Beautiful little guys!

Here are some pictures of the 3 firebelly newts: Fireball, Flame, and Fuego. Which one is which? There's just no way to be sure!
This is one of them, maybe Fuego, and look! He's giving the peace sign as he's swimming by!

This is probably Fireball and Flame, with their little arms around eachother! They are clearly friends. And the guy at the pet store said they had no capacity for friendship, loneliness, or love. What does HE know?

Here's Fuego again, swimming like a crazy aqua maniac. He's always in the water! I just love looking at their beautiful bellies. It's mesmerizing.

Calabaza

I think I've decided on a name for my little kitty. Everyone seems to be in agreement that Pumpkin is the best name for him, BUT my mom already had a cat named Pumpkin and my hamster is now named Pumpkin so I think that's a little too much of that name. So I've been calling him Cala from the Spanish word for pumpkin - "calabaza". I think his full name will be Calabaza and it'll just be Cala for short. It's really easy to call him too...if you say "calacalacalacalacala..." he comes!

5 in one week. That must be a record.

I think I've just set a family record. I went from NO pets to FIVE pets in one week! Remember earlier how I was saying I wish I had a hamster, some newts, a corn snake, and a cat? Well now I've gotten my hamster. I've gotten my firebelly newts. And tonight...I GOT A CAT!!! He was a stray cat that my mom found in Waynesboro. He's been on his own for a long time, and he's very thin (obviously he's not very adept at hunting). But he's REALLY friendly...like REALLY REALLY friendly, which is good because those are the kind of cats I like. He's been following me around everywhere! He doesn't have a name yet either and I was warned by my sister not to accept any suggestions from my mother. I didn't really take her warning seriously until my mom brought me my new kitty and she said, "I think you should name him Harry Peter."

My mom is notorious for coming up with bizarre names for animals. Take some of her past animals for example... MR. Sally, Bridget, Sir Thomas, etc. Of course my sister isn't much better what with her evil, vindictive cat she named Cuddles, possibly THE most inappropriate name ever. Still, they mean well.

My friends Jonathan, Sara, and Kim came over tonight after we went to a totally cool worship event at the University Chapel. We got to hang out and they met my new kitty, who is still nameless at this point. They had good suggestions - Jack for Jack o'Lantern, Alexander, Buddy, and Jonathan was really pushing for Trout.

So we'll see... we've named the hamster and the newts now too! The hamster's name is Pumpkin Pie and the firebelly newts are Fireball, Flame, and Fuego (the Spanish word for "fire"). I'll post some ridiculously cute pictures of my newts tomorrow! For now, it's off to a goodnight's sleep with Harry Peter.

more new friends!

Well tonight I went to the pet store to find out when they would get any more firebelly newts in (since they were sold out of them this past weekend). The guy working tonight said, "We have firebelly newts right now!!!" I was so excited! I've wanted a firebelly newt since I was a little kid. Every time I went into Pet Forum (the best pet store in town) I would go straight to the tank of firebelly newts and stare at them in amazement at their brilliant bellies! My parents would never let me get one though. So I was stuck with just wishing I had one for my whole life so far... UNTIL NOW!!

I learned all about how to care for the little creatures tonight and they're surprisingly easy! Easier than most lizards and amphibians! They eat a wide variety of foods, including crickets, small fish, chopped up worms, and food pellets. They don't need a heat source, unless their water gets really cold. They don't need a filter. They don't need a light. Those things are all just nice to have, but not necessary. Really they just need a place to swim and a place to get out of the water when they want to. So I decided to get one! Well, actually I didn't get one. I got THREE!!! They are so nice looking and they are very good swimmers. They don't have names yet so if anybody wants to suggest names for three delightful firebelly newts, I'm open to ideas!

YAY!!! I can't believe I have my very own firebelly newts at last! I just can't stop looking at them!

MY NEW BABY!!!

Look everybody! Here's my new baby! I just got him today! Anybody who's talked to me in the past month knows I've been desperately wanting a pet. I've almost bought a corn snake once, a cat three times, and the pet store was out of fire belly newts, which I really wanted. So instead I decided to get a new little furry friend! He looks kinda like Mouse King, but he's lighter colored, sort of pumpkin spice color. He's really friendly! He won't crawl into my hand yet, but he lets me pet him already and it took Mouse King like two months before he would let me pet him. He's very curious and wants to explore everything. He's been spinning in his wheel for the past couple of hours! He's really small so I think he's just a baby and he'll probably get a lot bigger in the next few weeks.

Anyway, he doesn't have a name yet so if any of you have ideas for a name for him, post a comment! The winner will earn endless fame among 18 seven-year-olds and recognition on a future post of this blog! How can you pass that up?

5-YEAR WINNING STREAK!!

My school does a massive fundraiser every fall to raise money for the PTO. The class who sells the most wins a pizza party! I just found out tonight that my class won for the 5th year in a row! YEAH!!! I get to announce it to my class on Monday!

Terri Allard, Paul Reisler, and Kid Pan Alley!

My school just did the coolest thing ever this week! We had Terri Allard and Paul Reisler come with the program, Kid Pan Alley, to work with all of the second and fourth grades! It's the neatest music program I've ever seen! They worked with every class in second and fourth grade for two days, writing a song.


They took the kids through the whole process of how to write a song, from brainstorming to creating lyrics, rhyming, rhythm, editing, practicing, and even recording the songs! The kids loved it! Each class gets to write one song in the two-day period, but my class was called the "core" class so my kids actually got to go with Terri and Paul EVERY day this week and they wrote two songs instead of one.


Then today all the second and fourth grades performed all the songs in a concert for the whole school! It was so awesome! The songs were amazing! It's hard to believe 7- and 9-year-olds wrote them! The cool thing was when a kid would start singing a melody for the song they wrote, he could just start playing it on his guitar! I don't know how he did that, but it was so cool! Like the kids would just make up a melody and he would start playing whatever they were singing! Crazy. He's so good and Terri Allard has such a beautiful voice! Man, I wish we could do Kid Pan Alley every week! You can find out more about it if you go to http://www.kidpanalley.org/!

is it possible to feel MORE tired?

wow. big surprise. I'm tired. I've been really grumpy the past two days and I'm predicting today will be no different. I have definitely not gotten enough sleep for three nights in a row. But last night I wrote something that I think is cool. We have this composition we have to write for my Spanish class about discussing and comparing the social realities of Bolivia, Argentina, and the United States. I, of course, decided that it would be boring to do it the normal way (which means #1. in English and #2. to simply do what my teacher asked). Of course I did. So I decided to do it in Spanish and write it from the perspectives of three children, one from each country. The children would be stating their perception of the society they are growing up in based on what they hear their parents, siblings, and others say. Hidden within the children's perceptions would be the comparison between the three countries. I had a lot of fun doing it...way more fun than if I had done it the "normal" way, but I'm now doubting that it's really going to be acceptable to my teacher. It doesn't seem exactly what he was going for. I'm going to show it to him at class tonight (it's not due until next Monday - yeah SHOCKER, I finished an assignment a week early), that way I can re-do it if he doesn't think it's what he was looking for. I hope he likes it though because it really was fun to write and I think I learned the objective of the assignment, which was to understand the social realities of the three countries. At least I think that was the objective. AHHHH it's 7:01!! I have to go to school!!! Time to get back to my social reality!

Happy Birthday, MIKE!!!

Yesterday was Mike's birthday so I went out to my mom and Mike's house for dinner to celebrate! Mom cooked a delicious dinner and I brought balloons, cake, and party plates! Even Cuddles the grumpy cat was there to celebrate with us in spirit. (You should click on the picture of Mike and look more closesly at the party plates if you want a better view of the spirit of Cuddles the grumpy cat!)

Ever since my mom and Mike bought the new farm, Mike has wanted a donkey named Speedy. He said they have to wait maybe until next year though because there's too much going on right now to take care of a donkey too. So since he hasn't gotten his treasured donkey yet, I decided to get him the next best thing: donkey ears for Baxter! So now while he's waiting to acquire Speedy to the list of critters out there, he can pretend with Baxter! (Just for the record, Baxter was not amused.)

The kitties were also around to help celebrate. Pickles is the one to the left. She came in from chasing blue-tailed skinks outside just in time for cake and ice cream. The cat named Sweet Pea who is absolutely NOT sweet at all, was a little angry all night and kept growling and hissing at Pickles for some previous offense done to her. Needless to say, I did not take a picture of Sweet Pea as she was in an unfortunately grumpy mood. Lover Boy (the cat who came camping with us a couple of weeks ago) came in to play in the gift bags, but promptly left to find more interesting things to do outside. So there aren't any pictures of him either. This cat on the left is named Mr. Nifty and he's the newest addition to the zoo at my mom's house. He was the only cat who stayed for the whole party!

It was a great party and the cake was particularly scrumptious too! It was so nice to hang out with my mom and Mike and all the animals!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE!!!

ADIDAS ROCKS!

I just wanted to get this out in the open. Just to make sure everyone understands where I stand. I've had too many secrets in the past and I'm done leaving people feeling confused or unsure. Too many times, I've felt like I'm giving contradictory messages and now I want the truth to be known:

ADIDAS IS THE WAY TO GO! DOWN WITH NIKE! IT'S ADIDAS ALL THE WAY!

I think I'm going to make the Adidas logo out of Legos next time I get a spare moment, which will probably be in the year 2011. Perhaps I'll give it to my sister for her birthday.

tired. so very very tired.

tired. really tired. really, really tired. one of my kids today said, "i'm so tired. i can't even concentrate." i looked at him, nodded, and said, "trust me, buddy, i'm right there with ya. i'd be curled up on my sofa, fast asleep, in a second if i could." he stared into space knowingly and simply said, "yeah..."

in other news i got a 99 on my spanish exam last week. and albemarle county gave me a new laptop since my old one is 4 years old. it's amazing how well it still works though. ya gotta love a mac. in 4 years, i think it's frozen one time, compared to my pc freezing 18 bajillion times in the same amount of time. i'm really excited to use the new mac, but sadly i'm too tired to even turn it on and look at it right now.

i had a good weekend hanging out with friends! ann, alicia, and peter and i tried to go to the observatory on friday night at uva but it was too cloudy. so we went to a nameless, unidentified playground to play instead. on saturday, i took a bunch of kids to the uva vs. unc mens soccer game. uva won, OF COURSE!! they are #4 in the country. then on sunday the uva women played miami so i took some kids to that game. and once again, uva won. uva is just awesome.

ann and alicia went to a cool concert but neglected to tell me how it went afterwards! so since ann checks this blog, i think she should click on the word "comments" right below this post and let me know how the concert went. all in agreement say, "YEAH DO IT ANNHEAD!"

okay that just took all the energy i had left. good night.

we love you Grandpa Pickwoad

man i don't feel good. I feel kinda sick, but kinda not sick. like my stomach hurts, but i don't really feel sick otherwise. well i'm really tired too, and achy, but it doesn't feel like the kind of sick tired and achy. and one of my grandfathers, Grandpa Pickwoad, died last night. he was really cool...just a funny guy who loved and accepted other people as if they were all a part of his family. I know he's in a better place now, a place with streets of gold and gates made out of giant pearls. A place with everything good and not a single thing evil, painful, sad, or disappointing. How awesome that will be to be in a place where you're never disappointed ever again. I can't wait to see him again when I get to heaven. We love you, Grandpa Pickwoad.

A Night of Soccer

Remember that little guy in 5th grade who just moved here that I was hanging out with at Triple C, Alejandro? Well on Friday night, UVA played Virginia Tech in a soccer game. Alejandro wanted to come, and two of his friends too, so we all went to the game! It was a great night and the boys had so much fun! It was finally something familiar to Alejandro: soccer! He talked and

talked all night about playing soccer where he was from and how much he loves it and watching games, etc. He loved the Cavalier mascot too!

The game was great, with both teams playing in front of a record UVA crowd. UVA's goal is to get 8,000 people to come see a game and that night there were 7,906 people! The game ended in a tie, after two extra time periods. In fact the best play of the game was when the score was 1-1 and they were in the second extra time. VA Tech got a penalty kick and everyone was nervous, thinking that Tech was going to score on the penalty. But the UVA goalie (who is A-MAZING, by the way), dove for the ball and blocked it!!! The Tech players all fell on the ground in despair! And all the UVA fans were going nuts, cheering like crazy maniacs! Alejandro was totally in to it too, jumping up and down and shouting, "GO VIRGINIA!!!" in English!

After the game, the UVA players signed autographs and one of the players let Alejandro come down on the field so he could meet the players personally and get them to sign his game program. No other kids were allowed to come on the field! He thought that was the coolest thing ever and ran around shaking their hands and getting the players to sign his program! I love this picture of the UVA goalie handing the paper back to him. Just look at Alejandro's face in the picture, looking up at the goalie with a big smile.

Of course it takes 7,906 fans a long time to exit the parking lot, so there was traffic for about 25 minutes. Instead of waiting in the car, we played soccer on one of the walkways near the parking lot until the traffic subsided! Of course, to me, the best part of the night was getting to talk for 3 hours in Spanish to the boys. I still have trouble understanding what they are saying, but it's definitely getting better. By the end of the night, I understood more and more. In fact, several times Alejandro said something funny in Spanish that I totally got, and that made it even funnier because I actually understood it! I wish every night could be like that!

We're off to see the river...the most wonderful river of all!

On Friday, right after the night at Triple C with the 5th graders, we went on a field trip with the second graders to see the James River and the Appalachian Mountains! It's part of our geography unit for the kids to know important features of Virginia, so instead of just talking about it in the classroom, we decided to take the kids TO the features! They used maps of Virginia to find the James River and trace it from the Atlantic Ocean all the way past Lynchburg. They drew maps of what they saw as well!
After we left the James River, we drove up to the top of Carter Mountain apple orchard to eat lunch and show the kids the Appalachian Mountains in the distance. We could even see our school from up there! It was really cool to show them what Charlottesville looks like from a bird's eye view! After lunch, the kids each got to pick an apple from the orchard and then we took the apples back to school to eat! They were the juiciest, most delicious apples ever! In fact, one kid put his straw from his juice box right through the apple and drank the juice out of it!

Overnight at Triple C

Every year the 5th graders from my school go to Triple C Camp at the end of September and for an overnight field trip! I've never gone before, since I don't exactly teach 5th grade, but this year I decided to help chaperone and hang out with the kids. I mostly wanted to do it because it would be fun, but also because there's a little guy in 5th grade named Alejandro who just moved here and he doesn't speak any English. So I wanted to hang out with him, practice my Spanish, and give him somebody to talk to in the only language he knows.

So I left right after school to go over to the camp. I didn't spend the night but I stayed until about 11:30 to help get the kids to sleep. I'm totally going to do it again next year because there was a kickball game, a dance party, a night hike with flashlights, a bonfire for making s'mores, and a telescope! And that was just the night events! There are so many things I missed in the day! Next year I want to try to take off of school and go for the whole day to help the kids on the cat walk and eagle walk ropes courses, the climbing wall, the zip line, and all the team building activities!

The best part was definitely hanging out with Alejandro and talking to him in Spanish. I couldn't understand everything he was saying, but I was getting better by the end of 5 hours! It was awesome!

Las Palabras de "Tu Eres" (debajo)

Tu eres el amor de mi vida,
Tu eres mi esperanza,
Tu eres todo para mi...

No te cambio por oro ni plata,
No te cambio por ninguna riqueza,
Tu eres, eres mi todo Dios...

No tomaré sin Ti otro paso,
Pues no podría seguir,
No viviré otro día sin Ti,
Porque no tendré la fuerza,
Señor si Tu no estas

Eric Lopez

so what exactly is a sacrifice, anyway?

Ever since the accident 9 days ago where Collin and his mom were hit by the car, I've been thinking a lot about what happened and what significance it has. One thing that I want to start right off by saying is that this post is not about me, it's about God. It's going to seem like it's about me at first...but bear with me while I get through all the background info...

After I spent the night at the hospital with Collin that Thursday night, many people have come up to me or emailed me to tell me how awesome that sacrifice was. They tell me many kind things that I won't repeat here, while I just stare at them with the confused, "head-turned-sideways" puppy dog look. I honestly don't know what to say to them. It sure didn't feel like a sacrifice. They tell me how blessed Collin's family was by my generosity and again, I don't know what to say. I've been stuck in this quandary for 8 days now, trying to figure out how to get the focus off me and on God and why my reaction is one of such confusion. This weekend, a revelation hit me.

I think God let me in on a huge misconception in my previous thinking. Here was my confusion: SPENDING THE NIGHT IN THE HOSPITAL WITH THIS LITTLE BOY WAS NOT A SACRIFICE. The definition of sacrifice is: "to surrender or give up for the sake of something else". In order for this action to be a sacrifice, it implies that there is something else that I would rather have been doing and that I gave up such a thing to be at the hospital. But that's just not true. That night, at that moment, with that child, there is no where on Earth I would rather have been. If I had been home, I would not have been sleeping. I would have been laying in bed, wide awake, wishing I was at the hospital. See, there was nothing I gave up to be there. Staying with him all night was the only option available. It's an act of love, not sacrifice.

I think in America today, many of us have a twisted idea of sacrifice. We think of a sacrifice as "giving up chocolate for a week around Easter time" as if God really cares whether or not you eat chocolate. We think sacrifice is the hard work we put in to love, help, rescue, save, or just be there for others. But what I've been realizing is that THAT's not a sacrifice at all. That's saying, "look, God, look everybody, just look at what I gave up to help this person. look at my sacrifice!" That in turn leads to the most telling signs of the state of our hearts: "So now, God, I want this and this ... and don't forget about that sacrifice I made ..."

So then I started looking again at what happened that night at the hospital. There was no hard work. It wasn't work at all. I wasn't tired. I wasn't frustrated. I wasn't asking God to look at what I was doing for this child. Those thoughts never even crossed my mind. Instead the only thing I saw, thought, and felt was "love". Period. Nothing else. No effort, no work, no frustration. Just love.

That's when the biggest revelation of all hit me. Jesus. Maybe I've had it all wrong. We cry out to him in praise and to honor his sacrifice on the cross. But in the final moments of his life on Earth, did he feel like he was giving up something? I wonder if he felt like he was making a sacrifice when he paid for the sins of millions with his own life. Or did he feel like there was nothing else he'd rather do more for the people he so desperately loved. Maybe all this talk about his beautiful sacrifice is leaving him with the same confused puppy dog look that I know all too well. Like, sacrifice? What sacrifice? To think that he felt towards me the way I felt towards Collin and his family leaves me with my head spinning. To think that he's saying in all of this, "This was no sacrifice. There is nothing I would rather have done than to do this for you, two thousand years before you were born, because you're that important to me and I love you that much."

Even though I keep hearing that I blessed Collin's family, really I was the one who was blessed. I was the one who got to see a much clearer picture of Jesus's love that leaves me wondering how I can ever question his worth and love again.

Thank you, Jesus...not for your sacrifice, but for your love.

Camping Under the Stars

Last night Ann and Alicia came to visit and we went camping with Peter! We camped at my mom's farm down at the big pond! Baxter the basset hound came down and hung out with us all night. We cooked hot dogs and made s'mores and my roasted strawberry and graham cracker combo. Except nobody else liked my roasted strawberries. :( That's okay. I still like them. I think those strawberries were seriously the sweetest, juiciest strawberries I've ever had!

Peter made an awesome bonfire for us and Ann had fun experimenting with the combustion temperature of marshmallows. It was the true camp experience as Alicia, Ann, and Peter delighted us by singing the theme songs from 70's and 80's tv shows.

This is one of Ann's marshmallows combusting. It's the one she was proudest of.

When we finally settled in to the tent to go to sleep, we found we had lots of company. My mom's dogs, Gracie and Baxter, decided to sleep with us, and the really awesome cat named Lover Boy came in too. Gracie guarded the tent all night, Baxter stunk up the tent all night, and Lover Boy climbed on the tent all night.

Peter brought his totally cool telescope and we went out to the middle of the field to look at the stars and the moon. We could see Jupiter and its moons. We could also see so close to the moon that we could see the craters and jaggedy edge of the moon! It was awesome! Peter's going to buy a camera adapter to go with the telescope so I can take pictures of the moon! We even saw moon shadows and Peter and I both looked at each other and said, "OH...MY...GOSH!" Hahahaha (that's just for you Kathryn)!

Geography Day

This week was a crazy week at school! On Wednesday it was International Talk Like a Pirate Day and on Thursday Mr. Rough (another second grade teacher) brought in a bunch of eggs to put in an incubator so the kids can watch baby chicks hatch! On Friday we had Geography Day where we did geography stuff all day long! In the morning the kids had to go on a treasure hunt around the school using a map and clues. Then they decorated cookies that were in the shape of the United States of America. They had to put on all the features of the USA that we learned about. They used big chocolate chips for the Rocky Mountains and little chocolate chips for the Appalachian Mountains. Blue Twizzlers or Air Heads work great as the major rivers! Finally in the afternoon, we put together a giant puzzle of the United States. Each kid had picked one state to research and then colored the puzzle piece of their state. We went outside on the field to put the whole thing together! The kids were wound up all day but it was so much fun!

Oh and guess what else happened on Friday! Collin came back to school!!! He stayed the whole day! You'd never know that he was just hit by a car a week ago!