June: Week 4

This week was awesome. It was super busy with some type of sporting event every night and this conference I signed up for during the day. I signed up for the Huntsman Conference at the Hinckley Institute of Politics at the U. It was seriously one of the greatest conferences I've been to. I loved it. I am such a political nerd. They had the greatest speakers set up. Senator Bennett, Congressman Bishop, Dan Jones, Kirk Jowers, many state representatives and senators, Mayor Winder and Mayor Love, the list continues. Oh, and did I mention, Kirk had an in that allowed us to go to the Mitt Romney Fundraiser at no charge. It was awesome. Also, I think I loved it so much because I met three of the most adorable girls. We were the only young ones of the group and instantly all gravitated to one another. You'll see them in plenty of pictures below.

Jordan, Amber, Kirk, Amber, and Amber (no joke...)
The "Mean Girls" and John. We nominated him to be our "class representative" at our graduation at the Huntsman Center. He didn't campaign for it and there were plenty of very "outspoken" people who wanted to do it. Let's be honest, we were a little tired of hearing said "outspoken" people and just LOVED him. In his speech, he dubbed us the "Mean Girls."
The Utah State Capitol Building
The Utah House (we sat in the Senate all day... but for some reason, I took a picture of this instead).
You might recognize this person--Mitt Romney. I'm fortunate enough to have met him and his family a few times. Quality people. Quality.

The mean girls with Jayne.
The Speech.
After the fundraiser, I really needed to high tail it to Orem for Erin's wedding reception, but I got out too late, so I headed over to the ward softball team. Afterwards, I took a picture with Matt because we played in our "work" clothes. This picture would be really adorable if we were in love...

Note to self (or anyone for that matter): Never play softball in a pencil skirt. It's way too hard to run and even if you hit the ball to the outfield, they can throw you out because there's not to much room for big strides thanks to the skirt...
Now for such a happy moment. I LOVE Erin. She is one of my best friends. We worked on the same team 2 years ago in Rexburg. I feel like it was my "girl" summer. Me, Erin, and Jan would stay up 'til the wee hours of the morning discussing (actually, I'll leave that up to your imagination) stuff. They have been the greatest friends in life. I always know I can count on those two girls. Anyways, last summer, we also worked together at EFY and were roommates for 11 weeks. We got to our last week and had the option to be in single rooms (actually, we were forced to be in single rooms and I remember being SO lonely because, though our rooms bordered, I was so used to having her with me). She is one of the sweetest, spiritual, driven girls I know. I'm so happy for her and Kimball!
Adrian (Erin's sister) and I
Oh, Jan...
Erin and her brothers
The ladies
To close a wonderful week, we headed to the driving range. Our ward has had a lot of turnover and it's been fun getting to know everyone.

I sent this picture to his mom. Haha--I sent some others to other random parents of other people but can't seem to find them.
Happily Ever After. :) Well, with her husband of course!

June: Week 3--Seattle

Two weeks ago, my roommate and I drove to Seattle to help clean out my grandparents house. If you know my grandma, you know that she had a TON of hobbies and she went all out when she selected one. She had a room full of scrapbook stuff, an attic full of ceramics, a place full of woodwork, dishes galore, etc. We went to help my mom and uncle undergo this huge task now that they've decided to rent out the house. It was an interesting week full of memories!

The dried out paint we hauled out of the attic. Yes, those are FULL trash cans that contain nothing but paint.

We went to Spud Fish and Chips. Apparently this is a tradition in my home (from living in Seattle/visiting Seattle). What I actually learned is that my parents made it a tradition to go there whenever I was not invited because I had never been in my life. Thanks, parents ;)

The giant totem pole. Taking Marge was kind of cool because she has a weird sense of taste (haha jk). I would've taken a sight seer to the Science Museum, Space needle, Mariners game, etc. Instead she wanted to see poles, bridges, trolls, and parks. I guess it was great for both of us because I saw things I had never heard about before...

Why my mom and Meggie are together in this picture and I am not invited is beyond me... ;)

Mama and I

Tree Hugger (haha get it? PS--I'm hoping these sweatered trees aren't supposed to symbolize something else...)

Pikes Place

Yes, we painted lines under our eyes with candle ash. However, please note this room. The two of us tore out the wall paper and painted it :) See below a few pictures.
We almost bought this for our engaged roommate Juls. However, after cleaning out so much crap, we vowed to never buy anything in our lives that wasn't either edible or clothing. I don't think I've broken that promise yet. Sadly, we made Juls a wedding count down chain with grandma's scrapbook paper instead of buying her random souvenir crap.

The Sound

Pretending to be an artist...

And then...DUH, DUH, DUH... My poor Charlie. We were going to see some random drawbridge and I was stopped at the light in the center lane. The left turn arrow flashed on and this car-carrying-semi side swiped me, cut through my car, and pulled us into the intersection. We followed him waiting for him to pull over, and it appeared that he would, but he didn't. He reversed and turned around (which is a little hard to do in a semi). This random man walked by our car, looked at the damage, made awkward eye contact, and ran up and hopped into the cab of the semi and DROVE OFF. At that time, we realized that they were not trying to find a large space to pull over, instead, they were ditching us. We called 911, who prompted us to pull over. Within 2 minutes, a cop found us and found the truck. The nice gentleman had me follow him to the other cop car where we identified the semi and filled out the police report. Wow. What a day! At this point, I have had my little rental car for 2 weeks and REALLY can't wait until my car is fixed.

Fremont troll. I had no clue this existed.

The finished room :) (Yes, you may now scroll up and compare it to the original room. Great progress, I know).

We stopped by the Boise, Idaho temple on the way home, snapped a quick picture, and were on our way. To make the trip just fitting, it rained the whole way home for us.

I learned a few things:

1. I'm allergic to Seattle

2. I love my family (already knew that)

3. NEVER put things in the attic

4. Garage sells don't work--just DI everything

5. Well...I'm sure they'll come to me :)

June: Week 2

Well, here it is. My first official week off of school. I rediscovered:

nature

friends, The Sandlot, and outdoor movies

the TRUE American sport, baseball

and packing summer days full of people and random events :)

I love summer...

June: Week 1

My second year of teaching is up and I seriously can't believe it. Here is a preview of the last few days...

I really, really loved this year. I fell in love with my students (as a collective whole, not individually, don't you worry). I'll miss the girls coming in to chat with me next year and all the "interesting" conversations we shared.
We made a quote wall. Here's an explanation of the few of them from an earlier post:

I made them say the contries names over and over as I pointed to them. Then one of my students said, "I'm going on strike!" jokingly. I slipped back, "I'll strike you!" Whoops. It was hilarious.

Then, I pointed to Moldova and pulled the whole SNL teacher skit. "What country is this? Mmmmmmoooo...." They yelled, Macedonia, Montenegro, Montague!" I replied, "Montague?! This is not Romeo and Juliet..."

Haha ok. Moving on.

I asked, "Raise your hand if enjoy learning about the Holocaust." Well I raised my hand to model that I wanted them to raise their hands, but apparently it was a little firm because the girl in the front row said, "Do you enjoy learning about the Holocaust, Miss Anderson?" I looked at them confused. Then about 7 of them "mirrored" my out stretched arm. So basically, I suddenly saw all these "Heil Hitler" responses coming from my students and then recognized that I myself had been doing the Nazi salute. Another student said, "She does have blonde hair and blue eyes." I replied, "Actually, they are green, but you have blonde hair and blue eyes. Hmmmm..." haha. Whoops.

Here are a few teachers from my school. Every year, 9th grade students go to our local amusement park, Lagoon. Well, some teachers are needed to "chaperone" them. This is what happens. We all ditch the kids at the door when they have to stand in line for tickets and we hang out for a few hours until we meet them back on the bus. It's great :) Here are the teachers of my school (Poore, Nielsen, me, Blank, Terkhorn, Terkhorn's sister, and Briggs. Unfortunately, Baily is semi-cut out. I'll blame that on the photographer. If you only knew...
This is a picture of my hand. Why do I have a huge cut? Why, let me tell you.

Setting: Last day of school, only about 15 9th graders showed up, in a classroom, with the desks pushed up against the wall.

Story: So this teacher was jokingly trying to tackle one of my favorite female students. Apparently she had done it before and she was going for round 2. Well I decided to help this student in need by trying to pull Harward off of her. Harward turned and tried to tackle me (please note that I was also eating Doritos. And yes, I realize that I should have been in my own room chaperoning during this time...). Well, Harward is larger (and apparently more powerful) than I am. She tackled me to the floor, straddled me, pinned down my arms and pretended like I was a human typewriter. So imagine tap, tap, tap, tap (on my chest), slap (my face), tap, tap, tap, tap (on my chest), slap (my face), tap, tap, tap, tap (on my chest), slap (my face). Also remember, there are like 15 students watching and my mouth is full of Doritos. Somehow, her wedding ring sliced open my hand.

I dramatically and jokingly insisted that I was going to go tell the principal. I rushed up to the office and the principal filled out a "Notice of Suspension" form and checked the physical assault box which I later dramatically hand delivered to her. It was funny.

Why do I have this picture, well I took a picture of it and sent it to her the other day "just thinking of you..." Oh man...
I decided to have a rebellious streak (or 5). Kind of fun... I love Katchie (she's my hair stylist).
My good friend Ann gave me tickets to see Ellipse. Her husband is in the band and she is just so generous to always think to invite me. I love going. Cynthia from work came with me (though she refused to be photographed). It was such a fun night and so nice to finally be outside.
Here is the cute math teacher turned stay at home mom. I miss her across the wall (coincidentally, her class room is the room I was turned into a human type writer. I was abused much less when she was in that room)
Here is her adorable little guy! One of the most precious, happy children I've ever seen! Thanks again Ann!
Well, I don't really know how to flip this sideways, but I made this. My best friend, Coralie, invited me to this little temple picture frame project. We made these!! It's huge. Please observe my toes and how small they are in comparison to my huge temple picture. Cool, huh?
On a less relevant note, I saw this homeless person. I know, I shouldn't have taken a picture. He might not have even been homeless. He was holding a sign across the street and he has 2 dogs. Most importantly, he was wearing a HUGE stuffed (pretend, I presume) dog head on top of his head which made hip appear like 7 1/2 feet tall! Crazy. I will now go wash my car windshield...