last meeting on the last day of school

i am in a meeting on the last day of school, my room is cleaned out and empty, and i am leaving this place. yes i will be sad, someday, but now i am excited that the end of the year has come. i have about three big boxes of teacher supplies that i took home, so i must sort through those things and put them away. i loved my time teaching here at chs. i have been working with this school since 2003 and the past three years at the high school with my own classroom! i enjoy teaching very much. i especially love it when my students remember things from past years and bring it up to me later. my favorite class of students got me a gift and a card for the baby so she would know that the 10th grade world civ class was special to me. they purchased a stuffed animal - hippo! it was a joke from the first of the year when we were learning about the egyptians and the nile river. i made a comment about hippos being dangerous and it all went down hill from there. i think we talked about hippos for 10 mins. and we were laughing and going crazy but i hope they will remember not to approach hippos ever for fear of death! 

the infamous hippo!

my 10th grade class (minus two, one was late and the other is hiding which is why i am a bit out of the picture in the second shot)

i bought a yearbook this year and it was signed by many. maybe i will come back to chs to teach later, but i think the students i taught will be graduated by then, maybe, we'll see. now i move on to a new job of being a parent. i am very excited and nervous but i am overwhelmed by how much God has blessed us. 

yearbook signing in the cafetorium (cafeteria + auditorium - i like to call it the cafetora-bowl-o-rama-dome)

this is "n" she is one of my foreign exchange students. i will miss her very much.

this is "A" she is a sweet girl and i know i will see her family every once in a while at church and things like that. i helped them sell the jewelry from ghana this year. 

we had a picnic bbq after school just for the teachers. it was a time to say good bye and have a relaxing end to the year. it was fun and the school got us a nice office type parting gift with a desk clock and a pen with my name engraved on the handle - a real grown-up pen

 also i noticed that this will be my 202nd post on this blog! that is a lot of writing my life for the world to see. i wonder how my blog will be when the baby comes. first i have to say prepare for it to be dormant for a while so i can figure out how to care for little baby g, then i will try not post only baby stuff all the time. okay, over and out. 

new fun things

the past two weeks have been super busy and i haven't been blogging at all. i at least manage to read your blogs to keep up to date, but rarely do i comment and i haven't even had time to update my snippets column. so tonight i am making time because i have a lot to update. 

it was our fifth year anniversary this past friday. five years has gone by so fast and a lot has happened in our lives in five years. we have lived in two houses, had four dogs (now just the one), 5 different jobs between us, and many joys and a few heartaches. the Lord has blessed us so much through everything and we both have grown more spiritually in the past five years than maybe ever in our lives. i am so thankful for all we experienced together. 

we both bought phones this week and decided to give them to each other for our anniversary - maybe that is the new thing you give for five years of marriage. pete's is blue and mine is red. they are touch screen too and i love it so far. 

for 3/4 of our fourth year of marriage i have been pregnant which has brought on a whole new dynamic to our relationship. my pregnancy has been very healthy and a great experience for me. i have enjoyed being pregnant and looking forward to our new little girl to arrive. being parents will be a whole new thing for us and we are excited and a bit nervous for all the responsibility it brings. i have been spending the past few weeks getting all the "stuff" ready for the baby to use. we have all the bedding and furniture, i washed all the newborn - 3 month clothes and blankets, socks, booties, hats, all of that stuff. i have made multiple trips to various stores to exchange things and i currently have a pile of stuff waiting to be returned when i am sure that is all that will need to be returned (i can only take things back without a receipt twice or something like that?) 

i still need to do important things like find a pediatrician, pack our hospital bag, oh, and think of a name for baby g! but she will come when she is ready and we will be "ready" too. 

here i am at 35 weeks of pregnancy, only four weeks to go (at most) this is the biggest i have been so far, we will see how much more i can grow! 

now on to some pictures. i am going to put them in a separate post but they are from the baby shower on may 1st, the baby room, and dave and tina's wedding yesterday. hope you enjoy. 

recent pictures

okay, baby shower pictures (not many turned out so maybe other people have better ones of the whole group)

i received much needed things like diapers and a diaper genie, and not so needed but nice things like lots of clothes and this waterfall rainforest soother that hooks on the crib.

cute cherry outfits - i am glad i wasn't bombarded with pink things

cupcake - cake. it was very delicious

as you can see there were streamers and many people from all parts of my life. thank you to all who came. jen gave a nice devotion/pep talk before we did the presents. it gave me hope that i can be a good mom and i have other moms who can help me. 

pete's grandpa gompert knitted a blanket and hat for baby g

i think sarah is signing for more! (you know the little baby sign language stuff - maybe luke is teaching her what he knows)

anne got this giant sheep thing from smiths. she said she just had to have it. 


the baby room is missing a couple things but mostly it is all finished and looks so wonderful. 

this is the bedding design i chose. 

chair for nursing and just because i was told i needed something like it. (hopefully that lamp will have a table to rest on)

wall canvas hangings, nice touch

this is the quilt that came with the bedding. i decided to hang it on the wall for now because the baby can't use it anyway. (you know, sids issues)

this is a diaper stacker. for all you who didn't know - like me- it hides the diapers and gives you a place to store them too! very nice

dresser/changer, and the diaper genie

sometimes blogger really bothers me - anyway, above is the crib, below is the closet complete with all of baby g's things. pete put a better shelving system in because the clothes are so short anyway. 

okay, i put the bouncer together all by myself. now all we need is batteries. below is the cradle we will use for the first little while. pete's grandpa peters made it when pete was born. i found a pad and a sheet for it and we are ready to go. it has a G on the side for gompert

dave and tina's reception. someone might have a full length shot of me, but for now this is what you get. sarah's hair was pretty cool but you can't tell by the picture. 

probably should have cropped jeremy out of this one, but i am so sick of uploading pictures to blogger that it is too late. 

so there you go, a lot of stuff in a few weeks. now i just have two weeks of school to get through and wait for that baby to come! pete and i are still reading through the Bible. we just started the gospel of john and are in 2 samuel now. 

final baby shower tonight

the ladies at church are throwing me a baby shower tonight and i am very excited. after tonight i can be better prepared to know what i still need to get for the baby. i know we still need a dresser (the one i bought was too big, too cheap, so we took it back) and a crib mattress. there are many more things i can think of but i want to wait and see if we get some of them tonight. i hope it will be a good time of fellowship with pretty much all the important ladies in my life. i will try to have someone take pictures and upload them for you to see. for all my out of town friends, i wish you could be here to share in this time with me. i hope you are having a great time in your various areas of the world. 

so happy may day to you! i feel like the count-down to baby g has really begun. i am 34 wks now which means a min. (hopefully not) of three weeks to a max of about 7 before baby g comes to the world! i know that i am not in control of when God has planned for her to join us, but this time in my life i hope that His will matches closely with mine. i am hoping for anytime after june 1 or even may 29 because that is the last day of school. anytime after may 21st is considered "full term" and she wouldn't be premature. but, that way i wouldn't have to worry about making sure everything was ready in case i need a sub (although i am working on that). plus i would like to make it to the end to say good-bye to all my kids that i have taught for three years now! i am going to miss teaching very much, but it is only for a season, and i know being a mom will be an awesome adventure. so, please pray for baby g to be content for a while longer and keep growing for at least a month! 

happy may-day and hugs to you if i don't see you tonight!