2009: an attempt to recall all the fun memories last year

Ok, this is a very ambitious attempt. I have never posted a single post since march 2009, and that last post was even about 2008. Thanks to my sister for creating a new blog so I'm inspired to update ours. Lots of this happened the past year and I'm thankful that God is with us through out the year. I will just post highlights of each month with the help of some photos i took from my Iphone.

January: We are recovering from the busy Holidays and we just mostly stayed in our apartment. Josh is back to school and I attended one of his class too. We signed up to different church service opportunities including Growth Group and Children's ministry. I'm trying to be involved in the church and meet new people and make friends.

I discovered I like taking photos and these are some of my shots.


I started doing some drawings too...
Us just chilling!
February: We started to teach 2 year olds in our church and as well as the Growth Group which Joshua also leads. Josh turned 3o this month too so we celebrated it with a party in our apartment attended by our closests friends . Then had an accident pet, a gold fish that Joshua bought to show in our 2 year old class. Also my parents in-law hosted a reception party for us in the church in Hemptead. It was nice to meet the family friends and some relatives. I don't have photos for this month so i just gathered some old photos of our friends.



Our gold fish, Nom-nom.


Josh bought me bulbs of tulips and it bloomed just in time for valentines day.

March: We started working on my driving, Josh is teaching in our apartment's parking lot. We tried to get a learner's permit and just to find out that they won't accept our marriage license since it from the Philippines and they don't have any means to know if it's true or not. It's really absurd since the US government accepted it as valid hence I got my Spouse visa, but the DPS won't. So the option they suggested is to wait for the green card or get married again here! That will be our 3rd wedding if ever! We're bummed but we cannot do anything about it...

I had my fisrt hair cut here and it cost me $80! In the Philippines I only spend $5 for a simple hair cut!



the weather is rising already so we hang out in our patio too. We also bought several plants and have our patio netted to get rid of the pigeons


the pigeons chose our potted plants to have their nest.


I finally finished my drawings, i drew this tulips using oil pastel. Josh framed it and hanged it for me.

April: We went to the Zoo and celebrated Easter with the Greenlaws. Jenny prepared plastic eggs with candies and the kids had a blast in egg hunting.





May: Was a fun month. We watched baseball game together with the Greenlaws and Dan and Jenny. The Houston Astro won!


Then to celebrate Dan, Faud and Britney's birthday we all went to a friends lakehouse in Austin. It was a fun trip, the place is amazing and love the view! The water was cold though, but that didn't stop us to enjoy swimming! Josh has to finish a school paper so he is quite distracted. On
Saturday night we went to a movie house (i forgot what it's called but this is a place where they show a movie and then there are people making fun out of it) we watched LOTR, it was nice show we had a good laugh.



I also started painting!








to be continued...

The last few months of 2008 also known as "my first few months in Houston"

After Joshua left for Houston on our Anniversary...

September - i spent most of the first week being depressed and missing my husband so much. Then Delia Casas envited to me a women retreat in Baguio. I was hesitant to go but God is convicting me to go to get away from all the depression I'm into. The Retreat turned out to be a good thing for me and there i was remeinded that God is working im my life and that He wants me to trust him more especially in the situation i am. During the retreat also i was so blessed to hear from Joshua that the Immigrant Petition that we are waiting for was already approved and that we can start the Visa Application.


October- I got involved in teaching a class in our church outreach program. I got so busy also working on my visa papers. On October 20, my visa was approved. Josh on the otherhand is considering going on moving to a new Job.

November- I am so excited to be able to be with my husband. On November 14, 2008 i left the Philippines. The travel was so long but so worth it since i can be with my husband and be able to meet his family and friends.

Josh gave me an i-phone as a welcome gift. I so love this device, i think this is the coolest thing ever!

Grocery Shopping! I can't believe how big stores are here and how i was overwelmed by the numerous choices.



Josh showed me around Houston, we went to Menil Park in these photo.

I also was able to celebrate Thanksgiving. We went to Hempstead and all the family gathered and enjoyed turkey, ham and other yummy food. Dad, gave a short history of why we have Thanksgiving. We played a game and fire some gun. Gun firing really scares me and I never have fire a real gun before. Josh taught me how fire it properly, the first time i click the trigger i think my scream was louder than the sound of the gun. I was shaking after that gun firing adventure.

December - this was a busy month for us. We moved to our new apartment. We have lots of gathering, parties, and my parents and sister came to visit here in Houston and Heidi and her family arrived from PNG for their 6 month furlough. We also had our two receptions which our friends hosted for us. Then I also had my first Christmas here celebrated with the Crank Family at Hempstead. Then had my first road trip going to Alabama to visit my sister for the new year and then went also to Georgia to visit Samuel and Aimee.

Our Apartment complex.



Our apartment before cleaning and organizing. 95% of our stuff is Joshua's from when he was still a single and 75% of which are books!





Our apartment after...





We had a great deal with our furnitures, we just spent $1500 on all of it.

Oh I also experience first snow fall for the first time. They said that it hadn't snow in Houston for years so I'm lucky to be here when it happened.




Christmas Holidays:

We had a chance to get all the family in one photo.


here are some photos i got from our i-phone.









Road trip to Alabama and Georgia!

It's been a long while

wow, i can't believed how long has it been since i last posted an entry. There has been lots of events that happened that i failed to share.

Anyway, i will try to catch up.

Teaching

This past 4 weeks i was given an opportunity to teach kids again. I was assigned to teach 7-8 years old in our children outreach ministry. I love the experience and I'm so glad that I was able to be around children again after a year of not working as teacher. I do really love children and it really gives me so much joy just being around them, learning and doing fun stuff with them.

The 4 weeks of teaching made me want to reminisce my past 4 years of teaching... In the 4 years i have lots of nice memories of being a teacher. The best memories will be meeting different children and getting to know how special they are. As a teacher i spend a lot of time thinking about each of my pupils and try to observed and understand their temperaments and pray for each of them. And in the 4 years of teaching here are some of the experiences and children that i will always remember:

-my pupils greeting me "Good morning, Ms. Nacion!" in a peculiar intonation.

-the boy who just after i told the class that i will not entertain non-math related question, will frantically raise his hand in the middle of problem solving and ask "Ms. Nacion can we sing the "with Christ in my vessel" song".

-times when you decided to sports new hairstyle or just wear a new shade of lipstick, student will instantly comment on it as you enter the classroom. Sometime i will feel like i'm in this celebrity show that either praise or ridicule celebreties for their appearance, or a contestant of "America's Next Top Model" being scrutinized by more than 10 judges. And hear comments like, "teacher i don't like your lipstick", the other one will say "no, it's nice", the funniest one was a group of girls debating whether i am still pretty or not for cutting my hair short.


-Christian: a cute little boy who is very smart but very hyperlexic. He likes all subject, gets excited about singing time and will just burst out something in the middle of the class. There was a time when we are studying math and while im explain he pranctically raise his hand and when i called him he stood

-Justin: a boy who comes from a very messed up family, and has attitude issue, will always find away to irritate me and openly say that he hates me. Only to find out that he just wants attention. I was given a chance to tutor him after class and during the time i spent with him I was able to understand him and why he has this kind of attitude. I was glad that i was able to talk about Jesus and how He loves him a lot. I found a soft spot in his heart and im glad to be able to minister to him even for awhile before he was expelled from the school.

-Samuel: one of the student in my advisory class. He is a smart boy, he loves English and speaks very fluently with it. He likes to read books and tell stories. But i don't with the other boys in the class, he is always being bullied but rarely that i see him retaliate toward the other boys treatment to him. I tried to comfort him though by showing interest in what he does and listen to his stories. One day his mom wrote me a letter and it was so sweet she mentioned that one of the reasons Samuel wants to go to school was because of me. That was really a nice encouragement to me to continue being a caring teacher.

These are just some of the memories I have and I will always remember how wonderful it is to be a teacher.