Busy Week

It's been a very busy week! I had something up every night, and I am definitely not used to that anymore, it was exhausting. Parent teacher conferences Monday and Tuesday nights, Marcia and her kids came over to meet Samson and visit Wednesday night, and our first softball practice Thursday. The end of the week was much better than the beginning at least :). We enjoyed catching up with Marcia and softball was fun to get back into. Our games start in June instead of May this year though.

Samson weighed in at 22 pounds at the vet this morning! He's growing and growing. He's learned some new tricks too! We taught him to "sit" and "shake" (as in shake hands/paws... although he gets confused with this one sometimes and just sits and puts his paw up when we say "sit"), and I was going to work on "come" this weekend, but I need to be outside with more space and it's been rainy and stormy. We can take him on walks now! I was so excited that I even took him on a walk in the rain. I was babysitting Lacey and it wasn't raining when we left for the trail, but we knew it was about too, so we were prepared. It really started coming down on our way back, and since we were already all wet, we got to stomp in puddles! She had a blast :). I don't think Samson was a big fan of being all wet though. And then he was pretty muddy, so we came home and gave him a bath, so he's my fluffy white smells good puppy again :). He's pretty pooped from his shots today, which works well with a rainy day. And I really can't complain too much about today's weather, because yesterday was 85 and this is our first real spring t-storm of the season.

Lacey and Samson after his bath :)

Here is a link to some pics that Josh took when they were here for Easter.... if it works... here's also 2 of them: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?page=1&aid=2012638&id=1146240016#/album.php?aid=2012638&id=1146240016
EDIT: You have to sign into Facebook to see this... or go to my wall and click on the link if you have it, sorry.

We've both heard from several schools lately that their positions have been filled, so that is a little discouraging. But we are still sending more out. I sent 2 apps to WA this week: Federal Way and Renton... I am trying not to get my hopes up, but if you're looking for something to pray for.... especially the Federal Way one because Matt applied there as well.

Matt's student teaching is still going super well, but he is going to have a lot of work to do and stuff to turn into Calvin soon as the semester ends.

I am feeling a bit unmotivated/discouraged/sick of work lately. I want to move and get "real" teaching jobs so badly. I am ready to do some real teaching, and get away from all of the potty training, tattling, disciplining, and long days.

I am starting to get really anxious for my family to come visit! Less than a month now! I miss them so much, and I will still miss the other half of them... and have no idea when the next time I will get to see them is :(.

He got his toy stuck around his neck...

Today...

An added note about today... I got so much done and the yard look great! There are 6 yard waste bags sitting in front of our house right now. I also went running, got some sun, and wore out Samson.... in addition to talking to Christina on skype this morning, both my parents and my friend Natasha this afternoon! What a great Saturday :). Now for some rest and food...

Spring Has Arrived!

Yesterday was 70 and today will be too! And even better, I only worked until 12:30 and could actually enjoy the warm sun in the yard with Samson. I did a little work out there, played with Samson, and then sat and read a book in the sun for a while - fabulous! However... I overestimated my pasty white skin that has resulted from a Michigan winter... and underestimated the spring sunshine's intensity after 3 hours out in it... the result being that I got burned in April! No worries, it was WELL worth it :). But I may want to consider some sunscreen this afternoon. I went for a quick bike ride on the trail yesterday too! Today I think I will go for a run, then do some more cleaning up of leaves and sticks in the yard.... yesterday I filled a bag picking up shingles.

Let's rewind... Matt got a lot done with sending out resumes and working on applications during his break last week. We also got all of our gates up to keep Samson safe and confined. And he got to pick up a few extra days at Costco. Matt's fam came up on Saturday around noon. The boys got some work done at the house and us girls ran a few errands and got things ready for more of the fam to come Sunday for Easter. We went to a great Easter service on Saturday night that focused on looking forward to our ressurected bodies and lives in the new earth with Christ! Easter was a very nice day too. It was sunny and 50s and everyone had a good time playing with Samson, of course.

It was kind of a busy week this last week. I had my last day of watching little William after work, we will miss him around here! And then we had small group, and I have parent teacher conferences next week, so I was working on preparing forms and such for those.

Let's see... Samson updates: He did wonderfully with all of the people and excitement of Easter weekend, I was amazed at how well he did! But then he took a turn for the worse when we got back to real life. After all that attention and a week at home with Matt on his break... Samson was SO mad at us for locking him up and leaving him on Monday. He barked so much that night, even when we were in the room with him! We ended up having to put him in his cage, which usually calms him down after just a few min of barking. But he went strong for 45 min until we let him out! Then he kept barking during the night too, of course. Matt ended up sleeping on the living room floor next to his cage! And then we had small group here Tuesday night and he was going crazy too... I felt bad for all the barking. But oh well, he's adjusted back to normal now at least.

One week from today he gets more shots and can go for a walk or run with me!! It's killing me not to take him out to do that this sunny weekend. He is also getting so big! He was at 18.5 lbs when we weighed him last. We can really tell because we had to make us cage bigger again... pretty soon he won't need a divider in there at all... and then he'll be in a bigger cage after that... I am so not ready to have that big cage in my house yet!

I don't remember if I put on here before, but our friends Zach and Sarah just bought a house less than a mile away from us! We are so excited for them and hope we will get to enjoy the closeness for a little while at least. Also, we are ecstatic that our friend Christina got into the speech pathology graduate program at the University of Washington in Seattle! She and her husband Dan will be moving there from Japan in August. Now even if we don't get jobs and move, we will at least be able to see them when we visit my family. And it was a really hard program to get into, she was on the waiting list, so way to go Christina!!

I am so full of energy and excited for spring and all that goes along with it: exercise, biking, grilling, dinner on the deck, playing in the yard, walks with Samson, more daylight, softball (which starts later this year I guess, games go June-August), and summer! Thank you Lord for giving us different seasons! I can't wait for everyone to start blooming more also, it gets SO beautiful here in west Michigan :). Although my allergies could beg to differ... they are already going strong, thank goodness for Claratin D (but too bad it costs nearly $1 a pill!).

The week's happenings

Matt took Samson to the vet on Tuesday and everything looked good. He just needs one more set of shots in 3-4 weeks (at which point we can FINALLY take him for walks!), and then get neutered soon after that. We also gave him his first bath this week and now he is so white and soft and fluffy! I just can't get enough cuddles with him now :). Although we also learned that all those tan patches that have appeared are really his coloring and not dirt. Potty training is going really well, as long as we stay on top of letting him out often enough and paying attention to when he's sniffing around to go. The only accidents he's had all week were once when he was scared and once when we forgot. Right now he is sniffing and burrowing his nose into his blanket that we use for him to lay on and cover his cage with... I just washed it and it must smell pretty good to him! Samson has once again, learned some new things to make our lives more difficult... he can now jump onto a kitchen chair and get on the table! This is how we found him when we were in the living room watching TV earlier in the week (notice how all the naughty things he does are while we're watching TV? Ha ha):

And since then, the chairs are his new favorite spot.

At work this week we took a field trip to the Grand Rapids Children's Museum. I was kinda dreading it and the chaos that it was sure to be. But we had enough parents come and drive that they only had to keep track of 2 kids each and us teachers kept track of 3, so it wasn't so bad. They have so much fun stuff there! I want to go back with a couple kids (not with the daycare) so that I can play with all the cool stuff too. They had a whole exhibit/section with the Blue Man Group as its theme. So it had all kinds of stuff with sound and light.

I worked a 45 hour week this week, so I was SO ready for the weekend.... and because we got to go bowling with Zach and Sarah. We got this awesome coupon for 10 games at 99 cents each, so we took them and had a blast. We were also celebrating with them because they just bought a house! And even more exciting... it's only 0.7 miles and a 2 min drive away!!! I can't wait for spring/summer walks over there, bbqs, and lots of opportunities to hang out :).

Matt is on spring break this week, it started on Friday. He has some jobs around here to get done, a unit on rocks to plan, resumes/applications to get out, a few days/nights of work at Costco, and plenty of time to sleep in and play video/computer games. He deserves this, he's been such a busy guy lately!

Not much news on the job front. Matt will be getting a lot more resumes and stuff out this week. We are starting to look around GR a bit too for openings as a back up. Please keep us in your prayers and that something will open up and for discernment in what to do.

We love our puppy!

Kisses!

Our family :)