Halloween 2013

  We had a pretty low key Halloween this year.  Halloween was on a school night and Caitlin had a lot to do.  We also were carving pumpkins on Halloween, so we were doing that last minute.  At school everyone dressed up in their costumes.  Caitlin was a zebra and she looked awesome.  We found a zebra adult size onesie at Target and it looked so good and comfortable.  Caitlin was a little nervous to wear it at school, but when she saw how crazy the other teachers were dressed up, she felt comfortable being a little zebra. 
  Caitlin's first period class didn't know she was a zebra and thought she was a cow.  Caitlin then asked them if they need to look at pictures of animals during class.  Haha.  Here's some pictures of our Halloween day after Caitlin came home -

My dad carved his pumpkin on the counter because he said it was too difficult to sit on the floor on the plastic we put down.

My mom is a pumpkin carving machine!  She carved 3 little pumpkins in like 5 minutes.

Caitlin enjoying some chips and homemade salsa after eating tortilla soup.

Here she is giving a cutie pose.

My dad lighting his candle trying not to catch his beard on fire.

Grabbing the guts!

I hate getting my hands messy, but I love carving pumpkins.

The three of us that sat down to carve our pumpkins.

Caitlin concentrating on her carving sketch.

Just having fun!

Caitlin's pumpkin had the best shape to be Bert from Sesame Street!

So I carved Ernie.

The Pumpkin Posse

  I was really impressed with the pumpkin carving this year!  I feel that we all saw the images in the pumpkins and let them free, like the sculptor seeing the art within the slab of marble and chipping away at it until the masterpiece was revealed... or something like that.
  Then Caitlin worked on her school stuff and when everyone went to bed it was still early, so I popped myself some popcorn and watched a movie.  I also ate a ton of candy since we had so much leftover.  Only about 6 groups of trick-or-treaters came to our house.
  By far though, the best thing about Halloween night was that Caitlin wore her zebra onesie all night until she went to bed.  Hahahahahahaha.  It does look very comfortable though.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Cortina 1st Ward Trunk-or-Treat

  We went to the Trunk-or-Treat activity at the park for our ward the day before Halloween.  It was Nerd Day at Caitlin's school, so she just came home as a nerd and went to the trunk-or-treat as a nerd.  I nerded up too.  My mom went as a cowgirl.  The park was kind of a funny place to have the party because it wasn't lit very well and the sprinklers came on at one point and everyone started running away.  There was lots of chili and some hotdogs.  Lots of people who signed up to bring hotdogs and hotdog buns didn't know they were supposed to cook the hotdogs ahead of time.
  We did see a lot of the kids we teach in primary.  Each one of them said that Caitlin and I should have dressed up as Cookies and Milk, because that's what they call us at church.  That would have been fun if we did.
  We didn't stay long, but it was fun to see the ward members dressed up in their costumes.

Caitlin is one good-looking nerd!

Fall Break

  Caitlin had a week off school for Fall Break October 7th through the 11th, so on the 4th we drove to San Diego right after Caitlin was finished with school.  It was kind of hard starting the drive that late in the day.  About 1 mile from our house we stopped at ate Blizzards at Dairy Queen which was awesome.  Saturday and Sunday we watched conference.  It was way good.

Pennie was happy to have more people to squidge up against on the couch and sleep.  Here she is with her leg on me kind of weirdly.  She's a funny dog.

  On Monday Caitlin went to the school where her mom works and observed a class.  Then I drove out near the school  and so did Caitlin's dad and we all had lunch together.  I think it was Monday night that we watched 17 Miracles with the family.  Jayce was funny during the movie counting the miracles and losing track of his count, then asking questions about what was going on.
  On Tuesday, after an hour long phone interview with State Farm, me Caitlin and Jayce went to the pumpkin patch.  Jayce loved it.  We got to go through a corn maze which had live chickens and a  rogue rooster running rampant.  Jayce chased them around which was funny.  We also went on a tractor ride, picked some awesome pumpkins to take home and fed straw to some animals in the petting zoo area.  Here's some pictures.

Caitlin and Jayce at the entrance to the corn maze.

Jayce informed us that he would be running through the maze.  It was pretty funny.

Kitty Cat Caitlin

Caitlin on the tractor ride.

We were making this goat stretch for a carrot we found on the ground.

  Caitlin was really good about running in the morning.  I went with her once and I thought I was going to die, but luckily we ran into a friend of Caitlin's from Middle School and were talking with her for a while so I got to rest.  We also went to Golden Spoon twice which was delicious, ate lots of Texas sheet cake, and literally spent the rest of the time playing Super Smash Brothers with Cody and Jayson.  Cody beat us mercilessly every time, except I beat him once which was probably the worst moment of Cody's life.  We left on Wednesday morning to come back to Arizona so Caitlin could work on school stuff.  It was a fun trip to San Diego to spend time with the Sutherlands.  Thanks for a fun trip!

Mrs. Barnes aka Best Biology Teacher Ever!

  So Caitlin has been teaching for a while now and I can tell you that she works very hard!  She leaves for school at about 6:15am and doesn't come home until about 5:30 or 6:00 in the evening.  After eating dinner and relaxing for a bit, she prepares lessons and grades assignments.  I help her grade too.  I know all of the kids names and how they are doing in school and whether they have nice writing or not.  I just need to put some faces to the names.

She sees the sunrise when she leaves for work.

She's a great multi-tasker and snapped this shot of a rainbow on her way home from work.

 Here's a computer generated picture of the school she works at, Basis Ahwatukee.  I didn't have a photo of the school, but it basically looks like this just less like a computer generated image and more like HD.

 Caitlin works really hard to make her class fun.  She doesn't just lecture, but she prepares fun activities for the kids.  She also took a lot of time to set up her classroom in a fun way.  She went with an ocean theme, so we put up waves and kelp on the walls.

  After putting up the ocean on the walls, Caitlin had her students decorate and write their names on a fish to put up on the walls.  My parents and I helped her cut out all the fish for her students - about 250 fishes.  Then she gave them to her students, they decorated them, and then we taped them on the walls.

Cutting out fish.  It was fun to be doing this all together.

That's a lot of fish!

  Here are some of Caitlin's and my favorite fish -

Lots of kids jeweled up their fish.

So many kids used glitter too!  I hate glitter.  We like how this student added sharp teeth on this one.

My favorite fish!  He's got the hat, the money necklace, the skull tattoo, and the little gross mustache.

Caitlin's rainbow fish with the googly eyes is pretty awesome.

  Okay, so we all know how much Caitlin loves bugs right?  A couple of mischievous boys in her class scared her with these and she screamed!  Then they assured her that the bugs are fake.  Caitlin took the bugs away from the boys, haha.

   Caitlin also thought of a fun activity for the skeletal system.  She had the students cut out and color different bones in the body and then they put them together in the proper places to form skeletons.  They are proudly displayed in the class as well.

  Caitlin is a fun teacher and she has fun stories and she is doing a great job.  When this school year is over and she looks back at everything she did, it will totally blow her mind because it blows my mind everyday when I see how hard she works and how good a job she does.  She just doesn't have time to look and see that quite yet.

California and New Car

  I drove to California with my mom last minute on September 19th.  The day before I had called most of the Southern California Missions to see if they had any cars for sale since the Arizona missions did not have any, and I found out that the Riverside Mission had some available which is on the way to Brea.  My mom and I stopped there to see the car, a 2010 Toyota Corolla, and it was pretty nice and for a good price!  My mom dropped me off back at the mission office on Saturday and I bought the car and drove back to Arizona.  Here's a picture of the car.

I think we're averaging about 37 mpg which is a little improvement over the Lincoln...  It feels like Caitlin's Corolla she had in high school, so she loves it.  It's a pretty good little gas-saver car.
  While I was in California I had a ton of fun with Jen and her family.  As soon as we got there, we went to Sierra's soccer game.  She is in an outdoor league and it was funny to watch the little kids swarm the ball.  After the game we went to Brea's Best and had some really good hamburgers!  It's fun to be back in Brea.

Here's Carter driving while Jenny was loading the girls into their car seats after the game.

  The next day, Friday, we went to Disneyland!   It was a ton of fun!  The girls were being really good and funny and I got to spend some time with Carter while everyone else went on rides a couple times.  He's a fun little guy and was climbing all around the stroller when it was stopped, so I had to keep it moving most of the time.

Right when we got into Disneyland, the girls got to meet Snow White.  They were very excited about that.

Mom and Sierra?  I can't really tell.

Me and Carter watching everyone else on the inflatable tire bumper-car ride in California Adventure.

Carter liked to play with the 3-D glasses at the Bugs Life movie.  He had them on at the start and was reaching out for the butterfly.

Sierra and Whitney with their bug eyes on.

Whitney liked to fall backwards when she was on my shoulders.  It was pretty funny and amusing for everyone else that saw it.

  Sierra didn't want to go on Tower of Terror, but she did want to try Splash Mountain.  I took her on it for her first time.  She was pretty nervous, but after the big drop she said, "I wish the down part was longer!"  She really liked it.  Too bad her face was covered up.  Jen took her again and they sat in the front and got a good picture.

  It was a great trip!  Thanks Jen!