So busy!!

Wow, for the first time since the wedding, I'M SO BUSY!

Today was my first day babysitting. The youth pastor's wife hired me to watch their baby girl, Abigail, during the day. Abigail is 10 months old and full of energy. She definitely keeps me on my feet when she's awake. Although very interested in exploring everything in my apartment, Abigail soon became bored and was not even interested in her lunch too much. Thankfully, I discovered she loves going on walks in her stroller and that keeps her very calm for a while. She also loves music and apparently dancing to Veggie Tales songs. :-)

One thing I don't think I've figured out, though, is how to effectively change babies' diapers. For some reason, kids always hate it when I try to do this activity. Not that I blame them, I would hate it too, but it has to be done. Making funny faces seems to work a little with Abigail, but she's still very squirmy. If anyone has any good tips on getting kids to sit still for a diaper change, I'm open to ideas. :-) Other than that, we get along fine. She seems to need a lot of sleep and is currently passed out in the other room in her little portable crib. I'm so glad for the company, but it's also nice that I get a little alone time too.

I also need to prepare for my upcoming trip up to State College. Thursday is when I have my two interviews. I'm leaving from the Norfolk bus terminal on Wednesday morning and will be gone until Friday night. Not only do I need to make sure I have everything in order to take with me, but I need to make sure Jon has everything he needs to survive the three days in my absence. I think he'll be fine, but I'm not sure how well he'll get through it emotionally. :-)

In addition to all that, our building is being sprayed tomorrow for roaches. That means that, tomorrow morning, I need to have all the kitchen cabinets completely cleared out. That was ok the last time we did this, but tomorrow, Abigail will be here, and I'm not sure where I'll put everything. It'll be a little bit of a zoo here tomorrow, but I'm sure it will all work out fine. I'm planning to take Abigail to the pool tomorrow too. That should be fun and get us out of the apartment. Well, I feel a little bit more like a responsible adult with all this stuff going on. Hopefully I can get things in order by tomorrow night so that my trip will go smoothly and Jon will be able to survive here on this end too.

~Rachel

July 4

Hey everyone!

I hope all of you had a great Independence Day holiday. We had a great day here, despite a small disappointment in the evening. Our plan was to spend some time on the beach here in Ocean View and then head downtown to the harbor to watch the fireworks. We had a great beach afternoon, watched a movie and then headed downtown. We got there in plenty of time and settled in on the Cruise ship pier. This pier is fairly isolated and I don't think many people know how to get there, so we had a great spot to sit by ourselves. The fireworks were scheduled to start at 9:30, but, as we sat in eager anticipation, the thunderstorm started rolling in. At about 9:40, we heard an amplified voice from out on the harbor saying that the fireworks were officially canceled. We couldn't believe that someone thought it was acceptable to cancel the 4th of July! But, we started the one-mile trip back to our car with the rest of the crowd, and then the rain started. Well, by the time we got back to our car, we were glad we had left when we did. We just missed a serious drenching. :-) They rescheduled the fireworks for tonight, so we're planning a mall/fireworks trip again today.

As exciting as the trip to downtown Norfolk was, the highlights of our day turned out to come from other places. First, we had an incredible July 4th lunch. We decided to try making mini hamburgers and cooking them in a pan: something we'd never done before. They turned out great, and when they were paired with sauteed mushrooms/onions and garlic toasted French bread, they were truly the ideal sandwich. I added jalapenos to mine, but somehow Jon thought this was overkill.

The second highlight of the day was an unexpected visitor. This summer, we have sometimes felt as if we are running a hotel for bugs. The building has a cockroach problem, and we tend to get a lot of pill bugs (roly polys) from the nearby flower beds. The other day, Jon killed a very large cricket in the bathroom as well. However, we had never had a guest quite like the one we had yesterday. As we were watching a movie, we looked over and were startled to see a seven inch lizard on the floor. Not as startled as it was to see us coming over to see him, though. He ran out in a hurry as soon as we opened the door. We did get some great pictures, though.

Well, I guess I should end here. I hope you all are having wonderful summers. We will continue to run our petting zoo/bug hotel to the best of our ability until we write again.

~Rachel

Exciting new developments

Hi!

So, a lot's happened since my last post, and the next few weeks are going to be a lot busier. I'm really happy to have more things going on!

We'll start with what I'll be doing down here. I've gotten a regular babysitting job for the month of July. I'll be babysitting four days a week for a family from our church. Their babysitter recently moved and so I'll be watching their 10-month-old for them. I'm so excited! I'll have someone to keep me company here. :-) I'm planning to go to the library this weekend to find some kids stuff for Abigail.

So, I'll start babysitting on Monday of next week, but then I have another new development. I'm on my way up to State College on Wednesday to go to some interviews on Thursday! I'm interviewing at the Grier School for girls in Tyrone and with a program led by my adviser at Penn State. I'm really excited about the possibilities at either of these places. At Grier, I'd be teaching middle school general science. It's a boarding school that is about 50% international students. It would be a really unique experience and I would love working with them. They also have a really big arts program, especially in music. At PSU, I would have a research job working mainly on the same educational project that I did my thesis on. I would be helping to implement an educational outreach program at Harrisburg High School, one of the lowest performing schools in the state. I'm really looking forward to the opportunities at either place.

I got to get out today a little bit too. A friend from church asked me to go to the mall with her and her little boy today. We went to a big mall in Virginia Beach and just sort of did some window-shopping. It's been great getting to know her and some other church people more. It felt so luxurious to go to a high end mall and eating at a food court. :-) Here I mainly just walk to the grocery store or the library.

Well, Jon and I are off to figure out a way to cash some checks so we can have some money. Have a great July 4 vacation!

~Rachel

Thoughts from Panera

Hey everybody!

So, I still haven't found a job. Man, it's a hard life. Right now I'm sitting in Panera sipping my refillable hot tea and blogging. It's rough, but somebody's got to do it. Jon and I have been finding plenty of stuff to do, even though I am jobless. :-) One of my new favorite things to do is to help out with the food closet at the church Jon and I go to. It's about a 15 minute walk from our apartment, and it's great to be able to help. Some people that come there are regulars who often have large families and very little income. It's amazing to hear some of their stories. Other people there make a decent income, but have just hit a hard time because of medical expenses or other things, so their money is really tight that week. We give out a lot of food too. On Wednesday when I went to help, there were four people outside the church waiting when the closet opened. We probably served ten people that day in the two hours we were open. It takes a while to serve someone with all the government paperwork that we have to do for each person, so the people there seem to really appreciate any of the help they can get.

There's not really that much more to add. Jon gets off work at noon on Fridays, so we've planned a trip to Virginia Beach today. Always fun! Hey, if any of you want to call/write/email me, I'm always glad to hear from you. (Since I don't have much else to do.) Hope you're all having a great summer and relaxing, etc.

~Rachel

Exploring Norfolk

Hey everyone!

In some ways, a lot has happened since the last post, and in some ways, not much has changed. We've been having all kinds of fun exploring the area. We've been to Virginia beach twice, and Jon is thrilled that he gets to go to a beach with waves. :-) The beach near our apartment is on the Chesapeake Bay and only gets "real waves" when it storms. We checked out the Chrysler Museum of Art once. It was really impressive. I've never been in a serious art museum and I was amazed at how many original pieces they have there.

We also visited downtown Norfolk a couple weekends ago to check out "Harborfest." Norfolk is crazy for festivals. There's ALWAYS something going on in the Town Park along the harbor. At Harborfest, we toured the U.S.S. Wisconsin, one of the only battleships left that hasn't been decommissioned. We also got to meet two of the pirates from "Pirates of the Carribbean." So much fun. :-) I've posted a couple of pictures from VA beach and Harborfest.

We're trying to figure out how to take a trip down to Nags Head to check out the Outer Banks, but we want to wait until the wildfire in North Carolina is more contained. Speaking of fire, it seems to be the summer of wildfires here in the Outer Banks/Hampton Roads area. There's a fire in the Great Dismal Swamp just a little to the southwest of us. Between the NC fire and the Swamp fire, we've had some pretty hazy, smelly days. Imagine walking outside and the whole city smells like a campfire. That's something I've definitely never experienced before.

Jon has been going to his internship and likes it ok. I think he feels a little bored, but I think that's the way a lot of internships go. He likes his boss, though, and he seems really interested in some of the projects he's helping with.

As for me, well, I haven't found a job here. No one seems to want to hire for the summer. They all want people who can actually work for them long-term. What's that all about? My land lady is going to give me some cleaning work this summer because her regular cleaning girl for the apartments is moving. So, that will be something. So far, I've been borrowing movies from the library, reading a lot, and working out a lot. Not so bad really. It's definitely relaxing after finishing student teaching and planning a wedding. Hopefully I'll have more luck with my job search for the fall. Right now I have two potential leads. I'm hoping that I'll have more to post about those later . . . I'll just say that I'm excited about either job.

Well, Jon will be getting home soon, so I should get dinner ready. I hope you're all having a great summer! Will be posting again soon.

Rachel :-)

Moving in: Norfolk

Hey everyone! So, Jon and I decided it would be a good idea to start a blog to let everyone know what's going on with us this summer. We moved to Norfolk, VA on Thursday the 22nd, and now we're just working on getting moved in and organized. Our apatment is in an area of Norfolk known as Ocean View. We are a five-minute walk from a community beach on the Chesapeake Bay and about a half a mile from the Ocean View Park Beach where there are weekly concerts in the gazebo. Ocean View has many very diverse neighborhoods, and will be an interesting place to spend the summer. Jon doesn't start work until next Monday, so we have a little time to relax and explore the area.

Currently, we have no internet at the apartment, so any blogging we do will have to be done from the library down the street from our apartment until at least Thursday. It's definitely different having no internet or cable at our apartment. :-) We pretty much get all our information from one TV station, occasional visits to the library and our new GPS unit.

I think the GPS has been the most useful thing we brought with us on this trip. One cool thing it did was help us find a church in the area. Sunday we attended Ocean View Baptist church, a Southern Baptist Church within walking distance from our apartment. We quickly made friends with the youth pastor and his wife (she greeted us at the door when we came in) and a local family invited us to a BBQ Sunday evening. We actually feel like we know people here now: a good feeling.

So, yesterday was Memorial day. You would think we'd find some things to do in a military town on Memorial day, right? We decided to go to Virginia beach and take in some free concerts on the boardwalk. It was a great plan, but unfortunately I made friends with a bee in the parking lot as we got out of the car and my foot was put out of commission for the day. So, we headed back home and had a nice picnic on the Ocean View Community beach near our apartment.

So, overall, it's been a relaxing way to move to a new location. We're both really glad that we have an extra week to go shopping and get settled before Jon starts to work. Hopefully we will get internet service at our apartment soon so we can post some pictures so you all can see where we live. It's going to be a great summer!

~Rachel

Our summer address:
9260 Chesapeake Blvd.
Apt. #5
Norfolk, VA 23503