My underground business!

So I am learning to love my talents this week. I am grateful for my knack for technology and my bartering skills. I work with a lot of older teachers and they are on the verge of tears trying to do their report cards. Well, I got mine done in less than an hour so I offered to do theirs for pay. I have done two teachers' report cards already and they each payed me $30 for an hour of work. They also have already asked me if I will do next terms report cards. I am definitely okay with making $30 an hour during report card time. I told them to spread the work, but keep it on the down low!

Candy Kills!

Pretty sure today is going to be one long day full of sugar filled children running around in costumes. Sometimes I love my job...okay, I always love my job! I get to have moms come in and play games with the kids while I watch and take pictures. Happy Halloween!

So I hung out with old friends from middle school last night and we looked at old pictures. In almost every picture my mouth was wide open laughing. So when I got home I started looking at more old pictures. There are a lot of pictures of me with my mouth wide open laughing. At first I was thinking, "what the heck? are there no normal pictures of me?" Then I thought, "how great that my posterity can look at pictures of me and think, wow, that was one happy lady."
It is so true. I am ridiculously happy with the life I have been given. I am not one to say that I never have my sad days because I am human, but I am so grateful to be happy and to be able to laugh through life. Let's be honest, I love to laugh, long and loud and clear. I love to laugh so that everybody can hear.

If you get that reference, you get bonus points!

Happh Birthday dad!

So I am the bad daughter that forgot to blog on the actual day of that celebrated his birth, but I definitely did not forget. I got to teach Sunday school and it was pretty much a lesson about my parents because it was about being spiritually and temporally reliant so I got to talk about the way I was raised to be both of those. I showed my budget sheet and talked about how my dad always taught me to be smart with my money. These last couple of weeks, I have gained a greater appreciation for my dad and his knowledge of everything. I think I called him multiple times a day while I was trying to register my car, get benefits from my job, and any other random thing I needed help. Thanks for always being available to help me dad. I love you!

Cute Poem

One of my students handed this to me today on a little slip of paper and I thought I would share.

Ms. Jones, Ms. Jones
Never ever makes me moan
She's always always always nice
She's never ever mean
Not to mention she's also very lean
She makes things really fun
Makes me not want school done
I love the way she teaches, teaches
I love her as much as I love peaches, peaches
(and I love peaches)

P.s. I wore my glasses today and the kids acted like I had deceived them because I never told them I wear glasses. They are so funny sometimes.

The few, the proud!

I am now able to say that I have helped clean the Salt Lake city temple and what an experience it was. When we got there, we got put in a group with a boy in a ward who is a little mentally slow, but it was perfect because he turned to someone and said, "this is my first time cleaning the Lord's house." That is when I knew it would be a good night. I was always told that cleaning the temple is a very spiritual experience, but I just couldn't see how vacuuming could be spiritual. Man, was I wrong.
The temple worker that we got put with had a very strong accent so I asked him where he was from. He said the Dominican Republic. I went out on a limb and told him that I speak Spanish. He got so excited and started speaking in Spanish. I got embarrassed and went back to English quickly. He then told me that the Lord had given me the talent of speaking Spanish and that I should use it. I felt like someone had kicked me in the stomach.
At the end of our cleaning, the worker took us and showed us different things in the bottom of the temple. We got to see the original floor plans of the temple wrapped in a plastic covering to protect them. I thought Mal was going to start crying because of all the great history stuff that we got to see. We also got to see the youth center with all the fun toys.
After that we treated ourselves to a slurpy for all of our hard work. I would say it was a really good night.
I feel like I have been run over by a truck this morning because we didn't get in until 1am, but it was so worth it.

So on my way to school this morning I felt like I was getting my picture taken over and over again. It was dark on my drive and, all of a sudden, a bright flash would temporarily blind me and then a loud noise would make me jump a little. Some of the lightning looked like it was right in front of my car. It was really cool.

The Best Ward Activity Ever

I had so much fun on Saturday dressing up like a speakeasy owner from the 1920's. We went to a murder mystery dinner where we were given characters and we had to act like them all night. I was Iona Barr. It was so much fun. I just love how much effort our ward puts into the activities. Here are a few pictures of our fun.

Winter is coming!

Winter is slowly creeping its way into my life and I could not be more excited for it to come. I love this time of year right before fall ends and winter starts!

I love my job!

This is what we got to do for art yesterday. We made skeletons out of q-tips and they turned out so cute!
I also tried out i photo which I love!

I am officially a teacher!

So I realized today that I have not posted any pictures of my classroom. There is also a picture of my new MacBook which I love love love and a picture of my id that gets me into the school. I keep expecting someone to walk in and say, "Just kidding. You are not a real teacher." But I am and I am loving every second of it.

Some things never change

Just a quick thought of the day from my brain this morning. I was putting the lunch choices on the board for the kids and one of the choices tomorrow is "fish shapes." What does that even mean? All I know is that cafeteria lunch is still as gross now as it was when I was a kid. I am glad that I am a grownup now and get to have frozen dinners instead ;)

Who'da thunk it?

So I never imagined that I would end up teaching in Sandy. I am literally within five miles of our old house. I drove onto the street and recognized it instantly, even though it looks a little different. So mom, this picture is for you. I sure hope that family wasn't looking out their windows as I slowed down to take a picture of their house ;)

Weekend Wedding!

So it has been quite the entertaining last couple of days. I have not shared a room with a sibling since I was in the 6th grade. There is a picture for you to be able to see how cramped we were. I will just leave it at this...Trevor snores, REALLY LOUD! The next day "Mr. Trevor" came into my classroom and I thought the little boys were going to pee themselves they were so excited to have him there. He played kick ball with us and graded lots of papers for me.

Then we drove down to St. George for Madison's wedding. It was so great to be with family and see her so happy. The best part of the weekend was that I caught the bouquet! I had to take out a couple of Cody's sisters, but it was worth it. Then I drove home by myself on Saturday because the excitement of the wedding had me feeling sick.

Wish you all could have been there.

It is all in the way you perceive life

I was standing in the cafeteria today waiting for my kids to get through the lunch line when I started up a conversation with a boy in one of the other 4th grades. When I teach him p.e. I notice that he dances a lot and sings a lot so I was asking him if he wanted to do that when he grows up. He said that he did. I told him he could try out for American Idol when he was 16. I then told him to remember me when he becomes famous so he can introduce me to cool people. He turned to me and said, "but when I try out you will already be dead."
I laughed really hard so then he tried to save himself by saying, "Or you will just be a really old lady."
Please keep in mind that when he is 16 I will only be 30. I love little kids.

For fun

So if you have time today, you can visit crescent.canyonsdistrict.org and click on faculty on the left hand side. If you scroll down to 4th grade you will see yours truly! It was exciting to me.

Food for thought

So I commute everyday now and have time to get lost in my thoughts. I thought I would let you into my head today. I was watching all the cars move in and out of lanes and it looked like we were all dancing our way to work. You have to slow down or speed up according to the rhythm of the traffic. You quickly or slowly move so that someone else can dance pass you. It made my commute a little more enjoyable. Plus now I make it a game to see if we are doing our "commute dance" to the beat of the song that I have playing on the radio. Am I weird? I think so, but there you have it. A day in the life of my crazy imagination :)

The small things matter!

So I went on an awesome date on Tuesday night and these beauties were given to me. We talked about how I wasn't impressed that he gave me flowers, but that he took the time to ask my best friend what my favorite flower and my favorite color was. It meant that much more. After dinner in the canyon, he took me to an old building that is now a church in Salt Lake and it was perfect. The wind was blowing just a little and the weather was a perfect temperature. The two ducks in the pond in front of us were flirting. We stood there and just got lost in our own thoughts for a second.

Even though I did not know Scott well, I know Katie and how she knew a lot of the little things about Scott. He also knew a lot of little things about her. It got me thinking that the little things really do matter. That is what sets us apart from each other. Heavenly Father designed us that way. I made it a goal to not only get to know the little things about others, but, more importantly, about myself. I also want to appreciate all the little things about me and live with more gratitude. I was so grateful for this realization and now the flowers are sitting on my bedside table, reminding me of that goal every time I look at them.