Tribute to Grandpa...Thanks for all the memories!

I think this is where I gained a love of horses! :) I remember going on lots of horse rides with him, and he even taught me how to ride a horse! I remember one time I got to go with him and my brother on some horses around the ranch for 4 hours and lets just say, I was REALLY sore after that! I always had a blast though.

Grandpa also taught me how to drive those 4-wheelers through ditches and up steep, rocky hills! Scary, but I knew if he was there, I was okay! I just loved tagging along with him when he would go change the water and he was always a good sport to let me go.

What a Week!

This week has been so weird, crazy, sad, and happy all at the same time! To start off with, my Grandpa Crandall passed away early on Wednesday morning. He went into the hospital last Sunday because he was very sick and weak (from a heart attack) and when there was nothing anyone could really do for him, he was brought home and went peacefully with family around him. It is so sad that he is gone, but I know that he is in a great place with some great people and I will be able to see him again. I have so many awesome memories of him too, staying with him up in Wyoming on the ranch and just visiting him in Springville. He was a great example to me and I am so proud to be his granddaughter!

So, along with that, my mom and dad have come down with the flu (or something like it) at separate times during the week and I lost my voice! I had a sore throat on Monday and Tuesday, and then Wednesday, my voice started to go as I was teaching. So, I should have taken the next couple of days off of teaching, but I decided not to because it is horrible to make sub plans! Needless to say, I taught both Thursday and Friday with no voice! Thank goodness for microphones! Our school has sound systems installed in a few rooms and mine happens to have one, so the students just had to be very quiet to hear me, and they really were soooo quiet! It was nice! It was funny though because they would always answer me in a whisper too and I had to tell them to speak up so I could hear what they were saying! Gotta love those kids! :)

And in the midst of ALL of that, we are trying to pack up our house to move by February 5! AHHHHH! Crazy! But I have to thank all of the good family, friends and neighbors we have to do so much for us, like bringing in meals, helping us pack, and clean our new house. We are so lucky to have all of that support. Anyway, I know things will get better and we can get through this, it is just crazy that all of this can happen at once! At least I have tomorrow off for the holiday and can regain my voice again before I go back to teaching for 6 more days. Thank goodness for breaks! :)

Back to the grind...but not for long!

Well, it is back to work again! It was hard going back, but I guess there's only so much of "nothing" to do that I can take, so it is always good to be busy again! All of my students seemed to have a good break. When I asked them what they got for Christmas, it seems like they either got an Ipod, a Wii, or games for some kind of gaming system. I guess all of those things are the "rage" right now, because our family got a Wii too, and I got an MP3 player. Even grown-ups like them!

Anyway, this week actually hasn't been too bad. It seems like it has FLOWN by! It has been fun because I have started teaching science the last couple of weeks and we are having a blast with all of the experiments! We have been learning about the water cycle, so they have been experimenting with evaporation, condensation, melting, and cloud-making. It is fun to see them so excited about these experiments! I guess that is what makes teaching worth it! I am a little overwhelmed though at all I have to teach in science by May when they take their tests! It takes so long to cover everything for me because I am so new at this and I don't have it down so smoothly, so hopefully I can learn from this year how to "speed things up!"

I am excited though because I only have about 2 1/2 weeks left before going off track on the 27th of January. My friends and I are all going to Disneyworld in Florida! Yeaaaaaa! I have never been to Florida, so it will be quite exciting...the tickets to fly there were pretty cheap too, so that is a bonus! The only thing that is kinda crazy is that right after I get home, we have to be out of our house, so I have to pack up everything of mine beforehand. For all of you who don't already know about this, we are moving to a house that is just 2 blocks North of us because UDOT is widening 11400 S. and taking our house in the process. It really is sad because I have grown up in this house pretty much and there is a lot of memories, but I guess that is just life. AS long as I still have my family and good friends, everything is good! :)