Family Fun!

I was blessed with the opportunity to have almost all of my immediate family members present at my graduation on Friday, August 13th (which is my favorite day- I love Friday the 13th!). Honestly, the best part of graduating was the short day that we got to spend all together: my parents, all my siblings, half of my nieces/nephews, my parents-in-law and most of their children (and their new grandson!). It was a blast. After my graduation in the morning, we all went to Vivian Park in the Provo Canyon to have a picnic lunch and be together. Here are a few pictures from graduation with my family, and the park afterwards (cohort graduation pictures to be posted later). 

Me and my parents

Me and Thomas' parents

Me and Thomas and Taylor

HAPPINESS!!!!!!!!!!!

The family gathering. Notice Thomas' face, looking at my mom... haha

As many of you know, I have a history of a cow fetish. The train came through the canyon and these cows were on the tracks, they must have wandered down from some farm. Needless to say it made my day even more perfect!

Bri, Dominique (two of my nieces) and Sarah, Thomas' sister

The Weber family playin' some foosball... nice throw, Heather!

The "Father-Son Face Off" between John and Paul. All I know is this turned into a wrestling match and John definitely lost to his dad... 

Ethan, my nephew

Bri

Cody and Chris playin' foosball

NICE KICK!

Ethan's turn to play- unfortunately on his first try he kicked the football right back into his face. But he's tough, tried again, and succeeded!

My Classroom!

I successfully finished my first week at my first salaried job! It was just a teacher prep week with lots of meetings, etc.

I'm working at Mt. Loafer Elementary in Salem, Utah.We are the grizzlies, and soon I will be sporting a school shirt :)

Here are some pictures of what I have done with my completely empty and boring room so far...

My Desk

My bookshelf (pretty empty because I have some amazing cupboards all along one wall)

All my regular ed speech kids' names are up on apples so far- I'm going to add my preschool kids now that I have the list of them. This board will change with seasons/holidays. 

This is my reward system for speech. Its basically a game, and every time they come to speech they earn one space. If they bring back their homework they get another space, and if they work hard the get a space too. So potentially they can have 3 spaces each time, and every 6 spaces is either a game or a prize space. The final space is a "big game" and that's where we just play the whole session. This is by far my favorite reward system I've tried throughout the past couple years. I chose a monster theme, this theme might change every once in awhile too, there are just too many cute school supplies! I still need to make the magnet pawns (something like this- I can't decide what pictures I want to put on them).

I'll update these pictures as I get more moved in and finalized. :) But I thought maybe you'd like to see them!

Lots of pictures!

Here's a quick update:


I defended my thesis on Monday, August 9th. My parents, husband, and one of my sisters came to support me and watch me sweat it out :) It went fine- I passed with revisions (which I knew I would need lots of revisions since they rushed me so I'd be able to walk in graduation). Anyhow, its almost done now and I got to walk with my whole class!!! How fun that we all graduated together. I'll put pictures up when I get them from everyone. Meanwhile, here are some random pictures from our summer.




Emma, Me and Kristi at "Beach Day" at Deer Creek!
Ethan stuffing his face at the pool- boy did he work up an appetite!
Ethan being a monster in the swing outside our house.

Thomas and I babysat Ethan for a night so his parents could enjoy an evening out together for his mom's birthday. It worked perfect because we took him to Jen's graduation party (she was in my cohort). It was a blast!


Here he is trying out the huge inflatable slide! He made it almost to the top before he turned around and realized it was REALLY high. I went up with him, and it was a little scary for me too! The slide was so tall and super steep. And it wasn't a very stable feeling being on top of 25 feet of air...

He LOVED the trampoline, we ran around on that for over 30 minutes...

He wasn't so sure about the cotton candy... but loved the soft serve ice cream!

And obviously here he is being a monster...

It was a fun party! We played basketball too (they had an Ethan size hoop) and had lots of food- Ethan loved the popcorn (from an oldschool popcorn machine). He ate 3 small bags of it! What a fun party, Jen! THANKS FOR THE INVITE! It wore Ethan out too, he went right to bed when we got home :)

Summatime!

Haven't updated recently because there hasn't been anything to say... Thomas just finished his internship with the SL County DA and is now spending a week in California with his family (and having so much fun with the Crown Fire...). I have been working every day and writing that thesis! I am scheduled to defend a week from today. The end is in sight... I never thought this day would come! I'm so excited. Unfortunately I get no summer break, since I've worked everyday this summer, and then I graduate Friday August 13th and start my full time job Monday August 16th. I guess I'll just have to wait until next summer to play. Or my Fall break... I love still being on the academic calendar :)

I did get to go to the pool this past weekend- my first day at the pool all summer! It felt so good to get sun. Here are a few pictures. My sister Kerry and I took our nephew Ethan and niece Briyana. So fun!

Ethan eating his pizza. He didn't want to go on the slide all day ("Do you want to go on the slide?" "No thanks!") and when we took him out of the pool to get lunch he said "Ok, I'll go on the slide! I'll go on the slide" because he thought we were leaving. He's such a cutie.

Bri enjoying the sun after she ate her pizza

Ethan leading Kerry all over the place

The photographer- basking in my "fish-belly whiteness"

That's Ethan in the middle- running to the slide

WEE! Ethan and Kerry liked this slide a lot