Happy Birthday

Today is my 26^th birthday and it has been a great day. For reasons I cannot quite place yet 26 feels great! I am sore from playing ultimate Frisbee yesterday and had a harder time getting up today after going to sleep at 11 PM. I often forget some of the simple things (Leah will attest to that) but 26 feels great! I think it has become that turning point year for me where I have a full time job I am with the woman of my dreams and taking advantage of great life experiences.

I never dreamed that I would be teaching in Africa or have done as much travel as I have so far. I am blessed with a great family and friends. Out of all of things I have experienced I believe that the most rewarding things in life are the relationships that we develop with one another. I talk to a lot of other teachers here and everyone is here for their own reasons, but it is very fulfilling to Leah and I to know how blessed we are with the family and friends we have at home and how we look forward to being back in less than two months.

This past weekend was a very busy and fun one. Leah and I went with two other teachers Friday night to a Spanish festival at the Hilton hotel. We watched a Flamenco dance show which was great! Then afterwards they had free food and drink which was even better. Saturday Leah and I volunteered for a charity cultural food fair and it was great! They had music and food from all over the world. I have a brat and a half because Leah had a hard time with the spice. Some French fries, German cheese cake, Canadian beaver tail (a flat pastry with some chocolate topping), and some Israeli chocolate. All in all a great time. We were able to meet some new people and talk to some of the acquaintances we have already met. We have been talking to this Aussie family who are just a delight to be around. They are always so happy and excited every time we see them. They have reminded me of a good life lesson, no matter where you are, you can have fun and enjoy life. I have been enjoying myself, but this weekend was a bit of a turning point in really getting out a bit and meeting new people.

On Sunday one of the other teachers and I went and shot archery at a German Compound which was great because I had just talked to Kare about hunting and he was heading out to hunt last Saturday. The German guys we very interested in what I hunt back home. They even let me take a few shots and I hit 2-3 bulls eyes which was a sigh of relief because I didn’t lose anyone’s arrows. They had a Fletcher release which is the same one I have back home and they shot Hoyte bows which are some great American made bows.

After Archery Leah and I went swimming, then we met up with some other teachers and played some ultimate Frisbee at the school and it was awesome. I have been swimming quite a bit and running a fair amount but playing ultimate showed me how out of shape I am!! Hopefully it will come around though. Then we had a get together at our apartment which was a lot of fun we had about 25-30 people over and we had made some homemade pizza, pop corn, and carrot cake. It was great! We had barrowed a projector from our upstairs neighbors and I played some slide shows of different pictures of family, friends, and trips I had taken. They really enjoyed them and a few said they were going to go fishing with Kare and I. I had some of Kare’s musky pictures and everyone was quite impressed. They also liked the kayaking video from the summer and of course all of the nieces, nephews, and parents.

This week has like the rest been a busy week! We had four days of school and now parent teacher conferences, which Leah is in right now, but as many know not too many parents care to talk to the PE teacher so I am using this time to work on curriculum, lessons, assessments, and cue sheets. It is really nice to just have some time to work on these items that I haven’t really had time to work on prior.

This Saturday the school is having a Halloween carnival for the students so Leah and I are volunteering to work the scavenger hunt. It should be a good time. The German camp where I shot archery is supposed to have something called human kicker this weekend which is human fools’ ball on a tennis court. It sounded like something you have to see. I hope we get a chance to watch a game or two. Well I don’t want to bore everyone anymore so I’ll stop here and when something else exciting happens I will post again. Take care until then.

Matt and Leah