Sean's 40th Birthday and Homecoming

Sean's 40th birthday was a little while ago. Thank goodness he has cool siblings, because his wife is lame. They came over and decorated our yard in the middle of the night. It was spectacular.





Courtney had to drive that truck to school, which made me laugh. Sean's car was also decorated, and he and his friend had to ride to work that way. There were black balloons all over the grass, along with water bottles (inside joke with Sean and his siblings). Sean's mission picture, which he hates with a fiery passion, was posted all over the garage, along with his high school football picture and a picture of him dressed up as Mr. T.




Courtney's Homecoming pics from last night:

My Life

This is my life. No, seriously. Courtney loves this episode, and she does this to me. Not to mention Josh and Lexi....

Lava Hot Springs

We took our annual Labor Day trip to Lava Hot Springs. I think a good time was had by all. I know I had fun. My camara died when we got there, so I got virtually no pictures. I tried to use my camara phone, but it's too hard to get action shots on it. By the time I got them in the viewfinder coming down the speed slide or jumping off a tower they were zooming past. Bummer.


Josh coming down the tube slide


The girls and Sean on the highest tower

We were swimming at the hotel pool later in the evening, and this guy and his kids were there swimming. His girlfriend and some older woman joined them at one point, and they were weird and loud, but whatever. Then he got in a fight with his girlfriend, she stomped out, and there was much F'ing this and F'ing that. I don't think my kids were hearing it, so I was like... whatever, trashy people. Then his little 5 year old girl came over to whine to him about something, and he went off on the most offensive tirade. I really, really wish now that I'd said something to him, but at the time I was apalled and just thinking that you don't want to make eye contact with the crazy person. He told his 5 year old to stop tattling, told her that she's not a Mexican or a Jew (I know, right???) so she shouldn't act that way, that she needed to grow up and act like an adult (I am not making this up), and was she going to be independent like daddy and not rely on other people to take care of her. I think he was influenced by whatever had just happened with his girlfriend (and probably by a lot of alcohol as well). I hate situations like this. I'm a very live-and-let-live person, and when I'm stunned I don't think fast on my feet... but I wish I had said something about the Jew and Mexican comment. It probably wouldn't have done any good, and I wouldn't really want my little kids (the older kids would probably just laugh) seeing some man yelling the F word at me. But it would have made me feel happy.

School is going pretty well for everyone. I have such cute students this year. Love my classes. Teaching high school is a blast. It's like... you know when your teenagers do really funny things with their friends and say funny things and just make you laugh? That's my job every day. It's also like... you know when your teenagers are sassy and moody and don't want to do their chores? That's my job every day, too. But it's more fun than not. It seriously keeps me sane, and for that I'm grateful.

My Record Setting Fish Catch

We went up to Pineview last Thursday and I caught a record setting fish! Wanna see?



Can you see it? You might have to squint. Look real close. I think it must be a record for smallest fish ever caught. I kept feeling something nibble my line, so I reeled it in to see if I still had my bait. I didn't even pull it all the way out of the water, just kinda checked that I could still see my lure... and Sean says, "No, pull it out, you've got something on there." I'm like, "Nah, there's nothing there." Sure enough, I reel it up out of the water and there's this little guppy stuck on the end. They were all laughing at me and making fun.

Patrick Swayze

I was sad when I heard about Patrick Swayze. From everything I ever read about him, he was a classy guy. This is the best part of the movie, but this clip cuts off before the end. Now I'm going to have to go watch the whole thing.

No More Big Blue

Well, Sean sold his truck. It's strange... I hated that thing. I always threatened to leave it somewhere with the keys in it, hoping someone would steal it. I threatened to push it over a cliff. I threatened to give it away to anyone who would come drive it off. I told him it would take forever to sell that piece of crap. He put it up for sale and it was gone the next day. What do I know about trucks? Nothing. We had a couple guys calling from out of state wanting to buy it, for heaven's sake. The buyers came down from Logan. Crazy! I'm not so sure how I feel about this. We had it for so long, and the memory of it is so tied up in Sean. Sean without his old, beat up truck just doesn't feel right. From now on, anything he tears apart and rebuilds has to be some sort of classic sports car. Or a motorcycle. That would be cool.

Dropping Out of High School

Well, Josh had that one bad day, and now he loves kindergarten. He goes willingly and happily off to school. So that's a big relief. Now it's me who wants to drop out. Ugh. I have never had this hard a time going back to work. I mean, it's always a disappointment that summer is over, but usually I'm a little excited to get back into the routine. I start thinking about things I want to do with my students and making mental lists, I get excited to see if my older girls will like their classes, I gear up and get happy about it. This year I just can't muster up the energy. I went in today for a few hours to get my disclosures done and start to straighten up. Walking into the school was so familiar. Usually that's a good, comforting thing. Today it was an I've Spent Way Too Much Of My Life Here FREAKOUT kind of thing. The custodians moved everything out to clean the carpets over the summer, so all my stuff is stacked all over and I've got filing cabinets in the wrong place, and I just looked at it all and started to cry. Seriously, I've never done that before! I mean, not big sobbing tears, but just little poor-me tears. I love my job and I'm sure I'll get myself all sorted out really soon, but right now I'm having a hard time of it.

We've done some fun things the last week or so, trying to get it all in while we can, but it still feels like I need a few more weeks. We went camping up at Rockport, and it was this freakishly cold day, so we all froze. It was crazy. Lexi wouldn't sleep that night. She got overly tired, so she did that thing where they cry uncontrollably over nothing, and then she was happy, but she was singing Macho, Macho Man over and over again while we all cursed silently in our beds and vowed never to go camping again. I think we may still give it another go in September, but we haven't sufficiently recovered from the last one, so we'll see. We also went boating with one of Sean's friends, went to a Bee's game, went to the county fair, and went to the drive-in with Cami, Steve, Mindi, and Marilyn. Brittney and I have been staying up late every night watching movies. It's been a good summer. I'm going to try to hold on to it a little longer.