I Guess They're Cute Sometimes

Yes, that little kid in the orange shirt trying to record right in his sister's face is being yoinked back by me ;-p

SOME Differences between teaching 4th and 6th graders

The number of times a week I:
leave the room for a mere 2 minutes and come back to a circus of chaos,
fix a stapler jam,
de-clog the pencil sharpener,
make multiple students stop and clean out their desk to find something,
have a student cry,
have a student have to call home because of "illness" or because of forgetting something,
have to take left jackets and lunch boxes to the lost and found,
have to wipe nasty finger prints off the group table,
have to give reminders about looking at the missing assignment lists

The number of times a day I have to:
hear, "I can't find my pencil",
sharpen a pencil for someone,
say, "sit down, please"/"have a seat"/"stay in your seat"/"don't get up right now",
watch a kid fall out of their chair,
hear, "I'm out of bathroom passes, but can I go to the bathroom?",
stand and wait for long amounts of seconds for everyone to be quiet and pay attention,
hear, "Miss Young...",
be interrupted in the 5 minutes I sit at my desk to accomplish something by at least 3 students forming a line,
say "Go ask someone who was listening",
give reminders about raising hands and not calling out (that's about once a minute),
look out into the sea of kids who should be listening to me or to another student/speaker and instead see:
staring into space
chairs being used as jungle gyms
legs up on the desk
chewing on pencils
picking at skin or clothes
putting arms inside of shirts
pencils being simulated as guns
erasers being eaten
erasers being crumbled into little pieces
licking desks
rulers down the pants (honestly)

Of course I am constantly combating these things (and sometimes trying not to laugh out loud)...I don't just let them happen. But, it's exhausting! 11 more days, 66 more hours...but who's counting

Heavenly Spring Break

And boy do I wish it was still happening! I've only been back at work for like 2 and a half weeks since then and for some reason it's killing me. Seriously, have I mentioned that I totally have an entire gray streak/chunk of hair right in the front of my head? I think six years of classrooms full of children is causing some premature aging. Whatever. One month left.
Anyhow, Spring Break started with a lovely weekend of General Conference and some Easter festivities. Honey and fam were up here from California for Andrea's baptism and Leslie's new baby, Braxton's blessing. I have no pictures from any of these events, which is highly uncharacteristic of me. However, I do have great photos from the trip I later took that week with my roommate Jessica to my homeland. We stopped in Vegas to see Natalie and her cute family. Carson has the best cheeks in America:

We spent some time at Newport Beach with Carrie and her little guys

All of Carrie's children eat sand, it's a family tradition.

The next couple of outings were to an Angel game where we ate delicious garlic fries and changed seats a lot of times and then to Disneyland where we tried to avoid the mass crowds by doing random things:

Like the Shooting Gallery

and the Monte Cristo sandwich at the Blue Bayou

...walking through Chip and Dale's tree house

and taking a quick nap...

But the best event of the weekend was the MS walk at UC Irvine to support Mike, Adriane's husband. He's the bomb and we had a great time on our march! The H.S. crew was there with their kids and I love any chance to see them all!

Adriane and Jude (she has make up on, I do not, lol)

The Fisher

Glen and Mike gearing up

Walkin' it out with Holly

Dallin and Aubrie racing to the finish

Oh and then we met up with Jess's friend, Melissa, and went to Olvera St. in L.A. for some taquitos and to beautiful Hermosa Beach to see Ryan and Kim perform in their a cappella group, Soundstage. They won the competition of course! (We may have stopped at Disney Studios in Burbank to try and sneak in...yes, it was my idea)

Ryan and Kimmy. Their group is amazing! I'm so proud of them!

Some Fam Dam in Town

Took a couple days off work in March, right after Ally's wedding, because my Bro and his great family that I miss so much came into town from Oregon for their Spring Break. We had fun eating and playing games and skiing in a blizzard, and playing lots of pool!

Played with Mamo

Nice day outside, it felt sooo good to throw a softball! I miss it so much!

Uhm, Mathew has a permit, and he drove my car. Weird.

Powder Mountain, freezing!

Ha! Don't mind the sun in our eyes. My brother and I have some classic faces happening...

He was excited, it had been a while for him!

Ally-Baba the Asian Beauty tied the knot!

One of my very best friends, Ally, got married on March 19th to a very tall basketball playing man named Jared. Their wedding was beautiful and unique and perfect blend of basketball at a Hawaiian Luau :-) I was able to be at their sealing in the Bountiful Temple and it was a priceless experience- I love her so much! The overachieving Ally is in the middle of her doctorate in nursing and Jared is a professional basketball player for a team in Mexico (right now it's the off season)...so, we'll see how they work it out, ha ha! But they are happy and a great couple! Jamie, Lisa, Aja, and I got to spend a lot of time together at the various events being unofficial bridesmaids and it was loads of fun!

Oh Man, San Fran!

Open your Golden Gates!

Okay, so I'm clearly behind in this world of blog! Urm, I haven't really read anybody else's either. Something collosal hit the month of March, and half of April...well, lots of things really. It's been a blast mostly, but so busy! Here we go...

Lisa (aka Kitty) and I ran off to San Francisco for a weekend to see Kevin do a twirly ribbon dance in Wicked- oh, and be a monkey and a "oh ee oh ee oh oh" guard. It was quite fun to see him on that stage, in a show I adore so much as a bonus! I cried a lot-I'm very easily proud. And I had a cold straight from hell so I spent the whole weekend holding a box of Kleenex Puffs infused with Vicks! (Those are a blessing, btw) We stayed with Kevin in his apartment and did some other site seeing, including a new Walt Disney museum! Yes, I was in Heaven. We had absolutely perfect weather! It was fan-flippin'-tastic! Some pics? Okay:

Tromped right through the middle of the ST. Pat's parade, ha ha!

Backstage after the show with Eden Espinoza! She's Elphaba...but more importantly, we used to watch her in Anamazement at Disneyland as Pocahontas in the like 1998

Yeah, who would ever want to leave this place?

Muir Woods, an absolutely breathtaking National Park

I read every word this museum, but this little plaque made me cry a little- I'm ridiculous

Don't be fooled by the fact that Kevin looks like he's having a good time.

We ate a little ice cream

My future purple house

Ode to California!

Chillin' with the Homies!!!
Utah winter is not my favorite pastime, and the last couple rare 3-day weekends have kept me in the snowy state for some reason or another...SO when another day off rolled along in the beginning of March, I was quickly on a speedy flight to my sunny happy hometown! Disneyland and best friends were included, of course...and two extra special things happened this time...
1. Funny little Aubrey (Brynn's daughter) accidentally slammed her tiny finger in the bathroom stall at D-land, which turned into a fortunate event because we ended up in the First Aide mini-magical hospital....where we ran into some very important people...who spent some adorable, quality time with us. (And, yes, I am the biggest Disney nerd ever and I did start crying when they walked in)

2. We had big bad girl's night out with no babies and kiddos for the first time since they were all birthed (I LOVE the babies and kiddos, but it was an amazing night!) We went to Islands and then to see Alice in Wonderland (which I thought was B-O-R-I-N-G, but I loved the company). We were causing a raucous at the grocery store buying candy for the movie and the clerk asked us if we were a sorority...ha ha! We are long out of college, but we seem to revert back to our crazy H.S. giggling behaviors when we're all together, and it's so therapeutic!

Michelle, Adriane, Holly, Amber, Breanne, Carrie
me, Brynn