forms. Means re-scheduling for when we’ll be passing through Anchorage at the end of May, thus negating the $180 idea of applying for an EAD as I still won’t be able to get a social security until the EAD is approved.

Guess everyone’s too busy getting ready to invade Iran.

Rocky decided to investigate why I was lying in bed earlier and figured the best way to wake me up + make me feel better was to jump up onto the bed with me:

After heading over to the grocery store, Alice from the post office caught me on the way back home to let me know there was a stack of boxes for school. By the time I got to school, Frank was already unloading them and one of them turned out to be my ice fishing stuff

Hopefully this weather will hold for another few days and I’ll be able to head out this weekend. It feels very warm again even though it’s around -10C, and so long as the snow doesn’t become too soft + sticky, should be fun riding out on the snowmobiles to the fishing holes.

But, also in amongst the mail were two letters of receipt from the USCIS for my forms for adjustment of status application. Helpfully shows the receipt date as being March 16th, so if anyone checks my passport over the summer, it will show the visa expiring on March 21st but USCIS receiving my application of adjustment of status before this date Also says they’ll arrange a date + time for me to provide my biometrics (fingerprints + photos), which hopefully will be in Bethel. I reckon it will be in Anchorage, so could be fun trying to arrange it for when we’re actually going to be around in the summer. Means the work permit is unlikely to be sorted by the summer to arrange social security though.

Who was it that said “What a difference a day makes”? Woke up this morning to clear skies, bright sunshine and not even a breath of wind The workmen outside spent all morning digging out their equipment and materials that had been covered with snow drifts and are just checking everything over now. But, since it’s actually pretty warm without any wind (although still around -15C), I headed out to play in the snow with Rocky.

That was just outside out house right at the bottom of our steps, with the great big gouge down the middle from the digger the workmen have been using. Thankfully the snow drift wasn’t a couple of feet to the left otherwise we’d have had real trouble getting down the steps! Further round the village, the snow plow driver will certainly be earning his keep this week:

No jokes about how the snow plow driver gets to work either please Hadn’t cleared the boardwalk around by the Pavilla store, but you could just about get through the snow if you tried hard enough:

It was actually Lucie that had told Kat I should go out for a walk around the snowdrifts over by her house, and sure enough, a couple of ‘helpful’ road signs:

Behold, the dog with legs – very weird with Rocky climbing over snow drifts higher than my head!

Further along the boardwalks, another rather improbable speed limit sign:

And coming back towards home, half a bridge (with another sign warning you of 4-wheelers…):

But, I got a tracking update from UPS earlier saying my ice fishing gear had been despatched from their Anchorage depot, although since the delivery address was a remote location deliveries may not be made every day. Seems like a polite way of saying it will get delivered whenever the people in Bethel get around to it! We’d actually planned on going out fishing on Sunday, but since there’d already been a little snow on Saturday, Nick figured the trails would likely be covered up, and the standing water we’d had to avoid on Thursday would have been hard to spot. Turned out for the best, as less than an hour later the snow storm hit that continued until last night – wouldn’t have been much fun getting stuck out in that and trying to find our way back to he village!

After stopping in the house all morning, we headed over to school in the afternoon so Kat could do a little work. The wind had switched from north east to north west, causing some pretty cool drifts combining from yesterday afternoon’s winds and then those through the night. Wading through to school around Marie’s house with snow up to my waist, and easily 4 feet or so high from the ground itself, made us realise why school just wasn’t possible:

Although Frank had made the call to close the school early enough for news to spread and hopefully minimise the number of kids heading into school, there is news of a 8 or so year old boy in Bethel that headed into school around 8.30a.m, didn’t arrive, and hasn’t been seen since. The blowing snow is just blinding, but hopefully they’ll find the kid soon (if not already). Back around the houses, all the snow from the middle area has been blown around the corner towards the school, but it has created a few drifts a good 4-5 feet high around our house and over towards the new water treatment building:

Just to make things more fun, our duplex had also ran out of fuel earlier on this evening. Thankfully Greg had picked up on it before the temperature dropped too much and got the heating systems fired up again. But, we’re pretty low on water as I couldn’t get the hoses running properly earlier – there was a loose connector and parts of it were freezing, but in the blizzard conditions it wasn’t worth standing outside trying to fix them so hopefully the storm will ease off tomorrow and we can try again.

The snow that started yesterday afternoon continued well into the night, causing some pretty cool snow drifts around the housing units, and with the blowing snow, pretty limited visibility. I said I bet they had a snow day at school but Kat wouldn’t have any of it as the school is rarely closed. Sounds weird that way out in the west of Alaska where snow is pretty much constant for half the year, there’s even a possibility of a snow day!

But, I get up to pour myself a drink this morning as Kat’s getting ready for work and not 2 minutes later Frank, the school principal, calls up to say school’s cancelled due to the snow + wind. Usually I would have unplugged the phone before going to bed as we had a couple of calls at 5a.m a few weeks that weren’t much fun, but last night I left it. Dunno why.

So long as I don’t start seeing dead people, I’m putting it all down to coincidence

I’m guessing the pending $575 cashed check means that the USCIS have received all the forms we sent in a couple of weeks ago for my adjustment of status and all the forms were order. If something had been completed incorrectly or we hadn’t included the right supporting documents, everything should have been sent back to us. So fingers crossed that everything was in order, I’ve got a letter of receipt on it’s way to keep any immigration officials at the airports this summer happy, and my case now sits for a year or two until being processed

But, after saying how little snow we’ve actually had up here in the past 3 months apart from the first 2-3 weeks after I moved out, there’s been a lot of snow coming down early yesterday evening and most of this afternoon as well. Although it makes walking around a bit more fun since you can’t see the ice underfoot, it at least makes things look a bit prettier. With all the strong winds and clear conditions the last couple of weeks, a lot of the snow across the lakes and around the houses had been blown away just leaving the bare ice and exposed frozen tundra which isn’t all that appealing to look at!

Last time Tony the dentist was in school a month or so ago, he brought in some curry mixes for me since it was the one thing I was having trouble with since moving out to the US as I can’t easily pick up any of the ingredients to make a sauce. He’d picked them up in Arizona, but we’ve only just got some boneless chicken breasts to actually give them a try so we invited Marie over for her first curry!

When I actually got the mixes open, it was just the actual powder mix rather than a sauce, so was a little thinner than normal, but bulked out okay after adding in some other bits and pieces. Turned out a lot spicer than expected for a masala, but it was really nice once you got over the kick of it. After a good 3 hours or so in the kitchen, we finally got it on the table:

As usual, far too much for a normal meal so we’ve got plenty in the fridge + freezer for next week! The onion bahjis really turned out well and were pretty much prefect right after cooking though lost a little of the crunch once reheated. I used this recipe from Asian Online Recipes and only took 5-10 minutes of preparation.

The rice turned out a little bland just on it’s own but was really good with the actual curry sauce. I just used a basic pilau rice recipe and added in a couple of chopped hard boiled eggs to turn it into an egg pilau. I also gave naan bread a whirl using this online recipe which although didn’t rise all that well turned out great!

The only thing missing was popadoms as I’d forgotten about them until Kat was explaining to Marie what all the different dishes were! I certainly enjoyed the bhajis and was impressed at how easy they were to cook, and will try a different yeast for the naan bread next time and add in some sultanas maybe too.

But, Kat decided to chime in with a traditional dessert to match the rest of our meal:

‘The’ Cake. Not ‘a’ cake – ‘The’ cake, with a capital T. Best not to ask what actually goes into this, or try to figure out how many calories are in it! Tasted really good though, and we’ve still got half of it left even after the three of us had some and we palmed more off to Marie as she left

So, we let the pike thaw out this afternoon and then tried cooking them Turns out they were both females so I kept the eggs to freeze and use as bait next time – worth a try since they’ll eat pretty much anything and we’d used salmon eggs yesterday. After we (or rather Kat, since I’ve got a nice cut on the top of my thumb she doesn’t want to get infected like Josh before Christmas!) gutted them, I wasn’t sure how much meat we’d actually get off them as they didn’t seem all that impressive once cleaned out. But, they seemed to soak up the little sauce I smeared over the inside before cooking them and we ended up with quite a bit from the one fish:

That was more than enough for the two of us! It wasn’t quite as bony as I expected other than down towards the tail, and much like when cooking trout the scales peel right off after cooking and you can easily separate the actual meat off the spine. Was pretty tasty, nothing all that special, though will look at making a proper sauce for next time since it was still a little try just on it’s own.

After going out with the kids from school as part of culture week last Thursday, I was really keen to go out and give it a go myself. Nick + Dana were heading out fishing this afternoon and Marie and I joined them. Was nice riding out on the snowmobile, though pretty bumpy without much soft snow, and good fun going across patches of ice. We headed way past where we went with the kids last week and ended up a good 10-12 miles north east of Tunt up the Kuskokwim river:

After driving through the old ice holes Nick had used on Sunday, it didn’t take long for Marie to catch a fish – note Dana in the background hadn’t even got her gear setup yet!

But, after hooking my first fish, I couldn’t then get it reeled in due to ice on the line. After it got off the hook, I re-baited and dropped again, then got this decent sized pike a couple of minutes later:

Although it was still going along with the idea of cutting a hole and throwing in a fishing line, it wasn’t quite as traditional sitting or resting on the snowmobile whilst fishing! But, a little before Marie had taken this photo one of the locals had ridden up with a bunch of kids and his wife in a sled on the back telling us we were fishing in the wrong place. When I asked him where the right place was, he smiled and pointed further up the river and simply said “Where we caught 300 fish. We were blessed today.”. Thought he was pulling my leg, but sure enough their sled was packed with fish to the point of having tarpaulin over the top to stop them falling out!

Coming back the temperature had started dropping, so we didn’t waste much time getting home. It really was cool riding back along the river coming home with the sun low on the horizon, knowing you’d been out and caught your own dinner. One of the books I’ve been reading is about the native cultures and stories of Alaska and one of the ideas the eskimo have is to only take what you need, so I was quite happy with only catching the one fish in the couple of hours or so we were there. As Marie still had fish in the freezer, she gave her’s to us, and Nick + Dana ended up with two fish. Not sure who’s were who, but these are the two we’re going to figure out how to cook tomorrow – that’s a 12″ rule to show their size!

Never had pike before, so will be different. Kat might give Martina a call and see if she has any traditional recipes we can try out. But, I’d really enjoyed getting out of the village for a little bit, and gonna try dragging Kat along next time too

Well, March 21st makes it 3 months since I moved out the US, and so technically the date my visa expires. You only have 90 days after entering the country on which the visa is valid, in the same way when you fly in on a visa waiver as a tourist you only have 90 days in which you are entitled to stay in the US.

Although we filed the forms for adjustment of status on March 10th, within the 90 day period, it’s still a little worrying since I’m in that in-between stage where the visa doesn’t give me any right to stay in the country anymore, but I also haven’t received acknowledgment from the USCIS that my application for adjustment of status has been accepted and is pending approval.

It’s probably going to be another 2/3 weeks or so at the earliest before I either get a letter of receipt acknowledging the forms have been filed, or I get them all back since something wasn’t correct, but at least I’m not travelling through airports or likely to pulled over by the police and have to show my passport