What a Start for September!

Isaac and I have had an interesting month already. We spent Labor Day morning at my classroom, and Isaac put up posters and lowered heavy boxes for me that he had put up to store over the summer. I frantically wrote lesson plans and put everything in its place. I feel behind because I didn't do much planning for the regular school year during break with summer school to plan for, but I am keeping my head above water so far.

The next night was a Teacher Work Day, so I made copies, cleaned and got ready for students to come on Wednesday morning. Isaac got a phone call from Cattlemen's that night to tell him that the Newark location had been closed. We were more than a little bummed about that. He liked it there, made good money, got better hours, it was only a 7 minute walk from home, and they were considering him for a new position over banquets. (sigh) He is still looking for a second job.

School has been different this year. My seventh grade honors classes are new for me, and I am thoroughly enjoying them so far. They understand sarcasm and puns, volunteer good responses in class, and have clear, organized writing for the most part. Also, seventh graders seem to come with a little fear built in, which has been funny to watch. My ELD classes, on the other hand, are INSANE. It's like the flood gates opened with the Olympics. For two periods every day, I have 31 students who speak little to no English. They are so relieved to be in a place where everyone has the same issue that they talk all the time (not in English, lol), and they need more help than I am capable of giving. There are always many hands waving in the air. It's completely exhausting. The only other ELD class is a levels 3 and 1 combo, which is a very challenging class with that vast difference in ability (3s being nearly ready for mainstream English and 1s being non-producing non-speakers), and she has 40 students! As EL Liaison for our school, I brought it to the attention of our administrators that our numbers are simply to high for those students to receive the help they need. They appealed to the District Office, and we were today granted another section for ELD. Guess who gets to teach it. I'm excited to be making more money, but terrified of planning four different classes every day without a prep period.

What a boat we find ourselves in. Isaac is looking for another job, and I have more work loaded on me for the year. I guess that's a blessing.

Can you tell school has begun? My poor desk at home can...

Our trip

To make a long story short, our trip was great! Oregon and Washington are certainly beautiful, and we had a blast seeing the sights. I enjoyed the unusual weather more than Isaac did, with it being warm and sunny and rain-free for so many days in a row. What can I say? I brought the CA sun with me! We drove up to Medford the first day, to the coast and stayed in Ilwaco, WA the second day, spent the third day in Seattle, explored the Olympic Peninsula (& sights mentioned in the Twilight saga) on the fourth day, and went to church and saw historic Port Townsend on Sunday. We saw four temples, a rainforest, many lakes & mountains, crossed a number of bridges, visited a training facility for dogs for the deaf, ate in the rotating restaurant in Seattle's Space Needle, found a plaque dedicated to the fictional Dr. Cullen on the Forks Community Hospital, and found out that you cna't pump your own gas in Oregon, among other things. :) It was a blast. Some pictures for your viewing pleasure; I had a very hard time cutting down to my favorites because we saw SO MANY gorgeous sites, but here are the ones that made the cut...

One More Funny Picture

I was playing with our camera today, trying to figure some things out before we go on our trip, and Sophie was my mostly very patient model. This picture was after I pointed a camera at her for nearly half an hour. I love her face... "Can we stop this now, please?"

In between activities

I wish I could say that I had something very interesting to post, but I don't. I was excited to finish up summer school Thursday; the kids were totally checked out the last two weeks, so it was rough getting them to do anything. Basically I would say the word "write" and the moaning would commence for the remainder of the classtime. It was terribly fun. I especially liked when they tagged a bookcase in Sharpie. Luckily, my Mr. Clean Magic Eraser came to the rescue. In any case, my summer job earned us enough money to take a little trip this month, so in a few days, we are off for Oregon and Washington, two states neither Isaac nor I have ever been to. The stake just got home from YW Camp yesterday, and so the last week, Isaac and I dog-sat Haylie. Sophie was ELATED to have a friend around 24-7. This is a picture of them hugging in between play fights, lol.



Anyway, hopefully we'll have some more exciting stuff to post after our trip. For now, we're just enjoying the two and a half weeks before I go back to work.

My "little" brother

We got word yesterday that Patrick will fly home on December 15, exactly 150 days from yesterday, lol. He sent us a picture (one of very few we have seen of him since he left) on Monday. It's not a great picture, but he looks older, at least to me.

A picture I took of him a few days before he left for the MTC...


The picture we got Monday of Patrick with his companion:

Touring CA points of interest

Tuesday, the Snows came into town. We picked up Bruce, Cathy and Teresa from the SFO airport, and ran into little traffic on the way. We went for a walk through the neighborhood and around part of Newark's lake, as time allowed. It was a really nice day, but I perhaps planned an excessively lengthy walk.

Wednesday Isaac had a work training in Dixon, so we went to the Jelly Bean Factory in Fairfield and took a tour, and we visited the Vacaville Factory Outlets before picking him up.


Thursday we went to the dog park and watched Haylie and Sophie unimpressively try to work their magic on the agility course.


We also went to the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk. We had In'N'Out, which made Teresa very happy.


Friday we went to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, and then to Flames for lunch, which was practically next-door. The Mansion was beautiful yet bizarre... ;)


All in all, it was a great week, and I hope everyone had as much fun as we did!

Another duct tape booty

When I got home from Girls' Camp 3 years ago to find that Isaac had wrapped a heel injury in paper towel and duct tape, I couldn't believe how bizarre that was.

When I got home from work a few weeks ago to find that my mom had wrapped Sophie's skinned foot injury in paper towel and duct tape, the shock had worn off. I'm just glad she got back to running around after about a week.



We got a car to replace our poor Accord. The interior is pretty rough, but in general, the car is in good shape. The dealership we got it from took a picture of Isaac and sent it to us.



Beyond that, we're just working a lot. I am freaking out over finishing BTSA. My hour long interview is in a week and a half. I'm excited that Breaking Dawn comes out right toward the end of summer school. Interesting cover, released today.