Pic Updates

Boo on his new trike, just after I finished putting it together.


How does someone sleep with their head off the mattress? I don't know, but that's how I found him one morning.

Our family went to look at the last of the Fall leaves yesterday.


Trying on his Halloween costume today.

Updates

Coming soon...pics of BooBear on his new trike - the day before our first Winter storm. We knew he really wanted one. He would start pointing every time he saw a bike of any kind after trying out his cousin's trike in August. It has one of those handles on the back, so he pedals sometimes, and we push him sometimes. By next Summer, he should be ready for us to remove the handle.

Werty had an interview last week. Then the question of what would it mean to our family if he got the job? I have to finish the school year, but I'm becoming more and more okay with the idea of taking a break from teaching, especially full time teaching. No counting the hens before they're hatched, of course.

September is finally over (Hallelujah), and the end of term is looming. 10 more days left of instruction. I'm not counting or anything. It's nice to think that we are almost a quarter of the way through the school year.

Laundry

The whole family was helping with the laundry last night. Why is that worth mentioning? Because we were doing it AT HOME in our new LAUNDRY ROOM. Werty installed the machines a week ago. BooBear is full of two-year-old independence, so he wants to move the clothes from one machine to the other. He wants to put the dry clothes back in to the hamper. And when I want to put clothes away, he starts defending the clothes with "No, no, no." Silly mommy, the clothes stay in the hamper, not in the closet. That's where they are before they get put in the machines, after all.

8th Grade GT Theories

What do you think really happened to the lost colony of Roanoke?

"In original history, the colonists were brutally slaughtered. But Dr. Who fixed that."

"The settlers were really good and God desided to translate the whole colonie. He lifted them and the houses but not the fence. Then he sent a tornado to stop others from finding out. CRO was another word for god." [sic]

"I think that the lost colony is still being tested on by aliens to this day. Their houses and the odd belongings are vital for testing."

Phooey!

I can't bemoan the fact that other people aren't updating their blogs (*cough* Lisa), when I haven't written anything in September, and it's halfway through the month. Beginning of the school year is always crazy busy. Next week will be the worst - BUT - thanks to Jimmer, yes Jimmer, for having an NBA event at BYU next week, NHS inductions got moved a week. Yay! Orginally, it was scheduled the day after PT conferences, which is a really long 12 hour day - it's exhausting physically and emotionally to interact with that many people at once. I still remember one year when parents were complaining because the line to talk to me was 30 minutes long. Yikes. It hasn't been that bad since I took over ESL, because I have fewer students than before. However, teaching the GT 8th graders means a lot more parent questions and concerns, and they want things like a list of all the due dates for the whole year. Aack! I am still refining the curriculum of that course! It's not like we have a textbook or anything for them. One parent was really upset about the lack of a textbook on Back to School Night. I even had one 8th grade parent questioning my credentials to teach History if I teach ESL. Hello! History was my MAJOR! Did you know I teach the IB History class - the awesomest IB class in the school?!? Okay, I didn't really say that to them. I said something more professional and patient-like.

Meanwhile I was recommended to attend the CITES conference training this year - which is a big honor, and if I turned it down, I would probably never be invited again. Some teachers wait their whole careers without getting to go to these conferences. That does mean that I will miss 10 days of class this year for these conferences. I hate having substitutes, and I hate the state my room is in when I get back. BUT, I do get stay in a hotel in Park City...and I have reading homework for the conferences, 7 books in all. Oh, and this Saturday is an IB conference in SLC. Next month is a 4 day IB conference...somewhere, they haven't decided where yet. Poor Werty, while I am off having work related trips, he is stuck at home. And when I am home, I am often working or sleeping. I am supposed to be taking classes starting in November for the GT endorsement cohort, which means more time away from home and more homework to do. I don't know if I can really swing all of that. The GT classes might have to give way. Phooey.

Trip to the Zoo

Random pic when BooBear wanted to play with the camera.


The last day of summer for me, that is, the day before my contract began, BooBear went to the zoo with his cousins. He liked the elephants, the small primates, the birds and the small animal house. He didn't care much for the life size dinosaurs - they roared, but didn't move as much as that exhibit in Seattle from when I was a kid. He was also scared of things that squirted water, like the dilophosaurus and the elephant statue in the picture above. "Hey that's the kind of dinosaur that spits in Jurassic Park," I said seconds before it got me straight in the face.

BooBear watching the elephant show.

Then we went to check out mom and baby elephant. We made up a song in our house called 'Baby Elephant' that we sing whenever we go up the stairs, so he thought the baby elephant was cooler this year than last year.


The little guy staring intently at the monkey next to BooBear is his youngest cousin.

Look mommy, a bird!

School Start

With two days of regular school under my belt, I have met all of my students. My largest class is the 8th graders at 36 students. Somehow, my US Govt class (usually at least 40 students) had a conflict with something. So for now, my class is just under 20. It's so weird. We get through material faster. We will probably have time to do the mock congress activity, something I haven't had time for since my first year teaching the class. One of the Gov't students would have liked MY Amer Gov't teacher, she's really into conspiracies and is willing to share them often. I have my largest group of IB students, but not as many as the admin would like, but they seem to be a bright group.