Charleston trip: Part 2 (Friday & Saturday)

Since we drove from Virginia to Charleston, we arrived in the late afternoon on Friday. Just in time to get settled into our cute house (more on this later!) and find some dinner.

Throughout our vacation planning, Melissa and I established a list of yummy looking restaurants we wanted to try. Hominy Grill was high on our list so we went there for our first dinner. The above photo is of their she-crab soup, a Charleston fav. It was good but pretty salty. I'd recommend the fried chicken/ribs combo, which Joel and I shared. YUM! 

After dinner we wandered around our neighborhood and got a feel for the city of Charleston. We saw some funny signs (like the one below), meandering tourists, and even more delicious looking places to eat.

Our top priority for Saturday morning was hitting up Charleston's farmers market, which was huge. And amazing! Freshly made pastas, southern sweet tea, homemade popsicles, fresh flowers, coffee sack posters, locally grown veggies, and more. We spent at least an hour looking around and taking it all in before we chose veggies from a local farm to cook for dinner on Sunday night.

Since Joel and Melissa had a wedding to attend on Saturday afternoon, my Joel and I had our first time alone together in Charleston. We took a beautiful ferry ride to historic Fort Sumter. We explored the fort and heard a park ranger talk about the history of it. Highlights include taking a nap on the ferry, seeing Joel excited about history, and taking pictures of cannons. :)

After we showered and ate pizza from the shop across the street, Joel and I spent the evening doing what we do best on vacation:

Charleston trip: Part 1 (Yorktown pit stop)

To break up the 12+ hour drive from Philadelphia to Charleston, we stayed overnight with my Granddad in Yorktown, Virginia. It's a 6 hour drive and we arrived there to find perfectly gorgeous weather. The beach had plenty of people around, but it wasn't too crowded to walk with our feet in the water. I love love love Yorktown and would live there in a second if we could find jobs, so it was a total joy to show some of my favorite people around town.

 Melissa is a beach lover, so our walk was right up her alley. I could NOT get over the amazing weather! 

We also stopped by the Yorktown battlefield, which is the site of an important Revolutionary War battle (aka: the British surrendered there!). My Joel was thrilled to share all sorts of historical facts with anyone who would listen. Plus, the sunny, mild weather made it great to just walk around and be outside.

Granddad and Thelma took us to dinner at one of their favorite restaurants. This guy was hanging around outside, just waiting for friends to pose with him. :)

Up next: the rest of our Charleston trip, including plants, animals, delicious meals, a farmers market, rainbow colored houses, a special visitor, and lots of self-timer portraits.

Playing catch up. A little.

Whew! Things have been busy over here!

We spent last Thursday until this past Tuesday traveling to and from Charleston, SC. We stopped in Virginia to see my Granddad, too. I took a few pictures in Charleston that I'm excited to share sometime later this week.

As soon as we got home my parents arrived to visit. We are so so so blessed to have family who loves us and comes to spend time with us (even though they've been here three times since we last went to their house!). We ate delicious meals, ran some errands, drove downtown to see my new classroom, devoured a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts, and laid around the house trying to keep cool.

We also had two mornings with the junior high kids during their summer service week. It was really fun to watch them work hard at the tasks set before them... so encouraging to see kids growing up well.

It's been hot and we are using all our AC units. Tonight we'll open the windows and let the cool breeze freshen up our rooms. I love sleeping in the summer.

Stay tuned for vacation photos and some of my musings as I mentally and spiritually prepare for Granada. We leave in 11 days. 

This is the plan, too!!

I'm sitting in a classroom that is finally quiet after a field trip and salad party for the sixth graders. The class I got today is one of the worst behaved I've "taught" this year. Taught is in parenthesis because no teaching happened this week. Certainly not today.

Though I was dying for the day to be over so I could escape from the loudness, the bad attitudes, the rudeness, I'm also feeling a little bit sad.

Because truthfully, I will miss these kids. I know so many of their names from being in the building all year. I know some of their stories. I know how to get them back on track, I know their struggles, I know their strengths. Over the last month, I imagined myself subbing here next year, having some of them again. I came to grips with the idea of being just a sub. Again.

But that's not the plan, apparently, and boy am I glad.

It's not the plan because this afternoon I accepted a job to teach fourth grade full-time next year. 

I get to work in the city. I get to teach my own kids. I get to set up my own classroom. I get to build relationships with parents as we partner to support their children.

This news blows me away and overwhelms the mess outa me. But I AM THRILLED!!

A funny dinner

Q: Who puts photos of turkey bacon and biscuits from the freezer on their blog?

A: someone who really doesn't take many pictures and whose life is filled with lots of busy things lately.

AKA. Me.

So far this week I have subbed three days. On Tuesday I drove downtown and spent the morning interviewing/ doing a demonstration lesson for a fourth grade teaching job I would like to get. Our evenings have been pretty quiet, but I am tired after working 12 hours straight and the kids are getting antsy as the end of the year approaches, which makes my jobs tough.

I have also noticed myself forgetting things when planning our my meals and shopping list lately. Yesterday morning I went to take the pizza dough out of the freezer and realized... We didn't have any pizza dough. I took some chicken out instead, but knew it wouldn't be thawed in time. So I decided to cook up some leftover turkey bacon on our big griddle and I grabbed some biscuits from the freezer. (I made them about two weeks ago, using this recipe. Yum!)

I reheated the biscuits in the microwave. Mine had jelly on them. Joel added a little bit of cheese to his. We drank OJ and relaxed and both our bellies were filled. A funny dinner, yes, but still filling and delicious.

loving life lately

A couple fun things lately:

1. Last night I skyped with my gals Annie & Mandy, who were together at Ann's apartment in Vancouver. It was a breath of fresh air to see their smiling faces. We talked about all the Japanese food they'd eaten together and the Japanese-y stuff they were still planning to do. I daydream often about those old days in Toyama. I'd love to take Joel there someday, along with any future kiddos. Though it was a hard, confusing and lonely season, Japan holds a little piece of my heart and I had such great times there.

2. Last Sunday Joel and Melissa came over for dinner. I grilled. The guys threw the football. Melissa and I both wore new, summery maxi dresses, while we sat on the back steps to talk. The weather was basically perfect and we spent hours chatting and enjoying each others' company.

3. Tonight we have our final fundraiser for Granada. Two weeks after that we have our final team meeting. About two weeks after that we'll be on the plane, heading east to Spain. Unbelievable.

4. As the school year winds down, I am thrilled to spend more time with Joel. We really try to own the summer, filling it with lots of mini-adventures just the two of us and some trips to visit loved ones. Our little family, so far from our families, is an indescribable blessing to me. I love living life with this guy.

Quietness around this blog

Okay, here's the thing. My blog fast is partly to blame for less volume on THIS blog. There are other factors, too, such as winding down a school year, applying for a fourth grade teaching job for next year, hot weather, junior high activities with church, watching TV on Netflix with Joel, dealing with the aftermath of last week's fire, gearing up for Spain, etc.

But really, I don't take pictures.
So I don't blog.

My last five or six posts have been pretty lame, if I do say so myself. Which I do.

I like to think summer will prompt me to document life a little more. Things will be at a different pace. We will go to Charleston shortly after school gets out and it will be beautiful there. We shall see.

Thanks to all of you who have been reading, despite the infrequent posts, most of which are not all that compelling.