First Day

Today was the first day I spent ALL day in an elementary school.

I was so nervous!

When I first showed up my teacher (who is a man) started asking me when I would like to begin teaching.

How about....never? I thought to myself while mumbling something nondescript. It's been so long since I've been in a classroom, sixth graders scare me to death, and wanting to avoid teaching math are some of the reasons I wished I could just get out of teaching for, like....a month or two.

At least.

So today I had my own little desk in the corner and I got to observe while saying very little during most of the morning. But sitting there got real old real quick and I was just sitting, waiting, and wishing that someone would raise their hand so I could attempt to help them and feel like I was doing something.

And then it was time for recess.

I really didn't know what to do with myself.

During breaks I'd been mostly following the teacher around like an annoying little shadow and wanted to discontinue this practice as soon as possible.

But what the heck would I do outside? Who would I play with? What if the kids ganged up on me, ignored me, or even stole my lunch money? 

As all the students were leaving I was still pondering these questions and was decidedly undecided when a little girl walked right up to me and said,

"Mrs. Hansen, are you going to come outside with us?" I stammered an I don't know kind of answer. "Well you should. We're going to play four-square and it's really fun. You should come play with us!"

I could have hugged that little girl.

I actually had to run to the bathroom first because I had been too nervous/embarrassed to ask the teacher if I could take the bathroom pass.

But when I did get outside I started second guessing myself again and feeling like a big weirdo wanna-be that nobody would want to play with and would surely see through. (am I a middle-schooler, or what?)

But as I rounded the corner and was about to turn back five girls from my class started waving their arms and yelling "Mrs. Hansen! Over here!"

Then we got a big group together and played four-square and I was king for seven rounds. Biggest accomplishment of the day. (And probably only happened because I told the kids they had to play nice with me and they actually did. And also because they might have been a teeny bit scared of what would happen if they got me out)

After that bit of fun it was time to go back to observing for the next four hours. And I was just itching to get up and actually DO something.

So wish me luck as I teach my very first whole-class (I've only ever taught reading groups of students in groups of 5) MATH lesson......

on Wednesday!

I'll need all the luck I can get.



To school we go

I have a difficult to explain relationship with school. On one hand I love learning new things (nerd.) and seeing friends and taking notes and having new pens and pencils and notebooks etc. but on the other hand there is always homework involved. Which is not so much my favorite.

With school starting next week (I can't decide if it's a good thing or not) I've been mentally preparing myself for possibly the busiest semester yet. And as it's my last semester I've been remembering my very first semester. I had just moved to BYU in Provo and was a little homesick but mostly loving life. The first day of classes I was a bit nervous and a lot intimidated but I made it through okay until my very last class. It was a psychology class. When I walked into the building and found my classroom I was horrified to discover the class was already full of students and the teacher was up front talking to everyone. So I completely tossed my brains and reason out the window and speed walked into that classroom. I walked right past the teacher lecturing and squeezed me and my bulky backpack past fifteen students and into the middle of the third row. I set my backpack on the floor and took out my pens and notebook ready to soak in everything the teacher was talking about and hoping I hadn't missed too much already.

Then I looked up at the board and saw math problems.

As I had been avoiding a math class like the plague, I knew something was wrong.

So I leaned over to the kid next to me who I had just squeezed past and squished with my backpack and asked him what class this was. He replied that it was indeed a math class and definitely not the psychology class I was looking for.

I panicked for just a second trying to figure out what to do. Obviously I needed to get out of there as soon as possible, look at my schedule again and figure out which room my psychology class was in.

So I stood up, grabbed my backpack, again squeezed past the fifteen students, walked right by the teacher lecturing, and was almost out the door when...

The bell rang.

The current teacher dismissed his math class and my psychology class began to file in the room.

Oh my heavens.

I could have died from embarrassment. Like the spastic freak I am I had forgotten to use some common sense, look at the time, and realize that I was just a few minutes early to my class and the class before mine hadn't finished yet.

The only thing worse than this embarrassment was the fact that the exact same thing happened the first day of the next semester.

I've chilled out a bit since those days, but I still have bad dreams about not going to class or forgetting to copy down my schedule and wandering aimlessly around campus before the start of every semester...including last night.

I'm kind of a freak.

But my plan now is to enjoy the last few days of freedom before putting my nose to the grindstone and doing whatever it takes to make it through the next four months.

Wish me luck!

 

Fun and friends and food, Oh my!

I haven't been to the Blackfoot fair very many times so it was quite fun to go with Kolton and some of our buddies.

We got to the fair later in the afternoon and made a first stop for the food. That's the best part of course!

After I managed to successfully spill everything I ate on myself (seriously, there was butter drips from my corn on the cob on my jeans and pink drips of frozen strawberry lemonade on my shirt. pathetic.)we decided to hit the rides.

It's been a long time since I've been on any rides so I was excited to hit em hard...until I got sick on the very first one.

I don't know what's happening to me, maybe I'm getting older, but I can't read or hardly even text in the car anymore and the rides made me motion sick. I don't like it!

Kolton got quite a kick out of my reaction on the two rides we did go on. He was laughing at my screaming and teasing me about being such a big talker on the ground and then turning into a wanny as soon as we started moving. He's right on all accounts.

I really do get scared, but it's a fun kind of scared so I don't mind it too much.

The last ride we went on was the Ferris wheel. Kolton did a little bargaining and we were able to get all of our little groups tickets back (30 tickets) in exchange for paying the Ferris wheel guy two dollars. Score!

Kolton then sold our remaining tickets because we were all pretty well sick and done with the rides (sooo lame, I know.) And then bragged about how he made 1000 percent on his money (an exchange of 20 dollars for 2 dollars spent....it makes sense in his math mind I guess)

After that fun adventure and laughing at Kolton getting turned down multiple times in his attempts to sell the tickets we met up with more friends and had to get more food of course!

We decided on a giant sticky tiger ear to share and it was a really great decision. I've never been in love with scones (I think it's a result of all the years I slaved over scones in the cheerleading booth at the Mud Lake Fair) but since my hiatus from scone making, this tiger ear was really a great experience. I would go back to the fair just for another one of those.

And then the main event started.

Our friends had called us about two weeks ago and we'd made the plan to visit the fair and go to the motocross event. And it was so awesome!

These two lovey birds just got engaged!

They had these huge jumps set up and I couldn't believe how high those guys were jumping and some of the tricks they did made me so nervous for them!

The rest of the group

These pics are courtesy of the Internets because my camera couldn't catch them very well...and also because I didn't want to take my eyes away to get the camera ready for fear of missing something.

My favorite tricks (or the ones that scared me the most) were 

The Cliffhanger

(it makes me nervous just looking at the picture. I have no clue how on earth they get their feet where they need to be)

and The Superman trick when they would completely let go of the bike.

Oh, it was just so neat and I couldn't believe how those guys could throw a bike around like it was nothing.

The riders lined up and ready to go

There were also plenty of flips and lots of other crazy tricks that as I watched I couldn't help but wonder how many times they had to wreck before they got it down.

The one halfway decent picture I managed to snag

 Ugh. It just gives me butterflies to think of it.

But it was really an amazing show and we were so glad we went. Between the friends and the fun and the food we had a really nice time at the fair.  



Newman Reunion

 The Newman reunion was the last week of July and was once again spent in Island Park. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves because we realized it was our last time to soak up the last litle bit of summer fun before the work started again. We had quite a lovely time.

We did a LOT of wakeboarding. The water was so beautiful and glassy and there were hardly any boats so we just partied our hearts out. The following are Kolton doing his tricks. He's the only one that has any tricks so we think he's pretty neat...or maybe that's just me.

 And here's me. Always one for excitement and danger.

This was when the boat wasn't working too great and I was super happy about it.

Tylee has decided she quite likes the slalom. She's getting the hang of it and does pretty good.

Addi on the surfboard. Somehow every time she would fall off the board would hit her in the back of the head. But she was a trooper and got it done.

Brevan spent most of the time wakeboarding on his bum, but he did finally get up and did pretty good.

Look at that glassy water! Beautiful!

Seth even joined in the party!

On his first crossing of the wake he decided to throw a little backflip. He didn't quite get it done but we all got a laugh out of his efforts.

Kaylee got on the surfboard and performed marvelously.  

My dad even joined in and had the time of his life as you can see.

Lane, Loni, and Kolden on the jetski

Brevan and Keston body surfing.

 I decided to go back for round two.

And this, my friends, is what pure fear looks like.

This is probably the highest I have jumped off of anything in my entire life. It was frightening, but kinda fun.

And that was the Newman reunion! We had a ball and thoroughly enjoyed our last time out on the water.

Mickelsen Reunion

I realized I forgot to write about the ol' Mickelsen reunion, and I can leave no party undocumented.

The Mickelsen reunion is always up in Island Park around the Fourth of July. We were able to go up the Friday and Saturday of the week of the Fourth once I was done with classes for the day, and we were sure glad we did-there's always good food and lots of fun...though very little of it is documented with pictures. But here's the few I do have.

These people ran the show. And it wouldn't be a Mickelsen reunion if there wasn't Pepsi involved.

We had a little tubing competition where everyone went head to head in their age groups. This is Kolton and Brevan (not quite sure how that happened). They had a good ride and Kolton successfully frustrated everyone by refusing to fall off the tube. He never came off that thing, no matter what was thrown at him. There were a couple times when the tube tipped upside down and sure enough, when it rolled back over he was still hanging on.

Irritating.

And we were all more than a little motion sick by the time the boat ride was over and Scott had given up on ever throwing Kolton off the tube. I'm so glad his years of bull riding could prepare him for future tubing with the in-laws. I'm also glad that tube riding is a good stand-in for the bulls because that is never happening. ever again.

Anyway...

We also continued the tradition of swimming across the lake. I joined in for the first time and it was quite delightful! We did it later in the evening and it was hard to want to get back in the water after we were finally all dry and warm, but we did it and it was actually really fun (surprisingly) and I felt super cool and accomplished afterwards.

For a few more random photos...

My dad teaching Scooter how to shoot the geese

Emy, Karlie, and Sadie enjoying the sun.

And that's all I got to say about that! It was a good time and we can't wait for next year!



it's harvest time

The last couple weeks have been completely crazy.

Luckily we have slowed down quite a bit for the time being, but life got a bit busy.

Once I got out of school we had a few more parties (more on that later), one last hurrah and then farming started.

I didn't get to help much (read: not at all minus one all-nighter baling sesh) during first crop and I kind of felt bad about it. One night early in June I was climbing into bed not wanting to go to school the next day and I looked out the window and saw all the balers heading out. I felt so bad, like I was missing out! I eventually got over that, but I did have to fill in for Tylee one night. It was the all nighter mentioned above and I started thinking maybe I didn't miss out on so much after all. (Brevan actually came with me that night and stayed awake the entire time. I couldn't believe it. He was so excited to see the sun come up and then completely drooled-all-over-his-coat-he-was-using-as-a-pillow zonked. Laughing at him was the only way I was able to stay awake.)

But then second crop came around and I was definitely involved-more than I was hoping for. Kolton and I didn't see much of each other during those couple weeks. About the only time we saw each other was in between naps and when we'd fall into bed the next morning. We would start baling around midnight-ish and usually went til about 5-ish (we had a few all-nighters this time around too). Then I'd come home, crash for a couple hours (sometimes Kolton would be home, sometimes not) and head back out to do it all again. I was getting quite sick of it and was definitely needing a break, (but mostly needing at least eight hours of uninterrupted sleep) when grain harvest started.

Kolton sat in a combine all day every day (they fell a little behind and would sometimes go til two or three in the morning) and I baled straw and disced and did whatever other odd jobs I needed to all day long. We were so lucky to have our families taking care of us. Our moms each brought us out a lunch and cooked us dinner every night too. We had zero food in our house. Not even milk or eggs, so I couldn't have really cooked anything even if I'd had a spare minute. When I was finally able to get away and get to town my grocery cart was full to the brim. Actually, above the brim. I seriously considered grabbing two carts before I realized that one of me probably couldn't push two carts at the same time. As I was walking out of the store, one arm was loaded down with bags that wouldn't fit on top of the pile in the cart and the other arm was holding down the few items I had managed to haphazardly stack. I'm sure I was quite the sight to see hobbling across the parking lot, but I was just so glad to finally have some groceries!

August was quite the month for us, but we had the best harvest I can ever remember. No rained on hay and beautiful weather for combining. The day after we finished baling straw it poured rain. We were definitely blessed this year.

We still have third crop to go, so we're crossing our fingers and hoping for the best. Most of all we're just glad the craziness of August is behind us.