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