Student Teaching Assignment: I'm going....

Yes! It's finally here! I feel like I have been waiting forever... of course UVU had to wait till the very last minute of the entire semester to tell us, probably just to see how all us newbe student teachers could handle the suspense. But, yes I am so excited to tell you that I will be student teaching... (drum roll please...)
12th grade English at Spanish Fork High School.
If I am correct that will include regular senior English, AP English, and College English 1010, but I have not yet met with my cooperating teacher for all the details.

Honestly, I never thought student teaching would come. It always seemed so far away. Now that it's here I am both terrified and giddy; I was so excited in the UVU assignment meeting that I was making myself dizzy with turmoil. Wish me luck, I start Jan. 5th, 2010. Yippy!

Crafts

These are the easiest and cheapest crafts you could possibly make, and yet they are so cute.

Supplies: mod podge
scrapbook paper
foam brushes (not the bristle kind)
cheap wooden frames or cut out
+ any artistic embellishments you want

For those of you who may not have mod podged before, it is really easy. Just cute out the paper to fit the frame or board, add mod podge with foam brush to the entire portion of wood, then lightly and carefully press the paper into place. After the paper is relatively dry, brush the outside of paper with mod podge and dry. Easy!

My mom and sister visited, and we had so much fun making our crafts. I wanted to get pictures of our messy crafts but forgot before they left, so these are all my crafts.


I added the letters and then chunky glitter.


The frames are way cheap at JoAnne's, only $2.00 and paper is usually only $.50 so this a relatively fun and yet cheap way to make a new look for bare walls.

Our house in Utah

Actually, Andrew and I have lived here for almost two years, but I guess I didn't put any pictures on our blog. I probably meant to, but forgot. I didn't realize this until I talked to an old friend that asked me if I had posted pictures of our house (of course I had not), so then I decided to put some up.



Our house is a townhouse with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, and a GARAGE (this was Andrew's one stipulation when we were looking to buy).
As I took the pictures above, it actually started SNOWING for the first time this year! Yea for winter!


Dinning Room opens up into the kitchen and living room.


Kitchen and Dinning room


Living Room as it opens up to the kitchen and dinning rooms


Living room (Andrew is very proud of his T.V., we saved for months to buy exactly what he wanted... and we got a great deal on it at woot.com, check it out for some awesome daily deals).


Looking upstairs from the living room. I love the balcony, it was one of the major selling features for me!


Looking down to the living room from upstairs. The balcony has proved very entertaining because I will throw Maggie's toy from here and she will run and fetch it. She's a very active dog and needs to be worn out, so this has been a great tool (especially when cold outside and can't go for walks).


Part of the hallway upstairs, just so you can see the balcony a little better.


Master bedroom.


More master bedroom. I wanted to show this picture because of our crafty skills: I made the curtains, and Andrew installed the ceiling fan.


And one more of master bedroom.

Maggie's new find

Although many of you may have already seen this picture, I thought I'd put it up because it is so funny. Andrew was BBQing while I was inside preparing other dinner stuff, when Maggie ran inside with Andrew chasing behind. Andrew was laughing and told me that Maggie found this outside. This picture is exactly the way that she ran in with the Binky. Funny huh!

Real Salt Lake

I decided quite awhile ago to surprise Andrew with a fun date. I thought for almost of month of stuff he would really like to do, and then the perfect idea came. "Of coarse, he's been wanting to go to RSL game ever since the new stadium was built." So, I began looking for tickets online. I wanted to make sure they were good seats (and since I had never been to a Real soccer game I had no idea what to expect), so I was often pulling up online stadium maps trying to decide how much to spend and where to sit. I was definitely getting excited. I started to imagine how happy he would be when we would dramatically drive up to the stadium parking lot and he would realize what kind of date I had planned for him. It was going to be perfect.
Clever as I thought I was, my angst for revealing my little secret became overbearing (I really can't keep a good secret from Andrew, and usually end up ruining my own surprises from excitement) til I finally had to tell. He liked my surprise, but (not surprisingly) already knew because I had left a paper trail of evidence on the computer of stadium seating maps.

Our little date night adventure was so fun. The game was so amazing. The fans at soccer games are like nothing I have ever seen. In one section there were several people with big flags and drums, and the ENTIRE game they beat on those drums, waved their flags, and jumped in a synchronized rhythm. I was very impressed with their energy and loyalty for RSL.

Our future family looks Bleak

No, No.... we are not expecting sorry to get your hopes up! But we found this funny website where you can see what your future baby might look like. We really hope it is inaccurate, otherwise we should probably reconsider having children... they'd be really ugly!
Here's the link:
Little Baby Boy Marx

A Busy Week!

The first week in June was extraordinarily busy! I got my hair done, so I am officially a blond chick again; one of my close friends, Katie Hanks, from high school was married in the Draper Temple, and Andrew and I went to the Hill Air Force Air-Show. We had a lot of fun with all our busy activities, but I suppose I must have been over-exerted because I came down hard with a miserable cold only days later.


Here's Andrew packing around nephews while we looked at airplanes. Behind him is a big hanger... I think this stuff is so cool!





I suppose this is my claim to fame in the Air force. I'm not sure why it was at Hill Air Force Base, but none-the-less it was exciting to see.





Becky (Andrew's sister) and me - I was hoping to get the plane behind us in the pic too, but too many people were in the way!
The show was actually really cool! They had tons of planes from gigantic to small for everyone to touch and look at. We spent literally the entire day watching the amazing flyers and looking at all the demonstrations. I tried to get pics of the trick planes in flight but I don't have that great of camera... so, they didn't really turn out.





Katie and Justin's Wedding

The Burley Clan- All my good ole' friends from Burley High!




I love this pic, because the picture lady had me sit on Andrew's knee and you would never guess that he was shaking under my body. Not that he is weak or that I am heavy, but Andrew has bad knees (one he has had surgery on), and the lady had us in that pose forever trying to get everyone right-- needless to say this wasn't his favorite pose.





Andrew and I driving up to Katie's Wedding at the Draper Temple. Also, a good look at my new dew -- all thanks to my neighbor Alene!

Two years and counting!

Today is our 2nd year anniversary-- yes, that's right, two years! Time flies when you're having as much fun as we do, and we couldn't be any happier!


Andrew and I were married May 4th, 2007 in the Salt Lake Temple.

Andrew surprised me with an anniversary weekend trip to Moab-- he is so sweet! Here is Andrew pumped up to hike up to Delicate Arch. The hike was so fun, but difficult. If you look close you will see a ton of people hiking up a gigantic rock like little ants... this is where we were headed!



Andrew and I under Delicate Arch... finally! I never would have guessed that Delicate Arch was hidden away within a 3 mile hike and perched atop a mountain. It was fun to explore, but the park was filled with what seemed thousands of people, so there wasn't much alone discovering.


Here I am (lovely wilderness lady) in front of Landscape Arch. Apparently hikers are not allowed to hike under the arch anymore because recent boulders have been falling off-- not really recent (1991), but they are worried more will fall.
I had a wonderful 2nd year anniversary, and I can't believe we are now working toward our third year. Anyway, thanks Andrew for a wonderful weekend!

My first day teaching!

Friday, March 27, was my first day as a teacher (student teacher). I have lost a lot of sleep over this, and am so glad that first day has come and gone! For everyone who, like Senator Butters, think teaching is easy-- I am here to tell you it is so NOT! I have been preparing lessons like crazy, then doubting if they will work, and later re-writing the whole unit. I have never been more busy!
Although I was very nervous, wondering how my first day would turn out, I was relieved when the class was engaged and interested in my lesson. After all was said and done, I felt pretty darn good! Although making all the preparations was hard and stressful, teaching is really fun... I think I am going to love being a teacher (not all the time of course, that would be too good to be true).
Anyway, I still have a LONG way to go before I am licensed- summer and fall semesters of classes, and then student teaching-- woohoo! At least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Our New Living Room

I have been meaning to put up pics of our new t.v and t.v stand, and today I finally took some pictures. Andrew and I had been planning for a while to buy a nice t.v set for our living room, and now that we have it we absolutely LOVE it! We went from big, bulky, and ugly projector screen to this nice new look.
Before: (Sorry this is a really bad picture of the before)


After:

Exposure....

Well, the night of Friday, February 6th was very eventful. Andrew and I tripled with two other of our married friends to dinner and a movie (Taken- which was the best movie I have seen in a long time). We ended dinner slightly early, so we headed over to the University Mall to play the arcade "Mountain Fun" to waste our extra time. Two of the husbands ended up in a tournament for "Many Hoops" while we girls watched from behind- it was very close and a very intense shoot'um hoops. Monica and I were casually commenting about the close game when Joel (her husband) turns to us and asks, "Is that guys "thing" hanging out over his shorts?"
Monica and I wanted to look but he was standing right behind us, so we acted like we were heading across the arcade for another game. While we turned to walk away we quickly looked over, and sure enough IT was hanging out over his belt. WHAT A CREEP!
Once the guy realized we noticed him he began to walk out of the arcade, so everyone took quick action- Andrew let the manager know that this perv was walking around the store with children close by, and I ran out to follow the guy with 911 on my cell phone.
Well to quickly finish this exciting story, the manager was furious and followed the guy to "Greywhale" refusing to let him leave until the police showed up. During this time I was watching from outside "Greywhale" telling the 911 operator the circumstances of the situation.
Anyway, the guy was arrested, but most troubling was that he was arrested a week before for the same thing on a UTA bus! What a weirdo!
Needless to say, it was our "Pre" show before our Movie!

Sorry for not posting!

So as you can probably tell I haven't posted in forever! Well the biggest reason is our camera is acting weird and the batteries die after one or two days... so it gets tedious to try and take pics all the time. Also, I like to post when I am procrastinating homework- for some reason this is my favorite and most spontaneous time to post- and since Christmas break I just haven't been in the right mood to post without something to put-off. Anyway, I apologize for anyone following our blog who is dying to know what we have been doing... I will try to post something more exciting in the near future!