NCCS Orientation Training Started this week. I was dreading it, because it signaled the end of our first summer break together as a family of 4. But the minute I was in that room with all of those wonderful people yesterday…I got super excited. We have such a wonderful faculty this year, and I’m really glad to be working with all of them! The math teacher, who is Jesse’s age and got her MA from Pepperdine, finally permanently moved nearby (last year she basically lived out of a suitcase!), so hopefully we’ll see more of her. The new Bible teacher is also an alum from my brother Keith’s class, so I’m sure that will only add to the new faculty dynamic.
Overall, it was such a fun 12-ish weeks of Jesse not working (I worked, but only 5-6 hours/week with piano lessons). I realize how completely BLESSED we are to have so much time off together. I don’t know many families that get this blessing– 12 weeks a year of paid vacation! Not to mention 2 weeks off for Christmas, 2 weeks off for Easter, random Mondays…yeah, it ALMOST makes up for the lower salary base.
This summer, we were able to cram in quite a few things:
*Moving. Yeah, it technically happened 2 weeks before school got out, but since we moved things over from my parents’ house slowly, it still counts. Actually, not everything’s been moved yet, so…
*Day/Road Trips: 1. San Francisco to see the Folsoms, 2. Agoura Hills to see the Unruhs, Shelbys and Ben. Pictures will follow…someday…
* Camping at Big Sur: TOUGH with two kids under 2, but still fun. 3 nights, 4 days! Wow, did we honestly make it through that?
* Weekend Trip to Ventura with my family
* Made it to the beach and zoo around 3-4 times.
*Decorated our whole house: With the exception of G’s room/office, I’m ALMOST satisfied. That’s saying a lot, if you know me. I hope to take some pictures this week. This actually took a ton of time, as I made lots of things by hand with my new sewing machine (I realize the irony of that statement). We also had a lot of things to organize, since they’d been sitting in boxes for 9 months.
* Got into yoga! Seriously! It started out as me mercilessly teasing Jesse about trying it out, complete with jokes about buying him a girly yoga mat (the most manly color I could find was turquoise…hehe), finding menstrual cycle yoga on YouTube, finding STRIPPER YOGA at a local gym (I’m NOT EVEN KIDDING), asking if he’s stretched his ovaries yet today….and now, I like it too. It makes me feel super energized and flexible. Not to mention, it’s something that I can aspire to. Some of those crazy positions? They’re sick, I tell you. So super hard and impossible looking. They make me hurt just WATCHING the video.
* Finished TONS of TV shows we’ve been dying to catch up on. This may seem lazy, but we love lounging around in our pjs, drinking coffee, laughing at a funny show together. So far this summer ALONE we’ve watched: 2 seasons of Downtown Abbey, 2 seasons of Game of Thrones, all 7 seasons of How I Met Your Mother, seasons 5+6 of Dexter (OHMAGOSH!), season 2 of Sherlock, season 1 of United States of Tara, and countless other Netflix shows. Not to mention the Olympics and So You Think You Can Dance! Basically, since it’s hard to get out of the house with two babies that are always napping or sleeping, you have to stay in, so that explains some of the TV.
Since we hope to have a few more summers together as teachers, I’ve thought of a good plan for the future. We sort of followed it this year, but it will hold as a good rule of thumb so we don’t waste our summer (or, worse, FEEL like we wasted our summer! 🙂
June: Rest and rejuvenation. Whatever form this takes is okay, whether it be sleeping until noon (CHECK!) or watching lots of shows we didn’t have time for during the year. Basically, whatever we decide to spend time on is OK, and we don’t need to feel guilty or worry about doing anything productive if we don’t want.
July: Travel. During this month, we can make it a point to go camping, visit friends, visit a monastery (Jesse’s dying to go), take day trips, etc. Big Sur always falls within this month, so that helps.
August: Study and Prepare for the School Year. This will involve making lesson plans, reading the novels for the upcoming year, organizing school papers, etc. For me, this involved coming up with a cleaning schedule, a new budget based on our savings goals and my new salary (I’m now teaching 2 classes instead of 1, and organizing a few more things. It also meant buying a few professional clothes for myself, seeing as I haven’t bought any in almost 3 years!
Alrighty, it’s back to lesson planning for me!
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Jenny folsom says
It was so nice to read about your summer! Missed you guys not being here, but I’m still genuinely happy to hear that it was such a fun and relaxing break. Back to school time for me too 🙂