Happy Holidays!

We had one of the most awesome, relaxing holidays this year. Since Dan's been working at schools he's had 2 weeks off for Christmas each year, but I'm usually scraping the bottom of my vacation-time barrel by then, so we're lucky to get a full week to spend with both our families. But I'm student teaching this year, which means school holidays for me!!!! It also meant doubling up on the school concerts and work parties we attended during December, so we had a pretty hectic couple of weeks before we flew out. But it was all fun stuff, so we didn't mind.

The day after school let out, we flew to Nashville to visit my family until Dec. 26th. We got to the airport in plenty of time, but our plane had to be repaired before they would let us board, so we were 3 hours late leaving San Diego (boo, American Airlines!). Not only did this make us miss our connection in Dallas/Ft. Worth (we had to sprint across DFW to the next gate and barely made it onto the very last flight to Nashville for the night!), but it also caused Dan to miss out on going to the Predators v. Islanders hockey game that night, which was going to be a surprise for him. If you have known Dan for any time at all, you know he's a rabid Islanders fan, and it SUCKED that he missed the game!! My dad and brothers went to the game without him and they taped it at home so Dan could at least watch it later. He says to make up for it, we'll have to spend a weekend in Long Island, NY sometime to catch a home game. :)

But after that first disappointing travel day, we had a really great time with my family. We went Christmas shopping, spent time with Nashville friends, visited my parents' church, and just enjoyed hanging out together at home. On Dec. 26th, we said goodbye to Paul and Steve (my brothers) and my parents joined us for the 11.5 hour drive to Williamsburg to visit Dan's family!

The Jesters took us to see cool historical sights, like Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg, and introduced my parents to the Nintendo Wii. My parents headed back home on Dec. 30th, and Dan and I spent the rest of our visit hanging out and relaxing with his family. We got to spend time with some of their Williamsburg friends because Dan's parents had about 50 people over for a dinner party one night! And we got to see some of our friends from Colorado who were in Virginia for the holidays, too.

It was a blast to have 2 weeks to spend on the east coast this year! We'll have to figure out some way to keep that tradition alive!

All dressed up at my work party right before Christmas break!

My best friend since age 1, Melody, her sister, and mom came over to my parents' house in Nashville for a fun visit. From left to right in back row: Mrs. Anderson, Tiffanie, and Melody; from left to right in front row: Skyler (Mel's son), Gunnar and Jacob (Tiffanie's sons).

My best friend since the 6th grade, Michelle, and her son Brendon came over, too. Michelle is expecting another little boy in April!

Michelle, Melody, and I (the 3 of us roomed together in college)

I met my friend from college, Sarah, and her son, Aaron, at the mall for lunch while Dan and I were Christmas shopping. It was great to see her and meet her cute little boy!

The Campbell Clan: Dad, Mom, older brother Paul, me, Dan, and younger brother Steve.

All the Colonial Williamsburg buildings were decorated for Christmas with natural and homemade materials. It was beautiful!

One of the recreated ships (maybe the Godspeed?) at historical Jamestown

Me playing my mother-in-law in Wii boxing. She's really tough!

Dan playing the Leapster with our nephew, Benjamin

"Officer Nathan" trying on his policeman uniform after we opened presents

"Officer Benjamin" - watch out for him, he loves to give out tickets!

Dan with his brother, Tim, and sister, Robin

Dan and Mike Robert, one of our friends from Colorado who we met in VA

Me with Courtney Pickford, Kate Robert, and Charlotte (Mike and Kate's sweet daughter)

The Jester Family - top row: Dad, Tim, Dawn, me, Dan, and Robin; bottom row: Mom, Benjamin, and Nathan

A Day in the Life of a 4th Grade Teacher

I've been having a blast in the 4th grade. Each day I feel a little bit more confident in the classroom, and I've taken over the subjects of Reading, Writing, and Social Studies so far. I'm teaching Science and Math every now and then when my teacher has a meeting or something, and I'll probably take those subjects over after the holiday. I can't believe we only have a half a week until we get 2 weeks off for Christmas!! I could get used to this... :)

Last week, our class joined other 4th graders from all over San Diego on a week-long field trip to Old Town State Park. They have certified teachers there who lead the kids in small groups and teach them about different time periods in California history. Then the groups get to tour the buildings and museums in Old Town that are associated with that time period. It's a very cool experience.

Here are a couple of pictures I have of me "in action." I'm looking forward to the holiday break, but I'll miss those little rascals!

Here's a photo of me teaching the kids in Presidio Park during our Old Town field trip (you can click on the photo to enlarge it). The lady to the right in the photo is my teacher, Jackie O'Donovan. The man to the left is the other 4th grade teacher at our school. I think I was actually in the middle of teaching the kids about how many of the immigrants to California were stricken with scurvy because of a vitamin C deficiency in their diets while they were sailing. Nice, I know...

This photo was taken on Halloween - obviously. My favorite costume was the kid in the middle of the back row...Steve Urkel. He really got into character that day, too! :)

The two most important things in the world...

Hockey and family. (Not in that particular order.)

We got a little of both last weekend when we decided to drive to Phoenix on Saturday to see the Coyotes play the Detroit Red Wings that night. I guess we're getting antsy about getting away for the holidays because we both just wanted to hit the road and go somewhere for a couple of days. A huge bonus is that my Aunt Wanda and Uncle Larry live in Phoenix and we got to go to their church, First Baptist in Sun City West, on Sunday morning and eat lunch with them afterwards. They're the closest family we have, geographically, and it's always a treat to spend time with them.

Then we had to get back to the real world again on Monday, but it was fun while it lasted!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend! We spent the holiday in some beautiful areas of northern CA. Dan was originally scheduled to work through Wednesday, but his boss told him at the last minute on Tuesday that he didn't need to come into work on Wed! It was awesome, because there was a San Jose Sharks hockey game that Dan really wanted to get to on Wed. night to celebrate his birthday a little early. So we started driving on Tues. night after work, spent the night north of L.A., and continued driving on Wed.

When we got to San Jose, we took a tour of the Winchester Mystery House, a strange mansion that was built in the late 1800's by the Winchester Rifle heiress. Rumor has it that she believed she was haunted by the victims who were killed by her company's rifles, and the only way to keep them at bay was to continue building onto her house 24/7. It's an interesting mansion with several oddities, such as a staircase that leads up to the ceiling and a door that opens to nothing but a 3-story drop outside the house!

That night, we got to the San Jose Sharks stadium nice and early to buy tickets, only to discover that the game was sold out! We were pretty much on our sad way out when we found a scalper who had two tickets! He made some money off of us, but we were just excited to get into the game!

Dan is happy

Here's a fun picture of the remote controlled shark "blimps" that were released to fly around the stadium

On Thanksgiving Day, we drove north to tour the wine country in Napa and Sonoma Valleys, then we headed over to Lake Tahoe that night. The wineries weren't open for tours that day, but the scenery around Napa and Sonoma was absolutely beautiful and it was worth it just to drive through the area! We loved the rolling landscape and we'd never seen so many vineyards!

Friday was opening day at Heavenly Ski Resort in Lake Tahoe, so we took advantage of the chance to break out our ski gear again! We realized how out of shape we were after just a few hours, and called it quits to spent the rest of the afternoon driving around Lake Tahoe and soaking in the gorgeous views.

The view of Lake Tahoe from the gondola on the way up to the ski lifts

Skiing at Heavenly

Some scenes from beautiful Lake Tahoe

We had a blast together, and we both got some refreshing time with our favorite things (Dan=hockey, Debby=the mountains). We hope that Thanksgiving was a fun and relaxing time for you, too!

Back to School!

I had an extreme career change two weeks ago when I took a leave of absence from my job and started student teaching in the 4th grade! It's actually been a long time coming, since Dan and I started our master's degrees in elementary education 5 years ago in Denver. We took all the coursework together, but when it was time to student teach, I kept working while he finished the program. This year is my deadline for finishing my degree, so my boss and I came to an agreement for me to take a leave of absence as long as I: 1) stuck around long enough for him to hire someone else and have me train them to take my place, and 2) promised to hate everything about the teaching profession and come back to work the minute I finished my student teaching! Fortunately for me, #2 didn't come true, because I'm having a blast in the classroom so far!

There are 28 kids in the class, and my teacher is fantastic. 4th grade was my top choice, because they're at that glorious age where they're old enough to be pretty independent, but they're still really sweet kids who love their teacher. :) The school where I'm working (Kate Sessions Elementary) is only about a mile from our house, so I can bike there when I feel like it (it hardly ever happens).

I haven't started officially teaching anything yet, but I think I'll need to in the next week or so. My teacher really loves her job and doesn't seem to be in a big hurry to pass things off to me. But I'm supposed to take over the subjects little by little until I'm running the show at the end of my 15 weeks in the classroom. Then I'll earn my CO teaching license, and who knows when I'll do anything with it, but it'll be great to have it as an option and it's fun to do something completely different for a while! I'll be done student teaching in early March, and it's a blessing to know that I've got my job waiting for me when I'm finished - especially with the job market so tough right now. God is good!

"The Mysteries Of Women"

Since Dan and I got married, I think he's created a new mental category called "The Mysteries Of Women." One of the things that definitely fall in this category are baby showers. I've gone to three baby showers for our friends in the past two months, and when I come home and tell him about how we tasted baby food to guess the flavor and raced to dress each other in "diapers" made of toilet paper, he cannot understand what possesses me to go to another baby shower ever again. But I had a fun time, and he just chalks it up to "The Mysteries Of Women." So when the fourth baby shower for our friends Trish and Briklyn was a co-ed shower, he was really apprehensive but decided to go and lend moral support to Briklyn, if nothing else. The shower was at the Jazz Kitchen in Downtown Disneyland, which was a cool venue, the food was fantastic, there were plenty of other guys there, and we had a really good time. They had a game planned where we "made babies" by shaping pieces of Hubba Bubba gum, and Dan discovered his untapped raw talent for bubble gum sculpting and won the game! I don't think he's found a new passion (in baby showers or bubble gum sculpting, although if I find "Still Life in Hubba Bubba" lying around the house I'll let you know), but I think he now understands a little bit of why I enjoy the showers for our friends.

Trish and Briklyn's baby shower

Dan's bubble gum baby

"The Mysteries Of Women" Part 2: Yesterday, I was digging through boxes to find some paperwork for my master's degree, and came across a box labeled "Wedding Stuff." Of course I had to open it and see what kind of wedding stuff we were talking about here, and this is what I found.

All the pink boxes are full of little bubbles, which we had given our guests to blow when we left the church after our wedding ceremony. I obviously had ordered way too many of these, and for some reason I can't remember now, I decided we should keep them in a box for 5 years. The other thing was a big stack of napkins that say "Dan and Debby - May 3, 2003."

Dan, seeing the stack by the door when he came home from work, asks "You mean we've been lugging those things around the country for the past 5 years??" I smile sheepishly. Dan sighs and files yet another eccentricity away in the "The Mysteries Of Women" category.

On the upside, we're all set on napkins for about the next 6 months! I'll probably give the bubbles away to Dan's school or a thrift store or something. But we're one box lighter for our next move!

Cool September Stuff

It's been a while since I've posted, but there were some very cool things that happened this month, so here's a run-down!

Dan's school (Calvary Christian Academy) started on Aug. 27th, and so far, it's been going amazingly smoothly. He worked really hard to have everything in order this summer, and God has blessed his efforts! His teachers and staff are great and the kids have good attitudes & behavior so far. His only constant challenge is that the cheerleading advisor stepped down, and no one else volunteered, so guess who got the job? Don't get any weird pictures in your head of Dan in a skirt with pom-poms (haha! I did that on purpose - you can't get it out of your mind now, can you?). He's just the final decision-maker for the team on things like uniforms, out of town schedules, fund raisers, etc. But it's way out of his comfort zone and he's already recruiting other people to take it on next year!

One of my co-workers, Oz Sanchez, competed in the Paralympics in Beijing from Sept. 12th-14th, and he came home with the gold medal in the Handcycling Time Trial and the bronze medal in the Handcycling Road Race! He's pretty much the coolest person I know right now.

Oz Sanchez, the fastest man in the world on a handcycle!

I got to walk and raise funds for the American Heart Association at the START! Walk on Sept. 20th with a group of my co-workers. It's the first time I've done a charity walk, and it was fun to hang out with everyone and represent our company for a good cause.

The Epsilon Systems Solutions Team at the AHA START! Walk

Our friends have been on a mission to increase the American population recently! There have been nine beautiful babies born to our friends this year (one couple had triplets, so they bumped up the number!), and there are at least three more babies due before the year's over! We got to visit two baby boys in the hospital who were born on Sept. 18th & 20th - one was born several weeks early and weighed 5.5 pounds, and the other one was full-term and weighed 9.5 pounds! They are both so cute! There's nothing like holding a newborn to remind you that God performs miracles every day!

Dan went to the Chargers vs. Jets game with his friends, Eric and Dave, on Sept. 22nd. It was his first pro football game, and he enjoyed it a lot. They had decent seats, it was a high scoring game, and the Chargers won!! He said he could've done without the halftime band and the drunk people, but it's all part of the experience. :)

Last weekend, I went to our church's women's retreat, which was phenomenal. We studied what Scripture says about our identity as God's children, and talked about how we often act like we're still spiritual orphans (feeling unloved, trying to be self-sufficient, etc.) even though we know that we're adopted as sons and daughters of God through Christ. The retreat was at the Murrieta Hot Springs Conference Center, and it was beautiful and relaxing.

The Kaleo Church Women's Retreat

So that's what's been going on with us! It's been a fun month!