Back to the Swing of Things

I guess its time to get back into the swing of things. Today was my first day back to school with cold and all in more ways than one. Meaning that I have a cold, it is freezing outside, and it is freezing in the school. They can't get it warm enough in here because it is so stinking cold outside. So it is really cold in many ways. I guess that just makes it even nicer to go home and have a bath or snuggle up in a blanket. It makes me excited to get home. I am always excited to get home but even more now. This first day back has been pretty casual my kids have just had mostly a free day playing The Game of Life and what not. It has been nice for me hopefully them as well! Tomorrow we are getting back into the whole "learning" scene so hopefully it was nice before they do that. Some of my classes have to take tests so this week my students will just be studying away. Fun for them I hope I just taught them the things they need to know for the test because I can't see what is on the test at all. I can see what the standards are and the number of questions that go with them but that is it. So hopefully it all works out for them because in a sense that reflects on what kind of teacher I am or how good I am doing. Things are good so far. It was actually nice to get back home and sleep in our own bed I actually slept last night for a change. I guess I slept when we were on vacation but not really through the night and not really that well at all so its nice to be back for that reason and it feels that it was time even though breaks are always great! Joe and I were talking about how great really the fact that I am a school teacher is because they have such great breaks. How many other jobs get that long off from work. Anyway I was just thinking how blessed in so many ways we are! Especially, to have a job and one that helps us out quite a bit. To have food on the table, money in the bank, roof over out heads. The list goes on and on! Anyway, sorry for my long spill. I just noticed nobody has posted on here for awhile. Lea

I am a Survivor!!!

So I survived my first week of teacher 7-12th graders minus the 8th graders because I don't teach them til the next half of the year but you get the idea! Well to start off I just want you to know that teachers are definately under paid and over worked that is a very true statement it is a fact indeed not by any means a matter of opinion. But all the same I had a great week. It started off a little rocky but by the end I made it back on top or shall I say gradually working my way on an upward slope. It was a very tiring, emotional, stressful, overwhelming, and unorgazined week. But I stayed one step ahead of my kids and had them fooled a long the way so for the most part I think I did a pretty good job. It is a whole different story of teaching high school students vs. middle school. It seems that if the high school students don't care they don't even give you the satisfaction of pretending that they care. So it of course is tough to get them motivated. But they sure are cute even if they are little stinkers! I really do enjoy it granted there is the bad days with the good. That's one thing I have learned the truth of the words that there is oppostition in all things. There is the bad with the good in all things. It is crazy! But if I can survive the first week then hopefully I can survive the rest and it will just get a little easier from here on out. I am excited to get started I do feel that I have a direction now so I just have to go with that and get a lot more prepared and it will all work out! Also for those of you that don't know we found a house. It was the one I mentioned before but it is a big ole' house but we are just going to rent the top part for $400 it is rather exciting! When anyone comes on through you know where you can stay because it has three bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. I will try to post pictures. Love ya all Lea

Green River Here We Come!

So I guess Joe and I are moving to good ole' Green River and for those of you who don't know where that is it is located in the middle of no where about an hour from Price and and hour from Moab it is kind of in the middle of the two. My friend Emily's father-in-law is the principal at Green River High and it was starting to get to be crunch time for him. He had to find someone to fill the Family & Consumer Sciences position so low and behold I was the answer. He called me up this week and after Joe and I thought and prayed about it we felt right about it. It is so crazy that we are doing it, exciting but it makes me nervous at the same time! It is even crazier that I will be teaching. I mean I went to school to get this degree but I never thought that I would actually be using it! It will be a great experience it will be fun and quite the adventure! Joe has to finish two weeks here with his job then we will be ready to move for good. I will be staying over there with my friends parents for about two weeks they are so sweet and loving, I would consider them my other family! They are such good people and it will be really nice living in a town where I know people. It will help us to get familiar with the town and feel more welcome. I am really excited for the adventure! Hope all is well with everyone else! Lea

New Blogger!

As you can see on the right I just started a blog. So you can click on mom's link also my address is joeleachurch.blogspot.com
I just barely started it so it is kind of amateur I need to figure out how to do the better backgrounds and I also need to post some pictures but it is well on its way. Take care! Lea

Project Time

Joe had to work overnight tonight so mom and I had some fun! I am spending the night at her house since I didn't want to be at home alone. I made this jewelry. It was a lot of fun and it is fun to have jewelry match your clothes. We were talking about how we need to take our outfits and make jewelry to match each one. I think it would be a lot of fun to do a jewelry business or make jewelry for gifts. We had lots of fun and I am sure there will be more fun to come! I am going to have to get my bead supply where moms is so I can make jewelry all the time. Or I could just use moms huge supply!! (and when I say huge I mean HUGE supply for those of you who haven't seen it you will have to.) Thanks to Sally we have started a new bead collecting, jewelry making frenzy! Thank you Sally (We love it)! Thank you to Roberts for having their beads on sale as well! Mom made some earrings that are really cute but sadly we didn't post them.

Here I am again!

With all the new post I felt it would be a good time for me to post again. Well this summer has been a good one very relaxing and it has been so nice thinking that I won't be going back to school in the fall. I can't believe I am really done the reality is slowly sinking in. So I have been just the laziest bum every but hey I am definately not complaining my husband might be but not me. So this lazy time is about to end though I can't believe the summer is almost over. Well the newest for Joe and I are that I finished Hunter Safety which made for a very long day. It is great to have it behind me though. I am very glad that I was able to take it. I learned a lot and now I can go shooting maybe not actual hunting yet but I still like the reasurrance that I have it behind me. It is nice to accomplish things and it was kind of fun learning again. It made me realize I miss the learning aspect of school. (Crazy I know!) Things are good though I have been working on projects: scrapbooking, a blanket, bracelets, and such. Joe has just been busy being a wonderful husband working hard. I do appreciate him so much for being such a great husband. I truly would be very lost and sad without him. He is so good to me and takes such good care of me. We are working on different scenarios as to what are next approach will be for life always better to have more than one plan because plans are always changing. Things are great in our neck of the woods. Love ya all. Lea

Lake Powell

Joe and I went to Lake Powell with our friends and stayed on their family's houseboat. It was so much fun! I had never done that so it was a new adventure for me! This is us on the house boat. We played in the water, fished, and had a lot of fun! It was a great vacation for the summer! It will probably be are main one for the summer especially with gas prices being so expensive. Some of the other things we have planned for the summer are: Joe going with his friends this weekend to Moab to go rock crawling, the family sleep out this weekend, hunter safety at this end of the month for me, three wedding receptions in July. Then by that time the summer will have flown by and it will be time go to work. For those of you who don't know I am planning on just finding a job other then teaching for now. I am looking into a teachers aid job at South Elementary currently but we will see if anything else opens up or what will be happening by then. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer! Love ya all! Lea

New Decisions

Well for now I think we have our mind a little more made up. I have been thinking long and hard about the whole what I am suppose to do with the next chapter of my life but I have been frustrated and kind of confused. The other day I had been pondering if I would take a job in Mount Pleasant if it was offered to me because I put in an application and my father in law said he would pull strings. So I felt that maybe I was directed in that way and also I feel in some ways that I should at least work a year so I am not putting my education to waste and such. All the same though we would have to move and Joe might not find a job up there and we are some what ready to move on to a new chapter in our lives as far as family and what not so that was in question too. Any way so I felt very over whelmed and I got to thinking about what I really wanted and....... it is to just get some other sort of job and wait for the time to come when we are ready to have children. So when we finally decided that we aren't going to take the job I felt a lot of relief. A good friend of mine said that in the eternal perspective Heavenly Father isn't going to not bless you for starting a family. It's not like he would rather me teach in the real scheme of things. Anyway I felt better about things and I realized that my education isn't at all wasted I have learned more than I could have any other way. It will help me as a mother and in life in general. So we are here in Cedar until plans change more. It is a lot nicer when we choose to take it one step at a time instead of worrying about everything all at once. Love ya all! Lea

The Next Chapter of Our Life!

So Joe and I are on the next chapter in our life. What that chapter is...........no one knows! It is a little scary thinking that we could choose the not so good path for our life but at the same time who is to say there is just one good path. If I don't know all my options then I guess I can't miss out on too much! But still it is a bit scary and frustrating. I guess that is when you just have to pray, fast and hope and trust in the Lord to know that he will guide you to where he thinks fits you best. I am just in a delay right now because....I have to be a responsible adult now. I just feel like my life has played itself out to this point. Things coming and going, making good decisions and bad decisions but never to where I regretted them they all seem to help me become the person I am today. But anyway it just felt like the path was laid out for me but now I am not to sure. I know that many of you have felt the same way as I have read your blogs and I do know that it all works out but the truth of the matter is it doesn't make it any easier. The hang up now is for one I do want to be a stay at home mom but before I become that of course it would help to have a baby to do that, but at the same time it would be nice to work for a year teaching to get insurance. But then at the same time it might be a good idea to just get another sort of job so we can start a family. Then it would also be nice to take a break for the summer. Then there is the question where to get a job if I do teach there aren't any jobs that are really that close so it would be a move away job. So do I really want to move? Then there is Joe we don't know exactly what he is going to do. So that is where we are at in the next chapter of our lives. It really is okay when I think about it though because in the real life it happens to everyone there is always that cross roads which helps us grow and learn and become more faithful! It will all work out!! Hope all is well! Lea

Official Last Day!!!

Can you believe I have made it this far!!??? Cause I can't today was my official last day of student teaching. I will be here tomorrow but I will be getting paid! It seems like a dream to me!! I am so excited it is one of those bitter sweet moments. I am sad to leave such cute sweet kids but I am happy that I will be moving on to the next chapter of my life. I will be substituting from here on until May as much as I can and doing what every else I can find to fill up my time. Partly my TWS that I still haven't finished....ugggg!!! In May I will be graduating. Oh yeah!! I get to walk I am not really looking forward to setting through that but I guess I better. Don't in anyway feel obligated to come to it, it is fine with me if you don't cause really I don't want to even be there ha ha ha! Things are great though, especially because I survived 7th & 8th graders!!!! Hope this finds everybody happy and healthy! Love Lea

Lea's Update

My life isn't nearly as interesting as everyone else's but I thought I would still blog and give a little update. Well Joe is just currently working for Mel Clark construction doing the UDOT job in St. George (bloomington) they are making the way for the airport. He does the road work, working in scrapers, rock trucks, water trucks, and whatever else they need him to do. He likes it alright he would much rather be doing something else but it pays well and it is helping us out quite a bit right now. It is keeping us on our feet while I am not doing anything to get paid and while we figure out what we are doing with the rest of our lives. He is thinking about going back to school and still working on the whole police academy thing so that is where we are at with that right now. I have only 9 days of student teaching left!!!! It is so crazy that I have made it this far! There were many times I was tired and didn't want to finish but I am so thankful and grateful that I stuck to it. It took a lot of help from those around me but I did it! After the 9 days are up I will be working and finishing up my TWS for those of you that don't know what that is, it is a Teacher work sample it is just a book of sample lesson plans, contextual factors, plans for teaching and things like that. It is kind of a pain and a lot of work but you gotta to do what you gotta do. That is due on April 18th and I do have a sample one that I did for my block classes so it really won' t be too bad just a lot of erasing and replacing. It really isn't that bad. I am just glad that it is the only thing I really have to do. Also, I will be student teaching in my free time, Anita Jolley my mentor teacher already has days for me to student teach. I will probably do that until summer then find a temporary job until I can find a teaching job some where or we decide what to do in the future. I am loving the end of this long road, it has been quite the journey but it has been well worth it. I would have to say that it is much better being the teacher than the student. Well I hope all is well. I will update again soon. Love Lea

Happy Birthday Abe!

That was a way good idea to post his happy birthday on here. So I will join in saying happy birthday Abe! I hope is great the big 2-5 right? That is crazy! It so weird to be as old as we are! Just being in my twenties is weird never thought I would get older ha ha ha! Love ya!!

Update!

Things are going well for Joe and I. Monday I will only have 40 days left of student teaching it is so crazy! I can't believe how fast the 20 days have gone by already! I guess time flys when you are having fun. I am definately having fun! I have really truly enjoyed it. Some things are hard about it but it definately has its benefits as Ben said to me. It is well worth it to build relationships, to get to know this younger generation, and to hear and repeat all the funny cute things they say. It is fun especially to be in a job where it can help me improve the skills that I have already or the skills that I need to develop like for example sewing....ha ha ha! I thought it would be a scary thing to teach students the things that I don't know much about but I have realized it is okay to not know every little thing and to ask questions and also learn a lot with my students. The more I teach something the better I get at it and the more I learn abou things as well. They always say the teacher gets seems to get sometimes more out of the lesson than the actual students I have found this to be true on many levels. I have struggled with taking up enough time each day and sometimes it seemed as if the students were getting really bored with me reading stories but the more we get into the lesson the more I recall my personal stories or instances that I can share. B y doing this is doesn't only help me take up more time but I think that it helps the students get more out of the lesson as well. I think it is so fun to be here and I am very grateful that I picked the major I did. I glad I am teaching FACS because it is something that is fun for me and I can use it everyday!
Well that is enough about me....Joe has a new job for those of you that didn't know that because his brother's business is doing poorly right now so he had to lay Joe off. So Joe got a job with Mel Clark Construction, they do development road work with big equipment like scrapers and stuff like that. They are currently doing a job in St. George by Bloomington for UDOT. This job is helping a out quite a bit because since it is UDOT it pays really well. Joe isn't thrilled about the job and it is temporary until he gets in to a police academy some where so that is a realief and very reasurring to him. I am so thankful for him for doing something he doesn't like to support us! I would have to say that I have such an amazing husband and I could never say how much I am truly thankful for him!!! With the Police Academy his is looking into various opportunities not just Nevada so we can have many options because if along the way he wants to change to another state he will have better odds so we are looking mostly the surrounding states of Utah and I think we will even try Utah and the work our way around later on. Who knows if we stay in Utah maybe I can even find a job. It is funny how the more I do this student teaching the more I realize that I love teaching and I could do it in the real world not just pretend ha ha ha! We will see how things pan out but now things are so wonderful and I can't say how grateful I am for our many blessings! I hope you are all doing well. We love you and are so happy to have a wonderful family that loves us and is so supportive! Love Lea

1st Week of School!

Well I just as of tomorrow completed my first week of student teaching! I love it soooo much! I just think it is so much fun and my mentor teacher is the best! She is so much fun and she is just great to the kids! The kids are so cute and so much fun they say cute things every now and then that just make me laugh Mrs. Jolley and I just have so much fun with them! I actually got to do BINGO with my 7th graders today it was actually a lot of fun! They are crazy at times but that is definately what keeps things going and interseting! I think it is awesome! I am shocked at how much I love it! I will actually be able to teach the new 8th Graders that will be coming in starting on Monday with an introductory lesson and getting to know you stuff so that will be a lot of fun! I can't wait! It makes me a little nervous and I am not quite loud enough yet but I will get there soon enough. Mrs. Jolley let me use her microphone for today I felt like I was a pop star singer (ha ha) I worry for those days that aren't good because I will have to have one someday eentually it scares me but there has to be the bad with the good I guess. Well that is all for my first week of school I will try to write sooner but of course I might get a little busy a long the way. I just have to say though wow this is so much better than being the student!!! Ha Ha Ha! Well I love you all and I hope all is well in your lovely lives! Thanks for being so great and so supportive! Love Lea

Done With School!

Today I had my last final well just my last class that I had to turn something in! It is so great to be done, now we just have to see how I did. I am just going to be relaxing actually mostly cleaning and packing these next few weeks and finishing some other stuff up. It is so exciting to be done!! Student teaching here I come then I graduate in May it is so crazy to think I have made it this far! I hope all is well and I just had to write because I am so excited! Love ya all I will write again soon. Lea

Last Week of School

I can't believe that is this the last week of school then finals!! I only have one Semester left. I really can't believe I have made it this far! I am just going to be working on stuff to hand in this week then I will have to study really hard for the Food Science Lab because I am thinking it is going to be pretty difficult but I am way excited to be done! We are also getting ready to move in to Christy's house so next week after finals I am going to be going through stuff to get rid of and packing up. We won't be moving in until the last week however because my mother-in-law need a place to stay when they come down. Also Jeremiah and Dano are coming home for Christmas so that is exciting we will get to see them and almost all of the family will be together for the Christmas season. That is about all for my news this time. Love ya all, Lea

Weekly Update!

This weekend it was our Church side Girls weekend out. It turned out to be a lot of fun! We went to Manti and it ended up be My Mother-in-law, and two of my sister-in-laws. We went out to eat Friday night at a Mexican restaurant, then went home and vegged and watch Calamity Jane and Anne of Green Gables. It is fun because they all just make a big fuss when I would say that I haven't seen certain movies mostly the older ones. They are great movies I would have to say. Those ones we watched were great!. Then the next day we went shopping and it was a lot of fun! We went to this home decor store called Tai Pan wow did they have all your decorating and more than you could want. I loved it though it was great! It was so fun to look at all the stuff. Mom was telling me there is one in St. George. We got to go to a Women's Expo to that was fun to experience. We got to eat at Olive Garden that night which was really good! Then we went home and watched more Anne of Green Gables. I got this crazy idea to dye my hair so low and behold we dyed it red (I guess too much Anne of Green Gables) ha ha ha! My hair is really bright but I think it will grow on me! So this week is a slow down week but I have a lot of studying to do before the PLT so I need to get started on that. Joe is just working away and we are thinking more and more about Police Academy. We are thinking the sooner we get him in there the better. So right now he is just working until I at least finish school then we will go from there. Things are going well though! That is my update for now. Love Lea

The Deer Hunt

Well the deer hunt was fun! We hiked and hiked and hiked some more. We went to Mineral at first Saturday and then Monday we went to where my Brother-in-law Rob hunts on some private property. Joe shot at a big buck and hit it, we followed its blood trail and lost the blood trail after awhile so we never found the deer he shot which is way sad for it. Now it has to die and be wasted. We had so much fun though, and we were way worn out. Joe hunted the next few days and decided to shoot a little two point which we gave to our sister-in-law and we are going to share the meat. It is okay that he got a little one though cause the meat is better. I just need to learn how to be a expert deer cooker.
Well things are going well. I am really liking school and I only have about a month and a 1/2 left for this semester! It is so crazy to thing it just kind of creeped up on me. Next month I take big PLT test so we will see how that goes. I guess that is all for now. I will write more later though. Lea

Update...

Well most know what I am doing because I see them everyday but I think it is fun to post new stuff, so every once in awhile here I am. Well I am half way through the semester! That means there are only about two months left then I am will be student teaching. It is crazy how fast it has all come! I can't believe I will be graduating in May! I never thought I would make it this far. Right now I am just working on getting graduation papers in and I will have to start studying for the PLT test both content and general, so that will be a lot of fun! Hopefully I will pass so I don't have to worry about taking them again! I am loving my Food Science class it is a lot of fun, I actually have a test today in it so hopefully I will do well, I did fairly well on the last two so who knows, I actually learn a lot and it is not all memorization so I really like it!
Two weeks until the deer hunt so Joe is pretty excited for that! I am too actually! I really like the time away to just have fun and camp and enjoy family and standing around the fire. Anyway if any of you want to come even for a little while I would love it! We will be by Mineral which is on the other side of Zion kind of by Kanab. If you want to come let me know and I will tell you how to get there. Joe is just working for his brother enjoying that, the most he can. I think he actually likes it quite a bit. His knee is getting better which is good but I still worry that something is really wrong with it but I just hope it goes completely away.
We are doing well for the most part! And that is our update for now. I will write one again soon! Lea

Gardens of the World

Jer, Dano, Joe and I went to this place in California the Sunday before they left for Florida it was called Gardens of the World or something like that. It was really pretty we sat there and watched the band for awhile. Dano just sent me these pictures and Ithought they were fun so I thought I would post a few. Love Lea