Happy Valentine's Day!

Devin and I had a really great Valentine's Day. I made him a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit and served it to him in bed. As I was making breakfast he started to come upstairs. My mom was helping me and when she saw him she yelled at him, "Get back in bed!" He was very obedient and quickly turned around and went back downstairs.
So we ate our breakfast in bed, played several games of ping-pong, and got ready for a day of fun. Devin had the whole thing planned out with things he knew I'd like to do. We went to the mall and I was able to window shop -- something he hates! As a Valentine's gift he bought me a whole new outfit - pants, tank top, and 3/4 length cardigan sweater. He was so nice and patient as I tried on various sizes of pants and he even gave me advice for what he liked and what flattered my figure. The outfit is really cute -- it's bright colors and makes me think of summer. I'll have to put a picture on here soon.
We got a quick lunch in the food court and then went to the movies. We saw a chick-flick (again something that isn't his favorite). We watched "New in Town" and we both really liked it. It's clean, funny, and romantic.
We went to an early dinner -- okay so by the time we got seated is was a little after 5. But we put our name down early because we knew it would be crazy. We went to Olive Garden -- one of my favorite restaurants. While waiting to be seated we played games on his itouch. It was actually a lot of fun and really made the time pass quickly. Who knew pictionary could be so much fun? We shared a meal which is really the way to go. Not only does it save money (and after my new outfit we really needed to save), but it creates a more sensible portion size. We left feeling full and satisfied.
I bought him a few movies for Valentine's Day and so when we got home we watched one of them. The whole day was so much fun just being with him. I realized how lucky I am to have Devin as my husband. He is so sweet and always thinking of me. He asked me if I was sad that he didn't get me flowers. I told him flowers are always nice, but a day like we had was even better. Flowers wilt and die, the memories that we created will last forever.
Devin -- I love you!

Catching Pigs

This was an interesting email that I received.

"A chemistry professor in a large college had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the professor noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt.

The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist government.

In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, 'Do you know how to catch wild pigs?' The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punchline. The young man said this was no joke. 'You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyd ay to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc.. While we continually lose our freedoms -- just a little at a time."

Reading this story really makes me grateful for the values that I have been taught and especially the value of hard work. I'm reminded of phrase my family uses (I'm not sure where it originally came from): "Hard work has never killed a man, but it certainly has scared a lot of people."

January Adventures

Recently Devin and I have had some fun adventures and instead of going to bed I thought I'd finally post a blog about them. I mean who needs sleep anyways right? Here are some pics of our recent adventures.

Adventures on the mountain...

Before we started skiing.

Gotta love the huge goggles!

Devin learned really fast the reason you want to keep your hat on; even when it's sunny.

And no, he's not going gray -- it's snow!

This next picture was taken after Devin's adventure of falling down the mountain...yes the entire mountain. Give him a break though, it was icy and only his second time skiing. We were both pretty tired come lunch time. Devin was too exhausted to go any more after lunch so I went on a few runs by myself.

My only mishap was that my ski boots are now a little tight and totally pinched my leg. I have a blister as a reminder that if I want to go skiing more I need to either adjust my boots or get new ones. They were definitely red and swollen when I took my boots off.

Adventures at the Marriott Center...

Devin and I have been to several BYU basketball games and we love cheering on our cougars. Too bad having great seats (row 5) didn't make a difference in helping the cougars on to victory. We lost! :( It was pretty upsetting. Adventures with Lynsie and at Color Me Mine...

Recently the boys got together to play Ultimate Alliance on the Wii, which the wives can't stand, so Lynsie and I decided to have our own fun. I introduced her to Color Me Mine and we had a blast. We spent the day picking out pieces to paint, painting, and catching up on girl talk. Before we knew it the boys were calling us wondering when we were coming home. Normally that never happens when they're engrossed in their game. Here are some of the pics from that great adventure.

Before

After... The red is the wrong color and it's not as fun as I thought it would be, but I still like it.

Okay, so I still have adventures on the ice to talk about. But I decided that my class would hate me tomorrow if I don't get some sleep now. I'll have to finish with the adventures later.

Fun with cake and soil

Now you may be wondering what in the world cake has to do with soil. But I actually just taught an entire lesson on it today. Okay so the lesson was actually on soil, but the cake made the demonstration so much more realistic -- especially to 4th graders. We compared soil to baking a cake. You can't just put the box of cake mix into the oven and get a cake. There are certain ingredients that have to be added. Similarly to get good soil there are certain ingredients that need to be added. You can't just break down rocks and have soil. You need to add organic material, oxygen, water ( at the moment I can't remember if there's anything else - does that make me a horrible teacher?). So during our lesson we actually made the cake mix into the batter that represents good soil.
My class was combined with another class for this discussion and I ran and added water to the mix and came back before mixing it. If course it was all watery -- the recipe called for 1 and 1/3 cups water. One of the students in my class looks at the bowl of very watery "cake" and asks, "Um, Mrs. Andersen how many times have you made a cake?" It was just so funny when she said it because you could totally see that she thought I was obviously failing at making this cake mix -- I almost started laughing, but was able to reply that I knew what I was doing. Courtney and I shared a good "smile" together. I say "smile" because there are so many funny moments during the day where you just have to smile because laughing would hurt their feelings.
Anyway, it was a fun moment at school today. Who knew there was so much information about soil -- we're doing an entire unit just on soil. CRAZY!!
Teaching has been good, but really tiring so far. I feel like I'm never going to get enough sleep again. Maybe I'll go off to bed now...

Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I know I'm a little late, but I don't care. Devin and I had a great Christmas with lots of fun new things. We both got a "big" present then smaller things and one "big" thing for the family.

Devin's "big" gift that he can't stop playing with is his iPod touch. Those things are so amazing and we both have been having lots of fun with it.

My main gift was a Wii Fit. I was SO excited about this and was really surprised when I got one....considering they are always sold out. I gues Devin had been calling stores about every day to see when their shipments were coming in. The moment he found one he went right there and got it. Having a Wii Fit has really motivated me to get exercising and I've been using it every day with 6lbs lost already! It's so fun to exercise when you're playing little games, plus it's such an easy way to keep track of BMI and weight.

Our family's big gift was a video camera. We have been using our friends for such a long time and felt so bad for always having it -- we still need to return it (oops) -- that we decided to get ourselves one. It is really nice quality and will last our family a long time.

We've had a great break so far and are so excited for yet another week of nothing planned. I'm really not looking forward to heading back to teaching and I haven't planned anything for the new year yet -- I better get cracking!

Here are some fun recent pics!!

Way to long!

So I realize that it has been way to long since I last updated on here... some of you might be wondering if I ever would again. I probably won't even give that much of an update because it is really late and my "teacher mode -- go to bed early mode" is starting to kick in.

Things have been busy for us, but good. At this Thanksgiving time I've had lots of opportunity to reflect on what I am thankful for. I am so thankful to have such an AWESOME family. My sister came out for Thanksgiving from California and spent the whole week with us. It was so fun to be with them and rock out with Rock Band. I am thankful for a wonderful husband who cares so much for me and shows his love to me every day. Most of all, I am thankful for my older brother and Savior, Jesus Christ. I'm so greatful for what he has done for me and the sacrifice that he gave. Who could ask for greater love? I am so excited for the Christmas season -- not so much for all the gifts (even though they're fun), but because it helps me focus on others and on Him. I am so greatful for someone to always turn to in prayer and who will always be there to lift me up when I am down and rejoice with me when I am happy.

May we all remember the true meaning of christmas!

Wishing you the best holiday season ever,
Sarah

Is this really happening in 4th grade?

In my classroom, I am starting to have quite a few problems with a few of the students. They just can't seem to get along with one another. One of my students was throwing a Halloween party and he could only invite so many kids. He made the mistake of handing them out AT school -- of course causing lots of problems. The biggest one being that two of my female students don't get along very well and he invited both of them. One of them -- we'll call her Sally -- said that she wouldn't go if the other one -- named Susy for the sake of confidentiality -- was going. So the boy throwing the party really likes Sally and wanted her to go more than Susy so he goes up to Susy and demands that she give him back the invitation...can you believe it!?!? He was practically throwing a fit because Sally didn't want to give it back and thought it was rude for him to ask for it (and I really agree with her). Anyway, I ended up having a HUGE lecture to my class about being nice and keeping those things OUTSIDE of class. I swear 4th graders are not supposed too act like this!! I've actually had several complaints about "Sally" saying she's been rude and something must be going on with her because she normally is so nice (early PMS maybe)Anyway it made me totally frustrated that my class CANNOT seem to get along that on Monday we are having a huge class meeting and having lessons on friendship.

I also have a student who likes to talk about inappropriate things -- I'm not just talking about using bad language like swear words, read inappropriate material, and then goes and talks about it with the other guys. One of the parents actually called me about it!! I just went straight to the Vice Principal because she is over things like that. But what do I do?!? I haven't witnessed anything because it's all at recess and lunch, when of course the teacher isn't around. I just thought it was so crazy to happening in 4th grade --these boys are 9 and 10 for heaven's sake!

Of course not all my class has behavior problems. I actually have some really good, really smart students too! I am really enjoying teaching and it definitely keeps me busy. There's always lessons to be planned, journals to respond to, filing cabinets to organize -- which I still TOTALLY need to do, and little minds to mold. Although it can be really tough, frustrating, and there's times when you just want to YELL at them; there are still the precious hugs, the notes saying you're the greatest teacher, the "Oh I get it!" light bulbs that go off, the smiles, and the satisfaction of knowing that YOUR JOB ACTUALLY MAKES A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD.
To all the different teachers I've had over the years and all the teachers of the world:

THANK YOU!