Happy Anniversary Sweetheart!

Because I don't have much time for personal time on the internet I am writing this post three days early.

Happy Two Year Anniversary Daniel!! We've made it two years! I cannot believe how quickly the time goes by, and I know that everyone says that, but it's true. We've done so much together, but then it also seems like we have never been able to spend enough time with each other!

Daniel is a sweetheart and I love him so much, I appreciate his willingness to work himself almost to death to support us while I am in my last semester of school and cannot work while Student Teaching. I wish that we both had more time for each other, and that he could take a week and go shed hunting in the mountains so he can get a little bit of a break. However, all of this hardwork, dedication, and mainly seeing each other behind closed eye-lids of sleep will pay off in us both having degrees, Daniel being able to support his family, and if need be I will have a degree to fall back on if I decide to not teach while we raise a family.

Highlights of the past two years:

- GETTING MARRIED!

- Daniel coming home from working in Greenriver!

- Paying off the Truck!

- Sunday naps that somehow go from 1 hour to 2 hours

- Shed hunting!

- Camping in the beautiful mountains with just the two of us!

- Shooting the biggest buck Daniel has ever seen in real life!

- Me shooting my first deer with Daniel by my side and having a blast.

- Calling in a Rag horn bull elk to 5 feet from me while Daniel is laughing behind me in the trees.

- Fourwheeler rides

-Getting my cat Bella, even though Daniel hates cats... another reason I love himfor putting up with her!

- Almost monthly Temple Trips

- Adventure to Arizona

- Attending the Hunting Expo for our First Anniversary....

- Trips to Coldstone for dinner when we are both craving it.

- The two or three times Daniel has washed dishes in the last two years :S

- Daniel coming to support me in Ballets, Dance Recitals, or Wind Symphony Concerts even though he would much rather be elsewhere.

- Taking up shooting a bow together, practicing in the driveway by our house and me trying not to shoot into the lot behind the target.

- Teaching the sunbeams together at church.

- Making Daniel wait for me because I am always late to church and a few other functions :P

Thanks sweetheart for the last two years, and the many more of eternity to come!

3rd Grade Thoughts..

I have to first say that the classroom I am student teaching in presents many new challenges almost daily with management. The students have a hard time getting along with each other, and there is something about the chemistry of the students that seems to cause an explosion like unto one in a chemistry lab when the wrong chemicals are mixed... KABOOM! Students off-task, talking, boys play fighting, and it all happens at once, and not only because I am acting as their teacher, it was happening before.

While I hate being the teacher that makes the kids practice, practice, practice the procedures that is what we have ended up doing at least once a week if not more. Good procedures reduce the transtion time from one activity/lesson to the next which leaves less room for students to be off task.

I just keep reminding myself that I am learning valuable information from these students, and while sometimes I seem to be at my whits end there are the little bonuses that come from teaching that always keep you going.

Highlights from this week, good and bad :) -

"Mrs. Luke, can we do a net this afternoon, I really like it the other day when we did that in math" - YAY! Goes to show that what you teach the kids rubs off and they remember, especially the things that they enjoy.

"Mrs. Luke, so-and-so and so-and-so told me that they don't like you as their teacher." Me -"Well *Courtney, as your teacher I can't care if people like me or not, if I were here only to get you and the other girls to like me I would never get anything done. I am here to teach you, not to try and be everyone's friend." *Courtney - "Well Mrs. Luke, I don't care what they think, I like you! I think you're the best student teacher I have ever had." Of which I will probably be the only student teacher she will ever have :)

****Names were changed for the sake of my students, but I had to share this story. I have come to find that in the profession that I am going into I really cannot care what the people think about me, and for someone who used to be very timid and shy and cared too much sometimes what other people thought, can now be placed in a stressful situation with supervisors or supporting teachers, or principals, and not care what they think because I have my own "job" to do. :)