4th of July Fun

Joseph and I had a really great 4th of July this year. I've always loved the 4th of July, so I wanted to make this year one that we would remember.

First of all, the 4th this year landed on a Wednesday, so that meant we got a day off of school right in the middle of the week. It was nice having a little breather, but kind of a bummer having to go back the next day.
 We were able to sleep in and then made a yummy breakfast of eggs and bacon. We then biked down to Porter Park to watch the parade. We saw another couple from our ward and invited them to come and share our blanket, which they did. It was nice to get out and all, but the parade was kind of a downer this year...not too exciting. It was more fun listening to Joseph and Kyle (one of our friends) and their running commentary on all the different floats and all that.

After the parade we came home and started getting things ready for our little shin-dig that we had planned. Growing up, my family and I would always go over to another family's home after the parade for a 4th of July pot-luck sort of thing. I loved doing that and so I decided that I could be the one that organized it so I could get that tradition going again in my life. It was really fun. We had about 12 other couples that showed up with different yummy 4th of July like food. There were hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, watermelon, cookies, potato salad, dutch oven potatoes, noddle salad, Popsicle, and lots of other great stuff. It was great to just hang with friends and visit.

Hehe...after the shin-dig, while we were all cleaning up, one of my friends, Emily, decided to dump her still hot coals from her grill into the dumpster. Oh that was fun. Joseph and another brother from the ward helped pour water into the dumpster to extinguish the flames that were jumping from it. Her only defense...she's never had to take care of the coals before. Oh it was funny...great memory to look back on.

Several days before, Joseph and I had went to one of those firework shacks that they have up every where and bought us a bounteous supply of fireworks for our own 4th of July festivities. Joseph was really excited about getting to set off his own fireworks, and I was excited too, but I made sure that we kept the fireworks smaller, because I am still paranoid about something going wrong. We had another couple from our ward come with us when we went to lite them off. I, of course, got my usual sparklers and had some fun drawing with them.

After we exhausted our supply of fireworks we decided to go up to the temple hill to sit and wait for the Rexburg fireworks. A couple of our friends from the ward decided to join us. It was beautiful up on the hill and it was a great time spending the time with our friends just talking. We never did see the Rexburg fireworks though, we always seem to miss them.

Overall, it was a really great day. We were able to spend some time with great people, have some great fun, and also (most importantly) remember the true reason for the holiday. I am grateful for the country that I live in and the freedom that was fought for. God Bless America!!!

Ward Camp Out

Every summer our Bishop likes to have a ward camp out up at his "cabin" in Island Park. I put cabin in quote because it is huge!!! Really, the cabin is more like a lodge than a cabin.

This year's camp out was back in June I think. I have just been really bad about getting this blog post up, but here it is now.

We went up on a Friday after school. There was kayaking and fishing, lawn games, board games, and just plain visiting with the other ward members. We had a big campfire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Joseph had a normal smore, but I had mine with no graham cracker...just double the chocolate...delish!!!

One of our friends is pretty much a city boy from Iowa and had never gone fishing before in his life. So, he went fishing and caught his very first fish!! Yay him...and then we made him kiss it...hehe...that was the fun part.




On Saturday, several of the guys in the ward got up really early and went and jumped in the lake, which was pretty cold at 5ish in the morning. I stayed in bed and didn't get up until breakfast time. We had eggs, pancakes, and hot chocolate, and it was yummy.

After breakfast Joseph actually talked me into getting in a kayak. I was scared to death at first, because I was pretty sure I was going to tip over and die, but after a while I got used to it and actually started to enjoy myself. It was so peaceful out on the water with nothing around you but the wind. I would love to go and do that again.

By mid-morning, we pretty much had everything cleaned up around the cabin and all that. There were only a handful of couples still around then, so Bishop decided to get a couple of 4-wheelers out for us to ride. I was so excited, I love 4-wheel riding! I don't like to drive though, so I went with my friend Heather and she drove. It was a ton of fun.

Overall it was a great camp out this summer. There were a lot of ward members there, so we were able to make new friends and then just enjoy time with everybody that was there. A huge thank-you goes out to Bishop who loves to do this each year, and for providing his wonderful "cabin" for his ward members to enjoy!!!

New Stuff...Always Exciting :)

So far this year Joseph and I have acquired several new things that we have added to our household.

The first thing was Joseph's amazing road bike. He pretty much lives on this bike; he loves it so much. He had been looking at this bike probably since around Christmas time, and he finally bought it for himself as a 'job well done - you survived your internship' kind of reward. He rides the bike to school everyday that the weather is decent...pretty sure it won't get put away until there is snow on the ground. It's so fun to watch him tinker with it, trying to make it ride 'just right'.

The next addition that we got was a new kitchen table with matching chairs. This was my request. It may not seem like much, but getting these made me soooooooo happy. Our old table was one that I had purchased when I first moved out of home 4ish years ago. It was bought from a thrift store for about 5 bucks, and was honestly worth about that much. We finally broke down and agreed it was time to get a new one when the legs started falling off when we would try to move it. Now we have a much nicer and more 'sophisticated' table with 4 matching chairs (our old one had only 2 and they were falling apart too). I love how we have actually have people over for dinner and all sit at the table to eat!

 Lastly, we bought a plant. I had an empty plant pot sitting around and so this spring Joseph decided we should get a plant to put in it. I was a little hesitant because I have been known to kill plants, not on purpose of course. So we went to look at plants and found a hearty one that didn't need a lot of care and attention, and then we bought it. Joseph brought it home and carefully potted it in new dirt. It's grown pretty well since we bought it. It sits on our counter and makes us look all domesticated and all that. :) Joseph named the plant Mr. Stinky after the Sesame Street plant that was Oscar the Grouch's friend, mostly because he says that's what it looks like, not because it stinks.

Preschool - Dog Day

The last week of teaching for preschool was one filled with such mixed emotions. I was so happy to be done with all the planning and teaching and stress, but at the same time I was really going to miss the routine of it all...and I was definitely going to miss all the children.

My partner and I did our last week on dogs. It was really fun because the children already knew quite a bit about dogs, so they were able to just have fun and enjoy the activities we had planned for them.

Joseph helped me again with preparing for my teaching day. This time around he helped me draw out and paint cut out for a large dog house. The frame for the house was already at the preschool, so he really just helped me transform it into the dog house. The children LOVED it!!! We put huge stuffed dogs in there for the children to play with. It was so much fun.

There were other fun activities that  we had for the children as well, such as the tumbling mats, wood puzzles, and match the dog treat. We also had a really fun activity that some of the children spent so much time at. We set out an old record player and would paper plates on it. After turning the player on the children could use markers to draw on the paper plate.

We also had a special visitor this week in our preschool class. We got to make a new friend named Dottie, who was a dog. Dottie came and played with us in the playground, and then she helped us during our large group time. Dottie showed us some of the many dog tricks she could do, and then the children got to feed her a dog treat.

My time in the preschool was so special to me. I was able to learn so much from the children and was able to have so much fun. I will always be grateful for the opportunity that I had to participate in the campus preschool.

Preschool - Fish Day

Okay, so I'm pretty bad at keeping up on my blog updates...so we'll see how much I can get done today.

 
For my second week of teaching in the preschool I got to choose the topic that my partner and I taught on. I decided to do fish...mostly because I figured the kiddos would really like it.

It was interesting trying to come up with different activities for the children that were related to fish. As part of the preschool curriculum, we would always try to have the real, tangible thing there for the children to see, touch, and learn through first hand experience. So my partner brought in a huge dead fish on her day so the children could learn about the different parts of a fish. It was pretty smelly!!!

For my teaching day I also brought in a fish for the children to use in painting. There was one little boy that sat there for a good 15 minutes making sure every part of the fish was painted before he made his fish print on the paper.

I also brought in a ton of goldfish and had them swimming in our sensory table. We gave the children little glass baby food jars and let them 'fish' for the gold fish. It was so fun to see the different strategies they came up with for catching them.

Oh and this if Frankie our Fish Friend. For my large group lesson, I was able to teach the children about the different things we can put in fish tanks. The children then helped me put together a fish tank for our friend Frankie. Overall, it was a pretty great week in the preschool!!!!