CATE Teacher in Excellence award

On Friday, the California Teachers of English committee awarded me the Excellence in Teaching award in Los Angeles at their annual CATE convention during the keynote speech featuring former Poet Laureate Billy Collins. Shannon and I were able to eat dinner with Billy Collins, along with several colleagues and mentors of mine. It was a surreal experience, involving two pre-dinner gatherings of local, state, and national leaders in education. (It almost felt like I was a rock star. :) Shannon videotaped the acceptance speech I gave, so I thought I would upload it to our blog--now almost two years neglected :/. Nevertheless, it is an honor to be so recognized and genuinely has give me more motivation to push myself and truly teach and live at a higher standard of excellence. Thanks for everyone's love and support throughout everything!

Mark

I'll also try to post some recordings of Billy Collins reading a few of his poems. Absolutely hilarious!!

1 year old

We can hardly believe that iswas 1 year ago ( almost to the minute!) that we met our sweet Caleb. He has brought us so much joy! We love his easy smile and sweet personality. Today was really the first time at church that he fussed to be able to get down and go, he is usually happy to sit on my lap and look around. We had a fun little party with just our familytoday. Caleb loved grabbing his cake the first time, but once he tasted it, he was not impressed! He is almost walking and says mama....still a tiny guy, but so much fun!

We are finally home to stay for a while. We got home from a two week trip to Lake Tahoe and Idaho last Tuesday and snuck in one more trip for a day at the beach and our nephew's baptism yesterday. This week we have to get back into routines and ready for school next Monday. Elijah was thrilled to find out this week that he will have the same kindergarte

n teacher Aubrey had. Courtney and Aubrey are still anxiously awaiting their assignments. Mark even has a new schedule this year teaching seniors for the first time. It should be a fun new challenge for him. Christian has a preschool group set up for two days a week. It is 6 three year old boys, so all the moms are a bit nervous about keeping all that energy going the right direction, but is should be fun!

Our Alaska visit 2010

Our Alaska visit 2010

We just got back Tuesday night from a great two weeks in Alaska, spent the night in LA and finally made it home Wednesday afternoon. We are very happy to be home, but not too thrilled about the 105 degrees it has been the last couple of days. Luckily we have friends with swimming pools! We will be home for about another week, then head to Lake Tahoe for a few days and on to Idaho Falls. If only we could swing by Mississippi, we could see everyone!! I guess Nate and Sharolyn need to plan a trip out here!

Anyway, here are a few pictures from our trip. We loved mom and dad's new kayaks and the kids are still talking about how fun itwas to use hammers and nails while building the treehouse. Even Aubrey and Prince became the best of friends. The boys made it to the top of the Butte and the girls to the top of Twin Peaks trail in Eklutna. Thanks again mom and dad, Scott and Yvonne and Cassie and Nate. We love and miss you guys!

Happy Easter!

SUNDAY, APRIL 4, 2010

Happy Easter!

We've had a few birthdays and lots of fun times around here since we last checked in! We are officially on the odd year with our kids aged 9, 7, 5,3, and little Caleb almost 8 months. We have been busy, busy this last month selling girl scout cookies and are glad that is done. The girls worked really hard and sold 300 boxes each, so we will be going to SeaWorld Adventure Camp in June. We are very excited about that! We are into spring and nice weather, so the boys and I have been playing outside and at the park a lot and the girls even started outdoor swimming lessons at the university Saturday. This week was our Spring Break, so we took the time to go up and spend an afternoon and have a sleepover with Meg and Ryan before heading to the beach. We found a great hotel with a play deck( life size chess/checkers, ping pong, mini golf, etc) and a heated pool that was walking distance to the beach. After a couple of nights there, we headed home and got lots of projects done around the house.

Our Easter bunny went crazy this year. Each child woke up to a different color yarn tied to their bed. After checking in with mom and dad, they followed their yarn all around the house, inside and out, over and under furniture, etc until it lead to their basket. It was different and fun! Then we settled in for conference before having Mark's brothers and their families over for Easter dinner. All in all a great day and week- Mark goes back to work tomorrow, but the girls get one more day before they count down the final eight weeks of school- we are ready for summer!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a fun and busy Thanksgiving weekend. We had a lazy morning Thursday, then drove down to LA to Mark's brother Aaron's house. His brother Jon and family were also there, so we had 12 kids between us. It was a great, laid back day and the only thing I cooked was Dad's cheesecake, which turned out perfectly! I did miss having Dad's stuffing so I actually made it today with dinner!

Mark and I each took a turn battling black Friday crowds and got most of our shopping done. Walmart was a total bust, after fighting the throng of people I came up empty handed, but Kohl's, Target and Michaels were actually enjoyable. Mark figured out last year that the trick at Kohl's is to buy something at the jewelry counter and then you can check out there. So, I bought something inexpensive there and avoided the hour long line

to check out! For Friday evening, I had gotten discount tickets to winter wonderland at the the Ice Sports center. Mark brought all the kids (except Caleb) and a neighbor to go ice skating, play in the snow and meet Santa. They had a great time and Courtney came told me today that she thinks she has a future in ice skating! I'm sure she could, as she could have a future in anything she put her mind to!

Saturday we spent the morning working on banners for the girl scout float that will be in the Christmas parade this week. The afternoon was spent watching the BYU football game- a great one if you missed it- go Cougars! Then, Mark and I had gotten discount tickets to go to the David Archuleta Christmas concert. It was very enjoyable- his Christmas CD would be very good.

So,we had a busy and full weekend and are ready for a very busy week ahead with Christmas decorating, a visit to Meg and family, the girls in the Christmas parade, Courtney's school championship spelling bee, and all the normal activities! We get our family pictures back tomorrow, so I am excited to see them and will post some soon.

What has 4 wheels, 8 pedals and 7 Olsens?

We just got back from a great couple days at the beach. It is our November tradition for the last few years, to head to the coast for a night. Usually it is on a Friday, but Mark had to go to Oxnard for a site visit/consultation at Oxnard High, so the girls played hooky and we all tagged along. It was perfect weather, so the kids and I spent the day at the beach, then we stayed overnight and all played today. After some outlet shopping, we decided to rent this bike and cruise along the bike path in Santa Barbara. Quite a workout for mom and day, but we needed it an it was fun! The only complaint was that we didn't get enough time at the beach! A great couple of days and for me, the first time out of Bakersfield in 6 months!!

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2009

A little late on the Halloween pictures, but here they are. The day started with pumpkin carvings, 4 of our 6 pumpkins were from out garden ( two were actually another type of squash that was over ripe!)- we were excited to use our home grown ones.

Later, we went to our ward party and then most of the kids were pretty wiped out. We went home and Aubrey opted to stay and pass out candy with me and Caleb, while everyone else went trick or treating around the neighborhood. Friends from our old ward had invited us to come to their trunk or treat, but only Mark and Courtney made it over there. All in all too much candy, but a fun day.

In other news, Courtney got a 4.0 on her report card, which means she made principal's list. She had a fun field trip for gate, where they traveled to the Orange County ocean institute. They went out on a boat and collected marine life, then came back and studied it. She had a great time, I will get her to write about it. She also competed in the written spelling bee and was one of the top 10 for the entire 4-6 grade and is now preparing for the oral competition in December- she has 900 words to study, most of which I don't even know! And, she competed in the oral language competition on Friday, she did not place, but we were very proud of the hard work she put into her piece.

Aubrey also had a perfect report card and was the only one in her class to get a + on handwriting. Her only lower mark was for not always completing her work as neatly as possible. Apparently, she is very competitive and always wants to be the first one done instead of doing it neatly- I wonder where she got her competitiveness?!

The boys and I have been spending most of our days this week at the park with friends, this is the best time of year here, with beautiful weather. We squeeze in some preschool here and there and have fun!

Caleb is doing really well. He goes to the doctor again this week to start his RSV shots, so I

am always anxious to see what his weight is up to. He is is smiling and cooing now, which is a lot of fun for all of us.