Happy Sinterklaas Day

After we realized that Sinterklaas Day was long over (that's when we had decided to open gifts), we decided to open our gifts to each other tonight instead. Nate gave me a very cute folding up travel Scrabble. We sat in front of the heater and played. I lost. Because Nate challenged "quo" and got "fez" on a triple letter.

Test your Typing Tempo

Here is a test that will tell you how fast you type. My family sent it to me; according to Dad, Holly has gotten 154 words per minute. My personal best right now is 90. If you want to get into the fun-spirited competitiveness while brushing up your typing skills, give it a try and post a comment with how fast you are!

Christmas decorations

Here's the results of my decorating! Now, if only Wal-Mart could wait until Thanksgiving (instead of the day after Halloween) to put out Christmas stuff.

I'm...

Mourning the death of Grandpa.
And rejoicing, always.

Mourning that he had to go through so much pain.
Singing because he's free of it.

Crying because my future children won't play Husker Du with their Great-Grandpa Hooyer in this life.
Curious if we'll do that in heaven.

Glad that I had the priviledge of having all eight grandparents present at my wedding.
Sorry that my sisters won't have that.

Missing his calm voice saying Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy name.
Praising because God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

Sad that I won't have Grandpa's silent enjoyment when I sit down at the piano after a Sunday dinner.
Smiling at what awesome sounds he must be hearing right now.

Grieving our family's loss.
Celebrating Grandpa's gain.

Your kingdom come, your will be done

I've been wanting to post the past couple days to say something about Grandpa. However, I couldn't think of much to say that hadn't already been said by Heather's post, her other post, or Janet.
Mom and Dad called last night from the hospital and put the phone to Grandpa's ear so I could talk to him, which was good. I couldn't hear him say anything but they said he knew who I was and said something. I told him I loved him, that I wished I could be there, that I'm praying for him.

I do have two things to add to Heather's list, although she said most of the good ones already:

• Him offering (threatening?) to pull our teeth out with a pliers when we told him they were loose.
• Grandpa's version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Winner gets to slap the other person's hand-- hard!

Prosser Balloon Rally

Nate and I went to watch the balloons take off early this morning. They had designs ranging from Coca-Cola ads to potato plants, and of course the colorful geometric designs. I had never seen them up close before; it was cool. To launch, they stretch them out on the ground, blow some cool air into them, and then use the torch thing to heat it up so it stands. The 1st video is of a balloon filling with hot air. It was beautiful to watch them all drifting away!

Are you Superstitious?

I'm not. We just adopted 3 kittens born on Friday the 13th (of July). They're all black. Here's the pictures!

Almost Ready!

Here's the bulletin board Mrs. E and I made yesterday. We continued the decorating today using our fabulous stapling skills. I think I'm about ready for school to start (although I have enough details to take care of in the next week). Nate and I are having a busy but fun end of the summer: we enjoyed having a visit from G & G VW last week and from Matt and Laura yesterday. We tried to take the cheese tour at Darigold but it was closed due to flooding (water, not milk). Oh well, we had a good time visiting anyway.

Save the Corn!

This corn was sitting in the field getting gross until Nate talked me into freezing corn. I now have 5 bags of corn in my freezer. I know that is nothing compared to the hundreds of quarts of corn Grandma Hooyer probably froze in her life, but it's a start! If I feel motivated, I'll do it again tomorrow.

Capri Sun Lunch Bag

This was my project yesterday evening. You can find the instructions here.

Home Again

Nate and I had a great time over the last few weeks catching up with family, eating yummy things from my dad's wood-burning grill, celebrating the 4th of July, pear pitching, and hiking, biking, and sight-seeing at Mt. Rainier. The photo below is before I biked from Paradise to the west entrance of the park with Rebecca, Alissa, and Nate's Dad...19 miles of cold/wet but downhill biking. (Click on the links to see some more pictures and videos of the trip.)
Our return home was somewhat sad because while we were gone Jeeves and Wooster were (most likely) killed by the neighbor's dogs.

Voyage through time zones

Nate and I traveled by train, enjoying the view, the freedom to walk around, and not being treated like potential terrorists for having a one-way ticket. The picture is from the lounge car, but we sat in our own spacious seats most of the trip. We celebrated our anniversary on the train by eating in the dining car and watching the DVD of the wedding. Stepping out on the platform to stretch our legs in Minot, North Dakota, I breathed hot 'n humid air for the first time in a while. Not technically "refreshing", but it made me smile.
Now we are on to celebrating the 4th of July and visiting our families spread across the midwest.

Avalanche Ranch: A Wild Ride Through God's Word

At Lynola's prompting, I will give you an update about VBS! Nate and I have enjoyed two days on the "ranch" so far. Nate's job is taking pictures of the herd for Friday's slide show, and I get to lead and help the very energetic Purple "Ranch Crew". I found out this morning that my Grandma F. led the Purple Ranch Crew at her church's VBS. (I think this publisher must have a monopoly or something; did anyone else out there have Avalanche Ranch VBS?).
Pray that they can absorb the lessons from the stories...they can be overly talkative at the Bible Story Room. I think in a group of 15 or so kids of mixed ages (I don't have that many myself, we go together with another group), it would just be better not to ask those "interactive" questions to the whole group at once (what city are you from? Have you ever been to a river? etc.). It is just asking for chaos.
Anyway, the music and the kids are fun. And if the girls raise the most money to buy cows in Bangladesh, our pastor will wear a wig and sing Hannah Montana. The boys haven't decided their challenge yet.

Kitties! (Part II)

Here is a video of our kitties playing. Which one do you think will be a better mouser?

Harbinger

Rebecca had Monday and Tuesday off, so she drove here from Mt. Rainier to visit us. We had a good time catching up, baking banana bread, "thrifting" for hiking clothes, and just hanging out.
Very soon summer will be here, hopefully bringing more outdoors time and visiting time!

Kitties!

Our kitties arrived yesterday. They are cute and also very smart- they figured out how to get out of their box in the garage. They were scared of us at first but they are getting more playful. They look a lot alike, but one has a white spot on his/her back. They do not have names yet. Suggestions will be taken into consideration.

Island Game

Guess what! I am now a computer programmer. OK, I cheated a bit and used the helping program Scratch. You can see the game I made at http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/hnnhhyr/4087. My excuse for creating this is that programming will help me understand Nate better.

¡Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

The title means "Happy 5th of May" for you non-Spanish-readers, and it is a Mexican holiday somewhat like the 4th of July. We didn't participate in the festivities very much, although we heard happy-sounding music coming from town Friday evening while we were outside!
We kept busy yesterday helping with a spring cleaning day at church and then cleaning ourselves up a bit to help chaperone the Junior Senior Banquet. It was fun to see everyone dressed up, the food was excellent, and we even got to take home a cute centerpiece (shown in the picture).

Pita Pita!

This was my experiment on Saturday. It didn't form perfect pockets, more like isolated bubbles. I think I rolled it too thin. We just spread the chicken and beans on top and it was good. Much better than making a special trip to Safeway (I normally don't go there, but they seem to be the only place that sells it) for dried out store ones!

Spring Tour Concert, Spring Project on a whim

Last weekend was busy and fun- the Dordt band and orchestra were here on tour. I was in charge of feeding them, making sure they had places to change clothes and warm up, and places to sleep after the concert. Of course, we claimed Heather and her tour buddy Melissa to stay at our house. Ruth also came from Idaho for the concert and stayed overnight. The concert was great and it was so fun to see them, even if it was very short!
Yesterday at Wal-Mart I was inspired. The pictures show the results. The fabric is tiny pink stripes- some metallic- with a little bit of wrinkly-ness. I sewed it last night after going bowling with friends. Nate was pleased with how late I stayed up (it gave him plenty of reading time).
I didn't use a pattern (learned that from you Mom!), I just measured my blue skirt. I greatly overestimated the amount of fabric I would need so I might need to sew something else too!


...(several hours pass) pajama shirt?

What should we name it?

Here's a picture of our new car, purchased from another teacher family. It is a blue (obviously) '98 Chevy Malibu. The air conditioning works. The trunk is good-sized.
To celebrate, we used some of our Jav-ahhh! gift certificates on a peach smoothie for me and something coffee-containing for Nate.
Little white Nissan is still functioning, although it may be developing some new quirks.

Wronged, Wrong

You shall not steal

Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven...where thieves do not break in and steal

Last Saturday we had the unfortunate discovery of pieces of bike lock in our garage. Yep, they were cut. Gone with the bikes were our camping supplies, the shop vac, and other tools.
And I was upset. Upset that someone would come into our garage and take things that people had given to us as gifts, upset that we had tried to get renters insurance just days before but couldn't because of some of the electrical "features" of our house, upset that we barely got to use these things, and on top of that, upset with us for somehow becoming fairly attached to things we definitely didn't need to live, and can be replaced (Coleman stoves are pretty cool, but they are not a homemade family heirloom). Nate's family is in Louisiana right now helping people whose possessions and homes were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Life without a good place to live has got to be a lot harder than life without a nice set of pruners and clippers from Ace Hardware.
So, we have taken and are taking reasonable steps to keep "our" things safer. I had always thought of stewardship as buying what's on sale, tithing, and investing time and money wisely, but could stewardship mean leaving lights and music on (we did that before, too), trying to get insurance, or maybe even --as the sheriff suggested-- putting up stickers that say "smile, you're being videotaped" around our home? When do these actions cross the border from stewardship to selfish paranoia?
Are we wrong to own, appreciate, and protect our well-designed computers, good quality sleeping bags, and luxury vehicles (...please think of our rusty truck and notice the somewhat humorous point in my otherwise serious post). I don't think any of these things is inherently wrong. But this week has shown me that it is hard to possess much with a pure heart. And that compared to managing possessions, I probably spend far too little effort storing up treasures in heaven.

I'm going to be a teacher...

...again next year at Sunnyside Christian School. I signed my contract on Monday and am truly looking forward to a second year here (and some things have got to be easier the second time around, right?).

Poisoned Peanut Butter, Projects

Tomorrow there is no school for me (mid-winter break, aka basketball state)! I plan to go to Wal-Mart and return our jar of peanut butter whose product code starts with the deadly 2111. They have been recalled because of salmonella. I find it strangely exciting to have this jar of potentially poisoned peanut butter in the house, although I'm thankful we didn't eat it.













Also at Wal-Mart I'll buy some elastic so I can finish the green skirt.

I made a new curtain for our bedroom and demoted the 70's green one to the storage/guest room.

Sourdough

I just finished sampling this yummy sourdough wheat bread! I think I'm getting the hang of it and I hardly have to look at the recipe any more.

This week was Nate's birthday, which we celebrated by eating at Bob's Burgers and watching Driving Miss Daisy.

Looking forward to a mid-winter break from school next week; I hope to relax and do my taxes (probably not simultaneously).

An "old" friend

Here's a picture of Ruth and I (both wearing East Hall shirts, by the way)!
She was our first official overnight visitor besides family helping us move in. On Saturday night we had pizza with Ruth and Laura B.- it was a lot of fun. Ruth left for her parents' home in Idaho this morning. It was so nice to have her here to enjoy good conversations and "show off" our town, our house, and our church.
Thank you, God, for friends!

McNaught

Yesterday night Nate got some good shots of the comet; he sent some in to the Daily Sun News (the Sunnyside paper) and they published it.

.5

On New Year's Day we decided to celebrate being married for 6 months (thats 1/2 a year in case you are confused by the mathematics of my title) by going out for Chinese. As I am still learning to appreciate Chinese food, I didn't try the mini-octopus. I stayed with "safe" things like sesame chicken and something similar to crab rangoons (yum!).
The other adventure of the day was making noodles.
Tomorrow it is back to school for me!

Home away from home

We drove to the airport this morning, knowing that our original flight (shown in purple for you visual learners) through Denver was delayed. It didn't matter if we wanted to fly to Sioux Falls, Sioux City, Omaha, Des Moines, or Chicago- everything was full due to the backup of people who are stuck in Denver in the blizzard or couldn't go through Denver yesterday! So we returned to our already-chilled home (feeling much warmer by now, though). We plan to take the next available flight, which will get us to Sioux Falls on Saturday night by a somewhat indirect route (Pasco/Seattle/Cincinnati/Sioux Falls; shown in red). It seems that compared to others, our situation isn't so bad; at least we are "stranded" in the comfort of our own home (although we'd rather be "home" in the Midwest) and we'll be able to fly this week.
Another interesting tidbit: Nate got interviewed for the news (about being a delayed traveler) as we were leaving the airport.

Weather widget

The days are short, but warm!

Hot Chocolate....drink

Here is my recipe for Hot Chocolate Not-Milk

2 1/2 c. rice milk
3 T. chocolate drink powder
2 T. sugar
1 T. non-dairy creamer
1 t. vanilla

blend. heat. drink.

Note: I prefer the milk version, but I developed this rather foamy substitute for a lactose-intolerant family member (eh-hem, Nate).
If you actually try this recipe and have any suggestions, let me know.

Where am I?

While taking my Friday afternoon pilgramage to Fiesta Foods, I walked among the unsurprising bottles of hot sauce, tubs of lard, and tortillas that fill any empty spaces in the store. Whizzing through aisle dos o tres, I saw something I hadn't noticed before and stopped in my tracks. Shocked, I took the following picture (feeling rather foolish as I took my digital camera out of my purse in a grocery store...). Can you tell why this made me laugh?

Made my Day!

The music store representative dropped off a repaired trumpet yesterday and ended up staying the whole 5th grade band rehearsal (he's so helpful!). I was very pleased and relieved to hear him say that the 5th graders are doing quite well, especially for me being a string-oriented first year teacher. It was good to hear that from a former teacher who has also seen a lot as a sales representative in many band classrooms. He says the 5th graders are playing together well with fairly good posture and tone (well, there are always those that...struggle...with posture). Well, keep up the good posture out there and I hope all you readers are having a good day!

News from Nate

This is an event in and of itself- Nate has posted news on his website, as well as a tabblo of pictures.

Cute Cornbread

This is from awhile ago (October 2), but I thought it was fun enough to share! I recommend the cast iron skillet method because the edges get brown and crispy and it just looks nice.

Beautiful British Columbia

Today we (me, Nathan, Tom, Karlene, Alivia, Gpa and Gma VW) crossed the border and spent the day in Vancouver, BC. We saw the views of Vancouver from Stanley Park (made me think of you, Lynola and family!), and also went to the aquarium there. There were such interesting creatures! We saw tiny cute seahorses and blubbery beluga whales and everything in between!
The signs by the sharks had high praise for the excellent design that sharks have for survival (apparently they have seven senses, cool!), but blindly concluded that "nature" designed nature. So close, but so far.
Many pictures were taken, few will be posted.

Conventing!

I'm at the CSI teachers' convention in Lynden, Washington. Actually I'm done with it for today, and now I'm sitting in the living room with Grandma VW and Alivia.
Today was fun- I got to see Rachel E., Mel W., as well as some other people!
The sessions/speakers I went to were mostly good. I sang in a choir for one session, and heard a guy with an Australian accent talk about creation, and the new creation. He talked about some characteristics of Egyptian culture and religion, and how God's way of rescuing his people from them showed his power was greater than the Egyptian gods. He also talked about the world as God's temple or palace, and our place as image-bearers in it (like the pagan idols were "images", representing the characteristics of the gods they stood for). Many other topics were tied in, as my frantic notes give evidence of, and he was good at showing the beautiful tied-togetherness of God's story, how the language talking about the new creation echoes God's work in the Old Testament.
Nathan and Tom are flying in an airplane right now! I will encourage Nate to post pictures of that.

a dream, a song

Last night I had an unusual dream.
I dreamed that I was in church (it didn't look like any particular church in real life, just a church), and at the end of the service we sang a song. The song was the most amazing thing I had ever heard, it was so beautiful. I could hear it in detail in my dream, but now I can't remember at all what it sounded like (although I remember what it looked like to see people sing it, so I know it was a 2 or 3 part acapella round). I wish that I could hear it again! Everyone in the church was so glad and moved to be praising God with this beautiful song that people were crying.
The beauty of this song apparently didn't sit well with one lady in the church: she stood up and said loudly something about she had "forgotten to put the fire in the fireplace out in her summer home" and stood up and left (I think a couple other people left with her). This made as little sense to everyone in the church as it sounds to me now- it was winter in the dream, so why would the woman have forgotten this fire for so long? It was a frustrating interruption to this song, and almost made us stop singing, but we kept going.
That's all. I've dreamed with music before, but nothing like this where I woke up wracking my brain to try to remember the music because I wanted to hear it again so much!
Anyway, I don't know if a blog is the best way to share a dream. It looks weird written down.
I hope you all have encountered something breathtakingly drop-your-jaw beautiful today, in a "dream" or "real life".

Spiritual Emphasis Week

Hey everybody! Sunnyside Christian High School is having a spiritual emphasis/renewal week this week; the theme is unity. So if you could say a prayer (or many) for students, parents, teachers, and our speaker, Dawn Geschiere from Youth Unlimited, that would be great! Pray that people's hearts would be open to hearing God's message about unity, and that the things people may learn this week would change them and stick with them.
I haven't actually been able to attend any of the chapels (they are during the morning, when I'm at the elementary school)...
While you're at it, pray for Dennis, our P.E. teacher, who broke his leg badly.

Did any of you have a spiritual emphasis or renewal week at your high school? Do remember anything about it? I can't say I remember much from any of my 4, except one teacher's session about the Holy Spirit.

The school picture takers were at school today, they commented to me as they were packing up from my room that wearing collars sticking up seems to be coming in again, as are the '80s in general. I think it looks kind of silly.

New Arrival!

Announcing.....(drum roll please- I learned how to replace a snare drum head this week, by the way) my new website!
I created it for fun and to have a central place to link to pictures, this blog, and the Tabblos I've been making.
For now, I'll keep posting news here, but pictures might end up more on a Tabblo or on extinguishedscholar.com/hannah, unless of course they directly relate to the post.

Survivor!

I have survived one "full" week of teaching. Three and a half days, but they were very full.
There were moments of confusion, exhaustion, and terror. As well as some of the more pleasant emotions. I locked myself out of my office...twice. I've learned a lot already. I think my students have learned something. I love the staff. I may even take up cooking again, just for the weekend.

Goodbye Summer

I was inspired by Heather's post to mourn the end of summer. Actually I am flat-out copying her, and actually I am excited for school to start.

But that does mean the end of...

• taking as long as I want to grocery shop.
• weekly organizing fests (truly moving in takes a while).
• Cooking. Actually I may take it up again in a week or so but for now I plan to subsist on meals I froze in early August, sandwiches, Nate's cooking, and last but not least, Corn Dogs.
• getting the mail ASAIGH (as soon as it gets here)

I will post about the beginning of school soon!

(I am posting this picture as I sit on the edge of my "garden" as a test. My garden has trouble growing beans but the wireless internet works just fine.)

Everything that has breath!

I started decorating my office today.
I felt that my friends who majored in elementary education would be proud of me.
And I used the border that Catherine's mom gave me for graduation!

Wedding Picture Tabblo

Some of our beautiful wedding pictures have been posted.

Funny Farm!

Have you ever had someone call you and you weren't sure if it was a prank call or not? (Feel free to share your stories in a comment.)

Well, when "Private Name, Private Number" showed up on the caller ID, I answered without saying my name (congratulate me, I have a habit of answering anonymous calls with "Hi, this is Hannah", which I shouldn't do, I guess).
The person on the phone said "Hi, is this the Funny Farm Liquor Store?", to which I automatically answered "No", and hung up. Then I burst out laughing after processing what they had just said. I'm sure there are many more creative options of how I could have responded...

P.S. There is an actual Funny Farm Liquor Store in town, so I'm guessing it was really just a wrong number.

Darkness is as light

In addition to our wedding, my parents' 25th anniversary, my mom's birthday, a trip to Illinois (during which I learned you can make quesadillas with an old iron), moving to Washington, and Nate and I starting our jobs, July also brought a request for prayer, as my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. I've been trying to keep people updated by e-mail, but I also wanted to post that here. Heather has been better at posting updates with good news and pictures, so to avoid being too redundant, I'll just say that her surgery went well, and she came home Sunday.
Nate and I are far away from my mom geographically, but I'm thankful that we're still able to keep updated, and that many other people can visit in person. Thank you to all who are praying and encouraging!

La Casa de Nathan y Hannah

We've been in Sunnyside for over a week now, and we're starting to feel at home in our new house (click for pictures). We are enjoying the fruit here, learning how to recognize some new (to us) crops like mint and hops, and experimenting with kitchen appliances we recieved as wedding gifts.

Green project

I tried a new website called Tabblo today; it is kind of like scrapbooking on a website. You can visit the page I made to see the sewing project I made today.

Estamos aqui

We're here!
The stats: 1500 miles sin (that's pronounced "seen" and means without for you non-Spanish-reading readers...LVis) AC, lots of beautiful scenery, trailer empty within 20 minutes of great helpers arriving, phone and internet working just fine, and cherries are apparently in season (yum!). We are not revealing how many times we have been to Wal-Mart since arrival.
God has used a lot of people to take good care of us this week. I like being able to see the mountains. The end.

July 1, 2006

After many trips to Hobby Lobby, conversations on Google Talk, hours spent building beautiful tables, and much other planning, the big day finally came. Everything went beautifully, and it was very fun and encouraging that so many people could come to the wedding. It was just a very happy day!

Yesterday we had a reception at Nathan's church in IL, which was fun even thought I did not know most of the people. It was fun to be able to see some people's pictures already and watch parts of the video.

For those of you who couldn't be there, and those of you that were too, I will try to get pictures out eventually. I might post a few here, or find a better way to post them and send out a link.

Berries!

  

Why every household should own a tennis racket:

 

The "racket" started at 4:45 a.m. with a scream from Heather, and then "There's a bat."

The bat made its way into Holly's room; Mom shut the door behind it and wedged some paper in to keep it closed, for lack of a standard doorknob.

Dad went in, armed with a tennis racket and a bucket (previously used as the compost bucket) and finished off the bat. We still don't quite know why he needed the compost bucket on his head, but we were thankful that the Fludermaus was taken care of and we could try go back to sleep.

And let that be a lesson to each and every one of you who does not have a tennis racket-like object on hand at all times. 

More than a bumblebee, more than an ant...

I believe that since my last post, I have played in two weddings, one church service, and one memorial service, graduated college, traveled 1500 miles across the country without air conditioning, taken pictures that I don't have time to post, said goodbye to many friends that I don't know when I'll see again, been fingerprinted by the police, and probably done many other things. For details on any of these, talk to me, or e-mail!

$3.25

Did you know that for $3.25, one can purchase a picnic cooler, popcorn popper, picnic plates, cute serving plates and bowl, dish-drying rack, a glass canister, and a book? Garage sales are good things.

Direction: West

Do these pictures look like the (yet unplanted...as far as I know) cornfields of IA?

No? That is because they are not!

The one on the bottom is cherry trees blossoming. The bottom white stuff reflects light and heat and the netting protects them from wind and birds. (Thanks for the info, Dana!)

The one on the top is...pink trees. I don't know what they are.

The location of these mysterious and unusual (to an Iowa girl) crops is....near Sunnyside, WA, where I am excited to have accepted a teaching position! In keeping with tradition, my room celebrated with fresh pineapple. It is fortunate for the sake of the pineapple that I accepted, because my roommate had actually bought it (without my knowledge) before I was even back.

...and soon things will be flowering!

I hope you enjoy these beautiful flowers. I am enjoying spring weather through photography, walking outside, and Christmas tree burning/ bonfires, even while being busy with student teaching, job search, and wedding planning. Not to mention my attempts at cooking for my roommates (thank you for the lasagna, LVW). I plan to fly to Sunnyside this week to see the school. I am excited for this and hope that this or my other current possibility works out and is a good fit for me.

It's raining, it's showering

 
 
  

Muppet Personality Test

Thank you Alissa for leading me to this fun personality test! Here's my results on the Muppet Personality Test.

You Are Rowlf the Dog

Mellow and serious, you enjoy time alone cultivating your talents. You're a cool dog, and you always present a relaxed vibe. A talented pianist, you can play almost anything - especially songs by Beethoven. "My bark is worse than my bite, and my piano playing beats 'em both."

The Muppet Personality Test

"Spring" "Break"

Here at Dordt, on the first official day of spring, a sparkly snow is coming down steadily. It is really quite nice-looking (from inside my apartment), but I'm praying that it doesn't make the roads too bad and that everyone makes it back safely. And I'm hoping (a little bit) for a late start tomorrow.
I did not have a long break; I started right in with student teaching. Today was my 6th day in LeMars in orchestra (4th grade-high school). We visit the four elementary schools on Monday-Thursday, and have one of the two middle school groups and the high school orchestra every day. I feel like I have started to get to know a lot of the kids, and other important things like where the offices, bathrooms, teachers rooms, and other important things are.

Kill the fattened pineapple!

Today we celebrate (with fresh pineapple chunks...our room's preferred method of celebration) the return of roommates from lands afar (Canada). And experience the subsequent barrage of paperwork and other information about teaching and licensure etc. Fingerprinting and background checks, philosophy of education, sharing crazy stories about student teaching, etc. Welcome back Lynola and Nicole!