Helloooooooo Broadway!

Well hi there! Long time no talk... how are all y'all?! Happy (belated) Valentine's Day, by the by :) I hope you are reminded of all the blessings and love in your lives; know that I am blessed by each of my relationships with you and that I am very thankful for you :)

It's been a very eventful beginning to the semester, hence the lapse in my blogging... The past few weeks have been pretty crazy. I am taking Advanced Cell Biology, Plant Biology (ugh...), Secondary Teaching Methods, Middle/High School Field Experience, Behavior Intervention and Motivation, and Teaching Secondary Science. And of course, Women's Choir. Phew! It's not as many classes as I have done in the class, but they are all super intense and a lot of work. Advanced Cell is extremely interesting but will in fact be the death of me. All of my Education classes have their craziness too. I have three (count 'em... THREE) field placements, one at an Elementary school, one at a High School, and one at NORTHWOOD MIDDLE SCHOOL! YAY! Northwood is where I had my field experience last year, I lurv it there :) it's hard to schedule everything since I have about 10 hours in schools each week outside of the other classes I have as well as work, so I go from about 7:30am-7:30pm Monday through Thursday and then homework begins! I know many of you have similar days and I don't mean to complain, but it's why I've sorta been M.I.A. the past few weeks and will probably continue to be so. But I'm getting two very different experiences at my schools. At Shadle Park High School, the teacher I was placed with is kind of the exact opposite of the teacher I would like to be. BUT, the teacher I was placed with at Northwood is exACTly the type of teacher I would like to be! His name is Dave Gamon, and he was voted as one of the best middle school science teachers in the state. Everything I am doing in his class is useful in that it isn't busy work. We're spending our time together developing my ideal classroom environment, I will get to plan and co-teach lessons with him, and a bunch of other stuff. I am SO blessed to be working with one of the best in the business and I am already learning so much from him. I was truly on cloud nine after being in his classroom :)

But enough about school... Other than working my tail off, the past few weeks have been eventful socially too! Steph came back from Africa safe and sound (SO glad to have her back... we are as close as sisters, I missed her so much), and last weekend my good friend from TLT Sarahann came into town to see AVENUE Q! It was in Spokane for one weekend so she drove over to spend the weekend with me and awesome adult puppets :)

We made a day of it, started early and went to the Army Surplus, got lunch at Dick's Hamburgers, walked around downtown Spokane's Riverfront Park and saw the big red Radio Flyer. The show was AWEsome, although we were kind of frustrated because they changed a bunch of the show and censored it (apparently it's because it's Spokane...) BUT something awesome happened afterwards. We were walking out of the theatre and we spotted, oh yes, the two lead actors from the show walking down the street. So what did we do?! We hoot-hollered them down and got a picture with them. BEAUTIFUL men, and talented... ahh, good day. That and Sarahann ended up accidentally goosing the one on the left (she claims it wasn't intentional... I don't know if I agree with her).

Anyway, we capped the day off with a five-pound burrito in Cheney (shared this time, and no we still couldn't finish it) and swiftly conked out at home. It was so great to have her here, it was a fantastic weekend!

Also, after these crazy few days, Steph, Colin and I decided it would be in our best interest to escape to Cour d'Alene for the day. We drove over this morning, walked around on the waterfront and hiked a wee bit, grabbed lunch, went to a coffee shop downtown to study for a good long while and ended by going to a thrift store just because we could. Idaho sure is thrifty! It was a stunning day too, and great to spend time with two of my best friends. As crazy as life is right now, I still have the ability to escape! Here's a picture of Steph and Colin, obviously having a good time :)

The last bit of news, besides the fact that I got a second job as a school shuttle driver (and had to drive a 15-passenger van... with only one passenger... awesome, thanks a lot facilities services for the keys to that monstrosity of a bus), I heard from the organization that I will be traveling with to the DR this summer and it turns out that they are shifting all of their attention to Haiti after the quake. Sooooo this summer, during the same time, I will be going to do work in Haiti! I'm so very excited, and as crazy as the switch over is right now and how disorganized everything feels, I can't wait to go over and begin loving those orphans.

YAY! I finally finished this blog! I think that's the very few of the highlights from these past few weeks. I hope to hear from you soon and truly hope that you're enjoying this absolutely beautiful weather we have been having :)

With love,

Chels

P.S. My niece is coming soon.... best thing EVER :)