Stepping Out of the Boat

Last week the four of us (Becky and Sonya) were up on top of the roof enjoying some of the nice breeze that hits us as the sun is going down. We tend to make our way up there most days of the week. Most of the time we sit on the chair and little bench while we are up there and watch the traffic and construction that is happening out front of our building. However this day was a little different. We started to explore the other sides of the building and what exactly was out there. We noticed a the tree in our "backyard" had what
we thought were limes on it. There wasn't a lot of fruit up there, but there was enough that I felt like I needed to try and get what was up there. So while the girls watched from the roof I went down to see what I could do.

Once I got down there I realized that the "limes" were a lot higher than they looked from the roof. After looking around the area for a moment I realized that the long 2 by 4s would be my best tool. So I started with the 10 foot board and struggled to get anything down. I was hitting them really hard, they were just alot harder to get out of the tree than I thought. So I upgraded to the 20 foot board and after about 5 or so minutes of batting the fruit around, some finally fell out of the tree. Well great cheers went up as the girls were watching from the roof.

It was after I had knocked one out of the tree that I realized they weren't limes but were really oranges.
I continued on getting four good oranges before my arms couldn't even lift the board off the ground and my hair and eyes were filled with who knows what that was falling out of the tree with each whack of the board. Here are a couple pictures of me back on the roof and of the girls with the fruits of my labor. We took them down stairs washed them off and had a little treat.

They surprisingly tasted just like oranges but the smell was even better than normal oranges. Apparently, the oranges that you buy at the store are dyed orange so that when you see them, you think, "I bet that is really orange and yummy on the inside since it's so orange on the outside." Naturally grown oranges are green on the outside. Check out the Picture and Video link to see a 2 part video of me trying to hit an orange out of the tree.


Last Wednesday was our schools open house. We had been told leading up to the night that it wouldn't be like any other open house we had even been to so we weren't really sure what to expect walking over. Once we walked in we noticed patio chairs and a projection screen had been set up on the playground. After making sure our classrooms were all ready to go all the teachers and parents made thier way to a seat. The director of the school had a power point presentation, in Spanish, that she wanted to share with everyone. Part of the presentation was the introduction of all the teachers. This sounds easy enough, right? When the director says your name you stand so that the parents can put a name with a face. The problem was she was speaking in Spanish and she was going faster than anyone can stand and sit down. So after seeing my name, along with a few others, on the projection screen and not really knowing if it was my turn I stood up. No one really said anything but I am still not sure if I stood at the right time. Claire completely missed her name and ended up standing at the same time as two other teachers. The entire presentation lasted for an hour and a half. She talked about anything and everything having to do with the school. I would go into more detail but the whole Spanish thing I mentioned earlier made it harder to understand. After the powerpoint all the homeroom teachers and parents headed up to their rooms for the individual speeches. I decided to do my part with the other six grade teacher who speaks English. Call me crazy but I had a feeling I would run into some sort of language barrier along the way. I am glad that I did because this part of the night was also done in Spanish by the other six grade teacher while I just stood up in front of everyone. I did get the chance to introduce myself and speak with some parents afterwards but other than that it was a long awkward 30 mintues.