Volunteerism and a start

Some berries and branches lifted up near some stalagtitic icicles.
(I made up the word stalagtitic)

So I had my first day of volunteering yesterday and met a couple neat teachers. Traffic and absent-mindedness delayed my arrival to the first class, but I arrived just in time for a yogurt break (yogurt was a "prop" for looking at nutritional values on packaging) and talking about packaging itself. Cans, Jars, Boxes, Bags, Cartons, etc.. The class was a lot of fun, and most of the time I spent with them was in the computer lab doing typing practice and learning about the software they have for ELL's to practice and learn from.
The second class was helping out with GED practice. Honestly it was a bit drier than the first class because it is basically individual study and the students just raise their hand when they have a question. Tedious, especially because it's all written out so the "help" is just fetching the answer sheet or marking wrong answers. Ah, well.
There was a third ELL class that I was to help with but first I need to complete some online training for the state that will qualify me for tutoring. Their site is down right now, so I haven't been able to jump on that to complete. So, that's the status of things!

Minneapolis is a neat city, but it was pretty fun getting out of the city this past weekend. Jon and I drove waaaaaay up north to visit his sister and her in-law-family who own a bunch of acreage just south of the Canadian border. It's a neat story how they came about acquiring the property, but I can't do it justice here so I'll summarize: God lead and worked it out. (c:
We were put to work while we were there, much to our eager delight.
They've four beautiful Belgian horses and a small business of taking people on lantern-lit sleigh rides. The land is perfect for it with the snow blanketing everything and the sky brilliant with stars. They had a lot of customers while we were up there and it was a blessing to see how they received the customers, engaged them in conversation and welcomed them into their home for (amazing!) hot chocolate afterward.

Here's a picture of the lake on their property. This is before the snowmobilers marred the picturesque scene with their tracks.

This picture is from the drive back down. The body of water in the center and to the left of the photo is Lake Superior.

Unfortunately, I did not bring my camera up with me, so the few pictures I do have are of the rubbish quality that my phone takes. One of the highlights of being up north was being completely out of cell-phone range. It is refreshing to disconnect and realize, "everything" can and will wait. Laboring along with the family up there was also very refreshing, the days went by quickly and the cold didn't seem to bite much because of the work. (c: