Now that I'm 30...

Last Sunday was my birthday...and yes I'm now the ripe old age of 30. I think somewhere along the way I've miscounted. I certainly don't feel old enough to be entering a new decade. However, it was a nice and relaxing day. We took naps and had family over to our house for dessert. (I've decided that I really love having a birthday land on Sunday!) We really did most of our celebrating when we were in New York the week before. It was a wonderful day and I couldn't have asked for more.

Here are some of my most memorable top 30 things I've been able to see or do in my last 30 years!

1. Married my best friend
2. Earned my B.S. Degree in Special Education at Utah State University- Go Aggies!!!
3. Taught in 3 different school the past 7 years
   
4. During those 7 years, I've been able to associate with some amazing people (kids, parents, and colleagues)
5. Learned to play the guitar
6. Snorkeled with Sea Turtles in Hawaii
7. Started blogging. (Just another crazy addiction)
8. Saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace in London
   
9. Received the Crystal Apple Teaching Award
10. Had surgery on my knee followed by 6 months of therapy
    
11. Started running...and still love it!
    
12. Raced in over ten 5K or 10K races the past 4 years
13. Sailed in the Caribbean on a catamaran sailboat.
    
14. Went to my 10 year high school reunion
15. Became a big fan of the T.V. show "The Office"
    
16. Went to 4 different Olympic Events in SLC 2002 games
    
17. Volunteered as a coach for the USU Special Olympics basketball team
18. Saw the musical "Wicked"
19. Swam through some jellyfish :) (This was purely by accident!)
    
20. Flew in a small 2-seater airplane just me and my hubby
    
21. Was able to take over the controls and fly that small airplane myself high over the mountains
    
22. Been scuba diving
23. Became a True Aggie! :)
24. Received my ELL teaching endorsement
    
25. Saw the Eiffel Tower and ate delicious pastries in Paris
    
26. Swam in the great lakes...brrrrr it was freezing
27. Lived in 5 different cities all within the great state of UTAH!
28. Put in our own backyard...cement and all
    
29. Harvested vegetables from my very own garden
30. Bought my first home

Thanks for all the birthday wishes from all my family and friends!

Our Adventures in New York

Stephen and I decided to take a last minute trip! We had many good reasons why we should go...(a.k.a. our justification for spending the money while we're living on a student budget)

1. Stephen needed to do some networking for internships and prospective jobs.
2. We needed to see my brother and family...they've lived in New Jersey for almost 2 years and we've never been!
3. Who could ask for a better way to spend Valentine's Day and celebrate my birthday all at the same time.
4. Plus we found plane tickets for way cheap!

We bought tickets just 2 weeks before we headed out and we had an absolute blast! There's nothing like a last minute trip and although it was a chilly time of the year to visit, it was so good to get away from everything for a few days. We had a wonderful time and loved staying with my brother and his family. They are so darn cute and I realized how much I miss them. We stayed at their house and they live just around the corner from a train station. We would hop onto the train and ride about an hour into the city. We ended up spending 3 of our 5 days in the big apple. The first day, we spent the morning at the Museum of Natural History. (which looks nothing like in the movie, Night at the Museum) Then we headed 'downtown' to Wall Street where Stephen had an interview. While we were down there we saw ground zero, some amazing cathedrals, NY stock exchange. Then that evening we spent some time at the Manhattan Temple. It was neat to do some work and a great way to end the day in the busiest city ever!

Saturday morning was the coldest ever. It chilled us to the bone. We had tickets to the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and walked the Brooklyn Bridge. After we headed to China town, where they were getting reading for the Chinese New Year, and had some authentic Chinese for dinner. After being outside almost all day, we decided to head home early. Even being bundled up we were frozen.

Our Valentine's Day was great! We certainly spent it with the ones we love :) Our cute nieces and nephews were sure excited. It was fun to be able to celebrate with them.

We headed back into the city on President's Day now thinking that we're pros at getting around. We walked through Central Park and down 5th Avenue (where we saw some ritzy stores...my favorite being Tiffany's :) Rockefeller Center and over to Times Square. However, the most exciting part of the day was when we we're able to get tickets to a taping of David Letterman for that evening.

Now this is quite a funny story....when we found out the day before that we had tickets we were pretty excited. We stood in line to pick them up at will call and somewhere along the way they told us that we must have impressed someone and they upgraded us to the first 2 rows of seats. We couldn't believe it! Things like this just don't happen to us. We had about 45 minutes to kill before we needed to be back to be seated and so we decided to walk around. When we were heading back we got mixed up and turned around, well I guess I should say we got lost. We were running up and down the blocks trying to figure out where to go. (which I'm sure was quite the sight to see) So needless to say we didn't make it to the "front row seats", but we still make it to the taping and were able to see David Letterman in person. It was fun to see all the behind the scenes stuff, but we were sure disappointed we didn't get back in time.

Can't I teach already...

All I have to say is I'm sick of doing sub plans. I've been out of my classroom five days the past two weeks. Don't get me wrong, it's all been great to be on vacation, attend a conference, and have other district meetings... but it definitely is so much more work to get things ready for a substitute. It was crazy how all these things came all at the same time. I was able to go to a literacy conference on Thursday and Friday, with about 10 other teachers/administrators from my school. It was a really good conference despite the fact that they kind of ragged on special education as a whole.
However, I'm definitely not used to sitting in a chair for 7 hours of the day. I have to laugh, because all I could think of was what happened to one of my little boys last week. I turned around to write something on the board and when I looked back towards the class, he had literally turned upside-down in his chair with his head hanging down to the floor and his feet kicked up high into the air. I admit I'm becoming more and more ADD like my kids at school.
I really miss my kiddos and am ready for a week of the normal chaos that goes on in my little room #107.