Learning me some Character in St. Louis!

This weekend I went to a Character Education Conference in St. Louis. People travelled from all over the US to listen to great keynote speakers such as Hal Urban and Eric Liu. Overall, I feel more motivated and inspired as a teacher and can't wait to try some things I learned in the classroom. I got to go up there with 6th grade teacher, Kristi Lamb. Before the trip we didn't really know eachother at all. I enjoyed getting to spend time with Kristi...we definitely made some fun memories.

Since our hotel was only a block from Busch Stadium and the Arch, we decided that when in Rome do as the Romans do...and we began our quest to go find some tickets for the big Cardinals game. I had never been to Major League baseball game so I was pretty excited about the idea. I even had Cardinals t-shirt in my car (pretty sure I can find ANYthing in that thing!) Well, for any of those who have ever been to a major league anything, you know about the somewhat scary people that stand there on the corners of every street, wearing the signs that say "I need tickets." Since we were with our new vice-principal, Mr. Beckwith, we let him help us get tickets from one of these guys. Of course me being the naive Bransonian asked to have our picture with them. Here's our picture with our ticket boys!

Of course our tickets were in the nosebleeds, but that didn't stop us from having a good time!

AND would it really be a good game without a foam finger??!

I randomly bumped into Elisha Stenzel at the conference, so she came to the game with us! The game was awesome and went into record books because all four runs of the Cardinals were Home Runs!! It was amazing. They won 4-3 against the Padres.

Overall, I had a really good time. These last two pictures are me exposing Kristi to the amazingness and slight danger of hanging out of the car to catch beautiful Jesus clouds (one of my favorite things EVER!) Nothing like making memories with new people!

A Break from Daycare!

For some reason, when I find myself with an empty chunk of time during the day, I always think it's fun to go steal my neice Isabella from daycare to just play with her. She's five and this is her last summer before kindergarten. I have childhood memories that take me back to when I was two years old. I suppose everytime I go pick up Isabella, I hope I'm adding to her database of fond memories...and I just love her. For those of you that have never met Bella, she is pure sunshine!! She is a ray of light in a dark room. She is somewhat simple, meaning she assumes the world is good and that everyone is here to be friends with eachother. She notices things that most people never would...the sparkles on the sidewalk, the clock hanging on the wall in an obscure shop, and she can spot a pack of gum in any room, purse, or pocket. She's one of my favorite people...ever. When Jesus speaks of the "little children" and their innocence...he's referring to kids just like Bella.

This last week, I found myself with such a chunk of time and had a grand idea! I could steal Isabella from daycare AND introduce her to Kenzi, my dear friend Erin's little girl. I had to go get both girls from daycare and we decided to go where every kid wants to eat: McDonalds! Kenzi is three and is also a sweetheart. The two girls hit it off from the get go.

People at McDonalds got a kick from these two cuties and their attempts at eating Happy Meals and ice cream. Bella drug her whole braid in her ice cream and it didn't even phase her! Let's just say our table was an absolute MESS when we left that poor fast food joint...but we all made some fun memories!

Fun at Brandy's

Last weekend, I was sitting at home and just had absolutely no plans. I was just sitting there, knowing there were about a hundred things I SHOULD be doing. Have you ever experienced this? I had already spent all day by myself and just wasn't in the mood to be alone. I called a few people, but everyone had plans...
So I called my awesome sister Brandy, who invited me over to play games with her husband Matt and friend Sharla.

Brandy was watching my beautiful nephew Jacob so I got to play with him and let him sleep all over me. He is SUCH a doll!

Though it was approaching midnight, Brandy was still in the process of making homeade bread! It was delicious right out of the oven at one in the morning!

I enjoyed playing games with Brandy (on the right) and her friend, Sharla. It's good to have family around me. I can always count on them when life brings me to the bumps in the road where I just don't want to be alone.

Reaping the Benefits!!!

The day has finally come!! After taking care of my many potted plants on my patio, I finally have ripe tomatoes and I'm so EXCITED!!

These are my first two! We ended up eating them a few days later. I almost felt guilty since I've watched them grow from so tiny. Alas...I'll get over it!

Marcia and I have enjoyed watering these little guys! I'm just so excited I got to play a part in God's creation! Yay for patio gardening!

eMINTS Week!!

How summer flies!! Earlier this month, I spent four days with a bunch of lovely ladies, learning all about the amazingness of technology in the classroom. We worked super hard and there was not a day my head didn't hurt when I left Cindy's house!

On the last day we decided to enjoy our favorite pastime: EATING!! Cindy decorated the table beautifully and we all brought our favorite foods and recipes to share.

Pretty much my favorite part of the whole meal was that we were going to be featured on Cindy's blog, What's for Dinner? Each week Cindy posts her menu for the week, the recipes, AND beautiful pictures of the food! It's pretty cool. To see the pictures and recipes from our fun meal, check out her blog. My food was the spinach artichoke dinner!

A few thoughts before sleep

We attracted a lot of attention we traveled because we were poor and Jewish and my mother was handicapped. I was real conscious of that. Being Jewish and having a handicapped mother. I was ashamed of my mother, but see, love didn't come natural to me until I was a Christian.

I've recently started reading this book called The Color of Water by James McBride. It is just as the cover of the book says: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother. Throughout the book, the author reflects on his own childhood; about his mom and his memories of not understanding why his mother was a different color. The rest of the book is in the voice of the mother, from an interview with her son many years later.

I was reading today at the Imax, and these few sentences really stuck out to me. These are the words of the mother, recalling her own childhood as a poor Jewish immigrant during the Great Depression. I'm not really sure why these words hit me so strongly. I think a lot of it has to do with my own recent study of the Fruits of the Spirit: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control" (Gal 5:22-23).
It is becoming more apparent to me lately that we can't show ANY of these fruits to people without the Spirit of Jesus Christ IN us. These qualities and attributes don't even come naturally to man without the help of God.

These words also remind me that it is only IN CHRIST that we are saved. The woman never felt that love came naturally to her UNTIL she became a Christian. Even as a believer in the Jewish faith, she wasn't able to show love to her own mother. Only in Christ was she able to truly love and feel compassion for her mother.

Glad I got that off my chest...now I can sleep.

Scrabble Bliss!

Tonight I had the special opportunity to hang out with two of my favorite people: Emily AND Jennifer Freeman!! Being especially fond of words, we decided long ago that a game of Scrabble was in order. Playing with Jennifer is a real treat. She cares nothing about points, but only about getting the words properly spread out over the board. Rules bend and pretty dang near break off with the necessity to place great words on the board. We had words such as quince, swiveled, and piqued. It was definitely a good time. Emily won, I was second, and Jennifer was a close third.














Another great part of the evening was Jennifer's invitation to cut her beautiful flowers from her garden so she could share the art of arranging flowers with us. Emily's is the huge bouquet...mine was rather small in comparison. :)


I loved hanging out with these girls. It is so good for me to be around people who love and challenge me.