Life

Just an update on my job situation. I finally have all my paperwork in to the 2 schools! I have one job set for Sept 3rd (private) and one for Sept 19th (public). The private school said they only have about 5 subs so I should get jobs fairly easily..I just got my ID # today for the public school and I was able to snag a science job. I also completed my 3rd orientation for school number 3 today. Another Christian school-I still have to do my paperwork but we are waiting of references. It is at least progressing. It's been really hard for me to not be contributing to the income. Having my every 2 week paycheck helped to balance out the time between getting Nate's per diem checks. I'm sure I'll be working more soon :) Nate and I have a retreat with bible study coming up over the Labor day weekend. We are going to be leading worship for the first time together-NO Nate is NOT singing unless he sneaks in there in which case I will probably laugh just like he would laugh at me if I were supposed to lead on the guitar :) Oh, my sister is at 40% of her funding and some new opportunites are opening up-Woohoo!

Yosemite

Yosemite was really fun! Nate and I were able to get one hike out of Wayne LOL WE climbed up to a little waterfall first....a lot of the water is gone now because it is the dry season (most of the snow is gone) so we were able to get really close to the first fall and even found our very own! Next we hiked to the top of Vernal falls~without water...I knew it was a bad idea but we really had no idea what we were getting into. It took every minute of the 3 hours that they say it will. First you are going up inclined pavement which burns HAHA then it gets worse...uneven inclined ground followed by the craziest stairs ever, jagged, covered in sand, uneven and STEEP! You'll see that there are no pictures from this part of the jouney because we had to focus on picking up our feet.

When we got close to the waterfall, it was awesome! So incredibly powerful, beautiful sound of the falls, rainbows and even a small lake at the top where people were swimming. We stopped at the top to enjoy the view and grab a drink from the running waterfall. Now, I know not to drink unpurified water (I showed a scary parasite video last year) but I HAD to drink something and plus it was running :) Don't worry, we are still parasite free as far as we know. The water tasted fantastic too~they should bottle that stuff up and sell it for $1.99. We stopped at several places just admiring it's beauty. I have to say that the waterfall was one of the best parts for me.

Bear paws-so all the signs around the parks say, Do not leave food visible in cars. Others say do not leave any food in cars, use bear proof lockers. However, we never saw a bear even playing in the woods...apparently as some time unknown to us, a bear did find our car :) We noticed that there are dusty bear paw prints all over our truck, the bear tried all sides and just couldn't get to our cooler of food.....Lucky us!!

National Parks

If you click the slide show to make it bigger, you can see the captions :) Well, Papa Walters has come and gone. We had a LOT of fun with him here. It was really nice for me when Nate had to work cause there was someone around! We went to Sequioa and Yosemite National parks while he was here and God is truely amazing. I really don't think I could even imagine up trees that big or hiking trails up to waterfalls. I'll tell ya about each of the parks and add some pictures...no, the pictures are not fake! Sequioa-We started off taking a hike up Moro Rock which involved a lot of stairs and ramps, not too bad but it did take the breathe out of you. Plus, we were getting higher and higher-thinner air ya know? It was amazing to look out over the park from the top and ALL 3 of us made it :)

We stopped to have a picnic here which sounds lovely until the bees attacked. Now, Nate and Wayne may tell you different but the bees were all over us! I'm not kidding when I say that I had to keep my food hidden in my hand and sneak it into my mouth less a dagum bee sneak in there and sting my gums. Nate and Wayne thought it was fun to tame the bees and let them fly all over their hands and granola bars-NO THANKS! Next up, REALLY REALLY BIG trees. The large trees are somewhere between 1700-3000 years old. Which means they were here before and during Jesus walking the Earth. Really puts things into perspective. The biggest tree is General Sherman and this is the largest tree in the world based on mass...other trees are wider or taller. Getting to General Sherman wasn't was easy as we thought! It wasn't all that far away but we have to walk back going uphill and we had already completed a hike that day. General Grant was really nice because the trek wasn't so far, it was flat, and less people! Although I did have to rescue Nathan from a tick here....

This video is priceless. Yes, Nate and I are laughing at Wayne (that's what kids do to their parents, duh) but the best part is what he says to me right as he passes me :) LOL

Things here are going well as usual. I got a new hair cut which I'm still getting used to-it's really not very easy to deal with when working out. Nate and I have been making our own adventures, which you'll see one listed below. He likes to play me in games, I really think it's to boost his confidence cause I pretty much have no way of winning. I can't even beat him in checkers! Ok I beat him 2 outta 20 games. And chess, that's out of the question! We were able to go to Pyramid Lake yesterday and get out on the water with jetskis and boating. It was really nice :) We had some friends over for dinner last week which was fun-I got to play hostess for the first time.

Oh! This may not be nearly as exciting to some of you but my good friend Jana (she was a bridemaid in the wedding) had her baby boy this week-Caleb Matthew. Everytime someone around me has a baby I am just so amazed at the whole process. It's crazy the way God designed our bodies to change throughout pregnancy and labor and then go back to (pretty much) normal afterwards. And the babies themselves coming out healthy. It's just remarkable how helpless and innocent they are yet they grow so fast. I've been looking at pictures of my nieces and nephews and they are getting so big and learning so much. I think I'm going to end up being a mushball when I have a baby!

I went to a sub training this week which I am very thankful for! I didn't really think this whole subing thing through. They brought up the point that I may get called in to sub and there might not be lesson plans left for me....WHAT?! What will I do with these kids for a whole day without plans LOL I never even considered that because I figured teachers were like me...If I had to be out, I made sure there were plans no matter how much it hurt to get up and make them. They gave us some suggestions and a sub survival book. I also hooked up with one of my friends from church who subbed last year and she is going to help me get set up. I think I am going to be really nervous the first time I go in. I was so nervous on the first day of school and subing is like the first day everyday!

Alright, time for the softball glove adventure! So Nate and I are practicing throwing and catching in the front 'yard' lol Nate threw a crazy one and it hit the bush right next to me. I grabbed the ball and 15 wasps came zooming out...which sent me fleeing across the parking lot! We decided to go inside not too long after. Nate attempted to toss his glove up to our second floor patio but it hit the rail and fell onto our neightbors patio which is oh so cozy with the wasp infected scary bush! The following is Nate's attempt to rescue the glove from the second floor using our vacuum cleaner and random household objects. I hope you laugh but in person, it made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe to see the utensils flopping around next to the glove :)



Success came with the hangers...the video won't upload, maybe later