taking a break

so what have we been up to for the past two months? well, january was a lot of basketball. matt and i both had teams to coach this year - he had 8th grade boys again and here's my team of freshmen girls. it was a lot of fun to coach them this year....it's easy to get to know your team quite well when it's so small. we ended up 16-4 on the year and were conference champs. they made me look quite good :).

this year i decide to brave the homecoming game crowds, but it was all worth it to see matt dance with the pommers in a father/daughter dance that they put on every year. one of his former students asked him to step in cause their dad couldn't make it. i have tried for years to get that boy to bust out a move at a wedding dance and i've got nothing so far.....so i wasn't going to miss this. (i think he's going to post the video someone took on facebook)

february has been the month of homework. school is going great and i'm a few weeks away from being 1/2 way done. but as any college student knows, the last few weeks are always the busiest. next quarter i have a 50 hour practicum (classroom observations) and in the fall i'll be student teaching....which also means that i'll be looking for my own teaching job in less than a year!

teaching is going well for matt. he enjoyed his february break between basketball and baseball...and i did too. he went to the chicago auto show with some friends a few weekends ago and has actually made it home from school before 5:00 several nights this month. but tryouts start for baseball on monday so he'll be off and running once more. he's coaching the jv by himself this year and has a lot of guys trying out for the team, so he also has the awful job of making cuts. it's hard to believe that the season should start already when i woke up to 4 inches of unexpected lake effect snow on my car this morning!

well i'm off to do another project for school. adios!

there's no place like home for the holidays

there really is no place like home for the holidays! we were very blessed with good travelling weather, considering the storm that rolled through the midwest the week of Christmas! it was great to catch up with some friends and spend quality time with family. although much too short, we are thankful for the time we had.

we started off our trip in minnesota...



and then made it down to iowa, right before minnesota got pounded with lots and lots of snow!


this was our "sick" picture. the plan was to go to michigan for Christmas day, but ben came down with pneumonia so it was an iowa Christmas. dad, i think you need to work a little bit on your sick pose. :)


and the annual funny picture!


and speaking of being home for the holidays, i just got a call from matt. he survived his canadian dogsledding adventure! they are going to hit the road tonight and make it back by tomorrow morning. :) i've had many requests for him to post pictures, so i'll have him blog as soon as he can. i hope everyone has a great start to the new year!

'tis the season

what's black, red, and itchy all over?

matt's sweater!

this past weekend we went to an ugly sweater bunko party and i think we did a pretty good job with the ugly part. you can't see it from the picture, but my sweater came complete with puff balls on the christmas tree, courtesy of the 8th grade social studies teacher who wears a different ugly sweater every day of school from december 1 until christmas vacation. matt wore this same sweater to school on friday for their ugly sweater competition and came home with the "itchiest sweater" award.


we have another ugly sweater party coming up with our small group from our church, and i'm going to wear pam's sweater for that party. there are more beads on this sweater than lights on a christmas tree!


the rest of our evenings are usually filled in the gym (big surprise, huh?) between practices and games, we are definitely getting our fill of basketball this winter. my team is tons of fun to coach, which is what really makes the season enjoyable...an undefeated record helps things out a little bit too :). but please don't think i'm being cocky...these girls are the ones making me look pretty good!

well, christmas break starts friday! we are heading out to minnesota, then dropping down to the farm for a couple days and finishing off our travels in michigan for christmas day. it will be a busy break with lots of great time with family and friends! so for the few days we will be home around the holidays we did a little bit of decorating in our apartment, and even got a tree this year to put our presents under.

end and begin

today i am officially 1/4 of the way to getting my teaching certificate....all the papers are handed in and i just gave my last presentation today. now i'm on break until january 12 and loving the idea of this big thanksgiving and christmas break! the quarter went by really fast so if the rest of it goes this quickly...student teaching will be here before i know it!

we also had our first basketball game tonight. i'm coaching the freshmen girls team - we are small in numbers but big in talent. it's going to be fun...and when you only have 7 girls, you definitely don't have to worry about playing time questions!

i hope everyone has a very safe and happy Thanksgiving!

fall fun

here's a little look at our fall....

the volleyball team went to Feed My Starving Children. it's a place that assembles dry food packs and sends them out to starving children all over the world. it's a great organization and we had a great time working there as a team...and i must say, look pretty good in our hair nets.

our volleyball team is now in regional playoffs. we won our first 2 games thursday night against chicago dyett and lisle high school. we are now in the regional championship and our next game is saturday against westmont. the girls are playing well so i'm hoping the game outcome matches what we can do.


last weekend we went to pam's birthday party. since we don't dress up to go out at night that often, i figured i better take a picture of the event. :)

and fall would not be complete without pumpkin carving! i will fully admit that matt was the master artist of our pumpkin....my contribution was cleaning out all the gunk.

metrodome magic

for those of you watching the twins vs. tigers game and know my husband's extreme dedication to the minnesota twins, you could probably imagine what it was like in the van schepen apartment at about 8:45 pm tonight. picture this....matt running around the living room screaming, getting 5 consecutive phone calls and 2 texts....by the end he collapses in his lazy boy, out of breath from the excitement. it was a good thing i came home from my volleyball game when i did or i fear he would not have eaten supper until the game was over. it's like we had the metrodome magic right here in willowbrook illinois. go twins!

busy bee

when people ask me what i'm up to these days, i feel like i need 5 minutes to explain myself, so i usually end up saying "oh a bunch of things." and that's really why i haven't had time to write anything in quite a while. the short answer is, it's a mix of the condo association, school, volleyball, and observation hours for school.....my planner and i are best friends.

volleyball is going really well. right now we are 12-5 and just getting into the conference games of our season, but the regular season is also just about 1/2 over - it's crazy how fast it's been going. here's a picture of the team...