Good Luck!

Did you know that you get seven years of good luck if you kiss a sea cucumber? Just another perk of teaching the 5th grade and taking the kids to outdoor school. Yuck!

1 Year

We celebrated our first anniversary this past Sunday with a packed day of adventure. Being that it was a Sunday, we were able to attend church in Templeton in the morning. (The same church we were married in) It was so much fun to be back in that tiny white church exactly 1 year later. It was great to sit in the pew and take it all in. After that we grabbed a picnic lunch at a local deli and headed out to find some great wineries in the Paso area. We spent the entire afternoon driving down country roads and exploring. We headed back into SLO for dinner at Thai Palace and then rented a hot tub at Sycamore Mineral Springs to wind down the evening. We pulled the cake topper out of the freezer and gave it a try. We were pleasantly surprised that it tasted just as good as our wedding day. We had heard all the stories about it tasting like cardboard! We must say that the first year just flew by. Here's to our second year of adventure...

A Proud Teachable Moment

Who knew assigning a state report this year in my class would cause a bill to be passed through legislation, a front page article in the newspaper, and national recognition. Check it out...

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/648492.html

Bathroom Remodel

We have been hard at work again ripping out the old fixtures in the front bathroom and updating. We decided to tile the shower, paint, add wainscoting, and voila!


Our first guest in the new bathroom. She came appropriately dressed.

I love Jesus but...

This ellen clip is hilarious!

Life's Greatest Questions...

Yes, life's greatest questions are answered everyday in my classroom. I really need to write this stuff down somewhere, maybe in hopes that I would one day write a book, but more for the sanity so that I can sleep at night. I probably spend 3/4 of my day answering questions in my classroom. Not that there are ever any stupid questions, but I will let you decide. Today's conversation was centered around dress code for our Valentine's Day celebration. I told the kids that they could wear anything that they wanted to as long as it was red or pink. This was my first question... "Can we wear purple and white?" Ahhhh!!! About 10 minutes after that we had to discuss bringing in Valentine's for the other kids. Each kid has to bring in a Valentine for everyone. Pretty simple... About 10 hands slowly go up. The first questions.... "Do I have to make one for myself?" Ahhh!!!! "Do we have to write who each one is supposed to be for, that's a lot of names?" Ahhhh!!!! Just last week we were doing reading and the kids had to answer a simple journal assignment about the chapter. This was the journal assignment that I wrote on the board... "Draw anything from Chapter one and color it." (Keep in mind chapter one was mostly about an Indian shooting a bow and arrow) The first hand went up.... "Would it be a good idea to draw the bow and arrow?" Ahhhh!!!!! The second hand goes up.... "Would it be ok if I drew it in pencil first and then colored it?" Ahhh!!!! I could go on like this for a while, I have lots of material. I have been a little exhausted at the end of my day lately. Maybe I am giving them too many rules, maybe it is just developmental, maybe they are just trying to push my buttons. It is hard not to show compassion to these kids daily, but the questions are starting to kill me, one by one, ever so slowly.

Weekend Getaway to the Sequoias

Tim and I had the opportunity to head out of town for the weekend and enjoy a little snow. It was hard to leave San Luis when the weather was in the 80's, but it was great to get away.


The giant sequoias are unlike any other. The one I am standing in front of fell on a clear sunny day where there was no wind. Kind of a scary thought as we hiked miles into the wilderness.


These are views from Moro Rock. In the summer time you can climb the 400 some odd stairs to the top. We could not even see the stairs and decided to crawl up half way to check out the views. The last time I was here was with my family when we were little. I just kept thinking about how my mom must have been freaking out watching the three of us climb this rock!
Don't you think Tim's snowman (the one on the right) looks like a monkey?