Rainy London

Well, with Oxford behind us, we moved on to London. When we first arrive in a city, we tend not to have an agenda, so we wander. In London, the only initial plan we had was to have lunch in Borough Market after checking in to our room. This had been a favorite of Kelli's when she studied here, so I had heard about it for the last four years. When we finally got there, I was floored by it. The market is situated under a network of Railroad tracks, which in the US would sound like a bad thing, but here it was just good use of space- the platforms provided cover from the rain, and the pillars and walls provided plenty of space for the different shops. The market was made up ofnmore shops than one could count, with every kind of food and drink you could imagine. I had a kangaroo burger (one of the best things I ever ate), and Kelli hunted down her favorite sandwich in the world, Hobb's roast turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sandwich on a baguette- she was in heaven.
After that, we explored South Bank a bit, checked out Tower Bridge, and eventually crossed the Thames andbwent to St. Paul's Cathedral and stayed for the lovely Evensong service, sung by a boys' and men's choir. It was absolutely beautiful.
The next day began by taking the tube to Stratford to see he Olympic Park. The Olympics begin in London in two weeks, so we were seeing hints of it all over the city, but the largest of the venues, which you'll all see in the Opening Ceremonies, is at Stratford. We walked around for a while in the Westfield Mall, a huge, ultramodern mall built for the international crowds that are coming. After Stratford, we returned to Borough, but the market was gone so we enjoyed a delightful Italian lunch from a vendor nearby. We then toured the Southwark Cathedral, the oldest place of Christian worship in London. I paid £2 for a photography permit, so I have some lovely photos to share with you at a later date.
That evening we went to The Globe (as in Shakespeare's theatre) to see Henry V, where we paid the lowest amount, to be "Groundlings" and thankfully had the wherewithall to stand where we could lean on the rails and we had some cover when it started pouring. Most "Groundlings" did not. The play was long, and our legs were exhausted, but the experience was worth it.
By Monday, Kelli was developing some pretty bad blisters on her feet (apparently a pedicure before traveling Europe mostly on foot is a bad thing) but she stuck it out through an amazing tour of Westminster Abbey (no photos) and the outside of Buckingham Palace. Finally our feet and legs saw rest that evening, as we'd bought theatre tickets to see "Les Miserables" which I loved .
For our last day in London, we decided to wander the huge parks- Regent Park and Kensington Gardens. The highlights were meeting a woman with five cocker spaniels in a park (we chatted with her and played with the dogs for a while, it was nice to get our cocker spaniel fix, as we dearly miss our Cooper), seeing the flat Kelli stayed in (and running into some Cal Poly Study Abroad students in the tube station), and exploring Queen Mary's Gardens. Unfortunately, our nice day in the park wasn't quite what I had expected as it was poring rain most of the day, but hey, that's London.
All in all, London was a wonderful, albeit exhausting place to visit, and we will be back!

A pint amongst scholars

We had a delightful time in Oxford. It was, for the most part, a small enough town to simply wander and explore. It was surprising to us to find that there isn't a singular "Oxford University campus" but instead it is a town made up of a large collection of colleges, with quite a few puns scattered amongst them, along with shops and homes. I (Calvin) thoroughly enjoyed the abundance of local pubs. There I learned of what they call here "Real Ale," which in the States we would just call cask ale. Kelli and I enjoyed visiting puns known for the notable people that had frequented them. The first such pub was The Kings Arms, which is apparently the pub the Queen likes to visit whenever she's in Oxford. That evening we went to The Eagle and Child, which was the favorite hangout spot for "The Inklings," better known to Americans as J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and friends. Later that night we went to The White Horse, which was Bill Clinton's favorite hangout when he was at Oxford. There I met a Peruvian metaphysicist named Max, who proved quite the conversationalist. He told me that, in life, I am a priest. We also paid a quick visit to The Turf Tavern, where Oxford students traditionally go to celebrate finishing exams. What was really cool for us about these pubs was how truly old they were, the newest of hem being only a couple centuries old, and, being a part of this amazingly old and historical college town, how much thinking must have gone on in them. In fact, Max told us about an even older pub hidden across town, The Bear, established in the 1200's, which Michael and I visited the next day. All told, we had the perfect little visit to Oxford. We thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Kelli's cousin, Joy, her husband Michael, and their darling daughter Riley. We toured some amazing places, including Christ Church, where Lewis Carroll invented the world of Alice in Wonderland, and Oxford Castle, which, despite its name, spent more of its history as a prison, finally being shut down by the Human Rights Act in 1996. Of course, the visit was not without its downsides, mainly due to having to replace a brand new suitcase, and dealing with constant rain for over half the visit. But it was worth it, we loved Oxford.

An epic journey begins

This year we finally get to return to Europe!  The journey began July 1st, when we left our friend Lee at our house to take care of our babies (our dogs) and we headed down to Calvin's parents' house in Lancaster.  From there we traveled to LA to go to Megan Overholt's wedding, and then on July 3rd we headed to LAX to fly out for England.

It's funny how amazing trips always begin with a lot of waiting and exhaustion.  We got to LAX the prescribed 3 hours early, but security and all that took less than an hour, so we had to wait almost two hours before boarding.  The flight was cramped and very long- we sat in the middle of a five-person section in the middle of the plane, so every bathroom or stretch trip was an ordeal.  Finally the ten-hour flight ended, and we were in England!... sort of.  We then stood in the line for customs for about an hour.  Eventually, we made it across the border, then bought our Oyster cards for the Underground, took the tube (full of funnily-obnoxious British teenagers) to Paddington Station (only took the wrong tube once on the way there) and arrived to wait for our train to Oxford.  Again, we were a bit too early (I had pre-booked the train tickets) but we were at least able to find a couch at a bar where we could relax and clean up a bit.  We got on our train, ready for another hour of sitting, hoping to catch a short nap- but our seats were right next to a large group of Special-Needs British teenagers returning from a trip to London.  Needless to say, the train journey was not as quiet as we had hoped.

It took us a while, but eventually we got to Oxford.  Kelli's cousin's husband, Michael, met us at the train station, and then we had a short walk to the bus, from which we had a short walk to their apartment.  Well, these technically are short walks, but of course on the way to the bus, the wheel on Kelli's brand-new suitcase busted, so I (Calvin) got to carry the 40-pound bag most of the way.  But we made it to the apartment, after about 16 hours of traveling, and got to enjoy being welcomed by Kelli's cousin Joy and her darling daughter Riley.  We had dinner, relaxed a bit, and finally crashed- and slept for 12 and a half hours.

Happy Valentine's Day

Love and Cherish the ones you are with...not just today but everyday! I love Love!

I'm Going to be a Ranger!

It is Saturday. On Wednesday, I was so incredibly nervous because I had my first job interview on Thursday; and English position at Redwood High School. Getting little sleep the night before, the day of the interview had finally arrived and needless to say I was very anxious. At about 2:30 I walked into the Redwood front office and then 2:40 came and I was called in for the interview. I answered the questions that were asked but not as well as I had anticipated myself answering them. Fifteen minutes later the interview was over and I did not feel wonderful about it; I felt like it could have gone either way. Friday afternoon I got a phone call (well a call from Calvin telling me there was a message on our home answering machine telling me to call the HR department at the district office). Could it be that I actually got the job?....

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YES!! I got the job! Yesterday, Friday, I was so excited that I did not really have time to let it sink in. Today is Saturday (it all happened so quickly) and it has finally settled in that beginning in August I am going to be an actual teacher, with an actual classroom, and actual students who will depend on me to teach them what they need to know! Needless to say I am VERY excited! And, I will be working at the same school as Calvin, which I feel like is just an added bonus.

I am so thankful and so blessed by God, the one who made this all possible. I believe that he has a wonderful plan for me at this school and I am very anxious to discover what it is. Thank you to everyone who sent prayers up for me, I believe that everyone of them was answered!

I can now throughly enjoy my summer without having to worry about what I am going to be doing career wise next year. Now, I just get to plan, plan, plan! Yay!

Peace, love, and blessings!

Kelli

An Update...

coming soon...

Sorry for the teaser, but I am getting tired of looking at my last blog every time I log in, but alas I don't have time to update right now...so keep a look out for something new!

Peace, love, and blessings!

A little holiday love...

As the holidays come around there is one movie that is on the MUST watch at least once (maybe twice, or more) list, and that movie is Love Actually. Since I have been incredibly busy so far, I have not had time to watch it yet, but it is calling my name for this weekend! So for now, I will share one of my favorite scenes from the movie!

Remember this Christmas season that "love actually is all around."

Peace, love, and many blessings!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

...and this year we will actually have some free time around Christmas! We are very excited for this first Christmas as teachers (well, Calvin is a teacher now, and Kelli's almost there- but at least has the schedule!)

There are many things that we are looking forward to this holiday season. As life goes on, our families have gotten more spread out, so Christmas is an exciting time to come together with the various branches of our family tree. Yesterday we spent the day decorating and trimming our Christmas tree. Decorating really entails our porch and living room- hopefully next Christmas we'll be in a house and have more space to decorate!

Meanwhile, life is still crazy as we are approaching the Christmas break- Calvin is scrambling to get his students ready for finals and to catch up on grading, and Kelli is trying to get the most out of her last two weeks of student teaching while also trying to finish two classes. The last few Fridays have really been full of high school teacher fun- Redwood (Calvin's school) made it into the playoffs for the first time in years, so we had fun following the team for a few weeks with friends. Sadly, they lost in the third round on Friday against Frontier in Bakersfield.

Long story short, pray for us as we get through the next couple weeks, and then we'll breathe a deep sigh of relief when break comes!

Peace, love, and blessings to all!

It's a beautiful life...

I love life...We love life...our life is fantastic! When I think about the life we (Calvin and I) have and the lives of so many people in the world today, I am truly thankful and know that we are surely blessed. We are happy, and healthy, we have jobs, food on the table, great family and friends, and a God who loves us no matter what!

As the holidays come around this year, don't get wrapped up on the small, meaningless things that will be forgotten soon after they happen. Rather, focus on the bigger picture, what is most important, life, family, and our Creator who made it all possible!

A friend has recently reminded me, through numerous posts in her blog, to count my blessings. I have so many things that have blessed my life and are blessing my life at the moment, and for those things I am thankful. And as my friend has so graciously reminded me, I too, am going to remind you (for those of you who still actually read this thing), count your blessings!

Peace, Love and many Blessings to all!

Life as of now...

So I realized it has been quite a while since our last update about Calvin's new job. In case you were wondering, no, we have not fallen off the face of the earth, we have just become extremely busy people.

Rather than update you all on what has happened over the past 2 months I figure I'll just get you up to date on the now.

I (Kelli) have been student teaching for the last 7 weeks at Wilson Middle School in Exeter, Ca. I am in a 7th grade classroom and have been blessed with a fabulous master teacher! I never thought I would even want to think about teaching Jr. High but since I have been in this class, my views have changed. I love my students, well most of them, and would not mind it if I ended up teaching 7th grade--there I said it. Another thing I love about the school I am at is that it is the same school my mom has taught at for 35 years! It is really fun getting to see her everyday!--we even get to have lunch together every afternoon! I have about 3 weeks left for this assignment and then I will move on to do 8-9 weeks in high school!

As for Calvin, he is LOVING his new job. He has really good classes and has been blessed with a fantastic support staff from other faculty members as well as the administration. He is teaching 3 periods of Spanish One in addition to 2 periods of French Two--both of the languages he studied in college. When we first moved to Visalia he was convinced that he only wanted to stay no longer than five years--but now that he has become apart of the Ranger staff I don't think I will have too hard of a time convincing him to stay ;).

In regards to life outside of school, I am still taking classes, well one class for the time being, at Chapman for the credential program. It is really nice that it is only once a week because that means that Calvin and I get to spend MUCH more time together. When he was working at Costco we never got to just relax at home together, but now that he doesn't work there anymore there is more time for quality time---I love it, now it actually feels like we are married!

Last night Calvin and I went to the Tulare County Fair. We had such a fun time as it was the first time we have been to a fair together. First we started out by walking around and looking at all of the farm animals...lots of cows, pigs, sheep, goats, chickens, steers, etc.

In the cow exhibit I was very excited to see these little guys relaxing in a pen of hay...two newborn calves. They were so cute and I made sure to tell Calvin that I wanted one and he made sure to roll his eyes and say "Let's keep going."

Later on in our little adventure, while we were wandering through the land of the goats, we stopped at this pen where there were two very friendly goats. I was petting this white one and the moment I stopped petting him and turned to say something to Calvin, I heard sneeze. I looked down only to see goat snot all over the side of my pant leg and then all I could hear was Calvin laughing hysterically. Yes, it was extremely gross but actually pretty funny as well.

We found a very large piece of machinery that

reminded us both of Frank from the movie "Cars" so we thought we needed to take pictures by it...it even had

eyes! All in all we had a wonderful time at the fair--I am so glad we actually have time to do things like this now. It was an evening complete with lots of animals, greasy corn dogs, over priced lemonade, and cheesy photo booth photos!

So that is about all for now, hopefully I (or we) will be able to keep this updated more often, but we're not making any promises. But know that life is great and God continues to bless us everyday!

Love and blessings to all!

All praises to Him!

Praises be to God!  Calvin was offered a full time teaching position today!  He will will be teaching 3 periods of Spanish and 2 periods of French at Redwood High School!  He is so excited and ready to start a new chapter in his life!  God is SO good!

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!

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!

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!

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 linguiça 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.

Good Books and Awesome Little Brothers

I love reading good books--I love when I can get lost in a story and it becomes hard for me to return to reality. Well this week I finished one book, and started/finished another that did just this.

For about a month and a half I have been reading Margaret Mitchell's famous novel Gone With the Wind. I didn't think I would ever make it through all 959 pages, but I did and I was actually sad when it came to an end. The story was written so eloquently and every character was described so vividly that I could imagine actually being there in the story, and a lot of the time I was...it was so hard for me to put it down and come back into reality. I loved the intricacy of the plot and how each character fit into it. It was so nice when I had subbing days where the classes were good and I could sit in the back and read for most of the time.

Now for the second book, a little different from Gone With the Wind, Stephanie Meyer's novel Twilight, the first in a four book series. For awhile now, I have heard nothing but good things about this book. In almost every classroom I go into there are at least a couple of girls reading it or one of the others, sometimes even boys too (that is why I am trying to convince Calvin to read it) so I thought I would check it out (since they will probably still be reading them when I get into my own classroom). Anyway, I didn't really know how I would feel about "Vampire" literature, but I was actually very impressed with it (and I already have the second book ordered and on its way!). Like Gone with the Wind, the characters and setting were so well described and vivid in my mind that I often got wrapped up in everything that was going on--which is probably why I finished it in three days. It was a little hard to get used to the first person storytelling, but I got over it. However, it was most definitely an adolescent literature read, not to complex, which I like sometimes ;).

So yes, both books I really really love now and totally recommend them to anyone looking for a good book to read. Be careful though, I didn't know it was possible to become enamored with fictional characters. Rhett Butler (GWTW) and Edward Cullen (Twilight) are both very charming men who it is very easy to fall in love with-- (Don't worry Calvin, I still love you more than anything :) ).

So on another note, my title also reads "Awesome Little Brothers." This is because my little brother Julian is pretty awesome. I had the opportunity to go to his football game on Friday night in Tulare. He has spent the last four years of high school playing for the Sanger Apaches and I must say he is quite the football player. The game Friday night was his team's second game in the CIF playoffs, and although they lost (unfortunately), he played a great game! I was so proud to be watching him out on the field. I was so glad that I was able to be there to cheer him on for what turned out to be the last game of his High School Career--but I know that it is not his last game..he has the passion for the game and will continue on somewhere else. Julian you are an inspiration--you have a passion for something and will do anything to keep doing what you love--keep at it, I know you will go far! Love you bud!

In other news, it has been a very long week for both Calvin and myself. I subbed four days this past week as well as went to class and did homework. Calvin on the other hand subbed five days, went to two nights of class, and worked five days at Costco--two of which included eight hour shifts on both Saturday and Sunday. He works so hard and I appreciate him so much for all that he does--I know I would never have that much energy to work so much!

So that is about all for now--hopefully I will be able to update more often, but for now this will have to do. Enjoy!

Peace and love to all!

This is (yet another) First for us

So I, Kelli, have decided that Calvin and I are going to start writing a blog. We have friends and family who write these things, so I thought that we should too. It's a good way to keep up and keep in touch with people so I figured why not?--it could be fun--so here I am!

So tonight is not going to be very long because I have been doing homework all day, I am tired, and I have a headache, but I figured I would get this started while I am sitting on the couch watching the new episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8--yes I know what you are thinking, but I love it. Hopefully we will be able to update rather often, but please bear with us, we are busy and don't always have a lot of free time.

So for now, peace and love