Busy Busy Bees

Hola!

Well, I literally don't have any time to blog anymore. I had no idea how crazy life would get once everything started. I don't think I would be able to begin to give a summary of everything that has been going on, but I will mention a few things.

It's hard to explain our new jobs. It is exhausting, overwhelming and draining beyond measure but we also love it and know that it will be (and already is) very rewarding and meaningful work. I am teaching 2 sections of 7th grade English and 2sections of 8th grade English, meaning I will have about 120 kids (yikes). Mitchell is teaching middle school engineering, high school engineering, and one(surprise!) health education class, which is pretty funny. We will probably have some of the same kids because he is teaching 7th, 8th, and 9th grade. They gave a bunch of random teachers a section of health, and Mitchell happened to be one of them. He is also doing SAT tutoring and I am also doing the school newsletter. I have gotten to meet a few of my students already, which is really fun. I just love middle schoolers, they are hilarious.

We have to be at work at 7am (at the latest) everyday and we have been getting home around 6 or 6:30 each day. We usually wake up around 5am so that we can do things like walk Boomer and get ready for the day. In the evening, we take Boomer to the dog park and then do work until we go to bed. I know, not too exciting. We love going to the dog park here in Addison. It is really fun and we see the same people and dogs there every single night. Boomer is doing well after his emergency vet incident and seems to be loving his new home! He basically lays around and sleeps all day, what's new?

This week and next we have Summer Leadership Academy, which is basically 2 weeks where the kids come to school and we teach lots of lessons about school culture, leadership, school values, etc. It is exhausting but really empowering and exciting to get to know the kids before we start teaching content. Today the cutest little new 6th grader stood up in front of hundreds of people and said the school pledge that he had memorized the night before. I had to hold back tears! He also happens to be about four feet tall with a perfectly gelled combover and thick rimmed glasses, making it all the more cute. Also, Mitchell said that today in a class that he taught, one of the seniors came in and spent 10 minutes telling the new high schoolers how being at this school changed his life for the better. No one even asked for him to come in and do that, he just decided it was important for the new kids to know so he went from class to class. Mitchell was blown away by this kid's maturity and said it was really emotional to watch him do this. These are some small things that keep me going when I have days like today where I literally am so exhausted that I am getting sick!

Aside from work, we don't have much of a life these days. However, my dear friends Julie, Megan and Sara visited me last weekend and I had so much fun getting to see them. We had a great time sitting out on my porch talking for hours and catching up. Also, I get to see my friends Mary Rachel and Whitney on Monday, yay! We are going to visit another church in Dallas on Sunday, which we are excited about. Next week we also have meet the teacher night, which should be fun! I wish more than anything that I knew Spanish. The school has Rosetta Stone that teachers can use for free, so I may start teaching myself. I start doing more stuff for Teach For America and I also start my Alternative Certification Program (Texas Teaching Fellows) classes in the next week. TFA has some weekend and after school things I need to be at and my ACP classes will be once a week at night for 3 hours, which isn't too bad. I am trying not to think about it because I can't imagine having even more on my plate!

One thing I can say is that I am even more thankful than ever that Mitchell and I work together. It is the biggest blessing ever, and I didn't realize the extent of that until now. It is so nice that we know all of the same people and are doing the same things. I love driving together everyday, and not just because of the HOV lane, haha! It makes being gone so long and being so busy not bad at all because we are together. We don't see each other much, but we definitely see each other several times throughout the day. It is funny because this week there were still a few people that didn't know we were married and were shocked to find out. I guess that isn't a bad thing because we try to act professional and not like we are married. His office is in the high school area of the school and my office is in the middle school area in the English department office. The people at work are great. We are like one big family. Everyone is pretty much running at the speed of light all of the time, but we all have a great time together and are all good friends. A lot of people said to us that our real home would probably become our home away from home, and I am now starting to see how that will be true!

Life is crazy. All in all though, we love Dallas and are so glad to be here.

In Christ Alone,

Katherine