time to catch up!

So, Jesse and I are in the living room right now. He's preparing his Sunday School lesson for this week and I realized that my time could be better spend catching you up on our last week instead of sitting around watching him like a pot waiting to boil.
It's been quite a week! Last Saturday, Jesse and I spent the whole day working around the house. We went to Lowe's and bought new handles and hinges for the cabinet doors above the closets in our room and our guest room. We also picked up some pretty mums to perk things up in our front yard. When we got home, it was time to trim the hedges, weed some areas, and plant my new flowers
Jesse and his crazy task: trimming the hedge!

happy to have flowers again!

We were very excited to be the hosts of this year's Labor Day with our family. Dad and Mom Mueller came from Oxnard with Kate and Laura, and Jon drove up from Biola after recovering from an "overnight Odyssey marathon reading" (or whatever it was called--pretty cool! why didn't they do things like that at my college?!?), Gramma and Papa came from Costa Mesa, Momma Bianca came from San Bernardino, Uncle Todd came, and our neighbors, Perry and Siby (who are absolutely adorable and I just love!) came over too. It was a full house! We're looking forward to hosting Thanksgiving here this year too, but I think we'll have to buy more chairs first!
Anyway, here's the whole group eating dinner:

We had a wonderful time! It was so much fun to have everyone over to our home--especially for those who hadn't seen it yet :)

On Tuesday and Wednesday, I got horribly sick with swollen lymph nodes. Here is a prayer email that I sent out, which I should have posted here too:

"Hello,
I just wanted to ask you to pray for me. For the past three weeks, I've been getting swollen lymph nodes under my left arm. It causes me a lot of pain and makes me feel weak, nauseous, and tired. Everything that I read online said that swollen lymph nodes are common, and can last up to 2 weeks. So far I've had 3 swollen lymph nodes, all on my left arm, and none has lasted a full two weeks. Yesterday, Jesse finally convinced me to go to the doctor, and I was told that I have an infection. The Dr. gave me an antibiotic and told me that if the swelling doesn't go down within 2 days, I have to go back for cultures. Last night another one began--this time in my right arm. It hurts a lot, and I don't know what to do.

Student teaching is supposed to begin any day (all I'm waiting for is a phone call telling me where I've been placed). It's been a frustrating experience waiting to hear where I will be, and the further I go into the school year without a placement means that my chances for getting a job in the spring are getting less and less. Jesse pointed out last night that "God knows what He's doing" since He hasn't put me in a classroom this week. Now I am thankful for that, because it's given me the ability to rest and be sick the last two days.

Please pray that the antibiotics help the swelling to go down so that there will be no need for further treatment. And also, please pray that I will hear about student teaching soon.

Thank you!

my love to all,
Bethany"

No fun! But God was amazing, and by Thursday, I was feeling much better. The swelling has gone down, and there is barely any tenderness left. I'm so thankful!

Also, good news about student teaching! I received a call yesterday letting me know that it is *almost* official that I will be placed in a kindergarten classroom at California Elementary School in West Covina! It couldn't be any better if I'd planned it myself. I've been thinking for a while now that Kindergarten may really be my niche, and I'm thrilled to get to do part of my student teaching in that age group to see if it's really for me. I'm also really blessed that this school is 10 miles away from my house, and in the right direction, traffic-wise. The next option was to place me in a school in East LA, and on top of being kind of scary, that would take forever to commute to because everyone is heading into LA in the mornings. But not I! Thank you, God!

I was feeling so good today that Jesse (whose new day off has officially switched to FRIDAYS as of this week) and I spent the day at the Long Beach Aquarium. We had a wonderful time. I don't think I've been there since high school, and I have so many fond memories of going there with my grandparents. Jesse had never been, so it was a lot of fun to show him around--and also be amazed with all of the changes they've made since I was there last.



This picture is especially for Papa Chuck:


After spending about 4 hours at the aquarium, we walked around Long Beach and enjoyed the harbor and some of the shops around there.
They have to have the biggest Borders over there that we've ever seen. Book stores kind of attract Jesse and me like moths to a flame, so we went in and enjoyed one of our favorite pastimes: reading childrens' books!
Good Ol' Shel Silverstein :)



Oh! I almost forgot to add one of the highlights of the day: there is actually a Bubba-Gump Shrimp Co. right across from the Aquarium. Here's Jesse's best Forest imitation :)


Well, that's it for me tonight. I feel a Scrabble tournament coming on!

p.s. I just realized that all of the pictures are pretty small. But if you click on any of them, they will show up in their own window much larger :)