Did you catch it?

Did you catch it?

Yeah well... neither did Mitt Romney's proofreaders, evidently. It's been all over the news. (I think it should be pronounced Amersha, by the way) Americia the baeutiful!

Primary Teacher Thank You's...

I was sooooo glad to get my kitchen back on Sunday. I spent last week making 30 thank you's for our primary teachers. As part of sharing time, the presidency took a few minutes to thank all of our primary teachers and talk about ways the kids can thank them as well. I was really proud of what the kids came up with. Their ideas were bring reverent during class, not shouting out comments and sitting quietly. Being a school teacher, I LOVED those answers!

This was the "mess" I had on my table. 30 M&M jars.

They each looked like this. They had 3 packages of M&M's in them and a quote.

I hope everyone felt a little appreciated. Sometimes it's just nice to do something out of the blue to say thanks.

Memorial Day with my dad...

Today was Memorial Day. I was glad to have the day off of work and sleep in. I was also glad I was able to go over to my mom and dad's house and get some flowers ready with him. It's always been a family tradition that the flowers we take to the graves are homemade arrangements that come from flowers in the yard. Usually my mom and aunt arrange and take them but this year it was me and my dad.

My dad had some cans that he wanted to put the flowers in. He decided he needed some gravel to weigh down the bottoms.

So he went over by the fence and scooped up some rocks.

It was nice to spend the afternoon with my dad. His illness with Parkinson's is taking its toll and I HATE it. But I am grateful for the time I can spend with him one on one. I had to take a picture of the yellow cup filled with Cherry Coke. It's a childhood memory.

Here are the cans all ready to go!

And here are some of the flowers we're going to use. I brought the pink roses over from our house.

My dad did a lot better if he sat. He wanted to put some chicken wire over the cans to help hold the flowers in place.

It actually worked out really well!

Here we go...

My dad didn't do any of the arranging but he would go cut flowers for me to use out of his garden.

One down and one to go! Iris, roses, peonies and branches from an apple tree. This arrangement is for my great grandparents (my dad's grandparents). Evidently, my great grandpa didn't like the color yellow. So, I didn't put any yellow flowers in it.

Here's the second one. This one is for my grandparents (my dad's mom and dad). I pretty much used the same flowers but added some yellow iris too. I like the yellow.

Here's my dad loading them into his truck to take them to the cemetery. He was careful that they didn't tip over.

Here we are!

We went to my grandparents grave first.

And then we went over to my great grandparents.

My dad wired everything into place,



 and filled it up with water.

He and I also visited Ken's grandparent's graves and watered their flowers too.

Just as my dad and I were getting ready to drive out of the cemetery, someone honked at us. It was my brother Clint with his kids. We got back out of the truck and visited with them for a little while.

Clint was telling his kids about my dad's brother who drown at age 2 and my dad's sister who died from scarlet fever when she was age 3.

My dad found a nice bench to sit on in the shade and rest. My cute niece, Eryn, joined him.

I really enjoyed spending some time with my dad. I love him! Parkinson's has taken away a lot of what this man is able to do, but he is still the greatest dad anyone could ask for!

A real mystery...

This is Marci. 

I teach with her. 

She totally makes me laugh until I cry cracks me up!!

 The other day she brought a book into my classroom while she was dying from laughter. One of her students had brought it to school and wanted her to read it to the class. She brought it to me instead. I've seen a lot if children's books in my days but I hadn't ever seen or heard of this one. I flipped through it to see what Marci found so entertaining. Here's the book...

Here's a little snippet of the story. 

Something "plops" on Mole's head.

Mole decides to go on a quest to see if anyone knows who did this to his head. He goes around and asks different animals.

Trying to prove themselves innocent of Mole's accusations, they "demonstrate" how they cannot possibly be responsible for Mole's problem.

(As a side note, Marci said her favorite line in the book was from the page above. It reads "Little Mole thought they looked a lot like his favorite caramels!"  Oh geez.)

I certainly don't want to ruin the "mystery" for you in case you want to read the book for yourself. There are a lot more pages to look at!

Ummmm...
is it just the fact that I'm not a fun person or is this whole thing weird to you? Last night Ken and I were out and about and we decided to stop at D.I.  I always get a good laugh when I go there but I mainly go there to look at children's books. Low and behold but what did I find there last night?

Yep. 

The cover was staring me in the face.

The Mole book. It's even a hardcover. I am so glad because now it will last me years and years and years while a paperback would only last years. The round sticker I'm pointing to is a little too small to read but it says "It's the #2 Bestseller!" I am not exactly sure what they mean by #2, but I think I can guess.

I was also able to find a few Mole gift items online.

You'd better watch out, Marci. This book may have started the beginning of something ongoing. I'm keeping it in my classroom (far, far away from children) if you need to borrow it. Marci has also helped me find a love of chunk chicken

and this pencil jar.

I have to quit blogging now. I need to get back to reading my Mole mystery book, snacking on chicken chunks and sharpening the pencils in my jar being productive. What do YOU think? Is this Mole book gross or perfectly acceptable?

Clint's eclipse "get together"...

My older brother, Clint, just moved from a condo into a new house. He wanted his kids to have a place where they could run around, be loud, play with neighbor friends, and have their own bedrooms. The condo was a temporary housing solution, but it really didn't suit Clint. He has his kids quite often so the new house is prefect for him and the kids love it!

Yesterday, Clint invited us to have dinner and watch the eclipse with them. Ken and I went out last night and spent the evening with them. We had a fun time. Clint barbequed a roast for a few hours. It was delicious! (and that's coming from someone who doesn't eat beef)

The kids had all sorts of fun.

This is the view from Clint's backyard. You can see Utah Lake from there.

My cute niece Eryn loved blowing bubbles.

Everyone's inside for dinner!

Clint bought solar viewing glasses at the planetarium to be able to view the eclipse. We all LOVED looking at the sun through them. They were really cool. Without the glasses, you wouldn't have been able to tell there was an eclipse at all.

Ken was able to get some amazing pictures by putting the camera lens against the solar glasses. He took a few pictures over the course of about 2 hours. Here's the eclipse just barely beginning.

The sky was a little cloudy so it made it difficult to see the sun at times.

Cloudy again!

It was really fun to be able to see the eclipse. We weren't in a place we could see the moon center itself over the sun. We would have traveled about 4 hours south of where we live. All things considered, we had a pretty good view of the event.