Arches National Park: The Heart of the Desert

"Refilling a reusable bottle at a faucet in [Arches National Park] does more than conserve fuel, water, and landfill space.  When you drink park water, a drop of the desert becomes a part of you.  It is a way to take Arches National Park home with you, along with memories of your visit, a little sand in your shoes, and photographs of unique and dramatic landscapes.  Responsibly sharing water with the juniper, yucca, pothole creatures, bighorn sheep, and countless future visitors is par of the experience at Arches.  So fill your cup, say a word of thanks, and enjoy a refreshing gulp of the heart of the desert."  By Karen Henker

Getting ready to hike to Delicate Arch.  It's early in the morning and already 95 degrees outside.

Skyler climbed just about everything.  I like that the rock looks like a diamond.

Here we all are on the way to Delicate Arch.

The big rock looks like a dragon head.  It's eating Trezor, Katie is trying to rescue him, and Telisa and Tom are just running away.

We are standing in an arch, making an arch, in front of Delicate Arch. :)

North Window and South Window

Tom is the only thing keeping that Balancing Rock from falling.

Double Arch

I love the hair.

Turret Arch

The clouds are so awesome!  You just can't plan for shots like this.

Student Work

Now that school has been over for a few weeks, I'm reflecting back on the past year with fondness.  It was a good year with so many sweet and smart students.  My first graders wrote me many wonderful and adorable notes and drew some awesome pictures throughout the year, but I can't save them all.  Here, for your viewing pleasure, are of some of my favorites. 

This is a picture of me and one of my students, painted by the student.  I love this because it was given to me on back-to-school night.  That means he was able to paint me before meeting me.  I love that.

This is a piece of a typical homework assignment.  The great part about it was that when this student turned it in, he pointed to that blue one on the end, and said, "That's the POWERFUL one, Teacher."

Translation:  Dear Mrs. Reyes-Cairo, 
 Thank you for the pumpkin.  It was too smooth.  Thank you for that pumpkin.

We went to Hee Haw Pumpkin Farm for one of our field trips.  This student got sick and couldn't come, so I brought her back a pumpkin.  She really appreciated it.  I love my glasses and long ponytail in the picture.  Very accurate at that time.

Some of my favorite notes.  Isn't that an adorable unicorn family?  And this unicorn is fabulous.

I love my students so much to 100 to 200 and 432100 right back.

I love my blue hair in this note.

Being picky is a good thing.  And look at that handwriting!  Pretty good, right?  My students were such great writers by the end of the year last year.  I can only hope they keep reading and writing over the summer.  I love first graders.  It's great to be a teacher.

Right now I'm attending some teacher training for math, and it has been a good reminder of what I learned in college. If you're into math at all, here is an interesting problem for you to solve.  "According to one study on 6 out of 85 preservice teachers at the elementary school level solved this problem." Says Kristie J Newton, author of Mathematics Teaching in Middle School, 2010.  But, don't be intimidated.  She goes on to explain how surprising that was because the concepts addressed are really very simple and there are multiple ways to find the correct answer.  OK... Here is the problem:

Jenny was mixing herself a glass of chocolate milk (Which by the way she enjoys a strong “chocolaty” taste.) when her friend Kevin remarked,

“You certainly have enough chocolate syrup in the glass.” Kevin of course was looking for a glass of his own, so he could make some chocolate milk.

         Jenny responded to Kevin, “I only have a third of my glass filled with chocolate syrup.”

By this time Kevin had found a glass, that was twice the size of Jenny’s, and he said, “Well I am only going to fill mine one-forth of the way with syrup.”

“But Kevin, your glass holds twice as much!”

         Kevin, knowing that Jenny really liked “chocolaty” tasting milk said, “Jenny, tell you what, lets combine our drinks into a larger pitcher, and then split the whole amount.”

Your Task:

         Determine the amount of chocolate syrup in the combined larger mixture. Will the new mixture be more “chocolaty” or less “chocolaty” tasting than Jenny’s original glass of chocolate milk?

Well, that was fun, wasn't it?

Growth!

 So, I've taken a lot of opportunities for growth in the last month, and the first one is starting to show some fruit!  These are the first little plants to break the soil!  Bonus green-thumb points if you can tell me what they are.  Hint:  All three of them are herbs.

Herb #1

Herb #2

Herb #3

We got off to a little bit of a rocky start on our plant garden this year due to some wasp nest problems that I was reluctant to take care of.  We've since remedied the issue (and moved our planter boxes in the process), and at least got our herb garden a-growin'.  The rest of what we want to plant will come later.  We're thinking some tomatoes and kale again, but we're not sure about the rest of our planter space.  We kind of neglected our garden at the end of the summer last year and lost some strawberries and asparagus because of it.  Secretly, we're hoping they'll resurrect again this year, but I've gotta say that things look pretty bleak.  We'll spare you the pathetic-looking pictures of their current state and simply say that we hope to do better with our garden this year :)

The other area of growth for me comes in the fiction-writing section of my life.  I've always wanted to write a book, and I think I will some day.  In the meantime, I'm contenting myself with some short stories for practice.  The one I've started (and hope to complete in the coming months) is based off a CCG I've recently picked up called Shadow Era.  I did some writing way back in the day--we're talking like 10+ years ago--for a different card game that seemed to go over successfully.  It's easy for me to write these fan fictions in a world that's already set up; it has a lot less planning involved.  You can find the first two parts of what will likely turn out to be a five-part story right here.  As you can see from some of the comments on the forum page, some people seem to like it.  That always makes me happy :)  It's a great outlet to try some fiction writing as opposed to the review writing that I've done most recently.  It's hard to say, though, which I like best.  They're very different from each other and require different kinds of thinking to do well.  Funny how that works, huh?

Anyway, we're looking forward to all of our possibilities in growth coming up and hope to keep all of you better posted on what those may be as they develop.  We (meaning, I) haven't been very good about blogging much lately, and we have a goal to do more quality posts this year than last year.  Here's to hoping!

Recent Milestones

I have been loving spring break.  I am glad I didn't have to travel.  I'm just hanging out at home.  It has been good for me.  Even in this down time, when I tend to think nothing worth posting about is going on, I look closer and realize several little milestones have been reached in the recent past, let me share. 

•  I voted on a reality TV show for the first time.  (It was the Voice; I love that show.)
•  I bought a song on iTunes without Tom for the first time.  I am remembering how much I love music.  My current favorite artist to listen to is Lenka.  I also purchased some awesome, classic love songs to add to a playlist I'm working on.  I have wanted the Unchained Melody for a long time.  Now I have it.
•  I ate daikon radish for the first time, loved it, bought one from the store, and didn't love it.  If you have good daikon recipes, let me know.  If not, then I can always put it in a stir-fry.  Almost all vegetables are welcome in a stir-fry.
• I made lentil soup for the first time (I do love that Dutch oven from the last post).  
• I made Oreo truffles for my dad's birthday, and we used cards to make a treasure hunt.  The royalty were directions and the numbers told how far to go.
•  For the first time in a long time, I went to a baby shower and didn't cry at all that day.  Really! Not before or after.  It was a big deal for me to go, an even bigger deal not to cry for the whole day.  Maybe I'm getting better at ignoring.  Maybe I'm coping well.  Either way I consider it a little milestone.
• I read an action/adventure book with Tom.  He's resisted reading together in the past. I broke him in with some light comedy, and we just finished Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson.  I've won him over.  I miss my old book club so bad.  If you ever want to read the same book as me and then talk about it, I would love that. :)
• I bought my first pair of hot pink shoes. They're running shoes, and I think the color does make me run faster.
•  I almost finished my current oil painting. (check it out)
• For the first time that I can remember, I was sick enough to miss work.  Then the paraprofessional in my classroom took over as part of preparing her for teaching next year, so I didn't teach those days either.  Then I had some professional development to go so I missed more work.  It is nice to know that, while it wasn't perfect, my classroom is set up enough to function without me.  
• I took pictures of my little brother, Skyler, who is graduating High School this year!
• My other brother, Trezor, is dating a sweet girl named Katie.    

This is why I love writing: it forces me to acknowledge the little but important things happening in my life.  I love writing, and I love pictures.  Hooray for blogs because we can have both.  This time, however, you have to match the photos up with their bullet points.  I didn't want to deal with sticking them in the right places.   

Untold Stories

So, let it be known that for all I want to be a good writer and whatnot, I'm really terrible at doing it on a regular basis. Needless to say, that causes a lot of untold stories to occur for those of you trying to follow our lives at a distance.  Take this picture for example:

Now if you'll look closely, you'll see in this picture alone that there are two very recent and important untold stories!  First, and probably most noticeable, is Lovetta's hair!  She decided this last week that she wanted to cut her hair much shorter than what it was before. Interestingly enough, she decided to tell no one about it until after it was done (no one but me and her aunt who actually did the cutting).  Stealth haircut!  Some of her students liked it, but one in particular wasn't too enthused.  Lovetta overheard a conversation between two of the kids that went something like this:

Student 1: "Do you like Mrs. Reyes-Cairo's haircut?"

Student 2: *shrug and reluctance to answer*  "She kinda looks like my mom."

You can't please 'em all :)  Lovetta thinks that sometimes kids (girls in particular) like long hair on women because it makes them more princess-like.  I think Lovetta looks hot!  I guess that's why I'm her husband, though >. >

So, the other thing in that thar picture is a brand-new, bright green dutch oven that Lovetta's parents got us for Christmas.  Why is this important to our lives?  Well, if you haven't noticed by now, we love to cook.  Somehow, certain kitchen pieces have escaped us these near-five years.  The dutch oven is one of those things that we'd see time after time used in recipes and we'd always have to work out some other unsatisfactory solution.  Now that we have it, we're making all sorts of roasts, soups and stews, picadillos (well, really only one sort of that but multiple times), and more with the thing!  It's our new favorite kitchen friend.  If you have any good dutch oven recipes you want to share, they would be welcome in the comments below.


So many untold stories over this last month, it makes me regretful not to have shared them out to all of you.  For instance, as I write this, Lovetta is sitting next to me preparing to take her second PRAXIS test for her Level 2 teaching license.  Utah requires that you take some testing after about three years of teaching before you can renew (and upgrade) your license.  A lot of it is about methods, but some of it is also about what people think the perfect teacher should be like.  You know.  The kind that works late and not necessarily because it makes things better, sacrifices personal sharpen-your-saw type activities for work meetings, etc.  Needless to say, I don't agree with everything they're trying to tell you is "the right answer," but if you don't say those things they won't let you teach.  (I guess?)  Maybe this is why no one wanted to hire me as a teacher  >.<  She's a fantastic educator, though, so at least that makes one of us :)

For me, I've had to take on some additional responsibility at work.  We recently had an extremely unfortunate round of layoffs at work. I'm honestly surprised (but grateful) to have my job still.  I honestly think that the only reason I didn't get let go is cause they're not giving me benefits.  One of the few times in life to be happy about that, I guess?  Anyway, because of the additional responsibilities I've picked up as well as the close proximity to our location, I was permitted to attend the CAMEX Trade Show.  It's pretty much the end-all of trade shows for the campus bookstore industry.  I was able to do a little shoulder-rubbing with vendors and campus store managers from all over the country.  It was a ton of fun and there was plenty to glean from some of the sessions I attended.

Well, there's more I could probably ramble on about, but I'll save you the time so you don't go all TL;DR on me.

Don't You Wish it Were Christmas Time?

I know it's February, but I want to talk about Christmas.  Christmas was awesome, and Tom didn't mention all the great things we got to do.  We went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert.  I did get a little headache, but it was worth it.  It looks farther away in the pictures and the movie than it felt when I was there.

We did the world's tiniest 1000 piece puzzle!  Quite an accomplishment, if I do say so myself.

She just put two pieces together in a row!

 I made teeny tiny Christmas cards.  So did my family members, we wrote notes on them and gave them to each other.

 We took family photos for the first time as a whole family since my brother got back from his mission.  Here are my favorites.

  

I also did a lot of art with my sister.  I am going to post that on my art blog.

Aaaah... wasn't that nice?  Christmas was joyous.  Also, my birthday happened (on New Years Day).  I did exactly what I wanted to do: watched family videos and made popcorn on the stove.  Tom got me a set of 4 puzzles, one for every season.  I already did the winter one.  It was so happy.