A New Look

So I know I always post deep and thoughtful quotes and this week I went with one that really just made me smile :)

What a crazy week, but a great one! So much happened and the week seemed to fly by! Monday morning I delivered the cake and it made it all the way in one piece ;)  She loved it and was very impressed!!!! 

On Veterans Day we had yet another training day and it was soooo boring! It was all stuff we either knew already or had covered in the last training. They gave us breakfasts i guess that was how they compensated for how much pain they put us all through. I was still hungry after eating all of this so I went back and got another yogurt during our break :) 

This is my co-teacher and I! We sat together and made it as "fun" as we could. We wrote notes to each other and even took selfies for Lolo :) They did some fun games to break it up, but a 8-5 training day can only be made so good. 

After my trinning day I went and babysat my favorite little boy from school (shhhh we are not suppose to have favorites). I sent his mom and dad out on a date and we got to play :) He is an easy baby to watch and then his mom and dad were so sweet and brought me home dinner. I sat and ate there while we talked and it was so cool to get to know them outside of school. It was a long and late day, but so worth it all! 

On Saturday I had a hair appointment and was so excited to get something different done with my hair. I wanted to try and grow it out, but I think I will keep it short! 

Here is a before and after picture of the back of it. I LOVE IT!!!!!

Here is a selfie I took to show you the front of it. I love the cut and the fact that it is professional yet sassy :) 

Saturday afternoon I went to the Roundys house to watch the kids and we had a great time! We played a game of soccer and then had dinner and a movie. The younger two wanted to play with their kinetic sand so we set it all up on the table and played with it for 2 hours! 

We made buildings and towns....

Then I took out some measuring cups and utensils and they started to bake! They made cookies and cakes, and we even had an oven and timers going. They got along so well and we had a very fun time! 

After a long day I finished it with some baby gold fish and an episode of "Once Upon a Time"! Can't get much better then that :) 

What beautiful Sunday we had here in Virgina! After church I went on a long run/walk in shorts and a t-shirt. The breeze was a little crisp, but if your body was moving it was not cold at all! 

Finishing another week off with some volleyball with the Lapiskas and leftovers for dinner! I am excited for this work week and see what it brings.

You all have a great week and next weekend will be the last past before thanksgiving. Crazy how time flies :)

With a Pinch of Love,
Lil'Chef

JELLO Baseball

As you all know I did not get to write a post last weekend. I took the time that I spend to write a blog and used it to pray and journal. It was much needed time of just refocusing life :) 

This week I held many verses and songs close to my heart. This is a song that I would pray...

 "Help Me Find It" by Sidewalk Prophets. 

                                                    I don’t know where to go from here

                                                             It all used to seem so clear

                                                   I’m finding I can’t do this on my own

                                                    I don’t know where to go from here

                                                    As long as I know that You are near

                                                                    I’m done fighting

                                                                  I’m finally letting go

                                                                    I will trust in You

                                                           You’ve never failed before

                                                                     I will trust in You

Every morning this week as I drove into work watching everyone hustle and bustle their way in and out of their lanes I thought about all that Jesus has blessed me with. He has blessed me with a car that gets me safely to work and back, a roof above my head, good health, friends and family that support me, prayers that others pray for me...my list went on and on! I may not know His plans for my future but I do know he promises to take care of me and He will continue to bless! 

The company I work for stays away from celebrating holidays just to respect everyone's culture, but we got to have "character day" the day before Halloween. I did not want to wear my bat girl costume and get it yucky before Halloween so I came up with something else. I dressed up as Colette from Ratatouille, and made this picture collage to show who I was.

 It was so fun to see all the little kids get to be some of their favorite characters. There were so many girls dressed up like Elsa from frozen and there were a good amount of Supermans too! I wish I could put up our class picture because all my babies were so cute, but you will just have to trust me on this one :)

I went to the Roundys house on Saturday from 8am to sometime late that night. I went to babysit the kiddos that morning and then Aubrey and I cleaned the house and baked for the Halloween party that they hosted. That morning we had poptarts for breakfast and then Christine, Andrew, and I played Jello baseball. We made pillow bases, our bats were kitchen tongs, and our ball was a jello box from the jello we made for the party. 

It was a really fun game! Hey, you got to do what you got to do when it is way too cold for Guam people to be outside :) For lunch we watched star wars, but it was the Phineas and Ferb version...it was pretty funny! 

That afternoon I got to help Andrew with his Math homework (I love this sweet boy).

Baking with Aubrey was so good because we were able to talk and bake at the same time or at least we tried to not forget anything in the oven. :) We made bat cupcakes, a hand and brain made out of jello, and spider cookies.

 At 6ish families from the Roundys church came and the kids went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood in different groups, I went with the Moms and the littlest ones. It was so fun because they were so excited about every piece of candy they got. 

Christine was wanting to go home after like the 8th house so she could eat her candy. :p 

 Smartie Pants and Batgirl  

A super fun Halloween was had and I left there with a cream soda and Guam chicken so I was a happy girl :)

Last Sunday was a hard day, but a good walk in beautiful weather to clear my head was perfect! This weather has been warm for November, but you dont here this girl complaining :)

Tuesday was National Sandwich day
Perfect, I had a excuse to go to my favorite place....SUBWAY! I love their cold cut, turkey, and ham sandwiches with EVERYthing on them (but Jalapenos) with salt and pepper and chipotle sauce....DELICIOUS!

This weekend I took my laptop to get fixed and the mall I had to take it to was so cool looking! I love this look! 

Today after church I baked a chocolate cake with chocolate icing that one of my coworkers ordered. It is not the best looking one that I have done, but it has been awhile since I have done one. 

Then I finished the day with a workout and some fresh air. I sat out on the porch to enjoy the perfect fall weather and get some stuff done on my laptop.

 It was the perfect way to finish the weekend and I am ready to beast out this next week! It will be a busy one because we have another training day on Wednesday so no day off for this chick! I get paid so I am ok with that it just makes for a long day of sitting and listening to people come in and talk to us about teaching stuff. I also am getting two days off for Thanksgiving so for that... I am thankful :)  

I hope you all have a great week!

With a pinch of love,
Lil'Chef

Birthday Week

This is a quote I had found in the middle of the week on someones Facebook wall and I set it as the background on my phone. I loved it because I feel like I never know how long or where I will be next. I know the Lord has me here in VA today, but who knows what these next couple of months will hold.

What a week it has been! We are having a big inspection this coming week at our center and it has been putting alot of pressure on our admin and therefor putting pressure on us as teachers. Kids are so aware of things like this and could feel it and knew something was different. The kids were on edge and teachers where frustrated so it made for a hard week. I tried to get up every morning and start fresh yet when I walked through the doors it was very hard to choose joy. This last week is behind me and I can't wait to start a new week and get this evaluation out of the way so things can settle back down. 

My birthday was on Wednesday and this year it was very different. I could not thank the people that sent me packages enough, they meant so much to me this year being so far from everyone. This picture is of a poster that one of my colleagues made for me ( I loved that she even put a bow on it). The grapes and the strawberries were a gift from another colleague because I am always snacking on fruit during the day.       

I wanted to get my birthday drink from Starbucks before work that day, but the Starbucks that is in the same building as my job was closed for renovations. I went after work to different one and got an iced salted caramel mocha! It was so good and after a long day at work it was so refreshing!

Coming home I was tired and exhausted, it did not really feel like a birthday and I was kinda sad. I walked into my apartment and this was on my table from Pastor and Peg! This was so sweet and made the day so much brighter.

I tried this chocolate at work this week and it was really yummy! Chocolate always helps everyone smile  a little bigger :)

On Saturday I went to the DMV to get my car title transferred and to change my license to a VA one. I wanted to knock it all out in one trip and I was able to do just that! It was a huge blessing because I did not have to wait as long as I thought and I had all the paperwork I needed. Joseph so willingly come over to help me get my old tags off and put my new ones on. We decided to go to McDonalds so we could just catch up and we talked for 2 hours. He has been a huge help whenever I need anything and he challenges me to love with a Christlike love. He could have chosen to not have a friendship with me because it was to hard or make others think badly of me because it did not work between us, but he has chosen to do the opposite. He and I are good friends and that has only been by the grace of our God. After I talked to Joe I went to a coffee shop to install some things on my laptop and to get some thank you cards written for the gifts! It was so relaxing and you can never go wrong with getting a cinnamon roll to help get things done :)

Because my birthday was so different I wanted to wait until this weekend to open my packages. With all the stress of everything at work I knew I would enjoy them more if I waited! These are the sweet gifts from Lolo, I loved everything she put in here and everything had a post-it note on it on why she was giving it to me. There were plate holders in here but they did not make it in the picture because I could not wait to get my plates set in them.

These are the gifts from Al and Sue (the couple I go out to lunch with every week after church). They are so sweet and this is a new favorite sent of mine! 

This was a sweet package from one of my great friends from my Northland days. She has never forgotten to send me something on my birthday...I hope I can go visit her someday. We will talk or text once in a while and it is so cool because I feel like our friendship will always be like that. We always pick right up and it is always so sweet when we get to catch up! I love the bow and the chocolates are delicious!

Saturday night I was called up to grab dinner...yeah they spoil me!!! It was so yummy!

Today I have felt under the weather, but I could net help notice the beautiful turn of the trees when I walked my trash out.

I feel like that was a super scattered post, but that is how my head feels right now. It was a hard week, but it is behind me now and I am ready for a brand new week! oh...one month from TODAY I will be seeing Lolo!!!!!  

Ready or not Monday, HERE I COME!!!

With a pinch of love,

Lil'Chef

Personal Blessings

I know I am chalenged every time I step into my work place to choose JOY! Joy is a hard thing to have all day, and on a Monday morning joy is hard to even find! Lets make this Monday a great one!

This last Monday was a staff training day and I became first aid and CPR certified! As I told you in my last blog post it was a super hero theme and I went as bat girl! Here is a picture of me in action and as you can tell in the second picture I made the best of it and made it fun. 

The class was really not that bad and the instructor was really good at keeping our attention. At the start of the class he said that there would be a 53 question test at the end and we had to score 98% or higher to pass. He gave us paper to take notes on and then split us into teams and the winning team would not have to take the test. You can imagine how competitive everyone got and how well we paid attention. At the end he passed out a sheet of paper that was facing writing side down and told us that we could keep our notes but we had to turn in our books. He said we could flip the paper over and start...we did and it was just a teacher evaluation sheet, there was no test! He tricked us all into listening and taking really good notes for nothing :) He got us all good! It was a long day of training but we all made it fun and endured the day off together!

On my walk into work I noticed this trees leaves changing, and thought it looked really cool how they were changing from the outside in. I love fall!

With this fall weather it has brought some storms in with it. I know it is not the country side, but the sky looked so cool! I am still getting use to the many cars, tall buildings, and power lines that end up in city pictures. It was always easy and quick to snap a sky picture in Georgia. I also miss seeing the stars shine bight across the hay fields in Georgia.

Well everyone I am about to tell you about two very big blessings that prove that the Lord knows the desires of our hearts! I had wanted to go see my family in VT for thanksgiving, but because of finances and the timing it was not going to happen. I was then praying that I would be able to go see them for Christmas and because of the extra time I had to put in a request to get work off I was hopeful that this may work. I prayed hard and waited to put in the form. Last Monday I went ahead and asked for the three days before Christmas Eve that way it would give me the whole week plus the weekends on both sides off. That Friday on my way into work I prayed that the Lord would just give me peace about it and that it was in His hands and timing. Sure enough that day my director come in and approved my time off! I just screamed, was so happy, and started to cry! I could not tell you how excited I was to be able to spend time with my family for Christmas! I will be road tripping it up there (it is about an 8 hour drive)! After hearing this news whenever I would tell people about being able to go see my family for Christmas I would say " I will not be able to go home for thanksgiving, but I will be thankful that I get to see them all at Christmas time". Well, Jesus had his own plan for thanksgiving that I did not even know yet! On Wednesday I bought a ticket to go visit Georgia for 4 full days! Yeah, totally did not know it would work or where I would get the money from, but He knew. I called my director before I got the ticket and she said I could get the time I needed off to make my flight. So where am I going to get the money from? Good question but I have already been blessed with people giving me money for it and my birthday money is going towards the ticket too. I know the Lord is going to provide for the ticket, I just know it!  I am writing it down to see how the Lord is going to work and to know that God will provide even for the little things that we enjoy. He is good and has always provided what I need and now He has given me something a desire!

It has been so neat to see since I have moved how evident the Lord has been in my life. I know I am were I am suppose to be because he has blessed me so much! It is so cool how we have a God that cares for us as individual people and knows what make me, Heather Thompson, feel loved. He knew how important it was to me to be able to be with my family for Christmas and go and see all my friends in Georgia. Thanksgiving and Christmas are two times of the year when not being with family or close friends is so hard. I am so thankful and blessed that I get to spend both of these holidays with loved ones. Some times are hard to be here and Satin knows what gets me discouraged and will try to get me to doubt why I am here. Things like these blessings give me reassurance that this is where I need to be.

On Saturday I got up and the weather was perfect for devotions, a cinnamon roll, and a cup of tea on the porch. 

On the weekends I try to not do to much work because my mind just needs a break. So I went on a 6.4 mile run, did laundry, made my meals for the week, hung out with some friends, and then I got to watch collage vball and Rio 2 with the Pastor and Peg. I love Saturdays that I can rest and get ready for the next week.

Today after church my sweet friend Barbara and her husband took me out to Ruby Tuesdays for my birthday. It was so much fun and so great to catch back up with her and also get to know her husband more. They are a sweet couple and mean so much to me, they are so encouraging and fun to be with. I am sad because I forgot to get a picture, sorry :(  

After lunch I met Elizabeth at Starbucks for a planning (we are both teachers) party! We actually got a good amount of work done and were able to do some talking here and there! It was nice to be doing it with someone else, and I hope we can do this again soon! 

When I got back home I took a walk to mail some letters and this is what was behind me! How beautiful is that, this is the first sun set that I have seen that is this vibrant since I moved here!

Well my friends I am falling asleep right here at my desk so I should get to bed here soon. I am ready to knock out another week and I am looking forward to seeing my kids tomorrow! You all have a wondurful week and remeber that we serve a God who knows out desires and desires them for us, we just have to obey!

With a pinch of love,

Lil'Chef