School's Out!

This school year is officially over! Though I am excited to take a much-needed break, I will definitely miss my students. The last few school days were pretty depressing knowing I was going to be losing them! I feel so blessed to have had the students I did this year; they never ceased to amaze me, and I grew to love them so much. All 494 of them! (Because Spanish Intro is a rotational class, I had the great opportunity to teach just about every 7th grader in the school in addition to my regular year-round Spanish I students.) That's a lot of names to memorize...and a lot of yearbooks to sign! Phew!

We ended the school year with a bang.  Literally! We broke piñatas. The students had so much fun, and so did I!

The weather also decided to leave its mark the last week of school...

It's been a sad week, saying goodbye to these wonderful students of mine. But it ended well when we got together with some of my school friends from my own teenage years. We ate at this great pizza buffet and stuffed ourselves silly! It was so good to see them again!

I also found out this past week that I passed my Praxis II test! Now I can become a Level 2 teacher! Hooray!

My Midlife Crisis

I guess I have all the symptoms of a midlife crisis: I gave my notice to quit my job and I bought a brand new laptop, all in the same day! :)

I'm going to start grad school full time in the summer and I won't be able to continue working full time. I basically have a year to research, write, and defend my thesis for my mechanical engineering masters degree, and then the following two years I'll finish up my engineering coursework while I do my MBA. And since a laptop is required by the Marriott School for my MBA, I was able to write it off as an educational expense in our budget! :)

"Y", It's Finally Warm!

Here it is, almost June, and we're finally experiencing some warm weather! It was such a nice weekend, our family didn't want to miss a bit of it. Friday night we got together with Rob and Kim to play tennis in the nice evening air. We had so much fun, and though we're a little out of practice, we did manage to win a couple of games.

Yesterday, we started off the day with a big hearty breakfast of Kneader's "all-you-can-eat" French toast. A student gave me a gift card for Kneaders a year ago, and we just now got around to using it. It was delicious!

After breakfast, we started on the day's work, going from store to store to load up on soil, seeds, and plants. Remember that race Travis and I were having a couple months ago? To see how fast our seeds would grow inside? Well, I guess the seeds weren't as enthusiastic about racing against each other as we were... So we started all over, this time planting directly outside where they would be warm. We planted basil, oregano, cilantro, asparagus, carrots, peas, tomatoes, chili peppers, and some flowers. With how much we planted, we're hoping something pops up! But if not, we know this is a learning experience, and we'll just keep trying.

We finished the day with a hike to the Y. Travis gave me some nice hiking boots for Mother's Day, so I decided to try to break them in on our hike. They're so comfortable! I can't wait to use them over and over again this summer!

California Dreamin'

This spring has been an especially cold one, so what better reason to escape to the warm California sun? Since my brother is leaving on his mission, my family decided to have one more family vacation before he leaves. Because of the start of spring term, and school still in session, Travis and I met up with them Wednesday night and we all stayed at my mamita's house till Saturday. Not all of my siblings were able to make it, but we still had a great time with those who did!

On Thursday we went to Disneyland. I didn't have the guts to go on Splash Mountain (hey, I went on it last year in Florida, that counts for something, right?). However, I did conquer my fear of Space Mountain and went on that for the first time. Travis had to hold me the whole time; I'm surprised he could still hear out of his left ear, I was screaming so loud! It was lots of fun; we went twice!

On Friday we hit the beach. The water was cold, but we were still able to splash around in our swimming suits. Travis had a lot of fun getting tossed around in the waves.

It was a short but much needed vacation!