twenty ten (closed)

Well I've pretty much been incognito this year! I can't believe that I've only posted 11 times, and three of those were copied from emails that I sent a friend! I've neglected my blog in 2010, but really didn't have any interest in writing!

However, 2011 WILL BE DIFFERENT! I WILL post at least once a week. That is my New Year's resolution. In addition to that, my posts will be accompanied by pictures. I have decided that my life is so darn exciting that I will do a better job of documenting it.

My other New Year's resolution is that I will carry a PURSE and this directly ties to my blogging resolution because I will be able to carry my camera everywhere. I've had several people tell me they're blog divorcing me if I don't start posting again... so here you go!

My version of "knitting"

Last night I enjoyed my annual "watch Christmas movies with the pastor's wife" night, and before her kids went to bed, they showed me their new found love of making beanies! I was given one of these with a pair of mittens to match and love them! They are blue and brown which is just my style! I think I will attempt to make some beanies and doll them up a bit, because they were so darn easy once Lydia showed me how she made mine. I will NOT be making mittens though. Yeah right, if it involves knitting needles and stitches, and counting, and thinking about a craft... nope.

This morning I was on my cousin's blog where she shared a blog post from this gal, who had a great idea for making pom poms for different things! I will make some of these and will decorate my new abode with them. If I ever get around to making beanies, I will embellish them with poms as well. Thanks for sharing, Jenny.

Quick funnies...

A few stories to share this freakishly warm day…

Today we were talking about the word “shabby” and I was working with my really low group. It was a word from a few weeks ago and it reappeared in our reading today. I reminded them that shabby was like a dirty, torn, messy looking type of clothing, etc. One kid looked at me and said, “kind of like your sweater, right teacher?” THIS IS A NEW SWEATER! It isn’t shabby… yet J

The second funny story came from next door in 1st grade. A kid came up to his teacher and said, “Teacher, someone kicked me in the eggs (and was holding himself).” Then another kid yelled, “It’s not your eggs, it’s your privates!” That one made me laugh hard…

A Sweet Note

I have a really difficult student, but the other day she came in and gave me this note:
"I hope you had a good day and thank you for helping me get my work done after that now how did you sleep last night."
It made me laugh...

The Old Windbag

I read a book to my students awhile back called Sideways Stories from Wayside School. It’s pretty funny except for a student calls his teacher a “windbag”. Welllllll guess what I was called? Yes, a windbag.

More Camp Stories...

I forgot to add a few more hilarious happenings from our time at NNU. We were playing against a disaster of a team from SE Idaho (I won't mention their school name here... that would be mean:) They were chucking the ball under the net because we were killing them and it was our turn to serve again. It squarely hit one of our players in the gut, making a loud sound. The player that it hit was the one who wore the cat puppet and said, "How is everybody feline this morning," so I knew something funny was about to happen. She yelled, "CHEAP SHOT," at the girl and we all busted up laughing. When I say we laughed, that is just an understatement. We were laughing so hard it was difficult to keep playing. The ref was even laughing!

The look on the girl on the face from the other girl was priceless. She looked scared! She thought she was going to get jumped! It was hilarious. I knew that this whole thing was pure fun, there was no malice meant in the cheap shot comment, nor were anyone in danger. She, however, didn't. She stood there, shaking in her new Nike shoes, while one of her teammates said, "She said she was sorry!" All the while we were still laughing our heads off. I was literally falling off of the bench laughing so hard. The other team thought we were being serious, when in all reality, we have quite the jokers on our team.

Just another funny memory...

America's Got More Talent Than We Do

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2AnrR6iLZE
Here is the video on youtube of our skit. You can't hear it very well but I think you'll get the effect. I will have a better version when the other girl who taped it gets her's edited. I can't figure out how to embed a video on here so until I learn, please just click on the link!

Volleyball Camp 2010

Last week the other coach and I got to take 8 girls to volleyball camp at NNU in Nampa, ID. I wasn't sure what to think when we pulled out of town... would we look silly, are we too po-dunk for the "big city", did we have enough money to even do this, are we ready for team camp, should we have brought more of the girls, and more! The answers were no, no, no, yes, and yes.

We had an amazing time! No sooner did we pull out of the school parking lot at 8a on Monday did we start laughing. We stopped in La Grande, OR at the Flying J (because they have really cold pop) when the girls started being hilarious. Some of them wanted nachos. The nachos were $2.99 plus $1.00 for cheese. Who knew that nachos didn't come with cheese!? I said they should buy a bag of chips and fill a boat with cheese, and that's exactly what they did! So for $3.00 they got more chips than they could eat and a boat full of cheese. How ingenius.

We learned a ton at camp and got to experience what a team is really like. We learned new drills, a new killer workout that they WILL be doing during season, and had lots of laughs.

On the last day we had to put on a skit. What is a camp without a skit? We decided to do a parody on "America's Got Talent" and put our own twist on it. First, we had our own "Nicky" Cannon. She did a great job! The first act was a hilarous stand up comic that had a cat puppet on her hand. When she walked out on the stage she waved at everyone and said, "How is everybody feline this morning?" That made me laugh so hard. Then she pulled out laffy taffy packages and started reading jokes off of them!

The second girl was a juggler who started off by bribing the judges with money. As she started juggling the girls started singing the carnival song, or rather carnival sound, do do dody dody, do do do do... etc. I don't really know how to type a sound!

The third girl was a magician and she was that funny one from the show that was so lame it was hilarious. She started out by making her fingers into circles and basically put them behind her head and attached the circles together. Then she "made a shopping cart disappear" by putting a sheet over it and rolling it out of the room. More on the shopping cart later...

The last girl was our singing sensation, who sang "Fireflies" by Owl City. She sang it in a funny voice and did little dance moves all the while our Nicky Cannon did a dance behind her that went with her dances but exaggerated them a bit. It was hilarious. After Nicky dragged her off the stage, our skit was over. But not before Piers Morgan said in "her" Brittish accent, "I guess America doesn't have any talent". To which our comic yelled out, "Go back to Britian!"

It was hilarious, and maybe you had to be there, but it was amazing. The week was a great one and I dont' think I've laughed that hard since making our "Mathipoo" movies at WBC in college. They were our college spoof videos.

Already Gone

I just started reading a book called "Already Gone". It's about the epidemic the church is facing, the probablity that the next generation will not be willing or able to keep the church going as we know it. The book challenged me to look around the church this morning. 2/3 of the children in the room will not be in the church by the time they go off to college. That's right, most of the kids who leave the church do so in middle and high school. Only 11% of kids leave the church in college.

What can we do about this? I am not to that part in the book, but I have looked ahead a bit. The first thing is Sunday school. This shouldn't be a time for the kids to hang out, hear a cute story, eat a snack, and do a worksheet. How can we make this time more fulfilling and use it to teach the kids, even the tiny ones, what the truths of God really are? As I read this book I am excited to learn how I can be a better teacher to my 2-4 year old class. That is a really young age, but I know in my case, I was a youngster in Sunday school at that time. Stay tuned for updates!

For more on this book, click here.

twenty ten

I haven't seen these people in soooo long.
This is my mom, uncle, aunt, aunt, aunt, uncle, and uncle. Well I guess I've seen my mom a lot since then... but not the rest. And certainly not together since this picture was taken in 2007. They are all brothers and sisters... can't you tell?

Next week will change that. We are all headed to the Oregon Coast to move temporarily into a lodge called Sea Krest. This will be our home away from home and we will enjoy fellowship, Filipino food, and have a ton of fun.

These people are bringing their children and grandchildren with them. Unfortunately, not all of my cousins will be able to attend this, neither will my sister or my dad. But those that are coming will probably have an awesome time! Especially since I'm bringing the Wii!

There is no confirmed sightings of a tv in the lodge, so this may be a moot point. I am crossing my fingers that there is one and that I can get the people in that picture to play the game Just Dance... can you imagine that bunch getting their groove on to Funkytown or doing the jerk? I can't wait! But they are Baptists and that just might not happen. Cross your fingers with me.

For those cousins and such that can't attend, I will post pictures when we return home.

Oh yeah, I am also going to IKEA when we go through Portland on the way home... I can't wait for next Wednesday!

What's a Post without Pictures?

Today I went to the Tri-Cities to go to a craft bazaar, craft stores, and to eat lunch. I was pleasantly surprised to have fun! I got 2 ideas for some crafty things to do and had a great bowl of mac & cheese from Nothing But Noodles!

Yesterday was fun as well. I took 2 girls from church, rented movies, and had them be my guinea pigs for a Mother's Day art project that the kids at school will do. I am glad that we had this dry run because they were making necklaces and the super glue wasn't super enough! I am going to Coast to Coast (local hardware store) tomorrow after church to get Gorilla Glue. Hopefully the necklaces will stay together with that!

These necklaces are wayyy cute! A lady from our PTO made all of the employees necklaces last week and I fell in love with them. They are made from a small piece of scrapbook paper decopauged to a Scrabble piece and hung on a chain! So simple, not very expensive, and are customizable by the kids for their moms!

The girls made 6 necklaces each! 2 for themselves, one for their sisters, moms, and friends. We had a great time!

Here is a how to and pictures of what we did! Of course these aren't ours... ours are cuter :)
www.makeandtakes.com/links/scrabble-tile-pendant-tutorial

You Can't Reason With Crazy...

I have to write about the Tiger's game last night! After being ranked in the top 10 in Oregon for basketball, we have lost a few games. It is sad, but we will bounce back and go to Districts, I'm sure. I have 2 crazy basketball stories from the last month... about weird parents from other teams.

Story #1
About a month ago, Weston McEwen was in Stanfield for a league game. They beat us. During the girls game a TigerScot was injured and our EMT decided to have her parents take her to the ER. Her mother stomped up the bleachers, pushing everyone out of the way to get her stuff. On her way by the scorer's table she YELLED at my dad! She said she wanted those refs names and that she was going to sue them and our school. Let me remind you, she yelled at my dad... the score clock runner.

On her storming rampage up the bleachers, she stepped between me and another lady and stepped right on me! Pretty much kicked me in the back! On her way down, she stepped on one of the girls sitting with me. This didn't happen just once, it happened twice. She had that much stuff to carry... On her way back by the scorer's table she yelled at my dad AGAIN! She cussed and yelled up and down the bleachers twice and finally made it out of the gym.

Shame on her.

Story #2
Last night the Tigers played Pilot Rock in our gym. Now let's set the stage. Pilot Rock fans have always been awful. I remember playing in PR in high school and being booed as an athlete on the floor. They are just rude. Their staff must be soooo proud. Sarcasm aside, here's the story.

We were losing to Pilot Rock for the whole game after the 1st minute. It was a sad game to watch. The reffing was horrible, but it was bad on both sides. One of our big guys got a technical foul called in the first half because right after his regular foul was called he looked at the ref funny. LOOKED AT THE REF FUNNY! That's what the ref came over and said... "I didn't like the way he looked at me." Wow.

There was a lady in a red sweater who our whole section called "the squawker". She was so loud! Thank goodness she doesn't have a daughter on the volleyball team or I'd get her kicked out. She was yelling across the gym at some of the Stanfield people... I thought she was going to cause a riot!

During her squawking, we started playing the fouling game. We were losing by 6 or so and they were running the clock so we needed to foul to regain posession. One of our boys fouled and got called on an intentional foul. The PR kid took his shots, our guy got put on the bench, and there was about a minute left.

All of a sudden I hear some yelling. "No Jody! Don't do it!" and a lady is charging down the bleachers toward our bench (which I was sitting right behind... I had spent the whole game smelling B.O.). A guy was following her and she sat right behind the kid who had committed the aforementioned foul (against her son I am guessing). She grabbed him by the collar of his jersey and grabbed his shoulder a bit too! I yelled at her, the girls coach yelled at her, the JV boys coach stuck his clipboard in her face and yelled at her, and she finally crawled up behind the guy that followed her down. She was still yelling at our coach and the player.

The next thing I know, I have the AD of our school standing in front of me kicking her out. She asked why... haha. Then she told him no. Finally she got up, grabbed her purse, and walked around the side right in front of our crowd. At this time our fans were up in arms! I was seriously still like, holy crap... who does that? Freaking unreal. They won the game, the kid who fouled was taken out of the game (it was seriously just a push, no one got hurt!) and the PR kid got his shots. That woman was out of her mind.

But what would one expect from a rival school with crazy, squawking fans? One thing I'd like to make note... our fans didn't boo the refs once! All of the booing was from the Pilot Rock side! And--- GO TIGERS!