Good-bye Saint Francis, Hello Summer Vacation

Sorry to make you jealous with my title, but yes, we are enjoying our first day of Summer vacation. It's been in the mid-90s all week, and very humid. Although you may be sick of inclement winter weather, let me just say that we wish we had some... We are so sick of sweating! So there you go, the grass is always greener on the other side.

It's hard to believe, but we have successfully completed our first year of teaching. Granted, we started in the middle of first semester, so we're really only been teaching for a semester and a half, but it still feels like a whole year. We have learned a lot, about teaching, about ourselves, and about life in (for lack of a better word) an opposite culture. There have been a lot of good moments, but to be honest, we are glad to be done at Saint Francis and moving on to another school. We will really miss some of our students, though.

So here's the update you've all been waiting for:

We have decided to stay in Thailand another year. We got accepted to teach at another Catholic school not too far from here. Here's the real kicker: we will be teaching Kindergarten and First Grade!! Yep!! We are moving from 5th and 11th Grade to 1st Grade! We did teaching demos during our interview, and I was blown away by how tiny they are, with their miniature little desks, and how easy it is to entertain them!! We think it will be a lot of fun, once we get used to it, and it means we'll come back to the US with more experience whenever this whole Asian escapade is over.

Thank you for all your prayers!

Pictures... Let's see. Here are a few to show our last weeks at school. We really haven't had anything to do these past two weeks without students, so we've had to be creative to entertain ourselves.

...finishing up grades. Our "beloved" blue books.

...going out to lunch for 2-3 hrs with some of our fellow teachers.

...taking advantages of the empty classrooms to watch movies on the TVs.