Long-Time-No-Post

Pretty much the day after I wrote my last post, I got super busy! Which is completely the opposite of my past year, and slightly unwelcome because I had a cold and lots of headaches (possible sinus infection) at the same time and zero energy. I have been taking home child portfolios/anecdotal records to work on a couple nights a week to try and get ready for parent-teacher conferences in a couple of weeks. I had lots of planning to do for themes and small group activities as well. Don't get me wrong, I have been enjoying the preschool, it's just been a lot of work lately. And then I was doing laundry, packing, and cleaning before I left for Seattle for last weekend. Kate Maxwell stayed over for a night right before that as well. I think you get the point.

I will write another post about my Seattle weekend, first I am going to get caught up on everyday life. Fall is here! It's definitely getting colder out there... last night was in the 30s for the first time and there was a little bit of frost this morning. I am mostly enjoying fall so far, but it's one of those falls where the trees are confused and there are bare trees, trees with green leaves, and trees with colored leaves all at the same time. So it isn't quite screaming out to me the beauty of fall in full scale yet.

Yesterday, Matt and I went to the Robinettes Apple Haus and Winery (ie: apple orchard). We don't have many chanced to do things together earlier in the day, so he ended up getting off at 5 yesterday and we went after that, before they closed at 6, lol. It was fun none-the-less. We got some amazing hot and fresh doughnuts! We bought a bag of honeycrisp (my new favorite by far!) apples, and a gallon of the best apple cider ever. We also sat and people watched all the families with little kids running around the giant apple and going down the wagon slide.

Matt enjoying his doughnut

I'm excited about our apples!

In front of the big apple

Matt and I just started a small group Bible study through our church. I went to a kind of kick-off, get to know each other event for all of the new small groups a couple of weeks ago, but Matt was working. There are 4 other couples: one in their 40s with 4 kids ages 7-14, one in their 30s(the wife at least) with 3 kids ages 2-7, one in their late 20s with a 1-yr-old, and one couple that actually went to calvin and were a year ahead of us and in our dorm (although we didn't know them, just who they were). So it's a good mix of ages that are still somewhat in the same stage of life. This past Thursday we had our first study at one of the couples' houses, and it went really well. I am really excited to get to know the other 4 couples and learn from and with them. They are already being an encouragement to me to be an example; to be persistant in being Christ-like at work, with my friends, with my family; to be more out-going in sharing my faith (yikes!); and to spend more daily time with God. We are using a study guide that Ada Bible put out to go along with our current sermon series (The Story of the First Church, out of Acts), and that is really good as well. It's cool to be able to dig deeper into topics that we hear taught on Sunday.

What else? We have our first field trip with all the youngins in the preschool soon - we're going to a pumpkin farm :). It's going to be completely crazy keeping tabs on everyone, but hopefully we'll get lots of parents to come along, and it should be fun anyways.

A Productive Day... and some pics

I had quite the productive day off today. I went over to my friend Marcia's house this morning for a couple of hours to play with her kids so she could get some stuff done. On my way home I stopped by the library and got some books for the upcoming weeks for work. I dropped off some clothes for the Salvation Army, then checked out a discount books store nearby that I've been meaning to visit. I came home and went jogging... and the river/creek next to the trail that I run on was so high! It was pretty much at the same level as the path for a lot of it (and over the path in a couple spots). All of the rivers around here are super high and most above flood stage due to the 3 straight days of rain that Ike dumped on us. Anyways, then I came home and made myself a yummy dinner! Cooked broccoli, a panera baguette, and chicken strips cut up in a spinach salad :). I also folded some laundry and did some planning and research for lessons for work. Now I have a couple of hours to relax and crochet in front of the tv :).

So... I just saw more pictures and videos of both of my nieces and I can't handle it! I want to see them now! They are both getting so big so fast. Evangeline has more hair and bigger smiles and Lucca is growing like crazy (and I haven't seen her at all yet). Just a little under 2 weeks... I hope I can make it. Here a few pictures since they're on my mind so much right now.

Little Lucca

Too cute

yawn

Wide awake

Happy Evangeline

Kisses from Mommy

Silly Daddy

Silly baby in her play gym

This is Daddy's fault

Update

Week one in the preschool went well. We still haven't been doing very much at all on the planning or learning end of things, but that will start more this coming week. I am excited to do more of that and to see where my kids are at and help them to grow and learn. I absolutely love the girl that I work with. It's so nice to work with someone younger, more easy going, and someone whom I can laugh and joke with. She is excited that I have more experience, resources, a good attitude, and a good work ethic. This job is unfolding into many more blessings than I even thought. Word is starting to spread that I am going to be permanently working in this room, and I have gotten such an uplifting response from the parents of the kids that I had previously in the toddler room (and even some comments from kids still in the toddler room about being sad that I am leaving). The only downside at the moment is that it looks like my day off might be Mondays now, which is about the worst possible day to have as your day off - there's no day off to look forward to, or as a break in the week. But oh well.

We're in the middle of a rainy streak right now. It rained off and on all of Friday, all of today so far, and is pretty much supposed to continue through Monday. So that made Friday a long day at work, considering there were a few little boys in very bad tempers as well. But considering most of it is on the weekend and I am feeling lazy anyways, that's OK with me.

I've been doing pretty well with motivating myself to exercise lately. For the last month, I've been going jogging (or sometimes biking) every Saturday, day off or late start, and then occasionally an extra night after work. This week I may have overdone it slightly though :-P. Wednesday night I went jogging, then Thursday I biked to work and back. The way there wasn't bad at all, but the way home was hard and my legs hurt pretty badly for the rest of the night.

Matt and I started with Discovery Village (Sunday school) at church again last week. That means more early mornings, but oh well, I know that this is an awesome way that I can serve and give back to my church, and it's so rewarding and teaches me a lot about my own faith as well. We are also going to try out a small group. Next Sunday they have an event that has a series of steps to get you setup with a small group of other people there by the end of it. It's probably going to be a mixed age kind of group, but hopefully there will be a few younger people in it too.

Um... not sure what else is new... 2 more weeks until I get to see baby Lucca. My friend Kate Maxwell is going to come for a short visit just before that. Other than that, just work, extra work from home, crocheting, reading, the usual.

Preschool!

I didn't want to say anything until it was official, but now it is... starting next week, and 100% the week after, I will be teaching in the preschool instead of the toddler room! Due to one of the preschool teachers quitting, lower numbers of kids in the toddler room at the moment, my desire to move, and a few days this week where the other preschool teacher and I proved that we work well together... our director agreed that this was the best fit :). She still has to hire someone part-time to fill in and give people days off, but that shouldn't be too hard.

So... now I can call myself a preschool teacher, which will look MUCH better on my resume! We have a multi-age preschool, which means 2.5 years, up until whenever they leave for kindergarten or young fives. Right now that's 2.5-4.5 years. I will more specifically be working with the younger group, which are incidentally mostly kids I had in the toddler room who recently moved into the preschool. Those are the kids I will be in charge of to plan small group activities and keep anecdotal records for. I have a lot to learn with our records/portfolios on them though, because the toddler curriculum has 21 objectives to keep track of (which I know very well by now), and the preschool has 50 (all of which are new to me). That's all for now :)

PS: Evangeline is 4 months old today... she's getting so big!

Good Old Rain

Oh glorious rain, how I miss thee. It's been raining all day long, and I really do mean ALL day. Monday and Tuesday were both at least 90, and today is rainy and only got to the mid 60s. Now, I am in no way saying that I am ready for all cool rain and no more warm sun. But there's something about the cool, refreshing rain that just calms and comforts me. The sound. The fact that I can cozy up in a blanket on the couch. The wonderful wonderful difference from the sticky humidity. The nostalgia and connection I feel to my hometown.

Now, after a couple of days of this, I will be more than ready for some hot sun to sit out on the deck and read under... although I don't know if that will be returning at all. I also do not want to spend more than one entire day inside at work with small children who have lots of energy to burn inside rather than outside. :-P

Nothing much new

This is one of those times when I don't really feel like posting because not much has been going on and it will likely not be very interesting... but I'm giving it a go anyways :-P. Let's see... Matt's dad has been here the last 2 weekends working on our basement-puting up all new drywall and a few more odds and ends. Work this past week was pretty slow... I was the only teacher everyday with only 4 kids (tops). This week the rest of the new kids join our room and we will back to sort of normal.

I was about to say that Labor Day weekend has become a bitter-sweet time in the last couple years, but then I realized it's far more bitter than sweet even. Labor Day = the end of summer and beginning of school. Which for me means... Matt starts school soon and I will see him less again... summer is ending, which brings on fall, and then other unspeakable things... it's a long weekend, but Matt is working most of it and we don't have anyone around to do anything with... and then of course the stinging reality that school is beginning everywhere in all those elementary classrooms that I would kill to be teaching in, but alas I am not and will be not for at least another whole year.

On some happier notes... God is still amazing despite my grumblings and He never ceases to provide for me and bless me far more than I deserve. Although Matt has worked a lot this weekend, he does have tomorrow off and we can spend the entire day together. Our weekend is full of bountiful warm sunshine and blue skies without the humidity. I have two beautiful healthy nieces that I absolutely adore and get to visit in a few short weeks. I have a devoted husband who made me blackberry cobbler and homemade whole wheat bread. I have been able to truly relax this past week and weekend and spend plenty of time outside in the yard or inside on the couch reading away. I have a house that I love and will the number one thing that I will miss whenever we move. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.

Exercise

Why is it so hard to motivate myself to exercise? Is it because most of my life I have not had to come up with my own motivation... there was already something else in place? Ever since I started playing softball in 3rd grade, I was continuously in a sport through 12th grade. Not that softball had very much exercise at that point, but still. Basketball started in 5th grade, and that definitely did... and that continued through high school. Even during the off season during high school I had to try to stay in shape, or get back in shape in preparation for upcoming seasons. I didn't have much of a choice, I just did it. I even payed for a health club membership from like June through November the summer before my junior year (along with Tash) to get in shape for basketball, and I really did go almost everyday (which did pay off, might I add... the next season I made it on varsity... not that I ever played, but that's another story :-P).

And then already my first semester freshman year at Calvin, I was in a weight training class where we had to do 10 min of cardio as a warm-up before lifting for an hour, and then I would do another 10 minutes on the treadmill at the end. After that I got into a bit of a routine with going to the gym after class (it's all so easy living on campus!). Once I moved off campus, it wasn't so bad either, because Grace was my workout buddy and we would often carpool on gym days, so I was stuck.

Now... now is the problem. I have no gym membership - too expensive. Calvin is doing construction on their field house, so they are not allowing alumni to use the weight room. And I live in Michigan, where half the year is winter (and too cold for my lungs to handle breathing rapidly in), a quarter of the year is too hot and humid to go for a jog (without heat exhaustion and becoming sick to my stomach), and the last quarter... well... that is when it is cooler but not too cold, or at least at some point during daylight hours this is so. And this is exactly when I should be going jogging because I have no excuse not to! But it is hard convincing oneself to go will some energy out of no where and get off my butt when I could be reading or watching tv or sleeping or writing on here :). My solution to this problem was supposed to be the ipod nano I asked for and received for my birthday. Any kind of exercise is so much better and easier to manage with some music! As true as this is... it hasn't been working all too well, even with the very cool morning and less hot and humid days. It isn't very fun to admit to myself that I really should not be answering with the automatic yes that is ingrained in me, when asked if I am fit or active.

On a different exercise note: I have been going on quite a few bike rides this summer. But once or twice a week at most with those isn't enough for an otherwise healthy 23-year-old, I don't feel.

At least to end this post, I can honestly say that I just returned from a run/jog on the trail by our house :). The one that I could not will myself to go on this morning, lol. Oh how I wish I was one of those people who LIKE to run.