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.

Time...Where Does It Go?

I have been reprimanded by many people for the lack of updates on our blog. It's hard to know where the time has gone between the last post and this one. The 24 hours in a day just aren't enough to get everything done and then to find extra time to blog. This is probably the busiest time of the year for me because of basketball season. Here is an update on what is taking place in the M&M World (in St. George, not the one in Vegas, haha).

Basketball season has started. It has been an interesting year so far. When I took the job two years ago, I was really excited for the future because there were a lot of young players I could work with and help develop. Unfortunately, I have had to compete with the volleyball coach who is trying to get all the kids to do club volleyball during the off season. In bigger schools, this would probably work out just fine, but in the school my size, this is terrible. Seeing how volleyball has had a consistent coach for many years and have had a little more success than basketball in the past, the kids are choosing to play volleyball and focus on that sport. The things that upsets me the most about the entire situation is that they are being told that club volleyball will help them get a scholarship to play volleyball in college. Ummm, we are a small 1A school in Arizona that has the genes of small Hispanics. I'm sorry but with the competition and height that exists everywhere but in the mind of the volleyball coach (well to be fair it is more her daughter, who "helps" coach the team), these girls are not going to get scholarships. I don't like that they are getting their hopes up for something that most likely will not happen.

Anyway, back to the basketball season. I have 16 players playing for me this year, and 9 of them are freshmen. Only 5 players have had more than 1 year of basketball and 2 of those 5 work really hard but just are not very talented. I am thinking of this year as a rebuilding year and am seeing that with so many young players, the future of basketball could be bright. I have said numerous times that if all the freshmen stick with basketball and play together for the next four years, they will be fairly good when they are seniors. Hopefully they are listening to me and they won't get sucked into other things. Despite having so many inexperienced players, we have managed to win 2 games. It is good for them to get a little success and we did have a pretty good game (and that means on paper we should have lost by 40+ points and we only lost by 20 some) against the number one team in our league. There is a lot of basketball to be played in January, so hopefully we will continue to improve and maybe pull out one more win. However, I am looking forward to the season ending so I can spend a little more time at home since basketball makes me get home late and takes me away every weekend.

Mahonri has gotten back into the swing of things with school and had a really good semester. His grades were great and he is a good student. He has also gotten a part time job and has enjoyed working where he does. He sells sports equipment and works for a guy in our ward. They have become pretty good friends. He is set up to take another full load during the spring semester.

I wish I would have taken a picture that I could post, but I do not have one. Thanks to the donation of my parents old, fake, flocked Christmas tree, we were able to set one up at our house for the Christmas season. It has been fun to have a tree to help us celebrate this season. I always enjoy sitting in the room with just the Christmas tree lights on; it is so peaceful.

We have enjoyed being able to spend time in Gunnison with our families during our Christmas break. It's nice being able to get away and not have to worry about anything for a few weeks. I begin school again on January 4 and Mahonri will start on January 11. Happy Holiday Season to everyone, and perhaps I'll make a New Year's Resolution to keep out blog updated better...perhaps.

Hawaii Trip

I know we are terrible at keeping the blog updated but it seems like there just aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done. Time is moving by quickly. Before I post about our Hawaii trip, I want to show you something that I should've posted about long ago but neglected it. Here is a picture of it:

Mahonri got an elk on opening morning of the bow hunt! It was a 68 yard shot which is far with a bow. He's a great hunter. Good job Mahonri!

We recently took a trip to Hawaii with my family. My dad had the ADA convention there this year and was generous enough to ask if we wanted to join him. All of my family came along except my younger brother, Cutler, who elected to stay home and play football, and my nephew, Kaden, who went to California to spend time with his grandparents.

We did a lot of fun things while we were in Hawaii. We went to the Polynesian Cultural Center, did some snorkeling (thank you to Jared and Tamara who met us at the PCC and let us borrow their snorkeling gear), parasailing, and sight seeing. We went to the temple, although they are remodeling so we couldn't do a session.

While snorkeling, Mahonri got to see two turtles. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see them because by that time I had swallowed so much water that I went back to the beach to rest. However, we did get to see a turtle at one of the other beaches we visited, and that we pretty cool.

Parasailing was pretty fun, except I got a little sea sick while we were waiting for our turn. Once we got in the air though, it was awesome. I thought being 700-800 feet above the ground would scare me to death but I enjoyed the ride.

The trip home from Hawaii was a little stressful as we got delayed when leaving Hawaii. We had a short layover in LA before we flew to Vegas. We got to LA with only about 20 minutes before our next flight left. We had to get off the plane and get to the next gate within that time. Mahonri went ahead of me and got to the gate first. They were trying to make him board the plan so they could leave but he refused to leave without me. Once I got there the lady at the ticket quickly boarded us and I tried telling her that my brother, his wife, and there little baby were behind us and on their way. She didn't listen. She took us through the door and closed it. As I was going down the walkway, I kept telling her and when we reached the plane door, finally someone listened and took sympathy on my request to wait for them. She went out and called security to find my brother's family and help them to the plane. Luckily, the ended up waiting but left as soon as they reached the plane, out of breath from running. I don't think they even had time to buckle their seat belts.

I'm not really sure what else to write about the trip. We had a great time and are grateful that my parents took us along. Below you will find pictures of our trip!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The Work Environment...Yes It's True!

I got a request from my Uncle Ron to post pictures of my school. Now my school is not like other schools, my school is unique. Below are real pictures of where I work. My first day of school was today and I'm sure I'll have many adventures to post about in the near future. Now on to the pictures. This first picture is our "campus".

The next picture is the office on the right and the SEI teacher's classroom on the left.

And here is a picture of our mascot, the scorpions, that a few students painted last year. It is painted on the lockers, or the locker bin, not sure what to call it.

Here are our two drinking fountains:

Here it is, my classroom! I bet you can't guess which door leads to my classroom. Yes is the door that is proudly displaying BYU!

The inside set-up of my classroom this year. My first year I had rows, didn't like it. Last year I had quads, didn't really like that either. So this year I have a U shape with a row of horizontal desks in the middle. It really leaves the middle of the classroom open for different activities. We'll find out if I like this or not.

My corner, my desk! I love it!

My "gym" or rather blacktop, painted blue in the middle, and 4 baskets, 2 on each side. Oh the games you can make up to play on the blacktop. Thank goodness for sidewalk chalk!

And the other half of my gym...my nice grass field that in the past two years has developed into dirt and some grass...lovely, especially after they water!
So there you have it, the place I work. It may not be the most fancy school in the world, but the people I work with and the students are wonderful. I couldn't ask for a better work environment! Oh and don't forget to see the few posts that I posted below this. There are 3 new ones today!