New Chapters

Summer is here, but it is not the summer I remember. It’s different. I can hear all the wise old folk out there saying “welcome to the real world” as they read this, but hey, I’m new here. This summer Jeff works every day, just like he does during the year; Monday through Friday and weekends off and I don’t know how he does it, I would get burnt out without a break or something different. I’m working 12-6 Monday through Fridays at a daycare with babies (J). So my afternoons and pretty much my evenings are gone by the time I get home and get supper made.  I’m sad when I think of playing outside with my brothers, tanning in the pool, going to friends houses, getting my favorite ice cream from the Schwanns man, and I even miss the chores I dreaded and put off. I’m realizing that opening new chapters means closing old ones. Some new chapters I’ve now had a little (10 months) experience with and know that I love it and am excited for the rest of it, but other new chapters I only know the title and it has me a little nervous. This fall I start teaching fourth grade at the school where I student taught. It’s the job I hoped to get and I am thrilled that I did!  Also very nervous. This is what I have been working for the last several years of my life, but now I have to actually go do it, and it’s very important that I do a good job! As with all the other chapters in life, I will continue through it and God will be there in it and it will be significant; it’s just exciting and intimidating to sit here and look at the ‘title page’ for a little while.

There is one lovely perk to adult summers…vacation time! We are blessed with the opportunity to go to Florida in July! We get to visit Jeff’s Uncle and go somewhere that I have never been to, and hopefully go do some things that neither of us have ever done J.  

And for those of you wondering “how the married life is going”, It’s fantastic! Our pastor recently asked if it was anything like we expected, Jeff said “it’s better”. I agree, it is nothing like I expected, but it is better. Sharing a life with someone else is complicated and sometimes a pain, because it would just be easier to do things on our own, but it is so much more meaningful when you are sharing it. I won’t even bat an eye at having to ask to buy something, or having to carefully think about what kind of meals to make ;) if it means that I get to experience everything life and God has to offer with Jeff by my side. And I’m pretty sure I can speak for him that he feels the same way. 

Summer is in the Air

Summer is almost here! Ok, so we’re just part way into spring, but there are only four weeks left of school and that means summer to me!

We recently celebrated the warm weather by going camping in March. It sounds so crazy, but it was warm enough to give Jeff a sunburn! It was a blast! It was just so nice to get away and have nothing around you but fields and trees and a few other people who are there to enjoy the same things. We bought a few new camping supplies and had fun trying them out, lying in the hammock, playing croquet and cooking some good meals. We look forward to the next time we go and hopefully will have some friends to camp with us.

Not only did we get to go camping, but we hit up our first baseball game of the season! We got to go and enjoy the ball game food, experience and good company. Randy and Kimmie came up to Omaha to visit and told us that they are pregnant with baby number three!!! Becky was there as well and we had a great time catching up J.  We ended up catching a squishy baseball that gave us $50 dollars off of a purchase at Stereo West Auto toys, so Jeff got a CD player for his car. Which we installed on our own…. Wow. One of the most difficult things I’ve ever done, and one of the more difficult things that we’ve had to work on together. It was pouring rain, we are sitting in his Monte Carlo, we have tools all over the seats and floor, we are trying to firmly pull off the entire dash board without snapping it, and trying to figure out what still needs unscrewed or unclipped and how in the world we are going to get the dashboard over the steering wheel. We finally got it all put back in place when Jeff remembered that we hadn’t hooked up one of the wires. So AGAIN we unhooked it all and took it off, hooked up the wire, then put it back. SUCCESSFULLY! And now I know a little bit more about cars.

Subbing has been an interesting experience. I have learned a lot through it, but am definitely hoping and praying for a full time job this fall. Until these last few weeks, I had really been disliking it (except for the times I got to go back to the classroom that I student taught in :D ). This is mainly because I feel as though I’m just there to baby sit, like I don’t have any true purpose there. I don’t have enough time to teach students something new, or impact their lives in some way, I just have to make sure they are behaving and getting their work done for their teacher. But this last month or so, God blessed me with a long term job. I’ve been working with sixth graders in a school near Grace that I’ve always liked subbing in. This class however is not one of the better ones. Upon me coming in, their teacher had already been gone earlier in the year for a month, and they were in the process of preparing for a the NeSA (Nebraska State test). I was however not alone; the reading specialist in the building who was in this class every morning got placed in the room to teach along with me. Not only has their schedule been fairly inconsistent all year, but I don’t think their teacher expected very much of them, not in academics or in behavior. I have never seen such a group of unmotivated students. It has been a huge learning experience and I’m so glad I have the reading specialist to work with. We’ve been working with them on skills they will need for the Tests, how to show respect to teachers and classmates, and how to be responsible for themselves. I’ve had the opportunity to try out many strategies that I had learned in school, and that didn’t necessarily need applied when I student taught Kindergarten. It’s been tough since I know I’m only there temporarily, but I feel like I’ve had a much more significant role in these kid’s lives than in my short sub jobs. 

Oh Ya... We Have Life to Do.

After our wedding, honeymoon, and moving in, it was time to face the real world again. Not only was it the real world, but it was a complete unknown. Jeff had just moved here and was starting his job search and I was going to move from classes and homework to actual (practice) teaching….with real students :S. Not only were these students real…but they were kindergarten, an age that I had only a year ago said I would NEVER want to teach. The night before my first day I took all my lesson plans I had ever written, all my text books and class notes, and began to review. I had my Extra large pink binder sorted and ready to go with all the important papers I would need to fill out and turn in, blank lined paper to write on and pens and pencils. I had no idea what this was going to be like, and no idea what to expect, so I prepared for everything. After skimming through all of my books and notes I realized…I’ve got this. I know what all of these books are telling me! After realizing that, and remembering that the first two weeks in student teaching were just observation, I calmed down a bit and was able to just look forward to what God was going to have me do this next semester.  And it was awesome. I was in a kindergarten class of 24 students (16 of them were learning English as their second language) and an AMAZING teacher. My cooperating teacher taught me so much. She showed me how to have truly high expectations, a solid structured class, and how to use any different possible pathway to get the information to reach the students’ brains. She also taught me how to work hard, by week eight or so, I had taken over all of the lesson planning and teaching and I swear, I never once saw her sit down and not do anything. She was always making flash cards for the kids to take home, or working on their assessment book and seeing what they needed work on. She gave me books, print outs, lesson plans, manipulatives, worksheets, laminated projects…everything that the kids did, I have a copy of. I have her music that we did every morning and the laminated turtle that hung in the back for the kids to talk to when they had to tattle. I was stretched and taught and provided with the opportunity to prove myself, not only to my advisors, but to myself as well.

I loved my student teaching experience, every day of it, and am so thankful that God gave me that opportunity. I miss my kids and love to go back and visit them and see how much they have learned since the last time I saw them; everyday they learn something new that I never (at the beginning of the year) would have thought they would know. Now I am more interested in teaching the lower grades, and there is a 1^st grade teacher at that school that is retiring…so I could potentially get that job and be teaching some of the same kids I had last year!

Meanwhile, the first month or so of me student teaching,  Jeff was job hunting. He had an interview with American Family Insurance to manage all the computers and networks of all of the agents in Nebraska. It was a good job that offered him the fulltime position he was looking for, but it involved traveling all over Nebraska to take care of everything and he would be the only one doing this job. Thankfully, very soon after his interview with them, he had an interview with the company he had worked for in Fort Dodge to do a contract job with Prime Therapeutics in Omaha.  Having a contract job wasn’t as stable as a fulltime job, but everyone there was saying that was how they hired on their employees, was through the contract agency, so he took it. A few months later he got hired on full time and is now working there fulltime! This has been a huge blessing as it is a great job, especially for someone his age. He helps run all the computers and networks in the Omaha branch of Prime Therapeutics.

We are so blessed that he has a solid job as I was not able to make really any money while student teaching (though I did work evenings at the Grace Library) and am still not making as much subbing.

During this time we also ended up buying a new (used) car for Jeff as his was acting up and not dependable. We both had some money saved up and were able to get him a ’03 Monte Carlo, which he loves. Through our first six months of marriage we have been able to look back and see how God has provided everything that we need and taken care of us. 

Our Big Day

Going Going Going!

So here we are, nearly seven months after our wedding and we’re finally getting this blog up. Since it’s been a while, we had probably catch you up. First off we want to thank all of you for coming to our wedding and for sending gifts and blessings! So many of you put a lot of effort into making our day perfect and we truly appreciate it. We are so blessed to have such great friends and family in our lives.

Now to catch you all up: after our wedding on July 30^th we headed up to Atkinson (a nearby town) to stay in the honeymoon suite as we were going to be meeting with family and friends the next day for breakfast and gift opening before heading out on the rest of our honeymoon. Sunday, we met at my grandparent’s house for fruit, casseroles and homemade cinnamon rolls…MMMMMMM! We opened gifts surrounded by our close friends and family and then headed off to Omaha after. While in Omaha we stopped at our new future home and signed the lease to our apartments, got the keys and dropped off the wedding dress and tux. We then continued on to Kansas City, but had to use a different route because of all the flooding that summer. It took us a good 4 hours to get to Omaha, then another good 4 hours to get to Kansas City. Our hotel there was awesome as it was set up just like an apartment with a kitchen and a living room with fireplace and everything (unfortunately we could never get the fireplace to work L).  We then ended up going to Walmart that night to buy some snacks and quick dinners. The next day we went to the zoo; it was sooooooo hot, but still a blast. It was nice to go to a different zoo than the one here in Omaha that we see a lot. We got hundreds of great pictures and a lot of exercise! Tuesday we went to Worlds of fun. This was a VERY eventful day as we got on a few roller coasters early before the crowd showed up, were the last train of the day to ride the Mamba before it was shutdown for repair, got a caricature done, had a free BBQ dinner at the pavilion, survived 112 degree temperatures, and managed to spill a bottle of pop in our draw string bag on the way back to the hotel. The drawstring bag that contained both of our phones, both wallets, and Jeff’s keys, plus souvenirs from the day.  Nothing was truly damaged, except for both of our phones, which were still under our parents’ plans. We had been talking about when we were going to get our own, and decided we might as well do it then. Wednesday we went to Sprint and got ourselves a plan and two phones, then went to the bank and joined bank accounts, then ended the day with a cool, relaxing trip to Oceans of fun (which was amazing since the temperatures weren’t much cooler than the day before!).  The rest of our vacation was spent getting lost a few times, going to a dinner movie theatre, Jeff trying sushi for the first time, shopping for home essentials, eating great BBQ and lounging at the hotel pool.

Friday we left Kansas City we headed up to Fort Dodge to make it there in time for Jeff to attend the rehearsal dinner of his friend’s wedding in which he was a groomsman. We attended the wedding the next day, then packed up all of Jeff’s things at his house. Sunday we traveled back to our apartment in Omaha and met my parents with our gifts and some of my things from home and began the moving in process. Our friends Lineice and Tyree came and also helped us move in and with everyone’s hard work we had all our furniture set up and boxes moved in no time. Everyone headed back to their homes and left us newlyweds in our new home….with boxes piled high and shelves empty. It didn’t matter, we finally had our first place together and were excited to get it set up. A lot of that next week was spent unpacking and with me getting things ready for my student teaching that would start the following week. From our wedding to honeymoon to friend’s wedding to moving to student teaching, it was a hectic few weeks, but they are full of great memories that will last forever.