Fairy tale of hell...

Once upon a time there was a princess named Kristina who thought she had just finished with a bad round of kidney stones and was excited to be out of the Royal School for First Graders for the summer. She was very tired and looking forward to sleeping in and having lazy days full of cleaning the castle, planting flowers in the royal courtyard, and getting ready for her upcoming wedding of the kingdom to prince Ken.

On the first morning of the summer break, the big bad ugly kidney stone ogre reared its frightening head and invaded the princess once again. She had never known such intense pain! The princess can't sit, stand, lay, or walk without feeling as if she is walking through the shadow of the valley of death.

Prince Ken had been called upon at 5:00 a.m. today to deliver some medicine from the kitchen table to the princess, who was unable to get up off of the floor in her royal bedroom chambers after having doubled over in her attempt to get out of bed.

The royal doctor had prescribed her some magical potion to help fight off the pains of the ogre's destructive path. Sadly, this potion isn't taking care of the pain very well.

What is the princess to do?

one and a half days to go...

Crazy first graders.

Crazy teachers.

Crazy week.

Seriously? How many more days of teaching in utter chaos?

This is Kim with a bunch of my students who realized I was taking a picture. They wanted in too. We've seriously lost all control.

Empty-ish room and kids playing phonics games.

I think this kid is slugging another kid. Not sure. Clearly not instructional.

More phonics games and books.

I wish I was able to record the volume in my classroom.

It would break a sound barrier, I'm sure.

Here's to the rest of today, all of tomorrow, and a few hours on Friday!

I heart iphoto...

I've been forming a secret obsession with iPhoto over the past few weeks.

I think I'm turning into a little bit of a junkie.

I LOVE iPHOTO!

I've only iPhoto-ed pictures of people. It's a lot of fun for me!

At the first grade "wedding shower" earlier this week, my room mom took a quick photo of Ken and I. Not our best... but I wanted to make it better.

The photo is really dark and has a lot of weird shadows. Plus, having the whiteboard from my classroom as the background doesn't do the photos any favors either. Plus, my name badge "necklace" speaks volumes of style and class.

10 minutes messing around on iPhoto...

Ta-da! Revamp complete. I could have spent more time on it and done a better job. I'm totally amateur, but it's a lot of fun!

Playing with "Photo Booth"...

I got a new lap top at school today.

It's the brand new MacBook. It's really nice.

It has a few features on it that my last one didn't have.

One of those is Photo Booth.

I know I'm a little behind the times... Photo Booth is nothing new at all.

But it's new to MY computer.

While chatting on my cell phone with Ken after school this afternoon, I decided to play around with it a little bit.

For your entertainment...

Just a normal picture snapped by my computer.

I think the xray feature is a little bit scary!

Check out my teeth!!

Spring-a-ding-ding...

Nothing makes me happier than working in my yard!

I am excited that spring is finally here in Utah.

It's warming up and I can get some flowers in the ground.

Also, the tulips and pansies are at their best, the grass is green and the trees are still in bloom. Here are some pictures I took at my house yesterday. It was overcast which was perfect for taking a few pictures!

There's no place quite like home!

Showered by first graders...

So this morning, my room moms threw Ken and I a wedding shower.

The kids have been SO excited for weeks now knowing that it was coming up.

The room moms sent home invitations for the big event.

They came in early, decorated the classroom, and got the kids all wound up for the day.

We started by playing a couple of games. Then we opened presents and snacked on cupcakes, pretzels, Hershey's kisses, and some red punch. 

(hallelujah that no one spilled the red punch on my carpet)

Here we are! 

Ken, the guest of honor, makes his appearance.

(that's one of my cute room moms in the picture)

The kids were really good!

We played the classic game where I had to answer questions about Ken. For every question I got wrong, I had to put another piece of gum in my mouth. I have to admit... I wasn't very good at this game! I was a year off of when he graduated from high school, I had NO CLUE where he went to elementary school, got his "dream car" all wrong, and struggled with his favorite restaurant. I was able to name what city he was born in, his "dream vacation' and favorite dessert to name a few. I wasn't a complete failure!

This kids were playing a "hide the diamond ring" game. They were all closing their eyes while it was being hidden. Well, almost everyone was closing their eyes. The cheaters weren't, of course!

Here is Ken and I opening our presents.

I was trying to make it seem like each gift was EXACTLY what we wanted!!

I look like I'm struggling to breathe in this picture but I was "super excited" over the photo album one of them gave us. The kids told us we should put our pictures from Europe in it.

Candy and movie/dinner gift cards. Yippee!

This was in with our gift from one of my students.

It's his oil pastel picture he had spent a few weeks making during his art class. It's a picture of a vase with flowers in it. He was so proud to let us have it.

I thought it was really sweet of him!

Identity crisis...

With this school year ending, the office is already making plans for the next school year. I am changing classrooms and they already have my next classroom listed as "Mrs. Adams room 105." I'm not mad about it but I feel like they're taking my identity away from me too early or something.

I'm fine with changing my name. Really. I haven't always been fine with it, and Ken and I have had a few discussions about it. I've been Chidester for almost 36 years. It's who I am! It will be really hard for me to get used to it but I'm sure I will.

I have a name request.

I told it to Ken today on the phone. 

Instead of Mrs. Adams, what about...

"Madame Adams"

It sounds a lot better if you say it quickly and let the two words run together.

Try it.

I love it!

I think it trumps "Mrs. Adams" any day!

Now I need to get my principal to go for it...

(and possibly my bishop)

4 words...

Kristina

has

kidney

stones

Yep. It's true.

I had a CT scan done yesterday at the hospital.

My lower back hurts pretty bad and it creeps around into the front.

At least this isn't going on in July when I'm trying to get married or fly off to Europe, right? Think positive thoughts.

In the mean time, I'm going to drink a lot of water and deal with the pain.

Wilting...

I'm feeling a little bit like this dandelion.

Not too much left of me but I'm still hanging on.

11 more days of school until summer vacation.

I may make it!

(I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...)

11 weeks and counting...

Just 11 more weeks until our big day!

That's 77 days!

I'm officially now #2...

This is a blow.

Not a surprise, but a blow to my diploma.

As of today, elementary education teachers rank #2 on the United State's top ten list of the worst paying jobs to college graduates. 

Nice. Really nice.

And why do we currently have about one teaching job for every 200 applicants?

Well, it isn't for the money. I can testify to that!

Teaching is great! It's a ton of work. More than I could have ever imagined... especially this time of the year. My kids are nuts with summer vacation creeping closer each day. I love my job (most days) and cannot imagine doing anything else with my life (other than marrying Ken, honeymooning to Europe, having a family, and living as happily ever after as we allow ourselves to). Seriously. My job is great. I'm so sad that it's pathetic enough to rank at #2. Oh well. Social workers ranked at #1 and I think their job is amazingly important! 

Moral of my story:

It's not always about the money. I wanted to be a teacher and now I'm living the dream!

It's GREAT to be #2!

Princess dresses, purple ties, and invitations...

I've really missed having my camera!

When I woke up this morning, the first thing I wanted to do was blog WITH PICTURES about some of the things we have ready for the wedding. 

I want everyone in my family to feel like they're all part of our big day. I also want my mom to have some great formal family pictures as well. So, I decided to buy coordinating clothes for people so my mom doesn't have to stress about getting everyone ready. 

These I couldn't resist!

I bought head pieces and little satin purses for my nieces and Ken's nieces.

They're all young girls so I think it will be fun for them,

I went out shopping the day after Easter (stuff is on clearance, hint hint) to see what cute dresses I could find for my cute nieces to wear.

This is a dress for my niece Carly.

This dress and head band are for my 1 year old niece Eryn.

This is my niece Camille's dress.

This week, Ken and I went and got ties for all of the boys in my family as well. Although purple isn't one of our "colors", we think they'll look great! They're not identical (that was intentional) but they coordinate. I think they'll look nice for our family pictures. The boys are all going to wear white dress shirts and dark dress pants.

My dad, Ken, and Ken's dad will be wearing these ties.

My brothers Clint and Brian will wear these.

My nephews Wesley, Wyatt, and Jake will wear these.

Our invitations are FINISHED!! 

We've got the main announcements, inserts, and all of the envelopes waiting for us in boxes.

Here's the main invitation.

I've been referring to them as "tombstones". I told Ken it was like seeing my name on a headstone when I first saw these finished. It felt so final!! Ha ha!

So that's that! 

A little update on a few of the things we've taken care of so far.