Quarry Park

I discovered an awesome state park near my house! It used to be full of active quarries, which are now lovely places to fish, swim, rock climbing, even scuba dive (and cross-country skiing in winter!) 

I went on Sunday for a little hike, and it was beautiful weather. Mid-70's, sunny, breezy. The woods here are a whole new experience for me! They are so pretty! So many kinds of trees, filtering the sunlight, turning to fall colors just a little bit. 

There are grassy trails through birch and oak forests, there are wetlands, a prairie area, and granite and basalt boulders and other formations. There's also an historic granite derrick for hoisting tons of granite out of the quarries, with a bunch of historic equipment.   

I explored about 1/3 of the park, just following trails around, and I can't wait to go back next weekend to explore more of it. 

Paul and Sarah's Wedding - Vermont, September 12th

What an exceptional weekend!! My little brother got married, and it was awesome. 

I flew in on Thursday morning, and made it to Paul and Sarah's house in Montpelier for dinner. My parents were there, and Brian, and Phoebe, and Sarah's parents, her brother Tim, and Tim's wife Katie, and their kids, and several friends of Paul and Sarah's. It was great seeing everyone and we had a tasty dinner and talked about the weekend ahead.

That's the roof of their house as seen through their woods from near their creek. No, I am not kidding you.

A really cool handmade wedding gift

Friday was wedding setup. We drove to a camp called Common Grounds, outside Burlington, and it was beautiful! The camp has a big dining hall, lots of little cabins tucked away in the woods, a lodge, several barns, and open spaces.  Actually, everything I saw in Vermont was beautiful. Rolling hills, tons of trees, picturesque barns and creeks. The weather on Friday afternoon was perfect. It had rained on Thursday night, but Friday it was clear and sunny, warm but not too hot, a gentle breeze blowing through the trees. Ah, Vermont. 

The view of the dining hall from the top of the hill

We got settled in, and started getting things ready for the wedding on Saturday.  Their friend Kit was in charge of the kitchen and planned and prepared many of the meals. Chris arrived on Friday afternoon. I spent some time playing airplane with Tim & Katie's boys on the impressive play structure. (We were flying to Indonesia. The in-flight meal was hot dogs and juice.) After dinner there was big campfire with s'mores!

A real live cider press

Brian doing what he does best - umping kickball

 Saturday!  Another gorgeous day. I was on the breakfast crew, which meant I had to be in the dining hall at 6:30 to help get breakfast ready. Phoebe came in and woke me up at 6:45.  Yep. I wasn't a great help at getting breakfast ready. After breakfast, I was tired, so I took a nap, and I spent some time reading, and some time walking the grounds with people, and chatting with people. It was nice being part of the wedding family, because I already knew so many people there. There was a kickball game that I watched for a bit, and they had set up an apple press to make fresh cider from apples Paul and Sarah had gathered at their house. Oh, Vermont!

The Eley men getting ready for the ceremony

We got dressed and ready for pictures after lunch. Everyone looked so nice! The ceremony started around 4pm.  It was outside, and it was one of the best wedding ceremonies I have ever been too. Paul and Sarah said their vows, then we all sat in silence for a bit, as it was a Quaker wedding. Then people could stand up and share something if they wanted. Tim stood up first and talked about him and Sarah growing up. Friends of their said lovely things and gave advice and told stories. My dad, Brian, and Chris, all stood and said beautiful things about Paul and Sarah. There was lots of happy crying. Even thinking about it all now I'm pretty much crying again. It was all beautiful.  The ceremony ended around 5pm, and we headed for the dining hall for cocktails and appetizers and rain. Yes, the rain waited until just after the ceremony!! 

 

Sarah and her dad doing some neat folk dance that I didn't know

 Sarah's mom made a lovely marriage certificate that every person in attendance signed. We had dinner catered, then had some fun dancing. It rained harder and harder.

Sunday morning came way too soon. I had breakfast, said goodbye to family and friends (new and old!) and Brian drove me to the airport in Burlington.  I will say, that airport is typical of Vermont - small, adorable, clean, and charming. Sigh. Vermont. 

SUCH a good weekend. I didn't want to leave. It was so happy, and everyone had a real good time.

Making Headlines

One of the pleasures of being in a tiny town is that I'm pretty newsworthy.  By doing basically nothing, I have already been featured (writing and photos) in two local newspapers. The Cold Spring Record published an article about one of our ESL students who 'graduated' from EL this year. Gwen, my counterpart, insisted I be in the photo, and mentioned in the article, even though I had nothing to do with this girl's success.  Here is the article about her, and in the photo is me, my counterpart, Josselyn (the student), and our principal, Eric. 

Cold Spring Record, September 2015

La Voz Libre is a bilingual newspaper published out of Long Prairie (I don't know where that is any more than you do.) They sent me interview questions via email, and sent the same ones to all new ROCORI teachers (my school district) and all new teachers in Long Prairie and Melrose schools. Then the answers were translated into Spanish. The questions were about why I chose ROCORI, why I teach the subject I teach, and, randomly, a favorite memory of a grandparent.  I have almost no memories of grandparents, and I felt that saying, "I remember they had an organ and a chair that hung from the ceiling, and I liked to play with those things when I went to visit" was a little vague. So I went with the memory (which really, I don't even really remember except my brothers re-tell the story because they love it) of my grandpa offering to pay me if I tripped as I went up to accept my diploma at my high school graduation. Haha, hilarious. So here is the interview in Spanish if you're daring, and in English if you're even more daring (small editing budgets 'round here).

That's right, I made the front page! Can you find me, way down in the bottom right corner? My profile continues below.

The rest of my profile in Spanish, and a stunning photo to match.

 In the English section, I left in some of the other stuff in case you wanted to read some advertisements (often my favorite part of small town newspapers) or the profile of my colleague Leah, who is a new EL teacher in the secondary school. Her interview is next to mine, in the right-hand column. Nicole is the other new EL teacher in the ROCORI secondary school, her picture is above, but her profile didn't make it onto these pages. The three of us work somewhat closely together.

My English profile. Left column.

So, if you'd like an interview, photo, or autograph, contact my publicist. I'm looking to be featured in the St. Cloud Times next, although Gwen actually was in the Times this week because a guy broke into her house! A really short article about it here. I'll be looking to get into the society pages, naturally.

Minnesota State Fair

This weekend I got to go to the Minnesota State Fair!  I've been hearing how great this state fair is, and the radio has been doing stories about the fair ever since I moved here. The fair is held in St. Paul, so I went down early Saturday morning.  My friend Ellory and her husband Ben were my hosts for the day, and me and Ben's sister Michaela, who also lives in St. Cloud, spent the day with them and then stayed at their place over night.

We made it to the fair by about 9:30, by taking a free shuttle from near Ben and Ellory's house. The fair is amazing! There is so much food, and that is what most people talk about when they told me about the fair.  So we started with food!

We split a bucket of cheese curds first off. Yep, a bucket of cheese curds. Fried. They were delicious, though I pretty quickly felt like I had had too much grease. Ah, the fair.

Nothing like fried cheese curds in the morning!

Prize winning honey on display, as well as frames of honey for people to see.

Beekeeping demonstration by U of M beekeepers

Next we visited the Agriculture building and watched a beekeeping demonstration, saw all the ribbons for honey and honey-related projects. We saw a bonsai competition, learned about apples, including the amazing number of apples invented by the University of Minnesota. On to the baby animal building, we pet baby pigs that were four days old, and saw baby lambs, rabbits, and cows.

We raced each other on the giant slide, got some more junk food, and went shopping for Fair t-shirts. We also went to the International Bazaar and watched a Hmong community group perform dances. Then we took the shuttle back to Ben & Ellory's house, where we took naps and rested for a few hours.

Hmong dancers

In the afternoon, we went back to the Fair. We met up with Kate & Carolyn, friends of both Ellory's and mine, and spent time looking at the craft building (quilts, pies, knitting) and fine arts building (painting, sculpture).

1st place honey-themed quilt

Kate works for Minnesota public TV, so we went and sat in rocking chairs at her stage, and listen to some excellent local artists play marimba music. Got some more fried food, then Ellory, Ben, Michaela, and I went to an Avett Brothers concert in the fair grandstands.  It was a great concert, and right afterwards, they had fireworks! We caught a shuttle home, and we all went to bed.

So great to be with Ellory, Carolyn, and Kate at the fair!!

I had a great time at the fair, though it was very hot and muggy.  There were sooooo many things I didn't get to see, I can't wait to go back next year!