Family Pictures & Fall Updates

 Nearly an entire season has passed since I last posted.  It seems that time spent blogging and doing other projects has been replaced with lesson planning.  This semester I'm back to teaching a few classes in the ESL department at Durham Tech.  They are actually pretty interesting classes.  On Monday evenings I teach an intermediate ESL Civics class.  The course is held in a computer lab and focuses on civics, community, history and technology topics all while learning English.  On Friday afternoons I teach an advanced focused listening course on American media.  I help them better understand American television, radio and cinema.  To do that we study a lot of idioms and slang and watch a lot of movie/tv clips.  It's a pretty cool class that requires a lot of prep time to be taught well.  It will be nice to already have the basic curriculum developed when I teach it next semester.  I've also been teaching a short 6-week course called Parent Academy where I go into a local elementary school and help parents understand more about the American education system, how to be more involved in their child's education and how to prepare for college.  I actually teach most of the class in Spanish--and boy has my Spanish needed some refreshing!  While being back to work has been a bit stressful at times, it's mostly gone really smoothly and I've enjoyed it a lot.
Besides teaching, fall has been filled with lots of other activities.  Autumn in North Carolina is when people can actually start going outdoors again!  Since Emmett has become a full-fledged walker (more like runner) this fall, we've been venturing our regularly to parks and playgrounds where he can get out some of his energy.  He LOVES being outside, climbing, swinging and going down the slide.  My favorite playground has become the one at Dan & Hilary's apartment complex because it is enclosed by a fence and gate, so I don't have to worry about him escaping.
Our sweet Emmett continues to be social and outgoing and happy--as long as he is around people.  When it's just him and mommy at home, he occasionally (rather frequently) lets his growing molars get the best of him.  Fortunately, much of the time when he throws fits and collapses to the floor in mostly fake tears, it's pretty entertaining.  More about the growing Memmett in his soon-to-come 15-month post.
Clark is thrilled that the NBA is back in season.  He manages to stay busy between reading about sports, blogging about sports and podcasting about sports.  I should mention that he works really hard, too.  
We've managed to do a little traveling and stay plenty busy with our church callings also this fall.  More details to come in future posts.

 In the meantime, here are some shots from our August 2012 photo shoot with Big Star Studios.  It started out as a pretty good groupon deal ($70) but when it came to choosing just ten images on the spot, we caved and forked out a decent sum to get all the images on disc.  We certainly don't need more than ten images--they definitely won't all get framed.  But oh well, maybe we'll be able to stand our ground next time.

Love the look on Emmett's face.

 So his father's child...

In other fall news, Clark and I hit our 5-year mark on November 3rd.  Happy Anniversary to us!

I liked a lot of the photos, but I wish they would have noticed a few little awkward placement things during the shoot, like how my leg is coving all of Emmett's body and how Clark's fingers are strangely peaking through my legs.  Also, you don't notice it at first glance, but how awkward is my hand position on the shot below?!  I guess you get what you pay for, right?  :)