Sure, come on over!

Ben and I had entirely too much fun this weekend with visitors. First of all, Ben's father visited and we were so excited to spend time with him since he lives so far away. Don and Ben's grandfather both attended a Math Ed conference to listen to Ben present on some of the research he has been doing about Japanese Math teacher training and instruction methods. Luckily, it didn't really involve much math but was more about education so it was beneficial (not to mention understandable) to all involved.
Later on that evening...much later...my brother Jonathan stopped by to introduce to his girlfriend, Kim, who is pretty great. Granted, any girl smart enough to like my brother must be awesome. Jonathan spent the night on our futon and hung out at our house the next morning while I was off at rehearsal.
Then Ben and I attended an amazing football game with Don and Grandpa. BYU pulled off a fantastic win against UNLV . It was a very exciting game to watch since it was so close the entire time. We just wish that we had thought to wear sunblock so that we didn't walk out looking so much like a Rebel fan-burnt red! But we got creative and used scarves and blankets to try and ward off the unusually hot October sun.During halftime, my brother Daniel called to inform us that he and his wife, Megan, and their kids were going to be in Provo in about 2 hours! Despite my busy schedule, I had to see them! So I hurried home on my bike (passing all of the crazy post game traffic!) and hung out for half an hour with my two brothers, sister-in-law, and niece and nephew. Then I had to race off to a practice with my Primary kids for the Sacrament program on Sunday. It was great to see them since they don't come up this way often.
On Sunday we had a wonderful family dinner in Sandy with Grandpa and Jean and Don and visited more of Ben's extended family in the Sandy area, which included post dinner singing of course!

The moral of the story, make time for family, even if they all decide to come on your busiest weekend. They are too important to pass by!

Don't tell your husband...

For the last two days I have been substituting for the Special Ed teacher and have really loved spending time with these special and wonderful kids. Today I got to take two of the boys to their science class to help adapt any material that would be covered. As we walked down there, Jason informed me that he thought I was pretty. I think I have a crush! But the best was in class while the boys were drawing on their whiteboards. They finished their plant cell drawings pretty quickly (they are memorizing only 5 parts, besides who can remember what ribosomes do anyway!). So Nate drew a stick figure of a girl and I asked who it was. Here was how the conversation went:
Nate: Oh, that's you, (adding a disproportionately large ring with diamond) and that is your ring because you are married.
Me: Oh, thank you!
Nate: (drawing a stick figure man with a very large ring, sans diamond) And that is your husband.
Me: Very nice!
Nate: But don't tell your husband I drew a picture of you. I don't want him to get mad at me.
Me: (stifling a laugh) Okay, I won't. I don't think he'll get mad anyway. Thank you.
I love those boys. And of course I told Ben. He wasn't too upset... ;)

The First One

First, I feel like I ought to explain the web address. While I was student teaching last April, we had a meeting with all of the current theatre student teachers. A very wise woman there-Gail, who is a widow and simply amazing-gave us a great analogy as we all discussed our options for post graduation life. She related it to pie (which I love). Sometimes we are sitting at a table with friends and family, or whoever, and everyone seems to be getting the kinds of pie that they want. And you don't get served your favorite kind of pie right away, and the temptation is to wonder, "Hey! Where the heck is my pie!?" That's when we need to remember that in God's kitchen, there is always more pie. We may not love the flavor, but we can learn to appreciate it. And we may not get our pie when we want it, but we'll get it. And sometimes we get surpised by the kind of pie, but it's still really good pie. I think you get the idea. At any rate, now many little analogies in my life seem to relate to pie.
So, as to what we are up to! It certainly wasn't the pie I was hoping for (which was a full time teaching position at a local school as a theatre teacher), but I'm really loving my pie right now.
I am working as permanent substitute at local junior high, and it is really fun for the most part. I've taught PE (what a laugh!), biology, Spanish, German, English, Algebra, Geometery, Keyboarding, Computer Tech, Special Ed, and I can check books in and out of the library. I"m a teacher of all trades! In the evenings I am working fo rBYU as a stage manager for a new play by a BYU student, called "Houseboat Honeymoon." It's hysterical, but certainly challenging to work on.
But what I am really stoked for is the pie I will have come January. I've recently been hired to teach for BYU next semester in the theatre department! I'll be teaching a class called Drama in the Elementary Classroom. It will be a challenge, but I'm really excited! So I'm really glad I didn't get the pie I originally wanted because this one is so much better!
Ben is doing school, and doing it marvelously. He gets calls at least once a week from people referred to him to tutor them or their child. He's a fantastic math tutor, but just doesn't have time to help everyone who wants him and manage is own demanding classes. He'll finish classes this semester for his bachelor in Mathematics and his Japanese minor, and then next semester he will be student teaching to finish up his degree in Math Education. He was awarded the Edwin S. Hinckley scholarship because of his amazing academic performance. And this weekend he will be presenting at a state math teacher conference on the research he has been working on about Japense math education. I'm a pretty proud wife, and understandably so if I say so myself.
Well, that's the pie we are eating these days!