My New Stompin Grounds

Well if you didn't know I switched grades and classrooms this year. Last year I taught third and this year I will teach second. I was pretty bummed for a while but now I think it will be okay. A few good things come along with switiching to second grade. I have less students, last year I had 28, and this year I am down to 18. I am sure it will change, but I don't think it will go up to 28. Another plus is that I have a bigger classroom, and smaller desks! I went down to the first floor, which is closer to the better copy room, faculty room, and bathroom! (yes, those things become very important to a teacher)

I had back-to-school night on Thursday and it was fun. They are so little. I don't know if they will understand my sarcasm, I got a few blank looks the other night. I will probably have to use more of my cute voice now:) Here are some pics.

They have their own carpet square. Now I can move them around as I please!

This side is a little bare at the beginning of the year.

The reading and listening center

The Topping on the Cake

Well it is now officially the end of summer (for me at least). I have to start work tomorrow, and it is bitter sweet to say goodbye to this fun summer vacation. We were able to top it off with some really fun things this past week. The first two pictures are of us right before we pickled our banana peps and made zucchini bread. We have SO much zucchini that we don't know what to do with. Luckily we love it and hopefully we won't get sick of it.

Anyway, last week our friend Brandon got married in the Bountiful temple. It was a lot of fun. They had a dinner at Tucanos, which was awesome! Before the wedding we went up to Salt Lake early to go see "This is the Place." It was really neat to be there. I have so much appreciation for the early Saints, and for Brigham Young especially.

From the wedding we drove up to Jackson, Wyoming. We stayed at a really cool house, courtesy of Mike Morgan. He was my old Bishop in Colorado, and he has a house in Jackson. He offered Drew and I to stay there whenever we were able. We decided to top off the summer right. It was so great, and I was sad to leave.

All in all I would say we had a spectacular summer. We have had many wonderful trips, and I have read a total of 8 books, and I am sad that I won't have as much time to read. I am in the Work and the Glory series now, and it is awesome. I have learned so much church history already. I am excited to start a new year, but I haven't planned very much yet, and back to school night is on Thursday. But at least it's my second year of teaching, so when the parents ask how long I've taught, now I can proudly say 1:)

He's so proud of his banana peps

Ok seriously, this one went unnoticed for a while. Our plant can PRODUCE Baby!

I don't know who chose this pose, but it was pretty funny. The three boys are our friends from highschool (Drew's best friends his whole life), and the other two are getting married in the next two weeks.

This is the famous place to take a picture in Jackson.

Here are some pics of the house. This is one of many bedrooms.

Check out the bear, pretty sweet.

We watched a movie, and the Olympics here.

The Kitchen.

The living room

The backyard is so big. We played a lot of games out here. Yes it was just the two of us, and yes it was pretty competitive.

They had these really cool bikes. They looked like Harley's. We rode these everywhere.

It's not a good picture of my bike. Because it has flames on the side! And take a look at the leather straps off the handle bars. Oh and yes it had a bell.

I also enjoyed this bike.

We went to the Grand Teton National Park. They were really incredible. I don't know how people climb them. Drew's brother Mark climbed them last week. Impressive Mark!

Drew took a picture of me pondering by the lake.

Yes, a gigantic stuffed big foot ladies and gentlemen. We went downtown and there are so many cool shops. This was one of many. Don't they look like good buds?

Guess where we ate? Pizza Hut of course. We wanted to spend one night out at a restaraunt, but they were so expensive. We decided we love Pizza Hut, so why not?

On Sunday we made up a tournament in the backyard. The first event was bowling. Sadly I lost.

That night we made a fire outside. The weather was perfect, and the stars where lookin good.

Colorado

Ok we are back! We just spent the last 2 weeks in Colorado, and guess how many pictures I took? ZERO. So, I am sorry because pictures are more fun to look at. BUT.. we had a great time. We spent time with both families, checked out the dental school, played a lot of the game "Settlers," saw many of our wonderful friends (tried to get them to start their own blogs!! You know who you are), had a 90th surprise birthday party for Drew's grandma,  saw the Dark Knight, ate very well, missed out on our backpacking trip due to my ridiculous cough (but I am better now), Drew played a lot of golf, I finished the third book for the Twilight series, we went to the Reinassance Festival (sp?), on the way back to Provo we stayed at the bed and breakfast in Grand Junction that we stayed at one night on our honeymoon.

The whole trip was so fun, because there were so many family members that were around that there was always something going on. Anyway, I suppose our summer is almost up:( It has been sooo fun, and I am sad for it to end, but I get excited about teaching again this year. We might try and go to Jackson for a few days next week but if not we'll save it for the fall. Now we have three of our friends getting married in the next three weekends, it should be fun! 

Back From The South

We can now feel good about leaving Utah. We have gone to all the major sites. Our friends Adam and Susan drove from Laramie on Sunday night, they stayed at our lovely bed and breakfast and then we drove down to St. George on Monday. We spent the evening hanging out, swimming, and just relaxing. Tuesday we got up and drove to the Grand Canyon. There are no words to describe it. It's too hard to capture on camera as well. We camped out that night, which was really nice, the weather was perfect. We got up the next morning and headed to Zion's. That too was unbelievable. It is just so gorgeous. We hiked up the Narrows, which was really neat. You had to hike up a river most of the way. And the mountain walls keep getting closer, or more narrow. Hence the Narrows. Then that night we stayed with some of Adam's family in St. George. Adam and Drew got up the next morning and went back to Zion's to do Angel's Landing. Which I really wanted to do, but was not in the right condition. I had serious blisters still from Mt. Timp, as well as a cold. Anyway, they loved it, and the pictures looked awesome.
That day we drove back to Provo, and Susan and Adam stayed with us until Saturday. It was fun to just hang out in P-town with them. Overall, it was an awesome trip. We planned on going to Hawaii with them, and that didn't work out, so this was the next best thing. Also, Susan is 4 months pregnant and did great!

St. George Temple
At the Grand Canyon

This is part of the Narrows.

There are places that are super deep, and places that are really shallow. Drew can't touch the ground in this picture.

In 106 degree weather this felt great!

This is the path going up to Angel's landing. A bit scary

At the top

Just hangin around the top of about 1,000 foot cliff. No big deal.

Conquered The Mountain

Well we have finally conquered all of Mount Timpanogos. On Wednesday we hiked up to Timpanogos Cave with our Neighbors. They have 3 kids. They are so fun, and we really had a great time. The kids struggled a bit on the way down. They were screaming and crying that they couldn't walk another step. Soo dramatic. All I could do was laugh (is that mean?) They're kids... what can you say? Don't worry they got in the car and were happy and ready for lunch.
Then on Saturday we hiked Mount Timpanogos with our friends Brent and Christa. We left at 5 am and got home at 3 pm. We stopped a few times for different things, like losing the camera and Drew running back a mile and a half to find it, and for my blisters I got on my heels after 2 hours of hiking. Never again will I wear hiking boots. Anyway, it was still soooo fun! The last few hours of the hike up to the summit we had to hike up a glacier, which was pretty tough, but on the way down we got to go sledding without the sled! It was amazingly beautiful, and with the glacier and waterfalls everywhere it was awesome. On the way down we slid down a few more snow patches. We got more and more daring, which made for more and more cuts and bruises. Overall it was great! Drew and I were talking about how hiking is one of those things that makes you really appreciate everything.... the fact that it is so beautiful, that we have bodies that allows us to do things like this, and that we can go home and have air conditioning and take a shower. Which felt so good.
Also, yes I am wearing the same thing on both hikes, and yes I did wash them before both hikes.

This is hiking Timp Cave. Look at the kids, I love it!

This is when we reached the top.


This is inside the cave. They call it the heart of the cave behind me. (Don't you love the bandaid on my neck?)

She actually was happy inside the cave, although she doesn't look it.

This is right when we started on the path up the mountain.

Awesome waterfalls! One of many.

They are staring out into the distance.

We had to cross these all the time, actually a bit scary. Drew stepped once and broke through the snow, with a river below.

This is the path to the summit, a bit narrow.

We made it!

This is the shelter up at the top. Very windy. And very cool.

We had to hike this going up.

As you can see we didn't hike down. It was soooo fast, and hard to stop.

Here is Drew with some goats.

Gorgeous Lake