So Thankful...

for a little break and time to come home to see family and friends.  Thanksgiving is always a great time!

I'm also thankful for all of the time I've gotten to spend with dear friends this semester.  It all started with a great visit from Alyse!

She got a great weekend for hiking and being outdoors.  So beautiful!

And who would have thought I'd be so lucky to have all of these amazing girls at my home for a pizza night and fun monster cupcakes?!?!

Shortly after I got to experience one of Manitou's great traditions: The Coffin Races!  Yes, only in Manitou would thousand of people gather to see teams race coffins down the main street.  It was quite entertaining.  Here is the winning team:

 The Smurfs!!!

Halloween weekend also brought opportunity to dress up and get festive.  Some friends and I decided to be Tetris pieces.  They made for very fun costumes, but not the most practical.  I took out a few people and objects that night, forgetting that I had that little L piece off to the side.  You also cannot see anything unless it is directly in front of you.  But I did decide that the homeless community has figured something out with the cardboard boxes.  That thing kept me warm all night!

 I made my first shot at cake pops and was quite pleased.  I love doing little treats for the holidays and these were quite a hit!

Living in a state that actually has a Fall that lasts more than a day really allowed me to get into the Fall spirit.  I made my first meal in a pumpkin and I would highly recommend it!  So delicious to scoop the pumpkin out with the stew.

Just a few weeks ago I got to go to the zoo here for the first time!  Nikki's nephew, who is 2 and 3/4 years old as he will tell you, was in town and gave us a great excuse to go be big kids at the zoo.  The giraffes were probably my favorite.  Check out the tongue!

The zoo weekend we were wearing shorts and t-shirts loving the warmth.  The very next weekend we looked like this:

 Yep, we were frozen!  For the first time since living in Colorado I went skiing.  We were feeling very hard core and pumped up for skiing.  In just one trip up the ski lift we had lost feeling in our fingers and toes.  It was beautiful and snowing, but sooooo bitterly windy and cold.

 We had great runs down the slopes.  The snow was fresh and powdery.  If only we had heated boots and gloves so that we didn't turn white and purple and feel so much pain :)  It left us spending a nice amount of time in the bathroom trying to get circulation and warmth back.  We were pretty pathetic.

We still were all smiles though to the end.  Still happy to be out adventuring with my future Amazing Race partner!  Next time we'll just check the weather before we go and make sure we pack some hot hands and hot toes. 

That brings us to the present celebration of one of my favorite holidays.  Before leaving I got to have a Thanksgiving feast with my wonderful little class.  They decided to do a play for their parents, which turned out better than I could have expected.  We had a great turnout, they read their lines with confidence (keep in mind many 1st graders are not expected to read at the point), and their pilgrim and indian costumes were absolutely adorable.  I was quite the proud teacher :)  We studied the First Thanksgiving for the whole month of November and did these really cool projects.  Again, so thankful for my teaching team that shares great ideas with me.  We learned about hardtack (hard biscuits the pilgrims ate on the Mayflower), Bubble & Squeak (fish stew), Squanto, breeches and petticoats, and the cool jobs they had in the new village.  My sweet little Mia really had a hard time with the hardtack.  No matter how many times we reminded her, she always wanted to say that the pilgrims had a heart attack.  So funny!  She would just giggle and smile and say, "Oh yeah, hardtack!" 
At our class play and feast we got to eat Bubble & Squeak and made our own butter for the rolls.  The same sweet little Mia failed to put the lid securely on her heavy whipping cream before shaking to make butter.  She proceeded to throw it all over herself and my desk.  Gotta love doing those "fun" activities with 1st graders :)
I also had a student take it upon herself to make her own 3-D representation of the pilgrim village.  I was quite impressed!

I'm so thankful they're so cute and eager to learn.   They keep me going every day.

And for those who know me well, you know that I love family traditions.  Especially those around Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving always begins with the Turkey Trot and is then followed by a scrumptious meal at Grandma & Papas.  So thankful for a Grandma that cooks a lot of very tasty food!  Of course, Thanksgiving is even better when we BTHO t.u. :)

Friday brings perhaps my favorite part: The Annual Eastup Bonfire!  This year was actually just a fire pit, but the most important part is sharing the time with wonderful people.  We sat mesmerized by the fire and loving the warmth. 

 The new addition this year was the ginormous campfire marshmallow.  Seriously, SO BIG!  

Have you ever seen such a thing?!?!

 Oh how I love this time of year!  I have so much to be thankful for and I love this time with family and friends. 

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.