Christmas Pictures

This Week!

This past weekend was a really good weekend! We got a lot of stuff done around our house. We're trying to finish one of the bedrooms in our basement before we have family out for Christmas. So far Brian has wired all of the outlets in the room. And this weekend we both put up the sheet rock for the ceiling. Tonight we may try to put in the insulation for the walls and this weekend sheet rock the walls.



We also watched our Cornhuskers almost pull off an upset against Texas. It was such a good game!! I can't believe we lost with a last second field goal by Texas. We also played with our pets quite a bit this weekend. We get so busy and I feel bad for them. So we made sure we paid extra attention to them. Here's a video of me playing with Sadie. We just discovered that she does not like her paws touched while playing with her toys. You can see her do her funny dance every time I reached for her paw. Also, look at my hair. I really want to do something different with it but I'm such a chicken. Anyone have a good idea for me? I was thinking about getting a loose spiral perm in it again. I don't know though!! Let me know what you think!



Sadly, the squeaker in her duck was torn out by her yesterday. Along with all if it's stuffing!

Today started out as a disappointing day, but ended joyously! We were the only school district from Salina to Lawerence that had to go to school today with all of the snow. Our superintendent received numerous emails and phone calls from irate parents and staff members so he decided to let us out early today. I think he had us come to school because he wanted more money. Schools receive funding based on attendance. And if you close school, there are no students there for attendance and you lose out on money. I hope that money was worth putting our lives in danger. But at least we were able to leave early and we also get tomorrow off!!! I can't wait to bake and scrapbook all day!!!

Busy Weekend!

This last weekend was a very busy weekend. But it was a lot of fun! Friday night, Brian and I had a movie night at home. We absolutely love our set up in the basement. We have surround sound, a pretty big t.v. and a blu-ray player so it's like we're at the movies!!

The next morning I went to Topeka to meet up with Heather and Hadley. They're the family that so graciously allowed me to become part of their family for a few months while I was in Texas and Brian was here in Kansas. Heather's husband, Jeremy had an interview for a residency in Kansas City. So we met up in Topeka for a few hours. It was great to see them.

This is Hadley trying on some new hats! She got to pick which one she wanted. There were some more girlie looking ones, but she chose this one. Not quite sure if it's a monster or if it's supposed to be a shark. Either way, it looks pretty cute on her! She's even posing for me in this first picture, giving me some pursing lips!! Too Cute!

After that, I hurried home to pick up Brian so we could head to Lincoln for the Husker game. Our Cornhuskers beat up on the K-State Wildcats! It's been a game that a lot of my students have been talking about. I'm so glad we won because I would have heard about it for weeks from the kids!

On Sunday we spent the day putting up some of our Christmas decorations. It took almost the entire day! Brian spent a lot of time outside with the lights and I think they look great. I'm very excited for this Christmas. We're having my side of the family out for Christmas this year. Each year it rotates to someone else and we haven't had the chance to host because we've always lived so far from home. But this year is different! It's nice being closer to home!

Sadie likes spending time outside, and she loves giving kisses!!!

Here's Brian giving me a heart attack. Luckily all the lights are up and there were no accidents!

Our NOT so wonderful pets.....

So this past week our animals have been very annoying. Sadie has gotten into this bad habit where she'll start whining in the early hours of the morning wanting us to get up and play with her. She'll carry one of her toys in her mouth (usually her duck) and walk back and forth from my side of the bed to Brian's side of the bed, WHINING! As if I don't get enough of that at school! It's also starting to get REALLY cold here and I'm not enjoying being out in the cold waiting for Sadie to go to the bathroom. Which means Brian does it most of the time. What a guy!

Then there's our cats. This past weekend we woke up at 6:25 AM to the loud sound of glass shattering from in the other room. One of our kitties jumped up on the counter and knocked a drinking glass onto the floor! And then, just today, I came home from work to find one of my nice decorative plates in pieces on the kitchen floor. It was sitting nicely on top of our cupboards, but it doesn't any longer. It now resides in a box in our trash can!!! So sad!

Here's a picture of the pieces of the plate after I swept them up.


And here's the picture of where the plate used to sit on display! Just an empty space there now!


On a lighter note, we bought a new vacuum and I love using it. So it was just another excuse to get it out! It actually picks up all of the pet (and human) hair that used to stick to our carpet. It's truly amazing!

Our Wonderful Pets Surely Keep Us Entertained!

So when Brian's parents came down last week they brought us a nice assortment of pumpkins for our front porch. That night, we went to take Sadie for a walk but when she caught a glimpse of the pumpkins on our front porch she headed straight back inside. She was so scared of the pumpkins. It took a lot of convincing for us to get her to come out. The following is a video of us taking her out the following morning. Not as funny, but you can still see that she doesn't like those scary pumpkins. They're not even carved with scary faces yet!!



PICTURES OF OUR TIRED PETS!!





Kei and David don't act like they like each other sometimes, but we caught them snuggling together one day. It was really cute!


Here's fatty (Kei's official nickname) soaking up the warmth of our fire!

Here's Sadie chasing a laser pointer. It's funny watching her try to paw at it while she's running!

Promotion Ceremony

We finally had Brian's promotion ceremony last Thursday. It was a nice little ceremony. Congratulations Brian!!!

I'm going to complain...

I'm really struggling with my new job here. I knew that I had it good in Texas, and I thought I was prepared for the change...but it's been a lot harder than what I thought it would be. I truly wish I could/can make a good impression on these kids, but it's been so hard to find the motivation. I feel so bad for the few good kids I do have in my classes because my time and patience are taken up by the others.

Most of you know that my pay was cut by over $20,000 per year. I was prepared for this that's not what makes my job so miserable. If that was the reason, I wouldn't have taken the job in the first place. Even if my pay INCREASED by $20,000 I would probably still complain.

I'm at school more than I'm home, which is hard. I take full responsibility for that, I decided I would coach volleyball. I like the head volleyball coach and I like the girls as well. We don't win very many games which kind of makes for a long season. But, we have 3 weeks left so we'll see how my attitude changes once I have more time to spend at home.

Now it's time to tell you a few stories of what has happened in my class. I had to go out and buy most of my own supplies for my classroom, including pens and pencils for the students to use because they don't come to class prepared. Not only do they not return the pen/pencil to my desk once they are done using them, but they CHEW on the ends of them and then try to throw them across the room into the trash can. In one day, I found two of MY pens laying by the trash can with the ends chewed off and a pencil as well!!! So then I decided to not provide them with pens/pencils, but then they don't take notes because they don't have anything to write with.

I give a quiz almost every day and my students know that they can use their notes and homework assignments on these quizzes. They are short and they are SUPPOSED to be easy. So that same day, I was reviewing my Algebra 2 class for their quiz and reminded them that they can use their notes and homework assignment on the quiz, so they should be writing this down. But of course some of them were not. And I was about to erase what I did from the board and they started to complain. So one of my good students said, "she said you can use your notes, you should've wrote it down." So I was standing in front of them and this one boy looks at me and says, "Move!" I was standing in his view of a problem that I had not erased yet and he wanted me to move so he could copy it down quick. I just stood there and looked at him and asked, "How do you ask a teacher to do something?" And his response was, "Fine, I'll just look around you" as he started to shift back in forth in his chair to see around me!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let's see, I have a pregnant girl in a class that has morning sickness so she throws up almost every day in my class so she sits with the trash can right next to her. I've had kids swear at each other, yell across the room at each other, and even stab each other with a pencils!!!!! The kids have no respect for me or one another and it is ridiculous. They expect you to do everything for them, but they won't even TRY to learn for themselves. I had over a 50% failure rate at one point and time so I had to go talk with the principal. So I'm to the point where I'm going to lower my standards and not try so hard because I'm putting in 100% of my time and effort for these kids and they aren't even putting in 50% and I'm tired of it!!!

I'm not the only teacher that feels this way either. There are 2 other teachers that I went through new teacher orientation with and they are seriously thinking of resigning at semester!! They aren't first year teachers, just new to this district like me. The crappy thing is, we have to pay the district for resigning early and apparently you have to continue coming to work until they find a replacement. But I'm not sure if that's in our contract. I know we do have to pay $1,500, but I'm not sure about that second part. All I know is, this is my first and LAST year working for this district!!!!

Sorry for complaining and for being so negative. I try to go in each day with a positive attitude, but it's getting harder and harder each day! On Thursday and Friday I had 3 different kids come up to me at 3 different times asking me if I was okay because I looked sad/tired!!!! And it's a bad thing when your husband makes a comment 3 hours after you've been home saying, "I think that's the first smile I've seen since you've been home!"

It's official!!!

Brian has spent the past two weeks waking up way too early and working way too late!! He's completed two 12 mile ruck marches, a 6 mile ruck march, a 4 mile run, multiple push ups, sit-ups, and he has even repelled out of a perfectly good helicopter. But he is now Air Assault Qualified!!!! There were 293 soldiers that wanted to complete the training, and only 143 graduated. Great job, Brian, I am so proud of you!!!

Some more exciting news, he's going to be promoted to Captain this next month!! Not sure exactly which day yet, but starting next month he'll be getting paid as a Captain. It almost makes up for the pay cut that I took. :)

What we've been up to these past few weeks....

Sorry again for taking so long to make this post. Life has been very busy for us ever since we finally moved into our house!! We've been unpacking boxes almost every night, but I think we have finally gotten to the end of unpacking. So it's now time I update you all on what we've been up to.

We'll start with Brian's work. He is really enjoying his time here working in the clinic. He says it's nice because he's only working with soldiers. He tells me that the dependents are usually the hard ones because we complain a lot!!!! Brian will also be attending air assault school next week. It's a two week course here at Fort Riley and he can't wait to get started.

I on the other hand, am not enjoying my job so much. I knew it was going to be different compared to where I'm coming from, but it's a lot harder than I ever imagined. The school is really old so the way their technology is set up is difficult to work with. My projector is not mounted to the ceiling so I have to constantly step over the cords to the wall. My classroom is right next door to the principals office...and I mean right next door!!! I have a door in my room that goes straight into his room!! So I'm constantly thinking that my kids are being too loud.

I'm coaching volleyball which is not a sport that I'm too familiar with so that's kind of difficult, plus the time I have to spend on it seems worse here because athletics is not an actual period of the school day like it is in San Antonio. Plus we have to travel pretty far ( usually an hour or more) to play other schools. It makes for very long days. I usually leave my house by 6:35 Am and on game nights I don't get home until after 10 PM.

To top it all off, the level the students are at here compared to San Antonio is very low. I can't believe that I'm still teaching Algebra I topics to my Algebra II class and I will be for another month!!!!!!! My geometry students Algebra skills are also very low. It's hard to cover the topics that I'm supposed to when they don't have a basic understanding of the foundation for mathematics!!!!!! I'm done venting for now, hopefully the school year gets better for me. Right now I can definitely say that I will not be teaching here next year.

Now it's time to get to the good stuff!!! Here's a picture of our first night in our new house. We're sleeping on an air matress because our stuff was going to be delivered the next day.

My mom was nice enough to come down that same weekend and bring Sadie with her. Sadie had spent the last few months with Brian's parents. She became their shop dog.

The following weekend we drove up to Lincoln, NE to get the cats from Brian's brother. The cats really got spoiled there. Thanks for taking such good care of them, Todd.

The following weekend we went to a Chief's game. It was a great day for a football game.

And now I'm finally to Labor Day weekend. We had a little house warming party this weekend. We had lunch at the house and then we headed out for the lake. Ed and Deb brought their boat down and we took our jet ski out on the lake as well. I think everyone had a great time.

My good friends, Karen and Randy made the drive down. It was great seeing you guys again!!!

Here's Jennifer showing us all how to ski. Jennifer is a friend of mine from work. She's really one of the only math teachers that I talk to.

Here's Brian's Aunt Judy enjoying some sun.

Here's a picture of my dad getting up on the skis.

I think this may be a picture of Ed looking back at me as I attempted to get up on the skis. It took me probably 3 tries before I finally made it up.

Thanks to Ed and Deb for bringing the boat down, it really made the weekend that much more fun!

It was nice that Aunt Judy made the trip down. She even had the chance to drive Ed's boat! Go Judy!

Here's my dad trying to dump his mom (Nan). Be nice dad!!!!!

Nan and Dean made the trip down as well. I'm really glad they stayed for the boat ride.

Here's my big catch for the day. This is probably the biggest fish I've ever caught. It was a lot of fun trying to reel this one in. I even held it up ( and I hate touching a fish).

My college roommate, Alicia made it down for the get together as well. Thanks for coming Alicia!

Another beautiful sunset on the lake! We're really going to enjoy being so close to this lake!

In all, it was a great weekend!! I just wish I had one more day to recover from all of the fun! We hope everyone else enjoyed their Labor Day Weekend as well!!

Quick Update

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, life has been very busy these past few weeks!!! I started work the 3rd of August. However, we just got kids this week. I still can't tell if I'm going to like the school that I'm at. But I do know that I really miss working at Reagan right now!!!!! I know I said that I wouldn't coach this year, but if you know me well enough you probably could guess that I didn't stick to that plan. I'm coaching volleyball and softball. I may even be the head softball coach. We'll see towards the end of September. That's when they'll have their interviews.

This past week we also FINALLY closed on our house!!! YAY!!!!! No more hotel rooms!! No more hearing our neighbors until 3 in the morning. No more paying $2.50 for each load of laundry. ($1.25 to wash and $1.25 to dry) No more getting locked out of our room because our card became deactivated somehow! There are many reasons why we are so happy to finally have our home!!! Now we just need to unpack all of the boxes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thankfully, my mom came down this past weekend to help us. She also brought Sadie down too. We got a lot accomplished, but there are many boxes that we haven't even touched in the garage. It was so nice that the movers just piled EVERY SINGLE BOX in our garage. Heaven forbid they set them in the right room, or even just inside the house somewhere!! Oh well, we are slowly but surely getting things put away.

We hope you all are doing well!! Just two more days left of this work week, and back to the grind of unpacking! :)

Fishing

Brian went fishing almost every weekend while I was still working down in San Antonio. And I knew that once I got here he would want to continue. I enjoy fishing too...just not every weekend! So here are a few pictures of us fishing in a river.

I was having issues with getting it snagged on the bottom. It was really frustrating. Brian ended up spending half the time getting my line untangled! Needless to say, we didn't stay at the river for too long. After I stopped trying, Brian got his line snagged as well! It was kind of funny!

So after the river, we went to try the lake. This was much better! However, the spot we picked was kind of tricky to get to. We had to climb down these huge rocks to get to the lake. And some of them were pretty wobbly.

But we made it!

And I even caught a fish!

The sunsets here in Kansas are gorgeous! Watching this sunset was the best way to end our day.