Our Hectic Halloween

Wow...it has been a whirlwind of a week...So happy it's the weekend!

Wednesday morning on my way to school I was in a car accident. It happened at an intersection just a few blocks away from my school. So frustrating. Our car was towed away, and we're using a rental for the next week. The other car involved is a company use car, and since they are still investigating liability, that means we still don't know which insurance is going to cover what. What that means for us is we're having to pay for everything out of pocket and save our receipts, hopefully to get reimbursed later. It's a mess, but it's not THAT big of a mess. I was wearing my seatbelt, the car appears to only have body work damage (though we haven't looked under the hood yet...still at the towing company parking lot), and to my knowledge the other car didn't have too much damage. At least it shouldn't...it was twice as big as our car! The police officers were awesome - one of them ended up revealing he was LDS. He basically took one look at me and asked if I was Mormon. Ha! Yep! Love that. A teacher gave me a ride to school and I ended up only missing the first five minutes of 1st period. I am so grateful I was blessed with protection! The accident could have been a lot worse and we have faith this will all be okay. The majority of my students were extra-nice to me that day, so I milked that for all it was worth!

To make the day that much more eventful, at school I had a first: a student blatantly telling me I was mother f-ing stupid and that I should f-off. Wow. These kids are crazy. And that was about the 30th f-bomb dropped on me that day. A true record! After school we heard that Laura's water may have broken...oh my word! So we packed an overnight bag and transported Rocky to Jon and Laura's house to spend the night with Clara. Baby Eleanor was born that night around 10:00. It was quite the Wednesday!

Upon grading our most recent test, I found this cute note among written responses. Love my kiddos!

Thursday Justin and I did some last-minute shopping for the ward Halloween party on Friday. As soon as school was out on Friday I headed to the church. We had so much help and it turned out great! Major props to Justin - he organized the majority of everything. We had a costume contest and pumpkin carving contest. We had carnival games, face painting, a photo booth, soup potluck, and door-to-door trick or treating. Justin and I dressed up as Russel and Kevin from "Up." Almost everyone came dressed in costume which made it so fun. Everyone seemed to have a good time. Now I'm grateful it's over, and we can enjoy a quiet weekend!

We did door-to-door trick or treating to simplify. I didn't want people to be responsible to decorate a whole room, and I didn't want trunk or treating done out in the rain. We had about 20 doors for the kids to visit. It worked out great :)

Our photo booth

Cute decorations - thank you committee!

Behold my post-car accident, flu-infested demeanor. Definitely some tired eyes in this picture. Happy Halloween!

We just love our Rocky boy!

A classroom selfie from last week because #whynot

New Couches and New Pet

Monday we had the usual day of work and then in the evening Justin goes to play Ultimate and I go to my MK meetings. This week when Justin got home he decided enough is enough with the YMCA league. The people there are ridiculous to play with and so he's finally quit. Hallelujah!

Tuesday our school began the YMCA program. Kids come to different classrooms after school and do activities from 2:30-4:30. I'm running a few programs on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesdays we play Ultimate and Thursdays I do "Mad Science" where we do science experiments for fun. Next week we're building hover crafts!

Wednesday we had another lock down at school. I was walking to the restroom during my prep, but when I got to the courtyard the gate was locked to get to the office. Then both counselors and the dean turn around the corner and tell me to go back to my room because we're under lock down. So much for my potty break! We were locked down for nearly an hour. I got an email with the subject THIS IS NOT A DRILL and to stay in the room until further emails. They didn't announce it because the 8th graders were taking a serious test, and they didn't want to ruin their concentration. But that fouled everything up because not every teacher read the email before the end of the period, so when the bell rang there were kids in the hallway! So I opened my door and had them come to my room. That was a mistake: I should've let them go to another classroom. They were hecka annoying. But the threat turned out to be fake. A "reliable" student said a man with a mask and a gun approached him on his way to school and said, "You better go home; there's going to be a shooting at the school today." So he went back home and told his mom who immediately called and told the police and the school. The police were at the school and investigating all over the neighborhood. They gave the okay to lift the lock down and I guess the kid came forward saying he made it up. What freaked me out was after school we had an emergency staff meeting where they told us all this, but I didn't doubt for a second that it was a real shooting. Good thing I always keep both doors locked at all times. It makes it annoying for kids who are tardy, so kids make sure to be on time to my class...and in the event of a real shooting, I'm immediately locked down. Crazy stuff!

Papa Jon came to stay the night. He took us out to Sonic for dinner. The past two weeks have been rough with just the one chair to sit on, but we survived. Thursday I had a training at the district building so I had a substitute. Most of my kids were awesome because I threatened them with chromebook privileges. 4th period was awful, so Friday all my other classes got chromebooks and they did not. Oh baby, they will learn my rules and expectations! I had a break-through with one of my students after we had a crucial conversation: a "come to Jesus" moment if you will. I just hope it sticks with her over the weekend #WishfulThinking

Saturday we got a new dog and our furniture came! Rocky's family will be living abroad for the next 10 months so he is our baby until they get back next August. He does NOT like the fence we put in for him, and he HATES to be left alone, so we're hoping he adjusts quickly. But we love him soooo much! And our couches are fabulous! LIFE IS GOOD when you go two weeks sitting on the floor and then have fabulous furniture delivered to your house.

I taught the RS lesson today on Leadership. Kind of an interesting topic for church but it was fine. We passed all kinds of sign up lists around to get people to help with the Halloween party. Apparently we're supposed to be calling it the "Harvest" party because people are offended by Halloween, but we are rebels and say, "If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck!" It's costumes and trick or treating people -- get over it! But that's two weeks away and we're excited. Today I'll be working on my costume so I'm exctied :)  Lots of changes this week but thankfully they're all good ones!

Rocky! He loves to be wherever we are. He is super mellow just like Duke but he stinks way less.

New Furniture! It's AMAZING!

My mad scientists

I had them burn their initials in newspaper using a convex lens. But then the sun went behind a cloud. This kid got the best results with the burning.

Hey Folks!

Last week was a good one. Couple other kids were suspended so teaching was pretty breezy this week ;) I had a gal refuse to give me her cell phone and our security guy escorted her back to my room later in the day to fork it over. Another student couldn't play in his football game because he's failing my class. When I told him he needed to come before or after school to get missing work/print out summary of his grade (I wouldn't do it during class...hello, teaching over here...) he freaked out and threw my door shut, almost breaking the glass! Crazy kids. But the content I'm teaching right now has been fun. I did an "elasticity" lab where the kids measured sour and regular gummy worms. On Friday there was a pep assembly at the end of the day and most of my 6th period kids got released early to get ready for it. So for about 20 minutes the remaining kids and I played heads up seven up and ate gummy worms. Nice. I did a minute-to-win-it challenge during the assembly with a few other teachers. I had to put my forehead on a baseball bat and spin around it 10 times, then run to the end of the line. I got done spinning literally could not walk or even stand I was so dizzy. It was hilarious! The kids had a three-day weekend because teachers had "Waiver Day" on Friday AKA teachers come in and get to work all day in their classrooms day. It was awesome! Overall a great week of teaching.

I get to school every morning at 6:45. Friday morning as I parked a raccoon jumped out of the adjacent bush and started running across the parking lot. I was astonished at the size of it! This was the only picture I was able to get of him and it's terrible, but the strange blur in the middle of the picture is the raccoon. Only in Washington...

Friday afternoon Justin and I went to Spooner Farms in Sumner. It was fun to walk around all the harvesty things there. We went to Taco Bell and then saw The Martian. We both really liked it, and I was astronomy geeking out the whole time.

Crazy squash at the farm.



Spider Hay Bale :)

Saturday we got up early to get the house all in order, inside and out, and then spent the day in Silverdale. Judy made us beef stew and corn bread for lunch and we just hung out all afternoon. Just an easy relaxed Saturday.

Justin's view from his office :)
For now we are gearing up for our ward Halloween party. We are in charge and it is coming up! I'm currently working on our Halloween costumes, and we have our committee meeting this week. Also, this week we should get Rocky (five year hold chocolate lab) and have him for the next ten months since his family is going abroad. And our couches should get here this week...we definitely can't wait for that! More to come next week :)

Congrats Justin!

Last week in class I had my students do a kinetic energy lab. They really enjoyed the lab part, but not the "now let's use the lab to learn" part. But we ended the week with a test and they exceeded my expectations. I think I'll need to make my tests harder! Nice job kiddos.

12 year olds did a lab involving balls and wood and I didn't hear one sexual innuendo...once again, impressed!

Justin and I went to his company yearly awards night. They met in Tacoma at a place on the water. It was gorgeous! We had free dinner and played games with people from his work as part of the festivities. Once a year someone from his "village" (they talk about the people they work with like it's a family/village (weird I know)) is nominated to receive an award. Turns out Justin won the nomination this year! His boss was reading what others had written about Justin and it was really nice...I'm so proud of him! Justin is seriously a rock star at what he does. I remember living in Vegas he would get books at the library and teach himself different computer programming "things" (you can see I know what I'm talking about...) and now he is the SME (subject matter expert) for those programs. You go Justin! You go!

Justin and his new plaque...

After conference I helped myself to some leftovers. Justin asked, "Are you going to eat ALL of that?" I said, "I do what I want!"
We went out to sushi (still haven't liked anything as well as we like Blue Hashi in I.f...) and apparently I am 5 years old because I still ask for apple juice...

Thursday night we had our first fall league game for ultimate. I thought I was done playing, but we joined a league for the fall. It is way more competitive than anywhere we've played before, and I am out of shape. I kept wishing the other team would hurry up and win so we could be done! Plus the game started at 8:00 and I basically go to bed at 9:00 every night these days...don't judge me until you start getting up at 5:00 every day.

Saturday we enjoyed watching the morning session of conference, and after that we decided to look at furniture. We've been toying with getting new couches but wanted to get a good look around at what's available. We went to Crate and Barrel only to find it was way too rich for our blood. We ended up getting two couches and a coffee table at this cute furniture store in Sumner - The Old Cannery. We got a pound of free fudge that day too which we ended up throwing away most of it...the furniture will get here in 10 days, so we put our sectional up on craigslist and sold it today. 10 days of sharing the green chair until the new stuff comes...we'll just appreciate it that much more.

Bye sectional! You've served us well...

New furniture we'll see you in 10 days.

Sunday we enjoyed conference and staying home from church. I made funeral potatoes and we had Jon and Laura over to eat with us. Today I re-took my test to be a teacher and passed! I was thrilled. That thing was a beast and I'm so glad I didn't waste another $150 by failing. Go me!

Trees on our Sunday walk