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.