Tales from the Cafegymnatorium, Volume 2

Let me tell you a story about a kindergartener I will call "Mo." Mo is a really cute little boy whose second language is English. For a while, I didn't know how much he understood because he was so reluctant to speak. Recently, we've had a breakthrough.

The other day at lunch, Mo raised his hand and instead of pointing to a garbage can or the drinking fountain he said, "I have four dogs!" I was surprised at this outburst of conversation from a normally silent child but responded enthusiastically to show I was excited about his effort. I thanked him for sharing and then moved on to the next student with a stubborn applesauce cup. Moments later, Mo raised his hand again. I approached again anxious to continue our conversation. Mo gleefully exclaimed, "I have five cats!" Again, I praised him for sharing with me. But we weren't quite done...

"I have three birds!"

"I have two sharks!"
"I have one tiger!"

And the coup de grace...
"I have one hundred robots!"

Since this breakthrough Mo has become even more outgoing. It's so exciting to hear him trying out English in conversation with other classmates and teachers! He's quite comfortable talking to me at lunch time and our normal conversation goes like this:

MO - *raises his hand*
EVAN - Yes, Mo?
MO - HiMyFriend!
EVAN - Hi my friend! *sticks out his hand for a low five*
MO - *alternating rapid low fives with both hands*

That's all for now. ByeMyFriends! - Evan

Christmas Break in Washington

Happy 2009 everyone! Yesterday, Andrea and I returned to Texas after spending our Christmas vacation in Washington state visiting family and friends. When we left Texas it was 75 degrees outside. In Washington it was a chilly 19 at the airport. Brrrr! There was record snowfall in the Pacific Northwest during our trip. Our friend Mark Pearsall informed us that the Portland newscasters called the storm "Arctic Blast 2008." On a side note, I think this moniker was the runner up subtitle for this past year's Winter X-Games.

For as bad as the weather was trumped up to be, it didn't hamper our traveling too much. We did a lot of driving and managed to make it everywhere we needed to go. There were however, some scary driving situations. Andrea did her best to make me aware of any potential hazards we might encounter as she rode in the passenger seat. Some of her more memorable quotes from the right hand side...

• Break lights. BREAK LIGHTS!
• It feels like we're going really fast.
• *Evan gestures* Please just watch the road.

To quell her anxiety, Andrea started wearing her stocking hat down over her eyes while we were driving. This seemed to be the best strategy for both of our sanity. Thankfully, we were able to make it to all our destinations.

In Pasco we stayed at Jason and Mandy's new house and celebrated Christmas with Andrea's side of the family (sans Bill who got snowed-in back in Tacoma). Jason organized a really fun GPS scavenger hunt for us. Andrea and I teamed up with Adam, Megan and Jamie to search for clues all over Pasco. We got off to a slow start but the game really started to heat up as we arrived at one destination and found out from some sledders that Tina, Jason, and Mandy had been there just minutes before us! After some frantic driving and eventually catching up to the other group, we managed to overtake them at the final location thanks to the girls' great clue-finding skills! Check out the picture at the top of the post.

We left the Tri-Cities and headed out to Aberdeen to have a Merry Christmas with my side of the family. The traditional Aho Family Christmas involves opening gifts on Christmas Eve (Scandanavian tradition, so I'm told) and eating ridiculous amounts of holiday candy throughout the break. Mission accomplished! :)

We took a trip up to Everett to visit with Grandpa Diamond, Uncle Ron, and Gail. We received a wonderful gift from Ron: a painting Grandpa Diamond made in 1937. It means so much to us to have a piece of art that is also family history! Thank you Ron (and Grandpa D)!

Next we met up with my parents at Hood Canal. Pam and Alan have put a ton of work into their new (as of January 2008) place and we had a great time seeing all the changes they've made. I know my mom has always dreamed of a Canal home and I think this one is the perfect palette for her creativity and craftiness. Likewise, it's close to hiking and golf for my dad. We stayed at the Canal for a night in the "Andrea & Evan Travel Room." After a couple more trips around the state, we came back to the Canal for New Year's. We were excited to have Shawn, Jessica, Kyle, Jeremy, and Cat all make the trip up to celebrate with us! Highlights included Balderdash and Rock Band 2. Andrea tolerates video game playing a little bit better when she gets to listen to my lovely singing voice. *wink*

Finally, we spent time with Bill in Tacoma. He gave us a great tour of the Tacoma area and we were so lucky to have just about the only sunny day of the trip for it. Good timing!

We're so blessed to have had safe travels this break to see people we love. Thank you to all our family members for taking good care of us in Washington and letting us stay in your homes once again! - Evan

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

Soccer Coaches

This Saturday marks the end (we think) of our first foray into the world of coaching youth sports. Andrea and I have been coaching a U10 Boys soccer team for the past two months and it has been a lot of fun! We were contacted to volunteer for the position just a week before the season started and it has been a bit of a whirlwind. Our team is almost entirely billingual with many of them speaking Spanish as their first language. They are full of energy and inspire us with their smiles and hustle. Here's a picture:

It's been a great experience for us! The boys keep us on our toes and we have worked hard to praise them for good teamwork, sportsmanship, and giving their best effort. We've also enjoyed the opportunity to hone our Spanish. On a side note, the team is filled with incredible players. I think the combined score of our five games has been about 40-2... it has nothing to do with our gameplan, these guys just flat out score goals. Here's to hoping we can keep things relatively close against whatever team we play next week! :)

San Ramon trip!

At the beginning of May I had a great trip down to San Ramon to spend the weekend with my Mom! We did some shopping in San Francisco, ate a delicious meal at Piatti's, I developed a taste for Wente Vineyards Chardonnay, we took a Cinco de Mayo cooking class at Sur la Table (I make great Spanish rice now!) and we saw MICHAEL BUBLE IN CONCERT!! What a fun filled weekend and lots of great Mother-Daughter time!