New Cousin!

And I almost forgot!  Congratulations to Holly, Brian, Brook, and Clara on the new edition to the Olson family girls club.  Megan Ann was born yesterday and is beautiful and healthy! 

OCTOBER?!

How did it get to be October already?!?

I am sitting at parent-teacher conferences and in order to avoid the humongous pile of notebooks that need to be graded [staring me in the face] I thought I would update my neglected blog.

Let’s catch-up J  The last two months have been a whirlwind of school, cross country, dance, football, family visits, Minnesota, and a whole lot of Mexican food. 

School

I could go on and on and on and on about school.  It’s been SO great.  I am having the opportunity to develop professionally as a Social Studies teacher as well as a cross-cultural educator.

I instantly fell in love with all of my kids and feel so blessed to get to be a part of their lives each day…well every other day (I hate block scheduling!).  I love teaching Current Events and I love teaching!  I love my school.  Now only if I could build a big city in the gigantic field next to my house…

Dance

Shortly after my quick-trip home after Labor Day, I took on another coaching position—dance.  Now this is nothing like dance is in the Twin Cities (we only have practice one or two days a week and a much smaller team with no competition), so I figured it wouldn’t be too bad to coach two sports for a few weeks.  It ended up being a little crazier than I originally though, but I have loved every minute of it.  We have an awesome team dynamic and I have really enjoyed spending time with the girls at practice, clinics, games, and competitions.

 This past Tuesday, I traveled with my team to the conference band competition in Dodge City, KS where we performed with “That” Liberal Band.  They received a superior rating.  Bonnie (the head dance coach who teaches math in my building) and I are so proud of how our girls contributed to the show! 

Cross Country

Cross country was amazing and I loved getting to share my passion for running with so many small people.  Although we were a bit lacking in competitive nature, our runners all showed huge improvement in endurance, speed, and/or attitude over the course of the season.  It was an intense schedule with four of our 7 meets happening within 10 days, but we were proud of the performance and effort our kids put in consistently at each competition.  Our season ended with a bang at the ARMS meet (our conference meet), where we had 2 individual runners place!  After our trial year, Jack and I are excited to make some changes to the program next fall and to grow xc program at the middle school level.

Visits

I was really happy to have the opportunity to go home over Labor Day weekend and see familiar faces for the first time in a long time.  I was able to go to the state fair and enjoy candy bar on a stick and my gigantic pail of cookies.  AND don’t forget the 5 trips to Target and Starbucks J J

At the end of the September Mom, Dad and Tessa came down to L-town for homecoming weekend and were able to see school in action.  They arrived on a Thursday (Middle School game day) and were rushed into a whirlwind weekend of events including football games, a pep rally, a parade, and a visit to the infamous Billy’s.

Mexican Food

I don’t know how you can live in Liberal and hate Mexican food.  Literally some of the best food ever.  Come visit me and you will never want to go to Chipotle again.  Come visit me!

Alright, that’s enough for one round.  Tessa and Tristyn—it’s your turn for an update!