Student Teaching

Student Teaching is over! 

Now I'm busy trying to catch up with EVERYTHING. Spring cleaning, blogging, cooking, etc. etc. I loved those kids and it was so hard to leave but I have really enjoyed my newfound freedom and only having self appointed assignments and deadlines. 

As I've mentioned before, student teaching was a wild four month long roller coaster. One day I'd be on top of the world loving every second of what I was doing and the next I'd be down in the dumps pretty sure I was accomplishing nothing. And I didn't even get any pictures of any of it! 

I was amazed through the entire experience how much I grew to love those kids. Yes, some of them made me want to pull out my hair and drove me absolutely batty on a daily basis, but I really did love them all. They made me laugh and cry and smile and definitely kept me on my toes. 

A few things that I don't want to forget:

1. "How much stuff can you stuff in a stuffie til your stuffie's stuffed full of stuff?"

2. Being so proud of the power class' stories after they worked so hard on them and I had read through thousands and thousands and thousands of rough drafts. 

3. Standing at the door to welcome them in mornings and getting some smiles, some "Good mornings!" back, some grunts, some no eye-contacts, and some ignoring me completely. 

4. Every Monday morning when we would share what we had done that weekend. Some of the stories I was a bit skeptical in believing. Especially when one kid told me he had been to court after jumping his motorbike too high. Still undecided on that one...

5. I would also share what I had done on the weekend prompting one kid to exclaim "You always say you clean your house." Yeah kid, growing up is not all that fun. 

6. Our dirt bike gang. 

7. When a sub would show up and the kids would be absolutely out of control and I would become Mrs. Grumpy in Residence. 

8. Giving 5 boys a serious behavior/attitude talking to and having my hands shake before, during, and after because I had been so nervous. 

9. Reading The Westing Game and having the kids be so dang excited about it. They would talk about the book outside of class and would groan and sigh and completely fall apart when I told them we had to stop reading for the day.

10. Teaching my Adjectives Unit with my freaky bobblehead cat, cinnamon rolls, poems, and being so proud of how well they did on the final test.

11. Constantly getting the best advice and help from Brianna.

12. The power class kids asking me almost every day if they were going to play dodgeball. 

13. Getting asked at least 5 million times if they were going to change seats. 

14. Going on the night skiing trip and giving Kolton a little taste of what I did every day. Also Kolton being embarrassed when I asked the kids to please not break their necks. 

15. Painting fierce stripes on the kids' faces for football day. 

16. Laughing about their antics (The only other option was crying or going crazy)

17. A group of boys' whose sole purpose was to try to get a reaction out of me. 

18. Getting letters back from the authors we wrote to and how excited the kids were about it. 

19. Our snowball fights. 

20. When you could absolutely and positively tell that it was either Monday or Friday based on the kids' behavior. 

Okay so that was more than a few, but there are just so many things that stand out in mind. It was such a great experience even through all the good and the bad and I tried my hardest to soak up every minute of it. I am so grateful for those four months and getting to spend so much time with those kids. We all learned a LOT (I hope they did anyway...) 

The Raspberry Pretzel Jell-o Incident

So lately we have had quite a few family parties. At every family party we have, there is always that pretzel raspberry jell-o stuff. I really love it, so it's definitely more than okay, but every time I eat it, I can't help but have a blast from the past...

 

 

I was in highschool and had just attended a friend's farewell. I was a little intimidated because this friend had many other attractive friends. I had gotten myself all dolled up and was enjoying my lunch outside. The wind was blowing, but it was still a nice little afternoon. I just kept food on my plate and water in my cup and everything stayed where it needed to on the table.

 

Someone sitting a little ways away from me was not so smart.

I'm sitting there eating a very large helping of yummy potatoes when I hear a little yelp down the table, and the next thing I know, a plate comes flapping up and smacks me in the side of the head.

The plate flapped away, but I was left with a hairful of raspberry pretzel jell-o.

 

I sat there for a second in disbelief as everyone else at the party stopped for a second and stared at my hair full of jell-o and whipped cream. Then a few people grabbed me and hurried me off to the bathroom to help me clean up. By this time I was laughing a little uncontrollably. I was just imagining what everyone else saw: a plate flying through the air, hitting me smack on the head, and the look that surely must have been on my face. This picture show in my mind was cracking me up and I couldn't stop laughing. The ladies (complete strangers, by the way) who were picking the jell-o, whipped cream, raspberry, and pretzels, out of my hair kept saying they couldn't believe I was laughing.

I didn't tell them this, but I'm pretty sure laughing was the only thing keeping me from crying at that point.

Eventually I got cleaned up and only had a slight pink tint to my hair so I went back to the party.

 

 

Ever since that incident, every time I eat raspberry pretzel jell-o I can't help but smile to myself and wonder why on earth these kind of things are always happening to me. 

Bloody H-E-Double Hockey Sticks

So the other day we were driving into town to meet up with my parents for dinner, run some errands, go grocery shopping, and other unpleasant such things. (minus the part where we met up with my parents. That was pleasant of course!)

So we are on the freeway about ten or so minutes out of town and I started complaining to Kolton about how badly I needed to blow my nose but there were exactly zero kleenex in my car. I had checked every pocket and nook and cranny but there were none.

I've been recovering from a death cold for the third time already this year. I think it's time to start using hand sanitizer on a regular basis! Those germy kids at school...

 

So I don't want to be completely gross, but for lack of kleenex and being sick of sniffing, I finally reached for a piece of paper on the floor and used that instead.

Gross.

and almost completely ineffective.

 

As if that wasn't bad enough, suddenly I had an unstoppable bloody nose. Yuck! And no kleenexes in sight. So I start ripping the same piece of paper into chunks and put it up to my nose to staunch the flow. Then I lean my seat way back and order Kolton to get off the first exit and to the nearest gas station.

I didn't have to tell him twice. He put the pedal to the medal and got us to a gas station within minutes. Then he jumped out of the car and ran into the men's bathroom and stole me a roll of toilet paper. By this time my nosebleed has mostly stopped and now I have dried blood all over my nose and mouth and cheeks and it was real nasty but also really funny.

And I really don't know why these kind of things always happen to me.

Maybe to remind myself not to take life so seriously...

I dunno. 

On Potato Guns, Wreaths, and Unspoken Expressions

So it's no secret that our relationship while dating was up and down and all over the place (mostly because I have fully disclosed all events that happened during that time).

Side note: I actually came upon a brilliant idea the other day to go back as far as possible in Kolton's emails to see if I could find any he had written to his missionary brother while we were dating to see what he had said about me. Jackpot! He definitely had a lot to say. Unfortunately, most of it was not exactly what I wanted to hear. That's what happens when you get snoopy, I guess!

Anyway...

So all summer long Kolton had been a tiny bit (HA!) indecisive. That kid could NOT make up his mind and he was driving me batty. But I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted and wasn't going to give up on us so easily. Which I should maybe be a little embarrassed about. I should have made him work for it a bit, but I was never that type of girl.

ANYWAY.

All summer long Kolton hadn't quite made up his mind about where he wanted to go with this thing we were doing. When he tried to break it off two days before I left for school I didn't even try to argue with him to the contrary. I told him to go home and when he had made up his mind to let me know but that I was leaving and wanted a decision before I left.

Like I mentioned before, he was back the next day. After every almost breaking up instance Kolton told me he would go home, settle down, think about things and realize that he could relax and just see where this would go.

On the morning that I left for college Kolton came over to show off his potato gun that he had spent the morning building. We finally said our goodbyes and with my car stuffed to the max, I was off.

When I FINALLY got to Provo I was missing my family, missing Kolton, and wondering if I had made the right decision. I had been debating whether or not I should go back to school but had finally decided that it would be the best decision even though it would be hard.

But sitting in my car at the Riviera, all I wanted to do was turn around and drive right back home. I finally did get out of my car and headed up to my apartment. When I saw the pretty wreath hung on the door and said door opened to my favorite Kelsee giving me the biggest and best welcoming hug I could have asked for, I knew I had made the right decision.

My roommates all helped me unload my car and get settled. An hour or two into my unpacking, Kolton called.

And again, I knew that I had made the right decision in coming to school.

That boy MISSED me. Even though he never said it, I could tell.  

And that was a really good little minute. I realized that he would miss me just as much as I would miss him and that maybe this was going somewhere serious after all. 

Summer of Love III

 Summer 2010 was going to be the best summer of my life. It turned out to be the worst, but still had its moments.

Even though a lot of things happened, these are some of the things that I remember best from that summer.

1. Kolton and I went to dinner and a movie (Salt) with some married friends. The movie ended at nine and I figured we would all hang out for a bit afterwards. I was wrong! Those married friends were outta there! (I completely understand this now) Where Kolton and I were still unmarried we did not quite understand this and still wanted to hang out for a bit before heading home to our separate houses. We ended up going out for ice cream and sitting outside on Kolton's tailgate while we ate it. I don't know why this was so fun, but it just really was and I always think about it. We were just sitting outside, eating ice cream and visiting on a perfect summer night.

2. I worked at the Mud Lake Market that summer and I loved it when Kolton would walk in at the end of my shift to take me on a date or something of the like.

3. One day during my lunch break at the MLM, Kolton called me up and invited me to come with him and some mission friends to the wedding reception of one of his mission friends. Of course I agreed and ended up rearranging my schedule so I could get off a bit earlier than usual. He came to pick me up and after a bit of talking, we realized that the reception was a few hours further away than we had originally thought. We ended up still meeting with the friends and eating at Mama Inez in Pocatello. I'm pretty sure you have an idea how very much I enjoyed that.  

4. Another favorite is one night when Kolton was on his way home from a mission reunion. I hadn't seen him all day and he was headed home late at night. I'm sure all he wanted to do was go home and go to bed, but he stopped outside my house on the way home and said hey before going home and going to bed. 

5. One night when we were in the thick of second crop Kolton came out to ride with me in the baler. They had finished a few days before but for some reason he wanted to see how it was done on the Newman farm. I told him what field we were in and he came running to the tractor when I got close to where he had parked. He had brought plenty of snacks including popcorn (my favorite!) and some Motrin for my headache. It wasn't a super long baling sesh, but I loved visiting and snacking, and loved it even more when he told me I was going to slow, took over the wheel, and let me sit in the buddy seat.

5.5 Before we headed back to school, we had a bit of business to take care of. Mostly Kolton. He got a day off work and we spent it running errands like finding an apartment among other things. I don't know why I enjoyed this day so much but it was just fun to run around town and make semi biggish decisions together. Although I did think it was unfortunate we were looking for men's housing instead of married. 

6. Not exactly a good memory, but still definitely important was right after Brody died. I remember thinking that someone needed to tell Kolton because I needed him there. When he did show up he just hugged me and cried and let me cry. He did this repeatedly over the next few weeks, months, and still does. He just hugs me, gives me the comfort I need, and lets me cry. He doesn't try to tell me that it's all going to be okay or that he knows how I feel, or that it will all work out some day, he just lets me cry. And that has meant more than anything.

7.  On the way home from yet another friend's reception, we were driving, laughing, teasing, joking, and I started thinking about how much fun I always had with him, how much I enjoyed being with him, and how easy it was being together. I realized that what I had been wondering about recently was true and I didn't have to wonder about it anymore. We went to my house and hung out for a bit. As he was getting ready to leave we were standing by the front door. Supposedly, this is something that should be easy to say, but it took me over twenty minutes to finally work up to courage to say it. He was trying to leave, but I wouldn't let him open the door until it was out in the open."I love you, Kolton." He said it back, but what meant even more was a couple weeks later when he was leaving and said it FIRST.

It's a Good Thing I Love Him

So since I started Student Teaching I have been a bit busy and super unmotivated to cook dinner. I had a hunch that this was going to happen and therefore spent a couple days during Christmas Break making up some freezer meals to stick in the crockpot or oven after a long day at school.

 

When Kolton saw me making these meals he made the comment that maybe I shouldn't stockpile so many because we didn't know for sure if we'd actually like it and he wanted to avoid a freezer full of unwanted meals. I didn't listen to closely to him because I figured having a meal that we had to choke down might at least be marginally better than Cheerios for dinner.

 

In truth, we have liked many of the meals that I made and they have been super nice to have around. However, (of course) one night I had stuck some honey, soy sauce, can't even remember the rest of the weird ingredients, chicken in the crockpot. It smelled okay when I got home and I wasn't as worried about it as I had been when I had prepped it that morning.

 

Kolton didn't so much like it, however. He informed me that the chicken looked too much like the formaldehyde soaked body parts he had dealt with in his cadaver lab at school to be edible.

 

Honestly, the chicken wasn't my favorite but it was fine. He wouldn't eat more than two bites.

I was tempted to be a little hurt or offended until I remembered (or was reminded) that he eats everything and never complains about the taste. If he wasn't eating this meal, it must really bring back unpleasant memories.

So I let it slide.

And I have no idea what I'm going to do with the other bag of frozen honey/soy sauce chicken sitting in our freezer. 

The Day of Loving

Is it bad that each Valentine's Day we have been married we have become more and more lame?

Probably.

On this Valentine's Day we had both been busy busy in the days leading up to it. Kolton had been trucking to Boise and I was busy wrangling 52 ten year olds every day. (He wonders why I come home EXHAUSTED every night...) On the 13th, I finally made it into Rexburg to do a little shopping along with a million other errands. I stopped by Deseret Book to grab a birthday present for Tylee and saw that they had a little display of Florence's Chocolates. We love chocolates and have been using our Christmas box as an after church snack. Every Sunday when we come home from church and are getting out of our fancy clothes and into our sweatpants ASAP, we allow ourselves to eat one chocolate apiece. (This usually turns into me sneaking another one and then talking Kolton into having another one too. It's near impossible to eat just one!)

 

But for this Valentine's I decided to really be choosy and give Kolton the "Nut and Caramel Only" box of chocolates (For real though-who even eats those cream ones? Usually they are the ones left in the box with approximately one bite taken out of them.) to replace our old box that we have finished the previous Sunday.  

I was hoping he would be sharing with me.

Obviously.

 

Then, when I ran to Wal-Mart to grab some other errands, after hunting through the ENTIRE store to find a big bag of Hershey Kisses (for my class party) I stumbled across the bin of $5 movies. After sorting through a bunch of trashy never-even-made-it-to-the-theatre-but-went-straight-to-DVD movies, I hit the jackpot.

I came home with Last of the Mohicans (Kolton's favorite-we have had his parents' copy for over a year now...) and by the way, DID finally find my kisses. After I checked out, of course.

 

When I made it home that night it was late and I crashed after setting my alarm for 3:30 the following morning. I was hoping to get my stuff set out after Kolton fell asleep but before he left in the truck that morning.

Bad Idea.

I did wake up on time and was efficiently sneaky, but after setting out my little lame gift I COULD NOT go back to sleep. I tossed and turned for another hour at least until Kolton's alarm went off.

When he was walking out the door I did manage to stumble, bleary-eyed, into the kitchen to wish him a happy day. Only then was I FINALLY able to go back to sleep. (Nothing irritates me more than lying awake in bed)

 

When I woke up again, I saw that Kolton had left out a pretty little potted rosebush. (It's kind of tradition.) and wrote me a sweet little note on the whiteboard. (That he erased when he got home that night. Not happy about this!)

 

Teagan came over to hang out with us and we played a couple thousand rounds of Wizard, popped in a movie, and that was our day! Nothing too exciting, but it definitely worked for us. Nice and relaxing worked just right for this year.