a month of great reading

One of my favorite bloggers committed to writing each day for 31 days. Her focus is motherhood and she's had some awesome posts this month. I check in every day. I'm getting spoiled; hope she keeps writing with such frequency after the 31 days are up.

I highly recommend this blog if you're looking for some great reading material.

he said, she said: baby weight version

me: I think I'll do the Wii Fit this morning, since it's kind of wet to walk outside. Although I'm sure it won't be happy... I haven't used it since the day we found out we were pregnant, back in May.
Joel: Yeah... I'm sure it's going to give you some sass... "You havent' been here in 5 months."
me: Yeah... "Get off me you fat cow. You've gained 11 pounds!"

:) Totally worth the weight gain for this little babe:

Think pink!

Exciting news over here on the baby blog today!

Overheard in my classroom

"Good morning Mrs. Alberts. Good morning baby!"

"Mrs. Alberts, your hair looks so weird."

"Is that a hairstyle?!"


Oddly enough, I haven't gotten a single comment on this growing belly. They see this every morning and all they have to say is stuff about my hair?! :)

Fall, take your sweet time.

The internet world seems to make fall come so much faster than it does in reality. We had an unusually cool August, but it's not fall yet, here in the Philadelphia area... The leaves are green, the afternoons feel hot, and the sun stays out most of the evening...

Even though I adore fall- the season of apples and my birthday and campfires and jackets and Toms/jeans and back to school- I am in absolutely no rush for it to begin.

Because then it will be Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then January and our baby will be here. Which will be amazing. But not quite yet, thank you very much.

This year, I'm taking every chance to enjoy each season and rest in them. And to savor the weather and the changes and the growing belly I'm sporting nowadays.

Fall, I'll be happy to see you but take your sweet old time.

Granada: part 3

Monday through Friday of our ten days in Granada was spent with 25+ teenagers at the English camp run by the local church. Joel and I both worked with the teen camp, which was right up his alley and quite a stretch for me. I think it's safe to say we had an awesome time with those kids! One of the most outgoing students had fun dancing with Joel (above).... she knew how to break dance and wanted him to imitate her smooth moves. 

English camp ran from 9am-2pm with a snack time in the middle. We had some classroom teaching time where we introduced English vocabulary, practiced forming sentences, and utilized new vocab to play games. All of the other activities were to reinforce English vocabulary and conversation.... crafts, games, and team competitions gave kids a chance to practice English in a non-threatening way.

Wednesday was spent at the beach about 1.5 hours away from Granada. Other than some motion-sickness on the bus, it was wonderful. The view of the nearby mountains took your breath away. Then, if you got tired of looking at the mountains, you could gaze into the crystal clear waters. I was surprised to find that the water was totally smooth, with no waves or undertow. The kids had a great time splashing around, playing cards on the sand, and eating their picnic lunch. Beach Day was unofficially a Spanish-English conversation day, so we both used our language skills to connect with the kids who weren't too confident to speak just English with us.

On the last day of camp, we celebrated with a huge water fight. Everyone was soaked and had an awesome time!

Granada: part 2

On our second morning in Granada, we woke up to a beautiful view of the convent's central garden. We weren't invited to explore it, as that's the personal property of the nuns in residence. The above photo was taken through the glass door near the front entrance.

We spent Saturday morning at the Alhambra, which is (in my opinion) a must-see for anyone visiting southern Spain. We spent a few euros for an English audio guide, which was helpful because there weren't many written signs around the place. I think we were there for about 4 hours, but could definitely have spent twice that much time. The Alhambra is BEAUTIFUL and we were there on a hot, sunny day. I got tired and a tiny bit nauseous, but there were lots of spots I could sit to rest while Joel and our teammates continued to explore.

Joel made friends with a little guy whose parents are working in Granada full-time. He was a pro at smelling all the beautiful flowers :)

 The view of Granada from the Alhambra was amazing. You could see the entire city and far beyond...

Saturday evening we had the chance to watch a flamenco show. It was lively and exciting. Somehow, I managed to fall asleep for about 2 minutes in the middle of the show.... first trimester woes for ya...

Part of the goal of the long-term workers in Granada is to give the short-term team a chance to experience the local culture before spending the week teaching English to the kiddos. We were thrilled to get to see so many fun, new things. Sunday was a leisurely day which included some walking around town, churros con chocolate, and church with the team.

Count those blessings

On the way home from grocery shopping this morning, I caught myself feeling a little down.

Joel's family couldn't come visit at the last minute and now we are in a holiday weekend, the last weekend before school and cross-country start up with gusto, but we don't have plans. And we don't have family around. And we don't want to travel because we wore ourselves out this summer (plus my bladder doesn't handle long trips very well now...)

So, Joel's mowing the lawn and the sun is shining and it's time to pull myself out of the self-induced funk. Blessings abound!

1. Our babe is healthy and has a strong heartbeat, wiggly arms, and long legs!!
2. Last night we went on a dinner date to my favorite local hole-in-the-wall Mexican place.
3. It's still summer but not unbearably hot.
4. We both have full time jobs, with health insurance. A huge blessing!
5. We own our house and can decorate it the way we choose.
6. The farmers market is already selling delicious apples, perfect for homemade apple crisp.
7. Outside is green and colorful and fresh.
8. The zinnias finally finally finally (!!) showed up. This is the third summer we have planted them and the first time they actually grew well!

Starting school, teacher life

So, an update about life other than the baby is long overdue. Although, truly, the baby is pretty darn exciting so I don't feel a bit guilty about neglecting this blog.

School starts one week from today. My classroom looks pretty good. I will take some pictures soon, if I remember. I'm so so grateful for my new colleagues.... They have been super helpful and welcoming and encouraging. Looks like I will have 19 kiddos; a nice mix of boys and girls which is fun. The commute was bearable this week because I shared the driving with a coworker who lives nearby. Today's drive home was at least 15 minutes longer than "normal" due to a vehicle fire on the highway, but hopefully this will be the exception as opposed to the rule. Plus, when you drive through a city the size of Philadelphia, what does normal even mean?

I've been waiting to stop at the teacher store because my school gives out prepaid debit cards to use for classroom supplies... Well, I finally got mine today and then the cashier couldn't make it work. Because it never got activated when purchased. So I had to leave my small bag of very important classroom items at the store.

Tears may or may not have welled up. But they weren't released. We may be walking on egg shells here, folks. I can usually tell when it's going to time for a good cry. Who wants to put money on sometime in the next week? ;)

Anyway, as super frustrating as that was, after a long long day of driving, meetings about health insurance, and classroom prep, I am super psyched about this school year. It feels amazing to be in my own class, with my own students, carrying my own baby inside me.

New (baby!) blog

This has been my main place of writing for the last five years. Amazingly, just under five years ago I was flying "home" after my year in Japan. I was single, adventurous, scared, uncertain, optimistic, and curious. I started this blog to record my thoughts, travels, and life lessons. I wrote to remember and I wrote to share life with others. I wanted a place to keep track of photos I took and friends I made.

Writing here has been a precious gift, one I'm not sure I want to give up quite yet. As I mull it over and decide on the future fate of this space, I'm beginning a new blog that's specifically baby-focused. I want to record this pregnancy so I'll never forget the beauty and pain of the season. I want our baby to someday be able to read and look at pictures of his/her mom and dad as we waited.

The new blog will be quite baby heavy, so don't feel obligated to follow along if that's not your cup of tea. I totally understand. If you're interested, here's the link. Stop by and say HI!

 New blog

a tiny traveler

On Sunday, May 19th Joel and I found out we are pregnant with our first child. We spent the week processing, dreaming, praying, and wondering about our baby.

Though I thought we would wait a while to tell our parents, we totally couldn't! Heck, Joel wanted to tell everyone about an hour after we found out :) So, the following day (a Monday) I took a second pregnancy test (just to be sure!) and when it came out positive, I ordered two onesies online: one with the UVA symbol, and another for the Detroit Tigers.

On Saturday, May 25th we Skyped with both sets of parents and showed them the onesies as our announcement. Everyone was thrilled and my mom got a few tears in her eyes. Both dads were calm and pleased, as is their nature. Both moms started scheming what they'd buy for their first grandchild ;)

Joel and I are beyond excited. Overwhelmed and plenty scared, too, but so grateful to the Lord for this sweet sweet gift. I'll share about our journey to this point sometime later (it was hard and felt so so long!), but for now we are just daily surrendering our will to God and praying for his hand of protection on us and our growing babe (who is due at the end of January 2014)!!

While in Granada, our friend took this funny candid shot of my 13 week baby bump. Consider it an "announcement" photo of sorts. 

The tiny traveler growing rapidly inside me has already visited a new country and met lots of new friends who can't wait to show him/her some love.

we're baaaack!

We arrived home from Granada last night around 7pm (Philly time) which is actually around 1am Spain time. We were exhausted and sweaty and I was hungry because the airplane food wasn't all that great. After looking through our mail and getting the AC units going, we hit the hay around 9pm.

Here's a sneak peek: Joel and I dead passed out on the floor of the Paris airport. After 15+ hours of traveling and little sleep, this was real life...

As the week progresses, I'll have a lot more pictures and some stories from our 10 days in Spain.

Granada: part 1

I looked through the photos I took over the last 10 days and became overwhelmed with the task of debriefing about our trip. Because the photos are uploaded on the computer in chronological order, I'll update that way, too. So here goes...

Our first day in Spain was VERY full!  We met the rest of the English camp team, received our assigned roles for the camp, met church members, ate a delicious lunch, took a quick nap, explored the convent where we stayed, and generally got acclimated to Granada.

That evening we were invited to eat dinner at someone's house who lived up in the nearby hills. On our way, we stopped at a beautiful overlook where we could see the entire city. The sun was going down, the lighting was amazing, and the Alhambra (more on this later!) looked stunning.

Dinner was eaten on the rooftop, while watching the sun set over nearby houses. We tasted amazing local olive oil, drank Spanish wine, nibbled local delicacies, got to know our teammates, and watched a rainbow in front of the mountains.

As we walked home that evening (around 11pm), I was overcome by how the city seemed to have changed in just a few hours. The lights of Granada at night created such a different feel for a city we quickly came to love.