Fall, Friends, Field trips, and Fun

I am so blessed! This weekend was amazing! Friday night, Lexi came down from MD and she and I went into the city to see the monuments at night. I never tire of that sight...it's gorgeous! Then she and I just hung out and chatted it up. It meant so much to be able to "compare notes" on life, so to speak, and to be able to commisserate, encourage one another, and get to know each other better. She's an amazing woman...someone whose heart beats for the same things that mine does...someone who longs to know her Lord  better and love Him with everything she has.

Saturday Lexi, Abby and I met up with Kenton and Wendy, and Pete and Jessie for lunch at Chili's. We then came back to my house to play games (Last Word, Taboo, and Apples to Apples: Bible Edition). I don't always love games, but it's fun when they're word games, and when I'm doing it with people I like! :)  After everyone else departed, Laura came over and she and Abby and I had a movie night. We didn't want to watch a chick flick, so we watched Double Jeopardy. It'd been years since I had watched it!

Yesterday was spent eating lunch with my Chuck, Ann, Emily, Evan, and Caroline at the Officer's Club, and then hours and hours of working on grad school stuff.

Today we had a field trip to Pumpkinville. Though fun, it was exhausting. I had a student slip in the mud. I'll have to write that story down later (it's hilarious!). But then that same student suffered a back injury on the moonbounce... ugh.

Now we're back and I have to focus my efforts on grad school stuff that's due tonight by midnight. Almost done with class #2! 

Good things have happened since my pathetic post previously today! I decided to spontaneously look and see what airline prices are for a trip to Indianapolis for the weekend. Well, they're affordable, so off I go! :) I fly out to Indy tomorrow morning at 9:30 a.m. and return Monday night at 8:00 p.m. I couldn't ask for something better! Janel cried when I told her I wanted to come...and I'm so excited for our fun weekend together! I can't wait to see my girls! We're going to eat at Monical's, and talk a lot, and watch Lindsay and Natalie sing in the children's choir for church.... I. Can't. Wait.

Lord, thanks. I need this. I need to get away and leave my problems behind me. I need the affirmation that good things are coming. I need my family. 

Oh goodness. I don't even begin to understand how time can fly so quickly by, but this year, I'm grateful that it is. We're already finished with our 6th week of school, which means we're over 1/8th of the way through the school year. Ordinarily, this might make me sad, but this year... this year it doesn't make me sad at all.

I love these kids....I do. Well, I'm trying to, anyway. I'm asking the Lord to give me love for them. They're more difficult, and it's not entirely their fault. I'm plagued this year by overbearing, pushy parents, kids with unidentified special needs, and some behavior issues. I want to love this class, so I'm praying and hoping that the feelings will come. For now, I'm just exhausted at the end of every day, and I can't even begin to tell you the amount of times tears have come close to spilling over--even while teaching! It's overwhelming!

246 days until the last day of school....

I'm also sad today. I'm sad because it's a 3 day weekend, which would ordinarily make me happy. This time, though, all my friends are going away for the weekend, and most of them are going home, or to see their families somewhere. It makes me so sad because....I can't. I wish with all of my might that I could hop in my car, drive 7 hours, and be home. I wish I could go to Columbus and sit in the family room with my parents, and look out into the backyard where the maple trees are turning red. And instead, I'm stuck here in Virginia, which is beginning to feel like a prison. I'm stuck here, alone.

I'm just tired. Lord, you know my hopes and dreams. Can you help me get out of this place in life?

Camp Rules!

Lord, You are good and Your mercy endureth forever....

Thanks for providing me with a weekend to get away. It's the coming back part that's not so fun! The hardest part about a weekend retreat is that Monday comes so quickly! I'm sitting here in my classroom pondering a new desk arrangement and wondering where my weekend went!

The retreat was fabulous. I had such a blast in the car with Abby, Jessie, and Wendy. We laughed until we cried, learned some new Spanish words, and took entirely too long to get to camp!  Friday night I regret to inform you that we were party poopers. We were just all so tired!

Saturday we started the day with Quiet Time around the camp. I sat in a rocking porch on the balcony porch of our cabin and looked out at the fog lifting from the mountains and read my Bible. It was so amazing. We had some great messages this weekend, too, about learning how to fall more in love with Christ.

It was the theme, "Schooled," so we had a school dance (I didn't participate!), the game show "Are You Smarter than a High Schooler?" (I watched), and a 'Homecoming' Football Game (Frontline staff v. Frontliners). It's fun to pretend.

I think that if I'm going to pick a favorite moment, though, I'd have to go with last night... after the karaoke/talent show we had a bonfire by the lake. If you have tons of Christians, smores, and a bonfire, then you can pretty much bet that at some point, someone with a guitar will show up. And show up they did! So long about midnight, we started singing praise songs. We sang until almost 2 a.m. I stood between Abby and Lexi and marveled at how amazing it was to be able to sing in three-part-harmony to the song "God of Wonders." There we were singing, "The Universe declares your majesty..." while looking up at a clear sky that was unbelievably full of stars. Pretty cool.

The flip side of staying up until 2 a.m. singing around a campfire is that I didn't get quite enough sleep last night. So, I'm a bit grouchy this afternoon. I'm starting to come around, now that I'm writing all of this out. To make a long story short, we have no internet at our house. Many calls have been made to rectify this situation, to no avail. It seems no one at Verizon really knows what they're talking about! So I'm at school, getting things ready for this week and doing some grad school projects and such. Could be a long night.

BUT... I'll choose to be thankful. I'm thankful for my friends, both old and new. I'm thankful for hugs, singing in harmony, campfires, tree swings, long walks, and cotton candy. I'm thankful for time set aside to spend with the Lord, and time set aside to learn and worship with other believers. I'm thankful for the beauty of the mountains and the trees, and the sky full of stars. I'm thankful for my classroom and my job, and that I have internet access at all. I'm thankful.