Some Furniture and other Happenings

Monday night after ample complaining from me, we finally started taking a serious look at getting a couch. At 6:45 Justin got on Craig's List. A few minutes later a sectional was posted for $200....we decided we'd go take a look and it was just down the street! So at 7:00 we went over to their address right away and took a look. It just so happened that the guy was moving his new furniture in. That was lucky for us since we were not about to take a sectional home with our car! We liked it, but told him we'd need to wait until the next day to take it away. He said, "I tell you what -- I'll sell it to you for $100 if you use my moving guy to take it to your place." We immediately agreed, got the $$ out of an ATM and just a few minutes later, we had a new couch for our apartment!!! WE LOVE IT! It was a total steal. Next objective: dining table and chairs!

I fixed the pillows after the picture was taken...

First week of student teaching has been a total breeze because I haven't started teaching yet! Excellent. The reason is last week my mentor teacher was still showing a movie ("Supervolcano" AKA the dumbest movie ever. If you want to know what would happen when Yellowstone erupts it's this: everyone dies. Period. Just pray you die quickly in the eruption rather than slowly starving and freezing to death in resulting ice age! I was cringing the whole time...) and for this week she wants to finish a unit on her own so the teaching lately hasn't involved me. So what have I been doing in my spare time? I show up for school and I lesson plan, lesson plan, lesson plan. Last week I cranked out my scope and sequence for the rest of the semester: I teach until May 14th and I'll be teaching five units: water, weather, climate, Earth history, and astronomy. I figured out which weeks I'll be teaching each topic, and I cranked out all my lesson plans for my first unit - water! Talk about power start to student teaching. I feel way ahead of the game and my lesson plans rock! I've already talked to my administrator and asked him to come and observe me so he can put in a good word for teaching in the fall.

I'm really excited to teach the bunch of kids that I have. I have five classes and each has 25-40 kids. I know! These classes are huge. Today I memorized everybodys' names (I have a wonderful gift for memorization) and they were all surprised when I'd call them by their first name - in a good way! I'm slowing winning over their hearts.

We had a co-teaching training Wednesday night with our mentor teachers. They want us to co-teach the whole time for student teaching which is very frustrating to me. I want to take on the classes on my own! I'm so sick of co-teaching. Luckily my mentor teacher and I are totally on the same page and she is willing to let me take over whenever I want. I've been well prepared and I am ready to take on these classes on my own. I don't need to co-teach! I feel like I am a great teacher, so I've asked to take over starting next week. I can't wait!

Justin is doing very well at work. After 90 days we'll be able to purchase our own health insurance and Justin will get a raise. He's been heading up a new project at his work which is exciting to him. His bosses call him in for meetings and listen to his ideas. He feels like "a real adult!" with all these important people listening to him and his ideas. The project in a nutshell: right now everyone has to input their data several times into different programs and Justin is figuring out a way to have everyone input everything once and have it go to all the programs they need. He's a wiz! Love him.

We got church callings this Sunday. We are ward missionaries! I am so excited. This is such a perfect calling for us right now. Our ward mission leader is on top of it. Our whole ward is so great. Everyone is totally committed to their callings and it's exciting to be a part of it all! During Sunday School we meet for Gospel Doctrine with the missionaries and the investigators. Last Sunday was my first time ever sitting in a lesson with an investigator. It was cool! We get to teach the class in a few weeks. The nice thing about having early church is we get to study the Sunday School lessons Sunday morning together, so it's been fun reading the Old Testament with Justin and sharing our insights.

As for our weekend, Friday night we met up with the Brooks - our best friends for life! Justin and I ate out and then they came over to play some Risk. That game is impossible to play in less than 4 hours. We played for about 3 and were too tired to keep going so we called it a night. Saturday morning my Relief Society had a temple trip so we did a session in the morning and met for brunch after. In the afternoon we went grocery shopping and just laid low. It feels good to just relax. Sunday evening we got together again with the Brooks for dinner and dessert and games. We played some hand and foot and ate fried chicken! This was my first time every frying chicken and it came out very well if I do say so myself. I have been little miss homemaker lately with all my cooking! Every Monday I make a huge casserole that Justin and I eat every night throughout the week. Justin has loved everything I've made so far.

Other than that we are doing very well. We play ultimate on Saturday mornings and Monday nights, we exercise every day for 30 minutes together, and I've been reading Harry Potter again. I need to be better about taking more pictures...until next time!