Squircle

The town that I live in was planned by a bunch of nincompoops who really like stop signs and wasting time. In the very center of town, we have what the townspeople “affectionately” call the squircle. The squircle is a big intersection thingy that functions like a round-a-bout, but its a... square. This last week, Doug’s grandma was dropping off the girls at the house and was unable to get to our place because of this confusing squircle. I remember the first few times we drove through it to come watch the house being built and I had no clue where we were going. I’m just now starting to understand how it works and we’ve lived in our house now for well over a year and I drive through it every day.

Anyways, this squircle has really been annoying me lately. I’m taking a slightly different route to school in the morning that takes me the annoying way through the squircle. I took a screen shot of the squircle in Google Maps and showed the route that I have been taking. Taking this route involves going through 3 stop signs in under a minute and you only end up about 100 feet front where you started.


I know this is a lame post, but I using up all of my brain power to set up my classroom. Unfortunately I lost the motivation today to actually get any real work done, so now I'm blogging.

Word Verification

I was feeling daring and took word verification off of my blog a couple months ago because I thought it was a pain. For those of you that forget what word verification is it that little thing that has you type in the weird letters to verify if you're human and not a computer when you leave comments. I haven't gotten any "comment spam", but I don't have much traffic either.

You should do it too... well unless you like verifying that you're human.

Five Below

For Activity Day Girls this last week I planned some fun with water balloons. I ended up going to FOUR different stores to try to find water balloons with NO LUCK. I started to get a little panicked because the activity was on Tuesday and it was Monday and I was running out of time.

I posted on my Facebook status update that I was looking for water balloons and was informed by Doug's Aunt Rachel that she just saw some at Five Below. I had never been to a Five Below so I Googled for locations and found one a few miles away from the school. I dropped by on Tuesday and the water balloons were in one of the front bins on display!

While I was in the store, I decided to walk around a little and check out what else they had in the store. BIG MISTAKE... they had a section with books! I spent some money, but I picked up twelve great books (some of them hardbound!) for under $40. Eleven of them are for my classroom and one of them is for Doug. I found this really neat book called Spies and Espionage: a Directory. I hope he likes it! He loved the movie Breach and we were just randomly talking about spies this weekend.

All of these books for under $40!

These non-fiction books have great pictures and good info for curious kids.

Kids love books with disgusting or amazing things in them.

Doesn't this look like a cool book?

If you are near a Five Below... stop by and pick up a non-fiction book for your child's elementary school teacher as a Back to School present. I guarantee you that she/he doesn't have enough non-fiction books!

"What a Little A-Hole!"

We went by my parents' house while Doug's siblings were visiting this last weekend. Allie was looking for a craft to do while we were in the process of making Katie addicted to Guitar Hero. Allie made this cute little race car out of a foam kit that my mom had sitting around. It came complete with a little pennant that they could put their name and a lucky number on. She did it with a little bit of help on my part, but it turned out great!

While we were at the zoo the next day, Allie accidentally left her little craft on the table. When we came back, Darwin had ripped her little pennant to shreds, but luckily left the car alone. I was having a bit of a flashback to when Darwin chewed my shoes, so I really could relate with Allie. She was really sad, but then she decided that she would "give" the pennant to Darwin since he was having so much fun with it.

We were kind of upset at Darwin until he started walking away with his tail sticking up and there was the A from Allie's name stuck to his butt.

Doug exclaimed, "What a little A hole!" :)

Double Yolked Egg!

I was making breakfast for the girls and Doug this weekend before we went to the zoo. I made the girls some YUMMY french toast and finally coerced Doug to have some "Toad in the Hole." Toad in the Hole is a family favorite at my house. I've heard it called Eggs in a Basket by other people, but my family calls it Toad in the Hole. Toad in the hole is an egg fried in a hole of a piece of sliced bread.

Anyways, as the title says, I cracked an egg with TWO yolks! This is the first time that I've cracked a doubled yolked egg or even seen one. Doug and even Katie had both seen double yolked eggs. I was so excited I ran to take a picture!



I was curious about the double yolked eggs so I looked it up on Google and found this site. Here is a short excerpt from the site:

Double Yolkers appear when ovulation occurs too rapidly, or when one yolk somehow gets "lost" and is joined by the next yolk. Double yolkers may be by a pullet whose productive cycle is not yet well synchronized. They're occasionally laid by a heavy-breed hen, often as an inherited trait.

About 1 in 1000 eggs has a double yolk so it isn't all that rare. In some countries, markets sell cartons of double yolked eggs.

Throughout history and in different cultures, finding a double yolk has been considered to mean anything from an impending wedding to a financial windfall to a death in the family.

So would a double yolked egg produce twins? Probably not:

... the presence of the two yolks would generally lead to an unsuccessful hatch. The nutritional value of the egg white, which is an important food supply for the embryo is insufficient for the two embyros.

I hope this means that I'm going to become instantly rich...

My Cat Sleeps Kinda Funny...

Darwin likes to follow me around the house and usually falls asleep wherever I happen to sit for a while. These are a few random shots of Darwin around the house. I don't know where he picked up sleeping on his back, but I think I may have figured it out while walking around the zoo on Saturday...

Day at the Zoo!

Doug and I took Allie and Katie to the National Zoo in Washington, DC while they were visiting this weekend. We rode the Metro in and then walked up the hill to the zoo. The National Zoo is great because it's FREE! Doug mentioned while we were walking that the National Zoo was one of the only things that he can say he's truly happy about having his tax dollars spent on these days...

This is mine and Doug's third time to the National Zoo together. The first time we went we happened to show up the day that the famous baby panda was born. We didn't even realize it until we were standing there at the exhibit and all of these news cameras started pouring in. We LOVE going to the National Zoo!

We covered a pretty good portion of the zoo considering that we had a 7 year old with us. Allie was quite the trooper until the end. I had a blast taking pictures with my Nikon D40 combined with the awesome lens my sister got for me. As we walked around the zoo, I took a mental count of the people wearing digital SLR's around their necks and the majority of them were men surprisingly enough. I took a ton of pictures, but I only chose a few of my favorites to post on my blog. I combined many shots into one picture using the collage function on Picasa. The rest of them if you want to see them are on my Facebook.

Katie and Allie posing with an eagle statue.

Left Picture: Me catching Allie comparing her tongue to that of a tiger's. 

Right Picture: Katie had a butterfly land on her.

Some of my favorite shots of animals for the day.

Jellyfish from the invertebrates exhibit.

BIRDS! The one to the top right is a STORK! Ugh!

Officially VA Teacher Certified!

Good news! I took some tests (VRA and VCLA) early this summer for my VA teaching certification and I passed both of them!


I've been teaching the last two years in Virginia on a "Provisional License" that was only good for 3 years. I was trying to not have to take these tests at all, but I figured that it was a good idea to stay certified because you never know what will happen in life.

I'm still going to continue to rant and rave about the fact that I had to pay over $100 to take these tests when I was already certified to teach in Utah for many more years! I really REALLY don't understand why it has to be different for each state.

But YAY! I'm glad I don't have that hanging over my head anymore!

Little Scare!

I went to Aunt Paula's house to meet grandma to pick up the girls today. Paula's house is on this really steep hill and I always make sure to put my parking brake on. I had just loaded the girls and their stuff in the car and was pushing the passenger side door when I thought I saw the car move back a little. For a second I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me but NO, THE CAR WAS ACTUALLY ROLLING DOWN THE HILL WITH ALLIE AND KATIE INSIDE! I ran as fast as I could and jumped in the driver's seat and slammed on the brakes. It turned out that one of Katie's bags hit the shifter and knocked it out of park. I thought that thing was supposed to lock in place or something. My knees were shaking so bad when we finally drove away! Whew!

We're now SAFE and hanging out at my parents' house. We picked a large trash bag full of tomatoes and I'm just trying to figure out what to do with all of them. We're planning on taking the girls to the National Zoo tomorrow. I have the batteries for both of my cameras charging so hopefully I'll have some good pictures!

Weekend at Grandma's

Doug and I went this last weekend to see his Grandma. It's been really busy lately with Doug's training, so we were glad to finally get out for some peace and quiet. Doug's little sisters Allie and Katie are staying at Grandma's for the next three weeks. (So maybe it wasn't that peaceful and quiet...) We had lots of yummy food and grandma gave me some ideas for the masses of tomatoes I have coming out of my garden. Doug and I love going up to Grandma's house. The food is amazing AND Grandma has a porch swing! Grandma has a story to tell about EVERYTHING in her house. It's always fun!

Doug grew up near his grandparents, so we went by his old house and elementary school. We walked in the woods behind his house, played on the playground at his elementary school, and found fossils in an old stream that he visited as a kid. Doug just loves reminiscing the old times. (I can confirm this with the boxes that we have down in the basement with all of his childhood toys!)

While the girls and Doug were on the playground, I took the opportunity to take a bunch of pictures with the new camera lens that my sister got me!

A pretty flower!

Doug and Katie walking in the woods behind his old house.

Doug showing a fossil to Allie.

Whenever Allie saw these digging things at the playground she asked Doug if kids could dig and find money in there. Doug answered, "Sometimes, if they're lucky!" He then snuck over to the car when she wasn't looking to get some change and dropped it in the dirt. She looked like she had just won the lottery when she found a nickel in the wood chips!

Digging for money!

Katie!

Allie on the teeter totter.

Allie really wanted to get on the monkey bars, but didn't really have the upper body strength required. She stood there for a while swinging on the first wrung with her feet on the platform until Doug offered to take her on his shoulders to the other end.


Doug was playing just like a little kid. Katie and him got on the teeter totter... and almost broke it, so they went over and started jumping off the swings!


We're borrowing the girls this coming weekend to possibly go down to DC and visit the National Zoo or White House. I'm hoping that the weather forecast cooperates with us!

SALSA!

Our garden has produced a lot of tomatoes this year... too much to just have with salad and such, so my mom and I made salsa.


We sliced up green peppers, jalapenos, onions, and of course tomatoes.


I had quite the MEMORABLE learning experience while cutting up the jalapenos. I had some hair in my face. Without thinking, I moved the hair out of my face and accidentally touched my cheek. My cheek started burning so I ran to the bathroom and splashed water in my face. Unfortunately, I still had all of the juices from the jalapenos on my hands. The whole area around my eyes burned and became really red... yeah, OUCH!


We threw everything into a big pot and added some extra ingredients. It was only suppose to cook for 20 minutes with the recipe we were following, but it still was really soupy so we cooked it longer and added some tomato paste to thicken it.


I think it turned out okay, but I still haven't had the chance to try it with chips.

Bigger Is Not Always Better

This whole gardening thing has definitely been a learning experience. I came over to my parents' house last night to learn how to can salsa since we have a bazillion tomatoes. I have a bunch of pictures from that, but no time to post so I'll share a little gardening tidbit I learned...

From my experience with gardening, you usually let whatever it is grow until it gets to its biggest size and then it's ready to be picked. It turns out that that is not how it works with squash. I had been keeping on eye on my squash feeling so proud that they continued to grow. After all of the salsa making, I asked my mom about the squash and she informed me that they should be picked MUCH sooner. So, I went outside with a flashlight (it was now midnight by this time) and picked all of the summer squash.

Picture of the squash before I knew that it was bad to have big squash.

Comparing the size of the squash to my foot.

It turns out that squash seeds become as big as pumpkin seeds if you let the squash grow too big. (Anyone ever roasted squash seeds like you do pumpkin seeds? ...just wondering if that works.) So we cut up the huge squashes, seeded them, and then put them through a slicer attachment on my mom's Bosch. After that, we put them in little baggies and into the freezer. The plan is that sometime this I will make some zucchini bread with it.

Little squash pieces!

Bagged and ready to go!