Twenty Eight
The spring of my twen
ty eighth year was a busy one. For our spring break we flew out to San Francisco to visit family and see the city. We had a great time doing a good combo of site seeing and spending some relaxing time. One of my favorite parts was how nice the weather was, the ride out to the Golden Gate Bridge, and the visit to the SFMOMA. We also had a spectacular day hiking in the Muir Woods and taking in the fantastic coast line. After about 4 days in the city, we drove out to Lake Tahoe with Jff's family and went skiing for a day in the Mountains. The amount of snow in that area was crazy and it was great skiing.
Back to school in the spring, things were not so rosy. In my now-former school district they were having a budget crisis, and although my position with the grant was secure, and they even offered to let me do it full time, teaching at the high school and doing the grant at the same time wouldn't work since I would have had to teach at the middle school. I instead decided to shorten my commute, try a different school district, and give up the grant work. In the end it was a good move, I would have hated to work on the grant full time- it was very lonely and sometimes discouraging work when I wasn't at one of the conferences, and I wouldn't have survived teaching middle school. I knew that changing schools meant crazy amounts of work, but I was so excited about not commuting.
Either way, that spring I flew out to Philadelphia to attend the Grant Conference and started to get excited about the possibilities. And although it was really sad to bid my students goodbye, and to leave some of my favorite colleagues behind: SSM, AT, MS, AH, I continued to privately consult for the school district for the entire summer. The first and last time I will ever be paid quite so nicely for my time, probably.
That spring my cousin Stephen got married in Evanston, IL. We had a great time walking every where that weekend, and especially by the lake. It was fun to see the whole family- and Grandma was even able to make it, although Uncle Don wasn't feeling up to it. I read a beautiful passage in their wedding.
In the beginning of the summer we were working like crazy to get Jff's house ready to sell. I have fond memories of the "spring fling" green he had thought was a good living room color, but sadly we had to cover it up with a neutral color- that 2 story wall in the living room was a *@%# to paint. We must have done a good job though, because his house sold within 5 days on the market. And although Jff had been living with me unofficially since sometime in March, he officially moved in that June.
The same weekend that all of Jff's friends where moving him into my/our house, I had flown out to meet DrMI for a girls' weekend in L.A.-just the two of us. She had been out there for work and so we stayed in the suburbs for a day or two and then the last night stayed in the city. We had a good time, the beach in Laguna, Hollywood, shopping, Huntington Beach, and just a lot of a other fun sights. DrMI had just gotten engaged and I remember there was a lot of discussion of her wedding ideas, and thinking that Jff and I would get engaged at some point soon.
Right when I returned home, Jff and I began packing for our 10
day trip out east. We stopped in IL- to see my Uncle Don, in MI- I remember playing frisbee with the DrMI and Husband in the park and then going for ice cream, then we drove through Canada- with a little border incident, to Niagara Falls, and then over to Massachusetts and up the coast to Acadia National Park in Maine. We camped for the three days we spent there and had a fabulous time. We left Maine for New Hampshire to get to Jff's family's reunion. That was a really fun weekend- I got to meet all of Jff's relatives I had heard so much about, and they were a lot of fun. And then on Saturday afternoon, in the rain, on a mountain overlooking a small, beautiful town in New Hampshire, Jff asked me to marry him (and I said yes).
A few days after returning from our trip out east, my Uncle Don died at the age of 63, so we traveled for the funeral. W
e had found out about 9 months prior to his dying that he had had lung cancer which spread to his back, then his bones, then his lymph nodes, and then finally his brain. I don't really know how to fully describe him other than he was my very favorite. He was the life of the party, so creative, so inventive, so fun, and so caring. He and I especially had been special buds ever since he had fed me too many raisins when taking care of me when I was little, and especially after the blaze-orange-hat- Christmas. He just always made me laugh. His funeral was a truly sad time for everyone. Here is a picture of me with all my cousins and Uncle Don.
That summer
we also made our first venture in the BWCA wilderness with our friends, the H-Hs. It was a really fun trip with beautiful weather and only one large mishap that led Mr. H-H to carry a canoe the equivalent of about 10 miles and all of us to become very dehydrated- enough to just drink water right from the lake with reckless abandon. Lots of good laughs and a good amount of swearing about packs and canoes occurred and Husbands comment, of "Nice fucking vacation" after he had thrown the canoe down on the trail was thoroughly enjoyed(and still is).
That fall I started at the new school. I don't know if I want to say much about this except, that it sucked. I worked my ass off, frequently cried that first semester, and swore I would never start at a new school again. It was like being the new kid, but worse. Second semester was better.
When I wasn't working on school stuff like a freak, we were planning a wedding for July, refinishing our kitchen, and Jff was taking 16 credits and writing his Master's thesis at school. In short, we didn't really have that much time to relax. Through all of that we managed still to have a okay time. In the fall we went to see K and SQ get married in Dubuque and had a fun car ride with LL. We also did little things around here, like going to our favorite state park (seen here with us in the tree). For spring break that year, we traveled down to see all of our relatives in Illinois- we made the Grandma and baby tour. We were also looking ahead to more traveling and to a quickly approaching wedding.
ty eighth year was a busy one. For our spring break we flew out to San Francisco to visit family and see the city. We had a great time doing a good combo of site seeing and spending some relaxing time. One of my favorite parts was how nice the weather was, the ride out to the Golden Gate Bridge, and the visit to the SFMOMA. We also had a spectacular day hiking in the Muir Woods and taking in the fantastic coast line. After about 4 days in the city, we drove out to Lake Tahoe with Jff's family and went skiing for a day in the Mountains. The amount of snow in that area was crazy and it was great skiing.Back to school in the spring, things were not so rosy. In my now-former school district they were having a budget crisis, and although my position with the grant was secure, and they even offered to let me do it full time, teaching at the high school and doing the grant at the same time wouldn't work since I would have had to teach at the middle school. I instead decided to shorten my commute, try a different school district, and give up the grant work. In the end it was a good move, I would have hated to work on the grant full time- it was very lonely and sometimes discouraging work when I wasn't at one of the conferences, and I wouldn't have survived teaching middle school. I knew that changing schools meant crazy amounts of work, but I was so excited about not commuting.
Either way, that spring I flew out to Philadelphia to attend the Grant Conference and started to get excited about the possibilities. And although it was really sad to bid my students goodbye, and to leave some of my favorite colleagues behind: SSM, AT, MS, AH, I continued to privately consult for the school district for the entire summer. The first and last time I will ever be paid quite so nicely for my time, probably.
That spring my cousin Stephen got married in Evanston, IL. We had a great time walking every where that weekend, and especially by the lake. It was fun to see the whole family- and Grandma was even able to make it, although Uncle Don wasn't feeling up to it. I read a beautiful passage in their wedding.
In the beginning of the summer we were working like crazy to get Jff's house ready to sell. I have fond memories of the "spring fling" green he had thought was a good living room color, but sadly we had to cover it up with a neutral color- that 2 story wall in the living room was a *@%# to paint. We must have done a good job though, because his house sold within 5 days on the market. And although Jff had been living with me unofficially since sometime in March, he officially moved in that June.
The same weekend that all of Jff's friends where moving him into my/our house, I had flown out to meet DrMI for a girls' weekend in L.A.-just the two of us. She had been out there for work and so we stayed in the suburbs for a day or two and then the last night stayed in the city. We had a good time, the beach in Laguna, Hollywood, shopping, Huntington Beach, and just a lot of a other fun sights. DrMI had just gotten engaged and I remember there was a lot of discussion of her wedding ideas, and thinking that Jff and I would get engaged at some point soon.
Right when I returned home, Jff and I began packing for our 10
day trip out east. We stopped in IL- to see my Uncle Don, in MI- I remember playing frisbee with the DrMI and Husband in the park and then going for ice cream, then we drove through Canada- with a little border incident, to Niagara Falls, and then over to Massachusetts and up the coast to Acadia National Park in Maine. We camped for the three days we spent there and had a fabulous time. We left Maine for New Hampshire to get to Jff's family's reunion. That was a really fun weekend- I got to meet all of Jff's relatives I had heard so much about, and they were a lot of fun. And then on Saturday afternoon, in the rain, on a mountain overlooking a small, beautiful town in New Hampshire, Jff asked me to marry him (and I said yes).A few days after returning from our trip out east, my Uncle Don died at the age of 63, so we traveled for the funeral. W
e had found out about 9 months prior to his dying that he had had lung cancer which spread to his back, then his bones, then his lymph nodes, and then finally his brain. I don't really know how to fully describe him other than he was my very favorite. He was the life of the party, so creative, so inventive, so fun, and so caring. He and I especially had been special buds ever since he had fed me too many raisins when taking care of me when I was little, and especially after the blaze-orange-hat- Christmas. He just always made me laugh. His funeral was a truly sad time for everyone. Here is a picture of me with all my cousins and Uncle Don.That summer
we also made our first venture in the BWCA wilderness with our friends, the H-Hs. It was a really fun trip with beautiful weather and only one large mishap that led Mr. H-H to carry a canoe the equivalent of about 10 miles and all of us to become very dehydrated- enough to just drink water right from the lake with reckless abandon. Lots of good laughs and a good amount of swearing about packs and canoes occurred and Husbands comment, of "Nice fucking vacation" after he had thrown the canoe down on the trail was thoroughly enjoyed(and still is).That fall I started at the new school. I don't know if I want to say much about this except, that it sucked. I worked my ass off, frequently cried that first semester, and swore I would never start at a new school again. It was like being the new kid, but worse. Second semester was better.
When I wasn't working on school stuff like a freak, we were planning a wedding for July, refinishing our kitchen, and Jff was taking 16 credits and writing his Master's thesis at school. In short, we didn't really have that much time to relax. Through all of that we managed still to have a okay time. In the fall we went to see K and SQ get married in Dubuque and had a fun car ride with LL. We also did little things around here, like going to our favorite state park (seen here with us in the tree). For spring break that year, we traveled down to see all of our relatives in Illinois- we made the Grandma and baby tour. We were also looking ahead to more traveling and to a quickly approaching wedding.
posted by KLOU | 3:22 PM
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