In Honor of the Late Jefe...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo_bn2blWSY

He was a good fish! We were only a few weeks away from our 1 year anniversary...

Has it really been two months???

I'm not sure if anyone is still looking at my blog since I haven't posted anything in so long. There hasn't been a lot of blog worthy events to share. We had a great Christmas and had the biggest snow storm we've seen for a couple of decades. I had a good three weeks off from school since the storm hit before our vacation started. I stayed at my parents house since I'm not a big snow driver. The day after Christmas we went to visit my brother and his family in Heber, UT which was the highlight of my vacation. My nieces are getting so big and I enjoyed every second with them. They are just the cutest.

My mom came to visit about a month ago and ended up staying a lot longer than expected. Her back started hurting and kept getting worse to the point she needed emergency back surgery on Wednesday. It's a long story, but I'll just quote the surgeon by saying, "It was very bad!". We're glad she's home now recovering. I missed a few days of school and the kids had a few things to say about that...I've attached their journal entries since I got a kick out of them.

Brandi + Symphony = Magic

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, my mom, sister, Christy and I went to see Brandi Carlile. (Christy was my teaching partner last year in Dual Language Kindergarten) If anybody knows Brandi Carlile, you know she is amazing. If you have seen her live, you know that she rocks! Words cannot express the concert we went to. Brandi performed with the Seattle Symphony and I was in heaven the whole night. The strings with her music were incredible! I wish everyone could have experienced it...but don't worry! She recorded the concert so I am guessing there will be a little live CD coming out one of these days.

(I look a little too excited)

Little did we know that the fun didn't end after the concert. While we were buying our shirts, we heard Brandi was going to come out and sign autographs. Oh, yeah...we met her. She signed our shirts and took a picture with us. She said we were cool people and asked us to hang out with her at The Tractor afterwards. Ok, maybe I was dreaming of the last part.

She said the yellow was a great place to sign her name so we agreed with her.

FYI: Brandi is on the Hotel Cafe Winter Songs CD I blogged about a few weeks ago.

(Track #2 - She opened the concert with this song)

Thanksgiving Marriage Proposal

I'm not good about writing down what cute things my students say. I did, however, come across a quote I saved in my files from 2005. This boy was kind of like my current try me boy but was a first grader at the time. Teachers got used to watching me drag him down the hall to sit in the office. The fun times were when he'd grab the desk and not leave the room. Man, he held on for dear life! Despite these moments, I really did love him and knew he had a good heart under all his layers. He said many funny things from time to time, but this one melted my heart. I believe we were just sitting around somewhere doing something (that's my memory for you) and he randomly said:

I’m going to marry you when I grow up so you can come to Thanksgiving dinner with us for a long time. But when I’m old enough to get married, you’ll be really old, like 100!

A great reminder to me of why I teach!

(Not the part of being really old, like 100!)

My Background Music...

What do I do when I'm majorly stressed? I start listening to Christmas music! My sister told me about this cd a few weeks ago and bought it right away on iTunes. I love this song and many others on the cd. This has been playing on repeat while I've been working on Masters stuff. Well, I haven't really been working on Masters stuff because I'm sharing this great song with you right now, but here I go...I'm off to try to be a good student.

What is stress...

“Stress is when you wake up screaming and you realize you haven't fallen asleep yet”.

I haven't slept at all.
I haven't really woken up.
I haven't stopped screaming inside.
This is the perfect quote for the Life of Fife.
I've entered a new level of stress that I have never experienced before.
I might be gone from blogging for awhile until the screaming quiets down.

City...U've got to be crazy!

After realizing my teaching certificate expires soon, I decided over the summer to go back to school this Fall to renew my certificate by getting my Professional Certification, which is mandatory by the state. I thought...while I'm at it, I'll get my Master's!! (Which isn't mandatory but it helps with a pay raise in two years) I asked around to find out about different programs in the area. I loved City University's program because you meet one weekend a month and then work independently between classes. That's the only way I see myself doing this and teaching full time.

Well. The time is here. This Saturday and Sunday I will be in class from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm each day. I am interested to see if I will survive. I'll let you know how the Life of Fife survives...