Just call me Melissa Poppins

I haven't blogged in a while. Not a lot has been happening since I got back from Oregon.

I've been nannying, which is great. In the last week I have done the following: Played mini-golf, played probably 10 games of Monopoly (we've declared Mondays "Monopoly Marathon Monday," played lots of other games, seen "The Bee Movie" in the theater, made sugar cookies, read a lot of books out loud before nap time, watched a group of 4-year olds at "Princess ballet camp," been to the pool a few times, done arts and crafts, tutored math and spelling, played on the monkey bars and trampoline, blown a lot of bubbles, made homemade popsicles, and given a few time outs...

All in all, I'm really enjoying it. The kids are well-behaved (minus occasional sibling rivalries and typical 4-year old tantrums), and we have a lot of fun.

In other news, Michael is down to only a couple weeks left of school. His official last day is August 13th (besides the online classes for the fall). We're still working on our field placement, but we think we have a pretty good idea where we might be going. As soon as we know for sure I will post on here. In the mean time, we are planning on heading back to Oregon at the end of the summer, when I'm done nannying. We'll probably take our time and make a trip out of it again. If everything goes as we think it may, we'd be in Oregon for a while (maybe a month or two?) before we head overseas.

As our time here comes to an end, we've been realizing how much of a community we have built among the other graduate students and spouses in the program. A couple weeks ago Michael and I started hosting a weekly gathering of food and hanging out, just to make the most of the last few weeks here. The talk lately is of everyone packing up and heading out; we're having a mutual garage sale before we leave, and very soon. That makes it seem very real.