Our Savior’s in Longmont, CO

This past Thursday Justin received his assignment to teach in Longmont, Colorado. It was a very exciting afternoon to say the least. He will be teaching upper grades and is the principal apprentice. Really, he is the principal since the previous principal/teacher took a call to teach in northern Wisconsin.

We are very excited, but have our work cut out for us. The school is VERY small (think less than 15 students total), but we know that with God’s help we can reach more people! I already have a few ideas and can’t wait to get there and meet the congregation and school families.

We will be living on the same block as the school. The church and school own three houses, so we’ll be living in one of them. It is beautiful! We got a Skype tour of the house. There are three bedrooms upstairs with a full bathroom (no more Tupperware tub baths for Coen!), on the main level are the kitchen, dining room, and living room, and downstairs (1/2 underground) there is a large family room, wet bar, guest room, and 3/4 bath with laundry. In the back there is a patio with an awning and picnic table, and a full screened-in porch. We have been told the weather is beautiful, we’ll get to watch many hot air balloons, there are no bugs (hurray!), and everything is within walking distance.

Justin is thrilled that it’s a scooter city…he’s been wanting a scooter/moped for quite some time now. However, since he’ll be walking a whole 100 yards to the school I’m not sure he needs it quite yet. : )

We pack up the truck July 1st and will be moving July 2nd-3rd with an overnight stop in North Platte, Nebraska. It’s only a 12-ish hour drive from here, but for everyone’s sanity I think we’ll stop part way. Our friends Bud and Maria are probably going to drive with us down there and fly back to Minnesota on the 4th. I am very thankful to have Maria ride with Coen and me so he can be entertained. They are such great friends and we’ll miss them dearly!

I think that’s all for now! Pray for the church, school, and us!

PS If you have any tips for cooking at high altitudes let me know.
PPS We have PLENTY of room for visitors. That means you. And tickets seem to be very reasonable….

Mid April to Mid June!

Oh goodness lots has happened! Justin graduated but wasn’t eligible for an assignment due to not passing a Minnesota licensure sub-test, we went on vacation to Federal Way, WA, then Justin found out he can get a provisional MN license so now he’s back to being eligible for assignment. So we’re still just hanging out and waiting.

Other things we’ve done
- Moved a block and a half down the street to a small house with a nice, big backyard. The woman who I helped with track and her husband own the house and have been very generous. They realize we may leave at any time and they are just find with it! It’s an older house made for short people (which I love!), but Justin has a hard time not bonking his head on the way up the stairs. : )

-Coen has started talking more and speaks mostly English, but some Spanish. He also understands quite a bit of Spanish. For example, today we were out for a friend’s birthday at Plaza Garibaldi, the local Mexican restaurant, and Coen tried to run into the kitchen. A waiter laughed at him, then was making faces at him, and then said “Pues, ven, nino!” (it means basically “well, come, child!”) Coen looked at me and I said “he told you to go” (in Spanish) so Coen took off for the kitchen. The waiter was shocked…I thought it was humorous. Little whitey speaks the Spanish.

-Justin is reffing soccer this summer again and really enjoys it. This Saturday and Sunday is a big tournament and he refs 6 games on Saturday alone. I have a feeling he will be a little sore and VERY pooped come Sunday evening when he goes to work at Target. Poor Justy.

-I am still doing my job for ECELA Spanish Schools. I’m editing and helping publish an eBook with our advice/interest articles. I’ve cut back on my hours quite a bit with the moving and having other obligations. I’ll still be going to Denver come November and possibly South America next summer. But that is a ways out, lots could happen before then!

-Justin got very good (the best) scores on his student teaching and LOVES it. Part of the difficulty in waiting is that we don’t know 100% for sure that he’ll be teaching next year. We are coming up with options if he hasn’t heard anything by August 1st. Hopefully none of them come to fruition!

-We went and spent Easter in Omaha with Godfather Joel Lauber. It was a great time and not a bad drive! (4 1/2 hours) We went to the zoo, a really cool park downtown, and ate some good food. It was so nice to see Joel and Guster (his doggy).

-We bid farewell to Mitch and Corrine. It was very sad and we miss them dearly. Coen still says “home?” when we pass our old place and asks for Mitch (Mee) and Corrine (“ck”) frequently.

Here are some photos of our events:

The zoo in Omaha! This was the desert dome.

Coen had a lot of fun sitting dangerously close to the water.

Coen’s little mini-nap halfway through our zoo tour.

Coen looooved to have Joel hold him while we walked. The vantage point is much better up there!

Easter family photo!

Omaha family photo!

A cute photo of Coco downtown Omaha with a special filter/color thing on our camera

The guys

Justin’s student teaching class, those goofballs

Justin, Mitch, and Ticket to Ride (Laying Pipe)

Corrine and I also playing Ticket to Ride (Laying Pipe)

Coen wearing Mr. Wolf’s (new landlord and friend) fireman’s helmet. He’s retired from the volunteer firefighters now.

Reading the day before graduation with Buppa

Unityyyyy

Our 226 family

Cutting the graduation cake together

Coen and Mia….this is a perfect photo of their personalities

Coen’s new passion is drawing on his easel

Coen and his best doggy friend, Cooper (cuppa)

Me and the bean

Coen’s new bathtub!

Enjoying some last quality time with Mee and Ck.

 

That’s all for now!

New Friends & Track Practice

Coen and I enjoy helping coach track at St. Paul’s where Justin is student teaching. We like to walk since it’s only about 5 blocks away. Coen usually gets up from his nap, gets his diaper change, then eats snack on the way.

Coen’s favorite part of track is playing in the dirt in the playground or on the softball field where we practice. As you can tell from the above photo, it was warm!! (One day, now it’s 34 and snowing as I type this. SNOWING ON APRIL FIFTEENTH. The temperature on the day I took the photo? 65. Seriously. It was three days ago.)

The track manager, Hannah, displaced her kneecap learning the dance moves that Justin choreographed for the school musical so she gets to watch Coen for part of track practice. He loves her.

Go Raiders track!!

My Friend Mia

Coen’s best friend in town is Mia Schmoller. She is about five months younger than him, but recently they have gotten good at playing together. It’s not that they didn’t get along before, but they just didn’t really interact much. Now they get very excited to see each other, play together, and Mia cried the last time we left their house to go home.

Mia is very patient with Coen and doesn’t mind that he’s the bossy one. She’s a little more introverted, so she lets Coen do most of the talking to. However, when she has something to say she makes herself heard. They have many common interests, and the one about which they are most impassioned is watching Yo, Gabba Gabba.

It’s a freaky show.

Mia tried on Coen’s rain boots!

Watching Yo, Gabba Gabba

Still watching…Coen couldn’t look away.

The four of us (Katherine, Mia, Coen, and I) took a trip to the Sibley Park Zoo, a free park/farm zoo in Mankato. It was set up by a grant and you can see alpaca, peacocks, calves, goats, ponies, koi, ducks, chickens, and then play on the BEAUTIFUL playground.

Eating animal crackers while watching the animals

The playground was just right for Coen

Coen was very excited to see all the letters out there along with their signs

Coen and Mia resorted to crawling for a while

Slides!

This is Coen’s new favorite physical activity. He likes to swing on anything…between chairs, on drawers, playgrounds (which are appropriate for swinging), on me, on Justin, on chairs, on TVs, you get the idea

A great photo of Mia & Coen to end a very fun morning

…not to mention very good naps!

Coen’s Latest Developments

Lately Coen has been learning lots of new things. (I’m current on blog posts now.) He can now name all of the letters, even though some are hard for him to say. He just mastered saying “y” because he LOVES the show “Super Why” on PBS. He likes to yell out the names of the letters as they appear just like the children on the show do. We are blessed to have such a smarty! He also likes to keep me on my toes.

He doesn’t really put words together too much yet. He likes to say “I need” when he wants something, and a couple times has said “Daddy bye” after he leaves for school. I’ve heard that children who are exposed to two languages at home take a bit longer to talk also. Not that we are worried or anything, don’t you worry.

Here is some of his sign language:

R

I love you
(He worked hard on that one for quite a while.)

L

….and foot sign language apparently. He thought it was funny.
(Speaking of funny, if you ask Coen what we do when something’s funny he laughs in a very, very high-pitched voice. Which is, in turn, funny.)

Coco & Daddy!

March March March

March started off with an amazing pedicure and hour-long massage from the loving, beautiful, caring, very missed FDAAT family. Thank you again!!!

Coen insisted upon eating his smoked ribs JUST LIKE DAD. He wouldn’t eat the pieces I cut up for him but had to eat it the manly way.

Coen modeled the hat I crocheted for my friend’s daughter. It was fun! Since then I’ve made a couple coffee cozies, a blanket, another hat, and a very lovely vest. (Guess which is a joke.)

I bought Coen rain boots, and there were puddles. There was just also snow still. This is March, mind you.

Painting is fun, even though Coen likes to “pretend” to eat the paint every once in a while. Then he laughs at himself VERY high-pitched.

We took Mitch’s friend Tom on a Schells Brewery Tour. Coen liked sampling the root beer. We found out that in each 12 oz. serving there was a cup of sugar. It was quite an active afternoon!

Yum Chobanni! Doesn’t he look so old?

Coen is such a gentleman and pulled the wagon for me even while holding and attempting to drink his milk steamer.

Coen and Me at the Glockenspiel in town.

Coen never stops moving. Ever. Even when he’s sick. Even when he’s tired. Even when he’s strapped in or tied down. But it’s fun.

His senior picture.

Lately Coen has been obsessed with letters. His fascination began at the beginning of March on the airplane ride home from Seattle, and now he can name all the uppercase letters and most of the lowercase ones if you write them or show them to him. However, if there are too many together he’ll just “read” the word. We’re so blessed to have such a smarty pants.

How did he get stuck?!

With all those brains, you’d hope he would have rethought putting his foot in the dirty toilet.

Coen has been very testy lately and sometimes struggles to communicate his ideas. He has been throwing big temper tantrums about most things, but we’re working on showing and using words.

Justin helped with the musical at St. Paul’s, where he is now student teaching in 6th grade. He really enjoys it here (surprise, surprise) and is having a great time with his supervising teacher, Aaron. Aaron was a year or two ahead of us at MLC when we went through…the first time. : ) They like to make “funny” jokes between each other throughout the school day.

Coen and I are helping with track & field at Justin’s school. We go Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays and help Beth Wolf, the Kindergarten teacher and head coach. I’m helping especially with dynamic warm-ups and the throwing events. It is very fun and I’m enjoying getting to know the faculty and students.