Hannah

And Hannah is growing REALLY quickly!!

1st Vet visit: 6lbs (July 1, 2008)
2nd Vet visit: 8lbs (July 22, 2008)



She has been an excellent dog. She is sweet, and listens fairly well. She can sit, lay down and roll over on command. I haven't decided what to teach her yet. I have installed some Poochie Bells to help alert me she needs to go outside. That might take a few weeks for her to learn. But all in all, she has been wonderful company!

Finding a church....

I received the wisest advice on finding a church today at the Senior luncheon at James River Baptist Church:

"Now, don't be too rational."

YES YES YES.

And she didn't follow it up with, "Well have you tried here yet??" Thank you for that.

Finding a church is different for everyone. And I don't see why some people think they need to sell you on their church EVERY time you mention you are looking for a church. I guess it's because they have found their church to be wonderful for them, and they want you to experience the wonderfulness of it as well.

Don't be too rational. That will stay with me forever. And I knew that bringing the subject up to this lady would have yielded good things. She is a wonderfully funny godly woman, who just recently joined James River having been serving down in Hampton for YEARS. She was living in Williamsburg, and had gotten too old for the drive. She knows how hard it is to find a good church for someone.

I'm glad I sat by her today at lunch.

I did it!

No diploma yet. It's in the mail :-)

AND...I'm teaching at Lafayette again next year. High school...who would have thunk it!? But I love their independence. I love giving them strategies they can use in real life. Life after high school.

17 days left of school.

19 days until I get my puppy! See here. The first one up!! SO EXCITED!!

OH YEAH

And we went skiing last weekend in West Virginia.

So much fun. I cannot wait to go again.

I skiied and Stephen snowboarded. He had fun too.

Here are some pics:

Let's give them something to BLOG about

I know I know. It's been a long time.

Well I have had a lot of really great things to blog about in the last 3 months, but Blogger is blocked at the school where I teach. So I'll sum it up here.

1. I love my job (somedays).

I love working with teenagers who really want to learn. Or who will at least pretend they want to learn the material in front of me. When one of my students "gets it", oh what a wonderful moment. I work with all of the students, but I typically have more contact with the students who have disabilities. Hence, why I am a special educator.

I do not know if I will stick with high school or move on down to where I feel I belong, the elementary school, next year. It hasn't been decided. My ideal situation would be a small class partly self-contained, partly inclusion. I would prefer working with elementary kids with Intellectual Disabilities (ID). ::That's the new term that has replaced Mental Retardation (MR). I am still not using it regularly yet. It will just take a little time to remember the new terminology.::

2. (This is something I wanted to blog about from school one day!)
There is A LOT OF LOVE in a high school...........on Valentine's Day.

Oh everyone has a balloon, or a rose, or a stuffed animal in tow on Valentine's Day in high school. There is more red and pink at the high school than you have ever seen before. And it just cracks me up. The lovesick, lonely teenager is transformed to the goddess and god of love on that day. Something struck me as funny that day.

3. I'm now sporting new wheels





And I love it. It's so functional. Lots of leg and head room. Seats that fold every-which-way. They even gave us 3-months free XM radio. (I've already been suckered in! What a cool idea, satalite radio.)

4. Spring is right around the corner. Which means my graduate career is ALMOST over. May 11th is my graduation day. It has been a long time in the coming. And if I can continue to hold a full time job and get all of my work done, then I will be walking across that stage.

5. We bought tickets to see Billy Joel in Virginia Beach on June.

6. My newest musical love is Bruce Hornsby. We've been waking up to his CD for the last month or so. He's coming to Bay Days in September. Along with Ricky Skaggs. Should be a great show.

7. Our puppy is due March 30th. She/he should be ready to come home as soon as I get out of school for the summer. She/he will be a cockapoo. I'm super excited.

That's about all I have going on right now. Wish I could blog from school. I would be posting a lot more often.

WWE Raw Fun

We went and we saw!

It was fun! Here are a few pictures from that night. They were taken with a disposible camera...so forgive the quality. And because of the lack of zoom, you can't really make out who is who.

But it shows I was there. And I am glad to have experienced it.

 

 

 

 

New do

I went for a trim, and left with this:





and I love it!!

snow, a holiday and wrestling

Well it snowed in Williamsburg. This is an amazing thing. Williamsburg is settled close enough to the ocean to not get much snow, but not close enough to the mountains to get snow that often. So when we get snow, things shut down. We got about an inch and a half, and it was so pretty to look at.







Tomorrow is MLK, Jr. Day and that means NO school!! Actually this week's theme is little to no school. We have Monday off, Tuesday and Wednesday are half day exam days, and then the kids have Thursday and Friday off.

And then on Friday I am joining the:



Not Iowa State's, just life's!

And for the final part of the title....

In my stocking, Santa gave me 2 tickets to WWE Raw at the Hampton Coliseum. I'm taking my best guy with me and we're hoping to see



and



Only a few more weeks until we add a little sweet cockapoo to our family.

That's all for now.

Uh, sorry about the long break. Apparently I have to get up way early in order to write on the blog (like I did today).

Working full time is NOTHING like working part-time. I am teaching one study skills/Algebra resource class, and co-teaching two Algebra 1 Part 1 classes. AND I have 11 students on my case load. (That means that I manage 11 students who receive special education services. Only two of which are actually in any of my classes. And I have yet to meet about half of the others! Either they are not having problems, or I am just a horrible case manager and haven't sought them out.)

But I will tell you. I started on December 3rd. The first 2 weeks were very hard. I just didn't know if I could deal with high schoolers (and still have my doubts). But now I just love going to work every morning. It's kind of fun. Here's a short list of the things I am enjoying about teaching teenagers, as opposed to elementary students:

1. You can have real conversations with them
2. A lot of what goes on in school is their responsibility--and you get to support them as they learn this. But when they make bad choices, and you tell them that's what they did....they are (slightly) receptive.
3. I finish up my day at 12:50 and then have planning for 90 whole minutes.

What I have not enjoyed:

1. The attitude that comes from some students. People being just plain rude is not a favorite of mine.
2. Getting up so early (but that's growing on me too!)
3. Not knowing my case load like I should.

Ok, enough about the job (I have to face it in about 45 minutes)

Well I start my VERY LAST semester (hopefully) of my master's degree. Hooooray. I am taking 8 hours of class and then student teaching in place. I am taking an Assessments class, a Transition from secondary to post-secondary class, and Content Area Reading. The down side is that I will be on campus 3 nights a week. And that is NO fun. I hated having to go 2 nights. A 3rd is going to be killer. But I'll move forward.

Christmas was good around here. Lots of people to see, lots of great presents given and received.

Amongst the things bought after Christmas for ourselves was this beauty:



It's a fun camera to take pictures with. And man, it takes the CLEAREST pictures.

And I am looking forward to taking pictures of this little girl very soon:



This is Bailey ("Buttons"). She is an almost 10 month old Cockapoo. And she's ours! Stephen and I had planned on waiting until the beginning of the summer before getting a puppy, so I would have the time to house train it and everything while I was on summer break. But I happened to be checking the breeders page (where I planned on getting the puppy), and she had just listed Buttons. We are going to the mountains to pick her up on February 2nd. I'm just so excited. I have already bought a ton of stuff for her!! Even a little rain jacket from old navy (which I need to exchange for a bigger size...I can tell from the pictures it won't fit her!)

I can't promise to making blogging a better habit...but I will try. Especially when I have puppy pictures to post.