Husbands and Wives

This week was another typical week for us. Not too much new is going on, but here goes:

At school, my two co-tutors were away at Serves training for 3 days, so my schedule was especially hectic Tuesday-Thursday. All week I had to stay after school for Jaguar tutoring and I barely got a break all day. I used my one planning period to prepare for the party, make some donation calls, and run copies. My 6th graders also had their big 5 paragraph essay due this week, so I was busy trying to keep everyone on task while I edited paper after paper. Amazingly, most of my kids got their paper in ON TIME!! Usually, we have multiple kids who lost different parts of their paper or even had to start over in the last few days before the due date. This time, I had a few students finish a day early!! The teacher remarked of one boy that this might be the first major assignment he's EVER turned in on time. It's pretty sad to rejoice over what seems like such a meager victory but there are many challenges with being a low income school. For example, most of the other middle schools in Seattle have school planners for their students, but our school can't afford them and thus a lot of students don't learn that organizational skill or have a systematic way of keeping track of homework assignments. A lot of students also come to school saying their backpack or binder was stolen. Whether it was really lost or stolen (and it may vary by case), this causes them to have to start over on assignments and lose their notes from class. How frustrating! But, overall, I'm happy with the work we've been doing so far, and it is especially rewarding to see the exceptional progress of a few students. We have one more week before Spring Break and then one more week before the big WASL (state) standardized tests. The WASL is highly stressful for many of our students, so tension is high as teachers strive to prepare them for it.

On Tuesday, we had our community group and talked about the role of a wife. We also ate a dinner of chili, salad, chips, and root beer floats (yum!). We eat dinner together every week with a different menu. Everyone brings a dish or topping. Our first contribution was...an onion and a bag of Tostitos. Lame! Everything else was also spoken for by the time we signed up!! Maybe I'll get a chance to share my culinary skills sometime soon...

On Wednesday, I went to Proxy youth group at night. One of the other leaders spoke about Barnabas and I learned a lot (along with the students) about this lesser known person in the New Testament. We prayed about which areas we need encouragement and who around us we can encourage, since Barnabas means "Son of Encouragement".

On Thursday, we made a highly successful pizza with homemade pizza dough courtesy of Kayle and our new cast iron pan. We were both surprised it turned out well the first time and we anticipate making another one soon! Yay for bacon and pineapple pizza! Now, we just need to find a good recipe for pizza sauce...

On Friday, Angie ran errands while Kayle was at work. You may have heard us rave about how much we love our mechanic, Don, at Harvey's Auto (like, I consider baking him cookies every time I go in). Now, I've found, by recommendation from the same couple, the Harvey's of eye doctors. I had my first appointment for an eye exam and to order contacts and he was just wonderful. He explained every eye test at length, provided ample encouragement of my consistency when deciding which lens was better, and talked and joked a lot. It was strange to actually enjoy an eye exam (except the air poof part- nobody likes that!). At night, we rented "Horton Hears a Who" and spent a nice romantic evening together at home.

On Saturday, we started our taxes and...got stuck somewhere in the middle. We called both sets of parents for missing numbers and still have to call Notre Dame for some tuition figures. Boo for financial forms, one of Angie's LEAST favorite things to do (alongside vacuuming, etc) and pretty low on Kayle's list as well. I like to fill out forms, but ONLY if I know all the answers when I get to them. I also hate to be unable to finish something right away! Oh well! That night, we went on a nice dinner date to a new Italian restaurant named Spazzo. I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce it, but the name reminds me of my late lovebird named Zazu (who had a similar nickname). The food was really good (fried artichoke hearts, salmon, and chicken picatta), so we added this to our growing list of favorite restaurants (most of which also feature a Microsoft discount).

Today, we went to the early service at church where the sermon was about the role and responsibilities of a husband. The sermon this week (and last week about wives) were excellent and seem to come from years of learning how to handle thoroughly a rather touchy subject in our culture. You can find them both here: http://www.marshillchurch.org/media/trial Both Kayle and I served in the toddler room during the second service this week and played with babies for two hours. Then, we caught a quick lunch at Subway before I stayed for long choir practice to prepare for Good Friday and Easter. We're singing some BEAUTIFUL pieces, two in Latin so far. We have an all-day choir retreat coming up on Saturday, so we should finally have all the music by then.

I guess the latest edition of Time magazine named "New Calvinism" number 3 in its list of top ten ideas that are changing the world right now. This new resurgence of Reformed thinking aims to be solid in Biblical theology while reaching out to contemporary culture and is led by John Piper, our pastor, and many others affiliated with them (like J.I. Packer, Don Carson, etc...). Our pastor will also be on Nightline again soon for a recent debate held at our church on the reality of Satan.

Anyway, we were thinking that summertime is the best season to come visit us if anyone is itching to see us and Seattle at its sunniest. It's in the 70s and sunny here every day in the summer. Just let us know if you have any dates in mind... So far, we're only planning to be gone the first week or so of August.

We love you and miss you all!
Angie