Back to School

I have to say that Matthew and I have had a pretty good summer! I mean I have a job that literally allows me not to work at all between and June and the middle of August. You can't beat that right? We were able to go visit both our families, go on a cruise and to a family reunion. I feel like we have been living on vacation for a couple months. It has been really nice to spend time with so much family and with each other. Well it's back to real life. Matthew is starting his Masters program in BioChemistry at BYU in a couple of weeks and I start teaching school tomorrow! Today was Meet Your Teacher at my school and it was so fun to see all these students ready to come back to school and excited to be in your class! It's always nice to hear a parent say that they requested you as a teacher for their child. I am so glad I get to teach again at the same school and the same grade level as last year. I also got an upgrade. Instead of being in a portable I get a real classroom! I have had so much fun being able to organize and decorate my new room (pictures are coming). Now that I have taught one year I feel more prepared and confident to do it again. There are so many things that I am excited to improve on and to do better at. For some reason the subjects I like teaching the best are math and science which is really ironic to me because those were the same subjects I struggled with in school. The only reason I can guess is maybe it is because I can relate to having a hard time with these two and therefore I try to teach it in a variety of ways so everyone has a chance to understand it. I don't know but I really enjoy the curriculm I teach. I get to teach about the solar system, outer space, light and sound waves, microoganisms (proabably my least favorite), pre-algebra, fractions, geometry and more. We really start delving into some deep subjects. Not very many people have a job where they can start over and improve every year but I am glad that I do.

Conversation today with a kindergarden teacher :
She came up to me in the hall and told me "I had a kindergardner come meet me today and she had her older brother with her who is in 6th grade. I asked the boy what new teacher did he have this year and he says, 'Oh I don't know her name but she is the hot one.'
Turns out I found his name on my roll. Oh great...

San Diego!

Summer is over! To top off our already wonderful summer, we just returned from San Diego for a family reunion on my mom's side. It was so nice to see extended family and everyone was there!! A big thank you goes out to my Grandma and Grandpa Allen for organizing and planning this trip. We stayed a week in brand new suites and cramped in as much fun as we could! I took so many pictures from this trip and it was hard to choose which ones to post so I kinda posted a lot! Here is a taste of some of the awesome things we did!
Padres game!

Only in California would they need an address like this!

Playing games in the hotel lobby! We had a few loud nights of this and I wonder if the hotel staff were glad that we finally left so they could have some quiet nights!! One of the cool things about my mom's side of the family is we all love to play games! Since Matthew and I drove out there we brought a huge stack of games and almost played them all!

More games! This is my dad, Matthew and lots of cousins playing.

We spent a day at LegoLand! What a cool idea for an amusement park! It was actully really fun and so very cool! We went with my parents and sisters and loved going on rides and seeing everything made from Legos!

A picture with the Lego man!! My little sister, Kayla, went up to him and asked him to dance with her and he did!! It was halarious! They were already done dancing by the time I got my camera out!

Cade loved LegoLand!! We were on little boats here that took us on a cute little path were we saw scences from different fairy tales all made from Legos!

More things made from Legos!

This was the best ride!! We were on teams in these fire trucks. We had to peddle our trucks up to the desplay of houses that were on "fire," then pump water while someone else aims the water at the house, and then once you put out the "fire" then peddle your truck back to the starting line!! It was hard work!! We were really panting when we were done! This was our team and we lost by a split second to the rest of my family.

MiniLand was one of the best parts of LegoLand. They had differnet parts of big cities all made out of Legos!! Here we are standing in front of New York! It was so cool so see all the details of the buildings and cities. We saw Washington D.C, Las Vegas, New Orleans, and others all made out of Legos. If you know our family, then you know we all love mini things so this was like the ultimite mini find!

In the San Diego harbor, there was a museum of a Navy airplane carrier that was used in World War II. We took an audio tour through it and it was very interesting. We are sitting in pilot seats that would be used for an escape from a plane in an emergency.

I'm a pilot!

We also went to the San Diego Zoo!! Check out this character!

Matthew beside some big, burly sort of animal in the background. I can't remember what it is!
I found a mini gazelle looking animal!

Bike riding along the beachfront!

Matthew and I drove up to LA one of the days to go to Six Flags. We had so much fun. We both enjoy roller costers and we had a great time.

While we were in LA we visited some friends later that night! Matthew has a cousin living there and I had a good friend from college living there. Turns out they live about a mile away from each other! It was so good to see both of them. Matthew's cousin and his wife have two kids and one on the way. I'm so sad I forgot to take a picture of them before we left! But I did remember to take one with Taryn! I finally got to see her little boy and he is so cute!! It was so good to catch up with family and friends!! MAtthew and I both agreed that we should have spent more of the day with each of them even though it was a very late night driving the 2 and 1/2 hours back to San Diego!

The last day there the boys (and Ciera) got up way early in the morning to go fishing while the girls went shopping! Later that afternoon, we went to the San Diego Temple with Jenna and Cole. The Temple was so beautiful inside and out!! I loved it! We passed it on the highway a few times during the week and its just so huge and white that it completely stands out from anything else around it!

Overall, it was an awesome week to spend with family and I am so grateful for my parents and grandparents for helping make it such a great way to end the summer!