Clear Creek

Friends always ask me what I do over the summer now that school's out. Well, I work! Last summer, I was hired on to be a teacher at Clear Creek Summer Camp, which is basically a week-long outdoors camp near Scofield where we teach fifth-graders about the trees, flowers, animals, and the history of that area. It's a lot of fun, and I've learned a lot from working there these last two summers. My favorite part is catching pot-guts in homemade traps! My least favorite part is being away from Travis for the week. There's no cell phone reception, but there is a computer from which I can e-mail him.

(Don't worry, we only use the mouse traps to open
and close the trap's door...)

Last weekend, when Travis picked me up from camp, he surprised me with, lo and behold, another camping trip! My clothes were already dirty and still smelled like smoke from the long week, so why not? We met up with Rob, Kim, Colby and Kat around Payson Lakes. We always have so much fun together! I love this picture- it looks like I've been camping all week, and I love the difference in our sticks. I guess Teddy Roosevelt said it best: "Speak softly, and carry a big stick!"

Father's Day Fun

To celebrate Father's Day, I decided to surprise Travis with a canoe trip down the Provo River. We had a blast!

We rowed for a couple of hours down to Utah Lake and back, and had so much fun together! I am so grateful for Travis and the wonderful man that he is. He is such a strength to our family, and a wonderful influence to everyone around him. He'll be an amazing father one day!

Happy Father's Day! :)

Unemployed!

After working at the housing office for over 3 years as an administrator, Travis took the plunge and quit his job. Because of how this joint program is structured, he only has one year to work on and defend his thesis for his Masters in Mechanical Engineering. Quitting has definitely given him extra time to do this.

This has been a bitter-sweet thing for Travis; he's made the housing office advance in so many ways, not to mention saved them thousands of dollars each year by the things he programed and integrated for them. Everyone was so sad to see him go! I don't know what they're going to do without him. Our friends have joked with us saying that the housing office will probably cease to exist, and students will be homeless and wander aimlessly around campus.

That weekend, we took a small camping trip to celebrate. Travis cooked pasta for dinner. To be honest, it was the first time I've ever had pasta while camping. But it was so easy to make, and delicious!

When he went to school this week, he forgot he didn't have an A sticker anymore! Poor Travis didn't even know where any Y parking lots were located! Luckily, he found one empty spot in the nick of time. He'll get a G sticker starting summer term for being a graduate student...but we will miss the close parking! Travis also received a T.A. Fellowship for Fall/Winter semesters, so this unemployment won't last too long. We know that his job at the housing office has been a blessing in many ways to us, and for that we are so grateful!

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!