Thankfulness...

We are into December already - where does the time go?

Thanksgiving gave us the time to sit and think of all the things we have in our lives and the people in our lives we are so thankful for!
Like our school and jobs, our cozy apartment, our amazing family in Canada and Montana, grandparents all over North America, friends in the States with new babies and lives, new friends here in Saipan, shopping trips, game nights, and dinners with amazing friends, our very active bodies that keep us in shape and fit, our church family that supports us and grows with us, our "families" here that feed us and love us (thank you Winkfield's and many others- we love you), and it is all from our gracious and loving Heavenly Father.
We are especially thankful that we only have two weeks left of school before Christmas vacation and even more thankful for the part-time teaching job we will have over Christmas vacation to help us make a few extra dollars! =) God is so good these days, we are very happy! Here's some pictures from Thanksgiving weekend to share in our thankfulness!!!
Love
J & J

some amazing friends at game night (Amanda, David and Nina)

some other amazing friends, who are sadly moving away (Jari and Chantelle)

my suitcase packed full after a shopping weekend in Guam

playing around in Motherhood Maternity

Kristina and I - I am thankful for her friendship!

Kristie and I - I am very thankful for her friendship too!

Debbie (Mom) and I - our family! =)

My black sister - she is amazing and one of my best friends and I will miss her so much next year when she goes off to grad school...

for you Mom: Death by Chocolate!

Jake is very excited about Thanksgiving dinner!

Jake, Terry and Sandy (Mom #2)

Jake and Jeremy shooting targets before the party started!

me working on my pecan pies!

Jake and Bobby watching some football while us ladies got the food ready! :)

Debbie teaching me how to make a pie!

Rota Triathlon!

Two weekends ago we went to another island close by called Rota. It is alot like Saipan but so much more peaceful, quiet, and in it's natural beauty. We really enjoyed all our time there. We were there for a whole weekend and it was a nice break from work and a busy life here. We spent time touring around the island checking out the fabulous sights and eating some awesome food. We also spent a bit of time lounging out by the pool! We stayed at this beautiful resort with beautiful rooms and of course t.v! =)

On Saturday morning we piled into our rented van and drove to the East Harbor where the Triathlon was set to start. We got all our gear ready to go and before we knew it - Jake was in the water ready to swim. He swam a great swim - 38 minutes and was on his bike and trying to catch me. I had a swimmer named Tami - who was AMAZING and finished her swim faster so I was on my bike sooner. My goal was to not let Jake pass me on the bike - and sure enough, two minutes after I came in, Jake came in. He of course had to turn around on his feet and run 6 miles while I sat around taking pictures, enjoying the sun and morning waiting for Amanda to finish our run. She did AMAZING as well and we finished 1st place out of all the teams!

Jake did amazing as well. His goal was 3 hours - and he completed it in 3 hours and 2 minutes. I was and still am SOOOO PROUD of him! :) He works so hard at biking, running and especially swimming and he did so good!

We both love being so active and the opportunities that Saipan has to offer that for us. It's fun and enjoyable and you meet some amazing people with all the activities we can be involved in.

Life is good in Saipan!

We have a 2.5 day work week this week because of Thanksgiving coming up. THANK GOODNESS! I know we could both really use these couple of days coming up! :) So could our students....

We will spend Thanksgiving day with our school and church family at our "parents" house - the Winkfields, as well as our Thanksgiving evening with our "grandparent's" at their house - we sure are blessed with family away from family here! :)

We wish you all a blessed and Happy Thanksgiving.

We miss you and wish we could be there to celebrate with you all - someday!

LOVE,

J & J

East Harbor where the triathlon started and ended!
Jake and I on one of the many beautiful fruit farms!
Jake and the famous, huge latte stones
This amazing secluded beach we stubbled upon on our random drive through the jungle - wow!
After we finished our 1st triathlon!!
Just finishing his run - and now complete - 17th place baby! :)

Tami and I while we wait around for Amanda to finish her run!
Jake finishing his bike
Grrr - we are ready to go! :)
Amanda, Tami and I - team 177 - all ready to go!
Getting pumped up on Friday afternoon!
Exploring the beautiful island of Rota with two amazing amazing friends: Tami and Amanda!
Walking out to our plane - we were all SOOOO EXCITED! :)

Once a Year...

November has started off with birthday's. My student from last Henry has a birthday three days before mine and so on Sunday night we had our birthday party together. His Mom susan made a Chinese dinner and we opened presents, had cake and played games. It was an awesome birthday party and he is one special little boy!

The spread and guests!

Pookie and I (the birthday people)

All of us ladies at the party!

Then yesterday I had my 24th birthday - and still don't feel a day older yet! :)

The day started on Wednesday evening with a night out to dinner with some amazing girl friends. We went to the Hyatt hotel, to the Italian Restaurant Giovanni's. It was an evening filled with laughter, joy and hugs, oh and chocolate cake. What a great way to start off my birthday!

With the beautiful cake and some of the beautiful ladies!

On Thursday I was awoken with breakfast in bed from my amazing husband as well as a box from my in-laws! What a beautiful way to start the day!! :)

At school I was showered with love and gifts from both the teachers I work with and my students. We ended the day with PIC Happy Hour on the beach watching the sunset with some awesome friends: Amanda, David and Nina, Kristie and Isaac and Mark and Brittany. What a great way to relax - too bad it was Friday though! :)

Afterwards Jake and I went onto dinner at Dolphin Restaurant. It is on the 10th floor of a local hotel. Awesome views, ok food but an amazing time because I got to spend it with my handsome, romantic, loving husband!!

I have truly been blessed. I have an amazing family that loves me and makes me feel special, even while we live so far away from them. We both have amazing friends back in the States who send their love and makes us feel special even though we are so far away from them too. And then we are even more blessed by our friends and family that we have here in Saipan. This place is truly home and we are excited to say that we will be here NEXT year for sure, and hopefully many more to come!

Life is good, God is better!

Thank you all for your love and birthday wishes! :)

Love you all,

Love

Jackie (and Jake)

Fridays!

Our ME family in The Love Circle where the weekend is discussed, lots of laughter is shared and of course, lots of love!!!
Our amazing and beautiful Step parents: Russ and Kanae Quinn!
Our amazing ME family!!!!

It is officially Friday afternoon, my kids are watching a Veggie Tale movie and I have only one Phonics paper to grade - so I thought, what a good time to update the blog!

Today we had a field trip to the Fire Station. 23 kids, 7 parents plus 1 baby! What a great trip. I think every fireman on Saipan was at the station today because they had their Fireman Testing which made the kids even more excited! They showed us two trucks and the ambulance. They let the kids blow the siren and climb on the stretcher. Just as we were leaving they invited us to come watch their tests. So we went to Micro Beach with them and the kids cheered on the firemen. The test consists of putting on their full gear, running on the main hose and then running on the connecting hose, running back to the air tank, getting that set up properly, getting the ax and knocking down the fake door, crawling to the dummy, and pulling the dummy out of the fire. They have to do all of this in 7 minutes or less. The kids were SO excited and cheered them on yelling: "Faster, faster" or "Hurry Up". It was so fun!

At the end they sprayed the water from the hoses towards the kids - which they thought was even better. What a great trip.

This week has been good. It's gone very fast which Jake and I both love.

The bike race on Sunday went really well for one of us. We both started out great and got about 30 minutes into it and Jake's tire broke. It was worse than a flat and so he couldn't even fix it, he was very disappointed. My goal was to finish the race in less than 3 hours and when I crossed the line I had finished the whole 50k in 2 hours and 17 minutes! How awesome and what an exciting feeling. Made me even more excited and ready for the bike part of the Rota Triathlon which we leave for in less than a month - Nov 14th!!!! :)

I guess all the working out and losing weight and being healthy really does do good! :)

Jake and I started Steeper Steps this week. Last year we did Marriage Encounters and this is an extra program coming from that. We did Steps in March and April and have finally been able to get Steeper Steps together. It's so great to be back with our Steps family again. Last night was an amazing night and Jake and I are growing so much closer in communication and forgiveness and love. We are so thankful for Rex and Clarie who are facilitating, for Russ and Kanae for their beautiful relationship and insight and house, and the Abe's and Tomokane's for their relationships and sharing. You all are a true family to us and we can't thank and love you enough!

We love ME so much that we are the next Facilities Coordinators for the Spring Weekend - we can't wait!!!

This weekend is busy again with more Marriage Encounters, watching a good friend in his paddling competition, a church picnic, our friend David's 21st birthday (and I thought we were the youngest ones out here), church and the Friends of the Arts play that Isaac ( our fellow teacher/friend) is in. It's gonna be busy but so great!

We are blessed and thankful!

Love you all!

Love

J & J

2nd Quarter

Jake with Desrei and Anna. We took 5 amazing children to the beach with Amanda and it was a blast - something they have not done in a while. We played in the water, buried each other in the sand, had sand fights, ate "pillows" (filipino chocolate snack) and enjoyed the sunshine and each other. We love these children - notonly are they adorable but they are fun, loving and need to be loved!!!

Jake with Sedrei!
She loves him! :)

An amazing sunset! We haven't seen one of these in awhile because it's been so rainy - wow!

My amazing Ultimate Frisbee team: Linda, me, Bruce, Rob and Aaron

I played in a frisbee tournament last Saturday and we had a great team. We played hard, had a ton of fun and enjoyed each other the whole time - what a great day! Awesome sport and even more awesome people! :)

We were house-sitting for two weeks in September for Russ & Kanae ( our amazing ME Step parents ). We decided to have a dinner party: Battle of the Sexes! This is the whole group enjoying the amazing dinner created by the females and males - fantastic evening!

And...

since our last update - the Typhoon has passed and we are safe and sound!

Thanks for all the prayers and emails and love - there are storms still all around so continue to pray for all the islands in the Pacific.

We just finished with our 1st Quarter at school - that's 9 weeks down...WOW time goes so quickly. The kids have already grown up in 1st grade and have improved so much. That is so great to see in them - and I know we both see it in our classes. Some exciting news regarding us and teaching - next year I (Jackie) will the the 5th grade teacher at Saipan Community School. Tami Winkfield who teaches it this year will be off island goin to grad school next year and so I will be taking her place. So spread the news - there will be a 1st grade position at Saipan Community School open next year! :)
Pray for me as I continue to teach the 1st graders this year - also pray for Jake and his classes.

We appreciate all the prayers and know you are praying them!

Jake, Tami and I have been coaching our school's volleyball team and we have been doing fairly well. It's been great working together and spending that extra time with the kids - makes me even more excited to teach older kids next year!

I've been attending Gold's Gym and so far have lost 14 pounds - it's fantastic! I can't even believe it sometimes. I feel so good and feel better about myself and I'm more in shape and as said earlier today: "I look toned" -what a great compliment! I love working out and running and eating healthy and it's all thanks to Nina and Brett and Jake and the support of friends here. It's amazing how muchmore blessings and love you can feel and see when you are truly happy with yourself. Continue to pray for me as I work hard in being healthy as sometimes it is still a struggle.

Jake is working hard for the triathalon - less than a month away! His knee is pretty sore and he ices it almost every day and so prayer for his knee and training is appreciated as well.

Can you tell we really feel your prayers lately - thank you all so much!

Tomorrow Jake and I are biking in a 50k bike ride - we are both excited and nervous about it. Should be awesome so we'll update youa bout that afterwards!

We miss home (Canada, Montana, Iowa, etc) alot - but Saipan is becoming more of home every day. We miss our family and friends and know you love us and thank you for that!

Our good friends Craig and Sarah had a baby boy almost a whole month ago and we are very happy for them. And our good friends here Mark and Brittany are now pregnant and that is also exciting for them! Life is good - we are enjoying it greatly! :) Blessings each and every day!

Love,
Jackie and Jake

Saturday night update

Hey all,
we survived typhoon Melor without incident. the worst of it was supposed to be from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. but things never really got that bad. we had a few gusts that were maybe over fifty miles per hour. Also it rained all day long. but nothing too serious happened.
i've heard there is a slight chance that the typhoon could turn around and come at us again, but i think thats fairly unlikely.
so yeah, i guess we made it thru.
thanks for the prayers,
love,
jake and jackie

Hey Folks,
So, a little birdy told me that some of you were wondering about how we are doing in regards to recent climate catastrophes. Well, we had a ten minute tsunami warning after the quake in the Samoan islands. Nothing came of that tho.
A more serious threat is a typhoon that is scheduled get close around Friday afternoon and then pass on by Sunday morning. The projection is for it to pass by just north of Saipan. Info from www.prh.noaa.gov shows that the winds are going to be around 150 mph when the typhoon is at its closest. As of now we're under a warning for a typhoon. We're hoping and praying that this typhoon turns north to miss us or peters out by friday afternoon, like the last one did. But we'll be prepared if it doesn't. Our apartment/school building is built to withstand 150 mph winds. Plus we're house-sitting up on a nice little protected spot away from the beach. We have a generator and food and water.
Thanks for all your concern. I'll try and update this as things develop.
love,

J&J

Quick update for ya from the 670.
1. We just started our 8th week of school. Only one more week till first quarter is done. Crazy how time is flying faster this year than last.
2. Jackie joined Gold's Gym and has been working out 3 to 4 days of the week.
3. Jake is in the middle of training for his first Olympic distance triathlon. The tri is in Rota on October 14. Should be fun (if he finishes).
4. Typhoon #2 of the 2009 typhoon season is now approaching. The last one blew for a little over a week but only mustered 25 m.p.h. or less wind. Pray that this next one is as unmemorable.
5. We've been house sitting for the Quinn's. Its kinda nice to commute to a house you don't have to pay electricity for in a car that you didn't have to buy or pay for gas.
6. Jake, while driving, got run off the road by an angry local who the proceeded to curse him out in front of four lanes of stopped traffic.
7. Sarah Douglas from Churchill Montana arrived on the 27th of September to student teach at Marianas High School. She's staying with us for a while till she can get an apartment and a vehicle.
8. We just had the most amazing meal at a restaurant across from school. We took Sarah out for a Japanese meal at a restaurant called Oish. We went in not expecting much, but we left absolutely blown away. Everything was delicious, from the sushi to the tempura to the fried noodle. Definitely our favorite meal in Saipan thus far.

well, thats about all i got for right now.
hope this post find you all well.
and we would love to hear from you if you get a chance.

love,
J & J

The Little Things...

We are back in school - halfway through with our second week. It's already going fast and I can't believe how fast. Jake can't either. Let's start with him...his school year is going awesome already! He has two full classes for 6th and 7th grade. His 8th grade class is under 18 and I think he enjoys that! The 6th graders are more talkative and energetic than last years class as well and he spends his most time with them, so he's thrilled about that too!
He is more organized this year and determined and I am so excited to see his progress in his room. He works hard and is a good teacher and I'm proud of my husband. He is growing more every day both spiritually and mentally as a man of God.
My classroom is going well. I have 24 very energetic, demanding, talkative, questioning, loveable and little first graders. We have a small physical classroom but my classis huge with volume both laughter and talking. I get a little stressed and feel as if I am not a capable teacher when all I feel I can do is raise my voice a little louder each time to get them quiet. But they hug me constantly and tell me I'm funny and how much they like me and then all those bad moments go away and I realize I am so incredibly blessed.
Jake and I both are. We love working for Saipan Community School and believe it or not, can pictures ourselves here for a number of years! Besides school, we are both training for the triathalon in November (although Jake trains WAY more than I do), we are playing ultimate frisbee on Wednesdays and Fridays and then spending time with some amazing friends we've made. Life is good here and we hope if any of you are looking for a nice vacation spot you'll consider us...yes we are far away, but we can offer you luxury and beauty (just like Hawaii) only cheaper, less crowded and full of love! :)
We miss all our family and friends especially when events happen back home. For example, Jake's sister's are both now out of the house and going to Dordt College, so his parent's are for once and for all - empty-nesters! Wish we could be there for that!
And my cousin Vanessa was just recently married on Saturday and we wish we could have been to witness that love and celebrate God's joining of two people. Lots of prayers and love to you Vanessa & Anthony!
And then there is the every day life of your families and friends that we miss but manage to recreate here with new friends, some who have become like family! Thank you for all your prayers and love and thoughts! Keep 'em comin!

Love,
J & J

My silly class of 1st graders...

A more normal one - which took quite a while to get!

little Jose!

I wanted to say "welcome to the zoo" but didn't think that would help with behaviors!

My favorite little girl is now at our school - little miss Sedrie!!!!!

Year #2

We have just officially finished our first summer vacation as teachers. We go back to school on Monday already! We are excited that it's almost time to go back but we still wish for a longer break. This past week has been the first week of not working and Jake has really enjoyed it. He has been working on our bikes, sleeping, reading and swimming. He is getting ready for a triathalon in November and he is getting ready to start training. We are both actually going to do it but Jake will be doing the whole triathalon and I will just be doing the bike. Neither of us can wait though!
This past Saturday we were both involved in a dodgeball tournament. My team was full of couples and we had a blast. It was an amazing day. We were called Dick's Dodgy Dodgers and didn't expect to get far in the tournament but we made it all the way to the finals. We lost in the end to a Japanese tourist team - but had fun doing it!
Jake was with a bunch of males on a team called Just the Tip and they made it to the semi-finals. If they had won their last game we would have played them in the finals. It was a fun day. After the tournament several of us hung out at PIC in the pool, swimming and playing basketball. It was a great day - and one of many more to come while we live here!
We also picked up Terry and Amanda this past week, as well as the two new teachers: Isaac and Kristie. We are excited to have them all back because it's made the empty and lonely apartments full and busy again! It's great to have good friends back!
So pray as the school year begins again on Monday. Pray for a blessed 2nd year of teaching, good kids, touched lives and many blessings!!!
Love
J & J

Jake dominating during a game...

Jake and I in our different outfits at the tournament

Me, Russ, Glenn, Nikki and Dick dominating in our game...

Picking up Issac and Kristie - the two new teachers - at the airport!!! Welcome to Saipan!

Our amazing team: Dick's Dodgy Dodgers!!!