My daily dose of sunshine

About a week ago I FINALLY got to start my student teaching! It lasts until the end of November, then we go back to class for a couple weeks to debrief. Next semester I have another month of student teaching in March, and then in Fall of 2011 I will do my semester-long student teaching (in Houston!) and I will be officially be a teacher!

This semester I have the AMAZING opportunity to be teaching in a third grade class in the Salt Lake urban school district. I specifically switched into this district because originally I was placed in the Jordan district (boring) and I wanted the diversity and management experience with urban kids before I move to downtown Houston where kids aren't all middle class and LDS :)

I won't lie, I was terrified the first couple of days. I felt incapable and intimidated by all the things that teachers are expected to do nowadays. I felt like I was going to ruin these kids' education because I didn't know what I was doing. Most of all I was afraid to fail because this is the one thing that I've wanted to do for as long as I can remember, and if I couldn't hack it here, what on earth was I going to do with my life?!!?

Thank goodness for my amazing husband. He sat me down and talked some straight-up sense into me. He encouraged me and in a very loving way told me I was being a little ridiculous and unfair to myself. You see, I have this problem where I feel the need to be the best at everything, and then I basically beat myself up when I realize I may not be perfect at something.

All it took was that discussion with him and couple of days to get used to the routines and meet my mentor teacher, and now I love it! I can't disclose a lot of information on the internet, but suffice it to say that it has been a very eye opening experience so far, and I'm only a week into it! I love all the kids, and especially after learning what difficult home situations most of them come from, I am more determined than ever to be the best (student) teacher I can be!





:)

This is me today:

There's nothing like being caught in a freezing torrential downpour on your way to work.

Mr. Cyclops T. Pumpkin

Last night I was a bit overwhelmed. I had homework to finish, wedding thank yous to write, the apartment to clean, showers to take, sleeping to do...but all I wanted to do was carve pumpkins and watch the world series...so I did.

here is my hot husband biting the bullet and taking out all the pumpkin slime.


mm pumpkin guts :D


Kitty kept us posted on the play by play...


but then he decided that pumpkin carving sounded more fun.


Meet Mr Cyclops T. Pumpkin. I'm quite proud of him.

Drooling.

If anyone wants to get me this for Christmas, that's fine.



go ahead, make fun of me, I don't care :D

Harvesting Memories

I'll give you three guesses as to where Mitch and I went for our date Tuesday night...


...Cornbelly's!!!


We had lots of fun sipping cocoa in the chilly autumn weather,


having an encounter with the resident "creature",


meeting the locals,


riding in Cinderella's pumpkin carriage,


admiring the HUGE jack o lantern tower,


and of course, attempting the CORN MAZE! I was really excited, I'd never been to anything like this before and I was ready to DOMINATE this maze!!


Well, it was SO cold, and we were basically wandering around aimlessly. You see, they don't exactly tell you which direction the exit is in...they just shove you through the entrance and tell you good luck finding your way out! Literally every turn looked exactly the same as the last...huge stalks of dried up corn, like this:


There were a couple of bridges at one point that let you climb up above the maze and see where you were. We're not really sure how this is even supposed to be helpful, since all we saw was 12 endless acres of this and we had no clue where the exit was even supposed to be.


We entered the maze at 9:30, being told that it would take us about 30 minutes. An hour and 10 minutes later (after finding 2 fake emergency exits, cutting through several stalks of corn and past several Do Not Enter signs), we finally emerged. Only we were really confused because there was no "Congratulations", no "Exit" sign, no nothing. Apparently we had accidentally cut into the entrance of the kid's maze :D


My question is, how is ANYONE supposed to miraculously find the ONE exit after just wandering around through 12 ACRES?? Don't get me wrong, it was really fun, it was the first time in my life I was having fun being lost...I'm just confused how anyone realistically does this.

Regardless, it was really fun and I would highly recommend going to a corn maze if you haven't already! It's an especially fun date night activity, single or married..who doesn't want to get lost in a cold dark place with a man to hold onto?? ;)

Vacation from life

A couple weeks ago, Mitch and I had the amazing opportunity to spend the weekend down in Lake Powell with the Kinnisons on their houseboat. Neither of us had ever been before, and let me tell you it is one of those places that cannot be described in words. It seriously is one of the most magical places on earth, with huge red rocks surrounding you, and nothing for miles but a huge expanse of deep blue water separating you from the rest of the world.

Considering the stress that both of us (okay mainly me) had been under from school and work, it was a much-needed vacation. It was so nice waking up to this view Friday morning, knowing that we were here instead of class.


This is the houseboat parked in Jabba the Bay...


Here we are making our pilgrimage to Jabba the Rock, the landmark for which we named the bay. Can you guess why?


awesome.


Mitch jumping off Jabba. he's braver than me.


Mitch wakeboading. It was the second time in his life trying and he dominated. I tried 7+ times and I couldn't even get up ahahha. he makes us look good.


Mitch jumping off a 25-foot cliff. Can you tell which of us is the more outdoorsy one? :D


Tubing. Oh yeah, look at that face.


Did I mention that this vacation was the Kinnison's wedding present to us? It goes without saying that this was a one-of-a-kind wedding gift that we will always treasure :)


I miss it already...

You could say I'm obsessed...

but I prefer to think of it as love for my kitten. When I see the cat about twice as much as I see my husband, I'm obviously going to develop a strong attachment to it. My mom kind of made fun of me the other day about how I treat my kitten as if it was my own child, and I told her I could always have my own child right now if I wanted (with 2 more semesters of school left for me and a husband to support through grad school). She stopped making fun of me after that, and told me to enjoy my cat :D

Anyway for my educational technology class, I had to create a movie that told a story. I had lots of hilarious pictures of the kitty, so obviously it wasn't hard to create a short story around it. My professors loved it, and said (I quote) that it was "hilarious"...I wouldn't go so far as to say it was THAT funny, but I did think it was pretty cute. Prepare to feast your eyes on an hour's worth of movie editing (it's not that impressive)-