First Days of School

I've been a high school teacher for a little over two weeks now. There are many, many things I miss about my job in Ottawa (like having my own room, having oodles of pens and clips and various office supplies, sharing the same 100ish students with the 3 teachers right next to me, knowing all the teachers in the building, having administrators that I could find. . .) but I am liking this okay so far. I think most of my apprehension is just dealing with change - to be doing my old job would be sooooo much easier because I know what to do. I have two teachers that are very helpful with each of my two preps; I don't have a lot of planning to do, so that is huge. Organizing is very difficult at the moment because I travel between three different rooms and have no two classes in the same room. I am really enjoying the math; Geometry is my favorite branch, so I am thrilled. The maturity of the students is a nice change, they get my sense of humor a bit better than the 7th graders. I'm working out the kinks, but I think this could be a job that I really love. Too early to tell (because I am overwhelmed with all the details). Ask me in couple months (or maybe next year.)

The high point of the day: during last block, a student brought a football to class (most of them carry everything with them all day), and I took it to lock up in the closet during class. When I gave it back to him after class, he asked me to throw it, and I said (obviously), "you can't throw a ball in the classroom! But. . . I can throw a football." He didn't believe me, so I said I'd show him outside after school. So, he and four other students came out to watch me. It is funny how being a girl simply makes this noteworthy. They were so impressed.

Emily

Little Buggers

What a great crop we have had here in Prairie Village! First the cherry's, then apples and peaches and now with cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. Things do know how to grow. However, we have lots of critters. When we went to Colorado, the cherry tree was bursting with fruit. Not one was there when we got back. Then we went to Newton and the apples all disappeared. Even all the ones on the ground. Not a trace left! Now we took a few days to hang out with Kari and Jimmy and all (even the green ones) the tomatoes disappeared. We have seen rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks. If anyone has a suggestion on how to keep them out, let us know. We were not too happy to see the tomatoes go.

Reunion

Neufelds and Wiebe's galore! We had a great time at Morning Star Ranch with my mom's side of the family. Although it rained a whole lot, we had took advantage of all we could. I am reminded every time that we get together what a great family we have. Thank you all who were there and shared your weekend with Emily and I. It was a great time to get re-acquainted and worship together. It was also Alvin and Ruth's 63rd wedding anniversary (my grandparents). Congratulations!

Grandma and Grandpa sharing.


Me with my favorite little man.


Uncle Phil came in from North Carolina. It was great to see him again.


Aunt Becky. We had lots of amazing food and shared many of our pictures and stories over the weekend.


On Sunday morning we shared a worship time together on a bluff above the ranch.

Colorado

Last weekend we had the privilege of visiting Jen and Dave in Denver. We had great food and an even better time. We did try and go camping and hiking. It was so beautiful. Here is a picture near grizzly reservoir were we camped.



Here is Jen at our campsite.


This is the tailhead to our hike the next day. Once again, we should think more carefully as to what these names would imply.


This is a picture along the hike. Just around this corner we heard a loud growl and had a bit of a startle. It might have been more of a bellowing. Either way, we turned around and decided not to find out if there are only black bears in Colorado or if there are any grizzlys.


Here is Dave eating a PB Cup Smore. This is at the campsite we moved to to run away from the bears. It was located near mosquito view overlook. Once again we should have headed the signs and not tried to stay here. We ended up heading home before nightfall.

However, Colorado was great.

Pie

One of the nice things about this last week was the discovery that our tree in front of our house is a cherry tree. The cherries are a bit too tart for me (Emily) to enjoy. But, it is abosolutely beautiful and it makes oh-so-good pie. The cherry tree is only one of many fruit trees we have on our small property. We also have a peach tree, 2 apple trees, and a grape vine (although we got rid of most of the vine because it was pulling the gutters off the house . . . and we knocked down most of what was holding it up.) Come to our house and we will make you a pie. (And by "we" I mean Jon. I'll tell him later.)

More work...

Here is the back of the house after we took everything off. Bill fixed all the gutters and the ladies took care of the inside, including all of the wall paper. Everyone was great.














Here is a picture of roses in the back yard. Both Harold and Bill help clean out the yard by weeding and cutting out bushes.














This picture was taken a week later when we painted one of the rooms.














Just this past week we had a new tank-less water heater put in. It is a little bigger than we had hoped but a lot smaller than what we had and in a better place.



















This is the main bathroom. It had a lot of mold and needed to be repaired. We went to town and here is the state it is currently in. Soon there might be Sheetrock, backerboard tile and maybe a toilet.



















The tub works and we plan on keeping it. The rest of the plumbing needed to go though and we hope to have working hot and cold water (running through safe pipes that are up to code). We've spent a lot of time working on demolition and rewiring circuits in the house. Emily is a patient person when I have to rewire a circuit 3 times and I get very frustrated. She has been a busy bee and such a hard worker.

More work.

A video of how the back came off...let's just say that this was a process and the old nails were a bit stubborn.