Girls weekend!

Hello all. I just had a great weekend. My friend Lauri came and stayed. We have know each other since we were 4. There were a few rocky years in grade school :) but mostly she has always been one of my best friends. She is always there for me no matter what. I can have not talked to her in months and she is always willing to be my sounding board and listen to me complain. I also remembered this weekend how good she for me, subtly encouraging me to be more positive and less critical of others, thanks Lar! Anyway Friday we went shopping and got some great makeup,had dinner at the cheesecake factory, very yummy, and then went to a movie. Saturday I introduced her to her first pedicure, nice excuse for me to get one! We had a great time just hanging out. I am so glad she came and I hope to get to see her again soon.

Nothing much else is going on. It was a busy week at work. I missed the monthly Chili's outing Friday. At least once a month a group of us from work go to Chili's after school on Friday and hangout for awhile. The group includes our Awesome administration. Any teachers out there reading this you can be jealous now. I work at the best school ever! This is just one small example of why it is so awesome. November is going by in a blur. Next week is New Moon, yes I have tickets already and then Thanksgiving! I am now issuing an open invitation to anyone who would like to come to Thanksgiving dinner. I love to cook for Thanksgiving and would love to have more to cook for! Hope to see you...

Quarantine

Hello all. Thank you very much those of you that fed my need for feedback. Although like a drug I always need more :) Anyway it has been an interesting last couple of weeks. I got a really bad cold about a month ago. I stayed home one day, watched way to much random TV(Say yes to the Dress)but after like a week felt a lot better, than my sinus' started to get worse again. I used my mucinex and decongestant hoping it would go away but after 3 weeks decided to go to the Dr. That was Monday. I found a nice colleague willing to watch my class and went hoping for some antibiotics. The Dr. came in and asked me if I had been exposed to the H1N1 flu. I said of course, I am a teacher. She said you have a fever of 101.6, many flu symptoms so I am testing you and you have to stay off work for 7 days. I said, "what the crap!" We negotiated it down to staying home till the test results came back. I then decided to put it in my Principal's hands because I really did not feel that bad but I didn't want to be a typhoid Mary. She said even if you don't have it you still probably don't feel well, stay home. So for 2 days I was quarantined at home. It was kind of nice but I felt like I was wasting sick days, what if I really do get the plague? Also as a teacher being gone for multiple days is a lot of prep work! Anyway the test was negative, yea!

In better news last night I went to my 5th They Might Be Giants concert. This time Jennifer went with me, she had never been. It was great! They played the entire "Flood" album plus a bunch from their new "Here comes Science" album. It also included a couple of numbers with sock puppets and an accordion! It is always a different experience seeing them. At the end of the concert they handed out free bumper stickers and I got one straight from one of the Johns!!! For all you parents I highly recommend their kids albums, I have heard "No" and quite a few off the science album now. Hope you all have a great day!! Until next time...

Finally

Hello all, well any of you that still bother to check this since it has been so long since I wrote. At first I did not write because I was irritated. Yes I have discovered through this blog (actually I kind of knew it, the blog just confirmed it) that I am needy like a dog when it comes to praise and/or feedback. I want people to acknowledge what I do, now!! Facebook is bad for this too, I get upset if no one has commented on my status. It is pathetic, I am getting therapy and taking pills for it.... (extra points for anyone who can name that quote :) Anyway as part of my therapy I am going to write on this blog regularly no matter if anyone comments or not. (It would really encourage me though if you did comment, please, I need it)

So we are already almost to Halloween, the time has gone by fast! School really is going very well so far. I don't even have a "bad" class so far (knocking on wood now.) I am getting to the frustration point with students who refuse to do anything in class or outside of it. We have a new intervention system that we are doing this year though and that is helping, every week I get to pull some of those kids in and give them some one-on-one attention. It is a lot harder to do nothing when the teacher is sitting next to you walking you through the assignment!

I have also been attending an aquacise class. As most of you know I hate exercise but for multiple reasons it became even more clear I needed to do something. I had heard some one talk about how much they liked the aquacise classes at the local rec center so I decided to try it. I can't say that I like it for the whole hour but I like it enough to finish the hour. Also it is really good on my bad knees. I was going twice a week very regularly until the last two weeks when I got sick. I have to start up again next week. This might get more difficult when it gets really cold, I hate changing in gym settings. It brings back flashbacks to junior high.

Well I hope all is well with you and I promise to be back soon.

Cape Cod!

Hi guys. Yes I know it is a miracle, a post two weeks in a row. Amazing! This week has gone by pretty quickly. Monday we had swimming lessons and then we went to the beach about 45 mins from Glastonbury. It was very nice, kinda of crowded and no big waves, good for kids. The kids also went crabbing. I have always heard about "crabbing" but did not know what it entailed. for the kids it entails tying a string to a raw chicken drumstick and sticking it in places you think crabs are hiding. Kind of weird, I know. The kids caught 6 crabs though, then we released them back to be tortured by some other kids. Tuesday night Kim and I went to the midnight Harry Potter 6. I know I didn't think I would be able to talk her into it either, but she was very nice and indulged me. It was great. For the first time Michael Gambon (the guy who plays Dumbledore) didn't make me want to throw something on the screen. The movie was very well done, can't wait to see it again.

On Friday we went camping on Cape Cod. We stayed at a giant state park near the beaches. This is the view from our camp...


The first night we had a major storm and while we did stay mostly dry the adults did not get a lot of sleep. On Saturday we went to two different beaches, one on the cape side and one on the ocean side. The one on the cape side we went to for low tide. It was amazing the water receded like a mile into the ocean and you could go out and look at the tide pools left behind. Dave and G found a huge horsehose crab, A and I found several crabs buried in the sand. (I think this is a much better way to go crabbing) At the ocean side beach we finally found our big waves. The water was a lot colder but the waves were a lot of fun. This is G against the ocean, trying to stand against the big waves...











Here is I. having fun in the sun...










After two beaches we went back to camp, roasted hot dogs and went to bed, we were tired. This morning the kids decided to swim in the lake and here is Kim styling in the fabulous sun glasses we mysteriously ended up with... (she was desperate for sun glasses)



Next week is Kim's B-day and we go to D.C. Hope you all had a great week!

East for Summer

Hello all. It has been am long time so this might be a long post, you might want to prepare a snack now. I'll wait... Ok, Well first girls camp. It went very well! We had 16 girls from our ward go and we had no drama, no fights, nothing! I was very impressed with all of the girls they got a long great, made sure everyone was involved and unless they are all lying, had a great time! I had a great time, minus all the bug bites. Also all the girls got certified!!! I know there are a lot of people who do not think that girl's camp certification skills are important, but I do. I think these skills can help the girls become more independent and self-reliant women. The girls even got me to wear my bedazzled purple headband for a whole day, oh and our skit won! I wrote the script but the girls did all the work.

After camp I had 5 days to recover and get ready for my trip back east to visit Kim and family. I needed almost all that time to recover, I was exhausted when I got back. Anyway with a few minor delays I made it to Glastonbury, CT. So far I have watched a lot of Charlie and Lola. I am not complaining, as kids shows go this one is rather entertaining and the English accents are nice too :) We also had a fun girls night since the boys went to cub scout camp. We did pedicures, had homemade blueberry sorbet and I was forced to watch High School Musical 3. They should have stopped at 1 but the nieces enjoyed it immensely. Yesterday we went to the outlet mall near Glastonbury. It was really great. Big, lots of good stores and not very crowded. The only complaint is the lack of eating options but I did get a nice new shirt. That afternoon we went to the Hartford river festival on the Connecticut River. There were some kids activities, face painting and then fireworks. We went on a very long journey to find just the right spot to watch the fireworks from but we ended up right by a playground which when waiting for 3 hours with 3 kids was great. The fireworks were amazing. The finally was the best I have ever seen! Kim and Dave said it was better then the ones they watched last week in Boston. Well worth the wait and we made it to the car right before the downpour started. Tomorrow we are going to the beach after swimming lessons. Next week we are going to Washington D.C. Should be exciting. Here are some pictures of the fireworks, not great but ok for my camera. Also the cute kids.

Catch up

Hello all. It has been a long time. I have just not really felt like blogging for the last few months. Knowing that so many of you (snicker) have been waiting anxiously for news I have decided to end your misery :) Well I got through the end of the school year. I have developed a theory that there is a finite amount of time that most adult humans can be around 12-14 year old adolescences and still remain sane. I think the regular school year is just about that amount. Of course this could just be me :) I did plan better this year and most of my classes were watching movies that actually had to do with the curriculum the last week of school. Yea me!

After school got out my Grandma came to town for a few days, that was great! We went to the Ochre temple open house, saw the giant Kennecotte copper mine, and went for a picnic in the mountains. We had a lot of fun, thanks Grandma!

Since then I have been wasting a lot of time, thanks Farm Town on Facebook, and trying to plan Girls Camp. It should be very interesting, I have one more week to go before the big event. I am also ready to go visit Kim, Dave and the kids now! I hope all is well with all of you.

Catch up

Well it has been awhile. Here is a brief catchup on what I have been doing. I had to spend my legislative money by this week so I did quite a bit of shopping the end of last month. I bought some fun new toys like a wireless, all-in-one printer and my favorite a 5 foot Cat in the Hat to go on my wall!! I am easily amused some times, but I am proud of it so here is a picture-



Isn't it cute? I also went to Boise for Spring Break. It was a lot of fun and quite relaxing. I got to spend some quality time with my amazing Grandma, my cousins, Aunt and Uncle. I also had lunch with a friend from Junior High-High School. It was great to catch up and I realized that I had great taste in friends even back in Junior High! On the way back to SLC I decided to stop at Shoshone falls. I had never been there, really I didn't know much about it. Apparently the falls is only really cool in the spring with the spring melt. It is called the Niagra of the West and since I have now seen Niagra falls I thought it would be good to see the one in my own backyard. It was spectacular! Here is a picture of it-



Nice huh? This week Angie and I went to a play at the Hale Center Theater. It was a version of the Phantom of the Opera, not the Andrew Lloyd Weber one. I now know why the Andrew Lloyd Weber one is more popular, it is vastly better. Angie did a great and humorous review of it on her blog so if you want to know more read here (Angie if you want me to take the link off just let me know:) So this weekend Angie and I did watch the other Phantom, unfortunately the copy I rented was very damaged and it kept skipping, but it was still better:) This weekend I am holed up at home trying to deal with my stomach problems and caffeine headache. I think my stomach has finally had it from years of ibuprofen and diet coke and is rebelling. So I can't drink diet coke with out a lot of pain, which leads to the headache. I toughed it out last night but when it had not gone away today I got desperate and made flat diet coke. I really hope this is a temporary condition!