February so Far....

February has flown by so fast. We already have just one week left of school and then it's March. Your prayers, love and emails continue to get us through.
February has been good. We had a long weekend last weekend and it was very busy but much needed. There was an 8th grade girls All-Nighter on Friday night that myself and two other teachers led. It was so great. It made me feel like I was in college again helping with WOP. Which made me think of all those girls and how much I miss them all. I love you all if you read this.
After trying to get some sleep on Saturday morning, we ended up babysitting for two little boys that we know so that their parents could get a date in (perfectly fell on Valentine's Day). We took them to the beach, McDonald's and watched a movie on the projector/wall. It was a great Saturday.

The two boys: Vinson and Rovin- so fun!

Sunday was alot of sleeping and baseball. Once of Jake's students plays baseball in a league here so we went and watched his games. It was alot of fun! Monday was even more sleeping, cleaning, and then Jake and I went to the Mandi Asian Spa (which we had passes for). There are 5 or 6 pools to relax in, both hot and cold, two saunas, lots of lounge chairs and an ocean-view. It was a perfect Monday off and we BOTH loved it there! So if you want to visit, we have another amazing place to take people...
:) At the Asian Spa!


Our weekend was completed once we saw the movie Taken on Tuesday night. For the past year or so God has put women who are involved and victimized from trafficking on my heart and this movie tugged it even more. I recommend this movie for sure - but be aware it will make you think and feel. I am working now on trying to find a way to work in a ministry helping those woman/children. It's amazing the things God puts on your hearts. Please keep this in your prayers for both myself but also Jake.
This past week, Brittany, Esther and I all dyed our hair. It is quite a drastic change and I'm still not 100% about it - but I guess it's too late now right? It was a great night with Amanda, our hairdresser and the other two. My students didn't know what to think the next day. Some asked if I had painted my hair and others still tell me they like my "white" hair better! :)

This is the new hair!

Jake is keeping extremely busy with Science Fair, two math competitions and the basketball team. He needs prayers so he doesn't get burned out. He's doing so well and I'm so proud of him because this is probably the most he's had to be in charge of and make work before. It'll be nice once March is over because then I will have my husband home more than 1 night a week and weekends! :)

Jake and his basketball team!

Other than all that, things are going great. We love Saipan and have decided to stay for next year for sure. After that - we will just have to see - but we absolutely love it here. We continue to meet new people and make new friends. We are involved in Marriage Encounters still, meeting once a week with four other couples. It's amazing. They are our new family here on island. We love them all and they are a huge blessing to us. Things are great. We are happy.
We miss you all and pray that your lives are continually blessed.
Love always,
J&J

Baptism

This weekend one of my students: Price, and his father, were baptized in our church.
It is such a blessing to witness one of your students and their families be encouraged and blessed through this blessing of God. It is encouraging to me as a teacher - knowing that I can continue to raise him in the faith and teach him new things about his God. He is a smart boy and I was so happy on Sunday for their family. His father also was baptized - which according to him was a long time coming.
It was a blessin to witness it but also to celebrate with them. We were invited after the baptism to join them for PIC lunch (which is an amazing buffet lunch). It was awesome fellowship and a joy to share the day with them. Price's parents are wonderful people and Jake and I can't wait to get to know them more as we live here.
Praise God for more family members!!!
In fact, we are so blessed by all our brother and sisters. The ones we have back in our home towns, people from college and Iowa and now our new friends and family here.
We love you all!
Love,
J & J

Pastor praying with Price

Jeff is now baptized!

Price and I afterwards! So proud and happy for him!

New Wheels

A week ago Jake happened to see a truck for sale on the side of the road. He mentioned it to me and later that evening took a drive out to see it. After checking it out for a few days, talking with Perry (the retired American who was selling it), and taking it into a shop to get it checked out, we decided to go ahead and buy it.

So we are now the proud owners of this 95' Nissan Kingcab Extended 4x4 pickup truck:

Tag??

I have been tagged by my dear friend Brittany. In this little game, we are to reveal 7 "interesting" things about ourselves, that not many people may know..... so here it goes......!

1. Well first of all this is harder than it seems. I'm a friendly, people-person but one thing about me is that it is not very easy for me to tell things about myself. Opening up sometimes is a little difficult. There that's one thing! :)

2. I do like teaching 1st grade (they are adorable) but I know I would really enjoy working as a chef, after having gone to a culinary school.

3. I would love to live in France - any part - but somewhere where I could fluently speak and live in French. It's so beautiful and after having taken 13 years of French classes in school, I ashamedly admit that I cannot remember 75% of what I learned. :(

4. I check facebook and my email probably like 4 or 5 times a day. It's almost an addiction. I wanna know what other people are doing, catch up with others (especially through pictures) and see who I can catch online and chat with. Of course this does not happen when students are in the room, but when they go to recess or lunch break or even prep time...my goal is to check email once in the morning and again after school - no more in school. Good goal right? :)

5. I crave chocolate just about everyday. If I could just eat chocolate of some sort for the rest of my life - I probably would - providing it had no affect on the body. It's so delicious and nutrious (as one of my kid's said the other day while eating some chocolate my Dad gave him) and it's yummy and well that's about that - and yes, I've had my chocolate of the day!

6. I love watching One Tree Hill and the new 90210. Yes I'm 23 and still enjoy those shows but what can I say? It's addicting and it's become a weekly night that Brit and I get together for (at least OTH).

7. Living in Saipan is an amazing experience. This is my 2nd farthest place away from my family and it never gets any easier. Some have asked if it's easy because I continue to move farther and farther away - but it really isn't. It's really hard - hard to stay in contact and even in touch. I miss my siblings and parents and family back home more than I ever and I hope that they know that no matter how far away I choose at the moment to live - I will always love, care and appreciate them - and I am always here for any of them - even if you just need someone to talk to!

And that's that! So now I get to tag someone else....and I will tag.....Lisa! Have fun!!! :)

More Visitors!

This past week Jake and I were visited by my parents: Tom and Barb Miedema.
It was a fast week but an amazing, relaxing and fun week! Mom and Dad were on vacation and so we spent quite a bit of time in the sun relaxing and swimming. Jake and I still had work but we both worked half days and then took off doing something in the afternoons.
They came to our classrooms for two of the 4 workdays and handed out candy, read stories and played games with them. My kids really loved Mr and Mrs. M. :)
On Monday we took them to Managaha Island with Mark and Brit. It was a great, warm day. We all came home sunburned - yes even us locals! :)
Mom and Dad spent time in the mornings driving around the island or visiting our classrooms and we spent the afternoons at beaches, swimming or relaxing.
It was so good to have more family here. We love being able to share our new home with family and hopefully friends some day (hint, hint)
Thank you again Mom and Dad for flying out and spending a week with us. We were blessed to have you be here with us and experience what we get to.
We love you!
We love you all. Blessings,
J & J

The next morning after they arrived!
Mom and I eating lunch at the 360 Restuarant

Dad reading to two of my boys!

Mom playing memory game with the rest of them! :)

Our mode of transporation for the week! Thanks Russ and Kanae! :)

Japan!

On January 1st at 4:00am, Jake and I flew off from Saipan on a direct flight to Osaka, Japan. We could not wait to land in Japan and get off island for a few days. Plus neither of us have ever been anywhere on this side of the world, besides here: saipan! So needless to say we were excited to get outta here!

Our flight to Osaka went smoothly - we were both tired enough that we slept pretty much the whole way. We landed at 6:30 AM Japan time. Ready for a full day of sight-seeing and travling. We bought a 3 day Kansai pass - which we could use on any subway or train or bus system in 5 different cities.
This is us on the first subway ride.

Once we got into Osaka, we walked around our Hostel's area until we finally found the hostel tucked back down two side streets. We checked in around 9AM, settled into our tiny room that was literally like 3feet by 10feet with a tiny t.v. and a tatami mat + blanket for sleeping.

We dropped off our bags and headed out. We wandered around looking for temples and shrines, food every once in a while (like Mc D's where we ate our first breakfast). We found tons of temples and shrines, parks with statues and benches (which were always nice for our tired feet), and the shopping district with more people than I ever seen in my life.

( Here I am standing at one of the entrances)

Jake at one of the many temple entrances - which were also packed with people. We happened to be in Japan over one of their main holidays! So nobody was working and they were all celebrating the "firsts" of their year. Like first temple visit (hence all the people), and first shopping sale/day (hence all the people there too).

Later that evening, Jake and I went to this Japanese curry restaurant for dinner and then found our way to the Floating Garden Observatory. We took the ladder and escalator up to the 177th floor where we had this amazing view of Osaka.

Day 2:
We meet up with Pastor Greg (our Pastor at SCS) and Joel (the P.E. teacher) at the Osaka Castle. We did the Castle tour inside and outside. It was great to meet up with people we knew and who spoke English! It was a beautiful castle too - one of my favorite sights we saw.

Joel, Pastor and Jake walking out of the Castle!!!

Me and the gorgeous castle!!!

Afterwards, we sayed goodbye, and then Jake and I took off for Kyoto, which was about a 40 min. train ride.

(women dressed in old-style kimonos and Japanese clothing - sleeping)

Once in Kyoto we walked around finding gorgeous and busy temples. We found the Grand Orange Temple and several others. The temples are so beautifully built and set up, but always makes me wonder things about faiths - like Buddhism. (That's a different blog though...)The Grand Orange Temple (one of the buildings)

We spent the rest of the day in the Gion district which used to be the old Geisha part of town. The buildings were beautiful, old and all I could imagine was the history. I had heard that you could pay and dress up in a kimono and get the Geisha make-up - but we couldn't find it anywhere.

This is me in the Gion district.

It was also Jake's 23rd birthday on Friday Jan. 2nd - and so we ate at this Japanese noodle restuarant. Great food - and you can tell Jake was happy it was his birthday!!

Jake and I spent the night at a nice hotel in Kyoto - because we walked around for 2 hours looking for a hostel and every time we found one, they were full. So we found this nice hotel and got a room there, which also gave you a nice kimono robe for later....

The next day we were up early again with a goal of finding the Golden Temple and the Bamboo forest. We eventually found both along with other temples and palaces.

Here is the Imperial Palace wall - which felt like we were walking miles around.

A garden at another palace we found. So peaceful and serene. I told Jake once we own a house - he will have to build me one of these in the backyard! :)

We finally found the Golden Temple. It was majestic and an amazing site.

After the temple we made it out to the Bamboo Forest and mountainous area, where we rented bikes and biked all around that part of the city. It was by far our favorite part of the city with beautiful houses and temples, stores full of amazing Japanese dishes and souvenirs and great food. There was also the Oih River running right through this part of the town. It was just beautiful!!

The Oih River, one of our bikes and Jake and I!!!

The only snow we saw - at the tip of that mountain!

We took the train back to Osaka later that night and headed back to Hotel Toyo - the hostel we stayed at the 1st night. Our last day was filled up with the Aquarium, IMAX movie, food and shopping at the harbor mall.

Jake and the Aquarium!

One of the world's tallest Ferris Wheels

We headed back to the airport, sad but ready to leave. We had 4 full and long days and saw some amazing sights. We are so blessed by God to be living on this side of the world and able to travel and see different cultures and peoples that He has created.

What a great trip! We can't wait to do it again!

Happy New Year!

2008 ended with a great vacation and time with Jake's family.


We were blessed to have family here with us. To show our favorite spots and things to do on the island, to explore new ones and new things, to show our stores and local things to buy and especially to meet our new family here. They were able to almost meet all the people we have to come to love and be with here and that was also a blessing.


Jake and I had a great time with his family! They were safely blessed with their travels to and from here.

The Van Dam's after church and a full week of fun and sun!!!

We then celebrated our New Years with dinner for two at Taste of India, a bonfire on the beach with the Sawyers, packing for our Japan trip, and a nap/movie, fireworks greeted in the New Year on the front balcony and here we are.

Ready for 2009.

We pray that all you reading this will be blessed this coming year. Know that Jake and I love you, miss each of you that we don't see,and pray for you as well.

We love you all!

Love,

J & J



p.s. Look for the next post and pictures of our Japan trip!

Boxing Day...

Today's Boxing Day consisted of rest, relaxing, sun, snorkeling and boat rides. We spent the day at Managaha, the island just west of Saipan. Mr. Camacho, a father of one of my students offered to take us there with his boat. We met him at the Palms and off we went! So much better and faster than the ferry!

Once on the island we found a shelter spot, lathered up sunscreen and headed to the busy side of the beach to snorkel. We saw some awesome fish, schools of them. After the first session of snorkeling we headed in for lunch and napping and then more snorkeling. Some of us napped in hammocks and on the beach while others collected more seashells. During the last snorkeling session Beth was lucky enough to see an octopus crawling along the ocean floor. Her scream woke me up from my nap! ;)

It was a great day at the island, but didn't end there. Once we showered up back here, we followed Pastor and Sandy over to Wolf and Tokie Mojica's house. They had invited the staff and some church members over for a day-after Christmas dinner. It was incredible food, an even more incredible house and some great conversations. I think the family really enjoyed meeting and talking with all the people we have come to love and call family here! :)

And now here we are, watching Jake's new Christmas present: The Dark Knight!

We are so blessed to have family here with us. We are all really enjoying our time and loving showing them our island and new home! We can't wait to have more come and visit...

:)
Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas. We spent Christmas day at church, opening gifts, eating a chicken dinner from a bakery on the back deck, snorkeling behind us at Sugar Dock, driving around Garapan, drinks at the Hyatt happy hour and dinner at Tasty's Restaurant! Such a great day and filled with laughter and love with some great awesome people. I love Tim, Jana, Jake, Beth and Becca and love that I am a part of their family! Thank you for coming here and helping make our first Christmas away an incredible Christmas so far.

Enjoying planning your New Year and relaxing for the rest of your vacations!

Love,

J & J

The whole family at the Hyatt Beach!

Enjoying Hyatt's Happy Hour Smoothies
waiting for our boat at the Palms!relaxing at Managaha!

After an awesome dinner, Beth, Becca and Mom VD standing in front of Wolf & Tokie's house!

Christmas Day!

Today is Christmas and Jake and I want to first wish you all, family and friends, a very Merry Christmas. May you enjoy this time with those around you and remember us as we remember and miss the snow and you all, but will be celebrating our Christmas on a beach. :)
The second thing we want to share is that we were blessed with the greatest Christmas gift this year, Jake's whole family coming out to visit us.

They arrived on Tuesday night around 9. We took them home, walked around our campus, hung out on the beach so they could put their feet in, and got them settled in for the night. Yesterday was filled with a Winchell's coffee/donut walk, beach cruising (we hit up Obyan Beach, Ladder Beach, Lau Lau, Forbidden Lookout, and Tanke Beach) We swam at Obyan together for awhile and it really hit me that we have family here and it's Christmas and we are swimming in the water. WOW! We are truly blessed.

After all our swimming we came home, showered and relaxed for awhile and then drove around Garapan and the rest of Beach Road so they could see all the places we go. We ate dinner, walked around, came back home and played German Uno, while making them stay up until a proper bed-time. Something Jake had to do to me when we first got here too! :)

It was a good night...and today is Christmas. It doesn't even feel like Christmas today, especially because we'll go to church (normal), open presents (normal), except that we plan to open them down on the beach (not normal), pick up a Christmas dinner from the local bakery (not normal), go snorkeling afterwards and then head to PIC for sunset smoothies (another not normal activity for Christmas Day). We are excited though and wish you all a wonderful and blessed Christmas Day today.
We love you all!
Love,
J & J

Holidays!!

The Holidays are here and Jake and I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas! :)

We have a half day of school left and then we are done for the Christmas Break...and it couldn't have come any sooner.

Jake's Parents and sisters (beth and becca) will be arriving in Saipan on the evening of the 23rd and neither of us can wait. It's going to be great to have family here to share and show the island and our life for the past 6 months!!! We plan to relax and enjoy the beaches and ocean, as well as explore and hike as much as we can too.

Our break will go fast though, with family here til the 31st and then Jake and I are flying out on the 1st to Osaka, Japan. We will be going on a mini 4-day vacation to Osaka and Kyoto Japan and that is also something that neither of us can wait for!!!!

Saipan brings such great opportunities and it's so awesome that we are! :)

Thanks for all your prayers, thoughts and Christmas cards so far!!! Keep 'em coming!!!

We love you and are thinking of you all in this season.

Love,
J & J

Jake and I at the Street Market!!!!!!

Thankfulness...

This weekend we were blessed to enjoy Thanksgiving and time off from work. :)
We had an awesome long weekend. It started off with some of us girls (Terry, Sandy, Brit and I) going to Pure Spa to get pedicures. Soooo good. My pedicure turned into a massage as well, which was even better. After an evening of that I came home well rested and ready to begin my next two days off! On Thursday we slept in, went for a run, made food for our Thanksgiving Party at Pastor and Sandy's house. We headed there around 2pm. There were about 20 people, with tons of food, even more laughter from conversations and games. It was both of our 1st Thanksgiving's away from home, but it sure felt like we were with family! Thank God for the new people we have in our lives here who are becoming more and more like family.
We spent the evening playing games and then a small crew of us stayed even later to watch Christmas movies. It was a great Thanksgiving day!
On Friday we spent the day with our good friends David and Nina, working out for free at Gold's Gym, then swimming at Micro Beach, eating out at Tasty's Chinese - which was very tasty!
The evening was spent here at the apartment relaxing and then around 8:30, four of us ladies went dancing. It was so fun. We went to Rose's Karaoke Bar - where you paid $2 to ballroom dance with one of the 5 instructors there. Terry, Tami and Debbie and I went and we all had such a ball! (wow - full of puns tonight)
On Saturday we went Christmas shopping with Terry, Sandy and Joel. We started off at the 4th Annual Artists Christmas Sale. Then we headed down to Garapan for some other stores. It was a great morning spent with some really great people - plus most of the Christmas shopping got done...besides Ken - what do you want brother?
Once we got back, Jake and I packed and drove down to the Palms Resort. We spent the afternoon lounging and swimming in the pools, then had some great drinks at Pau Pau Bar's Happy Hour. After that we took the DFS Tour Bus from our hotel into Garapan to the DFS Galleria where we ate our meal at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was a great meal and a great evening. We relaxed back in our room for the night, slept in this morning, ate an amazing free breakfast and then spent the rest of the morning and afternoon at the pool relaxing again.
All in all it was a very relaxing, resting and enjoyable weekend. We were both blessed to spend time with such quality friends that we have here. We were also blessed to spend some good quality time with just each other - at a very nice hotel! God continues to bless us every day. Even though we don't get paid the most at this school, and have other expenses, He continues to provide us with opportunities to enjoy His creation, our new friendships and relationships and life. He is a great God and we are full of thankfulness to Him.
Hope you all had great Thanksgiving meals and days spent with your family and friends. We thought about you all and miss you all tons!
Love always,
J & J

Sand Castles

This past Saturday we spend the day relaxing but also watching out Junior High kid's compete in a sand castle contest. Here are some pictures from it! :) 

P.S. Anyone know any good tips for catching and killing a rat????

James, Justin, Anna and Isa's Sand Castle...
the sea monster and a mermaid, plus other sea creatures (clams, starfish, etc)

The professional Sand Castle maker's castle (front and back) - from Australia...he was incredible to watch...

as the day turns...

We finished another week, with progress grades and everything. Jake just agreed to be the Jn. High Boy's Basketball Coach - so we'll keep nice and busy again soon with tutoring and coaching - but it's good for us to be involved. We love the school. It keeps us both busy but it's good!

This weekend was good too - Saturday we spend most of the day down the road at PIC's waterpark. We were in the lazy river, down the slide and Jake hung out at the Wave thingy for awhile. It was so relaxing and refreshing. We also went down the other way, to the Hyatt to check out the Sand Castle competition that our Jn. High was in. It was amazing - plus they had a professional builder from Australia there creating one as well - which was even more amazing than the kids. Our kids did so well though - they even won 1st place! :)
Later that evening we went out to Korean BBQ with David and Nina. It was so awesome. The food was amazing and delicious and the company was even better. David and Nina have become some amazing friends and God has truly blessed us with them. Afterwards we came back to our place and played games and hung out more. It has been a great weekend.

With Thanksgiving coming up, I know Jake and I are both thinking and missing family and friends. You know you are how and how much we love and miss you all. We cannot thank God enough this coming week for all your love, support and prayers. Thank you all. We love you!
Love,

J & J

Hae Ga the Korean BBQ restaurant!

Nina, David and I with our amazing Korean food!

An ME Weekend...

Jake and I can truly say we have just had one of the best weekends of our lives together. :)
We had the blessing of attending a Marriage Encounter Weekend. It was right next door at the Saipan Grand Hotel and we got to stay in Room 956. I thought our view from our apartment was nice, but from the 9th floor of a hotel - even more amazing!!
The weekend was full of laughter, tears, shared feelings, new loves and joys about each other, smiles that filled the room from each couple there, tons of food and some amazing surprises I will never forget. I know marriage can be hard work but this weekend we realized that every aspect of marriage needs to always be considered as hard work to make it better and more of what God has called ut to be. I love Jake and I know he loves me and we rediscovered that love in each other this weekend. We were truly blessed by all the sharings this weekend, the new couples we met and the new and exciting things we learned about each other and us as a couple.
If you are reading this and are married - YOU MUST FIND OUT WHERE THE CLOSEST MARRIED ENCOUNTERS WEEKEND IS - AND DO IT!!! no excuses. It only cost us $50 and that included: workbooks, hotel, amazing food, snacks and drinks, the time to sit and communicate just with Jake and rekindle and revive our relationship. It was so worth it. Even if you have been married for 20 or more years - there was a couple there this weekend that have been married for 44 and it was amazing to see how God worked in them this weekend. Or even if you've been married for a year or two and don't think you have had enough struggles or trials to go through - still please go because you can learn so much..
Jake and I pray that you can be blessed and touched in your marriage in the Marriage Encounter way. Ha - now I sound like one of the "love nazis" as we called them as we called them all weekend ! :) But it's so true and it was sooo incredibly worth our $50 and whole weekend.
We also wanted to say thank you to all our friends and family who do read this and who do pray for us and love us. We love you all so much and are so blessed by all of you. We miss you.
Love always
J & J

Coffee Time

So I'm sitting in Jave Joe's with Brittany. We are both supposed to be grading but instead we are working on updating and improving our blogs! :)

This week is going fast. We had school on Monday and then yesterday off. It was a good day off. In the morning about 6 of us went to Forbidden Island for a hike. We hiked down, spend a good hour or so swimming and snorkeling, then hiked some more into the cold water cave. Then we took the good hike straight up. Once we got back home, we showered and went over to another teacher on the island's house for a BBQ. There was probably 30 people there. We were all, mostly, white people and teachers! :) There was food and sports. Most people were watching Monday Night Football when we got there...on a Tuesday afternoon...gotta love the time change!

We spend the evening watching Apocolypto with Mark and Brittany and then off to bed for a school day, after what felt like a Saturday.

At least there are only two more days left this week. Then we have one week left until Thanksgiving Break!!! I still can't believe how time goes so fast here.

This weekend is what Jake and I are looking forward to. For $50 we signed up for the Marriage Encounters weekend. We get to stay at the Saipan Grand Hotel for the whole weekend and eat and swim there all for $50. I CAN'T WAIT!!!

Things aren't much different here. Just working on keeping kids working hard and engaged before another break - which I know all of us teachers here can't wait for! :)

Hope all of you back home are enjoying the lovely cold and snowy weather we've seen and heard you've all been having. Just remember us over here, without any of you, in our nice warm 85 degree weather. ( A picture just to show you again where we live :)

We love you all!!!
Prayers and Blessings,

Love
J & J