School

We had our class party last Thursday. My mom and Aunt Cathy came to act as "room mothers". The kids loved them. I split the class into 3 groups and they rotated who they went to. Mom helped the kids decorate cinnamon Christmas tree ornaments. Cathy helped them make Christmas cards and I played multiplication tic-tac-toe with my group. Mom and Cathy brought Christmas goodies and toys for them. My class was very lucky. Thanks Mom and Cathy for spending the time (and money) to come and help out. Ya'll were a big hit!

















Here are some pictures of my bulletin board. One of the big Texas mandated tests for 4th grade is writing. It's a HUGE deal. The fourth grade teachers decided to decorate our boards in a writing theme. In the middle of the flowers are common everyday words such as "said". In the petals are better words to beef up their writing, such as "argued, reply, yelled", etc. I'm going to put their papers that have good word choice on the blue and yellow papers. I like it. This 1st picture says "Writer's Wall of Fame" and is at the end of the bulletin board.

Christmas Parties

We had two Christmas parties this weekend. On Friday we had the Deloitte Party. We went and listened to the Dallas Symphony. It was a nice concert. Low key and they just did Christmas songs. Afterwards everyone gathered outside the performance hall in the balcony lobby. They said there would be dancing so we expected ballroom dancing which we can do a little of. Instead they played 80's dance music. No body really danced. Crystal tried to get me on the dance floor with another couple, but I don't really fast dance and didn't want to look like a fool in front of all my coworkers. Overall it was a very nice night.

Then Saturday our church party was titled, "Return to Bethlehem." We dressed up in robes. I wore a robe and Crystal used a bed sheet. We had Greek food, sat on blankets, and watched a little narration about the birth of Christ. It was a lot of fun. Below is a picture of us. We looked better in real life.

Adorable nieces and nephews

I was preparing lessons at the computer table and as the screen saver was running I saw several pictures of my nieces and nephews. I love them so much. I love my brother so much. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to them. I see the way Ben and Angie care and love for their children and I'm excited to have my own. Here are some pictures of them (the most adorable children in the world). I would have my nieces and nephews from Travis' side but as I was searching for pictures to post from my computer, I reliazed I don't have any. We'll have to post some after Christmas.

We are playing school. I'm the teacher, Brittny and Austin are students. Austin wanted to be called "Yogi".

Don't you just love Austin's scowl? They are both adorable.

This is the only recent picture I have of Bryonna.

1/4 of CPA Exam Passed

Today I got my score for the portion of the CPA exam that I took. A coworker just took the same section yesterday so we were talking about it at lunch. Until just recently you had to wait about two months for them to get your score back to you. However, another coworker heard what we were talking about and stated that now you could see your scores online about two weeks after you take the exam, before they mailed out the offical letter in a month or two. I decided to look and to my excitement found that they had posted my score just today and that I passed. This was suppose to be the hardest section section so I guess the rest is down hill from here. I should be all finished up by the end of the summer. But for now we are happy I have 1/4 of the exams out of the way.

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving. The break and time with family was much needed. We slacked off Thurs., Fri., and Sat. It was great though. We have had two house guests since Tuesday evening. I had to bring home my 2 hermit crabs from school since the break is 5 days. I didn't take home the aquarium they live in so they have been living in a angel food cake plastic dish. They hate it. For Christmas, I definitely have to bring home the aquarium. I have a big red one and a small Caribbean one. The red one is very active. He tries to escape often. He is a climber.
Well , Wed. night we went to have dinner with my parents. When we came home we checked on the crabs and found only 1 there. The lid was on but not snapped on. I thought, no way could he climb out without the lid falling off. He must be buried under the sand. I started digging around and he wasn't. So Travis and I searched the living room. While Travis searched the bathroom, I walked into the bedroom and there he was in the middle of the floor. This was quite the accomplishment for him, considering the cage was on the kitchen table and he would have had to fall off the table and walk 10 feet. 10 feet is a lot for a crab. We quickly put him in the cage and set 2 food cans on the cage so he won't be able to pop off the lid. They must really hate it there b/c the red one is feisty now. Usually when you pick them up they hide in their shell. Now the red one fights you.
On Thursday we set both on the living room floor and let them walk around and explore. It's fun to watch. Last night we made a large rectangle on the carpet with boxes and set them in it while we watched the movie. They loved it.
Here is some pictures of the red crab trying to get out of the angel food cake dish.

This is when we first bought the crab. There is no sand in it. This week there has been sand in it.

Blog mood

I'm in the mood to post, post, post! (Post blogs, that is.) Here are some pictures from our summer vacations.

We were driving back from Nevada (to Utah) and Travis thought this was a cool highway name and wanted a picture. Supposedly this is a hotspot for UFO sightings.

We visited San Antonio and Austin Texas and this is Travis in front of the Texas State Capitol building. Great view, huh? (I meant the hunk in the blue, not the building!)

On our way back from Austin to Allen, we passed through some podunk town and they had this snack shop that was designed like a space ship. I pulled over to get Dairy Queen, Travis pulled over to take a picture with the family.

No more glasses

Well, after two years of glasses, I am switching back to contacts. I wore contacts from 1994 until 2003 without ever owning glass. Then I decided to tryout glasses and without using contacts. I have decided that contacts is the way to go. I still go to remove my glasses whenever I rub my eyes, but find nothing to grab. I posted this picture so you could see the old me. I would post one without the glasses too, but I don't have one yet. Well that is all, just wanted to let you know of the change.

4th grade day

Every six weeks the students take a district benchmark test in reading, math, and science. It is written like the Texas state tests so it's to see how well the students are doing. Our school is expected to be in the bottom of the district because of our student population (low socio-economics) . This last six weeks the district got a sweet surprise. The average score on the math benchmark for the district was a 71%. Our fourth grade had a 73%. Some of you might be thinking that 71% is low. You have to remember that Richardson is a diverse district and has it's "white surburbian" schools, as I call them, as well as culturally and economically diverse schools. So those diverse schools bring down the district average. I saw that the upper class schools had 83%. Anyways, the district office was buzzing about the news and my principal was so excited that she called the 4th grade teachers at their houses to tell them. My principal decided that the other grades need to be motivated so she hyped up our scores. On Friday there were 3 banners around the school saying "4th grade rocks", etc. The 4th graders got to wear hats all day and leave their shirts untucked. (A dress code at our school is for boys to tuck in their shirts to help reduce the ghetto-gangster look.) They also got to eat outside in the courtyard and had a district person come and take pictures. I don't own any hats so my principal let me wear one of hers. I'm in the back. Enjoy!

Church lingo

As I was reading Travis' post and my previous ones, I realized that there is a lot of church lingo that is used, that we take for granted. It dawned on me that members of other churches wouldn't know what we are talking about. Since some of the most important people in my life are not of my religion and will check out this blog, I want to make it clearer. Below are two common words used.
"ward"- it's like a school district, we are split into boundaries by where we live and attend church at a certain time with the people living in our boundaries.
"ward missionaries"- Travis and I help the missionaries in our ward. They are two 19-21 year old guys who go around teaching the gospel to people. We give them rides and go with them to help teach their investigators (sometimes).

There, now everyone will know what we are talking about.

1/4 of the CPA exam hopefully done

Well, this was a busy weekend for me. It started off with me sitting for the first of four tests in the CPA exam. It was the part of exam that covers the most content area. This made studying hard because I never knew if what I was studying would be on the exam or how in depth I would have to know each area. For the exam I was alloted 4 hrs and I used every second of it. I did finish everything, but it would have been nice to have avout 5 more minutes to reread my essay. This was a computer based exam, but I have to wait about 2 months until I get my scores. So I hope I passed and I think I did, but I won't know for sure for 2 months.

Other than that, Crystal and I spent the weekend relaxing. We went to the temple, had the missionaries over for dinner, watched "Hitch" and "Bewitched", picked out the paint for our night stands, spent time with Dean and Connie(Crystal's parents), went to church, did some hometeaching, and went to a group family home evening. Ok so maybe it was a busy weekend, but we had fun.

Well, that is about all. Thanksgiving is just around the corner so we will be sure to update you all on our Thanksgiving fun.

Our home

Here are pictures of our apartment in Richardson, Texas. We've been living here for about 3 months. It's been good so far. We like our ward too. We are ward missionaries and have been put to work. It's fun for Travis because he gets to revisit his missionary days. It has been fun for Crystal because she never went on a mission and she gets a taste of the work now. All in all life is busy but good.

This is our second room which we call the "office/junk/storage room".

We just got wood nightstands from my aunt that we need to paint. We'll post those when that is done. As for now, we are using crates for nightstands.

This is Travis's favorite seat in the house. ;-)

This is the kitchen. Notice above the counters, the fruit decor. Thanks Cindy for all the fruit decor from our wedding and thanks Dean for making the stands for the platter.

This is the dining room. (It's not really a room though.)

This is the view from the front door.

The couch and t.v. stand we inherited from my home ward.

This is the living room, dining room, and into the kitchen.

Crazy Hair day

The students could not wear costumes today because we can't give these students that kind of looseness b/c they'd go nuts so the school did crazy hair day instead. I ratted my hair and made it as big as I could. A few kids asked me if it was a wig. When I told one boy that it was real he said, "I didn't know your hair was that nappy." I love these kids! :-)

I'm a copy cat.