oregon or bust!

in about 2 days we are taking our first official "ROAD TRIP!"
all the way from san jo to lincoln city, or. the best part is we will be driving along the coast for most of the way, right on highway 101. stoked!
any advice for passing the time on road trips? we are armed with tons of music, books on tape, and of course we can fall back on annoying sing-along songs if we're real desperate.

we will be staying right on the beach in lincoln city, which is what i'm looking forward to most. falling asleep to the sound of waves on sand. yes!

Brett's Big 26th

Birthday Time!
for Brett's b-day, we went to monterey. it was a beautiful, warm! weekend there, and we had a hotel right on the warf. niiiiice...
that night, we had a bunch of our friends from byuh over (who are all in the accounting profession as well --- oh, gotta love san jo.) and they celebrated with us.
some of them are moving away now. bye april & jay-hawk! we will miss them...

brett gets excited every time we see seals. there are tons in monterey - and they're cute and little.

i think this was brett's favorite part - we saw sea otters! this one is feasting on a crab.

the awesome monterey bay aquarium.

brett agreed to trade birthdays with me this year, so he is turning 29, and i am going to turn 26 in nov. hey, a girl can dream, right?

Last day o' school!

It's party time! Last friday was our official last day of school. These are a bunch of my students, playing during lunch. This is their favorite hobby - soccer! They're pretty dang good too!

Above is one of the students that I met with regularly after school. I was determined to make sure she passed, and she did! I love this girl.
These are some of my wonderful students. I'm going to miss them. It took so long to be at a point where we could trust each other and learn together, and now they're moving on! I'm sad to start all over again next year with a new bunch of 9th graders...

2 YEARS

Monday was our 2 Year Anniversary.
This was my gift to Brett - one of my students did it for us.


Ever since Brett lived in Brooklyn, he has really loved the art of graffiti.
This piece is a canvas, 2ft by 3 ft.
It looks great in our house. One big bonus of teaching city kids.

Big Sur Weekend

big sur is amazing. we spent our day yesterday exploring its amazing coast line. dang, the ocean is so beautiful here, but nothing like hawaii... in hawaii, the water beckons you to come and play. here, it says "respect me, or die"

this has got to be the ultimate playland... it's too bad this beach is restricted from public access. brett and i were almost drooling as we looked at it from above:

isn't this an awesome shot? brett's masterwork:

it is also SO COLD at the california coast!