What's Up With Us

Stewart and I have started working on the basement.  It has not been the most fun we have had, but we are glad to be getting it done.  I will admit that I would much rather paint or lay tile than I would hang sheet rock.  School has been going well for me.  I have a very busy class this year with 30 students, and most of them are boys!!  Stewart has been busy with work and he getting ready to take his PLS test in April.   

This is my class during our Christmas party.

Here is Stewart as we were getting ready to hand the first piece of sheet rock.

One of the bedroom downstairs. 

This is Zoey every time Stewart or I come home.  She is sticking her head through the cat door and waiting for us to come in. 

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays everyone.  Stewart and I have been working alot and we can't wait for Christmas break.  Here are some pictures of what we have been up to lately.  

 This is Penny in her Halloween costume.  Dosen't she look so happy:)

 This picture is of some of my students from our field trip to the farm.

 Here is Zoey in her Halloween costume.  She actually enjoyed her's.

These pictures are of our house on the day we got the huge snow storm.  This picture was taken around 2:00 pm!!  It was a crazy day dealing with the weather, but the good thing was school was closed because of the storm!!

Summer.....Part 2

I can't believe the month of July is over.  We only have one month left and summer is gone.  This summer has flown by.  Stewart and I are finally done with the front yard.  It is so nice to be done with it.  We started working on the yard last summer and we still have to finish the backyard, but that wont take to long.  We have been taking puppy training classes with Zoey and she graduated from her class this week.  I know some think it is silly to take dog training classes, but we have seen a huge difference with her.  We stayed home this year for the fourth of July.  My brother and his girlfriend came over.  We had a really nice time.  We thought Zoey would love the fireworks, but she cried most of the time and we ended up putting her in the house.  Here are some pictures of the yard, Zoey with her graduation certificate, and us on the fourth.      

Summer.....

Stewart and I have been busy finish up the landscaping in the front and keeping Zoey from destroying the house.  Zoey loves to dig and chew stuff up.  We have decided to not do anything in the back yard.  She has already chewed on our trees and the two rose bushes.  She has been digging in our garden and this is the first summer where we have been able to actually do something with our garden!  So our back yard now consists of chicken wire over any living plant that we want to live.  Other than that we have been having a lot of fun with her.  We enjoy taking her on walks in the evening and taking her fishing.  She went swimming in the lake for the first time last weekend.  Stewart almost had a heart attack!!  It was hilarious:()
I have been teaching swimming lessons at Golds Gym and Stewart is staying busy with work.  These are some pictures of our two girls!!

This is Penny trying to catch a mouse that fell down our window well.  She stayed in the well for most of the day.  In case you haven't heard Penny has caught lots of mice and likes to bring them home to show Stewart and I. 

 P.S they are alive!!

Zoey had just gotten done digging in the garden after we had watered it.

    I just love this picture.  She is sooo cute especially with the dirt on her nose:)

The newest member of our family....

This is the newest member of our family Zoey.  We adopted Zoey Friday night from the Pocatello Animal Shelter.  She is a Hound/Bulldog mix.  She is only 2 months old.  Stewart and I are having a great time with her.  She is a very sweet and loving dog.  Our cat Penny is taking this new addition pretty well.  She has not taken her eyes off of her.  Last night she "babysat" her all night.  It was pretty cute.  It looks like Stewart and I will have a pretty busy summer.   

Dance

On top of teaching 4th grade I have been on a dance company.  The company started with a few girls from the studio I teach at.  They decided that Pocatello needed a dance company for older dancers. So they asked me to join.  I was way pumped to be on the dance company until the school year started.  I panicked thinking I could not keep up with dancing and teaching.  It wasn't until my wise mom told me to suck it up and in the end I would be glad I stuck with the dancing.  Being the wise daughter that I am I listened to my mom and I am glad I did... 

This is our first year and we have a long way to go; like come up with a company name!!  But we have had a lot of fun and have done a few perfromances.  Most the dancers teach with me at the dance sutdio, but some dance with I.S.U.  To help promote the company we took these pictures in Old Town Pocatello.  They turned out really good and it was a lot of fun!!  Here are a few:)

PUERTO RICO!

We have returned to cold, snowy Idaho after 8 days in sunny, warm Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. We had a blast seeing the sites and relaxing on the beach. Here are a few pictures from our trip.

What is new with us.....not much!

Since the person who started this blog is no longer updating it (Yes I'm talking about Danyiel), I have taken the responsibility this one time. We are still alive and kickin', surviving work and waiting for it to warm up a bit so we can enjoy our yard again.


As some of you know I am the 11 yr old scout leader in our ward. There are about 6 boys and they are a lot of fun. They decided they wanted to go on a camp out before spring break, so we planned one for last night. The boys did all of the planning including the menu, however all the campgrounds are still closed for the winter, so we camped in our backyard. The boys had fun and were a little surprised when they woke up to snow! They wanted a fire to stay warm but all of the wood was wet from the snow and the wind was picking up. They ended up cooking breakfast inside using our stove. I know that's not real camping but for a few of them it was their first time camping.


These are a few of the scouts as they were preparing to pass off their fitness requirements.


They think they're pretty tuff.

We are excited to be headed to Puerto Rico for spring break this year. I know it's a little different to be participating in the annual college spring break tradition after you've graduated, but hey, when your in college you don't have any money and now that we are finished we can finally join in this tradition. We will be in Puerto Rico for a week seeing the sites and getting a tan, or sunburn, depending on how our visits to the tanning salon have paid off.

Christmas Tree :)

A few weeks ago Stewart and I went and cut our own Christmas tree. This is the first time I have ever done this, and I will admit I wasn't to excited about it at first.
Cutting down a tree has been an argument in our house for the past few Christmases. I never wanted to do this because I was afraid we would cut down some poor animals house, or we would bring home a whole bunch of bugs into our house. Stewart has bugged me to do this and I finally gave in this year. We did have fun together and it was nice to get out in the fresh air. I think our tree is really cute. We did get one that was a little to tall, 13 feet high, and we had to cut 3 feet off. I was pretty excited to get one that had pine cones on it, it looks really cool with the lights and pine cones.
I did have fun, but I am not convinced yet to do this every year.



Penny REALLY likes our tree. She sleeps under the tree all the time!!!

Stewart is dragging the tree to the truck. Stewart thought this was the best part because he felt like we were pioneers. This was NOT my favorite part.

Here is Stewart cutting the tree down.

Happy Holidays :)

I love this time of the year. I love the weather changing and decorating for the seasons.
School is continuing to keep me busy. For Thanksgiving we had an Indian feast. The students studied different Indian tribes in Idaho and then presented their reports. After their reports they made vests from brown paper bags and decorated them with Indian symbols, and played Indian games. They also got to make butter. We then had a huge feast. I was pretty shocked at how much food parents brought for it. The students we so excited and kept saying they were lucky because they were able to have two Thanksgivings.
I hosted my first Thanksgiving this year. My parents came down and spent Thanksgiving with us. They decided to come to us because my brother and I both live here, and my mom stated I needed to host one in our new home. I will admit I didn't really cook that much because my mom did most of it. But I did stuff the turkey and set the table!! Stewart and I had a great time, and it was nice staying home this year.
Stewart has been working a lot and is the new 11 year old boy scout leader. He is having a lot of fun with his new calling. He is really good at it and the boys are pretty cute.

Teaching

School has been going by very fast. I can't believe the month of September has already gone by. Next week I have parent teacher conferences!!! WOW!! School has been getting tough. I will admit this is a lot harder than I thought. Some of my boys are very hard to work with. They are very active and they could care less about school. 4th graders are at a hard age. They want to be treated like adults, but they want to be taken care of like young kids. They are also at that age where friends and peers are starting to become important. Anyway, we have been having fun. Stewart came into my classroom last week and did a lesson them about maps. He taught them about latitude and longitude, and how to read and use maps. When the students left for the day he told me now he knows why I get so frustrated with them, he said "Your kids are very wild!"
Today we went on our first field trip. We went to a farm on the reservation. The kids had a blast, expect for the FREEZING weather we had. It was soooo bloody cold. One of my students told me she would be ok if we went back to the classroom and did math worksheets instead of being at the farm. LOL:) They got to pick potatoes, pet the horses, cows, chickens, bunnies, and they had someone from Rocky Mountain Power come and talk to them about electricity. They also had firemen from the local fire station come and talk to them about fire safety. We did have a lot of fun.

Some of my students after they picked their potatoes.

The students trying to stay warm.

All of my students on the 2nd day of school

Update

So, I have gotten in trouble by my husband for not updating our blog. So here it is.......

I have started my job as a fourth grade teacher and I love it!!!! I am dead tired when I come home each night, but I can't wait to go back. I have some pretty wild students, especially my boys, but they make me laugh everyday. I also only have 20 students, which is very unheard of over here. This has turned into a great blessing. Think of it this way, only 20 papers to grade, only 20 copies to make, and 20 kids to get ready for lunch.

Stewart is busy working, and has decided he is going to run a marathon. We officially kicked off the training tonight!! We went running and only ran two miles, but we feel like we ran the marathon already!! Stewart is so stoked for BSU football. They beat Oregon 19-8 and the rest of the season looks very promising. Obviously, this is a very important time of the year in our household. Well for Stewart that is.

We bought a new car!! It is a 2007 Toyota Camry. We love it!! It is our first car. I feel so luxurious in it. We have power seats, window, and power locks.

So that is about it for us now, until next time....

CRAZY Summer

WOW! This summer has gone by soooo fast. I can't believe the 4th of July is over and now we are about half way done with July.

Stewart and I have been busy working on the house. We got the sprinklers and grass put in. We also put shelves in the garage and have been constantly working on organizing it. We also sealed the posts on our front porch. We were told if you don't do this then over the years each post will start to fade different and they will all have a different color. Yuck!! We have had so much fun working on our home. We did try to get a garden going, but with all of the rain we have had and the constant watering we have been doing to the grass, the garden is no longer there. I seriously think it has flooded many times. So next year that will be our goal. This weekend we are going to try to get started on our retaining wall we have to put on the side of the house. Because of they way our neighbor's lot sits we have to put one up. Again, with all of the water we have gotten that side of the house gets hit the worse, and the ground has settled many times. This wont be fun, but we have to do it or our basement will flood.!!

We have also had fun with our cat this summer. She is so much fun and keeps us entertained!! We went to Boise for the 4th and had fun seeing family and playing in my parents pool. I also got brave and took the whole top off of the jeep. I realized that I have not taken the top off in almost five years!! It has been fun driving the jeep around. I feel like I have a new car!!

Our summer has been nice and we have had fun getting stuff done around the house.

A couple of weeks ago I made spaghetti! Can you tell it was a hit at our house!!!

I am going to be a teacher

Drum Roll Please......... I got a teaching job!!!!!!!!! I will be a fourth grade teacher next year. Last Monday I had two job interviews for local elementary schools. Then on Wednesday I had a job interview for the Head Start program here. I was so surprised by how many schools called me. I thought there weren't going to be any openings next year because of the budget cuts in our school district. But on Thursday the principal from one of the schools I interviewed at called me and said they would like me to be their new fourth grade teacher. I am soooooo excited!!! I have already been thinking of books to read to my students, and other activities I can do with them. I will have to admit, I want the summer to go by fast. This is a first for me:)

LOL!! OMG!!!

Thanks to a family member that has posted examples of these cartoons on thier blog. These are hilarious!


These are the tools needed for nursery!! Too bad the church doesn't provide them for you like this bishop did.