Wow

If you are reading this post...WOW! You are quite persistent. THanks for being interested in my life.
So what's upin my life now? I spent the end of March, all of April and the first two days of May student teaching in Grade 2 at Langley Christian School. I'm glad I got to do that.
May 9 I graduated from Dordt College. (yes, my diploma was even signed and I recently received a Iowa teacher's license - cool)My relatives threw a shower for me which was fun - yummy food, fun games and good company. Mom and Dad came out for that and we drove back by way of Elenbaas' in Billings and Helena, then stopped in Sunnyside...very fun. At that point I interviewed at a school 40 miles from Sunnyside (in Yakima).
Follow-up on that - I got a job! This Fall I'll be teaching 3rd grade at Riverside Christian School. I'm excited and nervous. Very nice people too.
THen I was home for awhile - packed up my room, moved boxes of stuff to the garage. I have way more stuff than I need but sadly I'm too much of a packrat to figure out what I can actually get rid of. Maybe later...
Also did some wedding planning stuff in there. Lots of stuff - much more involved than I ever thought. Then I left on the bus for Sunnyside. Stayed there a day and a night and then Jason and I drove to Helena. Visited his folks for 2 days. Saturday we left Helena with Jon and Eryn to go to Iowa, S Dakota and Minnnesota. Visited Gpa and Gma Elenbaas, Te Krony, Schaap, Plooys, Huismans, Roos', Uncle Sylvan and Aunt Denise, Uncle Arlan and Aunt Dawn (and kids), Jason's Uncle James, Mahaffys' and then of course helped out with some wedding set up stuff, went to rehearsal and dinner and then the wedding of course. So now it's Nate and Kirbee Nykamp. What an amazing blessing marriage is. I'm so glad we could go out for that wedding. We went back by way of Helena and got to spend more time with Elenbaas'. On Sunday we had a reception at church - yummy food again, poster of pictures, fun game involving shoes and future predictions of our marriage. THat was really nice.
Tuesday I drove back all by myself!! From Helena to Maple Ridge. It actually went pretty well. Of course I shouldn't be surprised - thanks be to God for taking care of me the whole way. Now I'm home again and today I met with the florist and will meet with photographer tonight, also didi some more packing and I'm getting there!
Yesterday Lynola threw me a shower with Lynnea and Mom's help. Lots of friend came and we had a good time with chalk drawings, pin the mouth on Michelle, sock game - it was a foot and mouth (not the disease!) themed party - all the gifts were socks and recipes. Wow. I got over 70 new pairs of socks. (No, I am not exaggerating or kidding). So if I only had to wear socks I'd last at least 3 months without doingn laundry. And I'm pretty sure Ii could get a full load too :)
Anyway, it was quite fun and I'm now enjoying the company here (Dad, Mom and Lynola). It's good to be home for now. Quite busy though still.
8 days from today I will no longer be MichelleVis. Wow. It's huge. I'm excited. I'm thankful. And I'm also tired ;)
I hope you're all well. I'm guessing that this might be my last post. I'll leave it up for awhile until Ii remember again that I still have a blog. At which point I will post, or perhaps shut it down. Farewell dear friends. Hopefully I'll keep in contact still.
God be with you - He always is. Thanks be to God.
~MichelleAnnVis

More pictures!

Stacey, Leesa, Kristina, Kim, Bekah, Me

Here is the beginning of our adventures in New Mexico (and surrounding area such as Arizona). Yes! We went sledding. We have had 2 snow days and 2 late starts and 1 early dismissal so far. By the way, this place is called suicide hill. If I had a picture of the hill you might actually agree.


This is Window Rock. We just took our picture in front of it and looked at it to say we were there.

















Then we drove to Canyon de Chelly (pronounced shay) and hiked 2.5 miles. Something like that. It was easier to go down than up afterwards though. At the bottom were the amazing White House Ruins which were built by the Anasazi before the 1300's. I had no idea we had sites that old in North America. That was so great!


*about halfway down - taking a break...













These are the ruins. See the white building in the background. And that's all built into the canyon wall / a bit of a cave and it's incredibly high. Wish I could put a picture that showed the vastness of the whole canyon and these buildings. You'll just have to go to Arizona and check it out.

Finally some pictures!

Sorry, I don't have any more pictures down here right now. And I totally forgot about my blog since my last post. But here is Jason's and my first picture as an engaged couple. (Or maybe our second) And this is 5 of us 6 student teachers trying hot tamales - one of our first 'cultural experiences' at the flea market. (Stacey, me, Kristina, Lessa, Bob Ippel, Kim).
I don't think I'm allowed to put up pics of my kids but they're so cute! I love them all and WOW is 1st grade different from 6th!

Update again

Hi all visitors!
Well some big news in my life right now. I went home for Christmas which was wonderful. I got to see my immediate family, get together with extended family, and spend some time with Jason. Some of what Jason and I spent doing was planning our wedding.
Jason proposed to me in the (slightly clouded over) sunrise on the dyke on Christmas morning. We walked for awhile and could just see Mt. Baker coming through the clouds. (Not actually coming towards us but we could see it just the same) When he asked me to go for a walk early Christmas morning it took a little convincing and some compromise on the time. I think we started with 7:00 and settled on 7:30. With the request to go on a walk, I was expecting him to ask me but...
So we're walking a ways and then Jason says "I have another Christmas present for you" (we opened gifts Christmas Eve). So I reply with something to the effect of "ok" and I'm expecting him to produce a ring. Well instead, he gives me this stuffed frog. So cute but I'm still kind of looking to see if there's a ring somehow attached to the frog. Nope. Oh well. Love the frog and oh so cute and soft.
Well then Jason gets down on one knee and pulls out this film canister. [insert some history: one of the first gifts Jason gave me was a purple rubber frog in a film canister - still have it and love it actually brought it along with my student-teaching] And what is inside but a beautiful ring. Aww. So then he pops the question and reply with something similar to "yes" or "ok". Yup. So we're engaged. Then we spent some chunks of time in the following week planning our wedding. Of course it is much more complicated than I originally thought.
Well now I'm in Rehoboth, New Mexico. I flew out here on Friday and we had some orientation this weekend. Mostly people told us about the area and the people and fed us lots of food. Now it's Monday and I'm still awaiting the safe arrival of my luggage. Saturday night I went out to Walmart and bought some teacher clothes to wear to school. Low and behold, no school today! It snowed about 3-4" overnight and is at 6" or more now.
But before you think that people in New Mexico can't handle a little snow; consider that the roads a lot of these kids come in on are hilly dirt roads. Just doesn't work so well. Anyway it's stopped now and the sunshine coming in the cold basement window is heating the left side of my head, now if only it'd melt the ice forming on my fingers...
God is good. He is faithful and taking care of me in great ways. No matter how grumpy I've been about not having my material posessions. Another great lesson about grace.
Sorry - no pictures right now, I'm missing some pictures and my camera's in the suitcase.
I hope you're all well!
~Michelle~

Update on my life!

Janice visited on parent's weekend and we had a lot of fun. (this was actually before the chin incident) She came to some of my classes and even helped in tutoring at the local elementary school. I enjoyed having her around and being able to chat with her and introduce her to people around here. What a sweet friend I have!







We had a surprise bridal shower for Kirbee and followed this with star gazing at Sara's house. It was cold but amazing to see those constellations so clearly and some shooting stars.











For Thanksgiving I went with some girls (one being Maria Elenbaas) to the Elenbaas'. Jason also came down from Sunnyside so we met part way. It was cold but I really enjoyed my time there. I was re-introduced to some relatives and we played games, ate yummy food, went to the store and Jason and I even ran away into town a couple times.












Kirbee's Sr. recital was this past Friday and she played beautifully and looked beautiful. All us roommates dressed up and took a nice roommate picture. It was a great time and her parents and sister came out for it too.



Soon it will be Christmas! I'm excited to go home

Like my new look?

Hi my dear visitors. Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. I intended to write earlier and about exciting things so now I shall. Well, I'm not sure why this is all underlined but oh well! Ok, so here is the sweet bandage and tape I got to wear over my stitches today. Now I'm down to a new bandaid. I am in HPER Skating and today I fell. Hence, my knees and my chin are sore.
So I have my first ever stitches. And I have 7 of them. I'm pretty excited about it all. Silly me, I tried to eat ceral afterward but it was too hard and big. (Wheaties). So I left for an hour and got prescription, visited my dear Aunt Florence, and bought some yogurt and applesauce. I came back and my cereal had sucked up all the milk. It was perfect! Needless to say it's been an interesting day and I didn't go to any classes. (Besides the first 3 minutes of skating)
And the rest of my life - I am now in the 2nd half of my last semester of classes here. I'm enjoying myself and I lost 2 classes and midterm so I'm slightly less busy. Mondays and Wednesdays I have class and go to elementary school for practicum, Tuesdays and Thursdays I have class and go the public school to tutor for 1.5 hours. Good experience but sometimes it's tough!
2 weeks ago was parent's weekend and my friend came to visit from home! It was so fun to have her around. We went to the play, ice cream social, relatives (on both sides), and observatory. She also helped with tutoring and teaching sunday school. I loved being able to walk around with her and talk a lot. I missed her right away. But am extremely grateful for friends like her.
Anyway that's an update on my life right now. I'm still plugging away at the last of my classes and I am truly enjoying myself and will miss this life.
Thanks for visiting my blog though it's been so long since I've updated!
Take care!

My Weekend :)

It all started with my roommate becoming the Matchmaker. We had the annual Pops Concert on campus and each section of the band & orchestra dressed according to a song they were playing (violins were Fiddlers' on the roof, clarinets were cars, violas were Flinstones, trombones were the Incredibles). Director Duitman dressed like a rapper and then Fred Flinstone and the first 100 or so of the audience had mini glowsticks (which by the way look really cool in your mouth). After the Pops concert we had a roommate picture again (our very first roommate picture was at the concert last year) Then Teresa and I went to see Cars on the big screen in the campus center. Free popcorn, pop, and cotton candy for all!
Saturday morning I woke up early (not by choice, my body woke me up) and then at 10ish Kirbee came in and went to bed (she was working on the 48 hour movie challenge with a group) and I did some homework and went to work. After work I went with my Karlynn, Laura and Heidi to my cousin's house for a movie night and pizza it was so fun! Got home late and went to bed at the same time as Kirbee so we ended up talking til 1:30ish and of course we had church at 8:45 so thanks Heidi for the ride! I taught Sunday school and then went to Mahaffy's for lunch - Aunt Florence is the queen of Sunday soup it was lovely and it was great to see them again too. I sure miss being with those people. But Karlynn and I were both tired so we came back to Dordt to take naps. (I was unsuccessful but it was still a good afternoon - got to talk to my whole family!) Went to first CRC ant night and Pastor Herm preached on Deuteronomy 14 tithing - that is amazing you should all read it and be amazed at how great God is and all the fun He lets us do to praise Him. Check it out!I walked back from church with Nate and Kirbee and we saw a beautiful bright red sun setting over the land. Got back and Cassie came and visited for the night. Randomly we all ended up sitting on the big bathroom floor and chatting for about an hour - it was so incredibly good. And tonight I got to go to class, work, and school, eat a steak dinner (ask Kirbee for marinate recipe) and talk to Jason.
Now I am sleep deprived (but I was before), unproductive in regards to homework, and very happy. God is good - all the time!