We made it through the first full week of school. The kids and I feel like we've been back forever already. I feel like I can't catch up. Going from summer break back to teaching is just one extreme after the other. There's always more you can do, but at a certain point you just don't. I'm definitely not back in the swing of things. I went on a day trip with friends today, and I almost backed out because teaching is a lot. I'm glad I went but I'll probably be extra tired tomorrow, and it's back-to-school night, so I will be at work until 7:00. It's fine; everything is fine. 

This year, the teachers had the option to paint their parking spot like the seniors do, and my friend Krista got me excited to do it, but I decided I didn't want to. I got some ideas in my head, though, and when I got to work, I decided to paint the inside of my door instead. A lot of the teachers have their doors painted. Some are AMAZING; they have students do them, but I just wanted to do something I could do myself. I painted light coats, but it took so many coats for the white to look good. 2 coats of primer and 8 coats of white paint, to be exact. I had my TA draw the sun, and then I taped the stripes. I bought 6 cheap paintbrushes at the dollar store so I could paint coats with all the colors at once. This approach helped me get the project done faster, but it doesn't look as good as it would have if I had painted one color at a time with a roller. I wanted to bust it out, so it was a no-go with the roller. It kind of bugs me that I can see my brush strokes, but I'm glad it's done, and overall it does look good. Not perfect, but pretty good, and it is cute, so...success! 

There's not much to report with the kids. Corbin started his classes this past week. He was feeling pretty overwhelmed with work and homework, so he asked to cut back his hours. I'm glad his boss cut his hours. I'm hoping he can still handle working and going to school, but cutting back is a good idea.  Gabby is in a lot of hard classes, including AP Calculus, yikes- but she's really smart, and she's a good student, so she should be fine. Piper and Ryan are happy to be back at Gem Prep. I'm not 100 percent about it. The curriculum has a lot of online courses, especially in their Junior and Senior years, and I don't know if that will be a good fit for Piper. I think online courses are hard for anyone, but add ADHD on top of that, it's not a good combo. We will see how she does with her online classes this year. If she doesn't do well, I might want her to try going to Borah with me. We will see what shakes out. 

I've been wanting to go to Blue Heart Springs in Hagarman for a while now, and my friends Shelly and Mary also wanted to go, so we made a plan to do it. We weren't able to schedule it over the summer, so we had to go today. It was fun, and I don't regret going, but it's definitely not as cool as the pictures online make you believe. Even the pictures we got make it look better than it was. It was a little underwhelming for all of us, but we had a great time going on a day trip, and I had enough time to still do some lesson planning and make dinner when I got home. Okay, this was long!

Not a flattering picture. Oh well! Haha,

John cleaned out the kids' sink that was backing up. Gross!

He also cut out the hair that was stuck in the vacuum. He will take no more complaints about Hutchie hair from now on. Haha.

This was probably 6 coats of paint.

It's not perfect and in certain angles you see all the brush strokes. Oh well. It's cute! 

1st day at CWI

 

School has begun for all of us except for Corbin, who starts this week. The kids are excited to see their friends again, but less excited about school. Wednesday was my first day back with students. It's so weird to get back into the swing of things. I look forward to the next few weeks being behind us as we adjust to a more rigorous routine. Every year I try to take my lessons and make them a little better bit by bit. This year I decided to make my students drop their phones off at my desk on the way into class. It is heaven not to have to worry about whether they are on their phone or write them up. Okay, well that's all for now,

Cute Charly.

Cute Charly again.

Cute Gabby, 11th Grade.

Cute Piper, 9th Grade. 

Cute Ryan, 7th Grade

Year 3 at Borah, Year 9 of teaching.

 

There's not much to say. I go back to work on Thursday. I love the soft launch though. First day back at the end of the week and I won't have students until the following Wednesday. It's nice to ease back into it. I'm ready, not ready. I've had plenty of downtime and I'm ready to be more busy again. I'm a little anxious as well. I will be glad when the first few weeks are done and I feel back in the groove. 

It got very smoky and gross in Boise a week ago. We didn't really do anything much outdoors last week. I went shopping with the kids for back to school supplies and clothes shopping. The kids are with their dad for the next few weeks. They are enjoying their last week off with family in St. George away from the smoke so that's nice. Corbin was able to get time off and join them. He's been working a lot of hours all summer at Chipotle. I'm proud of him for being responsible. I'm hoping he can still work and go to school this fall. We will see how that goes. 

I've kept the garden alive. We are getting a lot of tomatoes and the zucchini are coming now as well. The onions and strawberries didn't make it.

Charly hiding in Gabby's car ready to go back with the kids to the other house. Stinker!

Ryan sleeps in the funniest positions sometimes.

Chef Ryan! He looked up a recipe and made an egg tortilla roll up. 

This past week flew by. My 3 day work conference wasn't so bad. I got to hang out with my teacher friends for 3 days AND I got a stipend for attending. Heck yes! On Thursday I made treats to take to Arco for the Beal reunion and we headed out in the late afternoon. For the first time and who knows if it will be the last time, my sister Kelsey actually prepared all of the meals for all of us. Her meals were amazing and it was so fun and easy for us to just all eat together. In the past different families would be trying to make their own food and the meals we tried to eat together were more chaotic. Her efforts made it SOOO great. The cousins this time also played together the entire time. All ages were playing some sort of tag game for hours, even in the dark. Friday morning we went and hiked Lower Cedar Creek Falls. I thought I hadn't done it for years but we literally did it 2 summers ago. I was able to force Piper to go and she survived so that was a win. John did not enjoy the hike, it's not his thing. He also fell at one point and grabbed stinging nettle to catch his fall, not great. The hike was my favorite part. After the hike some people played water baseball for a long time. We actually had a little skit/talent show that night for a minute and people actually participated. I did not see this coming. It was short and sweet and actually a fun part of the night. My sister in law Rachel is BIG into running and she decided to do the 5K race on Saturday morning so I decided to do the 10K. I've only gone running a couple of times this summer but I've been working out a lot. I was able to run the entire time which was great. Last summer when I tried to run I couldn't run more than a mile without stopping for a bit. I think it was taking my body longer to recover post baby in my 40s. I'm happy that my body can handle running better this year. After the parade we had lunch and headed back to Boise. John likes having a day before going back to work. It's been nice to be back home. Arco made me tired. I took a fat nap today! With kid arrangements I will have my kids for basically the rest of July and then I won't have them for a few weeks in August. I'm glad my last weeks of summer I can hang out with them. 

Being in the hammock with my boys!

Corbin participating in a skit.

Rachel and her son Hudson got 1st in the 5K! I got 3rd in the 10K, there might have only been 3 girls... but I didn't stop and that's all that mattered to me.

Waiting for the parade.

John's Happy Hike Face!

The hiking crew.

Corbin-pitcher, Ryan-batter, Gabby-1st base

Kelsey's baby Harper fell asleep in my lap. She's a cutie.

Piper touching the water fall.

We played some lightning. John verses Colin at one point. 

Cousins! Missing quite a few. Haha.

Playing Skyjo, I need to get this game.

Baddies.

So many people.

Kelsey and Justin! ALL THE GOLD STARS!

Jory brought a craft.

More hammock time!

 

Summer feels almost over which is sad, I'm not ready to go back to work. I have a local CTE 3 day conference this week that I'm not looking forward to, maybe it will be better than I think. It was just John and me for the 4th. We did our festivities on Friday, the 3rd. I figured it would be way less crowded to go paddleboarding on Friday the 3rd rather than on Saturday the 4th. That evening we also had a BBQ with friends which felt 4th as well. On the 4th we didn't do much. John bought a bike so we could go on some bike rides together. We've gone on a couple so that's been fun. He crashed on the first one, he's so tall and big I think balance is not his strong suit. There was no crashing on the second outing. Woot! That evening we used our grill for dinner, watched a movie, and watched some fireworks in our backyard. We live on a hill and you can see a lot of big neighborhood fireworks from there. 

This past week I had the kids and we went to Roaring Springs  several times. John joined us today, it was his first time ever, we had a good time. I've been baking and cooking a lot since I have more time. Some for practice for work and some because I just like homemade things. When I was a stay at home mom I only made homemade bread and I stopped doing that when I started working. I've made it a few times this summer and yum, yum, yum. I practiced making croissants again and had more success than last time. There were so many flaky layers. They take so much time and method and the batch only makes 6! I use every discarded piece of dough and have a few not perfect looking ones, I'm not wasting one bit! I also made homemade pretzels. We made those for a FCCLA fundraiser last year but they were kind of gross out of the freezer. The salt got absorbed and it wasn't appetizing looking. We still sold out though! This time I baked the pretzel without the salt and froze them. I then took the frozen pretzels and got them wet and sprinkled salt and baked them again. They were good! We will try that method this year. Nothing is as good as fresh from the oven but it's impossible to have 200 fresh pretzels ready to go when I have classes right before the fundraiser, these are pretty good! 

That's all for now, I'm just really enjoying this downtime and I hope I will be ready to get back to work soon because....winter is coming.

My pretzel makers.

Yum!

Tomatoes from our garden.

Because she's cute.

We had tin foil dinners for dinner and ate them at home. Boise is too hot to take them to a park or something.Woof.

Chickpea veggie hash. It was pretty good, I also try to experiment with healthy recipes, it's all about the balance. Haha.

Ryan and John on avalanche. No thanks, this ride is too scary for me.

There are 6 croissants that are more evenly made, the rest are leftover dough bits, that would be a lot of sad waste! 

A fresh homemade croissant is pretty incredible. Look at my beautiful layers!

Paddleboarding!