The Tale of the Salvaged Vacation

I got this from Summit Academy in my box for my birthday! It's a gift card to the movies! It was such a good surprise and they're so thoughtful. 

More Nail Experiments

This melt thing from red to black was probably the hardest thing I've tried so far, but it worked out great! It was cool to do! You put the paint on a cosmetic sponge, and when it goes on it does the gradient for you. Dallin said it looks like my nails are bleeding- which must mean he loves it! lol

I'm super into this song for some reason right now! 

Workout Wednesday

So every wednesday in PE class we stop whatever skill we've been working on to do a workout. This last wednesday I found a story and had them do squats and lunges for certain words! They ended up doing over 100! And it was a success because they get sick of regular workouts.

Health Test was a Success

The majority of the class was in the A or B range on our last test in health class. I'm excited to move on to the next unit.

Regionals Cross Country Meet

It was so crazy, the regionals race was at the same place I competed at when I was in high school! I had 3 runners qualify to run in the state race this Tuesday, and I'm so excited for them because that is really hard to do! I'm also excited that the season is coming to a close. Well, excited and sad at the same time. I need to really start exercising on my own now that I won't have them to run at practice. It was definitely tiring some days though.

 I found a pretty cool video....

The link below goes to a video I came across on the internet. I thought the 3 questions he asked to see if people are empowered was interesting. I'm trying to learn more about motivation to try and get my students more intrinsically motivated. 

Ted Talks Motivation

 Happy Birthday to Everyone!

There are so many people with birthdays lately, so here's a public happy birthday to my mom, dad, Trenden, Kaylynn, me, and Dallin. 

Dallin is 27 now!

The "30" thought crossed his mind...

He's had better birthdays :(

I tried to make his birthday a good one, but he had to work and then we were supposed to leave right away to go to Colorado for his birthday for a long weekend. So I got him a present and gave him breakfast in bed, but that was about all he ended up with unfortunately. (Read on to find out why.)

I also made him a video and put it on facebook. I'm not sure why, but it wouldn't allow me to upload it onto the blog. Here's a link to it in case you didn't see it.

https://www.facebook.com/100007003784628/videos/1669387019971408/?pnref=story

The vaca story begins...

So, there I was. Getting ready for our long-awaited Colorado trip. It was Fall Break last week so we were going to go for a few days. I had seen people using selfie-sticks before and they looked easy, and I was planning on going out on the lake in Colorado and on beautiful hikes, so I wanted to get great pictures of it all. Dallin insisted that I should hold onto my pride and resist the urge to buy one, but I did anyway. I figure people probably already think I'm weird anyway and that's fine. But then I tried to work the darn thing, and apparently I'm an idiot. This was the only picture I ended up with while trying to figure that thing out. Dallin was clearly very concerned with helping me lol 

It's not as grand as I thought it'd be because there is not a single angle that you don't end up with a huge pole in the picture. (Plus it's impossible to use.) 

The plot thickens

We got in the car and started driving. I drove first and we passed a ton of deer on this winding canyon road with no street lights. We switched, and at about 1:30 in the morning we were passing through a rabbit mine field. We hit like 6, and their were peices of dead rabbit splattered all over the road. I have never seen so many in my life! Well, the last one we hit did some damage. I didn't see it, but dallin insists it was a 40 pound beast of a rabbit at 4 feet tall or something. Anyway, it broke the grill and the bumper, and punched a hole through the radiator and all the antifreeze immediately drained. The car started overheating, and luckily we were just a mile out of Craig, CO, so we stopped. We went to 3 hotels before someone had an open room (stupid hunters) and attempted to sleep on a mattress that felt like a brick wall. In the morning we went to 3 different mechanics (including a radiator specialist) who all said they didn't have the part that we need and the soonest they could get it would be 2 weeks. Not wanting to spend 2 weeks in Podunk-ville, our options were to get a tow truck or a rental car. Both options were in the thousands, so we did what all kids do when all else fails. Called dad. My dad said to get a one way Uhaul so that we don't have to return it and tow it back ourselves. We checked into it and although it was a lot of money, still cheaper than any other option. So that's what we did. We basically spent 2 days straight driving. When we got here we took it back to the dealership and we're waiting for it to be fixed. Luckily, there was a huge dude there because we literally had to lift up the front of the car just to get it off of the trailer. 

But, while we were going through that ordeal, at least the kids were on cloud 9. Just as I'm about to scream, my mom sends me this text. Lol so at least someone got a vacation out of that 2 days. I was just hoping we wouldn't be charged for our "spa day" that I had booked and we couldn't show up for! Luckily they took pity on us and didn't charge us.

We ended up spending a lot of money on nothing that was fun, and made it an hour away and had to drive all the way back. This was our 3rd time trying to go to Colorado, and I'm officially giving up. I no longer have any desire to see Grand Lake, Colorado. lol The universe has decided for me that I'm not going, and I'm not going to challenge that ruling anymore. 

From a different perspective

As awful as it was, it could have been worse. A lot of the time that we were driving we weren't close to towns, so it's lucky that this happened so close to a town. Both of our phones were dead at the time, so if things were destitute we wouldn't have gotten help. Plus, we could have hit a deer and totaled the car completely. Neither of us got hurt at all, and we were able to get a Uhaul and get the car back just fine. When most of the hotels were completely sold out, we were able to find one with a room, and in the middle of the night. Since it was just the 2 of us and we didn't bring the dogs or have any kids we were able to do the uhaul option, but there were more people with us we would've been stuck with the more expensive option of driving a rental car there and back. Anyway, we both know that it could've been worse, and Dallin has a theory that maybe the universe isn't punishing us for bad karma or anything like that, maybe it was keeping us from something worse that could've happened had we got there. Just to be safe, we paid for an old man's lunch anonymously at a restaurant and both felt better about our karma. Who knows, but we've chosen to look at this like an adventure rather than a complete bust.

Harry Potter Marathon

We spent the ride home reading the first harry potter book, and when we finally got home we watched the movies while we worked on the table (and I worked on my nails.)

It's funny how much it's ingrained in us to love it, because we grew up with the story being popular it's sort of like a flash back to your childhood. 

A new plant!

We went and got the kids from my mom's and there was a little old asian lady selling bonsai trees on the side of the road. I don't know why, but Dallin got soooooo excited when he saw that. (It could be because we just watched Chuck, and on that show John Casey has bonsai trees and he's a spy. Ergo- bonsai trees are cool.)

So we got a little bonsai tree and I'm excited about growing it! This time I swear it will not die! Dallin says it's our "love fern" equivalent.

The kids recovery

My mom was babysitting one other dog named Copper, plus Bentley and the J-dogs. So there were 4 dogs running around having fun, (and apparently getting pampered). So that left them all worn out. We couldn't believe how much we missed them after being apart for 2 nights. 

Wudy's One

Today is Rudy's first birthday, so we went to a little party for him. We had the best-ever cupcakes!

Rock-a-bye Josie

She is so patient to deal with me constantly bothering her lol I just thought it was funny

Culinary Dallin

We got a bunch of fresh ingredients at the store this time instead of frozen stuff. I thought it would be cheaper, but it turns out it's just the same whether you get fresh or frozen. Anyway he immediately got to work! He made this awesome pepper-avocado dip and dinner which was asparagus and hollandaise sauce with citrus salmon. So good!

What a cutie

Because I have a hard time separating real life from fictional shows, we often talk about the shows we're watching and what we would do if it were us. Neil had to run and Mozzie didn't because of a crime that Neil did, but Mozzie said, "wherever you run, I run." So dallin said I'm his Mozzie because of that lol we are fluent in the language of movie and tv show quoting.

Our Date

Our date ended up being much different than expected because of the car, but R&R came over and we painted/carved pumpkins and had pizza. It was fun, but Randy got sick near the end and it had to come to a close. (Dallin's pumpkin is mickey mouse if you can't tell)

Trenden found his happy place

He called me from the Mall of America saying, "I'm in a Packers store full of anything you could imagine. What do you want?" lol needless to say, he spent about 3 hours in there sending me pictures and calling. On the right...a cheese sombraro. On the left, dog collars. lol We are gearing up for the game we're going to in Phoenix this christmas!

Consider yourselves lucky folks. 

Guess that's all!
-Sydney

Stumbling Blocks & Realizations

Hey there. 

This week was not as great as last week. But not bad either. I'm probably not going to write a ton because I'm not in the mood to be doing this....but I made a commitment to myself to preserve our memories this way lol even when I want to be doing something else. So here goes.

It's Spooktacular!

"Sheryl" always has me in mind when she finds the cutest holiday decorations. I noticed that the majority of what I have is from her. And I love decorating for each holiday! The holidays are things to look forward to and celebrate and have fun with. (And the dogs are loving their Halloween bell. They ring it even if they don't want to go out. They just like the way it sounds apparently.)

Principal Mecham is Over the Hill

To celebrate the principal's 50th birthday all the teachers wore black and decorated the faculty lounge in over the hill signs and streamers and stuff. The students all made cards on black paper and hung them around the school in the hallways. And we got cake at lunch! I noticed it was really hard for me to dress in all black lol it's not really my style so I couldn't resist wearing a bright turquoise necklace with it.

Date Last Weekend

We went bowling with Rachael and Randy! It was a lot of fun, and since we hadn't seen them in a while it was good to catch up. They're so fun we always laugh the whole time. Plus, Dallin was officially introduced to the song "Down Town" and loved it. I hated the length my hair was at in these pictures, because it was just barely reaching my shoulders it was always poofy and flippy so after this I chopped it more.

Here's the video. We all laughed at him for not having heard it before. It's pretty good.

The Saga Comes to An End

I seriously cried. Why do the writers of every show I get into feel the need to wreck you emotionally at the end of their shows? This, Chuck, Gilmore Girls, and Prison Break all have terrible endings that repeatedly beat you in the feels 'till you cry. I'm not kidding. Why on earth did they kill off Ted's one-true-love and let him chase is best friends' ex-wife? Why did Sarah have to lose her memory? Why did Rory have to say no to Logan's proposal? And why did Michael Scofeild have to die?

Ugh these shows are killing me. 

I think it's the universe sending me a sign that I need a less depressing hobby.

This is where the title of the post starts to make sense.

Like I said, this was not a great week. We had some major issues in my P.E. class again, and I am often flooded with feelings of inadequacy in that subject, so needless to say I was happy for the weekend to come. After I calmed down I realized that I'm harder on myself than anyone else is, and the issues we've had I could have never anticipated. Now I know for next time. The lesson I learned was to teach students about sportsmanship before playing a game. lol 

So yes, teaching is not always a picnic, but I still absolutely love what I'm doing. And I still feel very very lucky, because there are a lot of people who didn't get the opportunity to do what they want. 

And this is where it gets better.

The week wasn't a total bust because the day after the P.E. fiasco, a bunch of the students went in on this treat for me to make it up to me. They came up to me on their own accord, apologized, and gave me candy with a card. (My favorite candies too!) See? That's what makes it all worth it. And that's why I'm lucky. I have great students!

Nails!

The other thing that I love about teaching is that students remember and notice things that adults don't. A bunch of the girl students started noticing my nails, and I told them I paint them every weekend, so now on Mondays they always ask to see my nails. hahaha "It's the simple things in life you treasure." It sounds stupid but it makes me feel good.

Graff Girls Day

Shanna and Michelle took me to get pedicures for my birthday! It was so fun because we went to that place that dips your feet in wax. It's amazing. They're so fun to be with and it was perfectly relaxing. Thank you graff girls! We decided it was so awesome that we need to start doing that at least monthly.

So there's the haircut

And the lipstick! It's only 1 inch shorter but it makes all the difference. I went to my mom's and she did it for me and she did great! Afterward she told me she hadn't done that cut in like 30 years lol but luckily it went well. 

Our Home Meet

We hosted a race at our school for cross country, and it was a lot of work. 12 and 13 year olds seem to get easily confused with running routes, so I had about a thousand cones, sidewalk chalk arrows, signs, and parents directing them (plus I drew maps!). The students on the team helped me set up, and drew a fancy finish line (as you can see below.) The only trouble is, all the routes I came up with were too short and I was running out of time before the race, so I just asked the high school cross country coach. I apparently misunderstood him, and our race ended up being a 1/2 mile too short! Luckily no one was mad, but it was soooooo embarrassing. Just another one of those, "Now I know for next time" moments. I feel like I have those every day, and it's getting really annoying. I hate looking incompetent, but I guess this first year is all about learning the ropes. My mom came to the race to support us! She helped out a lot, and took pictures for the yearbook. It was good to have her there. We only have regionals and state left and then the season's over! It went by so fast! It's tiring, so a part of me is glad, but I think a part of me will also miss it too. 

My birthday present from "Miss-Shell."

We had a mix-up with the mail delivery, so it came late because it went to the wrong place and they gave me the wrong key...etc. Anyway here it is and it's so cute! It's a box to keep my sewing stuff in. She is very thoughtful and always finds the cutest stuff for us. Thank you shelly!

Look how freakin' cute the kids are!

Feel free to scroll down if you're sick of my puppy pictures.

Jakey likes watching football! Seriously look at him on the right below!

The entertaining mind of a 13 year old

I found this in the recycling bin and I was cracking up about it!

Our Date Yesterday

We went to cornbelly's at Thanksgiving point for the first time ever! I can't believe we've been missing out on that! It was really fun! We didn't have to wait in any lines, I had a coupon, we had the best hot chocolate and mexican corn on the cob ever, and we had a blast in a corn maze!

They did this cool thing in the corn maze where you answer trivia questions and your answers tell you which way to go. We got very lost and it took us longer than expected, but we laughed the whole time. It was great. It was their 20th anniversary of doing the festival so they had fireworks. And before we went we got pizza at the Slab pizzeria.

I guess that's all!

This was a quote on Dallin's phone that I liked. We're both right in the thick of it at our jobs, so it's been helpful to come home and have someone to talk to about it. I'm glad that I'm going through this phase of life with him and not alone. He makes everything better. 

Off to paint the table

Yes, we're still working on it. But we're almost done! Gotta go we're going to paint.

Hope this finds you well.

-Syd