God is So Good

God is So Good is one of my students’ favorite songs to sing as a part of Jesus Time, Chapel, or Closing Chapel. You can tell by how loudly they yell “Yes, He Is!” at the end of each line of the song, even when those aren’t necessarily the “right” lyrics.

Normally by a Saturday evening at this time, I’m in my jammies, sitting on the couch watching Netflix. Don’t get me wrong, that is an accurate description of what I’m doing. However, it’s all the other things that have happened today that make me be reminded of how truly good God is.

This weekend (Friday + Saturday) I attended the Minnesota Early Childhood Educators Conference at Concordia, St. Paul! I was pretty excited about the conference since I read the brochure with the session descriptions and because I knew my old practicum teachers/coworkers would be there as they helped lead sessions, worked on event staff, and attend sessions. I also got a day from the kiddos on Friday to attend. As the sessions came to an ended today, I took some time to reflect on all of the amazing information I received. Like wow, we as educators are entrusted with such a huge and overwhelming task, but God enables us to do it all for His glory and honor. WOW! It’s just still so shocking to me that I get to be a part of the development of so many humans, in their faith, in their emotional life, in their social skills, in EVERYTHING. While parents are obviously the number one influence in a child’s life, it’s so wonderful to be a part of a collaboration and team to help those kids grow.

On my way home from the conference I was also reflecting on the importance of making sure I care for myself to be able to care for these kids. So, I’m going to try to start working out and getting healthy again. College was like a million tries to get back into shape from high school and a million fails as well. Either way, I’m going to put effort into it again. I ran for just over a mile and felt great after!

Tonight I also used my new birthday pan from my parents to make banana bread with some bananas that were getting old. It just finished and tastes so good.

I don’t know if it’s just the fact that I had a wonderful time at the conference or if it’s that our apartment is on the cleaner side, I’m just so thankful God has blessed me this weekend with so many reminders of His love.

So here’s to a wonderful next week with many more of God’s blessings so obviously in my life!
XO Elisebeth

The First Two Weeks

My first two weeks of student teaching are done – wow, how can that be?! I am absolutely stunned that this time has gone by so quickly already.

Week one was filled with getting to know my students’ names and personalities as well as seminars at Concordia. As awesomely informative as the seminars were, they were equally scary and frightening. Like, how am I going to get all of this done?!

Week two was filled with my first lessons. I decided to first start teaching math. This was partially because I’ve always found math to be easy to catch on to and Kindergarten math is certainly no challenge for myself. I also chose it because it’s more structured and my cooperating teacher prefers for me to stick closer to the curriculum. Fewer things to need to come up with means less work and less initial stress, right? Wrong. These lesson plan forms are going to be the death of me.

I have now finished week two and have spent my weekend pouring over these forms for not only math, but now Jesus Time too! Yes, my second class I’ll start teaching will be Jesus Time..tomorrow…

I am still so excited to become a teacher and to have my own class, but sometimes it’s hard to keep that all in perspective. These forms and the looming edTPA are all I can see right now it seems. Which brings me to now – sitting at a Starbucks working on my lesson plans for the rest of the week.

I better start….
XO Elisebeth

The Final Semester

One week from today I will begin my final semester. I cannot believe this is it – I’m almost done with college. And to put the cherry on top – I will have completed my 4 year degree in 3 1/2 years.

One week from today I will enter a Kindergarten classroom. I will get to know my students and create so many awesome memories there.  I will commute to Minneapolis every week until December from our lovely apartment in Saint Paul. I will then have to leave those awesome Kindergarteners to do my 3rd grade placement, and create even more awesome memories. In each of those classrooms, I will teach for two weeks full-time (in addition to the other weeks of part-time teaching) and get a real taste of my soon to be profession.

It’s hard to believe the end is here. College has been filled with so many beautiful moments, so many amazing individuals, and so much knowledge gained. While my final semester will not mean time spent at a desk learning from a professor, I know I will learn the most yet from being at the front of the classroom.

As my final semester is about to start, I can’t help but look back on these photos and relive the years that have already happened.

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As this semester begins, I ask that you keep Trevor and me in your prayers! As the semester begins, my name will be sent out (hopefully primarily on the West Coast) for positions at Lutheran schools. While I am beyond excited to see where God will take us and how He will work through me, there is a lot of unknown right now! Prayers are so greatly appreciated!

I can’t wait to share some awesome things from this upcoming semester with you all!
XO Elisebeth

P.S. Is anyone SUPER PSYCHED for fall weather? (I am, obviously).

Year One

So… I meant for this to get posted on our actual anniversary (August 2), but that didn’t happen and now it’s almost a whole week later. But Trevor and I have been married for a whole year.

WHAT.

I honestly cannot believe it has gone by so incredibly quickly. And I can say nothing but amazing things about being married to Trevor. He is gentle, kind, handsome, joyful, and so many other things. It’s honestly hard to put into words all of the wonderful things he has taught me this past year – but I’ll get to those in a different post.

So the first year anniversary gift is supposed to involve paper. We originally said we were not going to care for the themes or whatnot – but we actually followed it unintentionally! I was really lame and just wrote T a letter in my fanciest (and yet still pitiful) calligraphy about this past year. He, however, was super awesome and went above and beyond and bought me (us) two beautiful engineer prints through Parabo Press and some skeleton clips. We have yet to hang them – but I cannot wait to do so!

Any who, year one was crazy. We laughed, we cried, we loved, we fought, we made so many memories. And now we’ve made it through a whole year of each other’s nonsense!

Trev, I love you – and I cannot wait for our story to continue to unfold.

 

Celebration

Originally, I intended to post on the 4th of July with some cute, sappy pictures of Trevor and I from our day – however we ended up spending most of the day inside playing cards and watching Psych. Go us.

The 4th of July is a big landmark in our relationship, you can read about that here: https://weddingsandwine.wordpress.com/2016/05/23/mrs-rodriguez/ So my intention was to write a post about how crazy it is that it’s been three years since that first started – and now we’ve been married for almost a year!

We recently have been enjoying a lot of life’s blessings and Trevor thought he would surprise me to celebrate the awesome ways God has been working in our lives. He upgraded my phone! Previously, I had his old iPhone 5. But yesterday, he drove me to Sprint and got me a beautiful Space Gray iPhone 6S. I’m officially cooler than him now (and I plan to brag about it for as long as possible).

Remember how my last several posts have been about being stressed or in a rut or just plain busy? I guess the quote, “Good things come to those who wait,” is really spot on in our lives. Those of you who have been praying for Trevor and me for various reasons, we super appreciate it and know God is listening! So THANK YOU!

I hope you had a splendid holiday weekend!
XO Elisebeth