Slacker

It's a good thing I don't slack off on other things the way I do about blogging. You'd think that I would find time to blog during the summer when I am not working, but obviously I didn't. I think it's because things don't change much and so there are not too many exciting things to blog about.

Mahonri spent the summer going to school and I spent it being lazy. I did take one class this summer to keep my teaching license current. It was nice to get that class out of the way so I won't have to worry about any classes for the next few years. Although the class was pretty boring and more busy work than anything, I did learn a few strategies that can be useful in helping me be a better teacher.

This summer has been a summer of learning. Even though things don't always turn out as planned, I am grateful that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The knowledge of the gospel can help make trails and tribulations bearable. The Atonement is the greatest gift we have been given. Lessons can be learned that make us stronger and ready to handle other things that may come our way. Even though the past couple of weeks have been hard, we have managed to overcome and grow closer to our Savior.

Recently Mahonri and I went to Gunnison and headed up the mountains for a nice, relaxing day before school starts again. We first went to Shinglemill and went fishing. Other than the cows that are up on the mountain, we were the only ones there. Both of use were able to be successful this fishing trip and caught one fish each. We had a few other bites that we didn't catch.





After our fishing, we decided to drive around and look for wildlife. It was a pretty successful drive. We saw some deer, 24 in total. There were 4 bucks and 20 does that we saw. We also spotted a huge herd of elk. I would guess that there were about 200 elk with this herd on the side of the mountain. We were able to spot a few bulls in this herd. It was really cool because I have never seen so many elk at one time. We also decided to go on a little hike. While hiking, we spotted two elk, a spike and a cow. We laid down in the road and just watched them as they got closer to us. They got within 20 yards of where we were laying. We watched them for about 10 minutes before they spotted us and ran off. We were able to capture this on film. It was a really neat experience.

School starts for me on Monday (Aug 15). I cannot believe how quickly the summer went by this year. The middle school will be housed in the high school this year, but we have claimed one of the hallways as the middle school hallway. Unfortunately, I do not have a classroom this year. I have on office that is located inside the locker room. When I teach my health class I will be using the science teachers classroom because she will be in the home-ec room teaching that period. I will be teaching a few different classes this year. I have one middle school PE class, 7th grade Health, 2 high school PE classes, and 2 elementary PE classes. I have never taught high school so it may be interesting. I am ready to get going again though because it will be a change of pace from the summer. It may take a few weeks to get adjusted to the new classes and to being up in the high school but I know we can make the adjustment. I am sad that I won't be able to have the same lunch schedule as my other middle school teachers. I may just have to go hang out in one of their rooms during my lunch. We shall see.

The End of an Era

Yesterday was the last day of the school year for me. I am convinced that summer vacation is more for the teachers than for the students. Each year as school gets out for the summer, I am super excited for the break and the time away from school. I usually have all of my checkout sheet finished within an hour of the students leaving and I get on my way to my own summer vacation. However, it was a very different situation yesterday as the students left. It was much more difficult to be excited about summer vacation this year; allow me to explain my feelings.


Over the past few months, our school board has made some very tough decisions. Everything they have decided hasn't always been supported by the community or the staff members, but the board honestly believes they are doing what is best. They have decided to eliminate the middle school (where I work) and move the 6th grade back into the elementary school and move the 7th and 8th grade up into the high school building. For those of you that don't know, the middle school campus is not an actual school building but rather four modular trailers set up in a circle. We (students and staff) know that our campus isn't the best but we still love it. It is our sanctuary and the place where the transition from elementary school and high school can take place. The middle school age is such an important age as students are going through many changes. Anyway, so the middle school campus will not longer be part of the school district. Another decision that was made by the board is to eliminate the four day school week for the middle/high school and move them back to a five day school week. Both of these big changes will begin next year for the 2011-2012 school year.


Now back to yesterday. As the students left I felt like a chapter of my life was closing. I have been working at the middle school for the past four years. It has been a very unique work environment. One of the greatest strengths of the middle school is the staff that I have been working with for the past few years. We are all seriously really good friends. We have such a strong bond and it makes it easy to collaborate and be on the same page. We enjoy being with each other and often have get togethers outside of school hours. It was sad because due to the changes, one staff member has found a new job and all the rest of us are not sure what is going to happen. We have not been offered contracts yet because the board and administration have not figured out how many teachers are really needed. We have been told that most of us will probably we offered contracts but we aren't sure where we will be teaching. The team is being broken apart. We are hoping to all move to the high school and be able to still teach the 7th and 8th graders. However, we may not get that opportunity as many of us will probably be given assignments that are not within our certified positions. It has been mentioned that they want to offer more electives and so most of us will be stuck with classes we have never taught and may not know much about. We'll be teaching both middle school and high school classes.


It was also hard to pack up my room because it has been my classroom my whole teaching career. I will be moving away from my home, my sanctuary. It was a really odd feeling. I didn't want the day to end. I didn't want to walk away from the place that I have grown to love. However, I did have to leave. I did have to get on with my summer vacation. Now I am just waiting to see which classroom will be mine within the high school building and what my teaching assignment will be. I will be starting a new adventure, but before I embrace it fully, I am going to spend a few weeks of the summer living in the many great memories I have made at that Dam middle school!

Fishing

The weather in St. George has been so warm and sunny that past couple of weeks. One evening Mahonri and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather. We tried going fishing Easter weekend but we didn't have any luck because it was crowded. The next Thursday evening, we were able to find time to get out and went fishing at Baker Reservoir. It is a beautiful res. surrounded by trees. There isn't much room to fish from the shore because of all the trees but luckily, we were the only ones there that evening. We were able to fish from one of the only spots shore fishing is possible. Here is a picture of where the res. flows over into a stream. It's a neat looking place.

It was a pretty slow fishing night. We did manage to catch one fish, a rainbow trout. We released the fish back into the water because neither of us enjoy eating fish. We are looking forward to summer when we will have more time to fish and hopefully camp.

I only have 2 weeks of school left this school year. Mahonri has 2 weeks off of school (although he'll be spending them at his annual training for guard) and then he'll be taking classes this summer semester. We are still waiting to find out about next year and the jobs in Beaver Dam.

Spring Break

I'm not sure why I ever update the blog because it seems as though nobody ever reads it. Oh well, it helps us record our memories. It was recently spring break. Mahonri and I lucked out this year because my school and DSC scheduled spring break during the same week. Last year we had spring break different weeks and therefore we weren't able to do anything fun together. This year we took advantage of our break and planned a trip to SLC to a Utah Jazz game. We like going to Jazz games but this year has been disappointing to be a Jazz fan. We decided to get tickets to the game against the Minnesota Timberwolves because we figured they may be able to win that game. We purchased the tickets and we able to get 12th row tickets, center court. My parents were given some tickets to this same game so we met them in SLC for dinner prior to the game. The traffic didn't cooperate and we were a little later getting there than planned, so after eating we made it over to the arena. We were a few minutes late but it ended up being in our favor. When we reached our seats, there was a man sitting in them and he asked us if we'd like to change seats. He had seats on the 6th row just in front of us. He wanted to move back so he could be by his friends. Of course, we wouldn't pass up on the opportunity to sit even closer so we switched and went down to the sixth row. It was neat to sit so close. The players are huge. We were close enough that you could hear them talking, although not close enough to always make out what they were saying (which might be a good thing!). The Jazz had a good game, especially CJ Miles who scored 40 points. They won the game and made our trip even better! After the game, we decided to spend the night at Anniversary Inn. It was a fun little get away and we stayed in the mountain themed room. It fit us well. We had a good time. The rest of the week was spent in Gunnison. We went to the temple with Cutler as he took out his endowment and our nephew, Jace, was blessed. It was a great spring break!

Updates, updates, updates

So I finally updated the blog. There are 3 new posts today (4 if you count this one) so scroll on down.

Basketball

Basketball season at Beaver Dam High School has officially ended. It was an extremely good and rewarding season. This season made my passion and love for coaching blossom again. I have been very blessed to have such a wonderful team.

Before Christmas vacation, we were struggling and had a record of 2-6. I felt like we were good enough to have a 7-1 record at that point but we just weren't playing up to our potential. We had a really horrible game right before the break where we didn't play together and were completely out of sync. The last thing I told my team before taking 2 weeks of for Christmas was that they needed to decide if they wanted to be part of a team or be individual players. When we got back together in January, we sat down and had a great discussion. I told them that we were 2-6 but that we were good enough to be 7-1. They just needed to learn to trust me, my assistant and each other. They needed to believe in themselves the way the coaches believe in them. I then told them that we would lost the next game (we were playing a top 5 team in the state) but that after that game, we should go a huge winning streak and not lose again--we should win 7 games in a row. It was up to them to decide if they wanted to accomplish this goal or if they wanted to just go through the motions and not be team. I was blessed that this particular team took hold of my message and meshed together so well.

I have been around a lot of basketball and I have never seen a group of girls grasp the concept of team as much as these girls did. They become great friends on and off the court. It changed the season for us. We did lose our next game, by a lot. It didn't discourage us though. We went on this awesome winning streak and accomplished our goal of 7 straight wins. During this streak, a lot of history was accomplished for the girls basketball program at Beaver Dam High School.

We beat Fredonia for the first time, twice in fact!! We beat Grand Canyon (first in history as well) by 10 points. (This was the team we played right before Christmas break that sparked the turn around. We lost to them by 18 points during that game.) We qualified for the regional tournament for the first time, and we didn't just squeak in, we finished tied for second place in region. We had a spot guaranteed in the tournament with 3 weeks left in the season. It was a great experience to go to the regional tournament, and although the game didn't go well, it was great to be part of the history. Even with that loss, we finished with a winning record 9-8...the first winning season for the girls' basketball team. I am happy I had the opportunity to coach this group of kids and watch them as they accomplished so many things. As I told my team, they deserve the credit for everything that has happened this season. I cannot take credit. It was the girls that decided to take my message to heart and become a team. It was their heart and determination that made them so good this season. It was a blessing to be able to sit back and watch these things transpire...and with so many sophomores on the team, Beaver Dam basketball has a bright future.

Short School Story

On Wednesday at work, one of cutest things happened. I was at the elementary school teaching PE, as I do each day. The class that I was currently teaching was first graders. We were sitting in a circle, because we had just finished stretching, and I was waiting for the kids to stop talking and wiggling around. As I waited, I started tapping my fingers on the ground. I looked across the circle and saw a boy looking at me intently and also tapping his fingers on the ground. I then folded my hands. The boy copied me and folded his hands. I went back to tapping and he followed along again. I smiled at him and then noticed that a few other students next to him had joined in and were also copying me. I continued to do different things with my hands and eventually all of the students in the class were quietly coping my hand movements. I would tap the ground, then clasp my hands, then tap again, clap, and just do random things. They all continued to follow along. We eventually broke into laughter and then continued class and played a game. It was one of those heart warming moments you get as a teacher.