Seven Pounds

We just finished watching this movie and if you haven't seen it yet, maybe you shouldn't read this yet.

I was really excited to see it and now that I have, I wish I wouldn't have watched it. I really liked it up until about 15 minutes to the end. I don't really want to say to much because I hate it when movies get ruined but frustrating. It had an overall good message and it did a great job getting you totally emotionally invested but I feel completely empty. Not happy.

Have you seen it? What do you think?

Yes we're still alive

From the looks and sounds of it, we're not the only ones who have hit a wall with blogging. It's not that nothing exciting is going on, I just haven't felt motivated to blog about anything. But by request of my cousins ... here is a quick update.

We've had two birthdays in our house and 6 in just our immediate families in the past two months (all but one in March). Dustin turned the whopping 2-8 and I turned a quarter of a century. For Dustin's birthday we had a little get together with his family/going away party for Rachel and Brandon (man that seems like FOREVER ago). He was sick on his actual birthday which was kind of the pits. He got a fish for Christmas (long story, ask him). My birthday was a school day and my first graders wanted to sing to me like every 5 minutes. They were really cute. We went to Outback with some family and friends. Dustin got me beautiful Gerber Daisies, and a bike and I'm so excited to be able to ride all over town as soon as it warms up. Funny story, he got me an ice cream cake that looked heavenly. It was called Mud Pie and it looked like chocolate and peanut butter. He cut it and served it and we all started eating it. It was then that we all realized, that isn't peanut butter, it's coffee flavored! Ha ha! We had a good laugh over that one.

In other news, as many of you know, we can't stay put in one place for very long. We moved into our new place and it was a nightmare!!! The first night, our neighbors had quite the party and were blasting music until all hours of the night. A few mornings later someone went cruising up our street, very early in the morning honking their horn. Other times there were teen aged boys peeping in the basement windows, or grown couples coming right up to the window to look in. Needless to say... kind of a scary place, especially for me! So we put in some time there, trying to make it work and now have decided to move back and keep it vacant for a little while. Oh, the adventures!

I am very excited for General Conference this weekend. I LOVE conference time! I love the energy boost that I get. We are so blessed to have living prophets that lead and guide us and remind us the things we can do to make our lives better than we ever thought possible. And here's keeping our fingers crossed that it gets warmer by the weekend!

Spring Already?

I almost don't want to say anything for fear that I might jinx this wonderful weather we've been having! I love springtime! It's actually been light in the morning when I'm getting ready for school the past few days. So light that I thought I slept through my alarm one morning and woke up in a panic, only to look at my alarm and realize I still had 5 more minutes to snooze! I've had recess duty this past week and I usually dread it because it's cold and windy but this week it was beautiful. I didn't even have to wear a jacket some days and I busted out my flip flops one day! Funny recess story... one of my little boys found a pair of glasses on the field. As he handed them to me he said "Teacher I found these glasses and their missing a window." ha ha (they were missing a lens). My students have been much happier since the weather has warmed up also.

I have a new passion. Maybe even an obsession! I LOVE VOLLEYBALL!!! My sister-in-law Dani invited me to come to practice with her on Tuesday nights starting about a month and a half ago. I played young women's volleyball but that was the extent of my experience. I was okay and I had a lot of fun playing. The girls we play with on Tuesday nights are good. Most of them played on high school teams or took classes at BYU. I do alright serving and bumping but no one ever taught me how to set or spike the ball so I didn't really like playing up on the net because I didn't know what to do. This last Tuesday one of the girls showed me how to do those things and it was so much fun. I can't wait till next week until I can actually use them in a game. I feel like I just excelled like a whole level or something. Ever since practice I've been wanting to play more than once a week and it was just my luck that a bunch of the girls I teach with like volleyball too. We decided that we would all play after school on Thursdays! Yea!

Everyone at my school is super motivated to be active because we are starting this biggest looser competition. It's more about being healthy than loosing weight, although you get points for loosing weight too. (Don't worry there aren't any weigh-ins wearing only shorts and a sports bra). You get points for different healthy habits each day like taking a vitamin, drinking enough water, not drinking carbonation or caffiene, eating 5 fruits and veggies, and for working out or lifting weights. I'm excited for some motivation to be healthier and a competition is just what I need!

More First Gradeisms

This week was a long one. We had parent teacher conferences on Wednesday and Thursday which means that I was at school from 7:30 am to 7:30 pm and then had to go back and teach on Friday. I think my kids could sense that it was going to be a long week so they gave me somethings to laugh at. So here they are...

One of the boys in my class came up to me with a mini water bottle. He said "Teacher, sometimes my throat gets clogged and my mom said that I should drink this when that happens." I was thinking, a clogged throat, wow! I told him he could keep it at his desk. When his mom came to parent teacher conferences she saw the water bottle. I told her about his 'clogged throat' and she just laughed. She said that he had told her he was thirsty and she told him to get a water bottle. I guess her response wasn't dramatic enough so he had to spice it up!

Next, my students all wrote a story and then they got to type it and we published it. One of my really bright students wrote this great story about going to California and the beach. They were playing and going boogie boarding. Then they drove a while to their grandmas house. They were going to celebrate FOURCHENLY!!! (just like her story, all in caps and 3 exclamation marks). She said that she loved fourchenly. It was an awesome story with periods and capitals and just about every single word was spelled right (which is amazing for first grade) but I was really wondering about this mystery holiday so I asked her what they do to celebrate fourchenly. She said "ya know like the parades and the fireworks'". It was all I could do not so just start laughing. Oh... The Fourth of July. Oh course I didn't tell her and when her mom read it she just about died laughing.

February being dental awareness month, we had some wives of dentists come put on a presentation. When they were finished we went back to class and I handed out a little packet with a toothbrush, toothpaste, those tablets that show were you missed, and some stickers. One of my little girls turned to her friend and said "this is the best day EVER!" Who would have thought a toothbrush beats out candy, parties, Halloween and even Christmas.

And my FAVORITE for the week. Bob (we'll say that was his name) comes up to me at recess and says "Suzie made me kick Joey in the privates." I looked at him and said, "Bob, can Suzie really make you do that. If you kicked Joey then it was your choice." He then looked at me and said "I can not resist the puppy eyes." hahahahahahahaha Wow, this kid has the best excuses. I bit my cheeks REALLY hard and said "Well you better learn how to", sent him to sit and think about it, then turned around and just laughed.

MEXICO

For Christmas this year, Dustin's family all voted for a cruise together over presents. On January 10th we all flew down to Texas. Dustin's parents picked us up and we drove strait to Galveston to get on the ship. This time we rode Carnival Ecstasy. It was so much fun all being on vacation together, no work, no worries just good times. It was a five night cruise that went to Cozumel and Progresso Mexico. While at sea we went to shows... ...got our makeup done by Aimee for formal night... ... went dancing at the club... ...danced at dinner...
...sang karaoke (sorry no pics), laid out in the sun (in January... AWESOME!), played lots of Sudoko... ...and of course ate a TON...

When we got off the ship in Cozumel we took a taxi to a private beach and they took us snorkeling. It was our first time going and it was AMAZING!!! We saw a big sea turtle, lots of beautiful fish that would swim right up to you. We saw a few barracuda (that Dustin tried to swim up close to, he still has all his fingers don't worry) and right at the end we saw a HUGE stingray. It's wing span was probably about 6 feet! It was amazing. We did get stung by a few jellyfish but it was totally worth it. We took some really cool pictures with our underwater camera but haven't got those pics developed yet. In Progresso we went to some ancient ruins called Chichen Itza. Supposedly it's one of the seven wonders of the world. The craziest part is that when you clapped at this big ruin it would make this crazy sound back. They said that it was the Gods welcoming you there. Then on our way back we stopped at this sink hole. I guess they are all over this part of Mexico. This one was beautiful. They had built a tunnel to go down to it and you could get in and swim. Aimee and I jumped in for a few minutes. There were fresh water fish and the water was so clear you could see way past your toes.


All in all it was an AMAZING trip. After the cruise we got to spend a few days in Texas visiting family and doing a little shopping. Thanks Mom and Dad Robison for the amazing Christmas present!

SLC Trip and Christmas (just a little late!)

Confession.. I have been a HORRIBLE blogger this past month (if you haven't figured it out). I lost my camera cord so I have to upload pics to Dustin's computer which is always at Monster Sak and I just don't feel that blogs with pictures are very exciting. So I am going to back track a little because one, I use this blog to help me remember when we did things and two, because I promised my cousin I would post these pictures (and they are so fun I really want to). So rewind back to Christmas time and here we go...
Back in December we spent a day in Salt Lake City. We didn't think we were going to make it because Utah county was a BLIZZARD! There was so much snow. On the freeway, the carpool lane was just a big pile of snow, no one could even use it. Once we got over the point of the mountain it started raining... weird! Anyways, we first met up with my parents and sister and saw 'Christmas Carol' at the Hale Center Theater. It was really good. Then we headed to downtown Salt Lake where we met up with my Cuz and her hubby. We met at Gateway then went over to Temple square to watch the Joseph Smith Movie in the Legacy Theater. (If you haven't seen it yet you really should go, it's amazing!) We rode Trax over there and had to run from the Trax stop to the Joseph Smith Building and we made it
with only about 1 minute to spare. After the movie we walked around Temple Square to see the lights. They were beautiful as always. My favorite was the nativity in the middle of the reflecting pond. It was gorgeous! Then we rode trax back to the Gateway and ate dinner at Z'Tejas, one of our favorite restaurants. The food was great and so was the company! Scott and Marie are heading down to Arizona to go to grad school. We have loved having them close enough to get together often. Good luck with school guys and we'll see ya soon!

We went up to Kaysville on Christmas Eve and had a delicious meal with my family and Grandpa. We opened presents and played some games. Dustin and I were very excited about our present, another year of season tickets with my parents to Hale Center Theater in Salt Lake City. We got these last year and it was so much fun! If you've never been to Hale Center up in SLC you should definitely go.

Christmas morning we slept in then opened presents just me and Dustin. We got some movies to add to our collection and Heelez (those tennis shoes that have the skates in the heels). Dustin had said a few times that he thought those would be fun and I found them for adults. It was hillarious watching him try to figure out how to use them. Also, since we've been married and Dustin's worn his wedding band, he couldn't wear his CTR ring. I always thought it would be a neat Christmas gift to get it sized for his other finger so he could still wear it. I figured out a tricky way to get it just the right size. He was pretty excited about it. I was boring for Christmas this year. I honestly couldn't think of anything I really needed or wanted but was sick of all of my clothes so I got money to go shopping! I got some shirts, jewelry, scarves and a new purse. (And we didn't take any pictures, oops!)

Christmas evening Dustin's parents flew in and we had dinner with them. We also starting watching Lost from the beginning again so that we could remember everything that happened for when the season starts this week. We were very excited about our gift from my in-laws. They took all their 6 six kids and their spouses on a cruise to Mexico. We just got back on Saturday and it was an absolute BLAST!!! Stay turned for pictures to come from that.

Out of the Mouth of 6 and 96 Year Olds!

When I left my house this morning I had NO idea what was in store for me. I got to school to find out that we couldn't go on our field trip to the Seville, an old folks home because of the snow. Then the principal called us down to tell us that the girl we wanted to hire wasn't working out and we had to interview 2 more ladies during school today. When my kids got there at 8 am they were walking in and one little girl noticed that she had matching boots as a little boy in our class. She got so excited and said ...
Now we can get married when we're older because we are have twinner boots!
She was dead serious. I couldn't help but laugh at that. If only it were that easy. Wear matching boots and there is your soul mate! haha
We helped another teacher move classrooms, 6 year olds LOVE to help. Then they watched Mickey's Christmas Carol while the teachers interviewed for the new spot. (We did find someone who will start Jan 5th and my class will be down to 21! Heaven!) By some miracle, I called the District and they said that they could send a bus last minute to take us to the Seville. So we jumped on and headed over. At the Seville there were about 20 cute people that came to watch. They were so funny! They kept shouting out things between songs. "That was just delightful!" "I know that song". "They are so beautiful". My favorite was when I went over to lead my kids in their group speaking part. I knelt down in front of them and said one, two, ... then I felt a tap on my shoulder. In a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, this cute little old lady says "Tell them they sing like angels." It was so adorable and so funny at the same time! When we finished some of them came up to talk to us. "That was so d*@! good!" "That sounded better than any Disney movie I ever saw." "Those kids were perfect."
To end the day we had our Christmas Party. Six parents came in to run the stations. Everything was going great, all the kids were having a great time when all of the sudden someone yells "There is pooh on the carpet!" I walked over calmly thinking it was animal pooh from someone's shoe but after consulting with a mom helper we decided it was human poop! ONE OF MY STUDENTS POOHED ON MY NEW CARPET!!! And of course once someone said something about it, all the rest of my class had to run over to have a look! We found the culprit who just didn't want to miss out on any of the fun and the janitor cleaned it up because that is SO not in my contract! After the janitor left, I Lysol sprayed down my rug and clorox wiped just about everything in my room!
Welcome to my life as a first grade teacher!