Thanksgiving Day Fun!

Thanksgiving is always such a busy day, but I guess it could be even busier. I'm glad that I only have to cook a little bit in order to get ready for the festivities! Al and I made our much-loved sweet potatoes, which are really like dessert. We also brought pumpkin chocolate chip cookies with almond cream cheese icing, vanilla almond truffles, peanut brittle, and cranberry sauce--everything homemade, I'll have you know. We started shopping and getting things ready on Monday, so by my day off on Wednesday, I didn't have a ton left to do.

Thursday morning, we woke up at about 7am to be at the annual Chili's Turkey Bowl, a flag football game that has been going on for about nine years now. Al was excited to play because he's been going to the gym and is in the best shape for any Turkey Bowl thus far. Then, the weather was gorgeous! I'm usually in two shirts, a hoodie, a coat, and a blanket, and I'm still freezing. This year, I was in a t-shirt and hoodie and was perfectly comfortable. Unfortunately, Al hurt his back while working on the sprinkler system a week ago and wasn't in peak performance mode. He did get in to play a little bit. Meanwhile, me and the two dogs and Valerie and her one dog were on the sidelines visiting and trying to keep the animals under control. Trillian decided to pick up an old game she hasn't played since she was about five months old--dog-leash-tug-of-war. She nearly chewed a hole through her leash. Then Thursday picked up on the idea, too. One of Al's employees brought her family and kids love Thursday, so for a while, I had a pretty decent dog-sitter for one dog. (Actually, they loved Trillian, too, but I'm pretty sure any one of them and Trill weigh roughly the same and since Trillian can drag me around...)

Since we just keep right on going after the game, we'd made a list of everything we needed to throw in the car that morning. We managed to not forget anything! We left the game just before 10am, after the Harrisville/Riverdale team had beat Layton twice. The dogs got dropped off at Al's mom's house and we took all the food over to my mom's. Then we turned around and headed back to Al's mom's, but stopped on the way to pick up a couple of white peppermint mochas and the annual christmas ornaments at Starbucks.

We watched some TV and ate Thanksgiving chili and cornbread while having a nice time visiting. Trillian and Thursday ran around with the neighbors' two Jack Russells in the back yard.

At about 2:00, it was time to head over to my mom's for the annual Thanksgiving Extravaganza. Along with our contributions, Ashley debuted her green bean casserole that is simple-but-delicious, Christy brought three wonderful pies, mom made an amazing turkey, as well as the yummy cranberry salad and various vegetables. It was fabulous! I am very grateful to have such an amazing family on both sides, and to live in a country where I can enjoy the luxuries of plenty of food, warm shelter, and so much more. I'm also grateful that even though I wasn't born into this situation, my birth mother was selfless enough to place me into it. I don't know who she is, but every so often, I find myself sending warm-fuzzy-vibes her way because by making one extremely difficult decision, she provided me with so much. (I'm also very grateful that my parents wanted another kid after Jeremy, and I'm sorry I kept wandering off.)

After picking up the dogs, Al and I returned home at about 8:30. I was thankful that I didn't have to go anywhere today, so I am trying to get some of the living-mess cleaned up--you know, those areas that just accumulate stuff because they're where we tend to drop things as a habit? I'm also trying to get some reading done. I currently have four books going... but one I've read before. I feel like I've been so busy lately that I don't really have time to read! It's nice to lay in bed with the dogs and just sink into a good book.

Al was not so fortunate as to have today off. He got to open today and most likely got to deal with a few bruised and battered Black Friday refugees (a crazy tradition in gladiator-style that I have no intention of ever participating in). I know he's looking forward to leftovers when he comes home. I'm pretty sure that we came home with more food than we left with!

So this was a taste of the fun that is to come in just three short weeks! I'm so excited to have everyone coming for Christmas again! I know it's probably a total pain for Ash, Dave, Jill, and Jer to do Christmas away from your own homes, but I love, love, love the idea of everyone being in the same place for the holidays! Thanks for taking the time and money to travel out here to be with us!

And Al would like everyone to know that he would like a pony for Christmas. Mark your lists.

Sorry, Jill, I Had To!

So this text message conversation had us laughing on both sides. I guess it's just another way that technology keeps us together when we're several states apart!

Kenzie: IM @ RR! WRU? (For the texting-impaired, she said, "I'm at Red Robin! Where are you?"

Me: I'm at Al's mom's house. How's Red Robin?

Kenzie: Good. RU having fun?

Me: Yes. What did you order?

Kenzie: Buger. How R U?

Me: I'm doing good since I'm not eating a buger.

Kenzie: LOL we are eating caso.

Me: I've only ever heard of queso. When are we going to read again?

Kenzie: Tomorrow after church.

Me: That's good. I've forgotten what we've been reading because it's been so long. I'll have to go back and remind myself.

Kenzie: Food is here gotta go bye

Me: Ok. Enjoy your buger. I still don't know why you ordered that.

Kenzie: They saw my buger and got one too There hot mama

Me: What?

Kenzie: My bad i just sent what kept popping up EX a buger and got one too There hot mama

Me: What were you trying to say?

Kenzie: This is beyond repair now I didn't mean to send those words they popped up while I was pushing space on mom's phone

It went on, and the general consensus was that it was Jer's fault that those words popped up on Jill's phone when KP pushed the space button.

So be on the lookout for Jill's blog URL to change over to therehotmamascherishedmoments.blogspot.com

We Have Eggs!

Moiraine laid 19 new eggs yesterday. I guess she wanted to give me a birthday present. A couple of them looked unhealthy, so we're keeping a close eye on them. We could very likely have about 30-35 baby beardies with these two clutches, and there is still the possibility that she'll lay a third clutch.

We're taking good care of her and getting her a lot of protein and water/nutrient-rich veggies. Female bearded dragons tend to stop eating 2-3 days before laying eggs, and they spend a lot more energy than usual during those days with all the digging, so you can imagine how famished she is!

The first clutch has been incubating for just over 30 days. At the low temperature we're using, they should hatch after a 70-85 day incubation period, so we're expecting the first hatchlings in late December at the earliest. (Incubating them lower and longer results in more laid-back dragons.)

Last Chance for Magazines!

Our fundraiser ends after tomorrow! If you'd like to help us send our super-duper students on some awesome field trips, please buy or renew a magazine subscription through our fundraiser! (If you're renewing, when you order the subscription, you will check a box that it is a renewal. Be sure to order under the name and address that the magazine currently has for you.)

website: www.gaschoolstore.com
Northridge school ID #: 1216571.

You can enter my name as the student name. If you ordered any and left the student name blank, please let me know which subscriptions were yours so that my advisory class gets credit for them. (We're having a competition between classes.)

Take a look! There are pretty good prices for some really great magazines!

Who I Will Support Tomorrow

"Anyone capable of getting himself elected president should on no account be allowed to do the job." Words of wisdom from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Sometimes it takes quirky British humour/science fiction from a now-dead-guy to put things into perspective.

I'm voting Obama tomorrow. Then I'm going to Starbucks. I'm announcing this because, as a traditionally Republican state, my vote in Utah probably won't actually have any sort of impact on whether or not he gets elected.

I don't agree with Sean Hannity that Obama is working to deny us our freedom. And I highly doubt that his first order of business will be to deny Good Ol' Mr. H his constitutional right of freedom of expression, take him off the air, and turn Hannity into the William Wallace of the "conservative underground, the conservative resistance."

Sure, Obama has some "radical" ideas about the way things are being run. One of these "radical" ideas is to overhaul the No Child Left Behind law. Right now, a school can be considering a failing school because one of the 50 checkboxes is not checked. One year, Clearfield failed because only 93% (instead of 95%) of their math students took the test. All of the other boxes were checked. The average score was above the passing mark. CHS scored a 98% for their annual yearly progress. Do you know what the public heard? "Clearfield failed. School on probation. Funding yanked." This is a system that wants us to treat every child the same regardless of disabilities and requires us to teach all students. And when these schools have problems with this, like getting their tenth grade special education students to the same level as their nondisabled friends, they are punished. Yet this same system, when a bunch of banks (who actually get to choose their business practices, their customers, and who they lend money to) started going under, this same system threw money at them. And these same CEOs who ran these companies into the ground were originally going to be keeping their very large salaries.

McCain wants to pay teachers based on test scores--so I, who don't get to choose my students, am held responsible for the scores of all of them, even the ones whose parents don't have any interest in their education and enable them in their skipping of class on a regular basis. If I have trouble teaching these students, my $35,000 a year (with three years experience and a master's degree) will be slashed. He wants to throw more money into the private school forum instead of using it to help me do my job in public education. He wants to simply "tweak" the NCLB.

Honestly, I do love my job. I love it because it is exhilarating to watch my students thrive. I love it because it is academically stimulating. I love it because of the discussions and thoughts that fly around when we really latch on to an issue. And I'm a good teacher. I'm not full of myself. I'm a good teacher because I try hard. I read the research. I implement researched teaching strategies and best practices. I base my curriculum on what my students have shown me they don't know through formal and formative assessments. Luckily, I still have some freedom as to how I go about passing these skills on to my students.

If we continue to put so much emphasis on testing, and start paying teachers based on their students' scores, we're going to see drill-and-kill classrooms. School will be boring and worthless to both students and teachers. And if it gets to that point, I see myself packing up and leaving because I need a job that is fulfilling. Getting students to open their eyes and think--that's what makes teaching worthwhile in spite of the paltry salary. Preparing them for standardized tests? Boring drudge work. And standardized tests pretty much prove only that we have developed students who know how to choose "C" when guessing and to always choose "all of the above" or "none of the above" when it is an option. Most of what makes education worthwhile, and most of what students take away from their years in the system, cannot be accurately tested in a multiple-choice format.

In all likelihood, if I do end up in another profession, it will be because McCain was elected, he didn't try to fix the education system, my job became tedious and boring, and I was held accountable for factors that are beyond my control while parents were not required to take an interest in their kids' educations. And I'm not alone. If you have kids or are thinking of having kids, you have to consider what schools will be like without an overhaul. And private schools and vouchers aren't the answer. As soon as private schools take government money, they are under government scrutiny--which means standardized testing. Private schools know that. When we fought the voucher issue here in Utah, the majority of private schools said that even if vouchers were available, they wouldn't accept them. And guess what--as a private industry, private schools have the right to turn away government funding.

Education is my issue and Obama is my guy. I don't agree with everything he stands for, but I'd really like to see my job become more meaningful, education become more fairly balanced, schools and teachers become better supported, and more great new teachers enticed into the field rather than repelled away from it.

Egg Update

1. We started with 21 eggs.
2. One got squished shortly after it was laid, and two more were "slugs" (the term for a "dud").
3. The remaining 18 eggs are incubating comfortably in our new Hova-bator at 82.5 degrees and 85-89% humidity.
4. Bearded dragons can lay up to three clutches of eggs from a single mating experience.
5. It has become quite clear that Moiraine is gravid again.
6. We are expecting clutch two within the next week or two.

Battle of the Bands

First, some background info:

Before the program, audience members were instructed not to "mosh, grind, or behave inappropriately." Fair enough; we'd expect nothing less than good, clean fun from a BYU event. Yet, after the first energetic song of the evening, audience members were then instructed to "please don't jump, but be energetic." Um...yah. Apparently, at BYU, even Battle of the Bands is a reverent event. So that's why people are pretty much just standing around in these videos.

This was held in the Smith Fieldhouse...a very large gymnasium with the accoustics you would expect from a very large gymnasium. And the sound guy doesn't hold a candle to Dave, who probably could have made do with very-large-gymnasium accoustics and actually probably has done just that at least once or twice. (Which now concludes my shout-out to my bro-in-law the sound genius.)

Also, I'm on the floor trying to be energetic while keeping my feet firmly planted on the court. This was Mom's first experience with my camera and she apologizes for everything. In fact, if you'd like to return the videos, she saved the receipts. ;) Just kidding, Mom. Thanks for taking these and letting me be in the crowd!

And now on to the show!

Let's Get Crazy: (Pt. 1)

Let's Get Crazy: (Pt. 2)

Current: (Pt. 1)

Current: (Pt. 2)

Open Your Eyes:

Take On Me:

And the Winners Are...