I'm on a Roll Today...

1. Grab the book nearest you, turn to page 18, line 4? "...horse of the same color as Neighbor Dixon’s horse. Was it…” (Excerpt from Indian Captive, The Story of Mary Jemison. An interesting book about a young girl who was kidnapped and raised by Indians…true story)
2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can. What can you touch? The couch, pillows & my running shoes.
3. What's the last thing you watched on TV? TV? Don’t have it.
4. Without looking, what time is it? 8:05 pm
5. What time is it actually? 8:06 pm
6. Except for the computer what can you hear? My sweet husband clearing off the table, loading the dishwasher and starting it.
7. When did you last step outside and what were you doing? Walked home from school. Started that last week and I’m going to keep doing it!
8. Before you started this survey what were you doing? Eating dinner.
9. What are you wearing? Adidas shorts & a t-shirt.
10. Did you dream last night? Yes, I’ve been having interesting dreams, as in I liked them when I was dreaming them but I can’t remember what I dreamed.
11. When did you last laugh? Reading my aunt’s blog. However, I made a stupid noise when I laughed which Phil then teased me about for 5 minutes.
12. What's on the walls in the room you're in? Our engagement picture that’s frame was signed at our wedding, two colorful scenery pictures and two pictures Phil and I bought this summer. He broke the glass in one of them about 2 weeks after we bought it. He was swinging around his badge from work and it “swung off.” He didn’t even realize he had broken it until the next day when he saw glass on the couch. (I was out of town. Figures) It looks like a baseball hit the picture.
13. Seen anything weird? I work with kids…of course I see weird things! Now can I think of anything off the wall at the moment…of-course not.
14. What do you think of this quiz? It's different than most I have seen.
15. Last film or video seen? A ghetto movie I wouldn’t recommend.
16. If you became a multi-millionaire overnight what's the first thing you'd do? Move out of state where land is more plentiful & where I don’t live in a desert anymore. I would then take Phil and travel to Bangladesh to visit the land and people I love. Buy a house and probably get a professional decorator because I’m not very good at decorating. I’d then offer to buy places for my family and Phil’s family to move nearby. I would tithe to give back to the Lord what is rightfully His and then invest the rest.
17. Tell me something I don't know about yourself? I like to scrapbook but never do it!
18. If you could change one thing about the world regardless of politics what would it be? I wish people wouldn’t trash where they live. It frustrates me to see people break things, graphitti, litter and just disrespect their community. Our world would be such a better, cleaner place if EVERYONE took care of it!
19. Do you like to dance? Hehe…you’d laugh too if you saw me dance!
20. Your first child is a girl what do you name her? Amber Jade
21. Your first child is a boy what do you name him? Tiago (I know I know…it’s unusual. J So get over it. It’s Brazilian and we like it).
22. Would you ever consider living abroad? I would love to! If the Lord ever opens the doors, I’d leave in a heartbeat.
23. What do you want God to say to you when you reach the pearly gates? "Well, done good & faithful servant..."
24. Five people you want to do this quiz? I tag: Sarah K., Julie, Rachel O., & anyone else who wants to.

More Pics

For some reason, I couldn't get all my pics to load on the last blog so here's a few more.

















Phil & I at the Hard Rock Cafe

















CityWalk






















A cute picture of Kim

Bits & Pieces

The other night, I told Phil, "I need the computer so I can blog." He said, "You don't need it, you blog too much!" I did tell him that usually I was READING blogs rather than WRITING them but he still denied me the use of the computer. So, that's my excuse for not blogging about my first week of school until now. :)

Here's a pic that I took the other night when we went to Santa Monica after we got our new car. We had a nice time walking around and then ate at a crepe restaurant. Mmm. yummy. (Jealous mom?) Didn't take many pictures because Phil was non-photo-cooperative that night.

Last Saturday, Phil and I, along with Kim & Cam went to the Hard Rock Cafe at Citywalk to celebrate Courtney's birthday with her. Happy B-day Courtney! I thought some of the photos turned out pretty nice.
















The night-life at CityWalk





















A cute picture of Courtney & Kim


For those of you waiting for an update on my class, I can't say much but here it is. I definitely have a pretty diverse group of student ability wise. I have a wide-aray of students but I think this year will be a good one. I'm sure I will always compare my classes to last year's class because I had such a GREAT Year then. I definitely am getting back in the swing of things and already have TONS of paper piles in my classroom. I am SO NOT READY to grade papers again! :) Anyone want to come help? ;) There's just a lot of beginning of the year things to take care of. Class lists, charts, classroom jobs, assessments, teaching procedures (VERY SLOWLY!) Life goes on and I'm sure I'll have a great year with my students! ;)

Remember When...

...you had 3 months for summer?
...you wished school would start because you were bored with summer break?
...school started after Labor Day?

No longer. I start school tomorrow after only 8 short weeks off of school (1 1/2 of which I worked for my district on reading assessments!) I am definitely NOT bored yet and it's nowhere NEAR Labor Day!! I feel like this summer has literally flown by.

I've been working in the classroom everyday since last Thursday. Yesterday we were at meetings all day so I didn't get a whole lot done. This morning, I arrived at 7:45 and worked until 9:40 at night with just a lunch break and dinner break. I had A LOT to do. I'm definitely NOT a last minute kind of person, however this year it sure seemed like it. I finally finished my seating chart and lesson plans right before I left. I "think" I'm ready for tomorrow.

I'm getting excited but I'm definitely a little nervous as well. This is going to be a "depend upon the Lord" year for sure. (Although every year should be that!) I have 19 boys and 12 girls. Yikes!! Many of my students have special needs whether it be a learning disability, a medical issue etc. It'll be fun to work with another class and encourage them and help them meet their goals. Keep me in your prayers if you think about it. I'll try to post a little feedback this week as to how things go. Unfortunately, I can't really post pictures of the kids due to privacy issues. Well, gotta head for bed.

We had a little work done on our car...

Phil and I are very excited because this past weekend we had a little work done on his old Daewoo from college days. What do you think of the changes???




They did a pretty good job huh? ;) Our little old '99 Daewoo essentially morphed into a beautiful 2001 Audi A6 4.2 Quatro! Here are a few more pics.

Home jiggity-jig

Well, after three long weeks away from home I am finally back in the comforts of my OWN home. I was originally supposed to be gone two to help my mom since she was having surgery, however, while I was up north, my Great Grandma Della went home to be with the Lord. I was thankful I went up to Santa Rosa/Redding when I did because I was able to celebrate her 96th birthday with her 1 week before she passed away. Although it was hard to be gone for such a long time, the Lord really worked the timing of everything out for the best.












Grandma Della on her 96th birthday


My Grandma Della was a wonderful lady who was loved by many and will be missed by all. She made things with her hands her whole life and was always giving things away. In the last 5 years of her life she made 390 baby quilts which she donated to the pregnancy crisis center for young mothers & babies. I loved Grandma dearly and I will miss her but I am happy to know that she is with her Savior and has a brand new body that will not break-down.










Grandma Della and I last Christmas


As I said before, it's wonderful to be home with Phil (and of course my kitty, Puma). I can't believe how fast summer has flown by!! I started swim lessons today (after many delays!) and they're going well. I only have 3 short weeks until school starts again. Sigh...although I'm excited about getting a new class I wish I had just a few more weeks of summer.










Here's a reason not to leave home for 3 weeks...three weeks of laundry piled up to fold (with Puma sitting on her favorite spot)!

:( I wanted to add some family pics...but it's not letting me...I'll have to try again later. Hopefully, now that I'm home my blogging will be a little more consistent. :)

No Internet...No Blogland

I apologize for the lack of blogging for those of you who actually read this blog. We've had no internet for 3 weeks and won't have it for another week all because we wanted to change the name on our phone bill!!! I won't even begin to go into the number of hours I've spent on the phone trying to get the internet set up again. Sigh. Anyways, a summary of what I've been up to these past few weeks.

School ended successfully the 16th of June. :) I then worked on a reading assessment for my district the following week. My sister came down to visit that Friday and we did A LOT of shopping. Phil and I finally got our beautiful new couch and dropped the old gross one off at the dumpster. (Pictures will come later once I'm back on my own computer and can download pics...I'm on my mom's right now). So, since we had new couches, I felt it was finally time to start decorating in the living room. We bought two beautiful pictures, 4 couch pillows, a new chair and a plant. I'm still working on it but let's just say it looks MUCH better than it ever did before!

My mom flew down the Tuesday after Sarah came. It was my jury duty week so I had to call each evening to see if I had to go in. Nothing Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. However, I was called in on Thursday much to my dismay. I was planning on driving back to Santa Rosa with my mom and sister on Friday so I was hoping for no jury duty. However, when I got called in, I got seated on the prospective jury panel. It was going to be a 5-6 day trial and because of the 4th of July it was going to be about 2 weeks total including selection and deliberation. I had to go back on Friday because they hadn't kicked any of the jurors off yet. There were a lot of people who basically said things that made them get kicked off. Even though I didn't really want to be there because I had other plans, I wanted to be honest in everything I said and I really didn't have any reason why I shouldn't be on the jury. They kicked off 11 people who had all said things that would have made them not great jurors. All of a sudden the defense attorney said, "please thank and dismiss juror number 8." I quickly looked at my number and MUCH TO MY SURPISE realized she had just dismissed me!! Whew! I was off and very relieved! Although I would love to do my civic duty at another time, it was a relief to get dismissed at this time!

So, Sarah, mom and I drove up to Santa Rosa that day and arrived at 10 pm that night. We stayed in SR for 2 days and drove up to Redding on Monday. My mom's having neck surgery next Monday so I'll be here to help her for almost 2 weeks. I wasn't originally planning on coming up this summer but after I realized she needed someone to help her get to appointments, cook etc. I decided that it was more important than teaching swim lessons during that time. So, here I am. Unfortunately, Phil is still in Southern Cal. So, if you read my blog and know Phil, he may appreciate a dinner invite or something along those lines. Hope all is well with those in blogland.

End of the Year Ideas???

Hey everyone, I need some ideas of fun (Easy) things to do the last week of school. Do you have any memories from your childhood of things you enjoyed doing or something you've heard that's been done? I have stuff to do every day but sometimes we just need that "filler" activity for a few minutes. I'd love any suggestions!

Report Cards

I'm done with 15 out of 28 report cards. Plugging through them! With 28 report cards to complete at 3 pages each with a minimum of 86 entries for each child (not including comments which take FOREVER), I'm figuring I have over 2,408 entries to make on report cards this week! and you wonder why I don't like report cards. It's not quite as cut and dried as it used to be with percent grades. The only percents on my report card are spelling and vocabulary and that's just because they're not in the standards but the kids are tested on them so I include the scores. Well, there's my complaining for the night. Don't have much else on my mind to write about. My goal is to finish them tomorrow...that's probably not going to happen, but a girl can dream right?

HOT!

Well, it officially feels like summer! It was 103 yesterday and definitely over 100 again today. I'm guessing 108 but can't confirm that. Went to the pool 3 times in the past 3 days! Even then, I swim a little, get out and within minutes I'm feeling ready for another dip. I had forgotten how relaxing the pool can be! Phil won't come with me and I don't prefer to go alone so I haven't really been until now. At this point, I'll go by myself even if he won't because it's too hot to stay away. (If any of my friends wants to come hang out at the pool...let me know. :) We have 3 and I'd love the company.

As you can tell from my above blogging, I don't really have anything interesting to say. I really should be working on report cards and correcting writing which are an absolutely DRAG! So, I blog instead. Anyone want to spend HOURS doing my report cards for me? I'll clean your house, make dinner or run errands...anything but standards based report cards. Sigh...by next week they'll be done. The sooner the better right? Guess I'd better persevere a little more on them tonight. Later.