Nebraska Wyoming Weekend

Teaching--

     What an exciting week of teaching! I had my first ever parent-teacher conferences from the other side of the desk! Before I venture into that story however, I must brag about a student. I have a student who does not have the best of home lives and does not think he can achieve in school. He turned in a big project incomplete and only got about half of it done. After some trial and error, I somehow convinced him to try! He came in and worked his but off and has been coming in ever since. He is being very considerate and seems to making a complete 180 degree turn!

     Parent Teacher conferences were a bit nerve racking for me. I have gone to parent-teacher conferences as a student but I had never thought about what it was like as a teacher. I had grade print outs ready and papers ready to grade! At HEM, they have parent-teacher conferences in the gym with a community round table atmosphere. Since the school is small, we were also able to BBQ burgers and hot dogs for everyone to eat. The night started and I got the first person in the door!

     The parents came and sat and I talked :) Since it is only 3-4 weeks into the semester, I really didn't have too many bad things to say about any of my students. There are a few things here and there but overall my students are great! It was fabulous getting to meet parents and hear their side of my students learning. Overall, after the first two parents, my nerves calmed and I was able to joke and have a relaxing time. The experience was a lot more laid back then I ever imagined and I can now check off a new-teacher experience!

     Other then parent-teacher conferences things are going pretty well at school. I have planned for a few weeks ahead and have scheduled my first field trip! It will happen in about 2 weeks so I will keep you updated!!

School--

     Update from Brandon will be coming on Wednesday after his test :)

Married Life--

     As always, married life is wonderful! I had a bad day this past week and my amazing hubby surprised me with a flower and a present....the Humongous Book of Pre-Algebra and Basic Math Problems--over 900 problems!! Woo hoo! My hubby knows me too well :)

     This weekend was another fun one as Brandon's buddy Andrew drove into Laramie from Nebraska. This weekend was the Nebraska vs. Wyoming Football game so he and two of his friends ventured to small town Wyoming to have some fun. We definitely had a great weekend seeing the town and hanging out. Nebraska won, as expected, but that did not stop anyone's excitement. We made some awesome biscuits and gravy and enjoyed our time with friends.

     Tonight, we made a phenomenal pork roast with the help of my dad's recipe. We added ginger ale in the bottom instead of water and let me tell you==delicious! I am stuffed! This week, my friend Amber from Alaska is going to be heading through Laramie on her way to Georgia with her husband (they got restationed) Therefore, this is the week of friendship! Makes us miss home but we are lucky to have them stopping by! 

 

Another week passes

Another busy week has passed! The married life is going well with another drill weekend creating time apart but overall Brandon and I are doing very well.

Teaching--I will keep this short and sweet. Last week my geometry students had their first quiz. The results were 1 A, 1 B, 2 C's and 3 F's. I wasn't quite sure what to do with those grades. I talked to the other math teachers as well as Katie (my math buddy through college that helped me survive) and got some great ideas. I ended up doing a single review day and then allowed students to come in on their own time to make it up if they so wished. It worked out very well! Things are starting to fall together and I am finally starting to feel like I have somewhat of a routine. I will have my first every parent-teacher conferences this Wednesday. I am a bit nervous for it as I have not contacted parents like I told myself I would so far. I think it will be a great chance to meet parents and start the parent interaction that I was hoping for.

School/ Drill--This week I do not have much to say about school since school sucks as always but I am continuing to try and trudge along through it. However at drill this weekend we had many different things going on. We first had our rifle qualifications which went fairly well for the whole company since we did have 100% completion. For rifle qualifications I only shot a 32 out of 40 which was not as high as I would have liked but it was still considered a sharpshooter so at least I did not go down at all with what I shot at basic. On saturday we were able to throw grenades and had some free time to get some food off base which was very welcome since we only ate MRE's through out the first day of being in Camp Gurnsey. This morning we had our annual physical fitness test. I was not able to max my run however was able to get a 13:55 which was still a 90%. We also had our push ups which I was able to max out with 111 pushups in 2:00 and then sit ups which was also able to max with 86 in 2:00. Overall I ended up with a 290 out of 300 so it did not turn out that bad. Well I think that was all for me this weekend now its time to spend some much needed time to cuddle with my wife.

Married life, as I said before is going great! I made us cookies and blueberry muffins today and then when Brandon got home from Drill we made black bean burgers and some crinkle cut french fries. This week will be busy for both of us but the weekend will bring excitement. We have a friend coming in from Nebraska to watch the WY vs. NE football game. Along with him, a lot of Brandon's drill buddies will be coming to down. It should be a very unproductive but fun weekend!

even more!!!

More pictures

Wedding Pictures!

Another week has flown by and leads to another excitement! Brandon has his first exam on Monday and I have my first official new teacher observation. ahh!!

On a bright note--we got our wedding pictures so here is a look at them! This is just a sneak peak as we have over 700 pictures taken by Brian Schneider!