Merry Christmas from Gig Harbor

Merry Christmas!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful day as I did. A day filled with TONS of amazing food and lots of family time. The food ranged from homemade bruschetta (thanks Bryan) to great turkey and scalloped potatoes... yumm. Desserts were not few and far between and ranged from pumpkin pie, peppermint cheesecake and some AMAZING peppermint fudge that tasted like it was made by a pastry chef (cough cough - or made by yours truly). We missed Sarah, Devin, Brett, Georgette and Grace, but still had some wonderful family time (except when Scott beat me in ping pong) :-)

Below I'm adding a song that I wrote to the tune of Christmas in Dixie called "Christmas in the Harbor"

Enjoy!

Enjoy the shout-outs to each of the family members in the song!

Here are the lyrics:

By now in Washington D.C., there's snow on the ground

And out in Arizona, the sunshine's falling down.

And maybe down in New Orleans, the Big Easy's all in lights.

And in Eugene Oregon, there's peace on earth tonight.

Christmas in the Harbor; it's sunning on the pines.

Merry Christmas from Gig Harbor, to everyone tonight.

You can visit Olympia, to see a shining tree.

Or travel north to Bellingham, where the snow might actually see.

And even up in Bellevue, is our family on a hill.

And in Clear Lake Washington, fried turkey's there to fill.

Christmas in the Harbor; it's sunning on the pines.

Merry Christmas from Gig Harbor, to everyone tonight.

It's windy in Yakima, everyone's out of school.

There's magic in Seattle, the city's on the move.

In Sand Point Idaho, to Charlotte Caroline',

And all across the nation, it's a peaceful Christmas time.

Christmas in the Harbor, it's sunning on the pines.

Merry Christmas from Gig Harbor, to everyone tonight.

Merry Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas Eve!

Our Christmas Eve was spent watching Blindside - amazing movie - eating way too much at the Melting Pot - amazing food - and singing Christmas carols to Lauren's piano playing

- amazing playing!

I would like to say amazing singing, but Bryan wonderfully belted out a favorite Christmas carol to teach us all a thing or two about singing.

Lauren so beautifully played the piano! Mom, Blitzen and Bryan decided to join in this harmony!

We ended the night with Dad reading us 'Twas the Night Before Christmas and the infamous Santa Cows before putting on White Christmas to fall asleep to!

Nothing like Christmas in the Berndt household! Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

In Case You're Wondering...

This is what the BEAST looks like now. He is getting quite big, but loved his Christmas present of a squeaky santa and a giant red and white bone candy cane.

The Winter Months

I know that from the repetitive hackling of my sister, a new blog updated is definitely in order. I apologize for the haphazard entering of updates, and will try to be more consistent in the posts. The last two months has had lots of ups and very few (if any) downs. The fall season came to a close with a trip to flagstaff... a friend who was in much need of visiting. My friends and I had a wonderful time frequenting the local eateries and pubs and enjoying the traditional "train shots" that one was "required" to take every time the train passed the local "Altitudes" bar.

Along with the plethora of trains frequenting Flagstaff, there were lots of TFA-ers learning to become better teachers... or at least that's why we tell ourselves we go to Flagstaff (although the trip away from the big city is very welcomed). Our trip to Northern Arizona was not complete without a flurry of snow during the day on Saturday and a VERY cold trek around the incredibly mountain city at night.

The weekend would not be complete without a wonderful trip to Cardinals stadium. ALthough the game started out in our honor (go Seahawks), it ended with me painfully walking out of the stadium with my hawk-tail between my legs. As I have learned, it is bad to gloat to a section full of Cardinal fans about the Seahawks 1st half lead...

You would think that the month of November would be over with such events, but alas, it was not. This was just one full weekend of many in the speedy month. The month was also filled with Mad-Mud Runs (a 4 mile run with obstacles) done in the honor of Christmas trees. Although we may have had ornaments painted on our shirts and stars topping our "happy birthday" hats, many at the race though we looked nothing like Christmas trees. Maybe next year we will try to be a Menorah. See for yourselves...

As if this weren't enough for the last two months, the month of December had lots to offer as well. From the Teach for America Christmas Party to my Second Annual Holiday Extravaganza... the festive cheer was all around us. The semester ended with two big projects in my 7th and 8th grade classes (volcanoes and egg drops) which luckily made me have to do very little teaching (hooray)!

As for now, we just finished watching Julie and Julia (which has subsequently inspired me to blog) and I'm at my parent's house in the Gig. My poor puppy ESPY is at a kennel in Phoenix (which I will be calling upon his well-being probably tomorrow). I look forward to lots of sleeping in, watching television and wonderful times with the family. Looking forward to a family Christmas but will miss Sarah and Devin as well as Brett, Georgette and Grace. Excited for a trip to Yakima to visit Sarah and a New Year's with my sis!

Looking into the new year, I was quite inspired by the movie tonight and trying to think of a way to move that concept into my own life. I am contemplating trying to make my own wine and try a "new bottle a week" type blog... but we'll see.

As for now, I'll sign off this blog and look forward to the days to come. Happy Holidays!

November... Whaaaaaa

November first seemed to come a bit quicker than I used to remember.  Right now I am watching the Cardinals loose to the Panthers (Bryan I'm

 sure is beaming)...  I may or may not be wearing my Kurt Warner jersey (but am semi-ashamed after two interceptions in the first half).  

The last week or so has been busy (per usual) but fun.  

Carving pumpkins was definitely a highlight.

I also enjoyed dressing ESPY in his various outfits during the dress-up season.

I too enjoyed dressing up on All Hallows Eve!  There were several superheroes at the party that I went to so here is the picture of the superheroes at the party.  I went to Colleen's house, so it was the main group, which is always very fun.

All in all, a pretty fun few days.  Unluckily for me, I didn't get an extra hour of sleep last night (because we are the Crazies in Arizona and consider ourselves exempt from such silly rules as changing our clocks twice a year - as Lauren and Bryan noted).

I could have really used the extra hour because I had a soccer game at 8am.  It was the first time in the last year (ish) that we haven't won... granted we tied the team, but it still was not a win.  We got a PK called on us for an unintentional handball in the box (LAME CALL), which allowed them to tie us with 3 minutes left.  I scored one goal, but am feeling a little out of shape (which hopefully I can start working on). :)  

Right now, I think its approximately 82 degrees out and I am sweating in my house right now.  I also think its getting a bit close to nap time (which I feel like I have been doing all morning) and maybe i'll get a bit of house cleaning done.  

I wish I could say that it was a beautiful fall day, but its too stinkin' hot - so it's more like a beautiful summer day (one that you would find in Seattle).  

Back to Reality

Settling in after a much-needed trip to Paradise has not been super easy, but... alas, I must.
I still haven't unpacked, I think I'm out of underwear and need to do laundry, and my house went from incredibly clean when my friend Susy was staying there to a modified pig sty when I came back. Goal of the weekend: wash some clothes.

Even though I have only had students since Tuesday, this week seems to have taken forever to get to Thursday. The Saturday after I got back I was SUPER productive and planned the next two weeks for all of my classes. So, I haven't had to bring my work home any night so far, which is not usual for me.

I went to the Lady Antebellum concert last night for FREE which was AMAZING. They sing the song "I Run to You," you should look it up if you don't know it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs38lKxmtI4 But, the only problem was that I treated my mid-week concert like a Friday evening (staying out til midnight, drinking $8 beers at the fair) and I am paying for it today. I feel like I haven't slept in 3 days and hadn't had a glass of water in 2 weeks. But, feeling better now luckily. I do plan on sleeping right after work until my soccer game tonight (at 8:30).

I think everything is going to be WAY better this quarter. My ASU professor doesn't seem like a Nazi and I really like the content in my 7th and 8th Grade classes. 7th grade is continental drift, plate tectonics, volcanoes, earthquakes, etc. I already showed them a video of Mt. St Helens :) 8th grade is speed, motion, newton's laws, etc.. Pretty fun!

So tonight is soccer, tomorrow is probably sleep :) (because I'm out of money and i'm tired), Saturday is a TFA meeting all morning (SUCKS) but oh well. I'm going to a presentation about staff opportunities in TFA, maybe i'll look into that... try and start up a TFA Seattle :) then soccer on Sunday - Sounds like a good few days.
I'm putting a few pictures from kauai on the bottom here, but I have a whole album on F-book and Picassa if you want to see more.

Rainbow on the last day... so beautiful. This is from Tara's dad's House

On the beach outside of the Hyatt

Waterfall that is in the beginning of Jurassic Park. This was after the 8 mile hike.

Me hiking on the Napali Coast

Napali Coast

Me and Tara

Wedding Site

Sunrise on the First day. Yes, i took this, it is not a postcard :)

Feels Like Fall

The weather is getting colder (mid 80s) and ESPY is playing with Halloween toys. Actually he is dismantling a Halloween Toy... See Video Below



About ready to leave for Kauai. I just have to make it through Tuesday and then I'm off for a week and a half. Although it is within reach, I have an obscene amount of work to do until then. I believe this is the hotel that Tara is getting married at...
And I realized you might not have even seen a picture of Tara so here is a picture of us:



And this is the hotel that I think I'm going to sleep on someone's couch at:


No Big Deal- This is where I am going to be in 5 days :) !!!!!
WAHOOOOOOOOOOO

Alright, well its time for me to pick up all the fluff and get started on my ASU work because this is what my living room looks like...

Copy Cat

Good job Lauren and Bryan, now you gave me another way to waste my time that I should be spending doing work! :)

This is actually kind of exciting. I can't wait to write about how crazy my students are or the fun things I did during the weekend.
I'm on the school computer, so I don't have any fun pictures, except one of ESPY (of course)

















But, believe it or not, he doesn't look like this anymore. Unfortunately, he tears up my toilet paper and eats my hair ties. Now, he's more like a lion, a hyena or wild dog, or some unknown beast (not quite rivaling the size of the Great Bruno though).




















Today he did not want to go into the bathroom (and I don't really blame him) and he went into his kennel. So, he has been in his kennel since 6:45 (I left for work late today)... it should be interesting when I get home... he definitely keeps me on my toes and always having to clean my place. Plus, he has quite a fascination for sprinklers as you can hopefully see in the video below.





Other than that, I am having my students write in their Journals right now. I created these journals/diaries that they write in every day for about 10 minutes. They can usually write about whatever they want, but sometimes I give them a prompt. Yesterday I had one girl write about how her brother was shot two days ago and he just passed away, her dad died about 3 weeks ago and two nights ago her house was raided and her mother and her sister's "baby daddy" as she called him were arrested... phew... these poor kids. Yikes. So I like these journals because they're getting a lot off their chest.

After school I think I'll try to get some ASU work done (I HATE ASU) and then Casey, Danielle, and I (all current or former LCK peeps) are going to the Vig (this wine/restaurant place with bocce ball outside) for a drink or two to unwind!

Time to get the kids started on a writing prompt...