Drumroll, please....

IT'S A BOY!! They didn't give us any 'boy' pictures, but let it be known that it was very clear. We are very excited, and I was glad that Rich could be there this time for the ultrasound and see the little guy kicking around. Any suggestions on names?

As the ultrasound lady was looking around, she zoomed in on his face, and it was so cute, he put his arm up to shield his face--you can see it above.

YAY!

Miscellaneous...

Ha, ha, so this is my very belated Halloween post. But first, my lovely scarf (crochet project #2) turned out pretty well, I think. It's warm!

Second, I had a couple of ladies in the ward over to do some cake decorating, and these cupcakes are the crowning touch to the lesson. We learned a lot in two hours!

Third, our ward trunk-or-treat was pretty fun. There was also a chili cook-off which we entered, but even we didn't really like our chili; it was a new recipe, so we didn't expect to win, and we didn't. We weren't sure how to decorate our trunk, so I was trying to think of costumes that might be able to be tied in to our trunk decorations, and we came up with Oscar the grouch from Sesame Street, and our trunk was his trash can (I was his little worm pet, Slimy, but I didn't look much like it--it's hard to do worm impressions!). It was fun because we ate some of the candy beforehand and put the wrappers in the "can" with the real candy, and the kids had to try and find the packages that had candy in them. :-) Rich was a great Oscar (that's the trash can lid on his head--it was being blown back by the wind), although he was reprimanded by one of the Primary kids in the ward for not being grouchy enough. I'm glad he's not. We were pretty proud of our cat-in-front-of-the-moon jack-o-lantern. It's the most complex jack-o-lantern either of us has ever done! (And only one of the cat's whiskers got broken. :~) )

Announcing....!

Well, we had decided to wait until my birthday to announce our news, so here goes. We're expecting! I'm about 13 weeks along, and the date will be somewhere around April 29th (the day before Rich's birthday...). I'm getting over the morning sickness, though it's not over yet. I've been so glad that I'm not teaching right now, because I never would've made it into work if this had happened then! I've been grateful to be able to sleep a lot, as well.

We had a first ultrasound a couple of weeks ago, so here are some pictures from that.

Leaf Peeping!

So, leaf peeping season is here! It took long enough, but it's worth it! The leaves are beautiful, and I love walking outside in the crisp air. The trees are cool because they will have two or three different colors on them at once. It's also neat to sit in the living room and watch out our big window as the leaves come flying down when the wind blows. We also took some pictures of a couple of the horses around town (if someone could get Brittany to see...).

Unfortunately, with autumn come some not as nice things. Impending winter is often on the brain, but there is something more immediate. Somehow bugs keep getting into our house through our big living room windows, and while most of them don't bother me (box-elder bugs), there have been one or two that are quite big and scary looking (and I don't know what they are, which frightens me!). I'm trying to find how they're getting in, but really there is no hole anywhere!

Still, it's a nice season, and there are even times when I feel at home.

If I do say so myself...

I must say, after having gone probably over 10 years without crocheting, I think I did a pretty good job of picking it back up. Now to move on to something besides hot pads....

The House

The living room and the kitchen. Woohoo!

We've been enjoying it here. We went to a Jazz Festival a couple of weeks ago at Lake George and enjoyed the scenery and the music. This last week we went to a free concert by the U.S. Army Field Band that was really good. We figured out we'll be able to make it home for Christmas (yeah!), so we're excited about that as well.

Richard's enjoying his job so far. We've been having a lot of rain, and not much change of leaves yet. The ward is great and so's life!

More pics...

Well, the apartment is starting to look like an apartment (yeah! we got internet!), but not clean enough to take pictures and post them yet, but I'll get there. The front room is pretty much finished and we're pretty happy with it, which is good because we're having the elders over for dinner tonight (they live in our same apartment complex!).

Saratoga Springs has very tight roads and is pretty compact--you can drive anywhere in town in about 5 minutes. We went to the city park a couple of days ago, and it was really big and nice. They have all these natural springs all over town that you can just drink from, and it's supposed to be really healthy or whatever. In actuality, they taste like sulfur and iron and they're gross (Richard may not agree with me on that one).

Also everywhere in town are metal horses that businesses have painted up to promote their particular shop. So we've seen horses with ballet dancers, sequined horses, horses with ice cream cones, and tons of other random ones.

The trees haven't really started changing colors yet, but when they do we'll be sure to post pictures. Enjoy these pictures of Niagara Falls--I took them both myself. :-) Later!

The second half of the trip

This is us in the Joseph Smith home, at the Kirtland temple, at the Whitney store, and a beautiful sunset on the Mississippi.

We have had a very blessed trip--practically no tourists everywhere we went, beautiful weather, and no car troubles. We spent a couple days in Nauvoo--so neat! Then we spent a couple days in Kirtland, a couple days in Niagara Falls, a couple days in Palmyra, and now we're in Saratoga Springs! We get to move in to our new apartment today. Woohoo! In fact, this will be short because the movers are here. Later!

Illinois...

So, here we are in Nauvoo! So far, the view from the hotel and the buffet have
been great. Hopefully we'll get to stuff outside of the hotel tomorrow.

We've driven many hours these last 3 days, and seen many a Wal-Mart truck. Music has been a great part of our trip--we had to put John Denver in as we were passing through Colorado ("Rocky Mountain High"), and Richard breaks into song every time we see a license plate from Oklahoma. We're taking turns trying to keep each other awake when the other is driving. We've also been trying to see how many of the fifty states' license plates we can find--already 36 states and counting! Also, we've gotten several Canadian provinces and other cool ones. We're so good.

We've had fun staying with friends (Tiffany in Colorado--yeah! and Katie and Cynthia in Missouri--yeah!), and camping last night in Omaha. We've been to visit lots of cool stuff-the Denver temple, the Winter Quarters temple, Liberty Jail, Adam-Ondi-Ahman (we asked a couple of guys for directions on how to get there, and we told them the road that it's supposedly on, and they said they didn't know roads, just where people are. We told them we wanted to get to Spring Hill, and they said ok and led us right there, and as they were taking off they said "You could've just said take us to AOA and we would've known exactly what you were talking about." I thought it was funny), the Mormon Pioneer Cemetery, and the Winter Quarters Visitors Center, and looking forward to many more. We've been rained on, frightened by chiggers and giant preying-mantises, and, of course, missed an exit or two. It's been fun!

This is it!!

Well, we're off in 3 days! It's been a busy week, figuring out what to do with 5 kids while my sister Sara is finding out that she has kidney stones in a most unpleasant manner. :-( Pray for her!

We packed all our stuff into the moving van yesterday, so it's off and will be waiting for us when we arrive in New York. Now all we have is a bunch of camping stuff and clothes to wear as we take a couple of weeks and travel across the country. We're really excited, and I'm glad that we will have things to look at and do as we get to New York, instead of me just sitting in the car worrying and being sad.

We've really loved being able to stay at my parent's house for this last little while--it's given me the opportunity to spend a lot more time with sisters and family. We hoped to get a family portrait before we left, but that probably won't happen now. That's okay--added motivation to come back so we can get one.

Probably my next post will be from New York. Until then, Shen zhufu nin!

Reunions...

So it's been a busy month. We had the Bennion Family Reunion with Rich's family on July 9-11, which was fun. We started out by having a presentation by one of his uncles, Stephen Bennion, who was the chief architect on the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. Then we went to the Open House. It was neat to hear all the thought and symbolism behind the building itself. The next day we went up to Heber Valley Camp for an overnight stay with all the family, and enjoyed dinner there, time on the lake in canoes and paddle boats, and games with cousins and family. Richard wasn't feeling too well that evening, so we went to bed before most everyone, and I woke at 1:00 a.m. and Rich was burning up. So I fished around for some medicine, which helped, and we left first thing as soon as Rich woke up and ate breakfast. So we missed the rest of the reunion. He was sick in bed for the next three days, just about, and was bored out of his gourd (he doesn't do sitting around very well). But, it also gave him time to help me out with the Reece Family Reunion which was this last weekend, and we were in charge of it.

It went pretty well. We had dinner and played outdoor games the first night, having fun with a parachute we rented from BYU Outdoors Unlimited. The next day we went to the Oquirrh Temple Open House (it's great to be able to take all the kids), and went after to the This is the Place Heritage Park and walked around and did the different activities they had there (stick stilts, ring toss, chores like scrubbing clothes and beating rugs, and a variation on paddle ball). I had a lot of fun, even though it was really quite hot. Unfortunately, Grandpa (Dad) couldn't come with because he was sick, Jeremy couldn't make it because he had to work, Scott had an interview to go to, and Xela's family couldn't make it either, so we were a little sparse, but still had fun. We came home, had dinner, and played Killer Bunnies, which is a good game.

The next day we had our traditional Rice Grut breakfast (thanks to Ben), and the boys went golfing while the girls babysat (easiest babysitting ever--Primary activities are great). Then after we had lunch, it was the boys' turn to babysit while Kathleen (my sister in law) taught all the girls how to make earrings, which is such a great skill and saves a lot of money. After we all got back together, most of us went swimming, and then we had dinner, and then after the kids went to bed we watched a family classic movie "The Shakiest Gun in the West" using Ben's projector outside, which was fun and provided nap time to half the family (who were really tired by this time). On Sunday we got together for dinner, performed some skits about people in our family history, and handed out awards for the photo scavenger hunt which had been going on the whole duration of the reunion. And now it's over! Woohoo!

A countdown.....A countdown to what David?!!!

So, we decided on an apartment in New York today. It seems pretty nice, and they give us a good deal since we're working with KAPL. That seems to make it a little more official in my mind now, since I am envisioning living in a new place that I can see pictures of. Pretty crazy. Rich is keeping busy doing his internship this summer, and I am keeping busy with the legwork of the move--packing, looking for housing, organizing movers and temporary housing and our trip across the country, etc..... It's pretty intimidating. I try not to think about it too much, because I start getting scared. Less than two months now!

However, Alexis did help us choose some great new couches and tables that I will be excited to use when we get to New York. It's all going to be so weird. Good news, though--I talked to my first New Yorkians today on the phone, and I didn't have a hard time understanding them. :-) In fact, I couldn't even really detect an accent.

On an aside, I don't know how people live without the gospel. It is such a source of peace when really life is kind of turmoilish. God is good.

My last week of school...(June 1-5)

Woohoo! I'm done! Sorry, I've actually been done for two weeks now, I just haven't really updated my blog. Several people have been asking how my last week of school was.

Monday-this was the day of my field trip that I'd been planning, and it went great. The beginning part was a little crazy, but after that it really went quite smoothly. I had been worried about it raining, but it was beautiful for us while we were there, and about two hours after it was over it was pretty stormy (thanks Heavenly Father!). We went to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum, and the students seemed to enjoy that. We also watched one of the 3-D movies they have there, which was okay. It actually gave me a headache. We ate lunch outside, and then headed back. It was great to have over, I'll tell you that. The parents that came along were great, and the bus drivers were good too. Besides some students having a hard time cleaning up after they ate lunch, it was great.

One student thanked me that day, and two thanked me the following day. :-)

Tuesday-We did a couple of different activities, one being some anagram shapes that they had to use those seven shapes to make different forms and models of things. It's quite a challenge, actually, and I was surprised at some of the students that really liked it and did really well with it. We also did some brain teasers.

Wednesday-Today was the day that I made the whole school stink. I was having each of the students make what I call an 'ocean in a bottle' with denatured alcohol and paint thinner. It turns out that paint thinner has a strong enough odor to spread through a school rather quickly. Oops. Oh, well, the kids liked the results. :-) We also made cartesian divers, which are floating things in a bottle and you squeeze the bottle and the floater will sink to the bottom. It was fun.

Thursday and Friday-Yearbook days. I think we were supposed to keep kids in class (at least on Thursday), but they really refused to stay. Even after I implemented pretty harsh penalties, students (even my good ones!) were 'sneaking' out of class. Of course, by about 4th period students were just not coming to class. Friday was about the same. I got a yearbook for kids to sign, and some of them wrote the sweetest things. One kid took a picture of me holding his yearbook after I had just signed it on Thursday, and he gave me that picture in a frame as a parting gift on Friday. :-) Friday was also cleaning day. Kids love to climb on counters and things to get stuff down, and there were even kids quite willing to scrape gum off the underside of tables. They can be nice when they want to. My husband came with me on Friday to help clean, and he didn't have to do too much because I had so much help from students. I was done with time to spare, which was nice. Then we had our teacher banquet where I received a plaque for the "years" of hard work at Elk Ridge (which, I think people don't deserve to have a plaque given to them until they have been working at a place at least 5 years), and then got signed out. I was sad to lose my laptop that I have enjoyed a lot, but oh well. And that was it!

All alone....

Hi! Here I am on a Sunday morning all by myself, wishing my husband in Florida (for a conference to present some research) would get online so I can chat with him.

Life is moving so fast these days--one week of school left! Yeah!! Of course, I had to make it the most stressful week of the year by planning field trip Monday, but it'll be so good when it's over. (We're going to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point). Richard woke up one morning this week and turned to me and said, "Well, about two months and one week now!" That's how long until we anticipate leaving for New York. Aahh! That's too weird. I think it's beginning to hit me. Life is going to be so different. So I'm trying to enjoy the time I have now. What a good philosophy, huh?

Tulip Festival

We made it out to the last day of the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point!! We tried going on Richard's birthday (Thursday) but didn't end up making it. We were glad we made it tonight (Saturday) because it was cool and a bit drizzly, which made for some cool pictures and made everything smell fresh and clean. We actually were only rained on for about 5 minutes and the rest of the time had sun and beautiful skies. We were impressed with the vastness of the gardens and the variety of the types of gardens they had - tulip beds, a rose garden, a Greek-based garden, a Monet garden, and even some giant man-made waterfalls! We have all sorts of plans now for our own garden in the future when we're rich and famous with a big yard and a bazillion dollars to spend on landscaping. Highly recommend going to the gardens at Thanksgiving Point!

I can't help it...

Sometimes the temptation to abuse my teacher power is too great. Yesterday I was handing out tickets for the honor roll students to be allowed to see a play by the Cedar City Touring Company during the last two periods of the day. One of the students who received one (who is one who tries to get out of all the work he possibly can while still keeping his grades up) asked me if he would have to do anything besides sit and watch. With the most straight face I could muster, I said, "But you guys are going to be the actors!" Exclamations of "What?!?" went up around the room. "Yeah, they didn't tell you? You guys are going to act the play out." Incredulous remarks were all around. I'm not very good at keeping it going for long, plus I didn't really want them to decide not to go, so I told them the truth then. It is just so funny how easily they believe me! It's a good reminder that I need to be careful in what I say in all areas, because they will believe me.

April Fools' Day

So, I was really nervous about what my students might do for April Fools' Day. I have been anticipating this for a long time, and I even tried to think of what jokes I might play, but fortunately nothing really came up. I did walk into the restroom and had to remove some really sloppily laid saran wrap from off the toilet (I suppose there's a reason why it's supposed to be dark--getting up at midnight to use the restroom when they are fooled by that prank). Oh, and one of my students put some staples in the next Kleenex in the box, but I was sitting there watching him do it, and after he left I just pulled it out. :-) Anyway, I was quite relieved.

It's weird how close we're getting! Spring Break is next week, and then there's only a month to finish covering everything until the end of year tests, and then three weeks after that, and then we're done!! Weird.

Hot!

So, I was teaching a lesson on heat and how it's transferred (radiation, conduction, and convection), and I was trying to think of a way to just get them thinking along the lines of heat and transfer. So I thought I would ask them at what time they have been the hottest in their lives--where they were, why it was so hot there, etc. When I asked my first period class "When have you been the hottest?", instantly one girl who is usually pretty quiet in class flipped her hair back dramatically with her hand and pronounced that, "I am always hot!!" It was pretty funny.

Valentine's Joys

YEAH!! We celebrated Valentine's Day yesterday, and it was wonderful. I had school off because we had parent teacher conferences this week, so I had all day free.

We started off by going to the temple and doing a session, which was really good for the both of us, I think. We had lunch together, and later in the afternoon when Rich was done doing some homework, we went shopping together (Rich hadn't had the opportunity to buy me anything because I always have the car every day). That was great--he got me some Chinese baozi (meat and veggie filled bread things--yum!), some trouser socks that I have been in desperate need of (I wear hose once and they're dead), a beautiful pink rose in a new vase (woohoo! I have two now!), and a wonderful meal from Macaroni Grill with CHOCOLATE for dessert--this was my one free day between Jan. 4 and Apr. 30 to eat as much chocolate/sugar as I wanted. :-) I indulged. The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory chocolate is good (if overpriced).

We came home and watched a Chinese video called "The Road Home", which is a very slow moving but very endearing love story. I'd seen it before but Rich hadn't, and he was perfect--just how you want someone to be when you show someone something hoping they'll like it. He thought it was timeless.

Anyway, it was great and wonderful. I have the best husband ever. We are so blessed.

Valentine's Woes

So, this was a horrible weekend for Valentine's Day. Richard had a jazz festival, which means he had a concert to play at both Friday and Saturday nights (and did a wonderful job), a clinic on Saturday afternoon, and then early Sunday morning (4:00 a.m.), I drove him to the airport so he could go have a physical in New York for his new job. He got back Monday night at 10:20 p.m. So instead of having a phooey Valentine's Day, we're doing ours this weekend. :-) I'm so excited!

Sugar Strike!!

So, my husband and I are on a sugar strike. We started soon after New Year's, and plan on going until April 30th (Rich's birthday; approximately 4 months). I confess, sometimes it's hard to pass up the sugar, but I have really noticed an increase in my ability to taste natural sugars: onions, peppers, and fruits for sure. In fact, some fruits are altogether too sweet. There is a personal trainer in our ward that Richard went to talk to about our sugar strike when we first started, and bless his soul he told Rich that you should splurge once a week or two just to let your body know you appreciate its tolerating what you're doing to it. So I enjoy our Sunday splurges, especially when it involves chocolate. If there's anything I've learned from this experience so far, it's that I crave chocolate above all other sugars. :-)

Blessings be upon her head...

God bless my sister Alexis!! She just spent6 hours at my house helping me finish my grading in time for the end of the term. Thank you!!

Funny student story #1

I slept in until 6:40 the other day (which is usually the time I'm already on the road), so naturally I only got to school just before the bell rang. In my scatterbrained state, I was explaining to my kids why I was so unprepared for the day and had to organize myself before starting class. I was getting ready to start, and a couple of minutes later after some thinking, one of my smarter students raises his hand and asks, "Mrs. Reid, you slept in--is that why you're hair is so (and at this point he sort of makes a movement with his hands by the side of his head that makes it seem like my hair is really bushy)?" And I laughed and said yes.

I succumbed....

Yes, not only do I have a facebook account now, but I also have decided to start a blog. This is mostly because I am moving far away from everybody and everything I know this summer, and this is an attempt to keep tabs with everyone better. So anyway, have a great day!!