Almost Halloween

I've been putting off updating the blog, because I wasn't sure what to write about. We've kept ourselves busy this month with all the usual weekly commitments: Microsoft, Eastside Academy, EA2, community group, youth group, and volunteering at church. In his free time, Kayle is working on his app for the new Windows phone and reading lots of Dilbert comics online. I've been reading several books, studying for leading discussion on Joshua, and watching new episodes of several fall shows. We especially like to watch "Lie to Me" and "No Ordinary Family" together.

One special event was the Eastside Academy auction last weekend. It was a dinner with silent and live auction portions and (my favorite) a dessert frenzy in which your table bids for their choice of cake. During the silent auction, Kayle and I won some educational board games and a 3 hour session with a financial advisor. Our table secured the most rich and delicious "chocolate decadence" cake (we are still eating leftovers- only a few bites at a time!). Unfortunately, we still out of our league during the live auction portion although I did get the adreneline rush of bidding once on one item! My favorite part was watching a video about the school and hearing from 10 current and former students in attendence. Although I taught 1 math class on 1 day, I somehow was featured in several clips as the math teacher in the video (how embarrassing!). I'll post the video online when I receive a copy, so you can see the school I've been volunteering with. Today, we received an e-mail saying that Eastside Academy raised about $212,000 at the auction this year (22% of its annual operating budget).

Other updates...
-My youth group girls continue to plow through Joshua, a few chapters at a time. I'm learning a ton about the Old Testament and how applicable it is to my life. I bought an ESV study Bible, and it has tons of interesting footnotes about history, full-color maps, and useful cross-references. Highly recommended! Also, we're having a "fall costume" party tomorrow to enjoy some pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating for canned goods to donate to the food bank. I think I'll break out my kimono again this year!

-This is my "month on" as a teacher in Sunday school for grades 1-3. I'm especially enjoying our series about the attributes of God, including "G is for Good," "J is for Jealous," "R is for Righteous," and "N is for Never-Tiring." I bought some coupons for junior frosties at Wendy's and use them as prizes for memorizing a weekly Bible verse. The kids work so hard to memorize and help each other learn each verse. They often ask me for more verses! My class certainly keeps me busy as we've grown from about 12-15 to 20-22 students each week. Our church has been blessed with many young kids and new families.

-I'm excited for Eastside Academy this year. I continue to enjoy tutoring math and mentoring students informally. I also join them some weeks for chapel and the ensuing theological discussions. I'm particularly thrilled that one of the girls bacame a Christian last week and has been meeting with a former student for biweekly Bible study. Be praying for the hearts and lives of all my students as many have tough situations and many life changes to make.

-At EA2, I'm greatly enjoying teaching an economics course to one of my students. Another student is working through a geometry course and several students are coming for regular tutoring in precalculus, physics, chemistry, geography, algebra 1, world history, and freshman English. The biggest news is that our school was bought by a large online curriculum company called Apex (based in Seattle). It doesn't sound like anything will change with regard to my job or pay, but at least now I'll have access to some useful curriculum tools for free.

-Kayle's work at Microsoft is going well. His team released Async CTP, a feature that lets programmers write asynchronous code more easily; find more info about it here. Microsoft has been posting solid profits recently due to the popular release of Windows 7, Office 2010, and the new Windows phone.

Finally, I feel compelled to leave you with some of the comic strips we've found particularly funny.

Kayle's favorite and one that seems especially applicable right before the November midterm elections:





Other Dilbert favorites (you can click to make them larger):

This one kind of breaks my book lover's heart:

I'm glad my company's buy-out didn't go this way:

So delightfully geeky:

We saw several misguided advertising attempts on our trip out West. Just think, for every random ad, there were probably dozens of people that thought it was a good idea...

I greatly dislike chain mail!

And, finally, as we anticipate having kids someday: