Finishing the school year

A couple more pictures from vacation...


Jenny and Jay swimming


Playing in the sand


I am winding down the school year. After this week I only have 5 more teaching days. My sub stopped by school today to pick up all the materials he will need while I am gone. As of right now it does not look like I will be teaching next year so I need to start saving all of my files on a drive I can take with me. Right now all of my notes/tests/assignments are saved on the TC servers. I think it will be quite the process. Not hard, just time consuming.

We are finally starting to see the signs of spring around here. Flowers are starting to bloom, and leaves are appearing on the trees. We have not been able to be outside much so we are looking forward to playing outside. Tonight we all took a walk to the local Dairy Queen and enjoyed some ice cream.

Jay continues to travel a lot for work. Next week he heads to Minneapolis. After next week, though, he should be home. Hopefully the baby does not come too early!

Vacation con't

Jenny and Jay enjoying the heated pool.


On the beach!

This was about as far in as a person could go in our pool..it was very cold!

We have returned home from vacation and we had had a wonderful time. I'm already hoping we can return next year.

After having good weather to start our trip the weather did take a turn for the worse. Tuesday was warm, humid, but so windy we could not be on the beach. Instead we spent the morning at the outlet mall and had a good time there. I think everyone came home with something new. On Wednesday it was very cloudy, but warm enough to be on the beach. On Thursday it rained quite hard most of the day so we spent our time playing cards, watching a movie, and reading books. On Friday the beautiful weather returned and we had a great day at the beach. Unfortunately the week went too fast and we left on Saturday morning. We drove just north of Louisville, KY before we stopped for the night. Jenny did a great job on the return trip as well. Thank goodness for DVD players.

Being in the deep south was interesting. The accents made me smile, and the people were quite friendly. A security guard at the local Wal-Mart looked at me, and with a wad of chew in his mouth and a pronounced southern accent pronounced, "You look like you are going to pop!" I was too surprised to even be offended.

With our vacation behind us we now look forward to the arrival of the new baby. We are still struggling to come up with a boys name, but we may have narrowed it down to three options. After today I only have 15 more teaching days, and I am looking forward to being done teaching for the year. I still have not heard a final answer about my job next year, but it's not looking good. At this point we are not worrying about it, it's out of our hands.

Hopefully we can get out to CA this summer and see everyone!

Vacation

We left Naperville on Friday night around 8:30pm and we arrived in Gulf Shores, Alabama around noon on Saturday. Jay drove the whole way and seemed to still have energy when we arrived. Jenny did a GREAT job. She fell asleep around 2am and then slept until around 10am, waking up once or twice.
We had good weather on Saturday afternoon and we had almost perfect weather on Sunday. Today is also very nice and we have been able to enjoy the beach as well as the pool. The pool in our condo complex is very cold, fortunately a condo complex a few doors down has an indoor heated pool that we took advantage of yesterday. It was a good way to finish a day on the beach by jumping into the heated pool to get the sand off.
Our condo is nice and the location is fantastic. We are literally on the beach. We can walk out of the condo, cross the pool deck, and be on the beach. So far we are enjoying our vacation, we enjoy it even more when we realize it is snowing in Chicago. I've taken some pictures, but I'll have to post those later.

Children's Museum

Jay's been traveling a lot lately for work, so Jenny and I have been spending some time at the local Children's Museum to get out of the house. The pictueres were all taken there the past week. We had a great time until it was time to go, and then Jenny threw a fit. It wasn't a pleasant departure. We go to the museum fairly frequently during the winter and since we only live a couple of miles from the museum we purchased a membership as part of Jenny's Christmas present. Unfortunately the museum is experiencing some revenue problems due to the economy and there is talk of moving it. I hope not. It's a nice activity when the weather is crummy.

Last week Jay was in Toledo OH, Lansing MI, and Grand Rapids MI. While he was in Grand Rapids he took the opportunity to visit Calvin's campus. I think he is looking forward to walking around with Dad when Dan and Kristi get married to hear Dad's perspective on how the campus has changed.

Last week I got some bad news about my job. I currently teach two sections of Western Civilizations every afternoon. Next year, for a variety of reasons, it looks like I will only be offered one section. I don't think it will really be worth it to drive from Naperville to
Elmhurst, put two kids in day care, and teach one 50 minute class. We haven't figured the cost out, but we're pretty sure I would lose money. So...I might be staying home next year.

We leave this Friday for vacation, and we're looking forward to it. We are planning on leaving Friday night around 8pm and Jay is planning on driving through the night. I'm not sure I am going to be any help. Jay thinks it's about a 14-15 hour drive. I keep reminding him we have a 2 year old and a pregnant woman on board - it might be longer than 15 hours. Hopefully we'll have good weather and good travel!

Auto Show, Blue Man, and Social Studies Conferences

Jenny likes to pretend she is on stage singing. Her repertoire is pretty small: "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", "Away in a Manger", and "ABC" are her three favorite.

We've had a couple of good weeks here in the Chicago area. The weather has been a little warmer. I'm always grateful when we get a couple of days over 45 degrees. It is a good reminder that winter cannot last forever. We had a good analogy in church last week - just as winter and darkness cannot prevent the coming of the beauty of spring, neither can Satan prevent Jesus from coming again and making everything beautiful.

I went to the Chicago Autoshow a couple of weeks ago (Jay stayed home with Jenny). This has become a fun tradition with our friends. We walk around, check out the cars, sit in the models we like and decide what cars we would buy in the follwoing catergories: under $25,000, under $35,000, and money is no object. My "money is no object" car was the BMW 750. I'm not a car expert, but it was beautiful.

Jay and I also went downtown to see Blue Man Group last Thursday. We first went and had an excellent steak dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, and then we went to see the show. We had both seen a Blue Man performance, but it was fun to see it again. They had a few new acts, and I enjoyed the old ones too. I had a suspicion that Danny was going to propose, so I ran out of the theater as soon as the performance was done, turned on my phone, and listened to the exciting message from Danny. It was a very good evening. The only downfall was that Jay had the hiccups for about 38 hours and didn't enjoy the meal as much as I did. Fortunately a bowl of ice cream seemed to cure him when we got home.

I was reminded today that I really like to learn. I attended a Social Studies conference and heard 3 interesting lectures ranging from the Emancipation Proclamation to the Boxer Rebellion. Sometimes I wish I could go back to school. I think I would get a lot more out of it the second time around.

Four weeks from today we leave for Gulf Shores, Alabama. I've never been, but I'm looking forward to it!

Preschool Information Night

Jay and I had a new experience last week as we attended Preschool Information Night at Timothy Christian Schools. It felt pretty weird to think Jenny will be old enough for preschool next year. We've signed her up for Tuesday/Thursday preschool. We're not sure if she is going to attend yet, it depends on my schedule for next year. Assuming I teach two periods a day again next year, and assuming those periods correspond with the preschool times, Jenny will go to preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays instead of the babysitters house. If it works out I think it will be pretty nice. I could walk her over to the preschool room, go teach my two periods, and then walk over and pick her up. I think Jenny would love it. She knows the teacher real well (she happends to be a good friend of mine), and it seems like Jenny would enjoy it. We should find out within the next two weeks if Jenny is eligible. They take 20 children per session and if more than twenty sign up then there is a lottery pick. Unfortunately, teachers kids are not given priority. We're not too worried. If she doesn't get picked then she will go back to the sitter's house, and she thoroughly enjoys it there too.

We actually made it over 50 degrees yesterday. It was great to be outside again. During the entire month of January it never made it over 32 degrees. Jenny and I are getting tired of staying inside!

We have a few exciting things coming up. Jay won a radio contest and won two tickets to see Blue Man Group next Thursday. We've both seen a Blue Man performance (and enjoyed it), but it's been awhile and we're looking forward to seeing the show again. I think we'll make a night of it and try to eat at a Chicago Steakhouse somewhere. We're also making plans to attend the Chicago Auto Show again. We go every year with a group of friends and it's always a good time. Over spring break we are heading south to warmer weather. We've rented a condo in Gulf Shores Alabama with some friends and we're looking forward to sitting on the beach for a week. Of course, I'll be eight months pregnant, but I can sit on a chair and read while Jay chases Jenny around and builds sand castles. Regardless, we will see the sun and hopefully feel it's warmth. I'm really looking forward to spring time!

Winter

Jay asked me why my elderly mother's blog is 8000 times better than mine (okay, I inserted the "elderly" part). I've attempted to add a background, but I'll have to get the background site you all use for your sites.

We took very few pictures of Christmas. It's a good thing you took some, otherwise we would have no documentation that we celebrated Christmas this year.

Below are a few random pictures.





Some of the Cousins



Jenny and Daddy playing Wii



Jenny and Daddy

Jenny thinks Sunday and "pretty dress" are the same thing. But when it's -3 degrees outside we make her wear pants under her dress.