Angel Food Cake with Strawberries

You thought this would be another recipe, didn't you?

But it's not.  It's a sentiment.

Angel food cake has made it into every special day with my family as long as I can remember.  As a little girl, I looooooooved Sundays when Papa and Ami came to visit, because I knew that on their way to our house, they would stop at the little farm stand on the side of the road and buy a few baskets of strawberries.

People who have tasted Oxnard strawberries know that it's not worth buying them anywhere else.  That's why my grandparents would drive from Ontario (Cali) to Oxnard before picking up the pièce de résistance for Ami's angel food cake.

Strawberries grow year round in Oxnard in the fields that take up the 1.2 miles of land between the house I grew up in and the ocean.  But they start smelling their sweetest right around Easter when the ocean breeze lifts the scent of warm, sun-ripened strawberries and swirls it around our homes.  There's nothing like that scent.  I've lived away from my parents' home in Oxnard for 5 years now, but every time I get off the freeway and go over the bridge into Oxnard, I roll down my window so that the sea breeze and strawberries can welcome me.

Ever since we began dating, Jesse has called me his "Celtic-harping-beach-strawberry girl."  It fits me pretty well :)

Pretty much, just combine these two pictures and there I am!

Anyway, back to angel food cake: today is my last day in Kindergarten, and really, at First Lutheran School.  On Monday, I'm moving over to First Lutheran's Preschool which is run completely separately.  As happy as I will be to be back in a preschool setting (if you don't believe that I miss my "Miss Bethany" days at Turtle Rock Preschool, check here and here), I will miss being a part of this school, and the kindergarten class.  They make my days so much fun!

Today being my last day, I decided to bring angel food cake, strawberries, and whip cream with me today for all of the teachers and staff.  Somehow, bringing a childhood favorite with me today made me feel better about the whole thing of having to say goodbye to what has been my job since August.  I still can't believe that I came here to fill in for a teacher's maternity leave the first week of school and have been here ever since.  What a blessing!  I loved teaching 1st grade; I grew exponentially while teaching 4th/5th combined class, and I'm having a blast singing my songs and dancing along with the kindergarteners. 

God showed me through this year that I really can bloom where I'm planted.  To step into three very different classrooms and be able to lead in and learn from all of them has been incredible.  A year like this for a substitute teacher is very rare!

I'm just hoping that God will plant me in a classroom of my own this upcoming year.  I've learned so much in the past two years as a substitute, but I am starving for a place to call home.  Please join me in praying that God already has it all arranged for me, and that He's waiting for just the right moment to show me.

Today is my last day, and I'm sitting in "my" class for the last time, watching precious little sleepers as I eat my angel food cake and strawberries.  Truly, it does make life feel better!