I love my job!

I don't write much about my job on here, mostly because of confidentiality. But I have to share something that happened today. If it's not my favorite moment since I started teaching, it's a very close second. One of my students read his first book today! He has a REALLY hard time focusing sometimes, but he has worked very hard this year learning sight words on note cards. Today I pulled out a book to see if he could transfer his knowledge from note cards to an actual book. It was amazing!! I took a video of him reading and showed it to him. He got the biggest kick out of it! I'm pretty sure his mom is the only person who was more excited than I was. Sorry everyone, I have the best job ever. :)

Tulips and Walking for Autism!

Although the weather wasn't great, we had a fabulous weekend! Jeff picked me up from work on Friday and we drove to Thanksgiving Point for the annual Tulip Festival. I'm sure it wouldn't have been Jeff's #1 choice for things to do on a Friday night, but he was a really good sport.











(Excuse my homely appearance in the pictures. I went straight from work, where we were having casual Friday.) At the end of the trail, we noticed the entertainment for the evening was a local dance company. They had one little group of 4 and 5 year olds. They were adorable! It brought back a lot of memories of dance recitals back in the day. It got me really excited to start dancing again, so I'm currently looking for a dance studio in the Provo area for adults who aren't that great at dancing!

On Saturday, Jeff and I participated in Utah's Walk For Autism. It was amazing to see how many people (including tons of kids) turned out when it was pouring down rain. My job can be stressful sometimes, but I was reminded on Saturday how much I LOVE working with students with Autism. Just like in any class, each of my students have different strengths. There is NEVER a dull moment, and it is a great experience to see them acquire a skill that they have worked so hard to acquire. It was also really fun to see all the family members and friends who show so much love and support. It made me want to do my job better.











Jeff and I walking for the GIANT STEPS Preschool team.













This is one of my cute students! (I got permission from his mom to put this up)












The T-shirt we got for raising at least $100. Thanks family!

For more information about Autism, visit www.autismspeaks.org

We have spent the last couple of days hanging out with Jeff's mom, sister, and brother-in-law.  His sister, Tina, graduated from BYU yesterday.  Jeff and I were able to attend the general graduation (for all the students) on Thursday.  Pres. Uchtdorf and Elder Nelson both gave great talks with encouraging words for such a scary economical time.  Later that night, we all went to a really fun restaurant in Sandy called the Mayan  They have a huge waterfall, where some divers put on a great show!  We had great seats, so every time one of them took a dive it felt like they were going to land on us.  Last night, we went over to Tina and Jason's house and had pizza and played a game Jeff's brother John gave us for Christmas.  It's called the Redneck Life; you go around the game board losing money . . . and teeth.  Whoever has the most teeth at the end wins!  It was a lot of fun.  It was really great to see everyone.  Congratulations, Tina

The last couple of weeks have been a lot of fun.  I finally got out of the snow on my Spring Break and headed to Las Vegas with Jeff and my old roommate Ashley.  We hung out with Jeff's friend Kyle, who was there for a work convention.  It was great to be in the warm sunshine for a few days.  I did a terrible job of taking pictures so I'll give a quick run-down of some of the things we did.  We got there Thursday night and just walked around the NY NY hotel.  There was tons to see there, including the Coyote Ugly club.  It wasn't as cool as it looks in the movie, but it was still really fun to check it out!  The next day, Ashley and I walked around all the shops (which all had tons of really pretty stuff that we definitely couldn't afford) in Caesar's Palace, then we met Jeff and Kyle at the pool in the NY NY.  Laying in the sun was my favorite part of the trip.  It got me really excited for summer.  We all ate some dinner at the ESPN zone - a restaurant that has a huge plasma TV showing a sports game everywhere you look.  Ashley and I spent most of our last day in Vegas shopping at the outlets.  I came home with 2 new shirts and 4 new pairs of shoes.  I never realized how much I love shoes - especially sandals.  It was a great trip.  We realized we didn't have any pictures of Jeff and me on our way out of Vegas, so the one below is of us in the car on our way home.   Sorry I don't have more pictures to share!  

I'm dreaming of a sunny Spring Break!

This week I am on my SPRING Break, and it is wonderful!  Monday was absolutely beautiful, sunny and 70 degrees.  Yesterday it was raining all day on and off.   This morning when I woke up it was SNOWING!  (You can tell in the picture how excited I was to see the snow) How can it be snowing during spring break?!  It feels like winter is never going to end.  But tomorrow we are heading to sunny Las Vegas for a few days, so hopefully I come back with a true Spring Break tan!

Fresh Air and Dead Trees

Last week Jeff and I were both really stressed with work and school, so on Saturday we decided we needed some fresh air. Utah has some really beautiful places to hike, so we thought that might be a good idea. We forgot that despite the abnormal 60 degree weather on Saturday, it's still winter in Utah! There wasn't too much to see, but it felt REALLY good to be outside and relax in the fresh mountain air. And Jeff got to do his favorite thing - relocating all the rocks on the trail! I think we'll save our next adventure for Utah spring (which doesn't really get going until May!)

Shout Out!

A very special thanks to Bre Ahrens! Doesn't the blog look much, much better?? Woot-woot!