Teaching: full speed ahead!

Two weeks ago Justin and a couple co-workers went to Boston for some training. He was only gone for two days, but he got to see some historical places like Fennel Hall, Paul Revere's house, Bunker Hill, and where the Boston Tea Party occurred. Nothing noteworthy for the rest of the week except that I enjoyed my last week before reporting for teaching duties.

This last week I had orientation from Auburn school district. It was four long days that I'm glad are over! I got keys to my room, but haven't had time to do anything in there. I have a lot of work to do because the teacher before me left the room a complete mess. But I'm excited to have a room of my own again :):) My rocks will finally have a home!

Wednesday I spent time with Laura in the evening. We had dinner and went to a gal's baby shower in my ward. Friday I had lunch with Judy in Gig Harbor, and that night we went to "PLU" night at the Ranier's. Justin and I went with Jon and Laura and Laura's dad Keith. We had great seats and enjoyed visiting the whole time.

Saturday we had a wild wind storm. The trees here aren't used to that kind of wind. They closed Olympic National Park because huge trees had fallen over. One of the trees behind our house fell over. The power went out and I sat in traffic for over 30 minutes trying to get home (and I was only a few blocks away from our house!). It rained off and on and it looks like rain is the forecast for the next week. I'm not ready for the rain yet! We've had the most glorious summer.

That's all for now! This week I'll be in my room getting things prepped and ready, then school starts after Labor Day! I can't wait :)

My room! Lots of work to be done...

My classroom computer is so old, but thankfully every teacher in the district gets a chromebook this year so I'll be using that for EVERYTHING

Purple and yellow are the school's colors...maybe I can request to have the walls painted blue? Ha!

Lab prep room

The ceiling needs help...

My Sunday School class: I taught them how to use Family Search and they found some names :):)

Five Guys has shakes now!!

The potatoes for our fries came from Rexburg ;)

Girls Camp, Stanley, and a Wedding!

Two weeks ago I took off to Ensign Ranch for the Puyallup South Stake girls camp. They called me back in January to be part of the stake leadership. The best part was making friends with other ladies in the stake. I finally feel like I've moved away from the "new girl" status because of the way I've been plugged in through this calling. YCL's and stake leaders went up early Tuesday morning to prepare for the 150 gals plus leaders to arrive.

All of camp they had horseback riding, canoeing, and a water slide so the girls had a lot to do. Wednesday I led a big group (about 100 counting all the 1st years and other adults) on a 3 mile hike. We had to cross the I-90 which made me nervous but other than that it was fine. At the end they had to go through a barbed wire fence and crawl through a water drain tube. I played group games with the girls for a few hours after that.

Thursday I let the YCL's take over and teach the certification to the 1st years. I had them set up into stations and signaled them to rotate every 10 minutes. At the end of that I gave a little devotional about rocks because we were in an old river bed with lots of igneous and metamorphic rock which I LOVE! I had free time that afternoon and did the water slide all day. Friday was more certification except I set it up in an obstacle course so that made passing their certification more fun. That afternoon we split into mini-classes. Our theme was "Look Up, Step Up, Cheer Up" so there was a mini class for each one. My new friend Amy and I taught the "Cheer Up" class. We focused on how happiness is a choice no matter the circumstance. I taught the girls a dance that went along with the song to our theme. They loved it! That night was bishops night and testimony meeting, and after the meeting we had a flash mob and the girls got to do the dance for all the priesthood leaders that came up. Fun fun!

Saturday I came home, Justin helped me unpack and launder all my stuff, and then we repacked to leave for Redfish the next day. Chase and Rachel were in town for a baseball game and we talked them into staying the night at our house. They approve of our guest accommodations, so feel free to zip up to Seattle and come see us!! :):) It is always fun to catch up with them.

Sunday we left our house at 7:30 and pulled into the Stanley campground at 6:00. The drive was surprisingly fine. After being gone to girls camp all the previous week it was nice to be stuck in the same space with Justin for 10 hours ;) Gabe, Alex, Keaton, and Hart were there and we enjoyed the fire with them as always. Monday we went to Redfish and had the place to ourselves! Weather was pretty windy but it was nice with fewer people. Mitzi, Trisha, Lance, and Mom and Dad pulled in that afternoon. Monday night's campfire was my favorite because Dad shared stories from Grandma's birthday get together. It was fun listening to all the brothers banter as well. I just love our family!!

Tuesday Mitzi, Trisha, Keaton, Amanda, Justin and I went on a 3 mile hike. Stanley lake is so beautiful and the mountain is so close! That's something I really loved about being at Stanley this year. We hit the water that afternoon with everyone and that was my favorite water day. We found a different beach area that suited our family well. Even Dad couldn't resist; he walked out in his jeans to join us on the dock :) We stayed up until 1:30 around the campfire that night!

Wednesday we sat around and visited in the morning and hit the lake early to beat the wind. It was the hottest beach day so far. Christy shocked  us all by getting in the water and walking out to the dock with everyone. She even had half a mind to jump in! After the lake, We all hit the Stanley ice cream shop and Justin and I enjoyed a huckleberry ice cream cone. Yum! We retired early that night from the campfire (11:30) because Justin needed the rest for the 10 hour drive back home. We got ourselves two cots for sleeping which made camping much more enjoyable this year!

We also went all out in the foods department. Justin did all the meal planning and we had Dutch oven pizza, BBQ pulled pork, quesadillas, and sliders for our dinners and every morning we fried up our eggs in bacon grease and had bacon, eggs, and cheese sandwiches. We made Dutch oven baked beans to share for our side on Wednesday and even made Dutch oven peach cobbler to share with everyone Tuesday night. It was awesome  and it was all thanks to Justin.

Justin is a rock-skipping ninja!

We fit two cots in this thing...thankfully it was only for one night until we could get a bigger tent. Thank you Hart and Jory for the tarp as it did rain that morning!

Brynn and Justin pranking wars...they consisted of Justin teepee-ing her bike and stealing her ukelele...Brynn backfired with stealing his cot/sleeping bag and seran-wrapping his things! Here Brynn met the ransom to get her ukelele back.

Thursday Justin left at 8:30 for home and I drove home with Mom and Dad. We had huckleberry ice cream cones on the way home because they missed out the day before. I spent Thursday and Friday with them. I loved hanging out with Mom going on walks, taking trips to the grocery store, and doing yard/garden stuff. Friday I had her teach me everything she knows about family history. Finding people is my favorite part! We went from H.T. McCord to finding his full name, his wife, and his 8 children! How fun is that? Thursday night we watched Fried Green Tomatoes and Friday night we watched  Far from the Madding Crowd. I loved both movies! Mom and Dad think they are lame but I love spending time with them in good ol' Arco!

Saturday morning Mom and Dad drove me down to Blackfoot for me to catch a shuttle to Salt Lake. We left at 6:15, bless them. The shuttle was supposed to arrive at 7:40 but didn't get there until 8:00. I cried saying goodbye to Mom and Dad like I always do. I am way too sentimental! With all the other people at the shuttle it helped me suck it up quickly before I embarrassed myself. I studied my Sunday school lesson on the way down. There was a transgender person on the shuttle with me....super interesting. Totally a dude with a fake high-pitched voice and boobs...weird. Anyway, I got to downtown at 12:00 and walked straight to the temple. I changed out of my comfy travel clothes and into my cute bridesmaid clothes in the bathroom and waited an hour to go to the temple waiting room. One of Lauren's other old roommates Grace was there alone so she and I became buddies for the whole day. The sealing ordinance was really special, and a lot of things stood out to me really strongly. It reminded me how grateful I am to be married to Justin!! I'm so happy my 20-year-old self made such a fantastic choice!! We took pictures and headed to the wedding dinner at "This is the Place" heritage park. It was an amazing venue!! The catering was awesome and the reception was to die for; it was so cute. It was so fun to be a bridesmaid! I'm grateful I got to have that experience at least once in my life :) I love Lauren so much and I am so happy I was able to be part of her special day! I enjoyed getting to know her other friends and family at the dinner and reception. This was probably my favorite wedding ever! Grace drove me to the airport (bless her!) and I got home at midnight.

Doughnut cake!

They had a polaroid camera that printed vintage pictures that we put in Lauren and Colton's sign in book. Such a cute idea!

I taught Sunday school today on family history. It all fit in with me learning how to do it all from Mom last week. I invited everyone to my house on Tuesday and I'm going to show them how to do family history too so they can start taking family names to the temple. Two more weeks until school starts for me: time to enjoy the last bit of summer!

Housewarming Party

This week has been a long one for Justin and me. We did a lot of preparation for our housewarming party. We made invitations several weeks ago and mailed them the old fashioned way: who gets anything cute in the mail anymore? So I became mini-Shelley this week what with washing windows, sweeping and mopping my floors, vacuuming, dusting...the works! Justin worked a miracle on our yard. He bought a lawnmower off craigslist for $65 that's electric...city living is SO WEIRD! No gas tank to fill up the car/lawnmower anytime I want, so we had to buy an electric lawn mower. I didn't even know those existed. Anyway, our house looks tip-top and we love it more and more every day!

Other than housewarming things it's been the usual week of work for Justin and me, so nothing to report there.

Saturday while I was out holding MK parties Justin slaved in the kitchen getting all the food ready for our party. We made mini tacos and mini pies that I thought were so cute and fun! We had people show up from our ward and Justin had a co-worker come as well, but a lot of people were already busy doing other summer activities so we didn't quite have the turnout we thought we would. Either way, it was a lot of fun having people over again! Here are some pictures from the event.

Justin's parents gave us their piano last week. They all moved it from Silverdale last week while I was in Dallas...thank goodness I was gone for that project!

We had housewarming games for our guests like guess how many candies in the jar...

I made Mitzi's caramel popcorn for party favors for people who "popped" by ;)

This is the dresser we got off craigslist. I love it sooo much!

Our laptop broke so we made the plunge to upgrade to a PC. I love being able to print from home finally!

I found the cutest lamps at Ross that perfectly match our room. Score!

Yes we have lots of dead grass but what you can't see are the weeds that take up most of the yard ;) We have lots of work to do!

I cut these WAAAAY back when we first moved and they are taking off like crazy! All the leaves you see are new growth from that hair cut.

There were a bunch of other flowers in this bed that I didn't like so I ripped them all out and laid new bark.

We got hanging flower pots that I love! Justin hung lights for the party.

I don't know if I ever posted pictures of our laundry/mud room. I love the color

Other than that I am revving up for a week at Ensign Ranch for girls camp next week. I was called back in January to be a certification coach for the stake so I'm in charge of 50 1st years. Let the crying and homesickness begin! So it's a week of camping for me and then a week of camping with the family at Redfish! I can't wait to see all the Beals.

In my Sunday school class today I taught about the importance of journal keeping. I pulled out all my journals and the family history binders Mom gave us to have as a visual. I read my class a few excerpts of the younger Kelsey...they got a kick out of that! I love reading my journal of my 8-year-old self. Nearly every entry begins with "Today Keaton and I...." or "Today Me and Keaton..." so cute! Didn't we have the BEST childhood EVER on the farm?? I got a kick out of reading Mom's life story....hilarious! I am just like her in so many ways except for the school stuff in which case I thought "She's just like Keaton!" Ha! Love you Mom!

As I finish up today, Justin is practicing Clair de Lune on the piano...how very attractive.