Things got a little busy over the last few days, so I didn’t quite get those pictures up from the weekend. They’re on the way, though! I can tell you that in the absence of a blog post, I have a clean house, a very organized linen closet, and a stack of boxes to be given to friends filled with stuff we no longer need. Feeling good! We also spent the entire day yesterday celebrating Pete’s birthday. Last year, we didn’t get to do anything to celebrate since Pete was still in the craziness of residency. Actually, I went out for sushi with my sister instead. This year was fantastic! Photos to come, but in the meantime, here is a glimpse at the week that has passed.
Today you can find me writing over at Trekaroo! Trekaroo is a travel website designed specifically for those who travel with kids, and we’ve done a whole lot of traveling with kids! This week, the Minnesota page made its debut, and I was asked to contribute an article about fun-filled family day trips within driving distance of Minneapolis-St Paul. Check out all the fun of the Minnesota page for lots of ideas for getting out and exploring the Land of 10,000 Lakes!
Disclosure: I was not compensated in any way for writing the article for Trekaroo. All opinions are my own.
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a collection of this week’s favorite photos taken on my phone
I hope you’ve been able to find beauty in your week! Simple moments can be the very best.
Just this past weekend, we had the joy of spending time with Nana & Papa Olsen and Auntie Kristin. We absolutely love when they visit! Ella affectionately refers to them as “Nana & Papa with no puppies.” This has been the easiest way for her to distinguish between my parents and Pete’s. It’s pretty adorable when she says it. During their visit, we were able to celebrate Christmas, something that didn’t work in December. I thought it was fun to extend the holidays, and I don’t mind Ella and Sam spreading their gift receiving out a bit. Here is a little peek at our Olsen Family Christmas – in January…
Getting a peek inside Sam’s gift.
I don’t want Sam to ever outgrow his little sweater. One of my very favorite thrift store finds!
New presents certainly deserve kisses.
A happy girl in her Christmas dress. I’m pretty sure she’s going to wear that dress until it falls to pieces! That’s fine with me since I picked it up off the free swap table at my Mops group a couple months ago.
Ella absolutely adores her Auntie Kristin!
Books with Nana. Such a treat.
I love watching these two together.
See? Adorable.
And as long as we’re still on the topic of Christmas, I wanted to make sure to capture a couple pictures of our dining room Christmas tree. Yes, we have two trees in rooms that are side-by-side. It makes it feel very festive! This is Pete’s tree because each of those beautiful, white ornaments was made my his godmother while he was growing up. We covered the tree and still had many remaining.
The ornaments are absolutely something we’ll be packing for Africa. That way, I can create a wintery feel in 80-degree weather by hanging long strings of the snowflakes tied together with fishing line. It was be our little taste of snow.
Speaking of Africa, I will soon have an update on the progress we’re making to get there as well as an introduction to the amazing family we’ll be traveling with. I can’t wait for you to meet them!
Have a wonderful weekend!
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a small collection of this week’s favorite photos taken on my phone
teaching my first high school class – Honduras – Fall 2002
I’ve learned to love driving for the time it allows me to think. It’s pretty rare that I listen to music while I drive, unless it’s the Disney Cinderella CD, which I have memorized through and through. I sometimes listen to public radio, but when I’m alone, as I was this afternoon, I like to let my mind take in my surroundings. Today, my path took me right past one of the city’s high schools. As I passed, I saw kids walking to their cars, buses lined waiting to be filled, couples holding hands and backpacks filled with textbooks that probably won’t even be opened at home. As I watched it all, I felt a longing deep in my heart. I dearly miss teaching. I miss having students bustle into class, hearing the latest gossip (which sometimes has to be scolded, of course), talking about what happened over night, and then quieting things down for an attempt at sharing some life-changing lesson on their vs. there. Okay, maybe not life-changing, but it was something. And a whole quarter full of somethings can make a pretty big difference, especially for the students I used to work with when I was expecting Ella.
My last teaching job had a pretty big impact on me. I was working with at-risk kids, those who seemed to have fallen through the cracks. It was my job, according to the state grant I was hired under, to figure out how to teach these kids to read. Do you know what it’s like to teach 16 and 17 year-olds how to read without making them feel like idiots? Not easy, that’s for sure. I worked with kids in the main high school in the morning and drove over to the alternative high school at lunch to work with an English class. I quickly learned that the most important part of my job was to form a relationship with my students. They had been told by teachers and students and often by their own parents for years that they weren’t smart enough or good enough to accomplish a whole lot. Besides learning to read, they needed to hear a new message. After all, these kids were smart. Really smart. Just not in the way that shows up on mandated standardized tests. They were life smart. I figured that part out pretty fast once they found out I was pregnant. I had multiple young mamas in my classes and a couple dads, too. We bonded over my pregnancy with Ella, something I never imagined would happened. We even picked a book to read aloud as a class about a teenage girl who was pregnant. I remember that their reading scores improved a bit through the semester, but not a lot. I do remember, though, how excited they would get when they learned how to think though their reading and correctly answer a question about it. I can so clearly remember their faces! Oh, my heart misses that.
I sometimes wonder about my teaching. I wonder what it will look like in the future. God put this longing to teach inside me, but what will it look like? Once we move to Africa, I’ll likely be homeschooling our kids. If we were staying here in the States, I don’t know that I would, but I’m excited for the opportunity when we move. Ella will surely keep me on my toes. Being able to hand-pick everything that Sam learns makes me joyful. I know that must be part of the reason I was supposed to go into teaching. I won’t have to sit through frustrating IEP meetings, which I’ve been a part of for my past students. I will have the freedom to choose whatever I think is best for him and do it. Perhaps there will be other Missionary Kids to teach, too. But still, I feel like my heart for teaching was made for something even bigger than all that.
speaking at graduation – Honduras – 2003
I want to teach beyond my own family. After teaching in Honduras, I realized that many of the teachers I worked beside didn’t have many opportunities or resources to further their teaching education. That experience helped me realize I would love to teach teachers. In Kenya last year, there was a teacher training school just ten minutes away. That’s actually why I went after my Masters in the first place. God has something planned, and I can’t wait to find out what it is.
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a small collection of this week’s favorite photos taken on my phone
