Hurricane Weekend!

When I moved to Vermont I came totally expecting to experience my first real winter. I know that fun surprise is still coming in a couple months but one thing I never thought I would have to deal with when coming to the Northeast was hurricanes!

This weekend hurricane now tropical storm Irene, decided to make me feel like I right back at home in Florida where hurricanes are a normal part of life. How considerate of her. A little wind and rain is fine but I was totally bummed out when I got an email from the race director of the Race to the Top of Vermont (running up Mt. Mansfield, VT's highest peak) on Thursday evening saying they had decided to move the race I was entered in from Sunday to Saturday to avoid having to cancel it all together. I understand the reasoning behind it but it was still really disappointing to find that out.

Even though the weather changed my plans to run up Vermont's highest mountain on Sunday it at least opened the opportunity to spend part of the weekend with my good friend and fellow Vermonter, Temple! After church on Sabbath we went on a nice hike up a mountain called Camels Hump. It was a great climb with amazing 360 views of the NY Adirondacks and Lake Champlain, Mt. Mansfield, and Canada. The hike was followed by a terrifically fun evening in Burlington eating good food followed by delicious Ben and Jerry's ice cream and finding dirt cheap books at a Borders bookstore that was closing down! 50-70% off of everything in the store!

It's now Sunday afternoon and the supposed "hurricane" is currently dumping lots of wind and rain which makes for great weather to get all my last minute school preparation done! I am looking forward to my first year of teaching. Preparing for this year has at times felt like riding out a hurricane. It's come with its ups and downs, "floods" of emotions and stress, anxiety over not really knowing if the teaching strategies and techniques I have learned in college will actually work with my students. Thank goodness I won't be weathering this first year teacher storm or any storm for that matter by myself! I am reminded that as long as I keep Jesus as the captain of my vessel I can smile at any storm I may encounter this year. So with that said, bring on the new school year and may God be with me every single step of the way!