Tales from the Cafegymnatorium

I teach physical education at a kindergarten through 10th grade school here in Texas. My classes are pretty small as P.E. rosters go; thirty students, max. The tradeoff (or maybe the impetus) for having such small class sizes is a small gym space. Our "gym" also fuctions as the schools cafeteria and auditorium. A "cafegymnatorium," if you will. A consequence of my classroom doubling as the lunchroom, I have the assignment of lunch duty five days a week.

During lunch duty, I try to keep students from making a complete mess of themselves and the school. I also do food prep for young ones who can't open up the snacks packed in their Hannah Montana or Transformer lunchboxes (By the way young parents, don't ever buy "Gogurt." No student under twelve years old can open one of those tubes without a pair of scissors.) While walking around the lunchroom helping students peel bananas and unwrap lunchables, a kindergartener raised his hand to get my attention. I scurried over to his seat to help him out. When I arrived, the boy asked, "Coach Aho, can you open this for me?" Then he held up a plum. Suppressing a snicker, I explained to the boy it was a piece of fruit and he could just put it right into his face. He bit into it, then smiled and thanked me. Teachable moment? Check. - Evan

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Andrea has been excited about the holiday season since about oh... September. I distinctly remember her talking about Christmas music on our anniversary. Secretly, I've been very excited myself (it is the most wonderful time of the year) but have enjoyed teasing Andrea about the holidays not "officially" starting until Thanksgiving. Again, I am reminded why Uncle Rick had so much fun telling Kristof and I we were going to postpone Christmas and save the gift opening for the next year.

Well there's no more denying the looming days of Christmas. It snowed today in Bryan, Texas. That's right. Snow. In fact it snowed last night, this morning on my way to school, on my way home from school, and was still snowing up until about an hour ago. Mind you, none of this was sticking to the roads, but the lawn looks pretty festive and white. When Andrea called to tell her brother Jason about the weather he commented, "So hell did freeze over." I took the picture just outside our front door.

We don't get snow often in Bryan, but it sure had the kids excited at school. For many of the kindergarteners, it was the first time they had seen snow in their lives. Luckily, Andrea and I have survived many an Eastern Washington winter so we're a bit more acclimated. I wore shorts to school today and specifically avoided sweatpants over the top just so I could brag...

KID - "Wow! Coach Aho are you crazy?!? It's snowing outside and you're wearing shorts!"

EVAN - "Oh, well I'm used to the snow. I'm originally from Washington. I've survived negative temperatures... no big deal." *buffs his nails on his shirt*

That's right, being from Washington gives you lots of snow-cred with Texas 6th graders. We can only hope this cold front will help us acclimate enough to be comfortable outdoors in Washington when we return for winter break. We're both really excited to get to visit family and friends in about a week and a half. We'll post some more updates on travel plans soon. Happy Holidays! - Evan

Blog Resolution and The Beefmaster

So it's about time I posted something new on this page. Andrea has been working hard on her final papers and studying for final exams; it seems the least I can do is keep family and friends updated on what we've been doing deep in the heart of Texas.

I'm still not quite sure what this blog should look like. I suppose we can style it as a community update format, but Andrea has also encouraged me to record "stories" for posterity so that someday down the line I can pass them along to the next generation of Ahos. I like to think of myself as a storyteller of sorts and certainly draw from a genepool of people who can spin a yarn (nod to Grandpa Glenn, Dad, Ted, and Juanita). I'm hopeful y'all will get some enjoyment out of these tales while I'm at it.

As I continue to flesh out the details of how this will read, understand my strategy is a lot like what I encouraged Andrea to do on her final paper: "Just write crap down." As a result, you may get a lot of posts like this one that have no redeeming entertainment value and only give sparse insight as to what's happening in our lives. At any rate, I'm resolving to give this blog a better effort. With that, I leave you with an anecdote...

Yesterday, Andrea and I went to Kroger (local grocery store) in search of dinner inspiration and came back with two peppermint mochas. Not the most well-rounded meal we've ever done, but we weren't the least healthy shoppers of the evening. As we walked past the frozen foods aisle we came upon a gentleman pushing a cart filled with (and this is an estimate) twenty four packages of ground beef. Immediately as we were past the man with the meat Andrea shot a glance over to me and I couldn't help but smirk. This smirk turned into contagious giggles and eventually full-out snorting laughter by the time we reached the bakery.

Now, in all likelihood, this gentleman was probably buying food for a community fundraiser or he had to feed the football team before their last game. Surely, no reasonable individual would buy twenty four pounds of ground beef just to indulge himself. But in passing this fellow, who was substantial in size, and his cart stacked with packages of hamburger, we both conjured an image of him plowing into the butchery (real word? I'll try it), elbowing shoppers out of the way, and bellowing, "Gimme that meat! That's my meat!" It's as if no one told him Black Friday was last week and did not apply to grocery stores.

Suffice to say, we did not purchase hamburger that night. Probably because it was all gone! (Ha ha! *snort*) Thank you "Beefmaster." - Evan