Spastic weather

So I know I'm beyond horrible at blogging but hopefully I'll get all caught up this summer once school's over (only 6 more weeks!).
But, in the meantime... Utah weather is crazy! It's amazing the changes that can take place on the same day only 45 minutes away from another place.
Case and point: (This happened about a month ago but I had a similar experience this morning)

So, I woke up and opened my door to this...

Close to 2 feet of snow

The snow was so heavy it broke one of the branches on one of our trees.

I hopped in my car, dressed in full snow gear, only to get to work 45 minutes later where it looked like this...

not a speck of snow, and complete sunshine!
CRAZINESS!

This morning I woke up to dark storm clouds and snow on my car, got on the freeway where it started hailing, then I encountered rain. Got to work and once again it was blue skies and sunny, but very windy. So, today I encountered snow, hail, rain, blue skies, sunshine, and wind all within 45 minutes. Only in Utah!!! Welcome springtime! Please warm up soon!

All this crazy weather is making me miss the beautiful weather and water from my cruise 2 weeks ago. I want to go back ASAP!

I mean, look how gorgeous this is! (This is the view from our balcony room on the way to Puerto Vallarta)

Motherly moments...

I think those who have worked as teachers have those motherly-like moments as I like to call them. Times where you feel like you spend so much time with your students or know them so well that you could pick them out from a crowd just by the way they run or recognize their handwriting even when they forgot to write their name on the paper much like a mother is able to pick out the sound of her baby's cry amongst other crying babies.

Today I was sitting in my room taking attendance right after my kiddos left to go to APE. My paras had come in the room earlier and said that "N" was not on the bus and was absent today. As I was sitting at my desk I heard a noise, not even a word, and said aloud to another adult in my classroom "that sounded like N." She kind of looked at me like I was crazy since I had just been told he was absent but then low and behold I walked down to meet my kids in APE and there was Mr. N just sitting there with the class. The best part is when I thought I heard him he was probably 50+ yards down the hall with other students walking and talking in the hall at the same time but I was able to pick out his voice.

I love the time I get to spend with these kiddos and the opportunity I have to get to know them so well.

um... that's way too cold to even think about going outside for recess

A whoppin 3 degrees but feels like 2? Really!? You know it's too cold when you feel like the inside of your nose is already starting to form icicles as you make a 30 second walk into the building. I don't like you freezing cold weather, please warm up soon.

Out of the mouths of babes...

Today as I was walking with one of my students back to our class a general ed. 2nd grader stopped to talk to us. Here's how the conversation went:

2nd grader: Didn't your hair used to be blonde?

Me: Yep, it was.

2nd grader: And you just decided to dye it brown?

Me: Yeah, I did.

2nd grader: hmm.

Me: Why? You like me better as a blonde?

2nd grader: Um, yeah. I think you should definitely be a blonde.

Good thing I already have a hair appointment set up to make some changes and planned to go a little lighter.

Thank you little Miss M. for your fashion advice. Maybe I should see what you have to say about my clothes too ;)

Firsts...

So I've realized I've experienced a lot of "firsts" recently

• I went to Chuck E. Cheese for the first time a couple of weeks ago with my class. We went there on a field trip and I loved being able to go since I missed out on that experience as a kid.

• A couple weekends ago Brooke, Kiera, and I wandered around Walmart for the first time in our "footie pajamas"

• Last week I got to go to Frightmares for the 1st time. Sad considering I grew up in Utah

• Today I got to wear high heels for the first time since my surgery

• Today was my first time ever buying anything off of ebay... man, that was a rush. Especially when some sucker tried to out bid me in the last 30 seconds but I showed him (or her, I guess)!

And what did I buy off of ebay and why you may ask? Another first...

• I had to buy my first phone without being able to get the free upgrade because, drumroll please... I dropped my phone in the toilet last week before going to Frightmares. I just laughed the whole day thinking about. Luckily it happened at Kiera's house and luckily her mom had just cleaned the toilet and LUCKILY it dropped in before anything else was in there besides water.

(not actually my phone, but you get idea)

• Today was the first time firing up the grill and cooking myself a yummy turkey burger for dinner. Nobody was here to show me how it worked but I figured this new grill out all by myself. mmm....

Mine and Mom's trip to Michigan!

So I'm stealing a lot of this from my sister's blog and just changing it up a bit since she already wrote about this trip... why re-invent the wheel right? Thanks Beth ;)

Over Utah's UEA weekend, my mom and I went to Michigan to visit my sister Beth, her husband Tom, and my adorable niece Ainsley who live in Farmington Hills. We had a fun trip doing all kinds of things and most of all we just loved spending time with the Reese's! The first day, Beth showed us around their area.

We drove to a small lake near their house, it was so pretty. We let Ainsley play in the sand for a few minutes and watched the swans. Then we headed to the mall and JoAnns Fabrics.
Then we drove to Ann Arbor to have dinner with my dear friend Katie (aka Kaiters) Nibley who recently started grad school with her husband Joe at University of Michigan. Katie and I have been friends since our Freshman year of college and so it was really fun to see her again. We all then went and ate at the Pizza House in Ann Arbor, it was delicious.

The next day we dropped Tom off for work and then headed up to Frankenmuth, a small Bavarian tourist town. It had lots of quaint tourist shops including the Cheese Haus where we sampled a variety of different cheeses including their famous chocolate cheese. We bought a small Chocolate Mint Cheese to share with my dad and brother. We also went to Bronner's Christmas Shop which is the largest Christmas store in the country. It was the size of one and half football fields. They had so much stuff! But suprisingly we walked out of there without buying anything! Then we had lunch and headed to the outlets to do a little shopping.

Bronner's Christmas Shop

My mom and I saw this at Bronner's and thought it was pretty funny, they had a ton of them!

"Toilet Tatoos. The only way to crown your thrown

On Saturday we headed to Dearborn to the Ford Complex. We didn't hit the huge Henry Ford Museum, but we did go to Greenfield Village. This is a historical village started by Henry Ford. He had hundreds of historical homes, shops, and buildings transported from all over the world here to be a living museum. We saw Henry Ford's childhood home, a courthouse where Lincoln practiced law, Thomas Edison's Menlow Park lab where he invented many things, the Webster home (as in Webster's Dictionary), Orville and Wilbur Wright's childhood home and bicycle shop, Robert Frost's home, as well as many other historical homes from as early as 1600. It was really interesting. They had an old carousel with handpainted horses. Tom took Ainsley on a ride. We then stopped for lunch. Afterward, we headed to the living crafts demonstration area where we learned about glass blowing, tin making, weaving, and print making. We had a wonderful time. On the way home, we stopped for dinner and then us girls watched a chick flick.

The Ford Quadricycle. It was the first vehicle developed by Henry Ford.

Model T

Trying on lovely hats at the hat shop

Thomas Edison's Lab, transported from Menlow Park, New Jersey

Ains and I had fun making funny faces. I love this girl!

The last day was Sunday. We went to church with Beth and Tom. Then we had a big dinner and spent the last few hours chatting, doing crafts, and spending time together. We loved being able to come visit, thanks for making it such a fun trip. We love and miss you guys!

Sorry we made Ainsley cry for 20 minutes after you dropped us off at the airport ;)

Before & After shots

So remember how my foot used to looked like this? (Before) July 2010

And then I had surgery so it looked like this for quite a while... (in the middle) Sept. 2010

Well, now it looks a little more like this. (After) Nov. 2010

It still is a little swollen but the doc gave me the okay a few weeks ago to pretty much do whatever I want again, using my own discretion of course. Somedays it feels amazing and other days it's a little sore. I'm just glad to feel like I'm pretty much back to normal.

Also, while I was living at home and pretty much on bed rest my mother and I had some craft time. Last February my Step-Grandpa passed away and I got this whole bedroom set that used to be at his house. It came with a double bed, two nightstands, a tall dresser, a vanity type dresser, and a secretary desk. It was originally my Dad's parent's bedroom set when they first got married. After they got divorced my Dad's mom took it and it ended up at my step-grandpa's which is how I then got it. Apparently around the time my grandparents got married it was the "in" thing to have what they call "blonde" colored furniture. You can't really tell from this picture but it's kind of a golden-gray color, if that makes sense. So... we decided to re-paint it. I'm now using in my bedroom in Salt Lake but figured that maybe one day it would make really cute furniture for a little girls bedroom.

So here's before we started painting...

We also did some sewing projects such as making pillows for my new bedroom. So here's the material before we did anything to it...

The furniture and pillows after...

(Sorry you can't really see the bed but the nightstand kind of gives you an idea of what the furniture looks like now)

I was pretty proud of the outcome. And I did it all with a crippled foot. Thanks for the help Mom!