Hawaii Bliss

Our Christmas Hawaiian adventure was so amazing! John and I flew out on December 20th and arrived that day. My dad picked us up from the airport and we went straight to the PCC for dinner and a Christmas canoe ride.

We had a lot of fun hanging out at the beach with my brother Chris and his cute family for the next four days. We tended their kids one night while they went to the temple which was super fun. John and Chris wanted Romy's shrimp for Christmas Eve lunch so Jen and I went and got smoothies and watched them eat

Another highlight was performing with my dad at a Christmas concert held in the temple visitor center. We were excited that a couple hundred people showed up to hear us!

Christmas eve was different, but fun. We ate ham (can you believe my mom cooked ham?!) out on my parents' patio. My dad read the Christmas story from the bible and we just enjoyed each other's company since we decided not to give sibling gifts this year. Chris left the next morning and we were sad to see them go!

Christmas day was great! We loved how relaxed it was and having my parents and Ben there with us! We had a leisurely morning opening a few gifts and stockings. We stopped at McDonalds for lunch before seeing Les Miserables that evening. So amazing. We had an amazing dinner at a fun outdoor restaurant on our way home!

The next few days were super relaxed and fun. We went to the Buddhist temple we found on our honeymoon and my parents really enjoyed that. We also went to some pretty lookouts and enjoyed the great weather! One of our favorite adventures was the Kahuku Farms. We went on a little wagon ride around the farm and learned about how the fruits are grown and harvested. So interesting! We had done the Dole Plantation wagon ride before but this was so much better!,

Vanessa and her family came on the 28th. We had fun with them on our last few days on the island. We went swimming, had a poolside BBQ and walked on the beach.

Our final day was very busy and fun. We spent the day at the PCC and got to see what Ben does there every day. We had fun at the luau for dinner before heading to the airport. My family sang us a sweet version of aloha oi to bid us farewell

The trip was so amazing and we are sad it is over. It was hard to leave my parents but it was amazing to get to see what they are up to!

2012

I have been so bad at updating this year. So much has happened and life is so different now than it was one year ago. Here are a few 2012 highlights!

New Year's Eve: John and I rang in the new year with his parents for a change. I was still recovering from my laparoscopic surgery so we had a quiet sushi dinner at their home. John was the only one who stayed awake to ring in the new year!

Level 2: I began the hardest semester of my college career in January. This included the most intense coursework I have ever had, as well as practicum in a first grade classroom at Woodruff Elementary. Though I was stressed beyond belief and acquired canker sores on every inch of my mouth as a result, I also learned a great deal and fell in love with my students!

Spring Break: In March John and I were blessed with the opportunity to go on a cruise to Cabo San Lucas with my family. We drove to CA, stopping for two nights in Vegas to visit my brother who was there on vacation our cruise was five days and pure heaven! John even got me to go parasailing! We were sad when it ended but had fun stopping for one day at Disneyland before heading back to reality.

Home Owners: My Dad's childhood home went up for sale this year and we were able to purchase it after a long battle with the previous owner. We were so thrilled to have our own place and not have to deal with a landlord anymore! We have learned a lot from being homeowners including how to kill grass, how expensive taxes are, and how to repair broken toilets.

UFOMT: I returned to UFOMT for my 14th season. It was an excellent season and I was sad to see it end. I especially enjoyed performing with both my father and sister this year in My Fair Lady.

Fire: One of the most frightening experiences I've had in my life happened on July 29th. I arrived home from a performance late that night to firetrucks and police cars surrounding my house. John hadn't been answering my calls all night so I immediately imagined the worse. I quickly found out that our neighbor had been lighting off fireworks and had accidentally shot one into the huge Juniper bush in front of our house. Luckily no one was hurt and the damage minimal. The bush had to be removed, our front window replaced, the siding and attack vent replaced and painted, the railing by the steps refinished and the awnings replaced. We are so blessed that the fire was extinguished before it entered the inside of the home! We are still waiting for all the repairs to be completed.

Student Teaching: I was placed in a 3rd grade classroom at Edith Bowen to do my student teaching. It was the perfect fit for me because my cooperating teacher and I have very similar teaching and management styles and she gave me full reign of the class from day one. I loved my students and cried on my last day. Though I was excited to finish my schooling, I was so sad to leave that class! I ended up getting the highest score my advisor had ever given which made me feel amazing about my teaching abilities!

Subbing: The day after I graduated I was given my first paid elementary teaching job! My cooperating teacher had some medical issues to take care of so I subbed for her for four days. It was so nice to be back in my class and be able to feel like a real, paid teacher!

Hawaii: For Christmas this year John's parents and my parents teamed up to give us a trip to Hawaii. It was so amazing to be able to spend time with my parents and Ben again. John especially enjoyed not having to I to work since he hadn't had a day off in months! We were so sad to leave both the beautiful weather and my parents!

New Year's Eve: This year we rang in the new year on a red eye flight home from Hawaii. Though we were heart broken to leave we were also thankful for all of the memories we had made there!

Here's to another exciting year!!

Everyone's A Little Bit Racist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbud8rLejLM

I'm not one to endorse the musical Avenue Q, but I've always thought this song was pretty funny, and it reminds me of of my 3rd graders at Edith Bowen.  Let me explain...

Every week in class we have a "Secret Agent of the Week".  They fill out a paper that is full of questions about them.  Then on Friday they read each question and the students get a chance to guess what the student of the week wrote for each answer.  Now, Edith Bowen isn't really....ethnically diverse.  The only diversity we have is one little boy who is of Chinese decent. (Trying to be PC here)  Anyway, this is how things went when it was his turn to be student of the week.

Question 1.
Student of the week: My favorite food is....
Student A: Sushi!
Student of the week: No...
Student B: Tiny spicy chicken!
Student of the week: No...pizza!!

Question 2:
Student of the week: If I could go anywhere on my secret mission I would go to...
Student C: Hong Kong!
Student of the week: No...
Student D: Japan!
Student of the week: No...Lego Land!

Question 3:
Student of the week: If I could learn more about one subject in school it would be...
Student E: Chinese!
Student of the week: Nope...
Student F: Oragami!
Student of the week: No...science!

Anyway, that is just a sample of the responses we got.  Such a funny conversation.  Guess it's true...everyone's a little bit racist!

Am I still alive?

Am I still alive?  You tell me.  I feel like student teaching is the most exhausting thing I have ever done in my life.  I have a great sleep schedule and eat a healthy breakfast every morning...and yet I am falling asleep walking by 9 am.  Exhausting.

So far things are going well.  I really like my teacher, and we get along well.  However, I had a rough week last week.  My teacher has been leaving a lot and putting me in charge, which is great, except that I rarely get any notice before she does this.  It's usually goes something like this "Oh, I have a doctor's appointment in 20 minutes so I'm going to have you teach math" or "I have a workshop to go to and didn't get a sub, so you'll be in charge after lunch".  Exciting right?  Anyone who knows me knows I love being in charge.  The problem is, she expects me to know exactly what to teach.  Like with math, she said "We'll be doing a post-test on rounding."  Great.  I spent all of recess looking for the post-test, couldn't find it and had to make up an impromptu math lesson.  It is definitely teaching me to think on my feet.  Everything goes well until my teacher comes back and realizes that I didn't do things exactly how she had in mind and I get chewed out for it.  *sigh*  I do have a good laugh every time beginning ELED students come in to observe my seasoned teacher and I'm scrambling around trying to teach something worthwhile on two minutes notice.

Did I mention I love my students?  They are a constant reminder of why I have chosen the career path I have.  11 more weeks and I am DONE!  :)

Here's a cute pic of my cute husband and my cute dogs.

Peaches

One of the most fun activities of my summer was canning peaches with my sister, Ester.  We spent an afternoon driving around Brigham looking for the best peaches.  We finally picked some out and bought half a bushel each.  We spent the rest of the day canning (and eating) the beauties!  We ended up with 8 jars each (we canned some for Vanessa as well, so 24 total).  We were proud of ourselves for completing the task without any help from our mom!

UFOMT 2012

Another great season at UFOMT has come and gone.  It is amazing how quickly the summer goes when I am having so much fun performing with the company.  This year I was in the ensemble for My Fair Lady, Kiss Me Kate, Girl Crazy, and Faust.  I didn't really take many pictures, but I did snap a few. An orchestra member also took a few photos during a dress rehearsal for us.

I played a flower seller and a maid in My Fair Lady

I was in the chorus for Kiss Me Kate.  I got to wear a super pretty long, red wig and a not-so-pretty 1930's style black wig.

I didn't take any pictures in my Faust costume.  Unfortunately my Girl Crazy costume/wig was documented.  It is definitely the ugliest I have ever looked in my whole life (I hope!)  I took a picture of the wig on the form to show how much better it looked there than on my head!

Overall it was a great summer, with great friends!

We Didn't Start the Fire!

Summer was so busy, I didn't have a chance to update on really anything.  Hopefully I can catch up a little bit before school starts next Monday!  Anyway, the most exciting/terrible thing that happened this summer was the fire that "hit" our house.  We had only been in our house two months when our neighbor across the street shot off a firework that "malfunctioned" and shot sideways into our bush.  (I have a feeling it just tipped over before it shot off).  It went straight into a huge juniper bush that we have (had) right up against the front of the house.  It immediately went up in flames.  A few neighbors saw it happened and ran to help.  They pulled out our hose but couldn't get the flames down.  I was at the theater and John was in the basement.  One of the neighbors pounded on our door yelling to John that the house was on fire.  You can imagine he lost his calm.  The firefighters were called and showed up pretty quickly.  They hosed off the bush, but had to chainsaw it down to make sure they had taken care of all of the burning.

It was an interesting night for me, since I arrived at the scene of the crime as the firefighters were spraying off the house.  The road in front of the house was blocked off so I parked down the street and ran to see what was happening.  I don't think I've ever been so panicked in my life!  However, since almost all of River Heights came to see what was happening, I was able to meet many of my new neighbors. :)

When things calmed down that night and we were able to look at the damage it didn't seem that bad.  However, when the sun came up we noticed a lot more problems.  The brick and siding on the front of the house is burned pretty badly.  The awning above the window is toast (pun).  The heat from the flames put huge cracks in our large, front window.  The railing by the door is charred and the front step needs to be sandblasted.  ARS has come to give us an estimate and they are thinking it will be about $2,600 to fix everything.  We have to pay a $1,000 deposit, which is supposed to be returned to us when the neighbor's insurance reimburses our insurance.

Overall it was a scary experience, but we are very grateful that no one was harmed, and the flames didn't make it inside our cute little house.  We are also grateful that we have great home owner's insurance!