Christmastime

While I have always loved Christmas, I discovered something a few years ago that makes the experience sweeter and more enjoyable. I used to see Christmas Day as something we were all working up towards, i.e., this Christmas concert I'm attending is helping me get ready for Christmas Day, this trip to see the lights at Temple Square is getting me ready for Christmas Day... and then Christmas Day would come, and all day long I'd tell myself, "Savor it, savor it, this is what we've been prepping for all month long! Are you savoring it?!" It was exasperating. While there is build-up involved, I have recently decided to view the whole experience as Christmastime and not just Christmas Day .... those cliche phrases like, "the joy of the season" have so much truth to them. When I am pulling out the decorations I haven't seen since last year, that's Christmastime. When I am building gingerbread houses with my family, that's Christmastime. When I pick up Christmas stamps at the post office, when I plan the grocery list for the Christmas dinner I'm hosting, when I prep Gracie with a showing of Miracle on 34th Street so she can have a fun instead of traumatizing experience with Santa Claus this year, that's Christmastime. When I look at the Nativity and ponder how God came to Earth as a man to experience life as we do and to overcome sin and death, which we needed more desperately than we will ever need anything else, and when I sing the hymns that tell the story of His birth, I am able to worship Him in an especially heartfelt and beautiful way because it is Christmastime. I love this joyous, wondrous time of year and how it makes me feel closer to my friends, to my family, to my fellowman, and to my Savior Jesus Christ. 

¡Lo hicimos! We did it! We did it! Yay!

Subject: Update on a Former Student

Dear Mr. Costa,

While I know you weren't the principal of Coral Gables High School when my husband graduated in 1996, I hoped you wouldn't mind reading the following.

I was a 5th grade teacher until my daughter was born. I had a Spanish minor to go along with my teaching major, and as a result had all of the ESL students (we call it English Second Language here, I don't know if it is the same there) in my classroom. I remember feeling especially for the students who were placed in my classroom knowing absolutely no English. As we would move ahead with long division or write a persuasive essay or illustrate a section of literature we had just read, I remember wondering how those cute kids would ever catch up with their peers. I did my best to incorporate the teaching strategies I had learned for teaching students who are learning English and just hoped for a bright future for each of them.

It wasn't until I had left the classroom that one day it occurred to me that when my husband came to the United States as a 13-year-old in 1990, his age gave him a little more of a disadvantage than even my 5th grade ESL students. So I asked him about it. He remembers arriving in Miami and being thrown into classes where he had no idea what was going on. Someone picked up on it eventually and placed him in a class at his middle school especially for English language learners. Little by little because of his placement in this class and his interaction with other students, he learned English. 

This Friday my husband will graduate from Weber State University in Utah for the second time. He graduated a year and a half ago as an x-ray technician and went on to specialize as an MRI technician for which he will receive a bachelor's degree. He works in departments at two different hospitals. He is a loyal, responsible, and hard-working husband and father and I just thought it would be significant to let someone from his high school know that he did indeed catch up and has made something wonderful of himself.

Thanks for your time and have a good day.

Sincerely,

Brittney Collado

P.S. The picture is of us and our daughter and my brother's recent Eagle Court of Honor.

Few things have brought me as much joy

as watching my baby girl become a little girl.

 

helping with the grocery shopping

practicing a fire drill at library storytime

 (scroll down and to the right to pause our blog soundtrack)

I am blessed.

70

Wait for it...

SURPRISE!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

My darling grandma turns 70 today and last night her kids and grandkids squeezed ourselves into her kitchen to surprise her when she got home from a fall leaf drive with Grandpa. We took turns expressing our love and appreciation for Grandma's faithfulness and dedication to the gospel of Jesus Christ, for providing a warm beautiful setting in her home, for her delicious baking, and patience during piano lessons. I want to elaborate a bit on what I said when it was my turn. I have always loved how ladylike my grandma is. She is a beautiful woman inside and out and I have always admired how she takes care of and carries herself. I have had a love/hate relationship with my height over the years. I'm not ridiculously tall, but taller than average, and I'm usually okay with it until somebody points it out (once I was at a dance with the Spanish branch and Danilo hadn't arrived yet, so my mother-in-law encouraged a 14-year-old kid to dance with me. His eyes scaled from my toes to the top of my head and he shook his head. "Muy grande," he said, walking off. Maybe I should have grabbed him and taught him a quick lesson on the top ten things you should not say to a girl, but I didn't end up doing him the favor). I know height is kind of like straight or curly hair, you tend to wish you had the other no matter which one you've got. One day though, I realized one of the reasons my grandma is so ladylike to me is because of the way she carries her height, confidently with no apology, the way it should be. And so did her mom, my great-grandma who I adored as well. The day I realized that, I decided I was going to embrace my height and never go back. Happy birthday to a lovely woman who I am so thankful to be able to enjoy in my life. 

those who will not live to see another day

and those who will

but not many more. I am coming out back next.

September 11, 2011

Every year on September 11, I try to spend some time quietly remembering that day. The principal came over the intercom first period telling us that counselors would be on hand to help any students who were worried about parents or family members who may be involved with the tragedies going on back east. Being high school students, we all chalked it up to being no big deal. And then I walked into the classroom where I served as a teacher assistant. There I saw my teacher, a woman I loved and admired, with tears streaming down her face looking up at the television in horror.

Knowing this year would be the 10th anniversary of the tragedy, I yearned inside for some way to meaningfully observe it. I wasn't sure what I wanted. I knew it involved coming together with other Americans. I knew it involved remembering the people who were lost on what had started out as a beautiful and ordinary day. It involved remembering those who had acted so courageously so that less horror would be inflicted, and in many cases were lost that day as well. I knew it involved reflecting on the beauty that was revealed in the face of so much terror. I knew that it involved love of God and country and beautiful music. And I am thankful to Sandy City for providing the perfect platform this morning.

a balloon and a flag for every life lost
Thurl Bailey said it is comforting to know that those who fell, fell to a better place.
Then he sang "America the Beautiful" and "God Bless America" as the balloons floated into the heavens.