Changes

We officially made the big move from Utah to Washington! We have been busy packing up my classroom (seriously bigger and has more stuff than our apartment) as well as our tiny apartment :) Needless to say, it took longer than expected and was harder than I thought. Thanks to Brodie, the packing master, we were able to fit the classroom and our apartment into my car and the back of Brodie's truck. We accomplished our goal of not renting a U-Haul!

The "Big Blue Burrito" as Brodie calls it. You can see Luna's kennel peeking out the back corner.

 My view the whole trip . . . I had to make sure nothing fell out!

the proud pack master

Now we are in Vancouver enjoying our summer and I am especially enjoying setting up my new classroom! At first I was a little discouraged (you can ask Brodie or my mother) because I kept picturing my old classroom and wanted everything to look exactly the same. But now I am fully on board with the windows, wall to wall cupboards, tan wall paper (it's growing on me), and cool cubby spaces. As I have started to set up, I am getting excited to improve my organization system and change up the decor a little. I don't know if it's a teacher thing, but decorating and setting up is all I can think about. . . eat, sleep, read . . . all I do is imagine what I can set up next. And don't even get me started on my AWESOME reading corner/alphabetized student library. It's seriously the best.

gettin' to work on the new classroom!

OH!! I forgot to announce this (as you probably already assumed): I GOT A TEACHING JOB!! I am happy happy to say that I will be teaching fifth grade next school year at Dorothy Fox Elementary. Fox Rocks! I am so, so lucky and so thankful to Heavenly Father for giving me this job opportunity. I literally applied for over 100 jobs (no joke) and Dorothy Fox was the only school to invite me to interview. haha. I didn't expect much since I knew that over 130 people applied and they only chose a handful to interview. Especially since part of the interview included writing a paper on the changes from Washington State standards to Common Core. What?! I haven't taught in WA and therefore do not know much about the WA State standards!! Talk about a stressful interview. So when they called to offer me the job I was stunned, surprised, and so stoked!! I know that God is watching out for me and giving me more blessings than I deserve.

As I mentioned, leaving behind my old school/classroom/students was difficult. I felt extremely nostalgic when I came back to the school to clean up my stuff and saw these sweet messages from my students written all of my whiteboard. Seriously, they are the best and I miss them already. When you spend 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 9 months, you get pretty attached. And as Brodie knows very well, I can easily talk about my students for DAYS, so that's where I will stop :)

Goodbye Reagan Academy!

Goodbye yellow classroom! 

they seriously melt my heart 

last day of school flowers

As our time in Provo ran out, we tried to spend time with friends and use up the last of our "only in Utah" gift cards. And exchange the last bit of wedding presents that we had found sitting under out bed :) Yay for exchanges and in-store credit. We also found our wedding cake in the freezer. Since we couldn't take it with us, we celebrated our year anniversary a month earlier and ate some cake. We were scared at first because of all the nasty, year-old wedding cake stories we heard, but it honestly tasted just as good as it did a year ago! 22 days until anniversary #1!

Luna has grown so much! Enjoying one of our last nights around the apt. complex

we went shooting with our friends. not to brag . . . but Brodie was the all star shooter :)

drinking Orange Peel smoothies/bubble tea. thank you 4th grader for the gift card!

haha can you tell which one is mine? straw failure . . . 

the top of our wedding cake. 

(notice our rings in the picture . . . that was Brodie's idea :) he's so cute!!)

Thanks Utah! The last five years have been real. We will miss you!!