Blurry April

Things got a little crazy-busy there for a while. I entirely missed my monthly post to our blog, and Jonah turning 6 months. I remember month 5, and he's 7 months now... Jonah morphing from a cute little blob to his very active little self (rolling both ways, creeping, and wiggling constantly) is a blur... where did the time go?

Easter was fun. We went to Damon and Heidi's, and Damon's folks got little E-baskets with stuffed animals for both boys. It was nice to pray, eat, and celebrate with friends. We have some cute Easter footage, but our internet is too slow to upload it for you, so you'll just have to wait, I guess.
Well, spring is finally in the air a bit. We had new snow in the beginning of May, so we're not holding our breath for warm summer breezes, but Jake is starting to wear shorts, and there's a lot of open water across Norton Sound, so the river ice is bound to break up soon. (Thank goodness. We are SO ready for a boat ride.)
Jake's finals for his classes were last week, and of course the end of the year is always busy for his job too. We've both been sleep deprived, but doing fine other than that.

Daniel went to "ECE Roundup" this week to see his classroom for next year and officially meet his teacher (our current next-door neighbor) and his classmates. He's excited to go to school.
We are SO excited that we'll be seeing many of you shortly!!! And GO Mariners! (Not that any Mariners read our blog... but we're excited to come see a game again.)

Bodie is definitely part of the family now. He has shown his true colors (like sneaking food off the table, licking Jonah on the head, being HYPER [and a little weird, but cool] whenever we let him in or out, and barking or growling every once in a while). He's also developing attachment to us... friendly to everyone he meets, but protective of us in a good way, and he whimpers whenever one of us leaves. The few nights we were all gone on the emergency trip into Anchorage/Fairbanks while Redoubt was blowing, Bodie spent all night howling (which we've never heard him do), refused to eat anything, and shed like crazy. Within 10 minutes of our being home, he laid down in front of his bowl and ate every bite, and the shedding got better within a few days even though the weather was still warming up.
My cousin Karrie's daughter Nikki did a Flat Stanley project for her class in Deer Park, and so Jake and I showed her friend around UNK town. This is Karis, Me, and Adrianna posing with "Flat Nikki" for the project we sent.
My music students did well at regional festival in Bethel and qualified for state again this year, so I'm in Anchorage for State Festival right now. I'll be missing commencement ceremony for the class I've been with since they were 7th graders (and am their class advisor), so I'm sad about that... but my music students deserve to be here. We return the Sunday (before the last week of school), and then I'm packing up my entire music room because it's going to be bulldozed along with the gym and weight room to make way for our new HS. (My English room will be bulldozed too, but not until Dec. or whenever the 1st half of the rebuild is complete, so I don't have to move that yet.) My new room will also be a similarly appalling shape to what I have now (something like a bowling alley), but should be almost 2x longer than my current room, so I'm planning to use it for English as well, and still have enough space for instrument storage, a piano lab set-up, and movement lessons primary classes.

We just found out we're moving into Rick and Tiff Holt's old place, which we're excited about! And since we're going to have a little more elbow room, we finally said yes to the other catahoula owner in Anchorage, and we're adopting Molly. I'm actually planning to bring her back on the plane with me on Sunday when we return from our state trip. So Bodie has a playmate coming. Woo-hoo!

My Unalakleet concert went. It always does. There were some nice spots, but overall, I am consistently and thoroughly disappointed with our productions. Part of the problem is the acoustics are horrible and no one can hear even with a sound system and nice condenser mics. Part of the problem is that I only see 1st-8th graders for 40 min 1/wk, several of whom are sharing instruments and never practice. Part of the problem is that my name and students are attached to the entire program, and there are 3-6 other people in charge of over half the concert--none of whom have as high of expectations as I do for what a concert should look or sound like. There are actually lots of other problems, but I'm only going for the mini-series version here. At the end of the concert, my principal announced my recent award, "Region 1 Music Teacher of the Year", and although it was nice of him to acknowledge all the work I do, it felt like a big joke after everyone had to sit through 90 min of music, at least 1/2 of which was audial torture. My potential as a music teacher was recognized by several people during my student teaching and practicum, and I probably could have landed a position in Dist. 81 right out of college. I consistently help my students in UNK rise above multiple disadvantages of our circumstances, but our JOINT school concerts are a pain to organize, and are rarely pleasurable to listen to. It is hard not to be disheartened when my efforts don't produce results anywhere close to expectations. Oh, and then, my only groups who DO meet expectations (sometimes) are my HS classes who I get to see 4x/wk... and generally half the audience has left the joint concerts before those students even start performing. So out of about 20 performances, there are maybe 5 that I feel proud of, and a lot of people don't even stay to hear them. Okay... done venting. On a happy note, Adrianna french-braided my hair for the concert. :-) Maybe it's just the end-of-yr blues talking. After all, I'm at state festival, and my kiddos here are going to do well and have fun. Hopefully, I didn't offend any readers with this paragraph. But after all, it's my blog, and if you're here reading it, then I'm hoping you love me enough not to take anything personally. I am just frustrated. Teaching English full-time is very appealing, especially every concert season.

More later. It is already tomorrow, and I need to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in the morning.

Love you all. Take Care.

Janelle