Psalm 63

...praise the Lord for GREAT 3-day weeknds....

Amy's bachelorette party was a blast. We first to Marrekesh in Newport Beach. This is a picture of my *attempting* to bellydance. I was so thrilled since I wanted to try Morroccan food since watching Sabrina (see previous posts).










They we went bowling in ugly dresses. We even got some DDR in.

Back to Amy's sister's house for cardmaking/ stamping and watching "My Big Fat Greek Wedding".











And finally we hit up outlets in Carlsbad. We brought a stroller to carry all our bags.

...Twisted Wong's....

Good friends, great cheese, and wine. Who needs expensive Wine Bars anyways? ;)

...iheartgeocaching...

So let me blog about my *new* favorite hobby. GEOCACHING. I absolutely love geocaching. I actually never tried geocaching before I got my own GPS for Christmas. In fact, getting the GPS with my Dad was such a hilarious experience. Here we were the day after Christmas driving up and down Eastern in Vegas trying to find this GPS place. We probably passed it 5 times, but they didn't have a sign from the street and it ended up being this obscure little warehouse type of place. Go figure. You needed a GPS to find the GPS store.

Last weekend I went geocaching with Dora and Philip a little bit. I didn't take pictures the time we went out before. I should have....that time left us with some pretty crazy experiences like (Dora and Philip-NOT ME) trying to break into an old one hour photo drive by booth and turning over trash cans in the parking structure at Birch Street.

Dora and I found a couple and then Philip joined us to find one after lunch. 4 finds our of 6 isn't too bad for newbies.



So this is a picture of our first find of the day. It was a micro and the log was stuffed into this tube attached to a key chain that looked like poop. It was under a light post in a shopping center (I guess that's actually pretty common). That's Dora's fancy car GPS...that actually does latitude and longitude.




Our second find was entitled "Not Quite Escher". It was hidden under a staircase (hence the clue) and Dora thought it was rat poison (I actually touched rat poison the first cache I ever found).
The items in the cache are left to be taken and traded.



Our next one was actually a magnetic hide-a-key in this railing. That's my cutie GPS! =)
















We found this one....not under a bridge but behind some green....well what do you call these green post things at parks??

AHAHAHAAH!!!! Whoo hooo!!!

THE COMPLETE JANE AUSTEN on MASTERPIECE THEATER!!!!

oh my goodness....PBS is showing the Complete Jane Austen on Masterpiece theater the next few weeks. I'm going crazy. I just watched the new Sense and Sensibility on You Tube and I like it a thousand times more than the Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, and Kate Winslet version. Obsessed? Yes! ~sigh~ Many of you might think Jane Austen to be a bunch of boring girl fluff, but I tell you....timeless themes, gorgeous settings, and vivid characters are priceless.

...random facts....

I've been tagged by Rick
to tell you 7 random facts about me. First, the rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.







*If I could do one thing everyday for the rest
of my life, it would be hiking. I love going on walks, especially in
places where there is no sign of civilization. Grass at a park makes me
so happy sometimes. The only sad thing is not very many of my friends
like to hike and there isn't very many places to hike in OC. There are...but they are brown and potential fire hazards 9+ months of the year.

*I
calculated it and I think I have spent roughly a little more than a
month of my whole life at the piano. That's 11 years times 52 weeks
times 3 times a week times 30 minutes a day...and (my parents might
argue about this one) that's a prettyconsevative figure. I love the piano. I have one in my classroom and it distracts me from work afterschool. Oh well....better a happy middle school teacher than a stressed out mean one. Hahahha. I even composed a song in 6th grade for school. I won an award. I think I was the only one to submit an entry for musical composition.



*I have no self-control when it comes to
Children's books. Reading them and buying them is truly a weakness of mine. They are so wholesome. Forget complicated adult stuff-reality is already confusing. I want to write a children's book one day.





*I owe my children's book fetish and my
Jane Austen obsession to my Aunt Rose. She got my started on Anne of Green Gables when I was 12 and it was just downhill from there. Aunt
Rosie also makes the BEST coffee crumb cake and plays the piano. It's
aunts like her that make me can't wait to be an auntie someday. (NOT
ANYTIME SOON THOUGH!!)





*There are a few places I've thought "if something happened to me and I died, it would be really REALLY hard to find me" (morbid thought but true:
-8 hour bus ride through the rain on an unpaved mountainside in China with 3 flat tires and rain
-Riding in the back of a taxi in the middle of the Sinai peninsula with the driving falling asleep at the wheel
-various places in Om*n. Driving by myself, getting lost, and meeting random strangers
-following a tour guide I didn't trust in Luxor, Egypt to his rural village (thank the Lord I wasn't by myself)


*I seriously wear open toe shoes 365 days a year, even if just for a few
hours on rainy days. My toes don't get cold outside. They do get cold
at home. Weird huh. The biggest investment I have ever made on some
article of clothing is myChacos...which are WAY worth it.

*Besides seeing actual locations in movies, there are a number of things I
really want to do because I've seen then in movies. For example, I have
always wanted to eat Moroccan food since watching Sabrina (the Harrison
Ford's version). I have never actually picked an apple of a tree (Anne
of Avonlea) or inter tubed down a river (Pride and Prejudice-the Mormon version). I would love to have frozen hot chocolate (like in Serendipity) and have a star named after me (a Walk to Remember). okay....I'm joking about the last one. But I'm serious about Moroccan food.

*I cannot eat beets. It just absolutely ruins a salad for me.

I tag:
1) Ingrid
2) Hiron
3) Fiona
4) Art-already did it but i'm tagging him anyways!
5) Grace
6) Allison
7) Joy

...a year in pictures....

This is a little slideshow of pictures from 2007. They include trips I've taken, food I've made, flowers I've grown, my favorite pictures, randomness, family, and friends. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

*yikes...i've burned my tamale pot...*

...missing linda...

You know that "get-to-know-you" question-who is your hero? I realized I
didn't have a non-family member as an answer until this week. And I
miss her like crazy.

If you talked about my work with me within the past two years, I would have undoubtedly told you about my principal Linda. I met Linda my first year at LCMS.
She came in as the interim principal about a month after I started. I
remember the first time she entered my classroom. Before then, I heard
she was a born-again Christian from other staff. She was thrilled that
I was leading a discussion about money versus the importance of family.


"Sorry to interrupt your discussion Miss B-." she chimed. "But
I want to tell your class a story about a man I know. My friend was
very very rich. He had expensive cars and an expensive house. But he
made some poor illegal choices and he wound up in jail. He lost it all."

She had my students' attention and mine. Then she said:

"He went to jail. But you know what he found?" she paused as students threw out some guesses.

Unabashedly, she pointed up and said, "He found what really mattered. He found God."

I
was floored. Wow. I couldn't believe my principal said that in front of
a class in a public school. You have no idea how much I prayed for
freedom to express my faith to my students and co-workers. The
floodgates were opened wide with her example.

A few weeks later,
she stepped into my room again to watch the end of a lesson and chat. I
brought up the discussion incident and told her I believed in God.

And
that was the beginning of numerous times I prayed with Linda. "M-," she
said, "I wish we could sneak onto campus at midnight sometime and pray
andanoint each classroom with oil."

Linda lives out 1st Thess.
5-she prayed constantly. Her office was a safe haven for many teachers.
She prayed with more than half the staff at my school and many
parents-both Christian and non-Christian. She told many of us that she
didn't have to be a principal-she wouldn't even advise anyone to do it.
But she knew God wanted her there-even if for just a short time.

And
I would always tell her (because she knew I didn't want to teach in
America forever), "Linda, I'm staying as long as your here."

There
are times when I wish I could trace God's hand. You know, just know why
and what He's planning, and what He's really up to. I know He's
infinite and I'm finite...who can understand His ways-the Bible even
asks. But, I really wish I could now.

Linda, was diagnosed with a brain tumor this week. The MRIs and biopsy
confirm its 95% cancerous and growing. I know she's staying
positive-she has a strong sense of God's timing and His peace over her
life.

I have this card she sent me the beginning of this year
posted by my desk at school. On the front is a picture of Balboa Pier
with Ruby's diner in the background and a surfer in the majestic waves.
I always have seen waves as a reminder of God's faithfulness-though
violent and calm at times. She would always tell me that all God wants
His children to do is "show up"-be willing and God will use you. She
wrote me this beautiful e-mail before I left for my trip this summer-I
love the whole thing but one of the most hilarious quotes from her
e-mail was: "You go girl. I will pray every day. You will feel my
prayers being answered. As for creature comforts, you won't even miss
them! You are young strong and beautiful with beautiful hair that is
lacking nothing in order to jump out of bed (or some floor, or some
grass hut or something) and cook up some cow or something (hope you are
not in India for the cow)." She's hilarious.

I cannot tell you
how blessed I am to know and work with, for, and under such a beautiful
woman of God. Linda knew at any moment that God could pull her out and
she took advantage of the time God placed her here. She is such an
inspiration in my life and I know that even though she's going through
all this yucky stuff physically, she's still giving thanks to God for
this is His will for her (1stThess. 5).


I know not a lot
of people bother to read or visit this corner of the web. But please
pray for her. It will mean so much to me...and her. Thanks