Ana's Classroom

Life is so good in our neck of the woods!

I'm not just saying that either--things really do seem to be going well for both of us.

Mitch is really busy going to school and working (the end of the semester is slowly coming...then he only has 2 more if things work out!) and I am really busy attempting to teach first graders and keep our house clean at the same time. It is actually more challenging than I ever thought it would be.

 

Well, Mitch is off hunting right now, so I figured I would FINALLY post some pictures of my home-away-from home...my classroom! I meant to a long time ago when my sister-in-law asked, but then my camera went MIA. Yesterday when Mitch went to fix my flat tire, he found it sitting in our very clean (really it was) trunk.

 

So, here's the little tour of my room and what it looked like at the beginning of the year!

 

The Before:

(when I first walked in)

 

It is kind of intimidating to walk into a blank/empty/boring classroom!

 

Last year the teacher had 29 students...I'm SO grateful for my 21!
...and that I could get rid of the ugly brown tables....

 

The front of the room

 

 

Teacher's desk and computer stations

 

And then the after:

(End of August when school started)

 

The kiddos organzied tables and the apple job chart.

 

The "Word Wall"....there are actually words above the letters now!

 

I was so grateful for everyone who came and helped me! Particularly
Mitch's family! They were incredible!!!!!!!!!!

 

Front of the room....we spend a lot of time here. Sometimes too much.
But it is where the board and smart projector are!

A little more color.

Our Reading Beach!

 

And here are a few pictures of our classroom right now...after 50 days of school!

 

I'm running out of room to hang stuff on walls!



I'm so lucky.

See, the Word Wall now has words on it.

 

 

Birthday Chart and Stations Chart

 

The newest edition...I changed my beach to a fall reading corner...
this is actually unfinished...I should take a picture of it now

 



Our Little Apartment

Mitch is at the Priesthood Session of General Conference right now, so I decided it was a great time to update the blog. I was actually reminded tonight that we're using this for our journal...guess I better...I mean WE better....do a better job at it! :)

 

So it is finally October, and as much as I hate to see summer go, I really love fall! The leaves are amazing and its just nice...although I think Mitch likes it a little more than I do. Fall=Hunting=Second Love....I'm first of course. And then someday our children will be second so hunting will have to be number 3. But I think he's okay with that.

 

Ok Mitch is home now and all he's doing is making fun of my writing and telling me a I'm "some teacher" because I didn't know if "of course" was one word or two. Hahahahaha.

 

Back to serious stuff.

I just had Harvest Break last week which meant a whole week off of work! Best part...I still get paid due to the whole having-a-salary-thing-now.

 

It was great!

I had time to bake stuff....so I made some brownies and some cookies!

 

The cookies. (Pumpkin Chocolate Chip)

The Brownies (...uh just brownies)

 

 

Then one time we went and got Jamba Juice.

During my break.

 

 

 Ok... well this is a pointless picture because you can't see our Jamba cups.

The other pictures had the evidence of the trip but they were ugly. Except for Mitch.

(I'm not sure why I added this Jamba Juice part to this post because it really doesn't have much to do with anything, but I had to put the picture on somewhere!)

 

And during my break I decided I want to change our apartment around--you know, mix stuff up a bit.

But then...I realized the other day that I had not posted anything about our little apartment. Not that it is that significant, but it IS our first apartment together! And we do really love it.

It is kind of amazing how we ended up with it. By someone else's misfortune, we were able to get a contract for our apartment that began the week before we got married back in December. We've been here almost ten months and it definitely feels like home. So anyways, here are a few pictures....

 

...basically so we'll remember what it looked like someday when we look back on our lives as we sit in our mansion and reminisce about how we started out....

Here's our living room! That's a pile of really amazing blankets/quilts in the corner.

 

This picture shows our two couches. The funny-looking-multicolored-one is SUPER comfortable
 and we'll probably still have it when we're 58 years old and 59 years old respectively.

There's our nice little tv and entertainment center. The picture above it is one of my favorites!
It is a bunch of puzzle peices we had people sign at our wedding for our guestbook.

 

Here's a close up of it. Granted, it is only a SMALL portion of the puzzle peices we have from our receptions. Someday when we have a bigger place we'll put a lot more of them in a frame and hang them up. Right now a bunch of them are in the other room. But don't worry,  I know yours is up there!

Here's a close up of our wedding pictures above the couch. The little flower things are actually a project from Pinterest I made a while ago and Mitch helped me spray paint. It was kinda fun and FREE! (They're made out of toilet paper rolls...how cool is that?! ...ok well we think its pretty cool.)

 

And this is our kitchen! Yes there are dirty dishes on the counter...don't judge.

And I think that's all the apartment pictures I'll put up for now! I feel a little weird posting my home on the internet. :)

 

New subject...

Last night we went to Taken 2 in Idaho Falls with Shaleece and Zane. Yes, it is a good movie! For being a sequel I thought it was excellent. I'll stop there though because I wouldn't want to ruin it for you if you happen to want to see it!

We also went to dinner before the movie. None of us had been to Firehouse Grill so we decided to try it out. The food was excellent! The service...well let's focus on the food. I will admit that I'm not a huge fan of french fries.................but theirs were delectable. Take a look at Mitch's burger.

 

Its a monster. Actually its real name is The Widow Maker.
He found out later why.
He had to run across the street in front of a white truck and almost didn't make it cause he couldn't move.

Zane had one of those too. Shaleece and I both had mushroom burgers of some sort...but Mitch thinks they are nasty and so we can't post a picture.

Hahahahahaha. Wanna watch the boys try to eat it?

 

 ...Ok the video won't upload....maybe later!

 

 

Alright, well I'm sure you've had enough of us by now.

Bye.

 

hi.

 



Bear Lake

 

So on our way home from Fudgeburg, we took a bit of a detour and ended up in Bear Lake with the Nye family.

We were there Friday and Saturday doing all sorts of great things. A random storm came in Friday night so we weren't on the lake too long, but when we woke up Saturday morning the weather was practically perfect. In fact, we both got extremely fried!!!!

 

Tolen and Lynea playing in the sand. And the boat. And the jet skis.

Most of the family...looking at a hole in the Relaxation Station



This was in the morning...and we're already turning red.

 

Mitch skiing! The water there is such a pretty color!

Ridin in the boat. And I think that's Mitchell skiin.

 

Matt wakeboarding

Love the color of the water...

Jeff and Tolen on the jet ski. Jeff is pretty much the only person Tolen will ride with for some reason that is unknown to the rest of us.

Katre and Mitch and Mason and a bunch of other people on the beach.
Its kind of cool cause you can walk out quite a ways before it gets deep.

Jeff and the frisbee

A bunch of boys trying to throw a frisbee out to the boat.
My dad said he'd buy anyone who could do it a milkshake.
They only got close...

Dad's boat

Tolen and some others in the sand...Bear Lake has an awesome beach!
 

Sarah chillin in a chair!

 

So....I am terrible at taking pictures when we're boating! I'm scared of dropping my camera in the water or something so I'm too careful. These are most of the pictures of Bear Lake we had, but it was incredibly fun! What an awesome way to end the summer. It was incredibly nice to be able to spend some time with the Nye family. We're super grateful for them and the support that they give us also! Thanks for taking us to Bear Lake!!!!! ...I also learned that the only time I don't trust Mitch completely is on a jet ski.......he gets kinda crazy ahahaha. But I still love him!

 

August was such a fun month! We got to spend so much time with our families and got to go on some much needed vacations.

 

Families REALLY ARE Forever!

 

 



Fudgeburg

 

This post has been in progress forever! Mitch even helped me write most of it :)

In August, we went on a vacation with Mitch's family!

We spent a week with the Sommer's in Georgetown, Montana. They also go to Phillipsburg, Montana. They call it Fudgeburg because there's a really good candy shop that sells fudge there....and for the longest time I really thought Fudgeburg was the real name of the place... :)

 

Mitch's family has been going to Georgetown for quite a while and they've made it a tradition to go every year. It was so fun to spend time with his family and get to know them better! We stayed in a cabin by the lake and went boating pretty much everyday. I would have to say that the Georgetown Lake is a very well kept secret...it had some of the smoothest water I've ever seen. They say it isn't usually like that, but I'm not sure I believe them. Nearly everyday we were there it was close to glass smooth!

 

Enough talk, here's some pics!

 

Phillipsburg, Montana

 

Its a tiny little place...but that's half of what makes it so cool!

There's a place called the Sweet Palace in Phillipsburg and I'm pretty sure I'd go back just for that. They have rows and rows of candy and chocolate and fudge of every flavor and taffy and a million flavors of soda pop and...pretty much everything sweet you could imagine. Plus some puppets that were really cool...random, I know.

 

Mitch and I and Traegan at the Sweet Palace! They had soooo much candy!

Ashten and Ana! With Grandma Bonnie in the background :)





Our view of the lake from the cabin.



The lake again.

And, the lake again. Look how glassy it was.
 

Grandma Bonnie with Benjamin and Abigail eating breakfast.

 

Abigail doing what she calls her Pirate face. It was hilarious. She just kept doing this.

A building in Fudgeburg. They're cool old looking buildings.

Ana and Abigail with a bear statue in Fudgeburg.

 

 

The candy store...basically a little piece of heaven

Delicious.

Grandma Bonnie, Mitch and Kyle. And a toilet in the background.

Mitch flying high on his skis. No one skis like him.

Kyle and Traegan on the tube

Mom (Sheila) water skiin'

Laura and Traegan on the tube. Pretty sure he talked the whole time.

LOOK AT THAT WATER! You can see the individual trees!

Ana wakeboarding on glass

Mitch skiin....the water looks cool

Ana wakeboarding

Dad (Lane) Waterskiing

Mitch flying
 

Ana and Abs....wish she lived closer so we could spoil her more!
 

Abigail and Mitch

 

Ok! That is all the pictures we're going to put up right now for this vacation of ours...it is taking forever to upload them for some reason! Maybe we'll add some more later :)

 

Basically. this vacation was AWESOME. We're both incredibly thankful to Mitch's parents for taking us along and giving the family an opportunity to spend time together and make memories! (Hey Kyle...act natural!) Ana loved it cause she got to know Mitch's family even better...and she learned a lot about ducks.  We're both so grateful for Mitch's family and for all the love and support they continue to give us!

 

Family really is EVERYTHING.