Steve & Amy

Although teaching is a tough job and doesn’t pay really well, there are a few perks….working with cute kids, seeing them get excited when they finally get something AND of course vacations! What other job gives you three months out of the year off? However, I am teaching at a year round school, and so my breaks come at odd times. Here I am in the middle of winter with a whole month off school! If I was a skier or a snowboarder (with a lot of money) I would definitely appreciate this time off, but since I’m not, here’s what I’ve been doing to keep busy!

1. Quilting–For some crazy reason, I have always wanted to make a quilt. I made my mom come to the store with me to get all my supplies, because I have no idea what I am doing. Since my mom sews, but is not a quilter, we asked one of the workers if there was a REALLY easy quilt to make. She showed us a kit and said if I could sew a straight line then I could make this quilt. So far I have the blocks all made and now I have to sew them together. It hasn’t seemed too difficult yet, and I’m hoping I haven’t made any huge mistakes that I haven’t discovered. Here’s an example of what my quilt will look like when I sew it together.

2. Playing with my nephew, Asher, and my brother, Matt. At the moment, my brother is the stay at home dad for his 3 month old. Matt has been getting bored at home all day by himself, so he brought Asher over and we played the Wii (okay–well Asher sucked on the Wii remote, and we played, but don’t tell Steve!!) Here are some cute pictures of Asher!

3. Babysitting Rebecca–I get to spend a few days babysitting my niece Rebecca! We have had a lot of fun playing together!! (I don’t have pictures of this yet, but I will get some and post later).

4. Then comes all the boring stuff…cleaning…shoveling the driveway…but that’s not the part that makes me glad I’m home!!!

So the first week of my break is going well–hopefully I can continue to keep myself busy for the next three weeks!!!

Last week Steve and I both got our haircut on the same day. It was pretty cute, because one of my students came up to me and said, “You got new hair!” I like your new hair!!

I know I shouldn’t complain because I am in a classroom all day and I drive to work, so I don’t have to walk anywhere….but it is too cold!!! I’ve been feeling like I never really warm up! The biggest problem is that it has been indoor recess all week, because of the weather. Indoor recess is a difficult situation for both the teacher and the student!! The kids get pretty hyper, because they don’t get a chance to burn up some energy at recess. It also makes the day very difficult, when you don’t get a break from your kids (or even a bathroom break for yourself!) I was hoping that the cold weather would be ending soon, but my principal warned us the weather forecasts say it could stay this cold until the middle of next week!!! Yikes!!! Let’s hope they are wrong!!

It’s been awhile since Christmas, but I wanted to share our Christmas pictures. Steve and I wanted to get pictures in front of our Christmas tree, but anytime someone was over, we always forgot to ask. So Christmas Eve we spent quite a while trying to take the perfect picture in front of the Christmas tree….here’s what we ended up with!

On Christmas Eve, at Steve’s parent’s house, we made gingerbread houses. We had just as much fun as the kids. Of course, we were such perfectionists that we were the last ones to finish!

For Christmas we were able to spend Christmas Eve with Steve’s family and Christmas day with my family! It was a great holiday!

This is in memory of my Grandma. She passed away on January 1, 2008. She was a great example of love and service to us. She was always busy making things for other people. I am lucky because I have quite a few things that she made for me. I have a beautiful quilt, and some crocheted pot holders. It was tradition in our family to receive those when you got married. Although we are sad to see her go, we are glad to know that families are forever!

This picture was taken just a few weeks ago. This is her with my brother, Matt and his son, Asher.

I thought I would update the blog, since I’ve been slow to update lately.

Our Christmas vacation is over. Steve goes back to school tomorrow and I unfortunately started back to school last week.

We had great plans for our Christmas vacation, and although it didn’t turn out to be like we had planned, it still ended up to be a fun break. We were planning on heading to Oregon to visit Will and Challene. Unfortunately the weather started looking like it was going to be pretty rough, and we didn’t want to risk anything, so we had to cancel our plans. We were disappointed, but we are hoping that we can still fit in a visit to Will and Challene before they leave Oregon.

To console ourselves and to keep busy (since Steve had already taken time off work), we decided to have a vacation at home. It turned out to be really fun. We did not cook, do dishes, or any of that boring stuff. Instead we just relaxed. We ate out for almost every meal. We played some of our new Christmas games, watched movies, slept in late, and then Steve’s favorite….

We got a Wii! We decided that we would look for a Wii. Steve spent a few hours calling around to various stores. He even created a spreadsheet so he could keep track of which locations he had called. Finally…he came across a Wii (actually 3–he’s now going into business selling Wiis.) So we spent many hours glued to the TV playing Wii Sports and also Super Paper Mario. Yes, we became video game junkies.

So all in all it was a fun vacation! It definitely made it tough to go back to reality! Steve gets finished with school in May…so hopefully another “vacation” will be coming soon!