34.5 Weeks and Counting

So I haven't written in a while.  I don't know if I was subconsciously trying to not jinx this pregnancy or what, but it was not on purpose!  However, we are currently almost 35 weeks along and 37 weeks is technically considered term (though ask any NICU nurse and they'll tell you that it really kind of depends on the baby if that act full-term or not, so 37 weeks does not necessarily mean you are in the clear).

We have been quite busy over the last months!  So I will keep this pretty brief and focus on what is happening now, we'll start with pregnancy and baby prep.  Recently we went to a family reunion in South Dakota and I got to meet a lot of Ben's extended family that I had not had opportunity to meet before.  I also got to meet his cousin who has twins!  There were lots of little guys there about Samuel's size, so he had a great time hanging with them.

From the family perspective, it was an awesome trip!  We even stayed at my parents on the way out and got to see Ben's Grandma, which is always good too.  From the car ride perspective the trip was killer to my back!  Between being in the third trimester, the car ride and twisting to help Samuel with stuff, my back was pretty well screaming in pain by the time we got home...

So I went to the chiropractor.  I felt improvement after that, but it still hurt pretty bad.  So off I went to get a massage and boy did that make a difference!  Of course all of it has been helped by my husband, who has graciously been giving me nightly back rubs to attack the two spots that make it hurt.  He is such a loving husband, playing along with my pain so nicely.  I really don't know how to get to sleep without him rubbing my back.  And yet, he's gone to the National LCMS Convention and sleep has definitely not come easy!  I need my back rubber home again...  Oh, well, tomorrow I'm getting another massage so hopefully that will help me get to the end of the week a little better!

Please do not read my back pain story as complaining, because I am far from truly complaining about the back pain.  Yes, it is quite annoying and frustrating, but despite that my baby is growing.  Right now my baby staying inside and growing is vastly more important than the back pain I have been having.  So while it is not fun having back pain, I would take the back pain any day over a preemie.  So in a sense I am thankful for it because it means that my baby is still inside me and growing.

This baby is going to have a way more organized and better decorated room than Samuel ever had!  I suppose it helps that a) we have pretty much everything already and b) the baby hasn't been born yet!  If this baby can as early as Samuel we would have been equally disorganized!  Right now the baby has the crib all set up (no sheets on the mattress yet though, that shall be remedied soon though), a dresser (clothes aren't in it yet, but I am working on sorting them, yeah if we have a girl I'll probably end up pulling some of it out, but I'll put it all in for now for the little sizes, but there are bibs, burp cloths and swaddlers all ready to go), diapers are ready (we still have a pack or newborn and size 1 diapers from the baby showers for Samuel and I have all the newborn cloth diapers prepped, sorted and ready to go) and we have some decorations up with matching curtains.  I'll post photos once we get things a little more set, but we are getting really close!

Samuel is doing great!  He had a double ear infection in May and has one again, but otherwise he has been very healthy and keeps growing and learning new tricks.  He has become quite proficient at scootching on his butt and army crawling.  He has loved walking around, holding tightly onto our hands with both his hands and currently is getting more adventurous with walking the furniture.  I don't think he will meet my deadly of being a very able walker by the time the baby is born, but he is getting much closer.  I guess I will probably have to carry two babes around for a while...

Finally I have been working on lots of projects this summer and making slow progress on all of them.  The first one to finish is a photo book I am making for my Grandma's 90th birthday!  We are unfortunately going to miss out on the party as it is soo close to our due date, but maybe we'll give her a great-grandchild for her birthday instead!

I am also working on curriculum for the two classes I am teaching with the Wittenburg Academy.  This is a classical Lutheran online high school.  This next school year will be our second school year.  We learned a lot from the first school year I think.  We know more about things to avoid and things that are really good to do in that environment.  I will be teaching German I and German II this next school year during the Christmas Term and Easter Term.  Originally I was going to teach during the Michaelmas Term, but with baby coming about the time that term starts, I decided to opt out of that term.  So only 2 levels of German this year, hopefully next year we can add German III.  The faculty and staff recently had a retreat in conjunction with the Consortium on Classical Lutheran Education's Conference.  Unfortunately I was unable to attend physically, but was able to join some of the sessions virtually.  We talked about a lot of great stuff and I cannot wait to use some of the resources they pointed us to as I prepare my courses.

With all of this going on Ben has been quite busy too!  He spent a week at guard training in June.  It was quite entertaining when he came home.  Samuel I think was afraid he was going to leave him again, so every time Ben left his site, he freaked out, even if he just left his sight for a few seconds.  Then Ben brought some youth from our Church to the National Youth Gathering at the beginning of this month, came home and got VBS ready and had VBS and now is gone to the National LCMS Convention.  I have not seen nearly enough of my husband!  I am excited for him to be home soon, there is only 1 guard drill between now and our due date, so I will hopefully be seeing much more of him!

I'll just leave you with, we are getting excited about the baby's arrival (though it is not time for baby to come yet) and we are keeping quite busy with all our activities and jobs!

Much Has Happened

I haven't written since the very end of June and a lot has happened!  Some of the highlights have been that my husband and I went to D.C. on vacation.  My Mom, Dad and little brother came and participated in a 5K or 8K with us.  We had VBS at Church (I helped with the little kids drama).  Oh and I started a new job!

I really want to focus on that last point in this post, hopefully I can also post pictures of our D.C. trip at some point in the near future.  As for the race, I couldn't run it, I had to walk it because my knees are still bothering me...

So I got a job teaching Spanish III and IV at a private school.  As many of you know I wasn't planning on applying for teaching jobs.  It's amazing how things can change and how quickly those things can change.  Someone I know also works there and when one of their Spanish teachers resigned in July so came to me to ask me to apply, but I didn't want to.  So she came to me again to ask me to apply.  The more I got thinking about it the more encouraged I was to apply.  Here are two reasons of my I decided to apply after all:

• The school is a much smaller school than where I student taught.  I think I felt lost there because I come from an extremely small school background (in fact both schools I attended growing up were K-12 and both have been consolidated with other schools, due to how small they were, after I was there).  My schools always had 100-200 students in the entire K-12 facility and I student taught in a school that has more like 1400 students in the high school alone...  The school I am currently teaching at is a K-12 building (though much larger than any that I attended growing up) with less than 1000 students in the entire building.  Still many times the size I ever attended, but not nearly so large either!

• I also applied because I knew there would be another Spanish teacher there.  I wouldn't be left on my own at the school trying to figure out all 4 levels of Spanish out by myself.  I teach levels III and IV and our Spanish I and II teacher actually used to teach III and IV and she seems to be a wonderful teacher.  I am excited to be able to work with her!

Yes, there were other reasons I decided to apply, but here are two of the bigger ones.  Needless to say I applied and then got the job (exactly 3 weeks before kids would start school).  About a week after getting the job we left for D.C for a week and a half, then I came home and went straight into teacher in-service (that was almost 2 weeks ago now).

The first two weeks there have been extremely busy, but good.  Now we all could have appreciated having air conditioning several of those days, but we all made it through that.  Just pray for cooler weather so I don't feel like I'm melting!  :-)  The kids overall seem to be responding well to me and I do enjoy my students.  You probably won't find me writing in too much detail about my job here, but I wanted to at least let you know I have it and that I am enjoying it.  Though it is definitely not what I saw myself doing at this point, it is proving to be a good adventure (as all of life is an adventure).

Pray for me that I can teach these high school students to the best of my ability with keeping their needs in mind!