Teacher Gifts: Dos and Don'ts

As many of you know, Heather just completed her first year teaching kindergarten English as a Second Language (ESL). Most of her students are recent immigrants ranging from all over the world, from Latin America to the Middle East to South East Asia. Such diversity is fertile soil for creating all sorts of "learning" moments for Heather. She learns about different cultures and countries all the time, and such experiences never fail to broaden her mind.
One such "learning" experience happened on the last day of school, which was last Tuesday (the 17th). As expected, on that day many of her kids brought her a gift to say thank you for being such a wonderful teacher. As most of the kids were leaving, one little boy (we'll call him Jeff) walked up to Heather all excited and handed her a small paper bag with tissue paper sprouting from the top.
"What's this, Jeff?" Heather asked excitedly. "Did you get me a gift?"
"You're going to like this, Mrs. W," Jeff responded, barely able to contain his excitement.
"Well let's see what's in here." And to Heather's great surprise, out popped two little lacy pairs of lingerie.
After blushing profusely and quickly slipping the undies back into the bag, Heather thought, "this must be some sort of mistake." Hoping for some explanation, she looked at Jeff, and then back to his mom, who was standing right behind him. Both faces wore sincere and expectant smiles. There was no embarrassment at all.
And that's when Heather had another "learning" moment. Apparently, in some Latin American cultures, lingerie is a great way to say "Thank you for educating my child this year." Sure beats apples and the assorted pack of smelly soaps, I say. More useful, too!

Another Great Weekend in Richmond

Three day weekends are great, especially when you live close enough to family to be able to visit over the holiday. For our Memorial Day weekend, Heather and I went to Richmond to visit Alyson, Nate, and the little munchkins.

We had a great time. We went to Monticello for one day (see our other blog entry below), Deep Run Park another, and then for our last day, we went to May Mount (sp?) Park and had a BBQ (with some excellent home-made ice cream. Thanks again, Sarena and Adam for the Christmas gift. We love home-made ice cream!).

Other than that, we swam a little in the pool, which was still pretty cold, played a little Mario Kart on the Wii, and played some games. Oh, I almost forgot, we also pretended to be pirates for a little while with Treyton. I can’t wait for him and Jake to get together this summer and be pirate buddies!

The pictures below tell most of the story for the weekend, but I did want to mention one quick thing. May Mount Park is part zoo, part gardens, part historical buildings, and part park. One of the animals that were on display there was two black bears. Normally at other zoos, one is lucky even to see the bears at all. These two black bears, however, were totally active, running all over their grounds, wrestling with each other, and playing in the pond. It was really fascinating to watch them up close being so active. At times, they wandered really close to the where we were, being only 10 or 15 feet away. It was really pretty cool.

Here's one of the active black bears.


The Italian rose garden


The Japanese garden (w/waterfall, which Trey loved, and Nate too!)






This tree branch is actually about 5 feet off the ground, which made Heather really nervous to stand on it, but...


Treyton was pretty excited to sit on it with Nate. We didn't get a good shot of it, but Trey even practiced his Tarzan call on this tree branch. It was pretty cute.


Heather and I had a rare moment when Trey cuddled up with us on the bamboo seat (not moving for at least a good 30 minutes; unheard of for that little ball of energy). We took turns telling kid jokes and busting up laughing together. It was pretty fun.


Here's a great shot of Jayci's new face. She does this all time; adorable, isn't it!

Monticello

So after Heather and I went with Alyson, Nate, Mandy, and Thomas to Thomas Jefferson’s old mansion, Monticello, we’ve decided that one of our life goals is to eventually own a large estate that we can pass on to our future generations. Our main thought for this is that we wished our ancestors, especially those who came to this country when it was still young, had had the foresight to claim a lot of land, build a mansion on it, and then keep it in the family so that we could have an inherited estate today. Since that obviously didn’t happen, Heather and I will just have to start the tradition ourselves!

Monticello is a good example of the type of estate we are looking for. At least it is in all aspects but one. The actual house itself was a lot smaller than I expected it to be. It almost didn’t seem to match the grounds, which were huge and really gorgeous. Luckily, it was spring when we went and so everything was in full bloom. Since the grounds are covered in flowers and a large garden dominates one side of the house, it made the air smell really nice. Besides the flowers, the grounds are peppered with all sorts of really unique and beautiful trees. Some of those trees were like nature’s jungle gym they were so perfect for little kids to play around on and climb. Plus, they added lots of shade to the whole surrounding area. Complimenting the amazing grounds was the spectacular view. Monticello, which is Italian for little mountain, is situated on top of a large hill overlooking the surrounding area. If anyone has been to Charlottesville before, then you know that it is a very verdant, lush area, so the view was spectacular. To me, this makes Monticello a good candidate for a future Heather and Todd estate.

Back to the house: it was very nice and ornate inside, and Jefferson had added all sorts of nifty gadgets and the like inside (some of which he invented, some of which he adopted from elsewhere). I did like how the all-weather tunnels underground connected the house with the two outer wings. My favorite aspect of the house were to the two studies which sat independent of the house on each wing, connected to the house by two very large and spacious decks. What a perfect place to study or just to think when the house is too noisy and busy. What’s more, they would be a perfect place to watch lightening or snowstorms.

All in all, Monticello was a great place to visit and we all had a great time.

Lots of Animals (24 April, 08)

At the end of April (over a month ago, I know. We’re not quick bloggers, in case you haven’t figured that out yet), Alyson, Nate, and the kids came up to visit for the weekend. It was a quick visit, but it was nice. We spent Saturday morning at the DC temple. That Saturday was scheduled to be Alyson and Nate’s temple day, so other families from their ward were also there. This worked out nice since the adults could take turns watching the kids in some rooms in the stake center next door while the other adults can go to the temple. So we spent part of the morning in the temple and the other part trying to keep an eye on 6-7 kids.

Afterward, we all, including another family of 5 that are neighbors and good friends of Alyson and Nate, went to the DC Zoo. Just a word of advice for those planning on going to the national zoo someday: it’s a nice zoo, but be sure to get there early, otherwise you will end up driving around for almost an hour like we did trying to find a parking spot. Not fun, especially for Nate and Alyson who had two little ones in the car. But the zoo itself was nice (and free). I definitely recommend going in the springtime when the caterpillars are out in abundance and can provide another source of free entertainment for the young at heart. J

Here are some pics for your enjoyment.

Cherry Blossom Parade

So for those of you who don't know, Heather is a HUGE parade fan. She loves parades like Japanese people love karaoke. So when a friend at work offered me two tickets to DC's annual cherry blossom parade, I jumped at it. And we were both glad I did.
It turns out that my friend's husband is on the organizing committee for the parade, and so we had awesome seats! We sat on the second row of bleachers right next to the filming crews of all the major networks, which means that when any of the performers in the parade go by, they would stop and perform right in front of us. Literally, five feet away. It was great!
The parade was two hours long and included lots of dance performances, a famous Disney channel kid star (kind of like Hannah Montana), the Sledge Sisters (who sang "We are family" and "It's raining men," which was perfect since it actually did start raining while she was singing), a guy who made it really far on American Idol last year, Miss America, and the stars of Sesame Street (Heather's favorite). There were also traditional Japanese drummers, gigantic balloons (including Garfield and Bob the builder), and marching bands, etc. It was pretty cool being that close to such a real, major parade. We had a great time.
Afterward, we went a few blocks and walked through the Japanese street festival, which ran most the length of Pennsylvania Ave. They had stands there selling really good Japanese food (Dad, you would've loved the chicked teriyaki). Also, they had a real Japanese girl rock band. It was almost cool, but not really.
One of our goals that day was to walk down to the Tidal Basin (around Jefferson Memorial) and see all the cherry blossoms. Well, for those who plan on doing this next year, the cherry blossoms pretty much all fall off by the time the parade comes around. Definitely go during the first week of the festival, otherwise they don't last long. Oh well, we still have next year!

Richmond 10K

Alright, so Heather and I have been less than attentive to our blog lately. Sorry to all those who kept checking it in hopes of recent updates and leave disappointed (I'm sure there were oodles of you!). But here we are; back for more action.
So, about a month ago (at least it feels that way) Heather and I spent the weekend down in beautiful Richmond with Alyson and Nate. Every year, Richmond has a huge 10k race in which around 30,000 people run. So Alyson, Nate, Mandy (Nate's sis), Thomas (her husband), Heather, and I all decided that with so many people running in a race, we're sure not to be last! So we signed up and ran it. It wasn't the best weather to run in, but it wasn't bad either. It sprinkled all morning long, which is great for running in, but then the temp dropped about 10 degrees after, which is not good when you're done running and soaked in sweat. But it was fun all the same. And I made my goal of running under 8 min miles. I clocked in at an average of 7:59 min miles (race officials clocks you and sends you these stats)! The important thing is that I beat out this one lady at the end who was running in front of me most of the race. Ha!
Here I have to give huge kudos to my amazing wife. I've been running pretty consistently for the past few months plus I play bball and indoor soccer fairly often. Heather, on the other hand, might run once a week at best (although she does get quite a workout being a kindergarten teacher, too). Originally her goal was only to walk about half the race. Well, she totally underestimated her iron will because she ran almost the entire race! And she was flying at the end of it. After the race when the rest of us were panting and trying to recover, Heather was still bouncing all over the place wanting to run more! My wife, she is an iron women!
Also that weekend, I discovered that I possess untapped musical abilities. Who would have guessed that I would be so great at the guitar! It's just like that movie, "August Rush." To let you know the depth of my new-found artistic ability, with only a few tries, I was able to easily beat most songs on easy on "Guitar Hero II: Legends of Rock." I even beat a few songs on medium. Maybe I should try my hand as a rock star.



The Before Shot


And the After Shot


Little Tarzan boy, Treyton


And adorable Jayci