Back from Ba...ba....ba...Bar...celona (must be sung to my Shirona sp?) :) Anyway...The kids came back today. It was great to see them. Two of the coolest things...1. What did you do over break kids??? "Switzerland, Disney World, Rome and saw the Colusseum, Paris, Prague, went home to Poland, England, ..." Sounds fun kids... I went to Barcelona and had a great time too. "Oh yeah it's so great there Mrs. Cooley. Did you like the aquarium and the cool Gaudi stuff?"
#2. Got to paint with my kids. Yes Irwin Kurrs, we used glue, markers, colored paper and painted for a WHOLE HOUR!!!! I even think a few kids got scissors out! We drew paintings of myths we've been studying. We looked at famous paintings on our smart board and studied artists styles, took a field trip down the hall to see the representation of year 6 aboriginal art. We used different colors to represent our feelings, we listened to lovely classical music while we did it and we laughed and were normal, creative, healthy people full of smiles. We got it all over our hands, our clothes, even in our hair. We happily splattered it on our desks and acted like the lovely children we are made to be.
It's so great to see what teaching is meant to be. Sadly for us, the guidance isn't where it needs to be. Someone said today "It's the blind leading the blind." Higher up isn't informing us of what's going on with some programs and we aren't sure what to do about some teaching things. And neither are other teachers. Thankfully, the upper school has banded together and we've just started making decisions, unifed decisions ourselves. Support is good. We've all started saying the serenity prayer alot. "Give me the ability to accept the things I can not change...."
Life here continues to go well but yet be a struggle. We feel like sometimes we've been waiting for Matt to graduate, waiting to move and to change so we can start life... yet now we've realized we started a long time ago and we've been living it all along. Now we really feel like we've put it on hold. The house... the family...mostly for Matt the dog....Harry Winz where are you????
Our families...the things we love about home...Meijer, Culvers, the beach, and beauty of the state we've been blessed to grow up in.
Being in Barcelona we had a great time. We spent the last few days at the beach, the Guadi park, enjoying the beautiful musical fountains. We loved it all...but we realized, is it so different from Paris...New York...Chicago... couldn't we be traveling and seeing just as cool of things in the US? Going out West, back to NY, down to DC or Floridia where we can travel and visit friends. Where we can view the Grand Canyon, the silent deserts, the palm trees on the ocean. Even just a trip to the UP or a weekend at a family cottage...wouldn't those vacations be enough? And you know what, I think they would.
It's not that we haven't always been greatful for what we've had and all we've been blessed with. It's not that we didn't realize it was there and there weren't great opportunities all around us, we knew that. But sometimes I think we just forget it, all of us. How lucky we are to live close to family, or love the nature you live in. We take the simple things for granted and become jealous of the extravagant things. I read other friends blogs of postings and think oh my gosh their trick or treating with their kids or ooh a day at the pumpkin patch...maybe just an afternoon walking the dog and I think that sounds nice. While others think ahh Barcelona, NL ahhh.... it's so true isn't it.... the grass is always greener....
All that said, we ARE happy here. We've done a great job over the break realizing a lot. Spending time together, talking and realizing it's time to leave school at school. This makes nights at home and weekends much better. It's nice to be a married couple at home and not colleagues still. We've been invited to our first wedding! Friends from church. In January. We're going out again this weekend with Suzanne and Mathew and another teacher Lily-Anne and her husband. Matt's teaching partner is back and this makes the team work great again. We both feel better and I know Matt is less stressed having Audrey around. Christina will be here in weeks and we can't wait to just get to spend time the three of us! And show her our life her. Then travel home for Chistmas. Yes, even here too it's began. The decorations are going up. Trees already in stores. I'm not sure if the music has begun on the radio but the kids are singing the songs at school. I even saw Matt looking at the Christmas music on I-tunes and earlier I asked to watch Love Actually, our favorite Christmas movie.
All right... enough for one night. Matt's been playing guitar...helped me be reflective... :) Enjoy the fall night...we're enjoying the light rain we can hear on the roof....ahhh....time to jump into heavy down comforters.....Grace and Peace.
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