Monday, March 30, 2009

Fabulous weekend...

This weekend I (Kelli) took a break from Visalia and went to spend the weekend with my Shell Bell in Santa Margarita, though we took several trips in and out of SLO.  

It was a gorgeous weekend complete with beautiful weather, shopping downtown, Michelle, Shannon and Leah, Firestone tri-tip, plenty of frozen yogurt, a high school diving tournament :), a bike ride along the Bob Jones Trail in Avila, movies, hot tubbing and star gazing, relaxing, and plenty of wonderful conversation and catching up!  I really have the best friends in the world and I miss them like crazy.  Luckily the drive isn't that bad...only 2.5 hours.

Although the weekend was wonderful it was also great to come home to my wonderful husband, I really did miss him.  And I was very happy when I came home to a clean house!

Now it is the start of a new week and hopefully I will get a full week of work in seeing how next week is Spring Break, which means no subbing=no money being made :(.  I am also kind of excited to be starting new classes this week.  It is weird to think that I have already finished two sessions--one step closer to getting my credential!  On that note, since classes start tomorrow night, I am going to go enjoy the rest of my evening!

Peace, love, and many blessings!

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Making old memories new...

Today was really fun.  I attended my first swim/dive meet in almost 5 years, and let me tell you, it brought back a lot of great memories.

Diving was a form of therapy for me in high school. I remember how great it used to feel to be out at the pool for 2-3 hours a day just doing something other than homework or things pertaining to the academic side of school.  I was very successful on the diving board, I tried hard and did well and it was something I became very proud of and now, something I greatly miss.  Which is one of the reasons I went out there today.

I decided that now that I am back and living in Visalia, I want to try and do more.  So Tuesday I went out and talked to my old coach, Deidra (she is still the coach), and told her that I wanted to come out and help out with the meets.  She was more than happy to have me come out, so that's what I did.  It was great to be out there again watching the diving kids remember how it used to be for me.  Hopefully I will be able to get out to more of the meets this season!

On another note, I just go back from having dinner with some wonderful ladies from church.  They are such great company and I really like spending time with them!  Now I am home watching a, finally, new Grey's Anatomy!

Hope you are all having a great week!  
 
God bless!

Saturday, March 7, 2009

It's Been Awhile...

So as I sit here watching Harry Potter on TV and wait for my laundry to dry so I can proceed to do yet another load, I figure, "Why not update the blog."  I know it's been quite while since I last updated so I am going to copy Megan (from her recent blog post) and give you some "one liners" (though they will probably be longer than one line) on what has been going on the last 2.5 months.

Dec. 25-27--Christmas with Calvin's family in Nipomo

Dec. 27--Went to the snow with Jenna and her awesome boyfriend David.  David is from Uganda, Africa and has never seen snow before.  It was so fun to watch him enjoy snow for the first time.  It was really funny because he didn't want to put on a sweatshirt for the longest time because he "wanted to feel the cold."

Jan. 2-3--Calvin and I went to Harris Ranch to enjoy an evening together.  For Christmas, Calvin booked a room at the Ranch and got me gift certificates so we could eat at the steakhouse.  It was such a relaxing time with good company and delicious food.

Jan. 9-11--Weekend in SLO with my favorite English Ladies!  It was a fabulous weekend complete with shopping, movies, cocktails, and amazing conversations.  I am so blessed to have such great friends.

Jan. 16-18--Calvin and I were both out of town, but in two different places.  Calvin went to San Francisco to visit Victor before he left for 2.5 years for Thailand.  I on the other hand went down to Azusa to visit one of my besties, Jenna! And her boyfriend David was still visiting so we took him to some "tourist" attractions around LA.  We went to Hollywood and saw the star walk and Chinese theater, Beverly Hills and drove down Rodeo drive and got AMAZING cupcakes from Crumbs and proceeded to eat them in a little park near by.  The day ended with bike riding on the beach in Malibu at sunset...so beautiful.  I also got my first experience with IKEA...one of the most fabulous stores ever!

Feb. 14--Calvin and I celebrated our first Valentine's day as a married couple.  Instead of going out for the night, I made pizza and we had a lovely evening in.

Feb. 20-21--We went to Disneyland for my birthday!  I got a free pass because it was my birthday and we spent the whole day at the "Happiest Place on Earth."  There weren't too many people there which really made it nice for getting on rides.  The longest we waited was probably 35 minutes for Indiana Jones, which for that is pretty good.  We went on almost every ride and some we went on twice...for some reason some rides are just better at night!  Here are a few pictures from the day!






So that about recaps the events of the first 2 months of 2009. 
 
Some other highlights include:
  • We got a Wii and Wii fit--they are both so much fun!
  • We joined a gym--so far I love it and am feeling so much better
  • We both finished the "Twilight" series--kind of lame to admit, but whatever, they are really good books and if you haven't read them yet I would recommend them.
  • I have been subbing a lot lately, which is good because Calvin hasn't been working as much at Costco since he started student teaching.
  • I survived my first "non-drill" lockdown.  I was subbing for my mom (girls PE) and while out on the field watching the girls play kickball cops ran out right by where we were and tazered a guy and arrested him.  I had to quickly get all 50 girls into the locker room and wait for the all clear to dismiss them. Kind of scary.
  • I am almost done with my second session of Chapman classes--one step closer to getting my credential.  Whereas, Calvin is almost finished with the program.  Pray that he will be able to get a job for the Fall!
So that is about all for now.  Hopefully I will be able to update this more often, but for now, enjoy!

God bless!


Friday, March 6, 2009

What a week...

Well, I don't even know if anybody's still reading our blog since it's been so long since we've posted on here, but here goes.

For those of you who don't know, I (Calvin) have been student teaching since the middle of January, at Tulare Union High School.  I have two weeks left, then I'm going to another school.  This week was National Foreign Language Week, which basically translates to a week of craziness for our department.  All week we had songs in class, dress-up days, lots of extra credit opportunities, and lots of crazy activities.  Wednesday was the NFLW assembly, which got about 800 students together in the auditorium, for songs and poetry in Spanish and Portuguese (the two languages taught at our school).  There was lots of dancing, including some really good Portuguese folk dancing, and all the Spanish students sang De Colores together!  So much fun!  It was also a great opportunity for me to be a part of the school, and part of the department as a whole.  Thursday we had a department lunch- actually the lunch was for the whole school, but our department is banished to the other side of the street so we kept some of the food for ourselves (oh yeah, our department provided the food) and had lunch as a department.  Mexican pozole, Portuguese baked beans and linguiƧa sandwiches, Portuguese rice pudding...I haven't eaten so much in a while!
To finish off the week, at the end of each class today we brought the kids outside all together (five classes) and all did the chicken dance.  With my class, fifth period, which is the main one I teach, I bribed them with extra credit points, so we dominated the chicken dance.

I'll let Kelli catch everybody up at some point on other stuff we've had going on, but here's a preview: Recent Disneyland trip (pictures to follow) and lots of subbing for Kelli, including a real lockdown.