What a week!

Lots of events have taken place over this weekend and part of last week!

We put up our Christmas tree and decorations on Monday, making everything look so festive! I love this time of year and love the "cozy look of home" during December.

Duane had a checkup in Tucson with his heart surgeon Thursday so I took the day off to go with him and keep him company. He got a clean bill of health! Everything looks good and he doesn't have to see him again until next fall. Very good news!

We made a stop at Costco for a few items, then met Mom for lunch at Olive Garden before heading up the mountain. In the parking lot at Costco while we loaded our stuff in the truck, a lady next to us, doing the same thing, started to sing........."It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas..." We didn't know her, but she was so happy! Tucson was overcast and slightly rainy and she obviously loved its weather. It's nice to meet up with happy people in such a stressed out world! We arrived home in Show Low around 5:30 p.m. I'm glad we got home when we did - it snowed Thursday night and dumped 2 feet of the white, fluffy, cold stuff on us, which caused there to be no school Friday. I know, as a teacher, I should be saying something like...."oh, darn, no school! There's so much to be done!" Instead, I'm saying,........"YES - a break from the kids! I can handle this!" Lol! Fortunately, we own a Toyota Tacoma, 4-wheel-drive which is awesome in the snow! We found ourselves at KMart, getting snow boots for Andrea and Dallas - what? You can't just SQUEeze your feet into them even though they're two sizes too small?? Sheesh!


Saturday was busy - I was chosen as the designated driver (because of my 4-wheel-drive) to take the Relief Society presidency to Snowflake and attend a funeral. This was a new experience for me, not the funeral part, but that is was for the dad of one of my students, who is also in my ward. The mom and dad are divorced, but the mom and children are in my ward. Such a sad thing to lose a parent at the young age of 6, 10, and 11. The man was originally from Guatemala and had a lot of Spanish-speaking relatives attending, so the service was in English and in Spanish. There were some beautiful messages shared by church leaders, which made for an enlightening Saturday morning.

Saturday night, I took my friend Hilda, secretary in our RS presidency, to the high school's Feast of Carols. What fond memories it brought on of when Rachelle was in high school and participated in these programs. It was terrific and well-performed, and evening well spent. There were also tears in many eyes as they gave Mr. Gentry a farewell gift as he is retiring after 30+ years in the district. He and his wife were awarded a plaque and an Alaskan cruise! Wow!

We put on a visiting teaching conference during Relief Society today. I was part of a skit and there were three speakers. Excellent day and week!

Halloween Fun

Hello everyone!
Here's us dressed up for our ward chili dinner and trunk or treating last night.

Clint Eastwood (aka Duane)

Andrea's one of the
Tron characters
Kim (Queen of Something)

My visiting teachers brought this to
me.......................

Andrea and Dallas went to the temple Wednesday.

Tomorrow is our school's celebration of Halloween so I have a pretty regimented day scheduled so the kids don't get into too much mischief! Party's at the end of the day so they can get "sugared up" and then go home!

Have a terrific week!

FALL BREAK

Aahhh........the sound of that word - "break". It could have any other word before it and it sounds like a piece of heaven! Fall break........spring break...........Christmas break.............lunch break..........you name it - it's a slight reprieve from the norm! I'll take it!

Our fall break is in the form of a 4-day weekend, EXCEPT, we had to attend an inservice Friday so even though the students have 4 days off, teachers have 3 days off. I guess we'll take whatever we can! Don't get me wrong! I love my job, the kids are great, we all have these trials and tribs in our classrooms, but oohhhhh......the breaks are welcome! Especially after a week of getting report cards ready for 33 students - not an easy task but one I like to kick back and say "YES!" when it's done! I still get to stay up late watching a movie or two and sleep in in the morning. (yeah right! My eyes flick open around 6 anyway, even if I don't have to go to work!)

We had stake conference today in which Elder Golden and Elder Leseuer of the Seventys were in attendance to reorganize our stake presidency. What a great meeting! The three brethren who were released have done a phenomenal job at leading the saints in our stake. They will be missed and the three new presidency members, President Williams, President VanWinkle, and President Crandell will be wonderful as well. I know both counselors fairly well but not the new President. He's an attorney in the area and somewhat new to the mountain, been here 4 or 5 years. He's young and has a young family. Seems like the stake presidents are getting younger and younger!

After conference, Duane and I took the teens and drove out to Hawley Lake to view the changing colors brought in by autumn. We were not disappointed! Some areas looked like pictures from Arizona Highways, for those of you who even remember that magazine! It took about 40

minutes to get there and was well worth the drive!

HAVE A MARVELOUS WEEK!!!!!

Does It Ever Slow Down??

Hi Everybody!

     I come home weary at the end of each day of teaching 33 fourth graders how to sit still, how to listen, how to be nice to one another, and how to clean up their messes. 

 Oh!!  And occasionally, I teach math, reading, writing, science, and social studies!  Between book fairs, school pictures, parent/teacher conferences, bake sales, popcorn sales, and our principal coming around to each class every other Friday, to see who deserves to choose out of the Cougar cart, we squeeze in those academics the best we can!                                                                                                                          They're a handful, but I love them! 

     Duane continues to recover from heart surgery.  He's had a couple of uncomfortable days this week, but all-in-all, he's improving nicely.  We will go to Tucson this week for a followup on Thursday.  He has some stitches that need to come out and hopefully, the doctor will release him to drive.  We make sure he gets out on little "outings" to keep him moving and help maintain his sanity after all the sitting that goes along with the recuperating. 

       One outing a few days ago took us to a hobby store where he bought a fairly complicated model car to work on - he loves that stuff and is enjoying the challenge!                          

     Dallas and Andrea attended Show Low High School's Homecoming football game last Friday night.  Dallas and the young men in the ward had their own tailgate party with Subway sandwiches and soda pop.  They attended the game to watch SLHS beat Payson 30 - 6 (or something close to that).  Andrea played her clarinet and marched in the band.  Duane wasn't feeling quite up to it all, so he and I went out for Mexican food, then watched a movie at home.

     So there you have it!   Have a super week ya'll!    

    Oh yeah - at school, our music teacher's wife had twin girls!  Found this cute clip art so had to add it! 

Medical Adventures

Hello everyone,

It's been a crazy weekend and I feel beat, but wanted to get a short blog done before calling it a night.

Duane's hobbling around on a broken toe, which he acquired yesterday while being goofy with Dallas! I took him to urgent care, they x-rayed it and it's going to need the attention of a podiatrist, which he will try to contact tomorrow for an appointment. His toe connected to the kitchen wall while trying to 'fake kick' at Dallas. Ouch!

Our other adventure coming up is a trip to Tucson to University Medical Center for Duane's open heart surgery to replace a leaky aortic valve. He's been fatigued, no energy, shortness of breath, dizzy at times, all part of the symptoms of a faulty valve. We look forward to him feeling better when it's all over and done. This surgery will be September 7th and there's a 4-day hospital stay. I'll take the week off - keep us in your prayers.

Meanwhile, our teens continue to study in school and stay active with the youth in the ward.

I face 32 fourth grade students each day which leaves me tired at the end of the day! They're pretty good, though, and I'm enjoying them.

Have a great week!

Ketchup ("Catch-Up") Please

It's time to get with the program again! If Kathi can do it, so can I! We'll see if I can get some pictures on it as well!

This summer is zooming by and I just realized there are only 2 weeks left until school starts again. Here are highlights:

Disneyland in June and the beach. It was cold, windy, raining and we lasted 10 minutes there!

We went camping a couple of weeks ago. So pretty and especially nice since they were able to lift the campfire restrictions! Can't camp without those s'mores! :-) Duane also made an excellent peach cobbler in the dutch oven. Yum!

Mitchell came the week of his birthday and we celebrated at Fiesta Mexicana. Hard to figure he's 21 now! He got a haircut a day or two after this 'sombrero' picture.

Duane and I made friends with his cousin's baby.......cat? No! Mouse? No! Hamster? No! SKUNK?? Yep!!
We came back smelling sweet! Seriously, no spraying involved! :-)

Dallas had his friend from Tucson come up to Show Low and stay a week. He and I went down to get him and took one evening to go to Kitt Peak Observatory. What a great experience! We saw different galaxies, stars and even Saturn! There was also a beautiful sunset!

Now, starting tomorrow, I have a science institute training in Snowflake that lasts all week. Hopefully, a good learning and resource accumulation experience for me!

Rachelle's still here, of course, and working for her several jobs. She goes back to school Sept. 8. Have a great week everyone!