School is out, and of course, it's been forever since my last blog entry. I still don't have a job, but my perspective has changed a little bit. At this point, I don't really care which school district I end up in, I just hope that eventually someone realizes how amazing I am and offers me a job. I've applied for over 50 jobs and gotten 5 interviews--2 in Alpine and 3 in Nebo. My interviews have all gone well, but nothing has worked out so far. I'm still waiting to hear back from two principals I've interviewed with, but they're supposed to let me know sometime this week. I'd have a 30 min. commute to one of the schools and at least 35 min. to the other, but I'm much more open to the idea of a long commute than I was a few weeks ago. At this point, all other job postings have closed, so if neither of these schools works out, it's just a waiting game to see if anything else opens up.
Anyway, job search aside, the past few weeks have been pretty good. Hailey and celebrated our birthday last month, and I even thought to take a few pictures, which I'll post below. I got to celebrate my birthday for almost 2 weeks with all of the different celebrations. First, my students threw me a "surprise" party on the Tuesday before my birthday. It was really sweet of them, and they tried to be super sneaky about it. They came up with reasons for me to leave the room so they could make announcements to the rest of the class about the party, and they even had someone make copies of a flyer to send home with everyone. On the day of the party, they spent their recess inside decorating and getting ready for the big surprise while Jodi (another 5th grade teacher) was supposedly distracting me and keeping me away from my classroom. I knew about the party all along because the other teachers had talked to me about when would be the best time to have the party, but it was a lot of fun, and a few students even gave me presents! The best part was the ridiculous party hat and birthday glasses they made me wear, but sadly, I didn't manage to include a picture of that :) Hailey and I also celebrated our birthday with a few friends, then again with our family, and again a week after our birthday because our friend Jackie made us an ice cream cake, and we invited over the ward after ward prayer.
Anyway, job search aside, the past few weeks have been pretty good. Hailey and celebrated our birthday last month, and I even thought to take a few pictures, which I'll post below. I got to celebrate my birthday for almost 2 weeks with all of the different celebrations. First, my students threw me a "surprise" party on the Tuesday before my birthday. It was really sweet of them, and they tried to be super sneaky about it. They came up with reasons for me to leave the room so they could make announcements to the rest of the class about the party, and they even had someone make copies of a flyer to send home with everyone. On the day of the party, they spent their recess inside decorating and getting ready for the big surprise while Jodi (another 5th grade teacher) was supposedly distracting me and keeping me away from my classroom. I knew about the party all along because the other teachers had talked to me about when would be the best time to have the party, but it was a lot of fun, and a few students even gave me presents! The best part was the ridiculous party hat and birthday glasses they made me wear, but sadly, I didn't manage to include a picture of that :) Hailey and I also celebrated our birthday with a few friends, then again with our family, and again a week after our birthday because our friend Jackie made us an ice cream cake, and we invited over the ward after ward prayer.
I hope you're not too bored yet because I still have more to say :) The last big event in my life over the past few weeks was the school year ending. It was a little bittersweet for me this year. I was thrilled to be done with another year, but it was also really hard as I couldn't help thinking about leaving the school and also not knowing where I'd be next year. In the past 2 years, I've been blessed to work with some amazing people and had some great experiences, but I know that change is good, and I look forward to seeing what it's like to work at a different school. Anyway, the last couple of weeks were crazy, but also a lot of fun. We went bowling, ate lunch at a park, played water games, and presented our 5th grade program with lots of fun (and of course, super cheesy) patriotic songs.
Here are a few pictures from my life over the past little while...
Birthday Party!!!
Celebrating with Friends...
and with Family!!!
My lovely students!!!
And here are a few thank you gifts from my students and people at school--yep, there are definitely perks to being a teacher!!