Sunday, April 28, 2013

Weekend at home.

This weekend we were home, which felt so nice after being gone for a lot of weekends in March and April. We were supposed to go to Minneapolis this weekend to watch my brother's baseball games, but unfortunately it didn't end up working out. His baseball schedule got all switched because of all the snow in MN, and we had to be back for church on Sunday, and it just didn't end up being worth it to drive all the way up there when we were only going to be able to see him for a little bit. My family did end up going, so it was a bummer we missed out, but it was nice to be home too.

Friday night we hung low- went to Target, had dinner sitting outside in the beautiful spring weather at B-Bops, and watched a movie. We watched 10 Years, which unfortunately was stinky. Don't waste your money renting it. We basically rented it because it had Jason Street (not his real name, but the character from the TV show Friday Night Lights, that we are currently watching) in it, and also Channing Tatum (not that Kley really cared about that!). It's about 4 guy friends going back to their 10 year reunion. It was not good- we skipped the whole middle part and fast-forwarded to the end. Boo.


Saturday we hung out at home. We slept in, made some breakfast (eggs and cinnamon rolls), sent some emails for church, ordered a few birthday presents online, watched an episode of Friday Night Lights, and took Daisy for a super long walk. (Daisy is my parent's dog- we were dog sitting, since my family was in MN.) We had two couples over for pizza and games on Saturday night, which turned out to be super fun! It was a last minute planning thing, and I'm glad we did it! We played a rousing game of Scattergories.

Today we had church, and I spent some time in the kitchen. I love having Sunday afternoons free to relax and do whatever. I made some chili for tonight/tomorrow and some blueberry muffins. Yummy! I am currently at my parent's house- going to walk Daisy once more (it's GORGEOUS outside!), finishing a load of laundry, and painted my nails. Tonight we are going to watch Flight with my man Denzel. Hopefully this one will be good!


All in all, it was a great weekend! Hope yours was too! :)


Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Movin' on up...

To the east side. (Ha- not really.)

On a side note (before I even start the real post), it is currently 7:39 and I just crawled into bed. I don't even care- I am loving it so much. We have been busy recently, and gone a lot of weekends, so to have nothing tonight feels AMAZING! We are going to watch a few shows and go to bed early. So so nice.

To the real point of this post...work. There are a lot of changes coming up, and now that it became public to all the parents today, I can blog about it! Starting May 13, we are switching to four 10-hour work days, so same amount of hours, but we get a day off! This will be a weird change, but I think it will be good. Everyone tells me that I will love having a day off, and I can definitely see how that would be nice. (Going to Target during the morning when no one else is there sounds great!) My day off will be Monday, at least for the first few months, so I am pretty pumped about that. The downside is that I will only get to work with my awesome coworker Lauren three days a week. Thankfully the other girl who will sub for us, Julia, is really good too, so I am happy about that. I currently work 7-3:30, with a 30 minute "break" (in parentheses because I usually just work during it anyways), and now I will work 7-5. I know 7 is early, but I love opening. You can get so much done when all the kids aren't there yet, and it's so nice to greet the kids when they arrive and not come to work when they are already all there. It will also be nice to be there for pick-ups as well with working later, to be able to talk to parents, and to be able to have more time to get other work done as kids are leaving and numbers are lower. So, all in all, I am happy about it!

Side note- I currently work in a two-year-old classroom at a private Christian school, in case you didn't know.

The other big news is that starting June 10, my coworker Lauren and I are moving classrooms! (Hence the "movin' on up" title.) We will be moving from the two-year-old classroom to the three-year-old classroom. At first I was hesitant, because change is always hard for me, but after praying and thinking about it, I definitely feel at peace. Sometimes change is good, right? Even if it takes time to transition. This move was something initiated by my boss, and she thinks I will be good at it, which I think is a great compliment! I am so glad to have Lauren transition up with me, as I am so blessed to have her as a great partner. I will be sad to leave the kids I currently have, but it will be nice to teach the three-year-olds because I have already taught them before! It will be like teaching the same kids two years in a row, which has a lot of positives I think. What a neat way to allow for deeper relationships to form, and an opportunity to change their lives/love on them with His love!

Lots of change coming up!

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Visit to DC!

This weekend we were in Washington DC! Neither of us had been there before, and one of my best friends, Stephanie, just moved out there after graduating in December. (And she just got a full time job starting after her internship ends- way to go!) This trip was my birthday present from my in-laws. We had a great time! It was so neat to see such an important place to our country.

We landed and immediately had to figure out the metro, which was interesting. It took a little while, but we did it! Right when we got there, we met up with my college roommate, Jackie, and her husband, Joe, who had driven up from Virginia Beach. We spent Friday with them while Stephanie was at work. It was great to see them!

They had lots of pretty flower pots all over the city, so I immediately had my camera in hand and started snapping shots. Here are some flowers right off the metro.


They called their houses "row houses." They were pretty cute!


Food from a van! We don't have that in Iowa. 


 Beautiful cherry blossom tree. We just missed the festival of the cherry blossom trees by a week. Most of them had turned green now, but there were still a few beauties around!



 Lots of tulips, too.


Library of Congress.



 My first view of the Capital!



Steph's apartment building. She lives super close to the Capital and has an amazing view!


More cute row houses while walking around.




Walking around the Capital.







Plenty of protection- squad cars. The patrol police around the Capital had the biggest guns I've ever seen.


Jackie and I.


Kley and I (still at the Capital).


Kley and Joe.




The fountain/flowers in front of the Capital on the other side.



First glance of the Washington Monument! (There was scaffolding around it to fix the damage done to it by the last earthquake.)



Embassy Row.




You can't really see it, but this sign said "Obey this Signal" underneath. I thought that was funny.




Walking around the Newseum. We didn't go inside because it was expensive, but it was cool to even see the outside! They have the front page of the big newspapers from all over the country.



The Des Moines Register!



Capital Bikeshare- there are 150 stations, and you can "check out" a bike anywhere and drop it off back at any station. Pretty cool!


Snack stands.


Plenty of places to get your paper all over.



Riding the metro! (One of the funny moments of the trip was when Joe rushed on when the doors were closing, and barely got out in time, or else we would have been separated.)


Joe and Jackie took us to see the Washington National Cathedral. 








A very unique and interesting place! Lots of pretty stained glass inside.




View from the top.




Walking around the gardens outside the cathedral.


Joe and Jackie.


Union Station- where we met up with Steph!


La Loma- a Mexican restaurant we all went to for dinner!


I had flautas for the first time- delicious!


After dinner on Friday, we said goodbye to Joe and Jackie and headed back to Steph's apartment. We hung out, laid low, and watched the news about Boston. Last week was a rough week- there were two bombs that exploded at the end of the Boston Marathon. Several were killed and lots were injured. (There was also an explosion at a fertilizer plant in West Texas last week that killed several and injured many.) There were two suspects, and there was a shootout and one of them was killed. The other was on the run, and the entire city of Boston was on lockdown for about 24 hours, until they found him on Friday night. What a week for our country. I don't understand why this happened, but am thankful that God is a big God, and is still Sovereign even in the midst of pain. (We went to bed earlier since we had woken up really early to catch a 6am flight! We were supposed to fly out Thursday evening, but our flight was cancelled, so we flew out Friday morning instead, which worked out okay in the end.)

One of my favorite parts of the trip was walking along this beautiful trail along the Capital, Washington Monument, and Lincoln Memorial. It was a gorgeous day, and walking with two of my favorite people, seeing historic and important sites was so great!


Washington Monument.


The walking path.




The Washington Monument and reflecting pool.




Lincoln Memorial.


The place where the "I Have A Dream" speech was spoken. So cool!





View of Arlington from the back of the Lincoln Memorial (where Steph's internship is).


The cemetery from way off in the distance- at night you can see the "eternal flame."


Vietnam Memorial- the names of everyone who died or went missing in the order it was found out. So humbling- thankful for everyone who has served our country.




The White House!



Then we headed to Georgetown to walk around and get some cupcakes!






Georgetown Cupcakes (from the TLC show DC Cupcakes!)


We had to wait in line awhile, but it was worth it!


Another favorite moment from the trip was meeting MICHELLE KWAN! I saw her earlier in Georgetown sitting at an outdoor restaurant, but Kley and Steph didn't believe me. We saw her again later walking, and she was with her new husband (just married in January!), and we googled a picture to be sure, and it was totally them. We "chased" her down and talked to her for a minute! She was really nice! It was funny that we were asking Kley to take the picture, and she thought we were asking her husband, because I guess his name is Clay too! 

I took ice skating lessons in Jr. High and was a huge fan of Michelle's, so it was so fun to meet her!
(Her husband has an important job at the White House too- the head of some security department!)


The restaurant where JKF proposed to Jackie.


We had dinner at two different places (combined- ha) near Steph's apartment. Both were owned by some guy named Spike who won a cooking show (I forget which one.) The first was Good Stuff Eatery, which was a burger place with great milkshakes, so we got some shakes for dessert (we got dessert first- bad, I know).





Then we went next door to We, The Pizza for some yummy pizza!



It was a great weekend and we are so glad we got to go! Hope to visit again soon!