Saturday, August 30, 2008

Random Baby

Cute pictures and regular life!

Well, my mom just recently sent me some clothes and stuff for Afton, so of course I had to get some pictures. (Thanks for all the clothes, Mom! And the dress fits perfectly!) So I thought I'd tell you all how life is as a student teacher. It's crazy. I have 3 8th grade classes and 1 9th grade class. The cooperating teachers that I have are really good, so that makes it a lot easier. I am slowly going to take over their classes, so I will be teaching novels to all of them. I will teach The Giver, Romeo and Juliet, and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I'm teaching the first one to Ms. Hodge's 8th grade, the next to her 9th grade and the other to Mrs. Clark's 8th grade classes. It's been hard and busy. Afton is being watched by some sisters in our ward, who have volunteered to babysit. It's been so nice and Afton is pretty good so I don't have to worry too much. School will start for Tad on the 8th of September. Then I will be done teaching on the 21st of November and will be observing other teachers until the first week of December. Then we will graduate! The end is near! Oh and I have a huge zuccini, so here's a picture.

Day Trip

Today we went to Mesa Falls with Tad's aunt, Ann and his cousins, Joe, Leah, Katie, Dallin, and Sarah. They had camped out the night before so we just drove up to meet them and headed over to Mesa Falls. We got there and just walked around the path they had. We took tons of pictures. They have this lodge that has all this historical information. They have a couple rooms with animal skins and skeletons. It was pretty interesting. We had a little picnic lunch and there were bees and wasps everywhere. Afton helped me eat a nectarine, which I wish we could have gotten a picture of, but oh well.

2 Year Anniversary

The 25th of August was our 2 year anniversary so Tad and I planned a whole day to go and just be with each other. The best cousin's ever, Joe and Leah, babysat Afton for us the whole day and stayed at our place to sleep. First, Tad and I woke up, got ready and went to the temple. It's been so great to have a temple just 5 minutes away. It is so beautiful. After, we ran to Quizno's for some yummy sandwiches which we ate at the park. We sat and talked about how our lives were different than what we had expected, but how we had been led and guided to be where we are now. Then we headed out to Idaho Falls where we had a hotel room at the Holiday Inn and Suites Express. We checked in and went swimming for a little while. That was fun, just to kind of play around in the pool for a while. Then we took showers and got all ready to go eat dinner at Texas Roadhouse. While we were waiting we went across the street to a little game/arcade place. We played that basketball game where the goal just moves back and forth while you're shooting. I won the first time and Tad won the second. It was enough for me to just beat him! (once) Then we headed back to eat. It was delicious. Although, I got a sirloin steak and told the server I wanted it medium-well and I think she thought I said medium-rare. If I didn't look at it too much before I took a bite, it wasn't too bad. We left very full, but very satisfied. We took it easy after that. We had Dove chocolates, a nice hot tub and watched a movie. The next morning was Stake Conference, so we had to kind of book it because we were in the choir and had to be there at 9. Of course we were late, but the choir sounded beautiful and we got a new married stake up here, which we are now a part of. President Call is the stake president and he's actually a religion teacher here on campus, so we are excited.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Swingin' Baby

Swinging at the Park

I told Tad that we needed to take some pictures of some new stuff soon, so I can do some more bloggin', so we decided to take Afton to the park. They just put up new kid swings. We have a little play/swing set at our complex and I've taken her out there to swing with me a couple times and she loved it. Last night we took a walk to Porter Park and tried out the swings. It was so cute; she was lovin' it! We also tried the slide but that wasn't as appealing as the swings.






We're excited too because Tad has been working this new job for the 7 week break and is getting paid pretty well...and that means Afton will finally get a crib! She's trying really hard to crawl right now, so we figured we better get her something that is at least stable enough for her to crawl around in. Also, Tad and I are going to go down to California for Russell, when he gets home from the mission. Tad will most likely be going for the week with Afton, and I will go down that weekend, because of student teaching. Things are coming together for me to graduate this December, but Tad might have to wait until April to graduate, due to availability with his capstone class. Oh well, one more semester. That will give us a little more time to figure out where we are headed. Oh and one last bit of news: Tad has a calling now. He is the music chair person, which he is super excited about. He doesn't usually get to have a music calling and now that he does, he's very enthusiastic. I'm still trying to hide from the calling scene, but I'm sure something will come soon!