Ok apparently I am very bad at this whole updating the blog.  I think part of the problem is that story of going to Kenya and all of the resulting excitement is such a HUGE story.  I don’t know how to really start and I get overwhelmed as I try to continue because I get so excited and want to write so much.

I will continue to add to the story in snipets – I promise…but I also want to move on and talk about the adventure after Africa.  Since it required a lot of trust on my part to go to Africa and it required a lot of patience on Hubby’s part to get me up the mountain, it was a huge step for our relationship.  Then of course he proposed on the top of the moment so my trip to a whole new continent started an incredible journey that we will be on for hopefully a very long time.  I kind of want to talk about that and what happens in my life now instead of thinking back two years (WOW TWO YEARS!) to the amazing experience we had.  

I feel a need to write.  Every year our school hosts a writer’s week.  As a science teacher I don’t participate as much as I would like to (we have so much to get through in our curriculum that it is hard to justify focusing on writing when the students will be getting that in their English classes).  Anyways this week is fantastic because the English department spends the year getting writers from all over to attend and share their work for a packed auditorium every period for an entire week.  Some periods are also devoted to teachers and students sharing their own writing.  As a student I was lucky enough to be able to share my work – one was a piece about a very important t-shirt to me at that time and one was a piece about my relationship with my father….it is amazing what you remember about 10 years later!  Back on track though every year this week hits and I feel this great need to write – to express my ideas and to escape into another world.  The writers that come are amazing – Marc Smith (father of slam poetry) Mary Fons (poet), Veronica Roth (author of Divergent), Ellen Hopkins (author of Crank), Chris Crutcher (author of 14 novels), Patricia Smith (poet), Nikki Geovanni (poet), Sara Holbrook (poet), Dana Kozlov (WGN reporter)…and the list goes on!  As a teacher I want to show my students the importance of writing and I would love to share again because I know the impact it has on them when the teachers read about their experiences but I know that I can’t share unless I am actually writing in life because I want the model to be that I am a writer not just someone talking about my experiences. If that didn’t make sense, I am sorry.   It is the end of the school year and my brain is on the fritz.

So that is one of the reasons I want to start writing again…I would like to more   Now the question remains what to write about. I am going to focus on life and ramblings.  I want to help myself stay on track with a few things that I hope will make me a better person, like flossing.  I ALWAYS get yelled at when I go to the dentist for not flossing…it is my goal to remedy this since I hate getting yelled at.  I also want to be a better granddaughter and cherish the time I have left with my grandparents. I also want to work out more – I am not an athletic person (case in point, I coach the speech team) but I do enjoy physical activity and always love what it feels like after but can never motivate myself in the first place.  Therefore I will be reporting on how I am doing on these fronts but also adding in some fun random thoughts along the way.

 

Flossing:  I did some of my bottom teeth (I have a permanent retainer on both my upper and lower jaw so it makes it pain)

Granddaughter: Need to call before we leave for Seattle *school ends Friday!! and we are getting out of town on Tuesday!

Working Out: Despite being sore from the faculty badminton tournament yesterday (It is a mixed doubles tournament and Hubby and I have been partners since my first year…we are the champs of the tournament for the second year in a row…:) ) I actually did half of this leg workout that I recently found.  Then Hubby came home and was making fun of the moves… whoops!

Alright it is 9:30 and my bedtime…it is a school night after all… 

As the last post eluded to, the KG guys were great.  I was still a little concerned however as we pulled up to Sirimon Gate since we still could not see the top of the mountain.  Additionally, I still had it in the back of my mind that as we watched the flight tracker on the way over, it took a REALLY long time to reach the altitude of the top of the mountain. Did I mention that we would be above the clouds?  Yeah, that might seem like common sense when the summit was over 16,000 ft high but I hadn’t pieced that together.  I wasn’t so sure about this whole idea of climbing a mountain but there was no escape.  Before I knew it, our private matatu with LOTS of bags, our guide, our driver and a porter crammed in turned off of the real road and onto a dirt road of Mount Kenya National Park.  After a bumpy ride we arrived at the gate.

Sirimon Gate

 

It was our very first day in Kenya.  Robert, our driver,arrived early in the morning and drove us out to the mountain. After a quick stop to pick up our guide, Mark, and the rest of our supplies we entered Mount Kenya National Park.  On the way into the park we passed a few zebras on the side of the dirt road and it finally started to kick in that we were in Africa.  When we arrived, Ephraim, our cook, had a lovely lunch waiting for us. A baboon watched as we ate and the porters finalized all of the packing.  After a quick picture, we were off and before we knew it, Mark was explaining animal evasion techniques and Katie really started to question what they were doing!

The four of us ready to start hiking in front of the Sirimon Gate.

Lunch was sandwiches and fresh fruit and ramen noodles I believe.  This was the day that I learned that oranges are really like a yellow green color but taste just as good in Africa.  We also had a chance to sample passion fruit which is great but has a weird slimy texture mixed with the seeds.  After plenty of pictures of the baboons and of the four of us in front of the gate we were ready to start the trek which on the first day was mainly on a dirt road.  The animal evasion techniques were scary in the fact that we had to learn them (seriously?!?!? there could be large animals in here!?!?!?) and also in how simple they were:

Example:

Mark our guide: “If you see an elephant charging, run down wind from it since elephants ‘see’ with their sense of smell.”

Katie’s brain: “What if the elephant is downwind from me? What if i am frozen in place? What if I can’t tell which way the wind is blowing!?”

Mark:  ”If a buffalo comes for you, run to the first tree and then run around it twice.  Then run to the next tree and run around it.  Don’t worry…this will confuse the animal.”

Katie’s brain: “What if it is a smart buffalo? You have got to be crazy! What if there are no big trees?”

Mark:  ”If there is a lion, just stare it down.  They are timid animals.”

Katie’s brain: “TIMID?!?! STARE IT DOWN…I WOULD BE FREAKING OUT!!”

Mark: “And if staring it down does not work, just pick up some dirt and toss it in its face.”

Katie’s brain: “If that animal is close enough for me to toss dirt in its face, Andrew and I will no longer be on speaking terms…and toss?!?!? I would be chucking it!”

It was at this point that I REALLY wondered what the heck I was doing and how this my now husband (but at that point only boyfriend) had talked me into this.

Don’t worry.  Mark assured us that we wouldn’t see many animals on the way up because the Sirimon route is very common but the Chogoria route which we would be coming back down provided a much better chance of seeing something.

The Sirimon Route is in blue and the Chogoria Route is in red. Chogoria is less traveled and extremely beautiful but we will get to that in a little bit. The orange circle surrounds the three main peaks of the mountain.

The honeymoon was amazing.  We were at the Sandals in Antigua.  The weather was wonderful most days and we had the great adventures of zip lining, a boat ride around the island (it is only 108 square miles and at times the ride felt like a roller coaster) and some snorkeling.  The rest of the vacation was filled with amazing food and just enjoying some relaxing time together….I also got to read multiple books.   I definitely recommend The Help, Three Cups of Tea and Hunger Games.

The main pool at the resort

Right before Zip Lining!

Since I am a little tired from travelling (American Airlines cancelled our flight out of Miami last night so we had to stay in a hotel and didn’t get home until 2 pm today) I will just add a little post from the table names from the wedding.

 

KG Expeditions

 

This was the amazing company that we hired for our hiking excursion.  Robert, our driver, met us at the airport and drove us to our hotel.  Then, the next morning he was there to pick us up to get our journey started.  We made a quick stop at the Del Monte pineapple farm for some yummy juice and then headed to headquarters and met with the manager – it was also Katie’s first experience with an authentic Kenyan out house.  Shortly after, we were off to the mountain to meet with the amazing guide, porters and chef who got us up and down the mountain.  They were an amazing bunch and kept us as happy and comfortable as possible!

Some of the porters who were amazing. If you go to Kenya and climb Mount Kenya contact these guys. We were well fed and had a great experience!

11 months later and I am back!  I know I promised Kenya stories and I know that I was going to blog about the entire trip…well once we got back life got crazy.  Spoiler alert: We got engaged on top of the mountain…at sunrise…it was probably the most romantic thing that has ever happened to me and well that is probably a good thing for my proposal…

 

Now lets review what that meant about my year:

-Getting home from Kenya I had to immediately jump into all of the fun of my brother’s wedding

-Then I got to start all of my wedding stuff (by the way Spoiler Alert:  I am now a married woman…crazy!)

-My fiance moved into my house (yay to save a year’s worth of rent and yay because then I actually got to see him this past year) but then left the next day to go on a mission trip without really unpacking

-School started

-Grad school continued

-And I was a first year head coach of the speech team

 

To say the year was a bit insane is a little bit of an understatement.  It has been a whirlwind but it was amazing.  For our wedding we named each of the tables after important parts of our trip and gave the guests a little bit of information about these places so since I never quite blogged on the different parts of the trip I figured I would start to post them on here!

First post:

We arrived at Kenya pretty late after about 2 days of travelling…you have to love two 8 hour flights and a layover in Amsterdam.  We met Robert, a driver that the company we were climbing with sent to pick us up, after a long wait at customs (nothing in Kenya moves fast and that was my first exposure to it) and we found all of our luggage…it was a little touch and go for a few minutes.

Robert drove us to an atm where Nancy, friend of the hubbie’s sister (oooooh I could call her sister in law now!!/sister) got her card stuck in the machine.  We decided to go to the hotel, sleep and come back in the morning to retrieve it so we ended up at:

Parkside Hotel

 Parkside was our “home” while we stayed in Nairobi. Located in the heart of the city, we were able to store extra bags with them as long as we were scheduled to return and stay another night. This was the headquarters where we prepared for the mountain climb, then finally returned to for a much needed shower. It was also the site of the massive repacking extravaganza before we returned to the States, in order to fit as much of Laura’s stuff in our bags as possible.  The rooms were clean, the staff was nice and there was a cute breakfast place just down the block with a Nakumatt (the Kenyan equivalent of Walmart) not far either!

As a side note:  the Nakumatt is awesome.  You can look them up on line.  We also stopped there and got some water (go bottled water!) and a phone card for sister in laws international phone.  This would prove to be very useful shortly!

 

We leave on our honeymoon tomorrow-Off to Antigua.  I am going to try really hard to keep this as up to date as possible!

My internet at home is not working.  It all started when my modem decided to burn out for no good reason.  Then the other modems I tried show connections but no access to internet and I am switching to a bundle package with cable so instead of fixing it I cancelled it today and then I will be getting the other stuff installed next Thursday but that means over two weeks of no internet at home which for an addict like me is very difficult.  I will start posting about Kenya once I have real internet I promise… sorry!!!! Hope you are enjoying summer…Only a few more weeks before I have to go back to school.

I know that I have done a huge jump here from the initial itinerary all the way to coming home.   The weeks leading up to the trip were absolutely crazy between school ending, packing and preparing for the trip and doing fun stuff for my brothers wedding.  By the time June 28th came and we were leaving I was ready for some time off and time to relax.

In Africa I had very little access and even less time to be on a computer so I kept a written journal although I am very far behind in that right now…. Our days were so packed that at the end of them I just wanted to curl up and go to sleep!  As time goes on I will update the different days on here until the whole trip has been posted.  It was an amazing experience and one with multiple personalities disorder.  We started with the hike which was lovely and outdoorsy and adventurous.  Then we headed to rural Maua to live like Kenyans.  Then we found the hot tourist locations in Nairobi. Finally we headed to Mombasa and sat on Tiwi Beach which is a beautiful white sand beach bordering the Indian Ocean.  Each part was something different and something wonderful.  Throughout the trip I think we took every kind of transportation possible!  Having the boyfriends sister as our tour guide was something that gave us a real experience and not just a tourist point of view.  At some point over the past two weeks I fell in love with the country and the continent… being there just changes you a little bit.

My jet lagged body is exhausted so it is time for bed…I stayed up until 11.31 pm! Go me! (In Kenya that would be 7 am tomorrow…I heart time changes…)

So this weekend I got to spend some time with the boyfriend and his family and that means that I got a chance to talk with him and his sister about the trip!  We also went to REI and I got lots of goodies…I will post that fun later…

Here is the initial itinerary:

Tuesday 6-29: Arrive in Nairobi…I think that we will get there around 11 pm and somehow get all of our gear and such to a hotel and get some sleep.

Wed 6-30 through Mon 7-5 Mt. Kenya 6 day trek:  We are going to be taking the Sirimon route up and then coming back down the Chogoria route.  It is a six day trek which gives us a day of acclimatization which is really good because I am scared about the whole altitude sickness thing.  I am the only one in our group of four that is going that has not done any sort of climbing.  The boyfriend’s sister has climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, the boyfriend has done Mt. Kilimanjaro and the Incan Trail and the ER nurse (friends of the boyfriend’s sister) has done many different climbs.  Hopefully between having an extra day and the diamox (go drugs go!) I will be just fine in a lower oxygen state… Overall though these routes are supposed to be full of lots of plants and animals and really quite beautiful.  I am scared but excited. PS Happy Fourth of July on the top of Mt Kenya!

Mon 7-5 Travel to Maua:  I am assuming that Maua is a rural village because that is where the boyfriend’s sister’s host family from the first time she was there lives.  Since we are coming straight from the mountain I will have the chance to experience my first bucket shower.

Tue 7-6 Travel from Maua to Nairobi:  I think that the buses or the transportation that we will be taking is going to be an experience all on its own based on the stories I have heard.  Yikes!
Wed 7-7 Travel to Lamu:  Lamu is an older beach town that is supposed to have historic beauty and traditions.  I am excited that I will have a chance to relax post mountain climb and even out some of whatever weird sunburn/tan I get on the mountain.  The pictures are gorgeous and the culture is great plus it will be cool because it is a Muslim town so that will totally different than what I am used to.

Sat 7-10 Travel from Lamu to Nairobi:  Apparently Nairobi is the major city in Eastern Africa and is very westernized.  Jeans are considered dressy and the culture is a strange clash of our modern society with a third world nation…  Again an entire day must be devoted to this because you never know how long the travelling will take.  Apparently Kenyans are not as obsessed with time as we are in America.

Sun 7-11 Time in Nairobi – markets, etc:  This is code for the boyfriend’s sister will do lots of fabulous bartaring because I will suck at that!

Mon 7-12 Elephants and Carnivor:  The elephants are on this reserve where orphaned elephants in the wild have been found and then cared for until they are old enough to be released back into the wild on their own.  Go to the awesome website if you want to see the pictures and other cool information… http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/ Then Carnivore is one of those all you can eat meat restaurants but instead of just steaks it serves things like crocodile and other kinds of strange game…I will just have to remember I am eating roast beast and not put a name to it until after I have swallowed…It is supposed to be amazing though!
Depart Nairobi 10:20 PM and get back to the US sometime on the 13th with no flight delays!  :)

Putting together all of the pieces definitely has me more excited.  I am still freaked out and I will be visiting the gym everyday once school is out but overall it should be an amazing experience!

I think that is the promise I am making in just about every aspect of my life….whether it be about posting on here or hanging out with friends or going to the gym or staying caught up on laundry or cleaning my place…I have so much grading to get caught up on and a paper due on Tuesday that all of that other stuff gets forgotten about!

In Africa news I got my vaccinations last week on Thursday…at least some of them.  I had to get a typhoid, tetanus and hepatitus a shot.  And just those three made my arms ACHE!  I was so happy that I was testing on Friday because if I would have written on the white board that next day I dont think my arms would have made it through one period let alone five!  The shots themselves didnt hurt…it wasnt until about two hours later that I felt the pain….and the worst part was that I like to sleep on my side…not that night!  I still have to go back because I need to get the Yellow Fever vaccination and update on my polio vaccination and maybe meningitis. The doctor didn’t have all of my records so she didn’t know about the polio and meningitis and I have to get a note from my regular doctor to get the yellow fever vaccine. See when I was little I had a screwed up immune system…if I would drink out of a water fountain I would be sick for a week…something with my white blood cells was screwed up and they never figured out why.  My wbc’s would just spike (one time it was just over 38,000 and apparently when you have cancer they are at 50,000 so I had to get a bone marrow test and lots of insanity).  I don’t remember any of it because I was only like 18 months old but my mom freaks out about it and this doctor was concerned about the yellow fever shot because that is a live vaccine and you REALLY don’t want to get yellow fever.

I also have to figure out what else I need for the trip…err well the boyfriend needs to help me do that.  I may need to get a sleeping bag and a duffel bag which could be exciting.   I also still need to figure out what I need to wear while climbing and then we need to figure out what we are doing after the climb so that I can figure out what I need to wear while doing whatever that is!  (wow I doubt that sentence made any sense…oh well!)

So one of the other stressors (other than the flying half way across the world to a third world nation where I don’t speak the language) is that my brother’s wedding is four days after we get back.  The boyfriend finds it hilarious to joke to about another volcano erupting and delaying our return home to the point where we miss the wedding.  I have the right to kill him if that actually happens right?   I think it is only fair….

Ok I have four periods of pig dissection tomorrow (yay being a biology teacher?) so I should go to bed fairly soon.  I love dissection but I am little burnt out on after today.  I have four classes doing the same dissection and in class there are seven pigs and essentially I had to help just about every group break the pig’s jaw…that is my least favorite part of the dissection and doing it 28 times is brutal.  I could post pictures if anyone wants to see them…tomorrow is at least an easier day…kids are just taking out the heart and the lungs and then reviewing for the practical on Friday!

Good night to all!

Hopefully there will be more soon…Now that the boyfriend’s sister is done with finals for med school she is going to start planning our trip…what we are doing I am not sure yet… there are talks of safaris, the beach town of Lamu, an elephant thing, visiting the orphanage that she worked at or visiting her host family, going to the market, maybe checking out a school…aka more than I am sure we have time for.  That means we have to make decisions.  I am not so good at those.

In other fun news I finally got my act together and I am getting my vaccinations on Thursday.  I am a little worried…I dont really mind needles but I think that some of these vaccinations can have some not so fun side effects…we will see!

Overall I am getting really excited about the trip.  I know this should be a given however I am still a little scared by it all.  I am a little concerned that I have less than 6 weeks to get all of my stuff together and make sure that I have worked out enough…eeks.  I really need to get to the gym more.

In sad news the boyfriend is going camping this weekend without me.  He figures that he is going to do a lot of hiking to train for the trip…and I can’t go because I have to go to a bachelorette party for the soon to be sister in law.  We are going out down town so that should be fun

In happy news only 17 more mornings to wake up for school. I love summer! That is a great perk to being a teacher but before you start to go down my throat about how teachers have it easy I challenge you to try my job for a week…I lose my social life from the end of August through the beginning of June and from November through February I literally become a ghost because of speech season.  Nothing bugs me more than having people tell me my job is easy.  I am not saying your job isnt hard…I am just saying you could have gone to school to be a teacher too but you didnt so no whining!

Alright speaking of waking up early it is currently midnight (I know that the post will say something like 5 am but that is because I havent figured out how to change that part of it) and I have to get excited about a flower dissection in the morning!  (It smells better than the pig dissection…I promise!  But pigs are cooler and we will be doing those starting next week!  Super excited!)

Good night blog world!

This week has been insane.  After the shower and my first real grad class I was exhausted but the fun was only beginning.    I have been able to make it to the gym a few times and I did a pretend workout on Mothers day so that is good… but lets go back a couple of days…

Tuesday (Last week) : In the first class we get assigned a 6-8 page paper on our school’s SIP or for all of the non-teaching friends out there… School Improvement Plan and 3 chapters of reading.  This does not sound terrible but I have not been a student for 3 years so my skills of being able to crank out a fast paper have diminished.  Additionally I forgot about the whole “working full time” thing.  Definitely puts a damper on getting the homework done.

Wednesday:  Work is lovely as always.  I worked on finding a copy of the School Improvement Plan only to find out that our school does not have an overarching plan.  Since we have been making AYP (a state set goal of achievement for students on standardized tests) we are not required to have a school wide plan.  However we do have “action plans” in each department.  Hmm that makes the paper a little more interesting…Therefore I email the person in charge of these for the district to see if I would be able to see the SIP from one of the other schools.  She never gets back to me.

Thursday:  Nothing too crazy except I start to work on the paper but I dont want to go through too much in hopes that eventually I will hear back from the person in charge of Instructional Improvement.

Friday:  Work is lovely.  No email.  I start to realize I will just have to do the paper with the random plans that I have. I hope that I picked the right stuff to write about….eeks! After school I had three friends from college come over for dinner and then had to pack.

Saturday:  The boyfriend and I are up and out by 6:30 am.  We had to drop my car off at his parents house on the way to drive to Cincinnati which is approximately a 5.5 hour drive from Chicago.  You may wonder why we are driving to Cincy on a random weekend…well there are two major answers to that question…the boyfriend went to Miami of Ohio for college and one of his best friends just so happened to marry a man who works for the Cincinnati Reds, which means she can get free tickets and well he never passes on free tickets.  Secondly my boyfriend has been a cubs fan since he could watch sports and well last weekend the Cubs were playing the Reds in Cincy.  Free tickets to a Cubs game is just too enticing!  :)  Plus we got to hang out with his two really close friends from college and get away for a little bit.  The Cubs game was a little chilly (ick for the windy night game that had 50 degree temps) but we all survived..  We also got to meet Little Jen’s two adorable children.  The four year old and I had great conversations about Finding Nemo and the Disney Princesses.

Great American Ball Park! Home of the Cincinnati Reds

The friend, The Boyfriend and I trying to stay warm! Go Cubs! (They lost…)

Sunday:  After dethawing from the night game we were all tired so we went to bed pretty early.  We also all had to wake up the next morning.  His one friend had to go to work and then we had to drive back and we had left by 9.30 am because it was mothers day!  We got back to Chicago around 2.30 ish (if I remember correctly) and went to his parents house.  I stopped in and said hi and happy mothers day and then was off to my aunts house.  Had dinner there and sat and chatted with my mom and gram and then we went for a walk to Lake Michigan and my cousins had some make shift batting practice on the beach and the puppies were happy.  On the walk home however things got a little crazier.  We had split into two groups…my grandparents and aunt and cousin were lagging behind while we were moving quick with the one puppy and the 7 year old.  About a block away from the house my 11 year old cousin comes running up saying “grandpa fell,”  which is really not all that good because he had knee replacement surgery in January, some weird gall stone issues in like march and he has some memory issues.  Since went he fell he hit his head and was bleeding a bunch (yay blood thinners and head injuries?) an ambulance was called and he was taken to the emergency room. My mom, dad, aunt and grandma went with him. My uncle, brother, his finance and I took care of the little cousins, got them to bed and I started to work on my paper since I had no idea what time the hospital crew would be getting home.  At 9 pm I decided it was time to come home since I had a forty minute drive home and I had to teach the next day.  Around 9.45 I got a call from my mom saying that they had just gotten home from the hospital and that my gramps was going to be fine but that it was good they checked it out.  Nothing stressful about that day.

Monday: School was lovely.  (Only five weeks left!! though my kids tried to argue with me on that…I can count better than they can.) Then with school over it was time to crank out the paper.  I had like 3 or so pages done.  By 1 am it was 9.5 pages with sources and a works cited page and a smaller font!  I am so out of shape with writing papers!

Tuesday:  I spent my planning periods at school editting my paper and then printed it and of course made it through the day.  Then after school I had to read the three chapters that were assigned and get to class by 5.15.  I had two full contacts all of class!  YAY!!!  Class was lovely and I learned that I am not the only one super stressed by our profs unorganized mindset.

Wednesday: By this point I am done with the week but oh well.  Thank goodness my freshmen were testing otherwise I am not sure how I would have handled them.  After school I had to go pattern shopping for my dress for the wedding which was fun but hard because my brain wasnt working and it is hard to look at a pattern and be like “hmm I think that will look good on me!”  For the third night in a row I was still doing stuff past 9.30 pm.

Thursday:  Work again.  I had to prep my kids because I took a personal day on Friday.  I heart personal days.  This kept my sanity.  However after school I was working a tennis tournament.  It was so windy that I could barely read a book.  I didnt leave school until about 7.30!

Friday: Personal DAY!!!!

Saturday:  I went into the city to help my soon to be sister in law put together wedding invites! I love crafty stuff like that so it was great!  Her invites are really pretty so that made me happy!  I will post some pictures when I get my invite.  Lots of glue dots and a few hours later 145 invitations were made and beautiful.

Sunday:  Driving range and the Hawks game rounded out a weekend where I felt like I got to unwind.  I need to get to the gym tomorrow.  I also need to call and set up appointments for vaccinations tomorrow.  I am so not looking forward to that…oh well…

Bed time for now though…Sorry for the lack of updates.  I really didnt have much time near a computer!