"Back To School Night"

Well...I'm just sitting here at my desk, waiting for my parents and students to arrive, and can I just tell you I'm very bored. So bored, that I think I'll look through the old pictures I have here on my school computer, and put them on my blog. See if you can tell who they are! Sorry, everyone else (Jenny, Ashley, Mo, Mandy, etc), I don't have a picture of you on this computer. Don't be surprised if I try this again sometime, though, and watch out, I have tons of pictures at home!

Full House

Next week we will have a full house will Ben, Mandy, and Mariah and Jeremy. We haven't had that full a house since last Christmas. It'll be fun, but unfortunately, Bill and I will be at school. Oh well, like they say, "While the cat's away, the mice will play." Ben flew in today, and he's already settled in. Bill gave him the keys to the Mustang, so we may not see much of him, considering it's a convertible, and there are some real cute girls here in St. George! OK, we're off to bed, talk later.

School's in session!

I don't think it's hit me quite yet...the starting of the school year. My teaching schedule is very weird. On B days I don't teach until after lunch. I have two classes in the afternoon, then I go home! I have a prep day on A days... 1st period, so I don't teach until 9:45. Talk about banker's hours! Honestly it's weird. The reason for this schedule is I teach Ed. 1010 (Dixie College Concurrent Enrollment class) 2nd semester and it's taught both A and B days, so I only get one prep day (A day) every other day. Seriously, I've been asking other teachers and the principal if there is something I could do for them on B mornings. Our drama teacher is producing "Brigadoon" and I told her (Jenny Broadhead) that if she needed any help, I'm available. Talk about pitiful. Today was my first B day and I went seriously crazy trying to keep busy. You can do just so much prep, and then you fall down :) My students seem ok (at least for now). I was talking to one of my classes about their summer, where they're from, etc. and one kid said he'd been to the North Pole this summer. Whoa, there, something tells me I need to keep my eyes on this kid. Jenny sent me some pics from Becca's visit this past week, so maybe I'll post one or two of those. Becca and Noah treated Jenny, Adam, Zach and Ryan to a Red Sox game in Boston yesterday. They had a great time, but Jenny said the game was a bit slow. For those of you that don't know, Summer and Tyler and kids moved back to Utah (near Lehi), where Tyler took another banking job. They're happy to be back in Utah, and closer to family. It's crazy, everyone is soooo far away. I REALLY DON'T LIKE IT! Was that loud enough? Ben is coming down for a week next week, so that should be fun. Too bad I'm working, and Bill starts his almost full time teaching at Dixie State during part of his stay. Good thing Ben has his friend, Wade Fields, to keep him company. Oh, and Mandy is driving up tomorrow for a short visit before she flies off for Israel. Yep, you heard me, Israel. She's going with some friends, but I guess I shouldn't feel too bad since I got to travel quite a bit this past summer. Well, it's Friday night, and I plan on getting some serious sleeping in before school on Monday, so I'll end this entry for now.

An Itsy, Bitsy Spider came crawling up my arm!

This child's song will never be the same...at least for me. Bill and I were at Costco today doing our weekly shopping, when a very unexpected event took place. Bill was off looking for something, while I went into the produce cave. I grabbed some fresh spinach and began to look over the strawberries. Sometimes it takes a good looking over in order to select just the right box of berries, but I found my box and hurried out of there before I froze. I was really minding my own business a few aisles over, when I felt something tickling my right elbow. As I looked down at my elbow, there staring back at me (or cowering), was the most humongous spider I have ever had the privilege of walking with, arm in arm. You will be proud of me when I tell you I did not scream. I think I was too surprised and scared to do anything but give it the "flick" (flick being an involuntary movement of any part of your body). It landed at my feet, and I quickly looked around for Bill to come a see my unwelcome hitchhiker. By the time he got to me, there were several other people looking on. Bill carefully placed a paper towel over it (how kind of him!), and proceeded to smash the dang-nabbed creature. He showed it to the manager (who apologized), and we went on our way. My heart stopped racing by the time we got home. The one thing I'm grateful for was that Costco didn't charge us with assault and battery. P.S. Bill said it looked like a wolf spider; myself, I chose to think it was from central casting (pictures like "It", "Them", etc.).

Dirty Harry rides again!

Bill and I went to Las Vegas today, since it was my last free day before school starts on Monday. When we got there we went to the shooting range, to practice our shooting "skills." Let me clarify that, Bill has the skills, whereas, I have the trembling hands and ringing ears. It was really loud! I did hit the center of the target a couple of times, and only the head a couple of times. There was a sign saying "no head shots," and I wasn't quite sure what that meant until I nailed the make believe guy in the left ear. I guess people had been coming there shooting only for the head...sort of creepy, huh? When we'd had enough (translation...when I'd had enough, and couldn't hear anymore), we checked out, handed back our ear muffler things, eye glasses, and headed for the door. There was a bumper sticker for sale that I was quite impressed with, and I'll close this blog entry with it: "Guns cause crime, like flies cause garbage." Maybe next time I'll buy that bumper sticker and put it on my classroom door; cool, huh?

One Huge Country!

As Erin and the kids and I were driving back to Wichita Falls, TX last week, I had to marvel at how huge our country is. It's not that we drove the entire country, but the three days of travel from New Hampshire to Texas really made me aware of how blessed we are to live in such a beautiful and LARGE nation. There were some spooky parts, such as the George Washington Bridge that took us from New York City to New Jersey and the wonderful cities of Hoboken, Jersey City, and Newark. I'm just glad we were on the freeway, and didn't need to stop for gas! We did get to see NYC's skyline and more than we wanted to see of graffiti, broken down buildings. As we drove out of the cities on the east coast, we found ourselves on those ever-famous turnpikes in Pennsylvania. It seemed like we were on them forever, and went through 3-4 very long tunnels that took us through the mountains, instead of going up and around them. I thought the endless claustrophobic toll roads of Penn. would never end. On the third day, we found ourselves in good ol' flat southern Oklahoma/northern Texas. More than a bit of cheering took place when we drove into Erin and Jesse's state. It's an understatement to say that it was flat. I'll let you be the judge of that.