Summer Adventures

To say we've been busy is an understatement. We have been all over the place.  After spending some time in the States, it has been brought to my attention that people actually read this blog...lots of people! I apologize for my 8 month hibernation as I now know it has upset a few of you.  I will try and recap some of the big things that have happened over the past few months at least.  

We've had several trips and visitors since January, my last post.  We were lucky to have Jess and Stefan come back, and Maggie and Greg joined them.  Dr. Conti and Cade came down for a week.  And we traveled to Colombia with our good friends here, Beth & Ryan.  All of these events, however, need their own post, so those will need to come later.  

A couple random things that happened before the end of the school year: I turned 31....not as cool as turning 30, but still a cause for a party - a bloody mary bar; a scavenger hunt around Panama City - super fun, and sweaty; and the University of Puget Sound was represented at the International School of Panama - pretty cool. The admissions recruiter is a friend and teammate from college, Janece!  Super random but awesome. 

Birthday Bloody Mary Bar - Thank Alissa! 

My scavenger hunt partner, Skelly! 

We claim we won the hunt....others disagree. 

UPS at ISP

The end of last school year marked the end of our initial 2 year contract in Panama.  If you remember, we came into Panama with a big group of about 25 people or so.  A couple people left early, but most of us finished all two years.....and it flew by.  Unfortunately, many of our good friends we came in with decided two years was enough and moved on to other adventures.  We had lots of big parties toward the end of the year, including a Pana-Wedding for Beth & Ryan (their real wedding is in Nashville in October).  On the last teacher day of school, a few of us popped some champagne in my room to say goodbye and have one last laugh (and cry) together.

 For the summer, we spent 5 weeks visiting our friends and family.  We started in California – Valley Springs, Los Gatos, and Tahoe, then headed to Reno for Jenni and Matt’s wedding, spent a few days in Auburn with my family, flew to Boise for a long weekend to see our friends there and check in with Bailey The Dog, then headed up to Seattle and spent about 3 weeks there.  It was crazy, awesome, and exhausting.  We were able to see most of the people we wanted to see, but not all, and definitely didn’t get to spend enough time with everyone.  It was a memorable summer, to say the least.  

Lake Tahoe with my mom

Matt & Jenni's first dance 

Matt dancing with his stepdaughters, the adorable Maya and Madelyn

The Daileys came to town!

The best :)

We bought some camping hammocks for our tropical adventures - thanks Fishers!! 

I think Stefan is in there....

We are most thankful for all the time we got to spend with Daniel.  Since he had just moved home and was prepping to start business school, we were able to spend lots of late nights chatting on the deck, went hiking and running together, went to some movies, and laughed a lot together.  We will treasure that time with him forever.

When we got back to Panama, I started work pretty much right away with a class I was taking with some other teachers.  On my first day back, my principal called me into her office and told me the 8^th grade Algebra position was open and since they knew I was hoping to make a move to Middle School Math at some point, they offered me the position….a week before school started. Yikes!  I was pretty blown away by the offer but decided this was a great opportunity to get into middle school, so I took it.  It’s been busy trying to transition my brain from teaching everything in 4^th grade to 22 students, to teaching only Algebra to about 90 students.  So far I’m liking it and think it might be a permanent change! We’ll see how it all goes. 

Also, we welcomed another nephew to the family - Lawson!  Congrats Goddards! 

Many of you already know this, but Alex is working in Alaska for a few months.  Our friend Travis is the project manager on a job up there, building a hydroelectric dam, and he asked Alex if wanted to come work for a few months.  We hesitated for a bit about it, but then decided it was a great opportunity for Alex.  So, he’s been up there for almost 2 weeks now, and will work until winter takes over and they can no longer get anything done – hopefully by November.  

Alex's job site in Valdez, Alaska

He got to take a helicopter ride the other day!

With the extra cash, we are planning on spending our Christmas and New Years in Argentina and Chile, backpacking through Patagonia and of course stopping off at the wine country for a few days.  Stay tuned!