Our Great Escape

Jon and I just got back from a vacation in California. We had an amazing time! Our great escape involved:

- renting a jeep and driving to Napa Valley. We had a picnic lunch at V. Sattui winery, went to a forest filled with petrified redwoods, and visited Old Faithful. That night we ate at an amazing restaurant and stayed in a great hotel.

- heading through redwood forests and other scenery toward Mendicino, CA. In Mendicino we walked the beach/rocky coast, browsed shops and admired gardens. We stayed in a B and B b/c that is about all they have in the small town. B and Bs aren't our style, but there's no denying it was a nice place.

- driving along the California coast. AMAZING! This was our favorite part. It was beautiful, relaxed and fun.

-spending time with friends. We stayed with Joseph and Rachel Digerness. They showed us some of there favorite San Fran spots, and introduced us to Sausilito and Tiburon. We celebrated the 4th with them at a county fair in Merin. Oh, that's right... ferris wheel, corn dogs, and cow manure. It was such fun! We also got the see the adorable Prentiss family!

This vacation was a perfect mix of exploring beautiful new terrain and connecting with far away friends. Thank you Joseph and Rachel for your hospitality! Thank you Jon for being a great travel companion!

Summer Project 1

Isn't it beautiful? Oh, the organization makes my heart sing. Matching hangers, cubbies, a shoe organizer... what more can a girl want? I got right to this project the weekend after school ended and thought it would start off my summer with a sense of accomplishment. It did that, but the feeling has wained.

Only 5 more weeks to:
- refinish an antique sewing table
- build raised flower beds
- create a frame and fabric curtain for the back deck
- find someone to redo the front steps
- make a teaching website
- rearrange a classroom
- plan portfolio assignments for my students
- sew a quilt

I can do it, right?

Finished

I took a quilting class in March, and finished my little quilt....at the end of May. Let's just say hand quilting may not be my forte. But quilting is definitely a hobby I am trying to pursue. This quilt is a pattern called single Irish chain and I choose 1930's reproduction fabrics. I'm really proud of it.

Since finishing it, I've also made a small rag quilt, and 2 little patchwork doggies. I'll share pictures of those in the future.

A Toast

This past weekend Jon and I were at a wedding in San Francisco. I enjoyed the toasts at the rehearsal dinner. It was refreshing to hear people say nice things about others. I wanted to make a toast, but felt it was inappropriate since I was the wife of a groomsman and would mention the groom's previous engagement- ooo, taboo.

I love that we can see God's character stamped all over our lives and not just where we have been taught to expect it. My toast would have been about how I could see that God is a redeemer by looking a this friend's love life. He was engaged before and it was wrong, and weird, and almost destroyed him. Now, he's married to a wonderful and beautiful girl that makes him smile.

I also love that regardless of whether we see it, God's character is stamped all over our lives. Weddings always serve to remind me how beautiful, spiritual, and miraculous my marriage is. It's something I tend to forget in the day to day, but thankfully, that doesn't make it untrue.

When 5 year olds make you feel like a million bucks

One of the most wonderful parts of my job is that I work with 5 year olds. These little creatures have a way of working magic on one's self-esteem.

We were counting cookies in cookie jars (not real cookies, but felt ones- otherwise we could chalk up my students reaction as a response to sugar and not my incredible wit). We started the lesson by reading a sentence on the board: There are three cookies in the cookie jar. I then counted out three cookies into my cookie jar making an intentional error. The kids irrupted into laughter. Apparently a teacher making a mistake is top-notch comedy for Kindergartners. The best part is that they never tired of the joke. With each sentence, I'd count wrong or write the wrong number, and always the same reaction of uncontrollable laughter. One boy announced after every mistake I made, "That's SO funny!"

Yeah, feels good.

A Perfect Weekend

Jon and I have had a perfect weekend. The events of the last three days may not have been what I would describe as the perfect weekend had the questioned been posed. But, as the weekend comes to a close, I can say with confidence it was near perfect. Here's how it went:

Friday night-
Dinner at Nabeel's. Nabeel's is one of our favorites and we haven't been in quite a while. I love the greek salad with chicken salad and a side order of fried potatoes.
Relaxing at home.

Saturday-
Bagels for Breakfast. I picked Panera because I love the cinnamon crunch bagel. Panera tried to ruin our perfect weekend by having terrible service. As with everything in this life there is not such thing as true perfection.
Errands, Estate Sales, and Garage Sales. The best parts of this portion of the weekend were driving with the windows down and the cute red purse I found at an estate sale.
Planting flowers. A part of the errands mentioned earlier involved buying new plants to replace all the mums I managed to kill. Though I'm not so great with plants, I do love them! Afternoon chat on the front porch. Our friend Amit, my parents, and my brother and sister-in-law all stopped by. We spent hours enjoying the sun on the front porch.
Italian for supper. Manicotti at Giuseppe's.
Time alone. Jon had plans with some guys, which he thoroughly enjoyed. I headed to the store to pick out a magazine. At home I took a shower, put on some soft PJs (a gift from my mother-in-law, Ginny, who shares this love with me), and rounded up my doggies for some snuggling in bed. I waited up for Jon by watching episodes of the Office. We may have finally earned the name of this blog by staying up until after 12:00!

Sunday-
Late morning. I slept until 9:30!
Almuerzo de Enchiladas. We had lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant- Cocina Superior as Brookwood Mall. Their chicken enchiladas are delicious!
New cell phones and Ben and Jerry's. I finally got a new (working) cell phone. Jon also got some Nextel's for work. My patience while he spent about an hour getting these earned me some Ben and Jerry's. Chocolate Therapy- Yum!
Tannehill State Park. Jon and I decided we needed a excursion. He suggested Tannehill, so we headed there to enjoy the beautiful day.
Movies and hotdogs. We're ending the day with movies and a hotdog dinner. Jon's the chef!

Always an Adventure

Teaching is always an adventure. As with all adventures, there are pleasant parts and not so pleasant parts. In the case of teaching there are pleasant students and not so pleasant students. I'll share with you a story about each kind...

Mema (I changed his name) is a new student this year. He is from Japan, knows very little English, and has mild autism. He is so cute! This week I discovered he is an incredible artist. When I asked the students to write a journal about what they like to do at school, Mema drew a Nepolean Dynamite style lion. When I asked him if it was a lion he shook his head no, added a belt, and wrote GRRR to the picture. Then I asked him how this showed what he liked to do at school. He drew a rectangle around the creature. Added a spiral down he side to show that it was a piece a paper and then squeezed a picture of himself holding a pencil into the corner of the page. Clever! Apparently he likes to draw at school.

And now for the not so pleasant... Lila is another new first grader. She spends her time in my class rolling on the floor, giggling obnoxiously, and pestering the other students. I've tried my range of classroom management resources (though this is admittedly not my strong point) and have no clue how to motivate this kid. By Friday this week I was fed up. She started the day as usual and I decided to get tough. I gave a very forceful lecture ( I try to avoid these, but I'd used all my other tricks) about how she would do what I told her to today because I was the teacher. She responded, "So?" I continued my lecture and ended by explaining that if she chose not to do as I asked then we would go to the office and call her mom. Her response: "You don't know my number. Tell me my number. You don't know it." Determined to behave like an adult and not engage in a "No, you don't." Yes, I do." argument, I decided to ignore her and turned my attention to the other students and my lesson. My childlike tendencies got the best of me, however, when she announced that her telephone number was 831. "That is not enough numbers to be a telephone number Lila, apparently you don't know your number either." To that, she babbled out a few more numbers. I regained my adult posture and continued ignoring her. It sounds like the lecture was completely ineffective, but she actually did what I asked for the next 20 minutes or so. Our time together ended with my wadding up her paper and throwing it away because she folded it when I told her not to (I'm going to admit that was not a necessary move, but I wasn't thinking straight at that point). Oh, my!

The picture shows all the countries my students are from. The number on the jersey represent how many students are from that country.