We're Losers!

Just wanted to drop a note here and say sorry we're such losers and don't have any kind of a cute picture to put up or send out. Getting Pret to take a picture with me is like trying to pull teeth. Maybe we will get some taken over the break and I will get them up after the fact.

Hope everyone is doing well and has a great break. I won't have internet access on a regular basis over the break, so my entries will probably be more sporatic. But I look forward to hearing great updates and fun stories!

Love to all!

Internet Down

Ok, so this will be really quick, but it was a major thing in my life! The last two work days (Friday, Monday), the internet has been down at work/school. You wouldn't think that this would be too big a deal, but you try going four consecutive days without the opportunity to check your email or do the things that you are used to doing on a regular day.

It was really quite interesting because I actually had to find other ways to keep myself busy at school. It was a big wake-up call that I spend way too much time during work doing my own personal stuff. I need to be better about doing school stuff during school time and saving my personal stuff for non-contract time. I am usually here long enough to get everything done, but if I was better about that, I wouldn't have a pile of papers to grade sitting at home in the same place it has been since I took it there almost a week ago (sorry Pret!).

Anyway, I guess it would be a good thing for me if the internet were down all day during school, unless I was actually doing something for school, then I could flip a switch and let myself on. In other words, I have no self-control when it comes to being on-task. I really will try to be better about this and maybe my students will improve and I will have more free-time at home! Let this be a lesson to all (unless you are much more disciplined than I...

Mocking "The Shane Company"

Ok, I assume most of you are familiar with "The Shane Company" and it's radio ads featuring Tom Shane. Well, a few months ago, I heard an add on the radio for "The Scooter Lounge," located in Orem. I laughed the whole way through it as I realized it was totally mocking The Shane Company's ad. I only heard it once or twice, and then it disappeared. Today, I was doing not too much of anything which on lunch and found that if you go to their website, you can listen to the ad from The Scooter Lounge.

Here's what you
1. Go to www.thescooterlounge.com. (I couldn't get the link button to work, or else I would have made it a direct link from here...)
2. On the left of the page, there is a link that says, "Check out our radio spot we did a few months back" with a "here" underneath it; click "here."
3. Laugh away at the creative writing of some people at "The Scooter Lounge."

I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did!!

Christmas Music

I have given in! As I was searching for music to listen to as I cleaned off my desk at school and sat down to update the blog, I saw my list of Christmas music. This includes about 50 songs (about 30 of them being my favorite Mannheim Steamroller selections). I hope that I won't quickly be sick of them, but I will try to keep the ones at home and the ones at school separate so that I don't overkill either group of them.

I am actually kind of proud of myself for holding out until post-Thanksgiving to begin, as opposed to the radio stations (and some insane listeners) who started playing/listening to them on Halloween!! One station said they actually start getting requests for Christmas music in August!! Ok, I realize it is never too early to be in the "Christmas Spirit;" that should be kept all year-round, but come on folks!

I was priviledged to hear Adam Sandler's "Thanksgiving Song" once this year and look forward to hearing his "Hannukah" song a few times. Stand-up people like that amaze me with their talent, and I think he does a good job of helping people recognize Hannukah as one of the December "holidays" instead of focusing solely on Christmas, whether you do that secularly or religiously.

Ok, just another rambling in the life of Megan. I will try to get Pret to put a word or two on here sometime, but don't hold your breath...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and traveled safely wherever you ventured!

Comments Ready

I have hopefully changed it so people can comment, so comment away... Sorry about not having that going the right way before.

A Good Ending

Ok, after reading my cousins' blog, I realized that I need to acknowledge the wonderful things that my husband does as well.

Last week I had parent-teacher conferences which are very draining, emotionally, physically, and socially (basically working 22 hours in 2 days and trying to act happy about talking to all parents and telling them that their child is wonderful, even if they really are NOT! (Although some really are, so that's not really fair to say.)) Anyway, before we started Round 2 on Thursday, the faculty was enjoying a very good lunch when one of the newly-wed teacher's husband walked in with a huge bouquet of flowers and a kiss. Everyone "ohhed and ahhed" over it, including me, but I know that Pret loves me anyway. I did get him to come and eat a free, very good lunch a little later, but only got a few kisses and nice hugs from him with a promise that we would enjoy our morning off the next day. I was really fine with that, so enjoyed what I got.

When I was finally done (about half an hour behind schedule) I went out to my car exhausted and not looking forward to going to the gym and working out, but definitely looking forward to the dinner that my mother-in-law had cooked for Pret and me (Pret having eaten earlier as he had a meeting to go to before I would be home). As I sat down in the car, I was very pleasantly surprised to see a small, beautiful bouquet of three roses. It was accompanied by a sweet note expressing love and appreciation from my husband. I almost started crying as I realized that he truly is in-tune with my needs and emotions. What a great guy! Hopefully I honor him as much as he does me.

Pictures of our Trip

Well, I was told that our blog would be boring without pictures, so I will try to get a few up. They are not really in an order, sorry. I am also not so familiar with working with the pictures, so sorry about the long display and not having the descriptions more like captions.

The top one is a palace called Cervena Lhota, which literally means "Red House;" fitting, don't you think? This was Pret's favorite place.

The next one down is the coolest "new" castle (Hluboka, outside of Ceske Budejovice) we saw--unfortunately is was only from the outside, but it was amazing!

Under that is the view of Prague Castle from the Charles Bridge. Thanks to Tanya for her photography skills in capturing this beautiful picture (I forgot my camera at the Johnson's the day we went out in Prague... :-( )

Next, we have a picture of where the Berlin Wall ran through Berlin. It was pretty impressive to see this, which is their "memorial" to the wall. We followed the path and also visited "Checkpoint Charlie," the boarder checkplace between American-occupied Berlin and the Soviet-occupied portion. A little further down we also saw one of the the few remaining portions of the wall-pretty powerful!!

Below that, Pret and I posed for a picture below the Hrad (Castle) Konopiste. This was one of the places where Archduke Franz Ferdinand lived and had his huge display of hunting trophies. There was a huge lake that it looked over and we thought it was very picturesque (is that spelled right?)

Finally, this is Jeff and Tanya (our friends and traveling partners) with us and Pret's "Czech Grandma," Babicka Jelinkova. We stayed with her for a couple days and she fed us until we were sick and introduced us to apple tea that is amazing!

Anyway, that is just a sample of the 2500 pictures and short video clips we have. If anyone is interested in more, just let us know. Sorry about the descriptions not being "captioned"--I am still learning how to do all this blogging stuff...

ERASED!!

I almost had a post done with pictures from our trip and I had to shut down my computer before I could save it. Hopefully I will have some time to get one done again, but I at least wanted to have a little bit of something new for you to read.

Life is pretty crazy between visiting with family and friends, getting ready for Halloween, preparing for parent-teacher conferences, and working fulltime!

We are getting excited for the upcoming holidays as we make our Christmas lists and figure out what family gets us when! :-)

That's all as I barely have time to sneak this in! Talk to you later.

He made it!

We just wanted to let everyone know that Pret was accepted to the ICH/SLCC cooperative Nursing Program. With this, he will have tuition paid for with a committment to work for IHC for three years following his graduation. We are very excited for this new adventure to start in January. Most of all, we now know that we will be staying in the SLC area for the next few years and look forward to the opportunitites that will bring.

CONGRATULATIONS PRET!

We're Back!

Ok, so I know that not too many people actually read this, but for those that actually do, we are back and I will hopefully get back into the grove of writing.

For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, Pret and I went on a two week vacation to the Czech Republic. Why the CR, you may ask (as many people have...)? My husband served a mission for our church there, returning three years ago. We decided to save some of our money from our wedding and then I taught summer school so we could go this fall as Pret is not in school. It was amazing. We had the opportunity to go with our friends Jeff and Tanya who have much more experience with world traveling, so that was great. Tanya took her laptop so we could download pictures. This was a great blessing and allowed me to shoot to my hearts content. Unfortunately they are still on Tanya's computer and she is awaiting my last load of pictures, so I don't have any of them to share at this point. I will probably post more than you will care to see, but it will be fun to get them on there.

The CR is full of castles, palaces, and wonderful people! We were able to explore all of them, as well as the beautiful countryside, so had some times we will never forget!

Keep checking back for the chance to see some of our trip through pictures...

Surviving the First Day

Well, I survived the first day of school! I have recomfirmed two facts that I have learned through teaching: 1) that I get along better with little boys than I do girls and 2) that I don't get along with "mini-Megan's."

I find that I too easily get annoyed by little girls, especially the "girlie" girls, but the boys just find a soft-spot in my heart. I love the tiny ones that have big smiles the best and those with red hair. There is one in the afternoon that I loved on first-sight.

Second, I feel sorry for all my teachers in elementary school. If I was as much of a "teacher" as some of my students are now, they must have been ready to strangle me all the time. There is one girl in my class that I have already (in two days) had to ask/tell three or four times, "Who is the teacher?" as she tries to boss everyone around and get involved in everything. She is the oldest and her mother is also a teacher, so I guess she comes by it naturally... :-)

I also have one little boy that just arrived from Mexico within the last month and doesn't speak any English. He is full of energy and very excited, so I am sure that he will learn quickly. He follows directions well and is starting to play with other kids at recess. Today he knew that his favorite animal was " a MONKEY!!"

So, the life of a teacher has begun again as I quickly fall in love with the students in my class. I look forward to "documenting" their progress over the course of the year and know that it will be fun to share stories of the ups and downs of this particular kindergarten teacher.

Tired and Sluggish

Well, Pret and I have each had a day this week where we have done nothing! I took mine on Tuesday after getting home from work and errands. I laid down on the couch to eat my piece of cheesecake and read and then fell asleep for about 30 minutes. I forced myself to get up so I could return a movie to the library and avoid late fees, but then got home and fell right back asleep until Pret got home about half and hour later. I really wanted to just go to bed, but instead stayed up with Pret to watch "Rumor Has It.." Shirley McLain made the movie--it wasn't especially good besides her part. It was very similar to her role in "Steel Magnolias" which I now have to get Pret to watch so he can more fully appreciate her role in the latter movie.

Pret took his turn last night. I got home from work and found him relaxing on the couch where he stayed until it was time for dinner (he did stir the Hamburger Helper while I was in the shower (thank you, Pret!)) I didn't complain and was completely understanding given my experience the night before.

We then ate dinner and went grocery shopping. Word to the wise, or unwise, women who normally go shopping on their own: plan to spend $10-25 more than normal when shopping with your husband--they always want things that aren't on the list... It was fun and we enjoyed watching other people attempt to flirt with our spouses (ask if you are confused or wonder). Then we relaxed again, watching an episode of "Smallville." We were actually in bed by about 11:15 with the intent that I would get up and go to the gym this morning. That hasn't worked out for me yet this week...maybe next? We have plans to go to the temple when I get done with work and after Pret goes to the doctor, then it will probably be another episode of "Smallville" before a long day ahead of both of us.

Mt. Timp looms ahead for Saturday--updates next week...

Another Day, Another Year

So I am sitting in my classroom procrastinating doing anything. I don't officially have to be here today, which is probably why I am not motivated to do anything. I still have tables stacked on top of one another and have spent about 2 hours just talking with other teachers, yet I have been sitting at my computer reading old emails and my friends' and families' blogspots. This is a serious problem I have--wasting time on the internet--so it is probably a good thing that we don't have the internet at our house.

As to the title of my entry today, I am not too excited about starting school this year. I think it is because my first two years had unusual circumstances surrounding their start, but this year is just blah. My first year was, well, my first year. Everyone is excited, albeit anxious, about starting their dream job, right? I was an intern at Sandy Elementary teaching Kindergarten. I didn't have to do student teaching (I like the power that comes with being in-control all by yourself) and I was getting paid , even if it wasn't much (half a first-year teacher salary--you do the math)! The year turned exciting when two months into the school year, there was a fire in our building and we had to re-locate and our classroom was packed into un-labeled boxes by people who just wanted to get it done quickly, not carefully. Life turned out well and I actually really enjoyed the year. Then my second year, they had re-opened our newly remodeled school and deposited the contents of our classroom right in the middle of the room. My ceiling had leaked into/onto two or three of the boxes, but the contents probably would not have been saved anyway as we were told to weed-out the old and request new, under the circumstances. I had a week to make my room presentable for 50 students students ready to start their first day of school--ever! It was quite thrilling and needless to say I was much more motivated and productive than I have been today.

But now it is today. It is not my first year teaching and I am not trying to recover from a year in boxes. I am team-teaching with an intern (who has to go through 5 days of new-teacher orientation as opposed to my 6 hours of it) so I can't do too much on my own anyway. As hard a time as she will feel having to share her first year with another teacher, I want her to feel like this is her classroom, too, not that she is just coming under me and has to do all things my way. Hopefully I will be good with change and be able to work with her well and respect her ideas and opinions. I think I will be able to, but I know that we are both looking forward to my vacation and her two weeks of solo teaching.

Well, I must become a "moving woman" and get to work so I feel like I have accomplished something before I leave in another 3 hours.

Only the Beginning

I was inspired to start a "Blogspot" by a parent of one of my students. His blog is very carefree and honest, and truly quite funny. Even though I no longer have his son in my class and they have even moved from our school boundaries so I will most likely never see the family again, I think I will continue to read his blog (flieswithoutwings, if you care to read as well.)

Anyway, I don't really know what I will write about, but I thought this might be kind of fun, and this way I can also respond to other people's blogs. Enjoy, for whatever it is worth.