New School Year!

So we're going back in time a bit again.  School started August 5th and it's been a crazy whirlwind of a year so far.  Teaching is easier but I have a lot of more difficult students than last year.  I'm also randomly the cross country coach at school which is fun, but also a joke, and a LOT of extra work and stress!  We only meet once a week but that once a week is super stressful for me.  But it's been a learning experience for sure.  Here are some fun pictures of random things from the year so far:

Funny note I found on the ground in my classroom.  This is SO middle school!

This was pretty dang funny.  I got invited to a student's birthday party, and I was the only teacher invited.  It was quite the gossip around the teacher's lounge for a while.  Just FYI, I didn't go.

"Describe a biological observation you made over the summer".  "I'm going through puberty.  I don't know what puberty is, but I'm goin through it"  Hilariously sad.

First (and only, so far) cross country meet of the season!  Woop woop!

I just realized I don't have any pictures of my classroom this year!  It is much different than my classroom last year...much less work :)

Another thing I don't have pictures of is that me and some of my coworkers have started a book club which is super fun!  We meet once a month-ish to discuss our book.  It's been pretty fun.

Billy's year has started too!  He needs to blog about his foundations weeks and everything probably.  He had 2 weeks of "Foundations" when he was placed in a cohort of people to get to know.  During foundations they took a few crash courses to get them familiar with Excel and Econ and stuff.  It was a crazy busy two weeks.  At the end-ish, he found out that he qualifies for the MBA program at Thunderbird!  Say what?!  So he switched from the MS in Global Management to the MBA program, which is just a faster and better degree.  We were way stoked!  It's been super hard for him, he is really really busy ALL the time!  But it is good for him.  He is learning a lot and working so hard.  It's awesome!  He actually has finals next week!  This first block went by crazy fast.

 

My dad was awesome and milked everything he could out of Microsoft/Nokia before he had to leave his job, so he scored Billy a sweet tablet fo free!  It was awesome and Billy was so surprised and excited!!  You can tell from the look on his face...

Nametag

Thunderbird quad statue thingy

My Dad came out one day for a job interview and had dinner with us!  It was super fun and he was able to fix stuff around the apartment for us and hang some pictures.  It was so nice having him help us!  He is fixing our outlets here, they are all super loose.

Thanks Dad!

Billy on one of his first days of school!  Woo!

 

This was the temperature a few days before school started.  Gross!

Labor Day was also around the start of the school year.  We went over to Bruce and Karen's and had a huge, delicious BBQ dinner!  We had ribs cooked in Jon's smoker!  Yummmmmmm

RIBS!  They were super super delicious.

 Our 4 year anniversary was also in the beginning of the school year time.  We didn't do anything too special, we were both too busy.  We have been trying really hard to not go out to eat as much, so we decided to make an exception for our anniversary and went to Oregano's, which we had never been to before.  It was pretty good!  It was super rainy that day which was weird.  4 years!  Can you believe it?!  That's as long as high school!!  Crazy long time.

Some other new things are that we have made some pretty fun friends in our new ward!  It's been really good for us here.  We both got callings in the ward too.  Billy is the young men's secretary and I am a young women's adviser for the Mia Maids.  We have both been enjoying our callings so far!

One of our first weeks in the ward we got asked to speak in church.  It was super scary and I was dreading it like crazy.  I took the entire day Saturday before to organize my thoughts, and write out the talk.  We both spoke on the Priesthood.  It was actually a really great experience.  I liked it mostly because from then on people knew who we were in the ward and they weren't afraid to talk to us so we were able to meet a lot of people.  Billy did a great job.  He always gives good talks.  He can pull a talk out of thin air so fast, it's kind of annoying.

I have started a little running group with some of my friends from the ward which has been great.  We run on Tuesdays at 5:15 AM.  They are champs for waking up that early to go with me.  I really like them a lot and it is really fun that we all live so close to each other. 

Anyways, there are still a few more blog posts I need to do in order to be completely caught up!  So stay tuned!