Valley of Fire

So, this last monday was President's day so we didn't have school so we decided to go and see some places around Las Vegas. We decided to go exploring the Valley of Fire because our roommate went with her boyfriend and said it was really funny. It was just Me, Kate, and Nicole because Clarissa went up to Rexburg for V-day with her boyfriend. whoo whoo! anyways, like regular singles we woke up later in the morning and then we did some stuff...anyways, the point is, we didn't leave until like 3:15 so it didn't give us much daylight to explore but we went anyways. It was sooooo Beautiful! The rocks are so red and there are so many other colors and shapes. Oh, and there were tons of holes! For some reason, I am drawn to holes in rocks and like to climb in them! It's fun! They were all over the place and the perfect size for a person. We had a lot of fun climbing things and exploring places and taking tons of pictures. The state park isn't huge but we still didn't get through the whole thing before it started getting dark. We are hoping to go back again sometime and explore the park a little more. Here are some pictures of us in the park.

2 New members of the apartment

My rommates and I decided that we really needed a pet in our apartment so we settled on getting a fish (I wanted to get a turtle but that was a little unpractical...). It's Friday night and our outing is going to walmart to look for fish. We get there and we're looking at the fish trying to decide what kind we want and who catches our attention. Well, suddenly one of my rommates bursts out laughing and points to a fish and we knew right off the bat that that was the one for us! It was love at first sight. hmmmmm... Well, this fish is really funny looking and when you look at her you can't help but burst out laughing! We were laughing so hard that I was nearly crying! We knew that every day we'd get a good laugh when we looked at our fish and brightened up our day. :) The guy helping us with the fish just smiled and slowly shook his head as we were laughing uncontrollably! Never in my life have I seen such a funny fish! I know, you're wondering what kind of fish it is that I'm going on and on and on about, right? Ok, I'll tell you. The fish is a new breed to Walmart called the Celestial Eye Goldfish. The body looks just likea goldfish, but the eyes are HUMUNGUS! They look like they are located on a huge zit on each side of the head and the eyeball is on top of it. When you look at her you just feel like reaching in there and popping the zit! (don't worry, I'm not an animal abuser, I wouldn't do it to my precious fish). The huge eyes are kind of purplish becuase you can see the blood inside and it's just hilarious! It's like a small body with HUGE eyes! On of our roommates is kind of creeped out about it, but the rest of us love it! Here are some pictures of Celest (that's what we named her becuase she is a Celestial Eye Goldfish). I really don't think it does her justice and it is a lot more funny seeing her live, but this will do I guess:

Aren't those poor little puppy eyes?!

She looks like an old woman pondering in this one...with saggy dark eyes and everything!

We decided that we didn't want Celeste to be lonely and die so for cheap we got a black goldfish. He has a gimp, kinda like Nemo, but it's cute. Friday was Elvis' b-day so we named him Elvis. Plus he looks classy and likes to move his hips! He likes to move it move it! He likes to move it move it! He likes to...move it!

Here are just some weird pictures of me with the fish. :) Forgive the first one..it's kinda weird. lol


I think Celeste and I look the same in this picture, what do you think? They do say that you start looking like your pets!

We love our fish!

Wonderful Ideas for Teaching

So, my cooperating teacher is a real talker and so I stay at the school for a good 2 hours after it gets out. It's ok, though, because I am learning a lot of new things. We start talking about things and one thing turns into the next and soon we've talked about a lot of things. For instance, today she wanted to show me a program that I could use for their spelling and such and then she told me how she had lost her copy of the program she bought so she was using the schools and I expressed a desire to see how much it would cost becuase it would be really useful. So we got on the internet and looked it up and...it costed way to much! You could probably find it cheaper somewhere else but it got bought by Mcgraw company and is now way more expensive than when she bought it. Well, we then started talking about room setups and she showed me this really cool website of a teacher who has TONS of ideas. It's amazing and looks way fun! This is it in case you are interested in looking at it....the few people who are teachers..if any..that look at this..anyways, here it is-http://hill.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/index.htm- We had a great time looking at that. Get this, every year she has a new theme and she decorates her room accordingly, has activities all throughout the year for it, takes pictures of the students on the first day and makes introductory things for it (for example, for the TEAM theme she took their pics and then made a type of baseball card out of it with a cool background and everything and then on back it was a thing telling all about them so everyone could get to know them). Anyways, it's just amazing. One thing I envy is that she has a HUGE classroom and so she can do tons of stuff for it. All of the classrooms that I've been in have been so small that there's barely room to read anywhere or even do centers- sometimes there's only room for desks! So much more learning could go on if they'd make classrooms bigger so the students have more chances to learn independently and feel comfortable. Well, if you have time you should look at the site..if you want. :)

I'm in Vegas!

I'm here in Vegas! It's exciting and nerv-racking at the same time. Here are some things I love about down here:
It's not freezing here which is nice but I may miss the snow eventually
We have a washer and dryer in the apartment
LOVE the walk in closet!
Lots of new adventures awaiting

So, those are some pretty good things. I do hate driving here, though. On the raods instead of painted on lines they have these white and yellow dots which confuse me like no other! Why can't they just have regular old painted on lines like everyone else? They must be special...i guess. Anyways, I've already had my embarrassing moment here. When I first got here the gate opened because another car was going through it so I just followed it and thought it opened automatically. So I leave to go get groceries and come back and it doesn't open automatically. So I quickly search around for somewhere to punch the code in and finally spot it. I drive up to it but it is still to far away so I open my door. It gives me directions to look at the directory and find the apt and then it says it's calling...and I wait..and it says no answer. I just want to punch in the numbers and get in! A black kid across the way motions to me something and I just nod. Anyways, I just fiddle with the thing and then a person pulls up behind me and eventually says he'll just punch it in and we'll both get it. How embarrassing! well, hopefully I can figure out how to get in for next time!

Rafting Trip

Hey Fam! So, this week I got to go on a rafting trip so here's the pic of us as we started off. I'm middle right and Megan is Middle left-It was so fun!

The last cookout....fun times.

Howdy y'all! So, this week was our last week for the cookout so Megan and I decided to dress up all cowgirlish. Here are some pics of the cookout:

This one I'm trying to look like all modeling or something...I think it looks like I'm about to blow a kiss! heheh This is me modeling by the covered wagon.

This is a pic of Me and Megan sitting by our boss Ray...he's the greatest boss ever. We just had to get a pic with him and this one is a good one becuase it even has the lodge and the mountains behind us.

This is Me and Megan just chillin' by the covered wagon waiting for people to show up.

This is me and George...here you go, you can finally see what George looks like from the front. He doesn't usually do the cookouts but the assistant cook has left so he was kind of forced to come down and cook. I think he had fun though.

And here is some of the guests eating while the band plays in the background. It was one of my favorite days, Thursdays, (except for my day off) because cookouts were so fun. :)

Messing with Nature- lesson learned

So, this week I learned a lesson about messing with nature. On the side of the lodge a robin built a nest and 3 baby birds hatched. The nest is the top one that I am talking about. Anyways, we had been watching them every now and then and then on... Thursday, I think, I was outside with Megan while she had a smoke break. We look over at the nest and see one of the 2 birds (the other one was gone already) fall out of the nest!! we thought 'wow, this is the 2nd time we've seen a baby robin leave it's nest! what's the odds of that happening twice?'. But, the bird looked a lot smaller than the other baby robin we saw leave it's nest, and it was just hopping around like it couldn't fly yet. I felt bad for the bird and figured that it accidently fell out of the nest so I decided to put it back in it's nest again. So I proceeded to chase it around- meanwhile the mother robin is screaming at me from a distance and I thought she was going to attack! Finally I caught it and started to put it back in the nest. As I did so, it scared the other smaller bird and he fell out as I put the other one in. Great, that one was even smaller so I HAD to put him back in the nest. So I chase him around and finally catch him and proceede to put him back in the nest but then both got scared out as I did so! I decided that only one was going to stay put in there so I grabbed the smaller of the two (the one that didn't leave on it's own accord) and put him in the nest and we went back to work.The next day we go out and the bird is gone out of the nest. 'yay!' we thought, 'he flew away!' just then I look down and right below the nest on the ground is the baby bird...DEAD! WITH IT'S HEAD GONE NONETHELESS!! I don't know how it happened (the two suspects are boy scouts or an animal) but it was really sad and I felt bad. So we dug a grave and buried it. Megan always names little animals 'Pooper' so she wrote "RIP POOPER" on the stone we put on his grave. we had a little funeral and put flowers and a wreath on the grave (the wreath is a pop gun thing).
So, sadly, I learned my lesson to not mess with nature. It was probably that bird's time to fly away and I tried putting it back in the nest and maybe contributed to the little one's death. I'm sorry Pooper, I really am. here is a picture of me being sorry. I've learned my lesson.