A year? Almost a whole year?

Where oh where have I been for the past year? Well, same place I've been for the last few years but I guess I forgot to write about it. Since Saturday is the one year anniversary of my last post, I thought I'd throw something out today.

Currently sitting in Missoula, enjoying the last few days of my break, waiting for the weekend. Oh, and why am I so excited for the weekend? It's playoff time baby! After a rough 2010 campaign, which will not be talked about anymore, Montana is back in the playoffs. Woohoo you say? Oh, yeah, I say.

What else have I been up to for the 12 months? Well, I finisheda year of teaching in my one room school house. 29 kids, reading levels from 1st to HS. Sweetest kids I've ever had. Neck and neck for my favorite class.

I finished over 100 pages of writing and two videos of me teaching for the National Boards for Professional Teaching Standards and took six tests on content knowledge. Just found out I passed. Should be excited but I'm not. Totally overrated process but I do get an extra $1000 a year. Everyone talks about how it makes you a better teacher, but really? If you aren't already thinking about how and why you teach things and assessing your lesson afterwards, then, no, you're not a very good teacher.

Thanks to my year round schedule I did get in some traveling. My mom and I went to Virginia in May to visit a cousin of hers, who had terminal cancer. Unfortunately, Marlene died a couple of weeks after our visit but I'm glad we were able to go back and see her. Here's a picture from our room on the beach at the Outer Banks.

School ended right before the Fourth of July and I headed to Missoula to celebrate. All I have to say about that is it is a good thing I don't spend more time in Missoula celebrating. Or at least Missoula in the summer. Your mom was right: Nothing good ever happens after midnight.

School started again in July and after three weeks I was so ready for my first break. Since I would like to keep my job, I won't elaborate on why my class is killing me but good grief...

Anyway, I took a short trip to San Diego to see my dear friend Jenna. Somehow I hadn't seen her for several years since her excellent wedding in Hawaii. But since I somehow manage to always be involved in her major life events, I thought I'd visit during her ninth month of pregnancy. I can't seem to find any pictures although I know I took one of the only "belly" pictures she has. Unfortunately, I could not convince her to go into labor while I was there so I have not met little Mason yet but his pictures are darling. San Diego is a wonderful town and Jenna and Mark were great hosts!

School started again and I got through another nine weeks. Although I have the smallest class ever (22), they are tougher than last year's huge class. September-November went approximately like this: decent, frustrating, irritating, me leaving class so I could cry because I was so frustrated, conference week making me want to quit teaching, Halloween week improvements, getting better, maybe I actually like these kids, book report debacle, most of the kids doing what they are supposed to, off-track! Actually, I think we are over the worst and the rest of the school year will go well. Right?

I had been running again this summer and early fall. Did the Homecoming Hustle on the parade route in Missoula for Homecoming. Awesome route and Ihad a great time. Part of the run went around the field at the stadium and it was heaven. I need a track made from fake turf. No, really I do! My back is shot to heck and I haven't been able to run for ages. A nice soft track would be wonderful.

So there you go! If I see you everyday, I'm sure you already know most of this. If I haven't seen you in ages, you are now caught up. I'll be in Camas for Christmas and through New Year's so if you are there I want to catch up (Becky, I want to see that house of yours!). Hopefully, I'll be back before December 2012. After all, we might not have long to live if the Mayans were correct.

And of course, no blog would be complete without...

Ava and Grizzy who celebrated their 5th and 6th birthdays, respectively, at the beginning of November when Mom made her annual pilgrimage to West Jordan to help me teach long division to my class.