Hello friends and family!
These two California natives are excited for the beginning
of March, signaling the coming of spring! The weather has steadily warmed up,
and even though we were blessed with a mild winter, we appreciate the changing
of the seasons even more now that we live through snow and below-freezing
temperatures. There are some small blessings to living outside of California
after all!
February…such a unique month. Not only does it have fewer
days than any other month, but once every four years, we add a day to this
weird month. Thankfully for us, February wasn’t too weird. Instead, it brought
some fun and relaxation back into our lives!
Nick worked through the last few difficult weeks of his
winter quarter, completing papers and exams with only a few late nights staying
up doing homework. In addition to school responsibilities, he has been helping
out in church services on a regular basis and attending pre-vicarage workshops
in preparation for his duties next year. However, his hard work paid off and he
was rewarded with a two-week long break, which will finish up this weekend. On
Monday, it’s back to school will another full load of classes, including Pastor
as Educator, which includes a practicum in an area school, Systematics III, and
some fun history classes.
February brought a fantastic lightening of my workload as
well, as I turned in my completed accreditation document the last week of
January. Not having this huge project on my plate anymore allowed me to go back
to focusing on new lessons and games for my kids, as well as getting our students
ready for our school musical coming up in April. Although teaching is still
never easy, and this month wasn’t perfect, it is wonderful to be able to go
back to what I really love to do, rather than spending all my time on
accreditation work. February in Kindergarten is a very loaded month, including
the 100th Day of School (an all day party!), Groundhog Day,
Valentine’s Day, President’s Day, and this year, Leap Day and a field trip to
the symphony. It’s a lot of work but so much fun!
February also marked the return of our social lives after a
very, very busy and stressful January. Nick took me on a fun date to an arcade
where we played glow in the dark mini golf and arcade games. We got to spend
some fun times with friends for the Superbowl and another weekend going out to
a fancy dinner to celebrate the end of the quarter. We went to a Valentine’s
Dinner Dance at our church with some friends, which not only gave us some
quality time with wonderful friends, but also a fun night of dancing which is
always a lot of fun! We got to enjoy a second snow day of the school year,
although the snow did melt away by the end of the day. We took the free day to
watch the full Lord of the Rings Trilogy (extended edition). This totals over
12 hours of movie time, but it is totally worth it! Nick had been itching to do
that all winter, so it was fun to take advantage of our unexpected free day. We
also were blessed with a visit from Angela, Nick’s sister, on her spring break.
We had a lot of fun taking her around St. Louis, playing board games with her
(well, Nick played board games), and eating some delicious food at local
restaurants together. February was a full and fun month, much-needed for us! We
are feeling blessed and loved after all the fun we got to have and the people
we got to spend time with this month.
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| Enjoying fondue at The Melting Pot with Angela |
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| Valentine's Dinner Dance at our church |
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| Having fun mini golfing! |
Our half-marathon training is progressing well, I am happy
to say! We had a small hiccup in our training this month. Early in the month, I
tripped and fell while on a morning run. The next week, my knee was still
bothering me and causing a lot of pain, so I went to the urgent care, where
they x-rayed it and diagnosed me with a suspected fracture in my kneecap. I
spent a long five days in a full-length leg brace, hobbling around and having
to be creative in my teaching methods. However, praise God, I went to an
orthopedist and he told me that there was no break at all, and the pain in my
knee was likely just normal running pain. So after about a week and a half off
running, we were back at it, just with more ice and Advil. We’re now up to 9
miles in our training runs and we’re still enjoying it! We spend many evenings
passing the ice pack back and forth for our aches and pains, but we are excited
to be moving on and we are excited for our race coming up April 10th!
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| Our first run back after my leg injury kept us out of the game for a few weeks. |
God’s blessings on you and your loved ones! We thank you so
much for all the support, prayers, and love you send us.
In the name of Christ our Savior,
Nick and Mikaela Duerr
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