Week 1 of school: check! Second Monday of school: check! Who's already looking forward to the long Labor Day weekend? -My husband is. (I'm sure along with most other teachers.)
So Cody's starting year two of teaching, and I think his first week went pretty well. Thank you Lord : ) He did start to get exhausted and stressed towards the end of the week and over the weekend, I guess as to be expected. This year he has 3 preps instead of 2. He's teaching (I think I've already shared this with yall... but oh well) regular Geometry, Pre-AP Geometry, and Pre-AP Algebra II. He has some students again from last year... not repeats, just they had him for Algebra I and now for Geometry. He doesn't feel as prepared for this second week as the first week. I'm hoping and praying that he'll be able to stay organized and on top of grading and such throughout the year so that these 3 preps don't make it all too stressful. So far his favorite class is the Pre-AP Algebra II. I think he's really enjoying the ability to have real discussions with those classes and getting their brains thinking and sharing about it all. Hopefully that will continue.
I haven't had a sub job yet. I guess teachers make a real effort to not be absent at the beginning of the school year (-I guess it's understandable). Today I went to a couple schools (and if I don't have jobs during the rest of this week, I plan to continue) and dropped off some business cards with my contact info and certification areas in lots of teachers' mailboxes. Hopefully some of them will give me a call to sub for them. And then hopefully they like me and use me again, and share my name with other teachers, and I get very familiar with a couple schools, and then if either a long-term sub job opens up, or a full-time teaching position, the principal will consider me. Hopefully. I guess that's the new goal.
Filling some of my spare time at the moment, I've become a bit of a blog addict. I currently have four. This one (that obviously I don't need to tell you about) and a private blog that acts as my journal-thing, (I don't really like to say that I journal for some reason...) I've had for a while now. But after lunch with some friends from church on Sunday (yesterday), I decided to start two new ones... and that process kept me up later than I have been in quite a while. But I love it. I half feel bad because I'm sharing this... but I'm not going to tell you what/where they are. Sorry! One is under a different name so that I have anonymity to be completely open and honest and express myself through the outlet of blogging, and another was a suggestion of my friends at lunch... a writing blog. That one is also private (I might open it up later, not sure yet) and the focus there will be for me to have motivation to actually write something every now and then. I love writing and have a secret (guess it's not secret anymore) dream of being a writer -although I honestly don't think I have the talent to, it's still something I enjoy. So... sorry I tend to ramble. These two new blogs are sort of experiments. We'll see if they continue to develop and last for long. I hope they do... but you never know. Four blogs might just be too much!
Anyways. Gotta go help Cody grade some papers and figure out dinner plans. I had a new meal to try tonight that I was excited about... but another dumb headache that is very quickly worsening will probably get in the way of that. Maybe another night this week. We'll see.
PS - Happy birthday to my Dad! I'm glad you have leftover chocolate cake to enjoy today!
Monday, August 30, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
So, what did we do at South Padre?
Even though this was three weeks ago now... I'm finally going to fill everyone in on what all we did on our South Padre trip with my family. We were there for a week at the beginning of August and it was a great trip! The only thing missing from the trip was Ryan not being there. Hopefully next time. Anyways, so...
Obviously as it was a beach trip, we spent lots of time relaxing out on the sand and in the water. Amazingly, the whole time we were there the water was super clear and clean with no fish/animals that would freak me out in the water, no seaweed... no anything in the water! It was perfect. I was actually able to get in the water without constantly searching around me for anything that might brush up against me and freak me out. Also, Cody has a neat two handle kite that you can attempt to do tricks with that he loves and we all took turns trying out on the beach. It was pretty neat. I mastered making it do a big loop without crashing pretty quickly. We also spent a lot of time at the pool the second half of the week, and I think every evening my brothers and Cody and my dad went to the game room in the hotel place and played Pinball and Foosball.
One night we did Go Karts and one afternoon we rented two Paddle Boards that were a lot of fun actually. You stand (we also sat or stood on our knees) and paddle around on a massive board. We really enjoyed it. We also went to Schlitterbahn one afternoon. We rode every ride in the park and did the lazy river thing multiple times. It was relaxing and fun except that I had to loose both contacts due to sunscreen in my eyes which caused them to feel like they were on fire. It was an interesting experience being blind at the water park. I literally had to hold someone's tub in the river to stay with our group, and a couple times I passed right by my dad without recognizing him. My vision is extremely bad lol. Another day we rented these electric Mopeds and toured the island. It was fun... until my skin was cooking in the sun. I hadn't gotten burned the whole trip (this was one of the last days), and I thought I could go one hour in the sun without lotion... however it ended up being a two hour tour, and it was absolutely the worst sunburn I have ever gotten in my life. Oh well... as it's now three weeks later... I don't need to complain about it too much since I'm finally fully recovered and done peeling.
Cody bungee jumped for the second time! (Remember his first was at Victoria Falls during our summer mission trip in 2007.) This jump was at the Go Kart place on the island... it wasn't nearly as neat or big of a jump as Victoria Falls (I don't think he'll ever beat that one.), but it was a jump nonetheless... I couldn't do it. He was excited about it. I was sad I didn't get a good picture this time... for some reason I thought I had another minute before he jumped, so I backed up to get in line for a better view... and while I was backing up he jumped, so I missed the picture I was hoping for. Oh well. The Vic Falls pic is way more awesome anyways : )
We (aka everyone minus me) enjoyed a lot of seafood. Louie's Backyard was their favorite with the all you can eat seafood buffet. I got a nice pasta and tried to stay as far away as possible from the massive quantities of crab and shrimp that covered our table. It was a really enjoyable trip! I think everyone thoroughly enjoyed it. We loved time on the beach and enjoyed lots of other activities as well. Thanks Mom and Dad for the family vacation!
Obviously as it was a beach trip, we spent lots of time relaxing out on the sand and in the water. Amazingly, the whole time we were there the water was super clear and clean with no fish/animals that would freak me out in the water, no seaweed... no anything in the water! It was perfect. I was actually able to get in the water without constantly searching around me for anything that might brush up against me and freak me out. Also, Cody has a neat two handle kite that you can attempt to do tricks with that he loves and we all took turns trying out on the beach. It was pretty neat. I mastered making it do a big loop without crashing pretty quickly. We also spent a lot of time at the pool the second half of the week, and I think every evening my brothers and Cody and my dad went to the game room in the hotel place and played Pinball and Foosball.One night we did Go Karts and one afternoon we rented two Paddle Boards that were a lot of fun actually. You stand (we also sat or stood on our knees) and paddle around on a massive board. We really enjoyed it. We also went to Schlitterbahn one afternoon. We rode every ride in the park and did the lazy river thing multiple times. It was relaxing and fun except that I had to loose both contacts due to sunscreen in my eyes which caused them to feel like they were on fire. It was an interesting experience being blind at the water park. I literally had to hold someone's tub in the river to stay with our group, and a couple times I passed right by my dad without recognizing him. My vision is extremely bad lol. Another day we rented these electric Mopeds and toured the island. It was fun... until my skin was cooking in the sun. I hadn't gotten burned the whole trip (this was one of the last days), and I thought I could go one hour in the sun without lotion... however it ended up being a two hour tour, and it was absolutely the worst sunburn I have ever gotten in my life. Oh well... as it's now three weeks later... I don't need to complain about it too much since I'm finally fully recovered and done peeling.
Cody bungee jumped for the second time! (Remember his first was at Victoria Falls during our summer mission trip in 2007.) This jump was at the Go Kart place on the island... it wasn't nearly as neat or big of a jump as Victoria Falls (I don't think he'll ever beat that one.), but it was a jump nonetheless... I couldn't do it. He was excited about it. I was sad I didn't get a good picture this time... for some reason I thought I had another minute before he jumped, so I backed up to get in line for a better view... and while I was backing up he jumped, so I missed the picture I was hoping for. Oh well. The Vic Falls pic is way more awesome anyways : )
Buuungeeeee!!!
Monday, August 16, 2010
Mighty To Save
So I hated leaving our blog on such a negative note. Yes, we were really disappointed that I didn't get the position from my interview last week, but we know that the Lord will provide a job for me. Last night at The Gathering and today after lunch with a friend I am feeling encouraged and comforted, just trusting that God has a plan, even though as to what it is I am clueless. For now unless something comes up last minute, my plan is to start subbing as soon as school starts, and hope that will provide an opportunity. Please just continue to pray with us for a teaching position to be provided as soon as possible, and for us to continue to have peace in waiting. Thank you to everyone who has been praying about this for so long now : ) We really appreciate it.
Today was Cody's first official day back at work! He looked at me on Saturday and was like "Well, summer is officially over. This is now just another weekend before work." He's not stressed at all (yet!) as this week he's expecting to be fairly easy and relaxed as he just prepares for school to kick off. I'm sure he could use prayer once this week starts to end and the reality hits for students arriving next Monday. This year he'll be teaching 3 courses at Alamo Heights: Geometry, Pre-AP Geometry, and Pre-AP Algebra II. It'll be a totally different year going from low-level classes to dealing with Pre-AP students and parents! Hopefully it'll be a change he enjoys.
I wanted to share my favorite worship song with everyone. We played it last night at The Gathering, and every time I hear it, it just reminds me that God is in control, and that it'll be okay -no matter what is ever going on at the time. And it reminds me to be thankful for everything I have and everyone I love. I truly love the lyrics to this song... I just wanted to share.
Today was Cody's first official day back at work! He looked at me on Saturday and was like "Well, summer is officially over. This is now just another weekend before work." He's not stressed at all (yet!) as this week he's expecting to be fairly easy and relaxed as he just prepares for school to kick off. I'm sure he could use prayer once this week starts to end and the reality hits for students arriving next Monday. This year he'll be teaching 3 courses at Alamo Heights: Geometry, Pre-AP Geometry, and Pre-AP Algebra II. It'll be a totally different year going from low-level classes to dealing with Pre-AP students and parents! Hopefully it'll be a change he enjoys.
I wanted to share my favorite worship song with everyone. We played it last night at The Gathering, and every time I hear it, it just reminds me that God is in control, and that it'll be okay -no matter what is ever going on at the time. And it reminds me to be thankful for everything I have and everyone I love. I truly love the lyrics to this song... I just wanted to share.
Everyone needs compassion.
Love that's never failing;
Let mercy fall on me.
Everyone needs forgiveness.
The kindness of a Saviour;
The Hope of nations.
Saviour, He can move the mountains.
My God is Mighty to save,
He is Mighty to save.
Forever, Author of salvation.
He rose and conquered the grave,
Jesus conquered the grave.
So take me as You find me.
All my fears and failures,
Fill my life again.
I give my life to follow.
Everything I believe in,
Now I surrender.
Saviour, He can move the mountains.
My God is Mighty to save,
He is Mighty to save.
Forever, Author of salvation.
He rose and conquered the grave,
Jesus conquered the grave.
Shine your light and let the whole world see,
We're singing for the glory of the risen King, Jesus.
Shine your light and let the whole world see,
We're singing for the glory of the risen King, Jesus.
My Saviour, He can move the mountains.
My God is Mighty to save,
He is Mighty to save.
Forever, Author of salvation.
He rose and conquered the grave,
Jesus conquered the grave.
Mighty To Save -By Hillsong
Saturday, August 14, 2010
honestly disappointed
This past Tuesday I had an interview at an elementary school in Southside ISD for a 1st grade position. Today I got the official phone call that I was not the applicant chosen. I feel like I've been doing good staying positive and hopeful and confident... but if I'm being honest, this was really disappointing and I'm having a hard time not getting discouraged. For this past interview, I was the most excited, the most confident, the most prepared I had been for ANY other interview. It was my A+ game plus some. I thought I was going to get a happier phone call. I would really appreciate prayers to stay enthusiastic and confident. It's hard feeling like that interview was better than I've done so far all summer... and therefore my best wasn't enough. I keep trying to remind myself that the Lord has a plan... we just really need for me to have a full-time teaching position this year, and well school starts in a week. Please pray for the position that God has in store for me to open up and to be made know soon. Pray for me to stop feeling down and being so negative with myself. Really any and all prayers with my non-job situation are welcomed! I just wanted to keep everyone up-to-date since I've been posting about the interviews and such as they come. Hopefully something else will come up quickly and hopefully I will be able to trust and remember that the Lord will provide, even if it's not in the timing we would choose.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Parkhills
So, a lot of stuff kinda has been going on lately with our church, and I guess I feel like sharing. About a year ago now, we started attending Parkhills Baptist Church here in San Antonio and around November we finished new member classes and officially joined. We're part of a Married-Twenty-Something's Bible Study group that we've really enjoyed on Tuesday nights. Also, this past spring we started attending FUEL -which is the middle and high school youth group- and helping out some. This summer (as has been mentioned at one point) Cody and I led a small student home group for students that just finished 9th or 10th grade on Wednesdays. We have really enjoyed meeting and getting to know these students! We had a small group, but they were great kids! -and we hope to continue to get to know them through FUEL as the school year starts back up. On that note, tonight was our last summer student home group! It all went by quickly and unfortunately we missed two weeks due to the Ohio trip. We ended up just hanging out and playing Catchphrase and Apples to Apples to end our summer with them tonight.
As the school year is about to start back up, Cody and I are going to be helping teach Sunday School for the first time. -I don't know about Cody, but I'm a little nervous about it! Some details could probably still change, but for now it looks like Cody will be teaching 6th Grade Boys all by himself, and I'll be joining to co-teach with a friend of mine from our Tuesday night group, and I think we'll have 9th and 10th grade girls. She taught this Sunday School class all last year (possibly before as well) and her husband is the semi-Youth Pastor, so she's very experienced with the youth group -and I'm very glad for that! I'm excited to start getting to know these girls more, to get more involved with the youth group, and to spend more time and get to know my friend (Linsay) even better.
This past Sunday our pastor, Robert Welch, was in a serious car accident on his way to our Children's Camp. Another driver coming the opposite direction crossed over the highway and hit him head on. The other driver passed away at the scene and Dr. Welch was airlifted to a hospital. They said due to the severity of the accident that it was amazing he survived. Thankfully he did and only suffered (I think) a broken heel, fractured pelvis, and two or three broken ribs. He's in a lot of pain and it will be a very long recovery, but he'll be okay. We'd ask you to please take a minute as you read this to pause and say a prayer for our pastor, for his recovery and pain, and for his wife (Ruth) as she helps him through it all.
Lastly I'd like to share about our Sunday nights at Parkhills. Whenever we can we've been attending this fairly new thing called The Gathering. It's a fairly small (hopefully to start growing) get-together of people who come together for about an hour and a half simply to be a community in prayer for one another and to praise our Lord. We sing and worship and take time to share what's going on in our lives and to pray for one another as people share prayer and praise requests. It's been an amazing picture of community that we are excited to be a part of, and we are excited to see how God will work through it and continue to deepen the relationships there. If you're ever in San Antonio and have a Sunday evening free, you should let us know and join us! It's really awesome, and anyone and everyone is welcome.
Anyways. It's almost 10 and we've yet to eat dinner. I should probably go cook something up! Just felt like sharing about what we've been doing with our church : )
As the school year is about to start back up, Cody and I are going to be helping teach Sunday School for the first time. -I don't know about Cody, but I'm a little nervous about it! Some details could probably still change, but for now it looks like Cody will be teaching 6th Grade Boys all by himself, and I'll be joining to co-teach with a friend of mine from our Tuesday night group, and I think we'll have 9th and 10th grade girls. She taught this Sunday School class all last year (possibly before as well) and her husband is the semi-Youth Pastor, so she's very experienced with the youth group -and I'm very glad for that! I'm excited to start getting to know these girls more, to get more involved with the youth group, and to spend more time and get to know my friend (Linsay) even better.
This past Sunday our pastor, Robert Welch, was in a serious car accident on his way to our Children's Camp. Another driver coming the opposite direction crossed over the highway and hit him head on. The other driver passed away at the scene and Dr. Welch was airlifted to a hospital. They said due to the severity of the accident that it was amazing he survived. Thankfully he did and only suffered (I think) a broken heel, fractured pelvis, and two or three broken ribs. He's in a lot of pain and it will be a very long recovery, but he'll be okay. We'd ask you to please take a minute as you read this to pause and say a prayer for our pastor, for his recovery and pain, and for his wife (Ruth) as she helps him through it all.
Lastly I'd like to share about our Sunday nights at Parkhills. Whenever we can we've been attending this fairly new thing called The Gathering. It's a fairly small (hopefully to start growing) get-together of people who come together for about an hour and a half simply to be a community in prayer for one another and to praise our Lord. We sing and worship and take time to share what's going on in our lives and to pray for one another as people share prayer and praise requests. It's been an amazing picture of community that we are excited to be a part of, and we are excited to see how God will work through it and continue to deepen the relationships there. If you're ever in San Antonio and have a Sunday evening free, you should let us know and join us! It's really awesome, and anyone and everyone is welcome.
Anyways. It's almost 10 and we've yet to eat dinner. I should probably go cook something up! Just felt like sharing about what we've been doing with our church : )
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Monday Funday!
Yesterday Cody and I enjoyed the day at Sea World! I hadn't ever been before, and he'd been wanting us to go all summer. We really enjoyed it... minus the heat and blazing sun. Speaking of... while I did thoroughly enjoy our day, it was horrible timing. I was still sunburned from South Padre and I KNEW being in the sun would be a bad idea -but we couldn't think of another day that would work (as we're hoping I'll be hired soon). About half way through the day, I rubbed my arm and it felt funny. I looked down, and my arms are covered in these tiny clear blisters. And the hypochondriac that I am (according to Cody) started freaking out. Cody calmed me down, saying he'd had that when he was little from a bad sunburn, and since they were odd but didn't hurt, I tried to enjoy our ride on the Steele Eel. Anyways, besides freaking out whenever Cody accidentally touched my arms the rest of the day, I was fine -and after sleeping and rolling around on them, I woke up to just peely skin and hardly any blisters left. So besides the sunblisters, we watched both the Shamu show and the Sea Lions show, feed Sea Lions and Dolphins (which I touched for the first time!), saw the aquarium, watched the Pirates in 4-D show, and rode both rollercoasters twice! There were NO lines, and it was amazing. We rode each ride once in the middle-ish and then the second time in the very front. We had a lovely date day together. 
 | ||||
| My Sunblisters! They looked like water droplets. |
(PS - I know I still haven't finished sharing about South Padre... I will! It takes forever for me to go through my pictures.)
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Goodness, it’s hard to workout when your younger brothers are there mocking your exercises!
We're currently in South Padre enjoying a nice beach trip with my family -minus Ryan... but we all wish he was here! So if anyone cares, here's my new workout update: I've been good doing it everyday from last Monday when I started through this Sunday, and I took my first day off yesterday due to already being extremely sore from the paddle boards. However, I will say... Sean and Aaron have not let me hear the end of how "weak" my Kickboxing video workouts are! They have half-mocked-half-pretended to do it seriously with me a couple times. It normally ends with one of them laughing and asking me "Are you seriously out of breath from that?" I guess at least I have provided them with daily entertainment!
Cody bungee jumped for the second time! I think he's now addicted to that adrenaline rush because he's saying he may do it AGAIN here this week to record a video of it to possibly use in his classroom. It was nothing compared to his first jump at Victoria Falls... but it was a bungee jump nonetheless. I may try to convince him to share about it on here later.
This morning I had a phone interview with a middle school in Judson ISD for an ESL teaching position. They called me on Sunday and asked me to come in today, and I'm grateful that upon telling them I was on a vacation with my family here, they were perfectly willing to do a phone interview. While it was very short -only 5 questions and 10 minutes long- I think it went really well. We'll see if anything comes from it. It's now August and I can't help being really nervous that I'm not hired yet. Please keep praying for a job!
Anyways. We're enjoying the sun and beach... and our new condo! We stayed Thursday to half of Sunday in one place that my parents weren't pleased with, and after talking to the manager, we moved to a new, clean, pretty nifty place for the rest of Sunday through Thursday. Cody and I are definitely not complaining about now getting our own room without the boys!
More to come along with pictures of our South Padre trip once we're back home! Hope everyone's having a lovely week!
Cody bungee jumped for the second time! I think he's now addicted to that adrenaline rush because he's saying he may do it AGAIN here this week to record a video of it to possibly use in his classroom. It was nothing compared to his first jump at Victoria Falls... but it was a bungee jump nonetheless. I may try to convince him to share about it on here later.
This morning I had a phone interview with a middle school in Judson ISD for an ESL teaching position. They called me on Sunday and asked me to come in today, and I'm grateful that upon telling them I was on a vacation with my family here, they were perfectly willing to do a phone interview. While it was very short -only 5 questions and 10 minutes long- I think it went really well. We'll see if anything comes from it. It's now August and I can't help being really nervous that I'm not hired yet. Please keep praying for a job!
Anyways. We're enjoying the sun and beach... and our new condo! We stayed Thursday to half of Sunday in one place that my parents weren't pleased with, and after talking to the manager, we moved to a new, clean, pretty nifty place for the rest of Sunday through Thursday. Cody and I are definitely not complaining about now getting our own room without the boys!
More to come along with pictures of our South Padre trip once we're back home! Hope everyone's having a lovely week!
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