Tuesday, September 23, 2008
jumping on the wakeboard
last weekend my man flew me up to lake shasta to spend some time on a houseboat with his friends… i was fighting off a sickness but i didn’t wanna give up the chance to meet his friends, nor did i wanna miss out on the fun of being on a houseboat, on a lake, part of nature, away from the city and the stress, and of course, i was looking forward to the chance of wakeboarding again!
lake shasta was rather pretty, although the water levels were dropping extremely low, and i enjoyed being out there. it was neat seeing markers from old bridges that had been covered up when they first put up the dam on the sacramento river. i also enjoyed the church service we put on for ourselves cuz i haven’t led out in church in a while - and they put the two of us in charge of song service - with my hoarse voice and all!
here i am enjoying wakeboarding after our impromptu house church.
and then later in the day, i tried again cuz i wanted to learn to jump. actually, i got a few jumps in the morning but nothing was caught on camera. later that afternoon i decided to give it a try again and adam took this photo as proof that i actually did jump =)
we had fishing poles hanging off the side of the houseboat all day long and when we came back in the afternoon, grace’s dora the explorer fishing pole had been pulled over the side by some fish… they set it up again and later on that night, another fish took the bait and my man reeled in this huge fish on this tiny fishing pole. the fish was almost as big as grace herself! i can’t believe that plastic pole held up! can you see how huge that fish was?
kurt kept on creating these fantastic gourmet meals all weekend long as well, but i was too busy eating the yummy-ness to take any pictures. but all in all it was a great trip! good people, good food, good times =)
Monday, September 08, 2008
161 cookies
i rung in my birthday this year baking 3 ‘family size’ batches of pre-made cookie dough to bring to my students! i thought it might be more fun to give them away this year…
the total came up to 161 cookies! that’s a lot of cookies…
and thank you to The Man for helping me bake them!
Sunday, September 07, 2008
my quinceanera
apparently, i just had my 15th birthday yesterday!
if you’ve noticed, all of my birthdays for the past 7 years have been spanish-themed. this year was no exception, and my friends threw me a quinceanera last night!
for those of you who don’t know, a quinceanera is a latin american “debut” for a 15-year-old. traditionally, the birthday celebrant wears a white dress, similar to a wedding, and she has an entourage too! the quinceanera celebrant would be escorted by her ‘chambalan’. i came dressed in a traditional white dress, and several of my friends wore similar dresses in a variety of colors. the men got dressed up and there were a ton of sombreros all over the place. the special guest of honor (other than the quinceanera herself, of course!) was “macho libre” as my chambalan. and kat, susan, rita, and i did a special dance with our special guest star marlene! we just had so much fun planning this thing all month long - the goofier, the better =) we totally hammed it up! you can see in these pictures we took last night:
here’s me in my traditional white dress with rita
and all the ladies dressed up - thank you mom for getting our outfits!
and gavin was so cute dressed up as a mexican hombre
and all the guys got in character too! check out everyone who came dressed up =)
my chambalan was “macho libre”!
thank you so much marlene for hosting this barbecue/quinceanera at your house! i had so much fun!
thank you to everyone who came too! this was definitely a quinceanera to remember =)
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
first day of school
i got here (to school) by 6:52. and not only did i get here 30+ minutes early, i’m so proud that i woke up at 5:52am. and then i prayed and read the Bible, which is a habit that i haven’t done in a while. i’m going to try to keep it up… i also showered, ate breakfast, and came prepared with a change of clothes for coaching later.
basically, i’m trying to start the year off on the right foot.
i’m also sitting here reading harry wong’s “the first days of school” trying to get in the right mindset because “there is overwhelming evidence that the first two or three weeks of school are critical in determining how well the students will achieve for the remainder of the year”, and the tone is set during the first 2-3 days of school.
i want to have a good year and i’m doing what i can to be an effective teacher. here comes the school year! pray for me!