Last Day of Middle School

My last day at the middle school was last Thursday.  I felt so loved by the students and left feeling satisfied with my teaching and very happy with the relationships I developed with the students.  One of the students who is considered by other teachers a "troublemaker" just stole my heart from the beginning.  He is a short little guy with a tough personality.  I remember one of my first days he wasn't doing his math homework and I asked him if he was planning on doing it at home and getting help from his parents.  He told me his parents can't help him cause they don't know how to do the math he is doing.  That broke my heart.  He had a para educator who would help him and a few other students during math class.  I found that most of the time he just needed instructions repeated one more time and then he would get right to his work.  One of my last days after math class he went up to my cooperating teacher and asked him "Did you plan that math lesson or did Mrs. Giles?" my cooperating teacher told him that I had planned it and this student responded with "Oh that's why it was so fun." My cooperating teacher was a little  insulted by that comment but we laughed about it and it was a huge compliment to me.  That lesson they were learning about area of rectangular prisms and how to find it.  They used blocks and dice to fill up a box and then would count how many cubes it took to fill it up.  They then figured that they knew how to find the area of the base (length x width) and then they just had to multiply that by the height of the rectangle.  I found it is so important to use manipulatives and to have kids working together and it really makes a lesson so much better.
My last day this student came in before school to get help with math.  As I was helping him I told him I was going to miss him and this tough little guy just said really sweet like "Same here!"  The students made me a big card and they all wrote on it.  So sweet.  Some of the girls stayed for a bit during my lunch period and before they left gave me hugs.  Here are some of my favorite notes on the card:

 The student who made the front of the card has better handwriting than I do! That's a 6th graders handwriting!

 Why? Why? Why? This totally is how this student talks she's hilarious :)

 U Rock! Totally reminds me something you would write in your friend's 6th grade year book.

 This one says: Thank you for making there be something to look forward to in math. I hope you have a great time in wherever you are. Thank you for making my year :)

 This cracks me up: "Thanx you For your vist"

My cooperating teacher had told the students since the beginning of the year if they got a class average of 90% on their math test they would get a smoothie party.  Two weeks before I left they earned one :)

Weekend Wrap Up

A week and a half left of classes! I have a couple final projects to wrap up and I am done.  Just picked up commencement tickets today for all the family coming in to town. 
We posted our futon and desk and t.v. stand that were in our second bedroom on craigslist and sold them all in one day :) It was kind of random because the person who e-mailed me from craigslist had a familiar name but I thought maybe it was just a coincidence.  When he came over it ended up being someone from our hometown and him and his family have moved her to Rexburg.  Small world :)

And I found out that even though I'm not taking the required 14 credits for an academic scholarship during my student teaching, since it is my last semester they are still giving me the half tuition scholarship.  Phew! I am feeling very blessed this week.  We are still praying that Thomas will find an x-ray job in Boise.  Any additional prayers for him would be much appreciated. 
Speaking of Thomas... one thing I love so much about our relationship is how we can be active together.  Tonight we went to the new indoor track and basketball courts and Thomas played soccer while I ran and did a little Shape Magazine workout (I didn't realize how much that little workout would work me but it did). This past weekend we spent an hour at the gym together.  We kind of do our own things at the gym but when we are both done with our respective workouts we will stretch together and do a little lifting too. 
Also this weekend  I went to my little sister Briana's baby shower.  A girl from her church hosted and the decorations were so cute.  It was a monkey theme and the girls husband is a design major so he created the monkey logo/design.  I tried hummus there for the first time and loved it! I can't wait to make some soon. While Bea and I were at her baby shower our hubbies went out to a place called Big Judd's.  It's a greasy burger joint that has like 5lb burgers and if you eat the whole thing you get your picture on the wall.  The guys came home smelling big time like onions but we forgave them since they brought us ice cream.

Sunday, we went over to Bea and Ivan's and they were oh so kind to let us watch 5 1/2 hours of Grey's Anatomy.  I missed the last season and have slowly been catching up when I can watch it on their NetFlix.

  I finally finished the last season and am all caught up.  We also played a little Yahtzee and ate amazingly tender steaks that Ivan grilled for us. 

Alex is so stinking cute.  Whenever he sees a Yahtzee box he points to the dice and says "Blow! Blow!" Cause when we played at my parents house everybody would have him blow on their dice for good luck before they rolled.

Spanish Praxis

I passed the Spanish Praxis!! I will be graduating with a Spanish endorsement which means that, combined with my elementary education degree, I will also be able to teach K-12 Spanish. After more than a month of waiting I finally found out my results this week. I am so relieved to have all of my testing/certification done.  Now I just have to finish the last couple weeks of this semester and I'm on to student teaching :)

Three Cups of Tea

I just finished reading the book "Three Cups of Tea" by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.  On night shift Thomas was working with a girl who really likes to read and she mentioned how good this book was.  Thomas is not a big reader at all but she let him borrow it and he started reading it.  I was pretty shocked seeing him really get into this book since I've never seen him read a none textbook.  I figured it must be pretty good so I started reading it one night when Thomas was working and quickly got hooked.

The true story follows a guy named Greg Mortenson.  He is a climber and was trying to climb K2, the second highest mountain on earth, when he gets sick and lost and ends up in a village in Pakistan.  He falls in love with the people and sees a need for a school because the children sit outside in the cold using sticks to write with for their schooling.  He begins trying to find donors to help fund the school.  Basically his charity grows and he is able to see how by educating children in the middle east, he can help stop the spread of fundamentalist Muslims/ the growing Taliban.
This book helped open my eyes to some of the issues going on in the middle east and presents a simple solution.
I've now started reading The Help on my kindle.  Great book so far.  I know a book is good when I want to stay up past my bed time reading it.  

Cross-country skiing

Today we went cross country skiing.  This was Thomas' first time and I would consider it mine too since I have only gone once like 5 years ago.  We signed up to go with the school's outdoors activity program.  It was only $10 for each of us and that included equipment and transportation.  There ended up only being two other people who signed up to go plus the two leaders/instructors. Thomas and I both agreed we loved cross country skiing.  We did not however love the ride to and from Harriman State Park.  The male leader was talking the whole time about political stuff and if anybody tried to share their view he would totally shut them down and keep going on and on. He did however allow the female leader to share her view of how marijuana should be legalized for medical purposes and how she would use it rather than other medicine.
The ride there started off like 45 minutes late because somebody had forgotten a key to the van so we ended up taking a big 6 seater truck.  Since they weren't expecting to take the truck we had to fill it up with gas on our way out of town.  Just as we are about to leave one of the girls says her ski boots are too small.  Thomas just gave me a look.  You know it's bad when even Thomas gets annoyed (I get annoyed pretty often so it wouldn't be that bad if it was just me). So then we had to drive back to get her some boots.  It took about 45 minutes to get to the state park.

Harriman State Park is absolutely beautiful! We skied along a river and had a great view of the Tetons.

We skied for about 3 hours with a break for lunch at one of the little cabins.  The cabin kind of freaked me out cause it was so old and had animal specimens all over.

  Harriman State Park would be a wonderful place to go in the summertime too for bike riding and hiking.  So pretty! Today there were lots of cute families there with there kids. Such a fun family activity. We saw this family taking a break.  That little sled like thing is for a kid to sit in.  There is a rope in front and something to go around an adults waist so they can pull a kid while they ski! Genius!

 Cross country skiing really isn't difficult, at least Nordic type, which is what we did.  You just stay in the tracks and when you go downhill just keep up your speed and don't try to brake because that is when you will fall.

I was surprised at how warm it felt as we started.  We ended up shedding our coats after our first mile and a half or so.  I loved that the sun was out and could feel it warming my body.

Thomas is such a hottie.  The whole time he was skiing he reminded me of a model from a commercial advertising some winter clothing or something.
I didn't really feel like I got a huge cardio workout but afterwards my legs were for sure tired :) And I loved spending time with my hottie lover boy. We want to buy some used cross country skis for next winter so we can go explore more beautiful trails.

Friday Night Date Night

Thomas and I finally got a Friday night date night.  Usually he works every Friday so that is my day to get all my homework done for the weekend.  It was a fun change to be able to go out with all the other date night couples.  Thomas worked a LOT of overtime this week so it was some much needed time together.
First we headed to the Rexburg temple for a session between my 9am and 2pm Friday classes.

After my 2pm class we did a little apartment cleaning together and put together a lasagna for when we got back from our date. We also put in my new Jillian 6 Week 6 Pack DVD which I wanted Thomas to try out.  We just did level one and we were both sweating afterwards.  It felt great.
For our date we decided to go to the hot springs that we always pass when we go snowboarding at Targhee.
The place is called Green Canyon Hot springs and it looks pretty dumpy when you first get there.

This picture was taken in the spring, cause right now there is still lots of snow. Inside there is a big pool where most of the kids and families hang out.  It was actually really warm (96 degrees) and felt awesome.  They have a really tall basketball hoop that hangs from the rafters.

There was a pretty intense game of basketball going on and I noticed one of my students playing :) It was fun to see him outside of school, although I'm sure it was weird for him.  I remember always being embarrassed when I saw my teachers outside of school.
Then out side in this little connected green house area there is the hot pool.  It is really hot (105 degrees) but felt so good!

In the corner there is a freezing cold dipping pool.  There were a bunch of people dipping there whole bodies in the cold pool and then running into the hot pool.  I attempted that but got to my ankles and backed out because it was soooo cold! Then when I hurried back to the hot pool my feet stung like crazy! I don't know how they did it. The cold pool is 55 degrees.

After our relaxing time at Green Canyon we were starving.  We didn't have the patience to wait to cook the lasagna we had made ahead of time so we stopped at Little Caesar's for there large $5 pepperoni pizza.  And my sweet lover boy was even hungry enough to stop at The Cocoa Bean cupcake shop to get cupcakes.  I got the carrot cake and he got the ultimate brownie.

Both were delish.  All together our date was only $21!!
So here is a random memory.  This last summer we went to The Cocoa Bean and were waiting for our order when Thomas looked over at the merchandise display and saw these shirts that said "I heart Cupcakes".  He turns to me and says "I should get you one of those for your birthday".  For some reason I was super cranky and was so insulted and told him "Why would I want THAT?.  Then I'll look like a fat girl." My poor hubby, he was totally just trying to be nice.  I think at that point he realized I was being a little crank pot and just got his cell phone out and played a game on it till I had some yummy cupcake in my belly and my spirit was renewed again :)

Placement!

I received my placement!!! Third grade here I come! I can't wait, third graders still think their teachers are rock stars.  I have such fond memories of third grade and I adored my teacher, Mrs. Chalkley.  I can't believe student teaching is almost here!! We got some more happy news about our new apartment.  Since I'm teaching we get half off of the normally $300 deposit.  I guess teachers have a good track record of taking good care of their rentals :)

New Home

We found an apartment!! It has been stressful trying to find one when we aren't actually in the same city where we will be moving.  Luckily we have friends who live in Boise and were willing to go check out places to see if they were okay or not (Thanks Tess and Ryan!).  Some apartment complexes have really great pictures on their site and then you go and look at the actual place and it is totally trashy and in a bad part of town.  So we found a place that is only a half mile away from the school that I will be teaching at (it's a k-5 magnet school that has an emphasis in the performing arts). It is bigger than what we have now as far as square footage but it only has one bedroom.  But it has a pool and a theater and a gym :) It was built in 1999 and was remodeled in 2008 so it is pretty fresh and new. We will be paying a little more than we would like to but you can't beat the location.  And we are only signing a 6 month lease so that once I am done with my student teaching and if I get a job in another district we can move closer if we want.