Runnin the Rivanna

Ahhhhh the week of 700 test questions is over! Chaos and I celebrated with a 4-mile walk along the Rivanna River. We saw some friends from church and spent about half the walk with them. Chaos demonstrated his new trick for them! Oh yeah! He learned a new trick! He knows how to roll over now! He did it 6 times in a row this afternoon! He's had a big afternoon. He's exhausted. I'm exhausted. Tomorrow my friend Peter and I are taking him hiking to some waterfalls! Should be fun! Time to sleep now...

Spike that Bible Study

Last night I went to my bible study and we had a great time talking about Beatitude #3: Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. We talked about what meek really means and how the impression most of us have about the word "meek" is incorrect. Meek doesn't mean weak, even though we usually associate them together. In fact we learned that meek is more about having a true view of who you are and who you're not. It's about being teachable, ready to learn, ready to hear God teaching. It's about being obedient to God's call to serve and help others. Tonight when I had Chaos at the dogpark, he was running next to me while I was skating. Sometimes he would jump in the river to swim and cool off or he'd go sniff another dog. As soon as I called him though, he immediately dropped what he was doing and came to my side. (Granted Chaos is an unusually obedient dog.) That is the way God wants us to be...like a delightful, loyal dog, ready to drop what we're doing at a moment's notice to follow God's lead. And we'd be wagging our tails, happy to do it. We have a lot to learn about obedience from a dog like Chaos.

After the bible study, John, Jonathan, Jamie, and I went outside to play volleyball. Jamie is insane at spiking the ball. It helps that the guy can jump like 5 feet straight up. John's attempts didn't go quite as well. The net tasted good though.

Good Smelly Things

So the flowers in my garden are going nuts. Must be all the rain we've gotten. It's definitely not me. I have not picked up a watering hose in about 2 months. And I'm really excited because some flowers that I planted last year that were supposed to just be the one-year flowers (what are those called again? annuals?) actually came back this year! Woo hoo for extra flowers!

It's nice to see flowers after the crazy mind-numbing work I'm doing this week. In an effort to continue my "get out of debt" plan, I've been taking on extra jobs at school...any committees that will pay me. This week I'm on an assessment team that has to evaluate 700 different test questions (I'm not exaggerating either. It's actually over 700.) The only awesome thing about it is that Mr. Wayne (remember my hero? see blog below if you've forgotten) is on my team so I get to talk to him about science stuff!

I took Chaos to the dogpark tonight with a bunch of my friends who I work with at my school. They ran and I skated for 3 miles. Even Chaos was going slow at the end. Back to Day #4 of staring at the computer screen tomorrow...

Family Fun

Yesterday my family drove up to Maryland for a family reunion. We got to see many people who we haven't seen since Mom and Mike got married. We also met lots of new people in our family. Our sister, Cameron, came too so it was great getting to spend the day with her! Aunt Claire and our cousin Jeremy (in the picture to the right) were pretending to be pirates for most of the time. They even wore eye patches and shot people with bubble guns!

This is Kelly. She looks really cute. In reality, her cuteness is only a manipulative cover for her true self. When a water fight broke out among the crowd, she sort of single-handedly spearheaded the movement. While the older kids would exuberantly bombard you with bottles or even buckets of water, Kelly would quietly walk up with a deceptively adorable smile.

Then she would unleash her weapon, water balloons that weren't yet closed and could, therefore, be used over and over and over again. She achieved many successes and soaked many unsuspecting adults who, at first glance, simply thought she was cute.

We tried to go swimming at the neighborhood pool but quickly discovered that their definition of swimming is "a controlled, boring action that involves getting wet and having no fun." The list of rules was unbelievable. For example:

Dumb Rule #1 only 5 people can go in to the pool area, even if person #6 is Grandma who simply wants to watch her grandchildren swim.

Dumb Rule #2 you can only swim in one direction. Do not change directions.

Dumb Rule #3 no jumping.

Dumb Rule #4 no splashing.

Dumb Rule #5 do not bring anything to the pool to play with, including all floating things, balls, frisbees, etc.

Dumb Rule #6 you cannot bring any water or other liquids in the pool area. (Apparently they haven't heard that the #1 cause of dehydration during swimming is not drinking enough water.)

Uncle Gary went up to the lifeguards and asked them, "Are we allowed to get wet?" So anyway, swimming didn't last long.

This is Grandma Jo. She had a great time. Like Kelly, she was very sneaky but equally involved in turning dry people in to wet people. You'd think you'd be safe standing next to a grandmother but then a second later she's hurling a water balloon at you or dumping a bottle of water on your head.

And this adorable little guy, who was not deceptive or manipulative with water balloons in any way is our cousin Bradley. He thought just about everything was hilarious except when he got splashed with water. He didn't find that amusing at all.

It was a great weekend of fun, meeting new people and catching up with people we haven't seen in a long time!

wow.

wow.

That's about all I can say at the end of this week. Our school division just finished our annual week-long conference and, like usual, it was amazing. All week long I attended sessions by my two heroes in education world: Tony Wayne and John Antonetti.

Mr. Wayne was my high school physics teacher and he was the best teacher I ever had. He is absolutely one of the best teachers in Albemarle County, if not THE best. His was the one class that I can remember the most. I could go on and on right now telling you the demonstrations he did, experiments we did, facts we learned, the way he taught, why I remember so much, etc. There is no other class that I can do that for. The cool thing was that in his sessions it felt so much like being back in his class, but I see it in a different way now. Now I watch how he leads the sessions and analyze how he communicates ideas, engages the listeners, and guides thinking. At the end of his classes/sessions I leave with the feeling, "Man, that was awesome!" and want to go tell everyone about it. I hope that my kids will leave my class thinking that one day.

John Antonetti is my other education hero. I met him last year at the same conference. He is an amazing speaker, hilarious, with an ability to completely captivate an audience. This man can make a 3-hour session go by as if it was 15 minutes. He's researched over 6,000 classrooms and analyzed the information he gathered to come to some incredible conclusions for how to engage students and increase learning. In two-days worth of sessions, he left me with five bazillion ideas that I am somehow going to have to narrow down to a focus. One of the coolest ideas involves solving the problem that kids often can't figure out WHY it's important to learn what we're learning. They don't see the relevance to their life. The idea is to have the kids keep a notebook about what they want to be when they grow up. Then, each time we teach a unit, whether in science, social studies, reading, math, etc., the kids can write in their notebook about what that week's learning has to do with their future career. For example, kids who want to be policemen would write about why geography and maps are important to police officers. They could write about how estimating numbers, or probability, or fractions, or ANYTHING relates to policemen. Of course, there were many more ideas too, but I need some time to process all the ideas and then find the ones that I really want to focus the most on next year!

Wow. I can't wait for next school year!

Mouse King's Mansion and Goodbye to Hammy

Tonight I made a new mansion for Mouse King. I've expanded his home because he's such an active little fella and I feel bad for him. I mean he went from having 20 kids around him all day, petting him and lovin on him, to having NOBODY around him all day. He used to run for 2-3 hours per day in his hamster ball, but now he can't run hardly at all because I'm never home. So I added another cage which is now his workout room, a bunch of tunnels, an outhouse for all his excretion needs, and a lookout tower so he can get a bird's eye view of the strawberry cake sitting under it. He's been running in his new hamster wheel for the past hour. See him in the picture? He's running in the wheel. He's extremely happy right now. So happy I kinda wish I was a hamster for a second.

I have some sad news too for everyone who knew of the furry hamster, Hammy. Hammy died this weekend. I don't know why he died, because he wasn't too old. He did escape quite often (at least once per week, sometimes more than once a DAY). Each time he escaped he jumped off a table at least 3 feet high. Once we found him in a trash can. Once in a sink. I think maybe he suffered from an injury or some sort of trauma from all of his falls that made him die. Although I couldn't invite everyone to the funeral, I said a quick prayer for him and us, that we will be reunited in heaven, where hamsters can run free. That's what Hammy always wanted.

The Greatest Father Ever

Father's Day is a great time to remember what our fathers do for us. When I think of my father, of course I think of my dad, but I also think of my stepdad, Mike. Mike is a loyal, motivated, and focused person. He is dedicated to his family and easily adapts his schedule to changing needs and situations that arise among his many children. He is a committed father whose heart cries out for his lost children.

There are five of us total, Kathryn, Ryan, Jacob, Cameron, and me. Ryan, Jacob, and Cameron did not even call Mike on Father's Day to say hi or thank you or anything. It was so sad because Mike kept his phone with him all day, when he was fishing in the pond behind our house, when he was eating dinner, when he was watching Kathryn ride the horses... Finally after dark when we were all getting ready to wind up the evening, he looked at his phone that was sitting on the table, sadly shook his head with tears in his eyes, and said, "None of them called. None of them."

Of course, this has happened before. Many times before. He rarely hears from Ryan, Jacob, or Cameron unless they want something, like money, a car, a cell phone bill paid, etc. Yet every time they call, his face lights up, he drops everything he's doing, and he talks to them as if they've never done a single past offense. In the instant that their number shows up on his Caller ID, every pain, every heartache, every mistake they've made is erased completely. And then his heart breaks when once again, they've only called to ask for something.

It breaks my heart watching this continuous cycle of a father who desperately wants to hear from his children who want nothing to do with him. Last night I was thinking about God and how similar Mike's situation reminds me of God's situation. How often has God waited for me with the "phone" by his side all day, just waiting for a call, a short call, a long call, a deep conversation, a quick "hey, just checking in", ANYTHING? How often have I "checked in" with a request to fix things, change things, bring something, give me something? And yet every tear that God sheds over his lost children is erased in the single moment that we cry out, "Hey, God? You there?"

Thank you, Mike.

And thank you, God.

For never giving up on your children.

Laurel Skatepark

It has been the week of skateboarding for sure. Patrik, B, and I went to Richmond to go skateboarding at Laurel Skatepark. It's a really cool skatepark and both Patrik and B learned a bunch of new tricks. Patrik did a frontside 180 ollie down three stairs. B did his first slash grind on a quarterpipe! Both tricks were of course captured on film. I'm going to make a video of their tricks just for fun.

The coolest news this weekend was that Patrik is staying for another week! He was supposed to leave on Sunday to return to Sweden but he decided to stay longer! We are all so happy to have extra time with him. He's such a cool kid!

Happy Birthday, Katie!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATIE!!!

I hope you had a great, relaxing day, even if it was a bit rainy for flags!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!!

We love you and we're so proud of you!

Another Day to Celebrate

"I woke up to another day -

another day to celebrate!"

That's the song that I had in my head all day today! I couldn't wait to get to the skatepark from the moment I woke up. Patrick landed a kickflip off the side of the halfpipe. Here's the picture of the one he landed! Man, we had such a great time. I love it. I just love it.

What are the chances of that???

After spending all day cleaning up my classroom, guess what I did all evening! Hang out with Katie!!! Yep, Katie's in town until Saturday and we ate dinner at her house and then went to the skatepark to see my friend, B, who was in my class two years ago. He skates with me at the skatepark a lot and he has a friend visiting him from Sweden too, for just this week! What are the chances of that??? Katie and Patrick are both from Sweden and are both visiting America on the same week. And get this: they live in the same place! Patrick's dad works at the university in Lund, where Katie takes classes. In fact he works in the building right next to where she has class! How crazy is that??? And as if that's not enough, this kid is an awesome skater! He was teaching me how to boardslide and do a tail tap. The tail tap, I got. The boardslide...not so much. I'm attempting it though. After skating for a while, Katie and I took the kids to Dairy Queen for ice cream. Patrick had a great time teasing me with stories of hunting moose in Sweden and then eating the moose. Tomorrow we're going back to the skatepark and then to a baseball game and an ice hockey game!

B tried to boardslide a lot and he's really close to getting it.

The Flowers of God

Among other awesome things at my mom's new house are these 3 really cool ponds (more like small lakes really). In one pond there are a TON of lily pads with flowers blooming on them. I've never actually seen lily pad flowers in real life. Pictures, yes. But never for real. They are so bright and colorful, all different shades of pink. I took many pictures of them because I couldn't stop looking at them. They were just so beautiful. They were all different but equally worthy of being admired.

I started to think about how God could create these perfect little flowers, that close up to the darkness of night, but stand wide open in the sunlight, bathing in the glory, unafraid and unhindered. How can it be that He would put so much beauty in to creating something so temporary, something that is here today and gone tomorrow. Interesting how God created these flowers to close to darkness, yet open to light.

That led me to imagine the infatuation that God has with us. That he loves to spend his day gazing at me, and you, and all of us, just as I was spending mine gazing at these flowers. How can it be that God sees me as beautiful and worthy of His affection?

If we really knew who God was, we would never stop praising Him. Oh that I could know Him more and more. Oh that I would become as infatuated with Him as He is with me. Oh that I would gaze at Him, meet with Him, spend time with Him, like I do to flowers, a mere fragment of His glorious beauty. Oh that I would never stop praising Him. Never stop.

Happy Horsey Cows

So we moved the horsey cows (a.k.a. horses) to their new home yesterday! They were so happy! Although Connor apparently did not know how to get out of a trailer, he managed to slide out gracefully backwards. When they got to the new farm, they ran and ran, back and forth across the pasture, just exploring and sniffing and eating grass. They loved the new grass and were gobbling it up as if it would be taken away from them any minute. I've never acquired a taste for grass, but it must have been mighty tasty as far as grass goes.

Here's Chick next to the new barn and running across the pasture.

Last Day of School

Well that's it. It's over. Another school year gone. Another group of awesome kids that I will hopefully see A LOT over the summer at the skatepark and Redfields' pool! That's the only thing that makes the end of the year less sad for me - because I know I'll see a lot of these guys all during the summer! This year was particularly hard, however, because it was the first group of kids that I've seen graduate 5th grade who were in my class in 2nd grade. The graduation ceremony of course made me cry. I don't know how I'll ever become a parent. I don't think I'll make it past "Look! He rolled over for the first time! He's growing up so fast!"

My kids got the coolest present ever for me for the end of the school year! I get to go on a hot air balloon ride! I've always wanted to go on one since I was a kid, but it just never happened. Then once when I taught summer school at Jackson-Via, a hot air balloon landed in the field at the school and the guy who operated it anchored it to the ground with a long rope and let ALL the kids go up in it. Like ALL of them. And me too. But he just took us straight up and straight down. You couldn't even see the top of the school cuz it was attached to that previously mentioned rope that was anchored to the ground. Even that little short trip was so cool and it made me want to go up really high in one and let the wind blow us all over town! I can't wait to go!

IT'S OURS!

Ahhhhh... a contented sigh of relief... we have a farm! The closing on it was Wednesday, June 6th (two days ago). I went out to visit the farm with my mom and Mike that evening to see it on their first night of ownership. My mom and Mike are SO excited about having it, and finally being on a farm. After losing the farm my mom had always dreamed of getting (the farm that my grandparents lived on and worked so hard to keep - the farm my grandfather dreamed of keeping in the family), she loves the new farm. The cool thing about it is that the closing date was my grandfather's birthday, June 6th. The other cool thing was that my mom used my grandfather's collection of pennies that she found as part of the down payment on the farm. He would have been proud to have this farm in our family.

Tomorrow we have to move the horses to the farm so they can see their new home! Should be fun! Thank you to everyone for your prayers surrounding this farm. God is certainly working in all of our lives, but particularly my mom's and Mike's. He is truly showing them the result of trusting in a glorious Father who offers nothing but the best to his children.

Field Day!

Yesterday was the classic Field Day, the moment everyone waits all year for! Every year during the first week of school, someone invariably asks, "When's Field Day?" It's the day when you come to school just to play! Well it was doubly exciting for us because we were told halfway through the year that there might not be a Field Day because there's so much construction at our school, there's no room outside to HAVE a Field Day. But upon receiving plea after plea, begging for a Field Day, our principal arranged to have it at the high school down the street! So we took the bus over and it was the BEST FIELD DAY EVER!!!

The kids got to do the traditional stuff like tug o' war, 100 yard dash, water relays, etc. But they also got to do some new ones that they've never done before, like the long jump (in a real sand pit), the high jump, and massive soaking by firetruck. A firetruck came and plugged in to a fire hydrant and showered the kids with water! They loved every minute of it!

And on another subject, I had a rather disturbing dream last night where I was attacked by two giant ostriches. They pecked at my back and ruptured some sac back there and the doctor told me that by the time I'm 30 I'll have major back issues and won't be able to stand up straight. They were pretty cool looking ostriches though.

great news!

I'm full of awesome news tonight! There are two kids in my class who want to play soccer on a team, but they've never played before because their families can't afford it and they can't provide the transportation to get the kids to practices and games. So I contacted SOCA, the local soccer organization, and asked them for financial assistance for not only the fall league, but also the popular summer camp in July. They responded tonight saying that although they typically don't provide assistance for summer, they decided to help the boys play for both summer AND fall! God is great!

And some of you know my friend named Ben, who is now 16. I've known him since he was 1 and he's always been like a little brother to me. Anyway he had gotten into some trouble with grades, school, choices, you get the idea...over the past two years. He told me just tonight that Thursday's his last day of school because he doesn't even have to show up on Friday. In further explanation, he said that he was exempt from all of his Friday exams because he got a "high-pass" on his SOLS and he's brought all of his grades up to C or higher! I'm so proud of him! He worked so hard!

All good things come from God!

Cameron's Graduation

This weekend we celebrated my sister's graduation. Cameron's school is Stuarts Draft High School and they graduated at the JMU Convocation Center. Our grandparents came down from Maryland for the weekend also! After the ceremony, we went to Cold Stone (the crazy insane ice cream place) to celebrate! I ate my favorite ice cream of all, Monkey Bites. I wish we had a Cold Stone in Charlottesville. We have a Maggie Moo's which I've heard is either the same as Cold Stone or better. I don't exactly believe that, seeing as how Cold Stone is so very, very delicious. In fact I think I'll go to Maggie Moo's right now to investigate the matter for myself.