Just Catching Up

It's been awhile! A lot has happened since my last post. I finished with the kindergarten, and as much as I complained and had a hard time with that month of my life, I really do miss the kids. In fact, I just had a dream about them last night. They are super sweet! Yesterday, I was at the school and I saw one of the kids (they have free breakfast and lunch for the kids enrolled in the school all summer long!) that gave me a really hard time. It was so funny though because when he saw me, he got really excited and smiled as he waved frantically at me! As I smiled and waved back, I was thinking, "Do you not remember how defiant you were to me and how much you NEVER listened to me?" It's funny because even though he gave me such a hard time, I enjoyed seeing him. There have been kids that I have worked with in the past that when I see them again, I look the other way and hope they didn't see me, but with these kids, even though they were so difficult, I could never blame them because I knew too much about them and their situations. It truly was a wonderful experience!

We moved! We are now residents of Pleasant Grove, UT, which is one step closer out of Utah! Yay! It has been nice not being in the Provo scene and surprisingly, it feels like a very different Utah. I am still excited for the day when we can move somewhere a tad more "normal." I have been wanting to take pictures and post them, but the house isn't in the state that I want it to be in yet. We aren't completely unpacked and we haven't decided where some of our pictures and art are going to go yet, so they are just up against some walls right now. I want to wait until I can get some great pictures! We have loved the extra space that comes with the new apartment. In fact, I am now sitting in the second bedroom at the desk we just had to buy from IKEA because we needed something to occupy the room. It's so nice. We have a dining room, 2 bedrooms, like I mentioned, and the best part: a washer and dryer! I LOVE IT!!! Laundry was so much more of a chore when you had to plan your days around doing it. Now, I can just put in a load whenever I want and I don't have to worry about getting it out the second it's done. Life is treating us well!

I have been going to a lot of meetings and workshops for my job and it has been really fun. This last week has been quite hectic because I had to go to some district meetings on Monday and Tuesday and then the last two days, I have been meeting with my 4th grade team and working on curriculum maps. It has been awesome. Apparently, this is the first year that Title 1 teachers are getting paid for 10 extra days (9 of which are this summer) to work with their teams and other teams at Title 1 schools to become better prepared for the school year. I'm really lucky because with this being my first year, I am having such a great opportunity of getting so much done already. Our team has already made a curriculum map for the whole year (this is just a graph telling ourselves when we will teach each standard and objective from the Utah core curriculum) for all the subject areas! Awesome! Plus, yesterday, we worked on a scope and sequence for math. I now have a list of when I will teach each lesson, each day of the school year! No one gets that done before school so I am really lucky. With the four days we have left to work with each other, we are hoping to get literacy and science to the same point. I can't tell you enough how helpful this will be. All I will have to do is look ahead one week at a time and I will know exactly what I will be teaching and then all I will have to do is plan the specific lessons. Usually, teachers look a week ahead and decide what the will teach first, and then how they will teach it. I am cutting my workload for the year in half by doing it during the summer! Yes!

Anyway, I can't think of anything more to add. Life is serving us well and we are happy at this stage of our lives. Life is fun and I hope it stays that way for at least a little while!