Remembering August 7th, 2009

During our dating years, we would take turns planning date nights. August 2009 was Eric's month and he cooked dinner for me. As always, I like to put my hair up before I eat, so I ran upstairs to get a hair tie... and Eric followed me. I thought that was odd, but then as I entered my room... Eric's huge computer screen was set up on my desk, with the words "click me". So I sat down and watched the most beautiful montage of our dating life. At the end were the words I had been anxiously awaiting and a handsome man knelt on one knee behind me holding the best present I've ever received!

I can understand why he wanted me to go to my room after we ate dinner.... I was too excited to eat! So instead, we picked up a bottle of champagne and headed up to the boat where my family was and celebrated at the dock!

The cork flew into the water, so my uncle jumped into the dingy to save it!

The saddest thing about our wedding day was the technical difficulties with the engagement slideshow not playing all the way through. So this is my simple way of sharing our special day with everyone. Sorry it's not a video, I'm not technically savvy and didn't know how to put it in! Click play on the youtube video while you click through the slides. That's what was playing in the background while I watched.

Eric and Donna Wedding Slideshow

More PowerPoint presentations from Donna

From teacher to student

This past spring, my wonderful friend Jamie informed me of a graduate fellowship program at Merrimack College. It's basically free grad school for my services as a student teacher for one year. Not a bad gig! So I applied and got in! The timing was perfect! Eric got offered the job at Noise Control right before I received my acceptance. God had it all planned out, knowing I would have had to decline if Eric didn't have a job, considering there is no pay stipend for me. It's a one year program. I take classes July-May and will be student teaching in Haverhill Sept.-June. And in May, I will have my Masters in English as a Second Language! I am so excited because I know this will open doors for me in the future.

I started my first class this week.. It's called A Successful and Positive Classroom. The professor is fantastic! She is a fourth grade teacher in Westford and is such a wonderful example of what a good teacher really is. She is very practical and knowledgeable and I am looking forward to learning from her. I also love the book she uses. It's called The First Days of School: How to be an Effective Teacher. It's awesome! I recommend it to any and every teacher out there! So far, I've read about the effect high expectations have on children and how to set up a classroom that guarantees success and promotes high self-esteem. 

Along with life updates, I will also be blogging about what I've learned. Hopefully it is beneficial to you, but it is more of way for me to connect and think through the freshly learned material. 

1. Teachers should be the thermostat, not the thermometer. As a teacher, you have the choice to set the tone or react to that of the students. 

2. Always use please and thank you when speaking to kids. People who neglect to say please to children are teaching them that it is okay to bark orders and ignore the dignity of others.

3. Student success is limited by adult expectations. 

Our Business

Ours is not the business of producing doctors,

or lawyers, or teachers, or nurses,

or scientists, or policemen, or sales people,

or factory workers - or higher test scores.

Ours is the business of producing smiles on young faces, 

happiness in young hearts, and dreams in young minds.

The rest will take care of itself.

Top 10 of the past 4

It's been four months since my last post...here's a quick recap.  

1. We celebrated our 1 year anniversary...

in Prague!

2. Eric graduated with his masters in engineering in May! 

3. ERIC GOT A JOB! He is now working at Noise Control Engineering in Billerica and LOVES it! 

 4. Not necessarily a "top" lister, but it is a joy knowing mom is now in heaven with papa.

5. I received a fellowship and will be getting my Masters in ESL at Merrimack. 

(I will be taking classes at night and student teaching for the school year in Haverhill.)

6. We had an amazing trip to Europe!

7. We are expecting our sixth niece or nephew in November! 

(Congrats to Sandra and Dave!)

8. I finished up my second and final year as the second grade teacher at Mount Hope. 

(It was a fun ending to a great year! I am going to miss my students a lot!)

9. We re-signed our lease. 

(It was the right decision - Eric's job is 5 minutes away and my commute is about 25 minutes against traffic.) 

10. Loving my new summer venture as a tutor.

March Madness

No, I am not posting about basketball. But we did have quite the March.

After deciding to not live in the city or near the beach, I proposed an idea to Eric.  Just because we live in the suburbs doesn't mean we can't do exciting things! So I came up with a motto... An Adventure a Weekend! My goal is to do something out of the ordinary once during every weekend. Whether it be bowling with friends, dinner out on the town, or just taking a walk along a bike path, whatever it is, it has to get us out of our apartment. We need to embrace the time we have together and not take any moment for granted!

I would say we definitely accomplished my goal for the month of March!

The first week in March we lived as home and dog owners. We house/dog sat for some friends. We lived in Bedford and drove an SUV for a week! We also ate at some of the local restaurants and enjoyed a week of cable and DVR. We were livin the high life!

Meet our borrowed dog - Diego.

The second week of March, Eric went to San Diego to present his paper at a conference. He experienced more adventure than I did that week, but I lived vicariously through him, so it counts. I also slept over at my parents', which was a nice change of scenery.

Eric sent me flowers while he was away! Isn't he the sweetest?!

A real thrilling adventure was going out to eat at 9:00 in Boston on a Wednesday! It was restaurant week, so we lived it up and went to the Oak Room at the Fairmont Copley Plaza. It was fun getting dressed up and being treated like VIPs. My uncle arranged to surprise us with a bottle of wine when we got there! It was so nice. It felt good to slow down for the night and talk. With everything going on in our lives, we have a lot to talk about but very little time to talk.

The weekend of the 18th, we went up to Loon with my family. We all stayed at a condo... yes, 14 of us in a one bedroom condo with a loft. It was a lot of fun! Eric and I went skiing on Friday. It was the perfect day! We were skiing without layers and got sunburns! We took Isaac and Caleb which was so entertaining! They are great skiers! We swam, played the marble game, watched movies, and laughed. A lot.

The last weekend in March we went to Kittery to hang out with Eric's sister, Liz, and brother-in-law, Pete. They cooked us a delicious lunch and then we practically stole clothes at the outlets! We ended the night at a cool music festival.

I think I'm going to like this new goal of ours. It's working so far! Next month will be quite the adventure! We're going to Europe for 2 weeks!

Piece by piece

So I've been doing a lot of thinking as the deadlines have been approaching, Eric is graduating in May, his thesis is due in a few weeks, he's applying for jobs, I am considering a transition, our lease was up, and the thought of moving out of state was on the table. It's all so overwhelming! But God is in control. We are taking care of everything piece by piece.

1. Without any job offers, we decided to sign another year of our lease. This was a hard decision because our rent increased, we didn't know where we'd be working next year, and I had this urge to move someplace where I didn't have to get in my car and drive everywhere. We thought about living in the city. We thought a beach would be nice. But... we decided to stay where we are. It's convenient. It's cheaper than the city. And most importantly, it's within an hour from every single member of our family. We chose not to leave the most important people in our lives. So we're here in Billerica for another year!

2. Eric's thesis is almost done!

3. Eric got a job offer. He has to decide by Friday. (It's looking good!)

4. I have started to apply to grad. school. I'd like to get my masters in either reading or teaching English. I am also taking an online class to get my certification in teaching English. I have until August to finish it.

It's amazing how everything is working out.  Listen to this... At one point Eric said, "Worst case scenario, you take someone else to Europe". He was scared that he'd have to defend on one of the dates that we were going to be away. I said that there is no way that I would be on our vacation while he was home defending his thesis! And guess what?! I get to bring my husband with me!  Eric's thesis is due April 13th. We leave for our trip on April 14th. He gets to choose the date that he defends it and then the final draft isn't due until May. God is good.