Sweethearts

The computer fairies came last night and as of right now, my computer is fixed!

It has been very busy around here and to top it off, my area of the state is flooding. More of that to come.

I have finally found some time to catch up a little bit on blogging, so here we go!

Last weekend my dad had his annual Grand Sessions for his Masonic group. My sister, Molly, and I are my dad's ladies and so we were there to help him out and represent him. We are by far the youngest there by probably a good 25-30 years but we have a lot of fun.

This is also what we made the rice bags for a few weeks ago as gifts from my sister and I to the other Ladies.

Molly and I got down to Colorado Springs Friday afternoon in time to get ready for the banquet. Fancy dresses, fancy food and lots of speakers and a few awards.

After dinner the awards and speeches began. Now to be honest, I wasn't paying very good attention since I wasn't 100% sure of what they were talking about (I am still learning) until I heard, "this award is given to sisters this year." Well I knew right away that those said sisters were in fact Molly and myself!

We were awarded with the Sweetheart Award given to a Masonic Lady each year.



Sweetheart Award

The General Grand Chapter has introduced a new award for the Ladies of our Royal Arch

Masons. The award was developed by the General Grand High Priest, Emory J. Ferguson,

and is available to Royal Arch Masons as a way to show their appreciation for the support and

encouragement their Ladies have given them throughout the years. The award consists of a

jewel and certificate.

 

(source)

 

This was such an honor to receive. The High Priest, Peter Doumont, was the one who choose us to receive the award and the most honoring part was that he also choose for my step-mom, Sandy, to also receive the award. My step-sister, Ali, was also there and accepted the award on Sandy's behalf. This is where the tears started to flow. It is nice to know that she has not been forgotten and still was making an impact on people.

 

 

It has my name on it! That's all I could think of to say as my acceptance speech! There is a reason I am not getting any Grammies or Oscars!

 

My dad (in the middle) at his installation to now be the High Priest.

 

Another fun part of the weekend was seeing my other sisters, my nephews and my mom. Marcus, my five year old nephew got to have a sleep over with us at the hotel. He succeeded in making us feel old! He is so full of energy!

 

 

 

It was a successful weekend even though we were tired by the end. Next year we will be there all four days instead of just two. We get to be in charge! Look out!

 

Thank you again to Peter for the honor of being a Sweetheart.

 

Dad,

I am proud of you and all that you have accomplished. Here is to the upcoming year and all the adventures that come with it!

 





Dead

I am super behind on blogging so I sat down to catch up and my computer has gone on strike! That means I can't read your blogs and I can't write on mine. NOT a *heart flutter*

Of corse my first thought is, "I can't afford a new computer! I could barely afford this one!" I am hoping that I am jumping to the worst option but after talking to my personal tech guy I am not seeing the ray of sunshine.

So as of now I will fall a little more behind until I find a fix. Please don't forget about me during this time! 

Pick Me Ups

I read somewhere (Pintrest, a blog who really knows) that as a teacher one should have a file, notebook, whatever of all those happy moments of teaching. It could have letters from students, parents, or things people have said, whatever makes your *heart flutter.* The purpose is for when things aren't going well, you can go back, read them and hopefully get reminded of why you became a teacher in the first place.

 I would like to share a few things from the past week that made me smile and laugh.

On Friday I asked the students to write me a letter and they could tell me anything that they wanted to. My plan was to write back to them and at the same time get in a little writing assessment with a little bit of getting to know you. I really enjoyed doing this and would like to do it at the end of each month.

There were two that stood out to me.

"Anyway, I think you come up with amazing ideas, you're artistic and have great methods."

 

This was nice to hear because I don't feel as if this statement applies so much to me at the moment. So to get that feedback from the ones that are reaping the outcome of the ideas and methods was reassuring.

 

"My first wish job is alligator wresting. Sounds scary doesn't it?"

 

 

 

Oh my goodness, I laughed about this for a good five minutes! This coming from a sweet little girl who doesn't say much and looks as if she doesn't get dirty often. She then told me that her second dream job was being a teacher. Good thing she has a back up plan incase alligators aren't her friends.

 

I need to remember these moments often and look for more throughout the day.

 

What do you do when you need a pick up and a boost?



Sunday Soup Week #1

As I stated earlier today in my Fall 2013 Bucket List, I really like fall and with fall comes some soup! I came up with the idea to make some sort of soup every Sunday during the months of September thru December. Today kicks this adventure off!

I started with chicken tortilla soup and am very pleased! Most likely I will be trying a few recipes until I find one that makes me super happy.

I found a recipe through Pintrest and it took me to Pearls, Handcuffs, and Happy Hour.

Here is her recipe and picture:

CHICKEN TORTILLA SOUP

1 can chicken broth

1 can cream of chicken soup

2 tbsp taco seasoning

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can black beans

1 can whole kernel corn

1 can diced green chilies

3-4 chicken breasts, cooked & shredded

 

She used a rotisserie chicken and I did too. It was a lot easier and now I have some left over for another recipe. I didn't realize until I had dumped the tomatoes in that I had gotten a basil, oregano and garlic can and let's face it, those aren't really tortilla flavors. Thankfully, it all worked out just fine!

 

I added some cheese and tortilla chips and enjoyed! I would add this recipe to my box since it was easy and had common ingredients. Also made enough to freeze some and have some for left overs.

 

Until next week!

Fall 2013 Bucket List

It is September and in my opinion it is the start of fall despite what the weather says. It has been so hot here lately that even some schools in the state have called off school because they don't have ac and it is too hot. My school is blessed with ac so we were learning away.

Fall is my favorite season. I love pretty much EVERYTHING about it. Growing up in western Colorado I was spoiled with fall colors, cool nights, crunchy leaves and the town was flooded with strangers dressed in blaze orange and smelling like they hadn't showered in weeks.

For being such a beautiful place in the fall, I had a really hard time finding a picture.
I guess I am just going to have to go home and take some myself!



I get very homesick for home during the fall. Where I currently live just isn't blessed with as many trees, mountains or as cool of nights.

Since the season has changed, I thought I would make another bucket list since I had so much fun this summer with checking things off. A few items from the summer are being carried over to fall.

Fall 2013 Bucket List

• Go "home" to Hotchkiss and cure my homesickness
• Explore Frisco, Colorado
• Fall will be the perfect time to do this since the colors will be grand and it won't be so hot! We will be able to sit outside to eat, drink and be happy!
• Make some sort of pumpkin recipe
• Have you been on Pintrest and typed in pumpkin?
• Cut out, cook, frost and devour some fall cookies
• Drink my weight in pumpkin lattes
• Try to navigate a corn maze
• Wiggins actually as a corn maze and I have never been! I will not be going to it at night or when scary things could pop out at me!
• Fall craft
• I don't have one in mind at the moment, but know that I want to do one
• Soup Sunday
• I love soup and fall/winter is a great time to consume soups. So I came up with the idea to make a soup in the crock pot every Sunday and hopefully freeze some of it for those nights when I just don't know what to have for dinner.
• Pumpkin adult milkshake
• Go on a fall hike
• Do some sort of physical activity for 21 of the 30 days of the month
• Go shooting with the Epples
• Watch a play
• Watch "The Great Pumpkin"

So let the fall fun begin!

What is on your list for this fall?

Rule Breaker

Are you a rule breaker? Do you follow some of the rules? I think that most of the time I follow the rules but do know there are times that I break them just a little.

Recently in class we did a "Write On" (a.k.a  a quick write) that explored our rule breaking bad selves. I told them that we were going to make a list of 20 rules we had broken. They were excited about this until they actually sat down to make their list.

I had to "strongly" tell them that they just needed to write and to not think about it so much. Sitting down to write my own list, I realized how hard this really was! The task was cut down to ten rules broken. Easier, but still not easy! You would think that it would be easy, but it isn't!

I was able to come up with eleven rules that I was able/willing to share with 23 nine and ten year olds.

11 Rules I Have Broken:

1. Driving faster than the speed limit
2. Cheated (a few games, a spelling test, math tests a few times)
3. Stole candy from City Market and a few other things here and there
4. Lied (I tend to do this one the most.....oops.)
5. Blew through a stop light (on accident, but it was still a rule broken)
6. Used my phone in class
7. Not used my turn signal (again not a BIG deal, but still a rule)
8. Tore a page out of a Garflied comic book from the library because I wanted it
9. Failed to touch the wall with two hands while doing the breast stroke
10. Texting and driving
11. Snuck into the drive in movie a few times

What do you think? Think you can come up with 20 rules you have broken? How about 10?

Domestic Divas

It's HUMP DAY! That means we are on the downhill slope to the weekend!

Speaking of weekend, this weekend I was able to cross a big project off of my to-do list!

My dad has a Masonic event coming up and he needed some gifts to give. So Molly and I got our craft on and for about 24 hours attempted to be Domestic Divas. It was probably a good thing that we didn't have video cameras out.

We decided that we would make a gift for the ladies and made plans to make therapeutic bags. Fabric was purchased, tables were cleaned off and we set off to work!

Here are a few things we learned:

• Ironing isn't affective if the iron isn't plugged in
• Sewing machine bobbins have minds of their owns (but thanks to YouTube they were defeated)
• Spools of thread aren't never ending
• Wal-Mart doesn't always have everything one might need at ten o'clock at night
• Sewing machines can jam up
• Sewing machine needles will break if you are a She Hulk
• You will make mistakes at the end of the project if you are tired
• Seam rippers are your friend

 

Molly sent this to me Monday morning and it pretty much reflected my last outburst before I left her house with the last bag to finish!

 

 

Overall, I had a fun time working on this project with my sister and we had lots of laughs. Hopefully the ladies who receive them enjoy them as much as we did making them.

 

 

Molly and Bailey couldn't wait for me to leave so they could take a nap!