technology

Some days I am pretty sure technology is shortened to tech because it deserves to be a 4-letter word! I have such a love/hate relationship with technology. Can't live with it, can't live without it and all that. I have been working on my Gospel Doctrine lesson for today. It is on the Atonement and I wanted a silent lesson. Unfortunately, my computer does not have PowerPoint. My old laptop does so I decided to use that. After a couple days, it became obvious that my old laptop has way too many issues to be reliable for a lesson. So, I decided to use Kevin's tablet. I got that all set up only to discover there is no way to connect it to a TV at the church. So, I downloaded PowerPoint to my computer only to find that my old PowerPoint code no longer works. Next I found a free trial of Power Point which I downloaded onto my computer. Good to go. Except when I got to the church and tried it out on the TV, I found that I have no graphics card so my screen will not project onto the TV. Seriously? Such a good thing I tried it out. So, I downloaded a trial version onto Chandler's computer. Finally, I think I am good to go. Hope so anyway.

Riverton Country Mile

Chandler and I ran the Riverton Town Days races on the 4th. We've both run them several times before but this is the first time Chandler has run the 10K. He ran it in 47 minutes and finished 19th overall and 3rd in his age group. I ran the 5K. McKayla was planning to run the 10K but was too injured. It is a really fun race - I love seeing so many people I know.

I'm not Eve

I took Alec and Chandler and joined Jill (and Abby and Hannah) and Karen (and Katie and Ellie) at Yuba Lake. We had fun riding 4-wheelers and the waverunners. I ran every morning and saw a deer, lots of jackrabbits and many lizards. We also saw a snake. I know Hannah and Ellie love animals so I caught the snake so they could pet it. I sent a picture to Kevin and my older kids and they all freaked out. Brakston kindly reminded me what happened to Eve when she came in contact with a snake. lol

King's Peak

Chandler hiked King's Peak with the Teachers and Priests from our ward earlier this month. They backpacked in 8 miles on Thursday. Friday they took daypacks and hiked the final 5 miles and then back before picking back up their backpacks and hiking the additional 8 miles out. He had a great time but came home pretty tired.

Sew fun!

One of my goals for summer was to sew a couple skirts. This is one I sewed for McKayla.

I am really proud of how it turned out. It is the very first time I have ever put in a zipper. I read a tutorial and went for it! Also, I didn't have a pattern for the skirt - just a few instructions. I had to figure out a lot of it myself. I like how it turned out!

epic fail

Okay, so I made a goal/resolution to blog more faithfully and I haven't written since February 27th.....

I ran my first obstacle race this morning.  Shanley, and Jolyn's girls (Natalie, Erica, Emily, and Rachel) all ran it with me.  It was really tough but super fun!  We climbed the rail fence surrounding rodeo grounds too many times to count, ran soft dirt hills, slid down a slide into a pool of water, ran up and down bleachers, hurdled desks, shimmied on our bellies through tubes, hurdled cement barriers, carried sandbags up and over obstacles, hurdled about 20 rails in a row, did a slip-n-slide type pool, went through a maze of ropes that you had to go over and under, ran through sprinklers in slippery mud, ran through tires, did another slip-n-slide, and ran over fields and on roads.  It was 34 minutes of effort for me but I finished!

teaching English

Today I finished a long-term substitute gig teaching Language Arts at Riverton High.  I enjoyed it but am actually glad to be done.

I had 2 Language Arts 12 classes.  Those are kind of bottom of the barrel because seniors who are really serious about school generally pick concurrent enrollment, AP, or college prep classes.  We were working on a argumentative research paper.  I liked most of my students but was completely surprised that about half of the class did basically nothing.   No effort at all.  That is out of my frame of reference.

I had 3 Language Arts 10 classes.  Two of them were great and one gave me grief.  Those classes were working on writing a nonfiction children's book.

My favorite class was a Creative Writing class.  They made me laugh every time!  We were doing a poetry unit.  I didn't know a lot about the type of poems I was supposed to so I had to do a lot of research/homework.  My favorite things were their daily journal entries.  I gave a journal prompt and they wrote a page.  They had to share what they wrote at least once a week.  Some of them were so funny and incredibly creative.

The hardest thing for me was deciding how many points assignments should be worth and then grading them.  Writing is so subjective.  Maybe that's why I liked the creative writing class.  I just gave them points for completing the assignments.

I'm now ready for a few days off.