or this :)
Sep 27, 2009
Can't wait 'til February!
Here's a short post to follow my REALLY long post, but this one is much more important. I don't think I've posted about the best news we have: my brother and sister-in-law are expecting a baby in February and fairly recently they found out they are having a boy! Both of my extended families are overflowing with girls, so it will be fun to have a little guy around. My sister-in-law just passed the halfway point in her pregnancy and we can't wait to meet our first nephew, who will more than likely be wearing this
or this :)
or this :)
National Book Festival
Yesterday I had a blast at the National Book Festival held on the National Mall (I'm still trying to figure out why it's called "the Mall"). Stephen had an all-day seminar on the MBTI personality test so I decided to take advantage of the free time downtown.
What would a book festival be without your favorite PBS characters? Clifford and Arthur were the only ones I recognized though. I guess it's been a while. At first I felt ridiculous getting a picture with Clifford, but then I saw much crazier librarians and teachers during the day and I felt mild compared to them.
Just a glimpse of what it was like. The big white tents were either full of authors or free stuff.
One of the tents had a booth for each of the 50 states. I got an Idaho potato pin from Idaho, a pen from Maryland, a container of sea salt from Utah, several "Reading Deputy" pins from Texas, a state park guide from Georgia, and a bilingual English-Somali children's book from Minnesota. I also got several bookmarks, booklists, and various literacy tools at each of the booths. Guess who was at the Utah booth? Shannon Hale!
And here is a fuzzy picture of me with Shannon Hale. I read a few of her books (Goose Girl, Book of a Thousand Days, and Princess Academy) this summer and LOVED them. I got to hear her at a presentation earlier in the day and she was hilarious! Some of the authors I didn't get a chance to see were: John Grisham, Nicholas Sparks, Judy Blume, Rick Riordan, and David Shannon.
It was a pretty dark and rainy day, but I still had a terrific time!
One of the highlights of the day was listening to Lois Lowry, author of The Giver and Number the Stars. They are both Newberry Medal winners and two of my favorite books. She talked about an experience she had when she was 8 that helped her decide she wanted to be an author (although she didn't publish until she was 40). She mostly talked about her newest book, which is also her first picture book. It's called Crow Call and it's true story about a day she spent with her father after he returned from World War II. There's really something special about listening to an author read her own book. She only read half, so I can't speak for the entire book but it seems like a great book, and one that could be helpful for kids today who are adjusting to a returning military parent.
After a few hours at the festival I took a trip to the National Gallery of Art. I am not a real big appreciater of art, but I enjoyed the impressionism section and the section of paintings by American artists.
Just another picture of DC. That's the capitol building way in the back.
And a segway tour!
What would a book festival be without your favorite PBS characters? Clifford and Arthur were the only ones I recognized though. I guess it's been a while. At first I felt ridiculous getting a picture with Clifford, but then I saw much crazier librarians and teachers during the day and I felt mild compared to them.
Just a glimpse of what it was like. The big white tents were either full of authors or free stuff.
One of the tents had a booth for each of the 50 states. I got an Idaho potato pin from Idaho, a pen from Maryland, a container of sea salt from Utah, several "Reading Deputy" pins from Texas, a state park guide from Georgia, and a bilingual English-Somali children's book from Minnesota. I also got several bookmarks, booklists, and various literacy tools at each of the booths. Guess who was at the Utah booth? Shannon Hale!
And here is a fuzzy picture of me with Shannon Hale. I read a few of her books (Goose Girl, Book of a Thousand Days, and Princess Academy) this summer and LOVED them. I got to hear her at a presentation earlier in the day and she was hilarious! Some of the authors I didn't get a chance to see were: John Grisham, Nicholas Sparks, Judy Blume, Rick Riordan, and David Shannon.
It was a pretty dark and rainy day, but I still had a terrific time!
One of the highlights of the day was listening to Lois Lowry, author of The Giver and Number the Stars. They are both Newberry Medal winners and two of my favorite books. She talked about an experience she had when she was 8 that helped her decide she wanted to be an author (although she didn't publish until she was 40). She mostly talked about her newest book, which is also her first picture book. It's called Crow Call and it's true story about a day she spent with her father after he returned from World War II. There's really something special about listening to an author read her own book. She only read half, so I can't speak for the entire book but it seems like a great book, and one that could be helpful for kids today who are adjusting to a returning military parent.
After a few hours at the festival I took a trip to the National Gallery of Art. I am not a real big appreciater of art, but I enjoyed the impressionism section and the section of paintings by American artists.
If anything, the building was really beautiful, inside and out.
Just another picture of DC. That's the capitol building way in the back.
And a segway tour!
One of the coolest presentations was a reading of the first episode of "The Exquisite Corpse Adventure." But don't worry... "It's not what you might think. An Exquisite Corpse is an old game in which people write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold it over to conceal part of it and pass it on to the next player to do the same. The game ends when someone finishes the story, which is then read aloud." So basically several awesome children's authors are each writing an installment of the book, which was started by Jon Scieszka (The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, The Stinky Cheese Man). Every two weeks there's a new episode, each written by a different author and posted on read.gov. Some of the authors include: Kate DiCamillo (Tale of Despereaux, Because of Winn-Dixie), Shannon Hale, Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) Megan McDonald (Judy Moody series), and Katherine Paterson (Bridge to Terabithia). Anyway, the first episode was hilarious and I am excited to read the rest.
I have to recommend one more author I learned about: Craig Hatkoff. I'd never heard of him, but I was impressed with his presentation about the children's books he co-writes with his daughters. They are all about animals, which kids love, and each is meant to convey a message to help kids deal with the tough things in life.
I have to recommend one more author I learned about: Craig Hatkoff. I'd never heard of him, but I was impressed with his presentation about the children's books he co-writes with his daughters. They are all about animals, which kids love, and each is meant to convey a message to help kids deal with the tough things in life.
Can you tell I love books? What a great day.
Sep 20, 2009
Homesick
To all of my Utah family: I am homesick!
I like it here, but I could really do without a few things. Namely, the excessive honking, rude strangers, excessive honking, expensive grocery stores that don't even sell bagged cereal or burritos in packages of more than one, teachers that believe every word must be shouted, excessive honking, streets with no signs, and most of all... the general LACK of persons belonging to my family.
Don't worry, we really are happy here. If you could peek inside our apartment, you would find us laughing and smiling on a daily basis. To make the transition a little smoother I am... growing tougher skin, planning better for shopping trips, learning how to navigate the roads, and using our webcam to communicate with family as much as possible.
My job is going pretty well. Most people at school have been very nice to me and I love the kids. About half of my caseload (currently 36 kids) are kids in general education classes who get resource services or just have articulation problems (S, R, etc.). The other half of my caseload are kids in special education classes and have moderate disabilities. The best news about work is that sometime this week I am leaving my closet office to share a temp/portable with the occupational therapist! Maybe I will take a picture once I'm moved in!
This week we had our first ever overnight visitor. One of my neighbors from Murray was interviewing for medical school at George Washington, so he had dinner with us and stayed the night. We haven't done anything social since we moved here, so it was really nice to see a familiar face. He and Stephen had a lot of fun chatting about education and health care. Then yesterday I met up with one of my BYU roommates at the Washington DC temple. She brought some family names and we acted as proxy for them for all of their ordinances. I've never brought a name to the temple to do ALL of their ordinances, so it was a really neat experience. Finally, today we invited a guy from Stephen's program over for dinner, as well as his wife and 4 month old baby. We had some delicious homemade cafe rio burritos and played some fun games. We are definitely happy to see familiar and friendly faces, but wish we could see our families more often.
I'm sorry my blog posts are so boring, but I've decided that they're more for us to look back on than to entertain our friends and family (although I wish I was more talented at that). Hopefully Stephen will make a post soon about his internship that he's starting tomorrow!
I like it here, but I could really do without a few things. Namely, the excessive honking, rude strangers, excessive honking, expensive grocery stores that don't even sell bagged cereal or burritos in packages of more than one, teachers that believe every word must be shouted, excessive honking, streets with no signs, and most of all... the general LACK of persons belonging to my family.
Don't worry, we really are happy here. If you could peek inside our apartment, you would find us laughing and smiling on a daily basis. To make the transition a little smoother I am... growing tougher skin, planning better for shopping trips, learning how to navigate the roads, and using our webcam to communicate with family as much as possible.
My job is going pretty well. Most people at school have been very nice to me and I love the kids. About half of my caseload (currently 36 kids) are kids in general education classes who get resource services or just have articulation problems (S, R, etc.). The other half of my caseload are kids in special education classes and have moderate disabilities. The best news about work is that sometime this week I am leaving my closet office to share a temp/portable with the occupational therapist! Maybe I will take a picture once I'm moved in!
This week we had our first ever overnight visitor. One of my neighbors from Murray was interviewing for medical school at George Washington, so he had dinner with us and stayed the night. We haven't done anything social since we moved here, so it was really nice to see a familiar face. He and Stephen had a lot of fun chatting about education and health care. Then yesterday I met up with one of my BYU roommates at the Washington DC temple. She brought some family names and we acted as proxy for them for all of their ordinances. I've never brought a name to the temple to do ALL of their ordinances, so it was a really neat experience. Finally, today we invited a guy from Stephen's program over for dinner, as well as his wife and 4 month old baby. We had some delicious homemade cafe rio burritos and played some fun games. We are definitely happy to see familiar and friendly faces, but wish we could see our families more often.
I'm sorry my blog posts are so boring, but I've decided that they're more for us to look back on than to entertain our friends and family (although I wish I was more talented at that). Hopefully Stephen will make a post soon about his internship that he's starting tomorrow!
Sep 8, 2009
Settling in
We are starting to get used to our new home. So far we have mastered driving to the metro station, my school, church, several grocery stores, and the library without using the GPS.
We really like our ward, and they have put us to work quickly (there are about 100 people in Church each week). We have already spoken in sacrament meeting and had the missionaries over for dinner. On Sunday we got called to be Primary teachers for the 10 and 11 year olds. We sat in on their class and we are excited to start being their teachers, especially since it's a calling we get to do together. We only have about 5 or 6 kids and we were pleasantly surprised that for the most part they were actually bright and funny, not annoying.
Last week I posted almost 200 picturs on facebook. I would love to take time to blog about all of them, but then the rest of my day would be gone. You can go here to see them: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2283499&id=17812339&l=39d52dba1d
Stephen started school last week! This basically means he read a lot of syllabi. I won't tell you how much we calculated for the cost of each class period based on his total tuition, but at least some of his classes were worthwhile during the first week. He is eager and excited for things to pick up. In his spare time he has started to look for an internship/job. Luckily he signed up for a weekly career seminar and has access to an excellent career counselor since he doesn't know what area he's interested in yet.
Last Friday we went to the Washington DC Temple Visitors Center for a date. They had an exhibit of photography from the Hubble space telescope. I don't know if the exhibit will be at any other visitors' centers, but if you get the chance, go! It was pretty neat.
I finally got an "office" today. It's really more like a closet, but hey, I've heard about closet offices many times before and what else could I expect on my first year when I started a week after school began. I am mostly happy that I had somewhere to meet with my students today, who are, by the way, adorable. At least the ones I've met so far are. My first day seeing kids wasn't nearly as stressful as I thought it would be and it was brightened by some amusing exchanges. After asking questions in a get to know you game, I asked a 2nd grade student if he wanted to know anything about me, to which he replied: "The only question I have is how was your childhood?" I had to try not to laugh. It was funny to hear such a serious question from such a little guy. Tomorrow: Back to School Night :)
We really like our ward, and they have put us to work quickly (there are about 100 people in Church each week). We have already spoken in sacrament meeting and had the missionaries over for dinner. On Sunday we got called to be Primary teachers for the 10 and 11 year olds. We sat in on their class and we are excited to start being their teachers, especially since it's a calling we get to do together. We only have about 5 or 6 kids and we were pleasantly surprised that for the most part they were actually bright and funny, not annoying.
Last week I posted almost 200 picturs on facebook. I would love to take time to blog about all of them, but then the rest of my day would be gone. You can go here to see them: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2283499&id=17812339&l=39d52dba1d
Stephen started school last week! This basically means he read a lot of syllabi. I won't tell you how much we calculated for the cost of each class period based on his total tuition, but at least some of his classes were worthwhile during the first week. He is eager and excited for things to pick up. In his spare time he has started to look for an internship/job. Luckily he signed up for a weekly career seminar and has access to an excellent career counselor since he doesn't know what area he's interested in yet.
Last Friday we went to the Washington DC Temple Visitors Center for a date. They had an exhibit of photography from the Hubble space telescope. I don't know if the exhibit will be at any other visitors' centers, but if you get the chance, go! It was pretty neat.
I finally got an "office" today. It's really more like a closet, but hey, I've heard about closet offices many times before and what else could I expect on my first year when I started a week after school began. I am mostly happy that I had somewhere to meet with my students today, who are, by the way, adorable. At least the ones I've met so far are. My first day seeing kids wasn't nearly as stressful as I thought it would be and it was brightened by some amusing exchanges. After asking questions in a get to know you game, I asked a 2nd grade student if he wanted to know anything about me, to which he replied: "The only question I have is how was your childhood?" I had to try not to laugh. It was funny to hear such a serious question from such a little guy. Tomorrow: Back to School Night :)
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