Love story

It is unfortunate how long it's been since I wrote about our lovely love story...

Once I got back to BYU I got right back into the swing of things. My roommates were wonderful and I just really loved them a lot. I even started a blog ( yep, this one) and of course I was talking on the phone to kolton every night. And just like the first night back I realized that he was missing me. ( and I missed him a little too) I had lucked out with my schedule and didn't have class on Fridays so it worked out really nice for me to go home on Thursday nights and spend the weekend in Monteview. And I did that. A lot. My poor car got many miles put on her during this time. 

One night while I was talking on the phone to kolton he said something like, "we'll how are we suppose to find a ring if you are in Utah?" And then I died and answered with some stupid yet witty comeback probably. I remember hanging up the phone and then FREAKING out to my roommates. In a good way, but I just was so happy that we had finally reached the point to talk about ring shopping rather than whether or not we should break up. 

That was a good day. 

After that I put together a little plan. I had told kolton that I had a bunch of stuff to do that weekend and wouldn't be able to come home. But I just wanted to surprise him and I definitely wanted to be available for that whole ring shopping thing. And he believed me. 

When Thursday finally came around I went straight to rexburg ( I had started doing that a lot on my way home) to koltons apartment. He was not home his roommate informed me. So I told the roommate that I had wanted to surprise him and I would be back in an hour. I went to a friends apartment and visited with her and called kolton to see what he was up to. I was so very sneaky. 

When I knew he was home i headed over to his apartment and knocked on the door. It took a minute but finally he answered. (He told me later that he was back in the kitchen and his roommates were all sitting by the door but no one got up to open it. I loved that they were working with my plan!) anyway...we're standing on the doorstep and he seriously just looks at me for like thirty seconds before he realizes what is happening. And the. He was so so happy. He hugged me like twenty times and told me I had armed myself a nice dinner so we went out to eat. That was a good day. 

So....

So...a few random facts about life lately. 

1. For some odd reason the kids at school seem to think that kolton is  the coolest. They told me the other day that when I need a sub I should just get kolton to do it. I informed them that I am  waaaay cooler than kolton and that every night when I tell him about what happens at school he says..."I could not do that" (referring to about every aspect of teaching.) I was talking to kolton about this epidemic and he informed me that it was probably because he brought the potato gun to school. I then informed him that it was MY idea in the first place and the potato gun would never have made it to school if it weren't For ME. What can a person do to get some appreciation around here!! *

2. I made the sickest ever lemonade for mutual the other night. A whole gallon and a half of it (at least) I told the girls not to drink it because it was gross but they did anyway. One girl suggested that we all fill our cups and then do our own little Fear Factor. Thanks. 

3. While I was in the midst of making that lemonade i.e. squeezing a billion lemons by hand, I was also in the midst of making quest dip (that turned out to be delicious) and since I was distracted I burned a thick layer of velveeta to the bottom of the pan that took two days of scrubbing and soaking before it was clean. 

4. Because I am the meanest teacher in the world the kids at school had to memorize the preposition song and sing it in front of the class. I was so nervous for them and felt so bad ( I cried a little that night) because they were so dang nervous. Their voices were shaking and oh, I just felt awful. But all of them did really well. One student in particular I was especially proud of. He stood up at the beginning but got stuck and then just stopped and sat back down. At the very end of class I asked if he wanted to try again and he said yes. He did the whole thing perfectly and the rest of the class clapped so loud for him when he was done. That was a good moment. These kids are just the sweetest. 

  

5. For koltons birthday I got him Netflix and it has kind of transformed our lives. No more five dollar movie bins at Walmart! We can get any of those weird ole shows and watch them once instead of buying them and never watching them again. It's fabulous.

6. Speaking of weird old movies....kolton bought Groundhog Day and we watched it the other night. Oh my stars, I was ready to strangle someone by the end of that show. It is pure torture masked as entertainment. 

The end. 

*it really doesn't bother me that they love kolton. It actually melts my heart a little bit. 

A Day in the Life

I figure it would be a good idea to give a little snapshot of our life as of now. 

Every morning I roll out of bed at the last possible second. Most of the time laying in bed is spent pushing the snooze button and trying to figure out how to do my hair in the fastest way possible so I can get some more minutes of mattress time. Really I should just get up. I realize this. 

When I finally do get outta bed I get ready for school and then as I'm rushing out the door late as usual, Kolton hands me my breakfast (usually a breakfast sandwich or smoothie) and my peanut butter and jam sandwich for lunch and I head off to school and he heads off to work. 

Once I get to school I have a half hour ish of prep time before the kids come in. I always brush my teeth once I get to school on account of eating breakfast on the way to school and then just take a few deep breaths to prepare for the chaos of the day. 

When the bell rings I stand at the door and say hi to my power class as they come in. In half an hour my morning class will come in and I'll spend about five minutes trying to get them calmed down and working. Yes, I realize I should have nipped this in the bud in like, the first week of school. But we are working on it! 

Then we do spelling, English, and Literature Circles. All of this is punctuated by a lot of me saying, "Shhh..." "Listen" etc. Actually I don't say a lot of that. Well, I guess I do but most of what I do now is hold up a timer and the kids can shush themselves. We add up all the time we have earned the subtract the time we lost when we're talking etc. and then on Fridays we'll play games or have recess or just do whatever the heck we want. It's pretty fun and works like a charm for these kids. Like, seriously. Every day I am so grateful that I ended up keeping a random textbook and rereading it this summer to find this idea. Pure genius, and I can't even take the credit for thinking it up. But it has sure saved me. 

Then we have lunch. Depending on the day I either grade papers and plan lessons or just sit quietly in my chair enjoying the silence and calm. Usually the latter. That morning class sure gives me a run for my money. I feel like I am barely one step ahead of them most of the time. They just really love life! :)

After lunch I take either the morning or afternoon class depending on the day to the computer lab for keyboarding. Because I am the meanest teacher in the world I give them the little cardboard covers that go over the keys and they work on their typing lessons. 

Then the kids leave for P.E. for half an hour before the afternoon class comes in and I start the day over from the top. Except there is a lot less shushing for this class. They can get kind of wild, but for the most part are much calmer than the morning. I'm so glad I have them in the afternoon because I can leave school feeling like a decent teacher. 

After school I stay until about 4 doing the lesson planning and grading that didn't happen during lunch and then I head home. 

Once I get home I plant myself on the couch and don't move for two hours. Seriously. It's kinda bad. If I have a lot of ambition I will cook dinner. I've actually gotten a lot better at that since the new year. I cook dinner most nights now. 

Then Kolton comes home and if he doesn't have a church or EMT meeting we eat dinner together and then usually end up watching a few episodes of King of Queens. Usually much of that time is spent telling Kolton about every tiny aspect of my day and if it's a particularly good day he will tell me more about his day than "I don't know. " And then we go to bed! (After I've talked Kolton's ear off and he's half asleep of course.) And that's that!

Clumsy

I have been so clumsy lately! I don't even know what my deal is but it's makin me crazy!

 

The other night I went to the kitchen before bed to get a drink. I filled my glass clear full of water and then went to reach for it and knocked the whole thing over spilling water all over the counter. So dumb.

 

Last night we were cleaning up dinner and I put all the leftovers in a container so I could take them to lunch today because I am getting awful sick of peanut butter and jam sandwiches every. single. day. So I carefully spooned all the pasta in a container and then somehow, I'm still not sure how it happened, the container slipped and I tried catching it and ended up holding it upside down as all the contents plopped onto the floor. Now that's enough to just tick a person off.

 

And then just about every day I trip over my own feet as I am walking around my classroom. Luckily the kids are usually working so hopefully too many of them don't notice how dumb their teacher is.

 

And that's all I got to say about that. 

Those Kids!

Man, these 5th graders sure keep me busy. I feel like I am just trying to stay one step ahead of them all day and by the end of the day I am just exhausted. But it is sure fun!

Just for an update for what has been happening in the life of Mrs. Hansen...

 

-One day I told the kids that I was going on a date with my husband that night and one kid piped up, "Are you gonna kiss him!" He said it all suggestively like that was the grossest thing we could do. I said, "I sure hope so!" and he turned the brightest shade of red. It killed me.

 

-Every Monday I have them share with the class what they did over the weekend and one kid always tells the biggest stories. He climbs on the roof and his mom starts the kitchen on fire and his sister falls down the stairs and just all sorts of crazy stuff. One day Brevan said to me, "Do you think any of ________ stories are really true?" Very few, I answered. But it still cracks me up and I always brace myself when it's his turn to share.

 

-We are having a read-a-thon tomorrow and I am really excited about it! We are also going to celebrate all the kids who have summer birthdays and I just think it's going to be so awesome.

 

-We had parent teacher conference and did a student led conference and it was AWESOME! The kids had portfolios and we practiced and practiced and practiced what they were going to say and it was just so fun to see them seated at the table with their parents and explaining everything they have been learning. It was so neat, even though the kids claimed we were trying to torture them.

 

-We were learning about writing letters and where to put the commas in the greeting and so forth so we wrote a letter as a class. I had the kids vote on who they wanted to write to and they decided on Kolton! I have no idea why but they sure think he's the coolest! They wrote him this letter:

Dear Kolton,

         We enjoyed your potato gun. What is your job? How are you? How did you hurt your knee? What kind of motorbike do you have? Kolton, have you shot your 223 gun?  We would like to see your potato gun, your puppy,  your knee, and your awesome dog house. Write back to us.

                        Sincerely Yours,

                      Your Wife’s Best Class 5A

 

He replied with this letter:

Dear My Wife's Best Class 5A,

    It was very good to hear from you! I was definitely not expecting a letter from you, but it was a pleasant surprise. I am glad that you enjoyed helping me shoot off my potato gun. It was fun for me too, and if I hadn't shot it with you, I probably wouldn't have shot it this year. It will probably be collecting dust in the garage until the next time I have someone to show it to.

     I am doing really good, and thanks for asking. For my job, I farm with my dad. We grow hay, barley, wheat, and raise a few cows. Right now we are doing some mechanic work and getting ready to start planting in the spring.

     My knee is doing better. Almost all of the soreness is out of it, and I will probably take the last of the stitches out tomorrow night. I will do it myself because I am super tough and have crazy medical skills. I have a 2010 Honda CRF 450 which I obviously can't ride because that is how I hurt my knee. It bucked me off and a rock jammed into my knee clear to the bone.

     I have attached a few pictures that I will let my lovely wife show you. It was good to hear from you, and I hope that you are good kids for Mrs. Hansen or you will be hearing from me again!

Sincerely,

Kolton

 

I thought it was just the cutest and funniest thing ever.

 

-The other class decided to write to Mr. Mackay. I had the letter pulled up on the projector and had just typed Dear Mr. when the door opened and all the kids freaked out! When I saw it was Mr. Mackay I freaked out a little bit too! So we were all just spazzing out and all the kids were pointing at him and gasping and I said "Oh!" about a million times and he just looked at us like we were crazy. It was so funny.

-I had to film myself teaching today for an evaluation and I set up the camera and was nervous about how the kids would behave with that tiny little distraction in the room so I told them that the principal had asked me to film them to see how they were behaving and they were complete angels! We might have to do that more often!

-Anyway! Things are going good! I just really love these kids even though I get frustrated and maybe even grumpy some days they really are the greatest. They are so fun and definitely keep me on my toes. The other day I missed half the day but came back in the afternoon and when I walked in all the kids said hi and were so glad to see me and it just really made my day! Goll, teaching is great!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Baby Emmeline and Birthdays!

December-January is a busy month with the Hansen's. It's just birthday after birthday after birthday.

December 20th-Teagan

December 30th- Sandra

December 31st-Emmeline

January 11th-Kirt

January 15-Shannon

It's just crazy and and the birthday madness reaches clear into March. So we usually try to do a bunch of birthdays at the same time rather than doing it about every other day. Last Sunday we got together for the birthday thing and we also got to meet Baby Emmeline for the first time. She was so tiny and sweet!

We had to do a size comparison picture with tiny baby and gigantaur baby. Daegon is a monster! And even has chub on his fingers!

Then Kolton told me to get on the floor so we could do a real size comparsion. 

Madi is 6!

There's always lots of help when it comes to unwrapping the presents...

A Very Merry Christmas

Holy cow. 

December was so packed with parties, food, gifts, and I hardly took any pictures. 

But here's the rundown. 

1. We had a ward Christmas party with Santa and all. My dad was chosen to sit on Santa's lap and did a rendition of Buddy the Elf when he found out Santa was coming to Gimbles. He yelled "SANTA!" and hopped all the way up to the stage from the audience. And a month later I still haven't quit laughing about it. 

2. There was an ambulance Christmas party that we attended. I made yummy potatoes that turned out to be not so yummy after all and it was embarrassing. 

The month was pretty calm (as calm as December gets anyway amid the shopping, school, and everything else) until the 21st. And then we were really busy.

21st- Our anniversary! We celebrated by being apart from each other all day. I made chocolates with my mom and Kolton went to a family party. That night we finally got together and had our annual (two years in a row!) couple's Christmas party at the Simmons'. It was full of good friends and food and hilarious and inappropriate white elephant gifts. So of course it was a good time. Kolton and I got this little gem:

Also we agreed a long time ago...about two years ago in fact, on our first anniversary, that we were not going to give gifts to each other. And Kolton broke the rule! I was mad at him but not really. He gave me a book I've been wanting and a beautiful little bowl from Anthropologie. That stinker! 

22nd- After church we headed up to Island Park for the Newman family party. We stayed overnight and enjoyed spending time together, snowmobiling, and just relaxing at our favorite place on earth. Kolton went on a big manly snowmobile ride and fell in love with it...oh boy. 

23rd-We came home from the cabin, showered, cleaned the house, and had visiting teachers come all within a matter of about two hours. Then we headed over to Hansens' because Ethan was calling from Guam! We talked to him for a good hour and got a kick out of the delayed internet. We would say something and five seconds later he would laugh. It was quite funny and really good to see and talk to him! Then we had a big dinner and I took charge of the yummy potatoes and they were actually yummy! It was a good day. When we got home that night Kolton had the brilliant idea to bring our bed into the front room so we could watch a movie out there and sleep by the Christmas tree. And it was so fun! I just really loved it.

24th-I put together our neighbor gifts while Kolton went to wash his pickup. In the middle of all that he got an ambulance call and had to take off so I was in charge of delivering. Luckily Addi came along with me and we were able to get it all done. That night we went over to Hansen's and spent Christmas Eve with them. We had different kinds of soups and breadsticks and watched a movie and opened pajamas and it was nice! Then we came home and stuffed stockings for each other and opened them and slept by the tree again. And Kolton had warned me ALL month about how lame his stocking stuffers were going to be and they totally were NOT. He did good! I was lame, however. But he did get an airsoft gun so I figured that made up for the rest of the lameness.

Christmas!-We started out at the Hansen's and opened all our gifts and couldn't even all fit in the front room because we're all so dang spoiled and got so much! Then we headed to my parents where the kids had to wait until we got there to open their presents. They were a little anxious to say the least. We did all that and then my Grandpa and Quenalee came out and we feasted on leftover shrimp and twice baked potatoes and cheeseballs and whatever else we could find. It was delicious. Then we all honestly laid down and took a couple hours nap. I couldn't believe it, but it was so nice! The sleeping by the tree idea was fantastic in theory, but in actuality we didn't sleep all that great so a nap was needed. Then we were in the middle of waking up when Tylee called! We got to skpe with her also which was so fun. It was just like she was there with us. We talked for about two hours which was probably too long, but how can you just hang up on them!? That was one of the best parts of Christmas. After that we snacked a little more and then went to the cemetery. And that was Christmas Day!

After Christmas we went to Island Park for a few days. (My favorite place on Earth) We snowmobiled, cross country skiied, and mostly just relaxed. And ate. And I finished a couple books. Kolton went on a big manly snowmobile ride and promptly fell in love with the sport. It was quite an expensive ride as a couple days later when we were in town returning some Christmas stuff and doing other business he and his dad bought themselves some snowmobiles!

After that little expensive venture we went up to Kilgore to the new Hansen cabin. We spent a couple days there snowmobiling, reading, and sledding with the kids. Baby Emmeline decided that New Year's Eve would be a great time to make her appearance so Shannon and Bear were not at the cabin even though their kids were.
Kolton even went all out and he and Teagan built themselves a little snow cave. It was an all day kind of project but it was sure neat when it was done. They even slept in it...for half the night. :)

We went home New Year's Day and then started up school the next day! It was quite the busy little break, but we had such a good time with family and friends.