Soon, Soon..

It is funny how different things look when you are next in line to inherit a classroom. As the first few weeks of school shot y I have been slowly making a list, some of it mental, and some of it on paper, of the changes that will happen when I am passed the reigns of JE#6.

Some small things, some others seem to me to be bigger things, from classroom environment as well as day to day things to some moving around of the materials. I just think that things will work better. It may be next year or maybe or a little later, but I am looking forward to it.

Also, I am looking forward to the little training seminar at the end of Sept. The weekend of my birthday in fact. Slowly things are coming together. We have a lot of  GREAT staff additions this year and I am looking forward very much to spending the next 172 days with them and the great kids we are working with this year.

Also found out today that we CAN get financed with a lender and are not required to go through the other program we were originally going to go through. We have found a lot of great homes and can not wait to start going out and looking at them. Will be posting pictorial possibilities soon.

10 Days In

Last week was the first week of school and the week before was work week where we set things up for the year and got the classroom ready, but now that that is all over we are in the thick of things and I am loving every minute of it.

My classroom feels great, looks great, and our 26 little brains are soaking in the Montessori wonderfulness. We are working through a lot of really great projects and we have some GREAT kids, but things are totally swamping me.

Working from 8-4 5 days a week does not seem like a lot, but I am also soaking in a lot. Things are changing at work in a lot of key areas, I also going to start training sometime this fall, also we are looking for a house and having something that is finally ours.

Things are crazy but I am making it through day by day loving it. We went to the pool today and had a lot of fun. As soon as I can get the pictures from Rachel’s phone I will post them here. Judah had a lot of fun in the starfish floatie and did really well and Talia had her arm floaties and she had a great time as well, to the point where she did not want to leave, but then again wherever we go, she never does! Silly girl.

Tomorrow she is going to have some of her other friends over to go swimming (again!) and she has been waiting all weekend for this. She is such a little social butterfly it is awesome.

Off to bed now, but will post later on. Hopefully before next weekend!

Martinka Family Icon: COMPLETED!

A few months ago, back in March, when we got my tax return we decided to commission a Family icon. This means that we commissioned an icon that had all of the patron saints of our family.

Counter-clockwise from bottom left St. Juvenaly of Alaska (+1796), Saint Katherine the Great Martyr(+305), Saint Konstanin of Merkushino (+1918), and Saint Natalia of Nicomedia (+306)

The image below is a pre-varnish image sent the other day. Nun Anastasia started the varnishing process today (4 coats) and said that will take a week or so to finish and then she will send another image of the icon when it is varnished, I absolutely LOVED her work before when looking at her website, now that I have an icon of my very own of hers I am ecstatic.

Martinka Family Icon

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Summer Loves

As promised, here are the pictures I took yesterday of the little frogs in the pool. Talia made a friend while we were there, sadly, she is not from AZ, she was visiting her grandma for part of the summer and she leaves tomorrow. We made another swim date for Talia and her new friend this morning. I wish there was a place we could live where Talia had more friends she makes friends easily and is in no ways shy, o it is sad when she does make friends and they go away for one reason or another.  Oh well, on to the pics!

94 Hours and the End of Summer

Today is the last day of summer camp and with it marks the end of the pay period. This means that in the last 11 days I have worked 94 hours give or take and will receive that paycheck at the end of next week. As hard as it was at times it was a lot of fun.

Now to celebrate. As soon as I finish this post we are going to head out the pool and I am going to enjoy some time with my “Nemo” fish and my little water frog. Talia has been asking for us to all go swimming for the past few days so it will be the good end to a great summer program.

I will try to get some pictures to post of my little swimmers.

Just A Bit of an Obsession..

Well, since I am on a Youtube video kick I will also post a video of my latest obsession. Well, it is more of a family obsession. We started watching Dr. Who a few weeks ago and are now working our way through season 5, but here is a small video tribute I found online that I really like. Enjoy!

 

The Glory of Imperial Russia

This has to be one of my all time favourite videos of the Royal Martyrs and serves as a beautiful window back in time…

And for those interested if you pause it at 1:25 you can look at the very left of the video and see a picture of the Grand Duchess Elizabeth after she had entered monastic life as a nun. I always say a prayer at this point because of how special she is to my family.

On the Feast of the Martyrdom of the Royal Family (17 July 1918)

My prayer is that we might hear this anthem sung throughout the streets of Holy Russia in my lifetime. God save the Tsar!

On The (Side of the) Road Again

Well, as the title suggests, we spent most of the day yesterday on the side of the road. Let me explain.

We were supposed to go to the Legacy golf Resort here in Phoenix as a git from my in-laws as they were going to visit this month but could not and so they were going y let us use the points from their timeshare and spend a few days away having a restful weekend,

Our car had other plans.

Yeah you can see where this is going.

Well, we left after a bit of packing when I got off of work on Friday and we got about 2 blocks from the house and a guy pulls up beside us ad lets us know we are dropping fluids. This is NEVER a good thing unless you are a spacecraft, which sadly, we were not.

We decided to go straight to the mechanic in the hopes that this would be a quick fix or at least we would have the van was there and it could get fixed. No such luck.

Well, long story short, we got a bit of the way there and the van would not cooperate, We left home at 18:30 and did not get home til almost 01:00..

Good news, we are spending almost all of the weekend in a Who-a-thon.

The Doctor always makes things better.