Year 2

I never intended to go so long without an update.  I don't even know where to begin.  Here it goes!

I enjoyed a beautiful summer in Colorado!  The weather could not be more perfect and the activities to enjoy it are endless.  It definitely made me love the life of a teacher.  So much freedom to enjoy the summer!  It even gave me the time to do random things like dress up for free food:

I got to enjoy a fun race with good friends right in Colorado Springs that left from the Broadmoor.  It was quite fancy!  I was treated to a full meal, Barefoot wine, a finishers necklace, free massage, and a post-race hangout at the Broadmoor.  Yes, again, these are the true reasons I do races :)

I hosted some great people throughout the summer.  Two of them were particularly to spend time with.  One was from Kansas and the other from New Zealand (I really like the idea of having a place to stay in New Zealand if I ever have the opportunity to visit).  They pulled me back out to some of the touristy things that you so often put off once you live here.  We got to explore the Cave of the Winds and just couldn't resist the cool hard hats!

We also played the penny arcades in Manitou and decided to be adventurous and eat Egyptian food.  So glad we did!  Turns out I love shwarma!





Towards the end of the summer I think we realized our time was running out, so we had to cram in some of the things we had said we would do all summer.  I finally climbed my first 14er (for those of you unfamiliar with Coloradan lingo, that's a mountain over 14,000 ft. tall).  Maria and I decided to conquer Mt. Harvard.  It was wonderful!  The views were amazing as you can probably imagine.

Yep!  We even ate a mango at the top.  We know we're a little crazy about mangoes.  And I really became quite fond of the little cairns.  They remind me of God's faithfulness.  When you're going through all the mess of rocks at the top, they are so faithful to guide you up the peak.  Just when you're not sure where to go you see the next one and know that you just have to set your eyes on it and keep going on.

The very next day I went on my first white water rafting trip!  I rafted down the Big Horn Sheep Canyon.  I even got to see a pack of beautiful Big Horn Sheep standing right off the river as we rafted by.  It was a great trip with just enough excitement and rapids for me.

I'm the 2nd person on the far side of the boat.  I'd highly recommend the trip!

Shortly after, the school year fired up again.  You may or may not know that I was informed the day before school started, just hours before meeting parents and students, that I would be switching from 2nd grade to 1st grade.  Needless to say, I was slightly overwhelmed.  We cleared out the 2nd grade materials and hauled in the 1st grade as quickly as we could.  And off I went as I 1st grade teacher :)  Through the whole experience it has brought me to realize how lucky we are to have a God who always knows what is best for us.  I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that I have praised God every day for moving me to 1st grade.  Here are a few of the reasons:

1. I have a truly incredible team to work with!  My 3 teammates and I meet together weekly to share ideas and collaborate for the next week.  They have great resources and creativity to share so we are able to all lighten each others' burdens.
2. The current 2nd graders were a rough bunch that drove away all of the 1st grade teachers last year and continue to be a rough bunch this year.  They would been mine. 
3. My 1st graders are adorable.  Yes, they drive me absolutely insane at times, but when you take a step back you realize they are 6 & 7 year olds.  They are sweet, loving, sincere, and hilarious.  They love to learn and are doing a great job at it!
4. I love what you teach in 1st grade.  I get to see kids come in saying they don't know how to read, and I get to show them that they can.  I teach them the very basics and essentials.  If they can master these things they will be so much more successful for the rest of their educations and even lives.  The light bulbs coming on and the excitement in their faces when they realize how much they have learned keeps me going.

The safari does continue, I've gotten even more into it this year!  We go on all kinds of safaris.  We've had an African safari, Australian safari, and we are currently on our Chinese safari.  My little explorers just eat it up!  And they did so good on their first round of assessments that we had to celebrate.  In Ms. Eastup's class we:

 

Even since school starting I have made sure to continue having some fun on the weekends.  First came the Warrior Dash!!!!  We crawled over cars, through tunnels, climbed ropes, ran up a mountain, crawled through a muddy pit covered with barbed wire, and then leaped over fire!  What a blast!  We definitely earned those viking hats :)

Next, I complete my first triathlon!  I'll say it was quite the experience.   It confirmed that I am not a swimmer.  The training I had done all summer was thrown out the window as I tried to simply survive!  I seriously could not wait to get out of the water.

 

 Thinking the worst was over I excitedly headed towards my bike.  Little did I know another little fiasco was about to unfold.  Once there I quite humorously got stuck in my wetsuit.  I finally got free and hopped on my trusty, vintage bike...the chain falls off.  No worries, two very nice men jump the rescue and send me off again.  

But I immediately know something is wrong.  I was working hard to ride my bike downhill.  After about 4 miles of struggling to go maybe a blazing speed of 5mph, my frustration growing, and all my pride issues suddenly surfacing, I hopped off and ignorantly fiddled with the back tire.  You see, "The Chad" had so kindly "fixed" my tire the night before because I had gotten a flat.  I guess "The Chad" did not put the tire back on correctly and now I was paying for it.  By the grace of God whatever I messed with worked and I was able to enjoy the rest of the ride.  At that point I was so far behind that I decided to just take in the beautiful views of Boulder and make the most of it.  What can you do? 

By the time I got the run I just wanted to run my little heart out, so I did!  Overall takeaways from the race: I'm glad I did it, but I'm definitely a runner.  Maria did great and we thoroughly enjoyed all the cute Aflac goodies.  See, I do it for all the freebies!

About this time brought about even more blessings for the semester.  Two of my dear college friends are now living in Colorado Springs. What a joy it has been to have them around to hangout with, go have fun adventures with, and just have people around that know you well.  Nikki and I fulfilled one of our bucket list items by hiking Pike's Peak.  Here we are at the summit:

The hike brought more of my favorite cairns:

We walked through Devil's Playground:

And such satisfaction of knowing we had accomplished a life goal:

 Most recently I got to go on a pleasant hike with Nikki and Kelly up Raspberry Mountain. 

We went on the perfect weekend to see the Aspens changing!  We don't know Fall in Texas.  I saw Fall for the first time.  Absolutely breath-taking!

I am so thankful for good friends.  It's so good to have them here! 

 Whew...I think that about brings us up to speed.  It brings us to a long weekend where I am finally able to sit, relax, breathe, and rejuvenate for the next quarter.  It couldn't have come at a better time!  I hope you've enjoyed catching up.  I'll try to do a better job of making more frequent, less lengthy posts!

Love Colorado!

For Memorial Day weekend, some friends and I packed up and headed out for some camping.  This was actually my first Colorado camping trip to the mountains!  We went to Ophir Creek, which is a great place to camp and we got the best campsite around in my opinion. 

We got to do lots of hiking and relaxing and had great campfires at night on which our friend, Ed, was so kind to cook up some fabulous dutch oven meals.  Of course camping wouldn't be complete without delicious s'mores!  But you can't have a fire without wood, so I tried out my skills with the saw :)

I must say I think I did a pretty good job of supplying fuel for the fire and earned my stay!
We even got to try out some Bear Grylls moves as we crossed the raging creek several times.  Unfortunately, one fellow hiker didn't quite make it across once and ended up in the creek.

But it was worth it in the end to sit at the base of a waterfall and read.

Following camping I came back to house/dog sit at a house on the northwest side of town.  This gave me a chance to explore some different areas and take in some different views.  I was able to hike right out the back door to enjoy views like this.  Yep, Colorado is great!

I am continually amazed by the beauty of the wildflowers around here.  I thought I'd share some of them :)

God is truly an artist and what a gift to give us such things to admire.

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.  There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard."  Psalm 19:1-3

The next weekend took me to Steamboat Springs to enjoy even more of this great state.  I won't go into detail about that here because you can read all about it at my other adventurous blog: mangoescapades.blogspot.com Check it out if you haven't already.  More to come soon!

I've since bought a vintage road bike that I'm a big fan of.  It's kind of a necessity when training for a triathlon.  I ride it everywhere; to the pool, store, friends' houses, meeting friends for coffee, etc.  It's much more fun than driving!  And my favorite part is definitely the red and yellow handle bars. 

Speaking of the triathlon, it turns out I'm only good at one event of the tri: running.  I've been trying to learn how to swim athletically.  I'm improving, but it's been rough.  The first day I swallowed A LOT of pool water.  When telling Nikki she so kindly reminded me "people pee in that!!!"  Yes, I know!  And that's some motivation to improve :)

I also had the privilege of hosting the new TFA corps members who are placed here in the Springs next year.  It was great to meet all of them and be able to show them around the town that I have come to know and love.  It's hard to believe that I was in their shoes a year ago with wide eyes and a slight overwhelmed feeling.  They were great and I'm excited for them.  I got to share the joys of making homemade pizza with them too!  With 9 different pizzas I got to see many unique creations.

For those of you not familiar with my kitchen, it's not very big.  There were pizzas everywhere, but so much fun!

There was also a member who is on a gluten free diet.  I decided to embrace the challenge of creating gluten free options and have fun with it.  My favorite was dessert: gluten free brownies.  What replaces the flour?  Black beans!  Yep, black beans in the brownies.  I didn't tell anyone until they had eaten them.  With a couple of scoops of ice cream and some chocolate syrup, they were quite delicious!  You'd never know.

Ok, I think that's long enough for now.  I'm procrastinating on my school work by doing this, so I'm going to cut myself off.  Congratulations on sticking it through and reading all my random experiences.

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!