Happy Halloween

As always, I have been slacking when it comes to keeping the blog updated. We have both been busy with school and work. I cannot believe how quickly the school year has gone by so far. We are already finished with the first quarter and have only a month and a half left until the semester break. It has been a busy school year and it's only going to be busier as basketball season starts tomorrow.

I am going to have a young team, composed mostly of sophomores, but they are excited to play which in return makes me excited to coach. We are going to be a work in progress all season long but hopefully I can help them gain the basic fundamentals to build upon for future seasons.

Mahonri was recently called as the stake assistant men's athletic specialist. We are not exactly sure what this calling entails but I am sure he will learn as times goes on. He will become busier as well once stake basketball begins because we do know he'll be involved with that. I know he'll do a great job.

On Friday we went for a ride up the mountains to give Mahonri a change to sight in his rifle that he got a little bit ago. Here is a picture of him sighting in the gun:

The pattern on his target was so good that we hung the target up on the fridge!! I told him I'd write A+ on his paper and he said he'd autograph it for me. One day it may be worth something...hahaha.

I am not the biggest fan of Halloween but this year we decided to buy some pumpkins and carve them. I had a lot of fun thinking of something to carve and then spending time together as we carved them. I'll post pictures below. I bet you can't guess who carved which one...Happy Halloween Everyone!

Here they are in the light...

Now in the dark...

You may wonder what a deer has to do with Halloween...Mahonri claims it's the ghost buck!

That time of year, again.

I cannot believe how much time has passed since I last posted. I wish I had an excuse but I don't have one. Really, I just keep forgetting and putting off updating the blog.

We finished off the summer with a few family reunions. They kept us busy on the weekends as we were traveling north to attend all of these reunions. Family reunions are always nice because it gives you time to see family and catch up with everyone on what is happening. During the Frandsen Family Reunion we celebrated Grandma Frandsen's 90th birthday (although she is only "29" and has been for years and years). This is historic, as she is 90 and my grandpa is 91. Amazing.

Summer came to a close all too quickly and that meant the start of the school year. This is the first time in my history at Beaver Dam that we have not had to replace multiple teachers. In fact, there was only one teacher replaced at the middle school, and she was a tutor last year so it feels like she isn't even new. However, that does not mean there wasn't a lot of change. The change in the Littlefield School District was still huge. We got a new superintendent, new elementary principal, and new business manager who is also serving as the new middle school principal. So there was a lot of change at the top of the chain. With all the change at the major positions, what people would be teaching and where was up in the air. I was originally told that I would no longer be teaching at the elementary school and spend all day at the middle school. About a week before school was set to start, the elementary principal found out that I wouldn't be teaching at her school and she went and fought. Needless to say, a week before school I found out that I would indeed be teaching at both the elementary school and the middle school. They asked me to give up my prep period and teach all 7 periods. I agreed so I have no free time. I am extremely busy and exhausted at the end of the day but at least the students have classes to attend and I can make a difference.

School has also started for Mahonri. He is taking a full load and a schedule I am glad I never had to do. He is taking economics, accounting, English, and math. All of his classes require a lot of time and keep him busy. He is still working at the Locker Room when he is not going to school. He doesn't' have a lot of free time but the little time he does manage to find, he likes to spend hunting. The bow hunt for deer and elk is going on right now and he has a tag for both.

Well this is all for now. Hopefully, I will have some exciting stories to tell from all the happenings at school.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Well we have had an extremely busy July thus far. To celebrate the 4th of July, we went to Gunnison to spend time with our families and celebrate small town style. I love the 4th of July, it is one of my favorite holidays. We made it to Gunnison to watch the fireworks on the 2nd. On the 3rd we watched the parade with some of Mahonri's family. It was very cute to watch the little ones run around and pick up the candy. I love seeing the joy on their faces. We then spent some time at the park talking to friends and just enjoying the day. In the evening, we went with my family to the Stadium of Fire. Carrie Underwood was the main attraction and she was amazing. She puts on an awesome concert and her voice is spectacular. We then got to watch a great firework show, which I loved!
On Monday (5th) was Mahonri's birthday so we decided to head up the mountains to celebrate. He loves being outdoors and in the mountain air so we went up and went fishing. It was a pretty slow day fishing and we only got a few bites with no luck catching anything. Regardless, it was still a fun day. We love getting away and relaxing. On our trip home we saw this:

A pine hen with her chicks crossing the road. She actually had a few more chicks with her but I was too slow at taking the picture. It was neat to see. Happy Birthday Mahonri!

We were unable to do anything in June to celebrate our anniversary so this past week we decided to take a late anniversary trip and headed to San Diego. We left St. George on Sunday after church and drove to San Diego. After getting caught in traffic we finally made it between 11:30 and midnight. On Monday, we went to Sea World. We both really enjoyed Sea World and thought it was the best part of the trip. We went to the Sea Lions Show, the Whale show...featuring Shamu...and the dolphin show. They were all really fun but we enjoyed the Shamu show the best. We also were able to see a lot of different aquatic animals. We especially enjoyed the sharks and the penguins. It was a fun day and we got to eat cotton candy which can only make the day better! We went to the zoo on Tuesday. It is such a big zoo and had a lot of neat animals. We liked the big cats, like the Snow Leopard and the Black Jaguar. I really liked the monkeys as well. Many of the animals we saw, Mahonri has actually seen in the wild when he was serving his mission in South Africa. On Wednesday we went to see the temple before we headed home. I love the way the San Diego temple looks because to me it looks like a castle. I was so excited to see it and was a little disappointed when we got there and it was under construction. It still looks neat and big but it doesn't have the same castle look when it is covered by the construction things. The temple is still operating during the construction and we thought about doing a session but decided against it because we didn't want to have to drive home in the dark. It was a fun trip and it was nice to get away and celebrate. For those of you that would like to see some pictures of our trip, they are posted on my facebook page. Non-facebook users or facebook friends, here is a link so you can see the pictures as well:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=233202&id=551167264&l=af367c1d7c

We hope everyone is having a great summer. I cannot believe how quickly it has gone by and how close the start of school is getting. If we get another news or do anything else worthy of sharing we will post again. Later!

Brian Regan

Mahonri really likes Brian Regan. He is a comedian and his material is clean which is a good combination. Last year, Brian Regan came to St. George and I looked into getting tickets but there was something conflicting and we were unable to go. My parents, however, did get tickets and went to his show. They really enjoyed him. They found out that Mahonri really likes Brian Regan, so when they saw he was coming to St. George again this year, they bought tickets and gave them to us for Christmas. Unfortunately, there was a conflict on the night they gave us tickets. Mahonri had guard weekend the same weekend and he was unable to weasel his way out of guard. So, I took the tickets and invited my sister-in-law and we went to Brain Regan on Friday, May 14. He was hilarious. I have never laughed so much at one time in my life. I would recommend him to anyone, and will definitely try to go again. Hopefully, next time I will get to go with my husband. I feel badly he missed the show, especially since he was the reason my parents gave us the tickets, but I enjoyed it. Here are a few pictures, but they aren't very good. I forgot my camera so these were taken from my phone.

In other news, only 4 days of school left for me and then summer vacation!!!

Jazz Game

Although the series against the Lakers hasn't started out well, the series against the Nuggets was awesome. Not many people were giving the Jazz a chance, especially with Kirelinko and Memo hurt and unable to play. The Jazz definitely have heart though and surprised many in winning the series in 6 games. Mahonri and I took a little trip up to SLC on April 30 and and went to Energy Solutions Arena to attend the final game of the series. My wonderful husband came up with this brilliant idea when I was down about not being able to attend a coaching clinic in Las Vegas. I had been looking forward to the clinic, but then a more important event came up, (a baby blessing of our nephew) so I had to scratch the clinic so we could make it to the blessing. When I got home from work on Thursday (April 29), Mahonri told me he had thought of something to replace the clinic, the Jazz game. We would take the money that would have been spent on the clinic and go to game 6 of the Jazz/Denver playoff series. Can I just say I have an extremely smart and thoughtful husband? I agreed it was a brilliant idea and we purchased tickets. I have been to a few Jazz games in my lifetime, but I have never attended a playoff game nor had Mahonri. It was an awesome experience and the atmosphere is just crazy and elevated about a normal Jazz game. When we walked into the arena as they were announcing the starting lineups, it was so loud. We enjoyed the game and were happy to see the Jazz win the game and send the Nuggets packing for the summer. Here are a few pictures of the game:

Huddle before the game:

What's the game plan?

Let the game begin:

Running the Offense:

DWill Free Throws:

Boozer Free Throws:

If the opportunity ever arises to go to a playoff game, we would recommend it. It was a great experience. We are looking forward to summer as it is fast approaching. I am looking forward to the time off. I can honestly say that summer vacation is more for the teachers than for the students. Hopefully we can fill our summer with fishing, camping, and scoping out deer and elk that Mahonri can hunt. I can't wait!

Random

I am a horrible blogger. If only a post would get posted each time I thought about blogging, then our blog would be overflowing with posts. It's just difficult to take the time to sit down and actually do it.

A few weeks ago I kept thinking I needed to post about an experience at school but as usual, I put it off. The same thing happened about a week ago so I guess I do need to post about it. This is something that would only happen at Beaver Dam Middle School. As you know, I do not have a gym to have PE in, so we have to have class outside regardless of the weather. If it is raining then usually we stay inside and watch a sports related movie. (What else am I supposed to do? I can't really take them outside to get soaking wet.) Anyway, it had rained during the night, so when I got to school, my grass--aka dirt---field was completely muddy. The sports court had puddles of water all over it. Apparently, it is not level at all and the water pools in a few places. Well, only in Beaver Dam would you have to take a big squeegee and push the water off your "classroom" before you can have class. Yes don't worry, this happened twice in the past month where I had to push water around as my students warmed up and stretched. Oh the fun and excitement of working where I work.

Here is a funny thing that happened at work last week. When the elementary teachers come pick their class up from the gym, they usually let the students get a quick drink from the fountain outside of the gym. They don't like to waste a lot of time getting drinks so they always use the saying, 1-2-3 save some for me and then the student is supposed to stop drinking and go back to class. This one particular boy kept drinking and when his teacher finally got him to stop taking a drink, she said "You drank a lot of water. Make sure you save some for the fishes and dolphins in the ocean." The reply came from this younger first grader, "The water I drank is from the ocean?" It was really hilarious and made me remember just how impressionable these young minds are.

Not a lot has been going on with us. We were able to go to a few houses during the parade of homes. There were some pretty neat things we got to see. Mahonri's Spring Break is during this upcoming week and mine is at the end of the month. It will be nice to have the time off, we just wish our breaks could have been at the same time. We hope all is well with everyone.