Christmas Decor

We Got a Tree!

December is upon us, (has been for a while!) so I decided that it's time to start decorating. Phil and I found a tree at Macro and after a few minutes of debating it was ours. This was the first time I bought a tree and I'm quite pleased with my choice. Last night we had a little "tree party" and put up and decorated the tree, while most everyone else was in bed. We wanted it to be a surprise! No one knew we bought a tree and they thought we'd go without one this year. Here are a few pictures of our little tree "fete".

Everyone diligently arranging the branches.

Trying to sort out the tangle of lights. We only had 3 sets; one would blink, and the other 2 had the lights bunched on one line. It was a mission to figure out how they would go on the tree.

Phil is trying to fix one set of lights so it wouldn't blink. It took at least 1/2 hour.

Ta-da! The finished product. Do you like it? I'm quite pleased with it and I may say so as most of the praise and glory belongs to Ella and Phil. We'll try to find a star next time we go out. But for now it's going to be angels announcing the birth of Christ.

A lovely glass bauble. We don't have any kids in the house so it's pretty safe.

The lights look okay after all!

Dream Big

Step Ahead is an Early Childhood Development Seminar developed and conducted by Focus on Action, a South African based organization.
The goal of the Step Ahead program is to provide training to assist parents, teachers, and caregivers in becoming proficient educators thus helping to maximize the child's potential even before the years of formal education.

Topics covered in course material:
Childhood Development
Motor Skills Development
Vision and Motivation in Teaching
Behavior Management
Learning Through Play
Early Reading
Building General Knowledge
Pre-Writing Skills
Communication Skills


This is the awesome project I get to work on! Since I got into teaching it has been my dream to have seminars where I could teach parents and teachers all that I had learned. Teaching is like a never ending journey full of excitement, accomplishments, and sometimes setbacks. I do miss it at times. But with Step Ahead I'll get to teach again, and this time to adults! There is still work to be done, a few tweaks to make, so we hope to start giving seminars March 2011. I am so happy that I get to do something I love and believe in. Every time I see a child lacking love, attention, and proper care it hurts. I wish I could take that child and give him everything I know he deserves. I'm just one person though and I know that by myself I'll hardly make a dent in the sea of neglected children. But if I could educate the parents and teachers then they could make a lasting difference the lives of their children and students.--and that is my dream.

You Make Me Smile

It's the first day of December and I'm excited. It's a new month a good time for a new start. Or put in the words of Michael Buble "It's a new dawn, a new day, a new life....and I'm feeling good!" One really cool thing about Christmas is that this will be my first with Phil. That thought makes me smile. What makes you smile?

Life Coaching & Let's Live Seminars

This month has been crazy hectic ( seems to be a trend lately...). I've only had one day-off and most of it was spent sleeping. Most people don't understand my need for sleep, and lots of it, but I just try to explain that since I'm so short I've got a lot of growing left to do. Of course this produces the usual bulging eyeballs and the "uh-oh this one's crazy" look.
Well I'm sure you've seen on my Facebook page that I'm a Junior Life Coach now.....!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, I'm pretty excited about it. Life coaching is something I've been interested in for a long time now. I know I still have more to learn and I still want to go through the complete training and get full accreditation. But this is a good start. Here are some pictures from the 3-day training on the 19th--21th of this month.

Face Painting

Today we learned some face painting techniques. Thanks to Mary, Niki, and Melody! They invited us over to their place and we had so much fun. One cool thing about face painting is that it's a lot easier than it looks. I've only done it once before so it was helpful to learn a bit more like: what paint is best/economic, what brushes are good for what, how to use a sponge properly...and more. Joyce and I are ordering some face paints, we'll get them in a week and then we'll see how things go from there!

October Fun

Karoke Bar.
For Joyce's birthday we went to the karoke bar and invited some friends to come as well. Singing, pool, and beer with friends...what's not to like? Well, of course it gets pretty uncomfortable when some drunkard gets up to sing, but I guess that's the beauty of karoke "freedom of singing" for all.



















































Out Shopping!




























Chinese Restaurant.
Poor Joyce we embarrassed her so bad! A bunch of dumb foreigners eating at a Chinese resto...sigh...but it was so fun. It was hard to communicate with the waitress and there was a lot of sign-language going on, but once again Joyce to the rescue. She spoke Mandarin to the waitress and it saved a lot of trouble, and a lot more sign-language. We got so much food we couldn't even finish it. Chinese food is awesome! Check out the plates of food.





































Back home...

Collection of Pictures

...from the last long while...