Subbing at the ZOO?

I had my first substituting job today (at a year-round school). I was pretty excited. I even planned my outfit out last night (luckily the subbing wardrobe is quite similar to a teacher wardrobe!). But I was excited. It was going to be rather cold and rainy. So I wore my black trousers with a green (short-sleeved) top and my pointy-toed heels. As I walked out the door, I grabbed a light sweater in case I got cold in the classroom.

I got to school 15 minutes before I was told to be there- just to make sure I'd have time to read over the sub plans & get settled. I checked in and went to the classroom. A little girl in the hall asked me why I was subbing for that class when they had a field trip today. What?!! I was shocked. "Where?" was all I could ask. The zoo. My pointy-toed heels started feeling a little uncomfortable and my "light" sweater was feeling much, much too light. And the leftover chili and cornbread I brought to heat up for my lunch was starting to seem a bit ridiculous. I then tackled the teacher's desk where I found about 20 pages of rules, chaperone notes, lunch money counts, money for train rides at the zoo, lists of who needs permission slips turned in, lists of who's paid and who hasn't, and nametags to attach to students that I've never seen in my life. All too soon, before I'd figured anything out, 22 students and 7 parents arrived to have me tell the rules, assign groups, gather lunches, take attendance, collect unpaid money, get permission slips, feed them breakfast, and load the bus within 20 minutes.

Luckily, considering the circumstances, everything ran pretty smoothly after we got to the zoo. I just have one complaint: I am SOOOO cold!! School's been out for an hour and I still haven't thawed out. Not a very nice day for a zoo field trip (with only a light sweater)! Oh, and I guess I have another complaint: a piece of cornbread does not provide enough energy for a whole day! But I do have to say, as a teacher, I learned a lot from this experience!

Summer Break . . . So Far

So I have just finished my first week of summer break! Here are a few highlights from my week . . .

#1- On Sunday I taught my 1st lesson in Young Womens . . . to our 1 young woman who was there. It's not much like teaching a room full of 20 7-year olds. I wasn't well-prepared for the uninterrupted time and we ended like 15 minutes early! I'll do better next time!

#2- On Monday, my first real day of not having to go to school-- I went to school. As soon as school ends, I can't help but get excited for the next school year! This week I worked on organizing Reading lessons. I love my job!

#2- On Tuesday I started tutoring. I'm going to tutor this boy twice a week. It'll be nice to get to teach a student one-on-one. Hopefully we'll make a lot of improvement!

#3- On Wednesday, I got a call from my principal asking me if I'd teach summer school (starting on Monday!). I told him no. Even though I still go to school everyday, I like the feeling of not having to be there!

#4- On Thursday, Brian and I went to FlowRider and I mastered the surfboard (meaning I didn't fall off immediately after entering the water- I probably lasted about 10 seconds at least!!) Afterward, we picked Brian's parents up from the airport and heard all the stories from their 2 weeks in China!! (Now I want to go there too!)

#5- Today (Friday) was a big day. I've begun the process to get my Utah license plates (goodbye Washington plates). I also went to get a new windshield for my car (goodbye ridiculously long crack!) and I couldn't get over the CUTE name of the business that did it. Brian found them for me. It was called "Glasshopper!" I loved it! Then we were going to finish off the day by going to the movies. But I don't recommend the movie we saw (goodbye movie night). I don't want to give it bad publicity . . . but I'll just say-- it rhymes with "Don't Ress with the Rohan." I thought it was terribly inappropriate and nothing like we expected from the previews. But the night was saved by Brian's quick-thinking as he took me to Barnes & Noble where I got a new "Fancy Nancy" book (my favorite children's books ever! Tonight I got "Fancy Nancy's Book of Fancy Words") and "The Host" by Stephanie Meyer.

#6- Another noteworthy event of today was my dream this morning: I dreamed that the gas prices were dropping and got down in the $1 range. Ah, beautiful dreams!

My New Hobby!

So I am totally aware that every living thing that I touch dies shortly thereafter (except humans-- don't worry!). But I'm not going to assume that I'm cursed-- I'm taking it as a challenge! I am determined to have a beautiful "patio" garden.Since we live in a condo on the 3rd floor, I don't really have a plot of land to refine my gardening skills. So I'm learning how to do it in containers.
I have a cute husband who supports me in everything (even if he thinks it's a bit foolish and the plants will die in a week). But because he knew I wanted to plant flowers, he insisted that I buy this plant stand on Friday as an end-of-school reward for myself! I'm kind-of a penny-pincher and don't buy anything I don't absolutely need- so it's good I have Brian here to encourage me to get things I want! I love it! The bottom row of the stand is my herb garden (still lacking a proper container, though!).
This is the Rosemary bush that Brian & I couldn't leave the nursery without! We love the Macaroni Grill Bread recipe and rosemary is the only random ingredient-- So now we can make it anytime we want! We made some yesterday. So yummy!

Sensational Saturday

Last week Dana and I went up bouldering with some our friends Nathan and Shar Bingham. We decided to find a place I had never been called the patriot crack. On our hike to the climbing area we ran into quite a bit of brush and scrub oak that managed to leave big scrapes on my legs and arms, and made moving around with crash pads on our backs very difficult. I told Dana I would love to go up and clean those trails up. Dana took it to heart and during the week while I was working a late shift, she went out shopping, she got all the tools we needed to go and make a proper trail. The plan was to go camping Friday night wake up Saturday and maintain the trails. However due to the typical memorial day weekend rainstorm we did not get to go camping. So we stayed home last night and decided to work on the boulder fields anyways. We worked right around 5 hours, and barely scratched the surface of what we would like to get done up there. However I am just so happy to be married to a gal who will get up there and work like that with me just to make it easier for us and others to have access to those rocks. Below are some pictures of how it turned out.

Main Approach trail

Before

After

Patriot Crack Boulder

Before

After

Foot Note: Just thought I would mention that I have spent more time trying to get this stinking thing to post than we did today clearing those trails

Why We Love Heidi

As Brian and I celebrated our anniversary of knowing each other for 1 whole year on Wednesday (we re-created our first date-- so cute!), I reflected on how grateful I am for Heidi Bird. Just over a year ago, she had this wonderful idea of setting me up with her amazingly handsome cousin-- Mr. Brian Nye. Luckily, we were both up for the blind-date thing and as soon as we met, it was love at first sight. What are the odds? We were complete strangers who happened to know the same incredible girl! So, Heidi, for helping us find each other . . . Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!

The Wonderful World of Dana

There are innumerable reasons why I love Dana. However I would like to share with you one of the funny things Dana does to make me laugh and laugh. Tonight as we watched the Utah Jazz get beat and finish out their season Dana, aka “Floppy” was sleeping in my arms. Each time that I found myself bored with the game I would play with her lips and nose and each time she would partially wake up and say things to me that made sense only to her. Below are my favorite conversation with a sleepy floppy, note that all of these happened tonight.

Act 1

Brian plays with Floppy’s lip

Dana: Real Sneaky chief

Brian: What did I do?

Dana: You keep sneaking up behind me and blowing bubbles at me.

Act 2

Brian plays with Dana’s nose

Act 2 has been erased at the request of an Angry Floppy
However it ended like this.

Floppy: I was all alone gosh

Act 3 (Final act)

Brian plays with Dana’s mouth

Dana: How would you like it if I woke you up to the face of Christian

Brian: Where was Christians face?

Dana: On a Popsicle stick.

Then Dana got mad

Brian: what is wrong?

Dana: I wanna go home you are making fun of me.

Brian: You are home

Dana: Weird

I hope you all enjoyed this like I did

Springtime & Cute Hubby . . . Life is Good!

I dedicate this blog entry to my cute husband, Brian. I'm not sure if you know, but we've almost known each other a year now (on May 21 [btw, happy bday dani!])! Yes, we moved quite fast in our relationship-- but it has been wonderful! On Wednesday, I was minding my own business, hard at work, when the school secretary brought in this enormous display of spring flowers!

I quickly tried to think of any occasion that I might have forgotten, but came up with nothing. My cute husband just sent them! Now it could be because he loves me and thinks about me all the time . . . Or it could just be that I've finally gotten to him with my somewhat annoying ways (I just call them quirky!)-- all those times that I start screaming "Look! Look!" whenever I see the lilacs coming out in someone's yard (it happens about 3-4 times each time we drive anywhere!); and all the times I come home from work talking about all the blossoms I saw coming out on the trees between my school and home; and all the times I covet our neighbors flower garden whenever we leave or return to our house.
I'll be the first to admit, I have an obsession with flowers. And thankfully, my sweet husband (though he doesn't particularly like flowers too much), loves me enough to fuel this obsession! . . . especially when he knows what will eventually happen to those flowers (and all flowers I ever get my hands on).
Although I love them, I tend to kill them. =(

Highlight of My Day

Today one of my sweet little 2nd graders was telling some of the kids about her hamster who died yesterday because she forgot to feed it. One minute later she's next to me and says, "Mrs. Nye, look!" I looked, and there was her dead hamster in a box that she had just pulled from her backpack! I couldn't breathe. I wanted to cry and scream and hide under my desk. But as soon as I got my breath back, she was promptly led to the office where they called her mom to come pick up the dead hamster from school. Ew!!!

Dana for President

Anyone who really knows me, knows that when politics come up in a conversation, I usually stop talking (though I probably wasn't even talking in the first place, if it was a group conversation)! I have never voiced any political opinions because I have never HAD any political opinions. That is why I can hardly believe what I did last weekend!

It all started a couple months ago . . . the DEA rep at my school was encouraging all us teachers to go to our local caucus meetings to vote for delegates from our neighborhoods who will support political people who helped public education. I decided to do my civic duty and attend- and hopefully get an idea of what the heck was even going on at these things! But to my surprise, I was the only person who showed up from my caucus except for 3 other people: the political guy I was told to vote against and his wife & son! Also, to my surprise, one of the orders of the night was to vote for county & state delegates within our caucus as well as our chair and co-chair. Needless to say, I left that night with my new appointments as state delegate and co-chair of our caucus for the next 2 years!

On Saturday, I fulfilled my first duty as state delegate by attending the state republican convention in Orem . . . at 7 am. When I showed up, I had absolutely NO idea what I was even supposed to do there! I felt a little foolish and out of place all day. But I did end up being in the right places when I needed to be-- mostly by asking enough questions (to people who I'm sure were rolling their eyes at me as I walked away!) and I got some pretty cool t-shirts (from candidates I didn't even vote for!) and I got to actually got to see some of our current leaders and realize that's why I've heard their names so much! But, fortunately, I ended up learning quite a lot from my political Saturday. And I even gained a few opinions about politics while I was there! Yeah!!

Ode to Allrecipes.com

So I looked back at our blog today and realized that most of you were still only seeing Brian's bloody foot whenever you checked our blog! I decided that it needed to be fixed. So while deciding what to blog about today (in the 5 minutes that I have!), I decided on something that both Brian and I love . . . very strongly. Years ago, my sister, Danielle, told me about her favorite website, allrecipes.com. I used it once or twice, but seeing how my dinners consisted mostly of cereal, toast, or sandwiches, I never quite appreciated the full value of it. But I got married, and eventually the guilt started sinking in when all I could suggest for dinner was cereal! So I went back to this resource and began to really appreciate what it can do. First of all, every recipe is rated, so you can search according to ranking, or just refer to the ranking to see how other people liked it. Secondly, you can print the recipes into the sizes that you need. They offer 4x6, 3x5, or full page. Third, you can change the number of servings it makes and it will automatically change the recipe to make that much. Fourth, you can search for recipes by the ingredients. For example, Brian said he wanted something with pineapple for dinner the other day (cuz he loves pineapple), I searched for recipes with pineapple and found this pineapple bake recipe that was actually really good (cuz it had a pretty high rating too)! And lastly, another favorite feature is that almost all the recipes have pictures!! I have a hard time wanting to make things when I can't see what they're going to look like! So, I could keep going on & on about this website, but I don't think I will- you should just try it!