Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!  Here's a pic of our mini tree.

Wishing you and your family a safe and fun-filled holiday season.

Upstanding Citizens by Day, Zombie Killers by Night

It's finally summer break!  School ended last Friday, and I'm so excited to relax.  Dex has some free range time at Impact Guns, and ladies shoot for free on Tuesdays, so we hit the shooting range to kick off the summer fun.

Sportsman's Warehouse sells these hilarious zombie targets, so I begged Dex to buy some.

Dex started off practicing his trigger control, so he used a regular target (the party pooper).  He needed a target that allowed him to easily see his groupings. 

I, however went straight to zombie slaying.  Everyone knows zombies are only killed by head shots (which makes no sense considering that zombies don't use their brains, but whatever).

I was super proud of my shooting.  I'm actually getting really accurate with Dex's pistol.

Eventually, even Dex got in on the zombie action.  He's much better at finishing off the undead than I am.

We're completely ready for the impending zombie apocalypse.

If you haven't heard, I'm the new Saturday poster at Free Digital Stamps.  Hop on over and see the freebies.  If you find any that I missed, let me know.

Thought for the Day

Spring is in the Air

(Completely off topic-Anyone else thrown off my Blogger's new design?  I am still trying to figure it out.)

It's been beautiful weather lately.  Dex and I decided to visit Thanksgiving Point to see the flowers blooming and soak up some Vitamin D.

It was absolutely stunning there.

It was great to spend the day soaking up the sun and the view.

The sights were stunning.  There were dozens of kinds of tulips that I had never seen before.  There were giant ones, multi colored ones, black ones, and my favorite, these gem colored textured ones.

There was an Italian garden, a secret garden built like the book, and even a grove with bronze statues of Christ.

A great way to spend a Saturday.

Emergency Preparedness

Friday was faculty meeting at WPJH. During the meeting, the administration informed us that there will be a state-wide earthquake drill on Tuesday. (Yes, every school in the state will have a drill on Tuesday. The state legislature has finally realized that we live along a fault line and it might be a good idea to train teachers on how to handle this not so unimaginable emergency.) After some earthquake evacuation training, the administration asked the teachers to examine their classrooms for any earthquake dangers and create a plan for the worst case scenario.

This is the ceiling in my room.

Honestly, you can't even see the worst of it. There's three rows of those metal hanging lights, a maze of ventilation pipes (for chemical spills), skylight windows, and the janitors store building supplies in that gap in the drywall in the ceiling. (P.S. That's just the ceiling. I've got cupboards lining the walls full of rocks and chemicals. There's a radioactive storage bin behind my desk, glassware throughout the room, and I'm on the top floor of the school.) Forget worst case scenario-realistically, I think it's safe to say that everyone in my classroom during a earthquake is doomed to die.

So I called Dex to let him know that I've learned how my life will end-in a bloodbath earthquake at school. How does he respond? By buying me this:

That's a plastic hard hat that he found at the dollar store. Sometimes, my husband is too sarcastic for his own good. He wants me to wear it during the drill on Tuesday. Think I should?

Some of you have asked what my students do in class. So I thought that I'd share. Here's my 8th graders Rube Goldberg Machine designs. They had to design a machine that could do a simple task.

This is a gravity powered salad maker.

This one is a specialized toilet flusher.

Here's a water cycle mural. It hangs above my desk.

Last one. Here's my 7th grade students. Well their highly creative self portraits at least.

Sometimes, I suspect that I would've made a better art teacher... At the very least, I think it would be safer.

Happy Holidays (three months late)!

Ok, I confess, I love everything about Christmas. And even though I haven't updated since last summer, when I looked through my pictures, I knew that I couldn't skip a Christmas post. So here you go!

Here's our adorable mini tree.

I'd never gone to see the lights on temple square until Dex and I were dating and we went with my singles ward. When Dexter found out that I'd never been, he made it a goal to take me each year. We did fairly good until this year. I'm at school until usually after 6:00 or 7:00 at night and Dex had night classes and a crazy work schedule, so we ended up not going down to SLC. Instead we went to Christmas Village in Ogden on Christmas Eve:

Honestly, I think that I prefer Christmas Village to Temple Square. It's less crowded and has such a fun, small-town atmosphere with the little houses to visit. Guess I'll always be an Ogden girl.

Christmas morning was fun. Dex was extremely excited. So was Cali, our spoiled rotten cat. Dex and I pooled our gift money and splurged on a new TV for our apartment. Cali got a feather toy which she promptly insisted we play with her using it.

Here's Dexter; he's super excited that it's Christmas.

This is who I spent most of Christmas Day with:

Seriously, have you ever seen prettier ladies than these two? I think this is my favorite Christmas picture of all.