Pumpkins to Christmas Trees

Sorry it's been awhile since I blogged. Student teaching, grad school, work and life have completely taken over to where I'm longing for my warm bed and pillow at the end of every day! Only 2 more weeks until Christmas break though; I can't wait! Those 2 weeks will be crazy though, because as of Monday, I am the official teaching in my classroom, teaching MY lesson plans!

Anyways, Thanksgiving was a total blast with Evan's entire side of the family. Tons of food, laughter and very little sleep. I had to work Black Friday at Ann Taylor Loft and I have never seen so many people in the store before; it certainly made the day go by quickly! Today, Kip, Kristin, Evan's parents, Evan and I all went up into the Ochoco Mountains like last year and found the most perfect tree! It is finally starting to feel like Christmas. Here are some pictures from Thanksgiving and our tree this year! More to come later!

Quito here I come

I graduate from from grad school on Saturday May 02, 2009 and I will be on a plane with some friends from school to Quito, Ecuador on Sunday May 03, 2009. We will be gone for 3 weeks and is part of George Fox's teaching program, but since we already graduated we don't extra credit for going, so we're going just for fun!!!! As sad as I am to not have Evan with me when I go, it will be a once in a lifetime experience and I am literally counting down the days...166 to go :)

Just a few pictures I googled of Quito. This where we fly into and will stay for most of the time!





...Can't wait!!!!

Middle Schoolers Say the Darndest Things

Today marked the end of my first week as a real, live student teacher. While most of the week consisted of me observing, I did get to interact and work with the ELL (English Language Learners) quite a bit compared to my Language Arts classes. I am exhausted but somewhat fulfilled, in realizing that what I thought God wanted me to do, seems in fact what He really me to do. I don't know if that makes any sense, but since Kindergarten, I always thought that I wanted to be a teacher. From my first day in kindergarten to the day I graduated college, I said that when I grow up, I want to be a teacher! However, you never know if that is truly what you're meant to do until you actually do it. Well this week I actually did it, and I absolutely love it. While Middle Schoolers can be difficult, I have to remember how many crazy changes they are going through all at once. I also have to remember what I was like in Middle School and what I felt and then all the compassion in the world seems to just flow out of me for this age group. Especially working with the ELL kids. I truly believe that working with them is living out the gifts that God gave me, at least I like to think so. Working with them comes with such ease, I already know the names of all 30+ of them. They are crazy, funny, kind and loud all at the same time.

They acknowledge when I talk to them in Spanish, and they make fun of me when I don't know how to say something in Spanish. They work so hard trying to learn English and are just a joy to be around. I'm so happy to finally be teaching.

The Cons so far however....

• Apparently, today I looked pregnant. One of my 7th grade Latinas, Dulce, came up to me as she walked into 3rd period today and asked "Mrs. Hendrix, are you pregnant?!?!" in a very loud, and serious voice. A part of me wanted to cry and the other part just said, "NO! I'm not pregant thank you very much!", in as kind of a voice as possible...
• I tried, unsuccessfully, to explain prepositions to my 7th period, 6th grade ELL class today. I tried using doughnuts and clouds as visuals, all unsuccessfully. One Latino, made it very apparent that I wasn't teaching well, by expressing that opinon in front of the entire class...
• One student thought I was born in the 1970's (which makes me 30 something) while another thought I wasn't much older than a 7th grader...I just can't seem to win with them.
• I've had to work with 2 substitutes in the ELL classes this week as my CT was sick...both of them were a little crazy...nice, but crazy
• One boy in my 7th grade Language Arts class, walks into class on a daily basis now and calls me only Jimi Hendrix...who knows how I will try to convince him to call me by my actual name

That's all for now, I'm sure more "kids say the darndest things" moments will be blog worthy quite often as my student teaching adventure continues...

I want a sticker

Today, I voted in my second presidential election, but this time in Oregon. Oregon however, is the only state so far that has ONLY mailing ballots. The other option is to go through a drive-thru hut and drop them off. So, that's what I did. Also for the first time, I convinced Evan (finally) the importance of voting. With this whole process, I think more than ever, I've noticed how dangerous it is to be so far to one side or another. People of one party specifically have been down right belligerent, mean and hateful all because they are trying to support their beliefs. I don't see how you can stand for equality and peace, yet consider certain people of a different party unequal to you. It makes no sense. Ken in church on Sunday talked about the importance of truth and relevance in this life and even more so the balance of them both. He used the symbol of the volcano hole at the mini-golf course. The only way to make it through the volcano is to be perfectly down the middle. You can' get the little white ball through if you are too far to the left or too far to the right. Not saying that having no opinions or always agreeable with everyone is the right answer. But know what you believe in, without being selfish and still loving other people.

I think in faith and politics, people, especially today, in this election, are only focusing on themselves and stopped caring for others who may not be the same as themselves. I am proud to say that I voted for McCain/Palin, but I'm not about to bad mouth a person who voted for Obama. I may not agree with it, but I'm still going to love them. In my faith, I believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord and savior and that I trust in a loving and amazingly Powerful God. But with that trust, I still need to love with relevancy. Ken also said that all of the Bible is Truth, but all of it isn't relevant to everyone at everytime. You don't tell a person on their death bed about Leviticus or read a psalm talking about becoming dust. While all of it is true, that person needs to hear that God created the heavens as a better place to spend eternity and that trusting in the Lord will get him there. As this election ends, I just hope people will go back to normal. I hope that my life embodies caring for others regardless of where they stand. After all as Evan's three year-old cousin, and our ringbearer, "isn't Jesus our leader, so why do we need to pick other leaders?", refering to this election. Yes Isaiah, Jesus is our leader and that is what really matters!

Halloween is here

Halloween is one of my favorite non-holiday holidays! I just love that it comes at the end of fall, half way in between my birthday and Thanksgiving. I love that the leaves have changed color, the morning's are crisp and everyone just seems happier. Maybe it's because they get to dress up and be someone else for the day or maybe it's the sugar overload, but people just seem happier. I love to see the kids dress up and so excitedly ring my door bell hoping for some yummy candy to fill their pumpkin buckets. I know that people today are trying to push for handing out toys instead of candy because it's healthier. But i'm sorry, it's one day out of the year, the candy won't hurt the kids beyond giving them a sugar rush and their parents/teachers headaches. Also, Halloween is the only designated night of the year that I will force myself to watch a scary movie...otherwise, it won't happen!

On another note, Evan and I went over the Jones' to carve our pumpkins! Evan carved a wine and cheese board onto his, I made your typical jack-o-lantern and Kip and Kristen carved the 007 James Bond logo on theirs in anticipation of the new movie coming out in 2 weeks. It was fun, we drank lemon drops, carved pumpkins, played Tiger Woods gold 09 and made pumpkin seeds. Tonight will most likely be more of the same, except adding passing out candy. I wish I was young enough to still go trick or treating!

Pictures from our pumpkin outing last week:

The last time Evan and I dressed up for Halloween. We had just started hanging out as friends! He's the one dressed in camo...
I was the opposite...a princess. Sam was a pregnant farmer...now she's a real mom 3 years later!
All of us in front of the kind of lame corn maze.

Baby, bikes and friends

Last weekend, Evan and I made the trip down to Davis with his parents Gabe and Dianne, to cheer them on in their 100 mile bike ride and to see friends and family! We spent one night with my parents and the other with our good friends Ben and Katie. We finally met our good friends' new daughter Siena and had an amazing time just catching up with great friends. Pictures speak louder than words, so....


All of us at Lamppost Pizza!

I'm holding baby Siena!

All of our friends at the UCD football game. We won by a ton!!
Pushup contest insued because of how much of a blowout the game was.
The four of us at the bike race finish line.
The weary, happy travelers

Evan holding Siena at the Sorbello house.

Tired

I think I'm tired now! I spent all night doing homework for school, which didn't even include the lesson plans I need to work on for teaching! I'm so tired that I can't even download my fun photos from our amazing weekend in California visiting our friends and upload them to a post....maybe tomorrow.

Goin' to Cali!

As much as I love the Fall weather here and the excitement (and workload) of student teaching, I am so looking forward to our exciting (but short) trip to California this weekend! We are getting up in the wee hours to drive down, but the 7 hour drive will be so worth it to see friends, family and meet the long awaited Siena! I can't wait. However, I am not looking forward to the drive back home on Sunday, because I have another long week of tons of homework, work and cold weather...but for now I am tired and happy to be back in Cali tomorrow, if only for 48 hours :)

SNOW?!?!

As hard as it is to believe, it did in fact SNOW in Bend last night. A year ago when we moved here, it snowed for the first time in mid-October, and was the beginning of the worst winter in two decades...of course. So, I hope that this even earlier snow season, doesn't forecast the worst winter ever!!! I am so not ready for uggs, sweaters and wool coats...almost, but not quite! Although, on this VERY cold, gray and gloomy friday afternoon, sweats, hot chocolate and a chick flick does sound quite nice :)

Babies!

No, don't worry, I'm not writing about us having them :) I am however writing about how it seems Evan and I have officially past the "all of our friends are getting married" phase, for the most part, and have now rapidly entered the "all of our friends are having babies" phase! It truly is amazing. Our good college friends the Sorbello's just welcomed their first baby girl into the world. Our friends Ken and Tamara are due any day for #4, our friends the Christenson's are welcoming their first baby girl Joelle, into the world this afternoon. The list truly could go on longer, but I'll stop there. It's just so funny to me how life passes so quickly. I am so thankful to have friends entering this stage of life so I can hold their babies, without having our own :) Maybe in 5 years or so...Anyways, I am thankful that I can at least be a part of all of my friends new, growing families and I am thankful to have such great friends that I can share this time of life with.

Tithing and Attitude

Today in church, we had one of the hard hitting, tough to preach, tough to sometimes hear messages. Obviously, the economy is not so hot right now, and if you think about it, as it affects our bank accounts, so it directly affects the church. Since the church relies mostly on ties for income, a failing economy equals a stressed church financially. Ken Wytsma, our lead pastor, gave one of the most amazing sermons I've heard addressing what tithing is and not why the church necessarily needs us to give our "first fruits", but why God needs our first fruits. Ken portrayed the image of a farmer taking the first bundle of goods that he grew and offering it to God. It wasn't his whole crop, or some of his crop after he took what he needed, or the part of the crop that he didn't really want. The farmer gave away his "first fruits" and placed his trust in God, that He would provide enough of a harvest to provide for his family. So the farmer did this without knowing and more importantly not worrying, if a tornado, plague or drought would come along, and the rest of his harvest would be lost. He had such a strong and trusting relationship with the Lord, that the farmer wanted to give Him the first of his ripe fruit and then trust.

Ken also made the point (one that I had never really noticed) that in scripture, God asks us to bring our offering to the Lord and not give our offering to the Lord. What's the difference? You bring something isn't necessarily yours, but you want to offer it for something else. You bring a birthday gift, because the gift is not for you but for the enjoyment of the birthday girl/guy. Same with God. Our money is not our own, it is a gift from the Lord, that he asks us to give back to our community and church to help keep the community of people alive. He made the visual illustration of cutting open an apple. We eat basically 90% of the apple; the other 10% of the core and seeds (usually) goes back into the earth to recreate another apple tree, to produce more fruit. This image is the same with tithing, whether it's our money or time, we should be giving (or bringing) a portion of ourselves and income, whatever we can, back to God, because it really isn't ours in the first place.

Lastly, Ken talked about our attitude. I will be the first to say that this has been and still is a great struggle for me. I am usually the realist (or pessimist) in many situations and being married to the optomistic idealist (Evan :)) makes things complicated at times. I know that a lot of times if only I changed my attitued about situations, the situation would suddenly be a lot less stressful and upsetting. Ken used a quote which I totally believe is true, however is not always to abide by. I copied this from Ken's blog:

Here is a brief meditation from Chuck Swindoll that I quoted in a sermon this morning. It had a profound impact on my life... hopefully there is someone else out there who it will speak to as well.

ATTITUDE

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes

Today in church was just one of those Sunday's where I really feel like God wanted me to really open my mind and not just hear what He was saying but actually put it into practice.

Today's sermon on podcast

Birthday

Beginning the hike
Outside 28 for drinks and dessert
Benham Falls
Last Tuesday marked my 23rd birthday. Last year's birthday was a little rough in that we had been married less than a month, moved to a strange place (for me) and had exactly zero friends. We were extremely poor and a missed my family and friends so much. Needless to say, I try to remember the year I was 22 as opposed to the day I turned 22; Evan can attest to that. Anyways, so Evan and I were blessed to be able to take off my birthday and spend it enjoying life together. Evan made me an amazing breakfast (as always)to start off the morning and then we let our tummies settle for a bit. Evan told me to change into casual clothes and running shoes. I had no idea where we were going. He packed up a picnic lunch and filled up our camelback with water. We drove about 30 min. south of Bend and ended up going on this beautiful 6 mile hike that we had been wanting to try out. Afterwards, we drove back to Bend to have a fun picnic lunch and then open presents! I was so excited that my parents gave me all of the Settlers of Catan extensions and expansions! Now we can play everything from Settlers to Seafarers with 6 people! Evan surprised me with a bag from the Kilns bookstore that I had been wanting for so long! We were so full from lunch that we went out with our closest couple friends up here for drinks and dessert! It was such an amazing and perfect birthday. I felt so blessed and so loved and I am so thankful for all that the Lord has blessed me with!

Hard to believe

So two Saturday's ago, the 6th, marked one year since Evan and I loaded up the U-Haul truck and the Explorer, to start a new chapter of our lives in Bend, OR. Some days it seems like this was forever ago, and others it seems like just a couple of months ago. It's amazing how many things change in a year, and it's amazing how much God can do in a year. When I first moved to Bend, and for the first few months, I will be honest, I was really sad and depressed most of the time. I had left my friends and family in California and so many exciting things were happening. Friends were getting engaged, my mom retired, and a close friends got pregnant (and just had their baby yesterday! :)) I felt like life was going on without me, and I was left to figure out what to do with my life in a new and strange place. Evan started out working for his uncle painting, and all I knew was that I needed to be in school, working on my teaching license and masters.

My life had been all planned out before the move. I was accepted to Sac State's teaching program and Evan I were going to live in Davis...until God revealed His plans, and that he wanted us in Bend, and wanted us to serve/be a part of Antioch Church. I was unemployed for the first month and a half, missed my friends, and didn't want any part of creating a life in Bend. All I could think about was the life I was missing in California. On top of everything else, we were poor. We still are poor as newlyweds, but the first few months we were really poor. I never knew what it felt like to make dinner with whatever we had left in the pantry because we couldn't afford to go to the store. I had to cut out Starbucks (one of my favorite little things in life) and couldn't even afford stamps to mail our wedding thank you notes. I couldn't understand why God would want us here, when I was so miserable. I never thought I could be happy here and especially, would never call Bend home.

Well, a year later, I do call Bend home and I'm no longer miserable and sad haha. On the other hand, I feel like once again, God completely provided for us in ways that I never could have believed. He knew, as always, what we needed more so than we did. Evan got a job in December with Whole Foods, where he is now the Specialty Team Leader and loving life working with wine, cheese, beer and specialty foods and people on a daily basis. I am happily half way through my Masters in Teaching and teaching license program where I have met some of the most amazing people. I couldn't imagine being anywhere else. I still miss my friends and family every day, and on a day like yesterday where one of my best friends gave birth to her first baby with her husband, my heart aches some because I wish I could be there to celebrate in their joy. However, Bend is now my home where Evan and I have made some amazing friends and have made a pretty neat little life for us. God has completely challenged me this past year, but I can see now why we needed to pushed outside our comfort limits. I feel like I have grown so much to the point that even in my disappointments (see a few blogs ago) and sadness, God has a plan greater than I can see. I am thankful for my life here in Bend, and for God's faithfulness. I am to the point where I can willfully and happily offer all of me and my life to God and know that where He leads us in the future, is where we need to go.
Just a few, fun pictures from the last year in Bend.

Our first house
Deschutes River in the Fall
My first snowy winter
Cutting down our first Christmas tree!!!
Our first Christmas as a married couple!
Ben and Katie came up to celebrate New Year's Eve with us!
Evan and I were in Katelyn and Charles' wedding!

Valentine's Day!
Second Honeymoon in Napa in March

Our first trip together to beautiful Seattle and the Historic Columbia river highway
Watching the fireworks on 4th of July with Kip and Kristin

Hiking the Metolius River in Sisters with my parents who visited us for a week!


We were in Ben and Katie's wedding!!!!

So there are many other pictures that would depict our last year in Bend, however, these ones give a pretty good overview :)

Trust

When I got off work yesterday, I had a voice mail from the Spanish teacher that I will student teach for, and hopefully would be taking over her classroom in November. I was filled with nerves hoping she would say that I got the job and would be her long term sub, but instead she just said to give her a call back. Long story short, she called me again and started with "Lyndsey, I have some bad news...". Essentially, I pretty much had the job until Friday, another applicant applied who has a license already and Katie Winning's words "administratively, it makes more sense to go with the person who already has a license", as opposed to jumping all the hoops to get me an emergency license.

Needless to say, I was pretty devastated, because I had let me hopes get so high, and almost expected to get the job. But as Evan, my family and all my friends tell me, it is a good experience to have gone through an interview already and to have made the connections that I did. I'm still really bummed, but I also have learned that God ALWAYS knows what is best for me and I don't. He obviously has other plans for me, and all I can do is "Trust in the Lord with all my heart and not lean upon my own understanding".

So it's back to Ann Taylor and regular student teaching, and hopefully come next April when I am a qualified, licensed teacher, I will finally have my teaching job! Or, maybe God has other plans regarding that too...I can only trust.

Labor Day Weekend on the OR Coast

The Rogue Brewery!

naptime!

Aquarium!

Sea Otter, Katelyn, Charles and Us

The beautiful Oregon Coast Aquarium!!

Depoe Bay

The cute seafood place where we at lunch in Newport.


Growing up in NorCal, the "beach" to me was always rocky, cold, foggy and beautiful. I grew up going to Pebble Beach because my grandparents lived there, and it is quite possibly one of my favorite places in the world. Well, last weekend, Evan and I went for a mini-vacation to the Oregon coast, which is very similar to the NorCal coast. This was another new and fun adventure for me because I had heard how beautiful it was (like the norcal coast) but I had never been. We stopped at a cute seafood place in Newport, saw whales in Depoe Bay and ended up at the Warne's place near Lincoln City. We had a great weekend hanging out with our college friends Kate and Charles and Charles' parents. Evan and I ran on the beach Saturday morning, we went to the aquarium, ate yummy food and had a fire with smore's on the beach. It was such a fun and relaxing weekend, that we definitely were not ready to head back to the real work afterwards!