Family Time!

Like I wrote at the end of the last blog, my family got to come out for the last day of school and then stayed for the following week. I'll admit that I put them to work for the first 2 days, but it was all fun after that! We got to explore and see parts of Colorado that I had not yet ventured into. It was great!

We started local with my new favorite hike of Colorado Springs. It's called 7 Bridges because you literally go over 7 bridges while on the trail. Imagine that! It was gorgeous though and takes you all along a stream flowing down the mountain.

From there we ventured south. We decided to see what all the hype is over The Royal Gorge Bridge. Unfortunately the day we drove down we were experiencing some stronger than typical Colorado winds. Winds gusting over 70 miles an hour knocked out all power to The Royal Gorge Park. Plus I think the winds would have blown us off the bridge. Needless to say, we turned around and headed to Westcliffe, Colorado which had been recommended to my mom on a flight out here. On the way we made a couple of stops that I would recommend. First, we had to pit stop at the Holy Cross Abby Winery. It's a great little place with very tasty, award winning wines! Then we made a detour to see Bishop's Castle.

Now, this was something I had read about but couldn't imagine what it was really like. This man has decided to build a castle by himself and all by hand. It's crazy!

Yes, all made by hand by one man.  If you're ever in the area you need to see it.

View of the mountains from Westcliffe!

After enjoying this spectacle we finally made our way to the quaint town of Westcliffe where we had secured a stay at a bed & breakfast.  What a great decision!  It's called Courtyard Country Inn B & B.  The place was so cute, great owners, delicious breakfast, and so relaxing.  Just check out the relaxation taking place:

At night they light the chimneys and you can enjoy sitting out under the stars.  We will definitely be staying here again!  And while in Westcliffe we would recommend eating at Poag Mahone's.  Staying here also inspired me to open my own B&B one day.  Any suggestions on a location for my B&B would be greatly appreciated!

 After enjoying every bit of our delectable breakfast we headed back to The Royal Gorge for a less windy experience.  It was really cool and quite a site to see.  

 My favorite part was taking the vertical train down in the gorge.

While there Zach also sawed off some horns :)

And we got thrown in jail.  I must say I think I look a bit more intimidating than Zach ;)

Colorado has so much to offer!  And this was only one trip.  There's so much more for me to see!  I'm so thankful for the time with family and being able to enjoy some of the breath-taking beauty this area is blessed with.  

Don't forget to let me know where you think I should open up my B&B!  I'll start looking into realty.

End of School Year

I am long overdue for an update!!! So much has happened, so I am going to slowly add posts starting from the beginning to bring you up to the present.

The school year came to a very successful, bittersweet close. We finished out the year with a field trip to Garden of the Gods. We learned all about what lives there and how those red rocks were formed. The kids had a great time and loved the adventure. But they were probably most intrigued by getting to see rock climbers!

I also can't tell you how many photo shoots I took of them. They were so funny about having their picture taken.

At the beginning of May they got a surprise visit from Mrs. Eastup! They loved having her around and were very good at remembering to distinguish between Ms. Eastup and Mrs. Eastup.

Back in April we started a writing contest across the school. The students competed within their grade level to write the best personal narrative about their favorite sport. Just before school was out we had the Writing Masters Ceremony. My J and Jewels took Gold and Silver respectively!!!! As we walked down the hall after the ceremony I couldn't keep J from jumping up and down and saying "I'm just so excited!" I was soooo proud of them! I love to see their confidence grow as they realize that they really are great writers. J never would have expected himself to take gold. Again, considering that I didn't exactly know what I was doing all year, I can only praise God for the growth I saw from the beginning of the year to the end. I had 0 proficient writers at the beginning of the year and ended with J and Jewels taking home the gold and silver. It's that kind of stuff that keeps me going :)

An elementary year also isn't complete without Field Day! We named ourselves the Green Tigers. We had tons of fun doing relays, jumping hurdles, climbing a rope, running (yes they even raced Ms. Eastup) and winning tug-of-war!!!

Then the last day came. It was full of creating memories, a picnic lunch with the whole Eastup family, reminiscing over all the memories we had shared over the year, and tasty treats! Luckily the last day's lunch included oranges. The kids discovered how hilarious it was to make goofy faces with their orange peels in their mouths. My mom was a great sport taking their pictures over and over again with goofy orange faces. And my dad and Zach were great as my students decided to become the teachers and teach them how we do phonics and math. They LOVED our visitors. The whole day ended with a very compelling, heart-felt speech delivered by Murph-dog. :) With most sincere feeling he expressed how much he had loved the year and some of the great memories he will always cherish with his classmates. Final statement: (hands in the air, down on 1 knee) you guys rock!!!!!!!!!! And with that, I completed my first year of teaching. What a wild ride!

Simple Joys!

The past couple of weeks have been filled simple joys! It started with a delightful Easter picnic at Garden of the Gods. The return of springish weather has reminded me of how lucky I am to live in a place surrounded by such beauty. I also love the people I have here to share such a nice picnic with. It was even complete with a little Easter egg hunt and WAY too much food!















Then we had a treat in our classroom. Last semester, we wrote letters to the kids I worked with in Malawi. They were so kind to write us back! You should have seen how excited my kids were to get the letters. It was fun to see them so eager to write back to their friends half way around the world. That was probably the most excited they've been about writing all year. I showed some of my pictures of Malawi again for the kids that weren't in my class semester. I love sharing more of the world with my kids. One of them even had this realization that "they're kids just like us!" Yes, yes they are :)

The letters also were such a joy for me and made me miss this place. In my mind I was just there, but the letters written back from the current 2nd graders were the kids who were kindergartners when I was there. So crazy! Those kids also have way better handwriting and my kids definitely took note. I think we have abandoned all handwriting instruction here and it's showing.

Last weekend I was so blessed to have a visitor!!! I love visitors :) Candiss came in for the 3 day weekend and we got to enjoy my favorite things about Colorado Springs. We hiked, took lots of pictures of the beautiful creation around us, had a picnic, made homemade pizza, shopped in all the cute shops, ate at some of my favorite places, and even finished off our time together with Mango Tango Pizza!!!!!!! For those of you who don't know, Candiss and I are equally obsessed with mangoes and it's pretty much how our friendship started.

On our first hike we ran across the sign above. Of course being such experienced hikers we thought we knew better :) Haha! We definitely could not get across the ice flow, but we were determined to see the waterfalls. We went back down and went up the other side and it was definitely worth it. This is what we got to see:

A frozen waterfall!!!

You just can't beat quality time with good friends. It was a much needed break and refresher.

School updates: we only have 5 weeks left! I can't believe I'm almost done with my first year of teaching. I definitely have mixed emotions. I'm super excited about having a break, but not ready at all to give up my kids. I feel like this week God gave me an even greater love for them. I was just looking at them on Friday and realizing how precious they are to me. Each one is so unique and I love them each individually for their own reasons. I especially felt an overwhelming love and compassion for I. one day. He has such a hard life and struggles so much with school, but has such a great heart at the same time. He cares deeply for his family and he's just longing for someone to model for him how to act. We celebrated yesterday because he read 28 words in a minute and he started out the year reading 0 words. Praise God for breaking through all the days of frustration and giving him the perseverance to become a reader!

And to wrap it up for now I'll leave you with one of my favorite moments from the past couple of weeks:

I'm giving directions in class one of the days right after I had come back from the DR with a nice tan and B. randomly comes up to me. She touches the skin on my arm and says, "Ms. Eastup you're a different color now. I liked you better the other color." All I could do was laugh. It's good to work in an environment that always keeps you humble :)

I hope that this week you'll recognize and appreciate all of the little joys in your life!

Fun Happenings!

I had been doing so good, but now I apologize for going so long without updating. So many fun things have happened in the past month. I'll start from the beginning.

I ran my first half marathon in Colorado!!! I ran with my friend Maria, and it was her 1st half and my 10th. A celebration for the both of us. We ran in Boulder, which is such a great town. And we endured some pretty brutal weather, but had fun nonetheless.

Then we had Spring Break! I have decided that Spring Break is even far more exciting for teachers than it is for the kids. Just a little while back my roommate and I decided that having such a stressful job called for a real Spring Break. Our solution: book a trip to the Dominican Republic. We could not have been happier with our decision! It was a week of total relaxation, forgetting about my real life, reading, playing sand volleyball, eating as much fresh fruit as I possibly could (they even had mango), and enjoying a little taste of the DR. It was wonderful!

Our resort was nestled in a coconut plantation, so we were surrounded by palm trees.


I got to try sugarcane for the first time. I decided it's delicious!

I just had to include this picture because this is our friend Romeo. He worked on the entertainment team at the resort, and was one of the craziest people I have ever met. He ran around like a mad man all the time. You could always hear him saying, "Oh my god! I love my job!" And this was usually just because he was constantly surrounded by women in bikinis. He also tried to convince both Allison and me of how beautiful mocha babies would be. He provided so much laughter/awkward encounters throughout the week. Here we're enjoying La Fiesta de Coco!

We also took a zip-lining excursion up in the mountains of the DR. We were excited to get to see more of the country and get a better taste of what life is really like there. It was gorgeous! We had so much fun on that trip. The longest zip-line was over a half a mile long right over a river and jungle. I loved it!

This is pretty much my happiness from the week captured in a picture :)
There's nothing quite like a sunrise over the ocean that will make you praise God for his creation and sing Glorious! I got up for sunrise almost every morning and then would go for a run on the beach. Life doesn't get much better than that!

Transitioning back to "my real life" has been pretty rough. My life is always joyful, but I got a taste of pure happiness last week that has been hard to let go of. But it was still great to see my kids again and be refreshed to finish out the year strong. It's going to be over before I know it. My kids brought me a lot of laughter and joy this week as we wrote about pulling pranks and jokes on people in honor of April Fool's Day. And they think they're so funny when they pull their little jokes on you ALL DAY. "Ms. Eastup, there's a bug in your hair! Haha, April Fools!" "Ms. Eastup, I can't find my pencil. Haha, April Fools!" Oh it never gets old.

And most recently, I was reminded of the simple joys of decorating eggs for Easter. So much fun!

I wish you a very Happy Easter!

"For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He shall stand upon the earth..." Job 19:25

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!!!

What a fun week we just finished up! For those of you outside of the elementary world, this week was the celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday. Of course we got all into it. Each day had a theme or something we were suppose to do to celebrate Dr. Seuss. His actual birthday was Tuesday, so how else to celebrate but with green eggs & ham!!!

Yep, looks disgusting, but it was really quite delicious. The kids ate every last bit!

Following our green eggs & ham, we continued the day with the reading of And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street. After reading we took our own stroll down our school street where "ordinary" things turned into a crazy world of adventures! It was so fun to hear the kids turning fences into licorice, trees into lollipops, grass into gold, cars into limos, and the dog park into a zoo. They got all into it and were actually having fun writing! And to think we saw it on Charmwood St.!
In the afternoon I surprised them with fun Dr. Seuss hat treats. Quite delicious!
Tuesday was fun and all, but Wacky Wednesday was definitely my favorite!!! My wonderful teammate had the grand idea of the 2nd grade team dressing up as Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2. We jumped right on board with the idea and went all out! I got the privilege of being Thing 1.

The looks on my kids' faces was priceless!!!! I don't think they even knew it was me at first. One even checked my badge to confirm it was really me. They called me Ms. Thing 1 all day and had the best time with it. I loved being dressed up because I was so comfortable all day and you can't help but have fun when you're Thing 1. Thing 1 & Thing 2 are known for being quite destructive, so we had to play the part at some points in the day. One point even included running through the gym screaming while class was going on. We had too much fun that day!

Thursday was hat day, so I went all Texan. I wore a cowgirl shirt and my lime green cowgirl hat. My kids just kept saying, "You really do look like you're from Texas." I'm glad a I could contribute even more to the stereotype of Texas.

Oh I know it sounds like we're just playing all the time, but I promise we really are working hard in class. We got to celebrate some growth this week that was really exciting. One of my kids who couldn't read any words on our fluency testing when he began this year was able to read his all time best of 17 today. Talk about a confidence boost! I was just praying the entire time and God is faithful to love and encourage his children.

I absolutely love my kids and working with them every day, but the job definitely continues to teach me to constantly rely on God as my joy and peace to get through each day. I have become so much more aware of the true source of my joy. Thankfully my teammate and I are able to remind each other that the system cannot strip our joy away. I will press on with God as my strength and know that His success is not the same as the world's success!

"Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation." Isaiah 12:2

If you haven't in a while, go enjoy a Dr. Seuss book. It will make you happy! :)

Simple Joys

Last weekend I finally got to experience the joy of using my fireplace!!! It was so peaceful and relaxing to feel the warmth and hear the crackle of the burning wood. I had wonderful friends come experience the joy of making homemade pizza and roasting marshmallows for s'mores over the fire. What a great night! And I was quite impressed by all the pizza creations :)

Yumm!!!!!

All of our delicious creations!

I also had some memorable times in the classroom this week:

- Wednesday we started learning about the solar system. We were reading Magic School Bus and we were reading about the moon. One students asked me who was the first person to land on the moon to which I quickly answered, "Lance Armstrong". As soon as it left my mouth I realized something was off. My students of course had no idea what a big mistake I had just made, but they got a good kick out of me laughing so hard at myself. I quickly corrected myself, but they're probably more likely to now remember Lance instead of Neil.

- We were finishing up editing a sentence and were ready to write the corrected version. I said, "Alright, we're ready to go." To which a student replies very seriously "Where are we going?" Again, so literal!

- And finally, for some reason this week they have decided to give me a really hard time for always saying y'all. I really don't know what to do about it. I'm from Texas and we say y'all. What else are you suppose to say?!?!

Spice it up!

I just wrapped up what felt like the shortest week, which was pretty nice! We had Monday off and then I went to a conference today, so I only taught 3 days this week. In those short 3 days I had probably one of the funniest incidences so far:

We were writing paragraphs, and I often refer to their paragraphs like sandwiches or hamburgers. If they don't have the buns (topic and conclusion sentences) then the whole thing is going to fall apart. They have the meat, but no buns. So one student (we'll call him Tony) comes up to me so proud that he has finally remembered to include both buns. He excitedly announces to me that his hamburger has it's buns and it's going to stay together!!! I celebrate with him and tell him how proud I am. Then I give it a look and tell him that our next goal is to add a little more to it because he just had the big ideas and no details. I decide it will be a good idea to continue with hamburger idea, and I tell him that we need to spice it up a little bit. We need to add some lettuce and tomatoes. All along he's just looking at me very seriously and nodding along. He goes back to his seat and I'm not noticing what he's doing because I'm working with someone else, but I can tell that he's working on his writing. He comes over a few minutes later and, no joke, he has drawn lettuce and tomatoes in between the lines of his paragraph!!! I had to do everything I could to not just bust out laughing because he seriously thought that's what he was suppose to do. I forget that they don't quite get figurative language yet. He must have thought I was the craziest teacher asking him to add lettuce and tomatoes. You've gotta love kids!

I don't think I can top that story at this point. But in other exciting news outside of teaching... I got to take a wonderful weekend get away trip to Austin last weekend! It was so great to get away and spend time with family and friends. I had to continue the tradition of the Austin Marathon and Half Marathon. The weekend consists of a fun trip to the expo, a delicious pasta dinner with the Powers, and then a thrilling race with Nikki :) I loved it and already can't wait for the next one!

My biggest fans!

The real reason I run: the snacks & t-shirt ;)