Demetri "Boy" Tcheripanoff Jr.

 So I know I haven't been keeping this up to date over the years and a LOT has happened in life since.

To update you on my personal life: Boy and I separated in 2016 - after all these years we just because different people and we were not getting along at all anymore. Both of our priorities changed over the years and we just didn't work out anymore so we both decided to go our own separate ways. We have been working on divorce papers to finalize everything but unfortunately, Boy did not sign anything yet and I wasn't exactly forcing him to get it done.

Well July 2, 2019 will never be the same for us here. Our daughter Veronika, my neice's Aaliyah and Halie were out hiking to get pictures next to the waterfall on the hike to Entrance Point. The weather was NOT the best to be out hiking but they weren't going far from town so we figured it would be ok. Well while they were out there taking photos, here comes Boy - hiking alone... They said he seemed surprised to run into anyone by the waterfall, especially his daughter.

So, from what we were told, Boy was not acting himself and seemed really down. The girls swore they seen his Judge handgun in his hoody pocket.... well he went and sat with Roni and talked with her for a bit. Roni asked him to go home with them, but he told her he will see her later at her Kooka's (his mom's house) house. That was the last time he was seen or heard from.

My daughter alerted my sister that her dad had not come back yet and it was 10PM. She kept going over checking to see if he came home yet because he TOLD her he would see her later at her Kooka's. By 10:30PM we rallied up our SAR team and took a group of us (I am part of our Search and Rescue group, our EMS group - I am an ETT - and part of our Volunteer Fire Dept.) and we all hiked out in that crappy, windy weather. The tide was high and the walk was not easy at all, but it wasn't stopping us from going to look for him!

We searched and searched and searched... We didn't get back to town until after 1:30AM in the dark, windy, rainy weather. We continued to search in town until 2:30AM, we would start back up at 6AM the next day. We had people searching from on the ground, by skiff looking along the beaches and in the water and we used the Helicopter to fly over almost the whole island searching for my kids dad. We continued searching for 2 weeks straight for any sign of him. NOTHING, nothing at all.... no answers, but so many questions....

It's coming up on 16 months not and we still have not found one single clue, nothing... where did he go? what happened? why was he hiking alone? We didn't really talk much except about the kids, so if he was going thru anything personal I would not have a clue. I heard some rumors, but I don't believe rumors! We will never know what happened, I don't think we are ever going to find him.

It hurts to not know what happened. It hurts to have my children go thru losing their dad and not knowing why or what. My daughter blames herself so much for him going missing, I try to tell her it's not her fault any at all, what happened was NOT her fault and she shouldn't have to live thinking that she didn't try hard enough to get him to go home or for her to stay with him until he returned. My kids miss their dad, they loved him! It hurts me to see the pain my kids are going thru because of all of this and I hope to GOD that it doesn't affect them too much as adults later in life.

So, since we never did get the divorce finalized - I am in a limbo with the state since he is considered "missing" and not deceased. So I don't have a death certificate to finalize my widow papers. I can't get my kids passports or travel out of state or country with them without the other parent's written consent (how can I get written consent from a missing person??). There is so much that I need to get done that I can't do because he's not considered deceased but just missing. How long is a person considered missing before any paperwork is done? I don't like having to be stuck in the position I am in, but I have no other option at the moment until the State of Alaska and the State Troopers declare anything other than him just being on the Missing Persons List.

I pray my kids can one day understand what happened, at least come to terms with what they had to grow up dealing with and that this doesn't affect their lives too much. I love my babies and I will raise them the best I can and I will never let them lose the memory of their dad! Just because we weren't together anymore doesn't mean we stopped caring for each other. I really hope that we get some kind of sign or something of what happened, but I doubt we will ever find anything... not with our weather and tides and the fact that we live on a small island with no where else to go..... There is no way to survive out here long in our weather and temps, exposure will kill you! 

You will never be forgotten Demetri "Boy" Tcheripanoff Jr. Born May 14, 1983 - Missing July 2, 2019

Years go by too fast!!

OMG the years go by way too fast!! Has it really been that long since I last posted in here? I am so sorry I haven't been keeping this up to date! I will try to start working on it more and try to get more updates. 

My kids are now 8 and 10! The years are going by so fast!! My babies are excited for Halloween and can't wait to get candy Trick-or-Treating! I am excited for our first annual Halloween Monster Ball - carnival style with games and prizes, a Haunted House, raffle and lots of fun! Our planning committee is working to plan future activities for our community!

COVID has changed so much in our lives. We have been lucky enough to not have any cases yet in our village. Everyone who is traveling is doing their quarantine and getting tested. School has been interesting with how they have to go early and get their temps taken and answer questions - plus they have to wear masks all day in school. Funny part is that they all play together outside after school so I don't know why there is a need for them to wear the masks all day in school... gotta follow District rules....

So we no longer have the hovercraft here. To get to and from Akun (where our airport is) we have to take a 5 min helicopter ride before getting on Grant's planes to Dutch. Travel is harder with all that happened with the Saab crash in Dutch Harbor last year in October. We've been dealing with having to purchase any open charter seats that may be available since RAVN stopped flying and there are no other commercial companies who fly out this way. Travel costs are outrageous, I haven't been off the island since May 2019!

I want to thank Aleutian Housing Authority and the Akutan Traditional Council for the money they gave to all the Tribal members here. The food, fuel and electric is greatly appreciated!! Now to budget out the money given so we can have free food all winter. Grateful to both companies for helping our community with their CARES Act funding. Also, thank you to Eastern Aleutian Tribes for renting out units in the Bayview Plaza for quarantine/COVID use for locals!!

I am still a Scentsy Consultant! I have grown my team and am currently a SuperStar Consultant. My team and I are working hard so I can hit Director and officially name our team with Scentsy home office! I am always willing to help anyone who wants to join my team, there are 2 ways to join: an awesome $99 join kit and a smaller $59 Host Join Kit (available with qualifying parties). Come and start your own scent journey and let me sponsor you! I will be here to help you along the way, join my family/team! We have team challenges and support each other, you not only join my team, but you join my sponsors and her sponsor's teams as well! I am busting my booty to earn the Fall/Winter Incentive Trip to Disneyworld next year (I earned the Bermuda Cruise this year but it was cancelled, that was my first trip I have ever earned. I want to earn them all now if possible!!) Any help to earn my spot is greatly appreciated!! How to help me earn this incentive: any and all purchases help towards my total. Joining my team and getting Certified and growing your own team also gets me required sponsoring points. The sponsoring points are all I need to secure 1 spot (I'd love to earn for my whole family, but first I need to earn level 1 for myself). If you or anyone you know want to take advantage of joining my team, then please contact me or go to: https://aprilpelkey.scentsy.us/join  for more info and to join my team!

Much love to you all out there in the world! Stay safe, stay healthy and don't forget to enjoy life, even with all that is going on in the world - always stop to smile and enjoy everything we have in life!

August 13, 2014

Last week had to be the best week of the year, culture wise!! Akutan just finished their Annual Culture Camp - hosted by the Tribal Council. There were a lot of activities to do last week, and I know a lot of people had fun joining in the festivities!! I went up and started to make a beaded headdress, others were making drums, bent wood hats, weaving grass baskets, making Aleut butterflies, making regalia, learning how to dance and sing, along with a handful of other activities!! They made a 2 man kayak (Uludax) completely by hand, carving, bending and assembling all the pieces until they finally wrapped it in a nylon skin then took it out in the water!! It is awesome to see in person, words can't describe the beauty in the wood work that everyone did on it!! The best part was the last day where they did a dance presentation, potluck and our first ever live auction!! The dance group (mostly kids between 13-19) even did a dance presentation on the dock for the state ferry Tustemena!! Boy did they get a great show when they docked up!! My baby girl was down there with her cousin Aaliyah all decked out in beaded headdresses holding up the dancers name sign and donation box!!! All in all Culture Camp was a blast this year and I can't not wait until next year! I wish I was able to do more than what I did but I've been busy at work and can't make it between 9-5.. but at least they had classes from 7-9 that I could attend!!

The weather is cooling off.. the fish are all going up the creeks and the salmonberries are ripe and ready for picking before they fall off the bushes their selves!! I walked to the head of the bay on Sunday to get myself some humpies for drying... ended up snagging 2, lost my hook on the 3rd fish.. then realized I lost all my hooks on the walk up.... so I was sitting there on the beach with nothing to do because I had no other way to catch fish so I just cleaned up my two humpies I did catch and walked my happy ass back home. Not bad I guess 2 hours and I got 2 fish :p  It was low tide when I walked up and I never realized how many dead clams and mussles are on parts of the beach, I was literately walking on nothing but crushed clam shells on a small stretch of the beach. I dont' remember the last time I actually walked up the bay, I enjoyed it! Just me and my blk lab Tug. I was a little sore from hiking up and back but I need to exercise anyways. I'm just happy that at least I didn't get "skunked" and I got 2 fish at least!! When I got home I hung my two little fish up on my drying rack! I might be putting those fish inside here today or tomorrow to finish drying, humpies only take 5-7 days to completely dry! I'm happy that at least I tried and got 2 fish... LMAO!! Hey I tried that's what matters!!

Tomorrow I will have been married in court to the love of my life for 6 years! We quietly eloped without telling anyone but my sister-in-law Amanda, her bf at the time, and my brother-in-law Don John. We went to Amanda's house, she and her bf were our witnesses and we had Don John commissioned by the Unalaska Court to be our wedding commissioner!! So we quietly said our vows, kissed and signed our paperwork and mailed it back to the court house in Dutch. About a month later I think people noticed I changed my FaceBook status to married, and we started to get questioned by everyone. Finally when it came to our parents asking we told them yes we got married but we figured we wouldn't share the info until we can have a big Church wedding because that's the one that is more important to me. Not the paperwork to get married (you have to be legally married in court before getting married in our Orthodox Church), so we figured we would get the paperwork part out of the way then work on a church wedding to share with everyone. I guess many people didn't understand and we got called selfish for not letting people know right away. We made it up tho by having a beautiful church wedding here in Akutan in 2010 that everyone could attend. LMAO I still remember people pocketing the jello shots I made for the reception, Akutan's first time really having jello shots!!! It was a great time and even better memories!! I was thinking maybe on our 10 or 15th anniversary to renew our vows so our kids can be involved! :)

We had a lot of people come and go this summer including some Japanese tourists, and the Alaska Volcano Observatory with the USGS (US Geological Surveyors) to name a couple. The AVO ppl checked on all their monitoring systems they have installed on the island to watch our volcano Mt Akutan. They have also fixed their web cam that is located across the bay (which monitors the volcano also but you can see town and trident in the camera, search AVO cams and look up Akutan to view). It's pretty interesting to meet the people who come out this way just to say they've been here or because they saw it on TV and wanted to come out here (like the Japanese tourists who saw a show in Japan on Akutan and whales). I guess I take for granted the beauty and serenity that we get out here, life is at a slower pace and not so rushed and you get to enjoy the little things that you would probably look over when you lived in the rushed city life. Here we can enjoy life and sit back and relax in the beauty of the islands. Fresh air, clean water, refreshingly cold rain showers, and the smell of the ocean - I'll take that over car exhaust any day!!

Well bloggers... until I get on again... I'll see you again next time!!! Take care and we'll be posting again here soon hopefully!!

Much luv from me to you!
April Dawn

Has it really been 2 years since I last posted?

OMG has it really been almost 2 years and a month since I last signed on here and filled anything in?!?!?!?! Why isn't anyone pushing me to keep this updated, make me find the time!! ;)

Well A LOT has been going on in the past 2 years, so much that it's going to be hard to get this updated correctly, but I will try my best to let you all know what's been going on in my life here on the Rock! I will try to get a post up weekly now if I can, I had to remember how to even sign back onto my blog! Give me a couple days or so and I will try to get as many updates as I can posted up for everyone!

So it's the end of July 2014 already! Where has the year gone already? I swore it feels like just the other day the snow was melting and the days were getting longer and starting to warm up.... now we're already less than a month from experiencing our first freeze.... The fireweed is slowly blooming (in full bloom that means summer is over and fall is here), another sign that summer is wrapping up to an end. I didn't even get out to get any salmon this year, maybe I will get some pinks (humpies) and dry them but I know I"m SOL on getting some reds put away this year. I will try to make up for it by getting mass berries put away! Speaking of the fireweed, seeing the blooms pop out (from the bottom up) makes me wanna go out and pick some to make a batch of fireweed jelly!! It's labor extensive but it's well worth the sweet pink jelly!! The salmonberries are starting to ripen, so are the blue berries and moss berries! I've already picked a couple handfuls with my kids, who jammed those handfuls into their mouths as fast as they could! The island is as green as an emerald and shines when the sun decides to come out of the fog and clouds!! The fresh smell of the low tide on the beach, sweet and salty with a hint of seaweed - makes the summer days even more to treasure!! Listening to the seagulls sing, the waves washing up on the beach, a distant rosy finch singing into the morning light, and once in a while you hear whales blowing water out of their blowholes when they take a breath and in the sky elegant eagles swooping around, scoping out the salmon jumping in front of the creeks they are waiting to span in. Mexican swallows gobbling up as many bugs as their little mouths can catch, and a pair of kingfishers who like to show up, all makes our summers that much more magical!

My babies are growing up fast! Veronika is already 4 and had her first year of preschool last year, she will repeat it this year since she's not old enough for Kindergarten yet. My boys, Brandon and William, are in their terrible 2's and currently getting their second year molars in.... I don't like the teething phase and I doubt they like it either!!

Give me a couple days to work on my next posts and I will do my best to get everyone updated and informed on what's going on here on the Rock!!

Until I get back on again, take care and keep reading!!

Always your blogger,
April Pelkey

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Well looks like I had to upgrade to this Google Chrome to get access to my blog once again. I was procrastinating downloading but figured I better if I want to write on here!

So it's been a busy last couple months! My boys are already 3 months old!! They have such great personalities already!! They always seem so happy and giggly, I love hearing their little coos and awws. It's still hitting me that I have 2 lil boys, makes me cry when I sit and stare at them thinking what they are going to be like when they get older and how we're going to handle all 3 kids.... Roni loves her brothers and is very helpful, always giving a helping hand when it comes to diaper changes and showing them toys to play with and she's always giving them kisses on the head! She's such a great big sister!!

Summer is slowly showing up here in the Aleutians. The last couple days we've been having blue skies, sunshine and you can feel the warmth of the sun. Still a lot of snow on the hills yet, my hubby and I are betting that it probably won't all melt before it starts to snow again but time will only tell if it stays that long. The sea gulls are laying eggs and some people in town harvested them a couple times. It was really good to have a fresh sea gull egg custard pie!! Still waiting for the red salmon to start hitting the nets, only a few here and there but nothing big. The salmonberry bushes are starting to push their delicate little pink flowers out and the bumble bees have been buzzing around them - a promise to berries in the fall!! The island is slowly turning green, I love when the island are all emerald green in the summer!! And the fresh summer smelling air - green grasses, the ocean, flowers..... makes a person smile to wake up and experience our short summer season!

The Eagles are patiently waiting for the salmon to show up too. I love hearing them screech and scream and make their pretty eagle sounds mixed in with the tweets of the little Rosy Finches and the clicking sounds the Kingfishers make, then the swoop of a little Mexican Swallow enjoying it's meal of all the little flying bugs that are coming out with the mornings sun. Yes summer in Akutan is peaceful and beautiful, I am very greatful for where I call home!!

The state ferry has been doing it's runs every 2 weeks, the last couple times it came we had really nice weather for all the tourists. I love when Mother Nature gives them great weather to enjoy when they come out here. The first couple times the ferry came in we were still having winter-like weather and it stormed hard when they came, but now that summer is settling in hopefully it'll be nice every time they come in, hopefully!

The airport project is coming along and they should be finished by August and up and running by September (that's their plans anyways, we'll see if that's what goes on), the boat harbor is moving along great - they are starting to get the breakwater put in, dumping lots of rocks in the bay to make their little protecting wall. I heard they are moving along with getting the road project to the boat harbor so pretty soon they should be getting that project started. There are electricians here working on  laying new power lines to all the houses, so they are tearing up a lot of ground - detours around where they are working since they are pulling up the boardwalk and sometimes having ditches run across where we usually walk/drive - the city has a crew behind them working on putting the boardwalk back down after they have moved on. The daycare has the foundation and floor down, now it looks like they are working on getting the walls and what not started, they should be finished by this fall. I also heard the cafe is supposed to open this coming month, finally!! So that's a little bit of news about the happenings going around town right now.


I have pix I need to get uploaded I'll get that done hopefully this week sometime of the boys, Roni, and miscellaneous stuff.

Well I know that it's been a while since my last post. I really need to start keeping up on my blog. I'll try to get another post written, most likely after I get some pix uploaded :) Ok well I have to get my day started and get ready for work!

Some pix

I have more pictures on my camera but I don't have a way to get them on my computer right now. These are all pix I have taken with the camera on my phone that I had uploaded to my Facebook page. I hope you enoy them as much as I do. When/if I have time I'll make sure to go thru and caption them all!!

<3 April Dawn