Happy 4th of July!

Here is Claire, our youngest niece peeking out through the swing.


Here's Jared with the purple mountain's majesty in the background.
Here's Carson....too cute for words.
Travis eating his ice cream.
Daniel..the future convict!!!

Okay, and the following text was supposed to appear BEFORE the pictures, but I can't figure out how to fix that.

I know that it has only been a few days since I posted, but Scott took some really cool pictures at the park yesterday. Kristin is noticeably absent as she went out of town with a friend's family. I will post current pictures of her later.

We spent the beginning of the afternoon at the park with my brother's family, and then went to our house to play rock band. Then we went to my parent's house for BBQ. After that we opted to skip the fireworks and just go home. I watched the Boston Pops concert/fireworks on TV. It wasn't the same, but better than nothing!

Hope you all had a Happy Fourth of July!

Another Month Gone

Well, another month has gone by so I guess it is time for me to post again. The last month was nice. Summer school turned out to be a very cushy job. After students got booted for attendance reasons, we ended up with 5 sixth graders, most of whom were well behaved. I only covered about 1/4 of the curriculum, but I guess that was better than nothing as every student improved on the post-test. So I feel good about that.

I've been putting off posting about this until things got settled. It took us about a week, but we finally ended negotiations for a new house. If all goes well with inspection, appraisal, and getting the loan, we will close August 15. Which is after school starts, so we'll be starting the school year with a move again. I actually start August 4, but don't get students until the 11th. The biggest problem is that the kids will be moving school districts, and school starts in both districts before the 15th. So do we start them in the new district or the old district? I'm leaning towards the new district; I'm just afraid that we'll start them and something will go wrong with the house!

The house is a rancher with a basement and has 5 bedrooms, 3 on the main level and 2 in the basement. It has 3286 square feet! We're so excited to have so much room. I'll post pictures after it closes...no need to jinx the deal!

D'enouement

Well, I did it. I got through my first year of teaching. It was pretty anti-climatic after all the counting down, etc. The last day of school was good. We read the "Phantom Tollbooth" to our students, so we showed that movie and did a little comparing/contrasting to the book and that was that.

The most exciting thing that happened was that all of the math supplies were moved out of the room they were in to mine. Except I didn't really have any place to put them. So they just got dumped all over my floor. So I spent the last contract day sorting and putting them away. I had help from lots of my friends at school so it really went pretty quickly. We found newspapers from the mid-nineties and an art curriculum book from 1959. Pretty much don't need those anymore. But I got it done and it actually motivated me to go through some of our stuff here at home. Not that I've done that yet, but I will this weekend and next week. Maybe.

Summer school starts on Monday. I'm actually pretty excited. I think that it will be good for me to be on my own for a few weeks before I'm on my own for a year. I say "on my own" because my co-teacher and true mentor will not be there for me to lean on next year. It makes me a little nervous. She was sooo fantastic and always had great ideas. I've written them all down, so hopefully I'll still remember them in the fall.

The day after school ended, we went to Utah to meet our friends Lonnie and Michelle and their kiddos and go camping and riding. Michelle and I stayed behind and went to dinner and the movies. That's my kind of camping! All was well until the last five minutes of the last day of riding at which point Scott had a bad wreck and sprained his ankle severely. The ER doc thought it was broken, but the orthopedic doc said not so much. So until he has his CT scan next week, we don't really know what's wrong with it. All I know is it's the pits that he can't walk and drive a clutch! :) But I will take that over the alternative...we are feeling very blessed that despite the severity of the wreck he is alive and relatively well.

I Can't Believe It...

TWO DAYS LEFT. Amazing. I thought this year would never end. Really. And now here we are with just two days left until SUMMER VACATION. Of course, I'm teaching summer school. That's actually a pretty sweet deal because I'll only be instructing for about 140 minutes and get paid for 240. Nice. We'll see at the end if it is worth it. My summer continues to get shorter and shorter though. I'm going to a PLC Conference in July. I'll be going to Professional Development classes starting Aug 4. Then my contract starts Aug 6. Then we get kiddos on Aug 11. BUT ENOUGH...I'm not thinking about that right now. Right now, I've got two days to get through. Oh and to all the parents out there who have children telling them that they don't need to go to school on the last day...they are right.

I was speaking with Julie this weekend about the end of my first year and I must say that I've really accomplished a lot. I must say I'm rather proud of myself for holding down a full time job and not going crazy in the middle of the year. Although I was tempted to do so. I have had many many people make this year bear-able for me. Thanks to everyone who listened to me whine, gave me suggestions, and just all around supported me. I really appreciate it.

Congratulations to Adam!!

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Adam's college graduation. While this a feat in and of itself, it is especially amazing for Adam, my brother, who is a four time brain cancer survivor. He is alive against all odds and despite all that he has been through he was able to finally finish his Associate's Degree of General Studies.

I admire him and his courage, but don't tell him nearly enough. He is a pretty amazing guy. So here's to ADAM!!

Nine Days, but Who's Counting????

I am, that's who! Just nine short days until I finish my first year teaching. It has been a trying year, because of outside influences...such as a short deployment right after the school year started...but I did it and I'm stronger for it. I'm really excited for next year because well, it will be my second year of teaching, and not my first. LOL! I actually have big plans for my classroom, and my classes. The best part is that the "math block experiment" didn't work out, and so now I will be teaching in 45 minute periods instead of a daily 98 minute block. The worst part about next year? I will be going from class sizes of 20-24 to class sizes of 34-40. Yikes. Hopefully some of the sixth graders expected to come will go elsewhere. Or something.


If I were a better writer or more witty, I could come up with the top ten things I learned teaching sixth grade math, or something. But I'm not, so I won't even try!

Happy Anniversary!

So, Scott and I celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary on the first. I've never in my life done anything for fifteen years straight. I thought maybe take piano lessons, but that was only thirteen years and it was with several different teachers, so not so much. It's pretty amazing to me! Especially because of our rocky times. I'm so glad that we came through those times and are still together. I wouldn't have it any other way at this point in time. I am mostly writing though because even though Scott has never gotten me anything for an anniversary before, this time he got me flowers, a balloon, and made me a CD of love songs. It was really really nice. I guess I won't expect anything again until our 30th!

In other news, we saw Kristin run in her track meet this morning. She didn't do as well as she has been doing, mostly because her shins are killing her. We asked to pull her out of the triple jump, but it still effected her running in her races.

Jared's birthday party is today. The boys are all having parties the next few weekends. We are celebrating Daniel's birthday in May this year, too. He traded with Scott. Weird, I know, but he (Daniel) hates having his birthday a week after school starts. So whatever. As long as he doesn't expect anything in August too. We got the boys "Rock Band" for their combined gift and then they'll each get a party.

That's about all that is going on around here. Maybe I'll get to posting pictures of the parties. But I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you! :)