Getting Closer.....

Here is another eventful update!

Teaching--

     Stress!! Monday was my first official day of new teacher training. We spent the day talking with the principal and getting to know each other. I am the only first year teacher in Hanna. However, there is a new English teacher that has a lot of experience at other schools and new counselor that I worked with as an RA. The day was nice because we got to talk about all of the students but I only had about an hour in my classroom which created quite a bit of stress for me. My room is pretty plain but hopefully it will fill up as the students arrive and start to learn with me!

 This stool was given to me by the janitor because she found out I was short and thought I could use it :)

 Looking at my classroom from my desk--I have classes sizes from 1-6 students :)

 My desk area.....work in progress

 some of the side chalk boards

 The homework bins :)

 My brand new smart board :) I am excited to learn how to use it better

 After my stressful Monday, I was able to relax by having my sister Facetime with me before Brandon got home from drill :)

On a less stressful not, Brandon and I asked my grandma if she would make us each a pair of slippers....we have all wood floors in out apartment and our feet start to hurt after while of walking around. I still had the pair of slippers my mom made me when I first got to college but they were pretty worn out. Monday night, when Brandon got home we got to finally try on our new pairs!! They are awesome!

 Tuesday was another day of training for me and another day of drill for Brandon. I had to drive to Saratoga this time and got trained on the mentor program that is given to all new teachers in the district. My mentor is Nancy and she is also the tech person at my school. I was able to get to know her and think that we will get along great!
This training also involved explaining to us about the lesson plans that we will need to submit for feedback and evaluations. It is a fairly complicated form that should take about 20 minutes to fill out....Now, this doesn't sound so bad but when you have to do 5 classes worth along with getting all the materials ready that is over 2 hours of just electronic lesson plans. I was pretty overwhelmed with it all and was feeling pretty nervous about being a teacher. Fortunately, Wednesday came around and saved me. I decided to drop by the dollar store to get classroom things and then also got to visit my teachers that I was under during my student teaching experience.

At the dollar store, I found the perfect, big, obnoxious hall pass item! It is a giant bright orange Crayon :) I wanted the pass to be a pain so that students don't ever want to take it and leave my class. Brandon also came up with the idea of filling it with candy and having a competition to see who can guess the closest number....that is still in the works but I must say that my husband has some pretty awesome ideas!

 Janey Taylor and Cindy Reynders are the most amazing people! They were my mentor teachers during my student teaching experience last year. I went to visit them at the high school here in Laramie and they looked at our wedding pictures and then took time out of their planning to look at what I had so far for my own classes. They were so positive and encouraging that it completely lifted my spirits and made me feel so much better. To top things off, they provided me with a TON of their own material that I can use this year. Cindy gave me a lot of Basic Math Review material on my flash drive and Janey gave me her entire collection of Geometry lessons. She is not teaching geometry this year so she just handed it over and told me to return it when I was finished. While I won't necessarily use all of it exactly how it is, it is SO nice to have a HUGE resource. The picture below is just half of a year's material. I am soo lucky to have known them.

Friday was my last day of new teacher training this week. I found out my official school district email and was able to log onto Power Teacher--this is essentially the program I use to take attendance, do grades, look at student information, etc. I got to get lists of all my students and even found out that one of my student's dads is Brandon's Sergeant. Small world! The picture above is the view I had driving into Laramie from Saratoga on Friday while Brandon was out shooting with the Guard

Army Life--

 I (Brandon now), am finally done with our annual training for the national guard. Our project for the past two weeks has been to finish the rifle range just outside of Laramie.

Our captain has a rubber chicken that has traveled over seas with him so the chicken was our source of company out in the field--riding along with us on the graters and other pieces of equipment.

 While we try to always work hard, sometimes it is nice to have a break :)

This was our location for the job site looking out over Laramie

 In recognition of what we did out at the Laramie Rifle Range, on the day of dedication we were able to shoot an M1 Grand. This gun was shot during WWII. It is probably one of the straightest shooting guns I have ever shot.

Married Life-- Now that Brandon is FINALLY done with training, we finally got some much needed wife-husband time during the day :) Brandon's Aunt Callie, Uncle Sean, and cousin Allie came through Laramie on a road trip so we were able to see them for a few hours before they got back on the road. It has been awhile since we were both able to see them so it was a great reunion. Last time we saw Allie, she was a little girl--now she is all grown up and drawing us pictures! It is crazy how time flies! 

Brandon and I also decided to attempt to cook some Thai food tonight....it didn't turn out quite as good as we were expecting but it was pretty fun. I made Brandon run allllll around town trying to find Red Curry paste--no one had any so we ended up making a Coconut, chicken and mushroom thai soup along with some egg rolls. We got to use our Wok for the first time (AMAZING!) and put our frier to use once again.

We have one more day totally together tomorrow and then it all starts to get busy once again. Brandon starts his last year of college on Monday and I start my last week of training before teaching starts. We are both doing well and missing everyone! 

Let a new adventure begin!