The Amazing Facial Expressions of lil Greta

The other day I had a photo shoot with one of the most gorgeous little girls ever!

Greta was nothing but smiles and was so much fun to take pictures of.  She openly laughed at her mom and dad and didn't cry once...what six month old does that!  I'm not quite done editing all the shots, but I couldn't wait to post these adorable pics.

The many faces of little Greta...

A Perfect Surprise

Today I spent a perfect day at the beach.

One of my closest friends, Lisa, is moving to southern California in a couple weeks and I am trying desperately to spend as much time with her and her family as possible before they leave.  It was a perfect day laying out under the warm sun, watching her kids play in the chilly waves, eating fun junk food you never allow yourself to buy, and talking for hours about anything and everything.

When I arrived home several hours later with my skin fried to a crisp I found these on my doorstep...

The card read:

To my lovely wife, because I miss you and can't wait to get back to you.

I called Dallas right away to thank him and give him obnoxious kisses over the phone.  Sometimes I sit back and just ask myself how in the world I found this man?  Why would someone so wonderful, kind, and thoughtful have chosen me?  I guess it's moments like these that make the snoring and ESPN watching seem so minuscule :)

Photo of the Week 20

Love the Color Purple

Blue Man Group

It's been an eventful few days.
Dallas and I are coming up on our third year anniversary tomorrow, so we decided to spend a romantic weekend in San Francisco.  Friday night I caught BART into the city and met up with Dallas at his office.  From there we drove a few blocks up to the Hilton where we checked in and found out that they had upgraded us to a junior suit.  I love it when hotels make mistakes and you get to reap the benefits!


We had a relaxing evening and slept in Saturday morning.  It felt so nice to just sneak away for awhile.  True, San Francisco is only 15 miles away from our apartment, but it has been exactly what we needed; separated from our daily lives, staying in a nice hotel, ordering room service, and living up the uniqueness of this quirky city.


Saturday afternoon we decided to explore Union Square and the neighboring areas first by car and then on foot.  The city was full of tourists and locals mixing together in a very dynamic manner.  At one point, while waiting at a stop light, a group of 20 bicyclists passed our window.  We didn't think too much about this, until we realized they weren't wearing any clothes!  We about died laughing, Dallas even rolled my window down to up the awkwardness of waiting at a red light next to a bunch of naked men on bicycles...boy, I love my husband!  Unbelievably, it remained PG13 for me (probably due to my tears from laughing so hard) while Dallas got a glimpse or two of a bit more.

After an eventful afternoon of people watching and shopping, we headed to the Golden Gate Theater to see the evening performance of the Blue Man Group.  Neither of us had seen them before and it was truly amazing!  First off they had the most amazing drumming rhythms.  I kept thinking how much my mom would LOVE to see them perform and feel the rhythmic vibrations from head to toe.

My favorite, of course, was the paint drumming.  How many of us have dreamed about drumming into a big bowl of paint, splashing in every direction, and not having to clean up the mess??  It was absolutely stunning!  The thing that I was most surprised by, was how funny the show was.  There is no dialogue and we were laughing out loud for most of the performance.  The Blue Men used body language, gestures, and interactions from the audience to communicate.  It was pretty amazing to watch.  Basically if you get the chance to see them perform, take it!

Reason #135 Why We Love San Francisco

Reason #135 why we love San Francisco...you never know what you're going to see when you look out the window!

Claremont Hotel & Spa

In the teaching professional there are very few material perks.  Sure you have the tender hugs and smiles from your students, but lets be honest with ourselves...wouldn't it be nice to feel appreciated with a dinner, gift card, or a day of fun on the school district's dime?  If you work in corporate America you are probably familiar with these forms of compensation, but definitely NOT in the public education world.

On Thursday, Dallas's company treated a group of their employees and their spouses with a day at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley.  Built in 1915, the Claremont has been a consistent award-winning recipient for decades.  Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, and Tommy Dorsey were all regular performers in their jazz lounge.  Fully refurbished,  the Claremont was awarded the AAA Four-Diamond Award, Michelin Guide Recommended for 2011, and Millennium International Award of Excellence, while the spa was recognized in the San Francisco Chronicle Readers Choice Awards as "Best Place to be pampered."  Needless to say, we were well taken care of.

It was such an amazing feeling to be totally pampered for the day!  We started by all meeting up for a gourmet lunch at the Paragon Restaurant located on the main level of the Claremont.  Dallas's coworkers were so nice and welcoming, even before all of the alcohol consumption!  I have to admit that I have become a total food snob since moving to the Bay area.  The cuisine is always so fresh and authentic and the Paragon did not disappoint.  It was an entertaining lunch full of funny stories and anecdotes, who'd have thought accountants could be so humorous?  Then the boys left for a game of golf, while the girls made their way to the Claremont Hotel Spa for the rest of the day.

 If I had the money, I would go to this spa every day!

We started by each receiving 80minute deep tissue massages, followed be full access to the spa facilities where we spent time in the steam room and then made use of the waterfall and 9 headed showers.  I told Dallas it gave me some great ideas about how we are going to remodel our bathroom when we own a house.

 After we were all thoroughly relaxed, we headed back upstairs, sat out on the veranda under the heat of the sun, and ordered incredibly yummy gourmet desserts.

Does it get any better than this!?

Flashback Friday: Red Rock

Since I didn't get the chance to write a Flashback Friday last week I figured I would sneak one in today to somewhat feed the nostalgia I've been feeling as of late.  There are many things that I have loved about teaching.  I have kept pages after pages of silly quotes from my students, projects they completed, letters and cards given me in thanks, and thousands of pictures to document it all over the years.

One of my favorite teaching memories took place while I was teaching fourth grade at Sunset View Elementary in Provo, Utah.  Every May, the school would take a group of students, ages 4th-6th grades, on a three day camping trip in Goblin Valley located a couple hours south east of Provo.  They called the program Red Rock.


When I was first asked to attend as a chaperon/group leader I was a little apprehensious to spend three nights camping with over sixty elementary kids.  If you know me and my family, we were raised with the idea that camping included air conditioned rooms at the Marriott, but I agreed to go and have been grateful ever since!  I was able to attend Red Rock three out of the four years teaching at Sunset View; each year creating unique and crazy memories...I will give you a glimpse into the last year I went--Red Rock 2007.

(MAKE SURE TO CLICK ON EACH IMAGE TO ENLARGE)

A few weeks before we left for Goblin Valley students attended a series of different preparation meetings with team building activities.  Group leaders helped the students come up with clan animals, names, and group cheers.  We chose the coyotes and our color was red.  It basically felt like I was an EFY councilor for little kids.  All of the group leaders were teachers from the school whom volunteered their outside time.  You can imagine how much fun we all had since my best friends were the teachers that went along!

We all met up at the school on a Wednesday morning at 7:00am for check in and a parent send off.  We then loaded into the bus (group leaders got to relax and travel in an air conditioned SUV) and drove to Green River.  There we were all able to explore the John Wesley Powell Museum; each student filling out their own homework packet along the way.  After lunch and the museum we continued on our way down to Goblin Valley.  We did three major hikes over the course of the next four days, the first being through the "mushrooms" of Goblin Valley.  It was such incredible beauty and the kids absolutely loved the chance to climb all over the rock.

 After a fun-filled afternoon in Goblin Valley we made it back to our campsite where the students were shown how to put up six large tents (3 girl's tents and 3 boy's tents, each sleeping about 10-12 students.)  Us group leaders, on the other hand, were spoiled with sleeping in a camper!  You gotta love Ron for taking such good care of us!  Although now that I think back, I'm pretty sure Janelle demanded a camper in order for her to be a group leader again, so I guess I should be thanking her?

 The second day was jammed pack with team building activities, owl pellet dissecting, problem solving, rock climbing, journaling, and lots of hiking.  We spent most of the afternoon exploring the San Rafael Swell.  One of the best parts was when Ron and Jason took all of the kids for an hour and allowed the rest of the group leaders to hike back through the Swell on our own.  It's amazing how much fun you can have with seven pent up teachers excited to be given a break from kids!

 I loved my crazy coyotes!  They were such hard workers and never complained.  They tried so hard to get along and work together to solve all the difficult problems we threw at them.  In the picture below you can see a couple of the activities they accomplished throughout the day.

 The third day continued the fun marathon with a hike up to the "Hole in the Sky."  During the hike, students had the opportunity to try repelling if they wanted to.  It was so fun to see some of my TINY fourth graders strap on the harness and show little fear!  After repelling we continued the hike, searching for specific Utah plants and rocks.  This wasn't my favorite day since ALL of the hiking was up along the ridge with little to no shade.  Let's just say we were all melting by the time we reached the top!

 Each night we would eat dinner and then sing songs around the camp fire.  We had a skit night where we acted out the legend our clan created, a cheer off, and then the last night an awards ceremony.  The group leaders had all made beaded bracelets for each of their clan members.  We also spoke a few minutes about each student.  It was pretty sweet and a perfect way to end the evening.

 The fourth and final day, we woke for breakfast and then spent the next couple hours packing and cleaning up camp.  You can see from the picture above that Janelle and Ashlee were much better about completing their camp duties, while I tended to "monkey around" a bit!

I loved Red Rock.
Looking back I feel so blessed to have been a small part of such an amazing program.  The lessons each of us took from this experience were priceless and continue to be some of my most cherished teaching memories.  I'm not sure how Ron, Jason, and Melanie were able to organize and pull off such an intricate and well executed trip for so many years, but I am sure glad they did!

Photo of the Week 19

Obviously I did not take this picture, but I am feeling very nostalgic this week.  It's our last three days of school before the summer and I am going back and forth between feeling excited and sad to say goodbye to another group of students.  I figured this was the absolute perfect picture to depict the joys of teaching.  I've loved so many little faces throughout this decade of working with children and I hope that they know and remember that love.