pomp and circumstance

i think i speak for a lot of teachers when i say this time of year is the WORST for us. the students that we have taught lessons to,whether it be life or academic, for the past 9 months are moving on to bigger, better things. for some students they're promoted to the next grade, others they're moving to completely different schools, and then there's the ones who are graduating college and going into the "real world".

as a first year preschool teacher last year, i only got to experience watching the children in my class transition up to prek which is, quite literally, across the hall from my classroom. sure, i see my old class every day, but it's not the same. they have their new teachers and new lessons to prepare them for kindergarten, and i had my new class of bright and ready-to-learn 3 year olds to focus on.

this year i get to experience something i didn't experience last year...graduation. my very first class of preschoolers are now prek graduates and will be moving to kindergarten in the fall. i'm so so proud of them because i know they worked hard and will be the best kindergartners they can be, but it makes me so so sad because i know once they leave the center it is quite possible that i will never ever see them ever again. not only that, but the chances of them ACTUALLY remembering us teachers when they're older are pretty slim. apparently i was in preschool, but i don't remember that at all, let alone any details about my teachers.

fortunately i was able to attend one of the two prek class graduations. my heart swelled and my eyes welled up with tears (yes, i know that doesn't take much) as each student came up and accepted their prek diploma. i thought back to how these children helped to build the foundation of what kind of preschool teacher i wanted to be, what i wanted my students to know, how i wanted my classroom ran, and taught me how to love 20 little hearts, all at the same time.

every 6 months we take a class picture. every six months i write the first and last name of every child on the back of those pictures, because i don't want to forget a single one. my hope is they continue to want to learn, and soak up knowledge like sponges, and want to share, whether it's stories, snack, or a hug. but most of all i hope they continue to want to be "big helpers" as productive members of society who do good things for other people. and if they don't... i will find out! cause in 13 years i'm totally looking them up on facebook.

adventures in tacomaland

i'm pretty convinced that preschool teachers are undoubtedly the most fun people on the planet. i mean, it's our JOB to be creative/imaginative/exciting/entertaining/fun for 40 hours a week...and that's just in preschool-land! imagine how creative we could get in grown up-land...

my saturday morning started bright and early-830 am sharp! my good(looking) friend/co worker kasey was coming to tacoma to workout with me! we're both total beach bums, and i had just discovered a beach right down the street from where i live(how i took me two years to discover this i have NO IDEA), so once she arrived we promptly headed to owen beach in point defiance to work on our fitness.

there was obviously no elliptical, weights, treadmills or personal trainers on the beach so we made up our own workout routine as we explored.

the first thing we did(our warm-up,if you will) was what i can only describe as knee lift arm thrust things...which kasey very successfully is demonstrating here:



we would make up goofy chants/songs to go along with our movements. which i am successfully demonstrating here:



after a few minutes of that we decided that we should probably work our arms, so that if someone decides to attack us,we could defend ourselves. as i previously mentioned, there are no weights, so we had to improvise. what did we use? ROCKS! (which were "hard", as described by kasey)

kasey,demonstrating one of our rock arm lift moves(kasey, i think we are on to something-we should start our own beach workout class on the weekends!):



those first two routines were fun, but we were looking for something a little more challenging. i suggested we go swimming, but then kas pointed out that there were about 4987987234 jellyfish within a 2 ft radius of the edge of the water.

lots and lots of jellyfish:



luckily, there was a sand dune ahead that had some writing on it that was just BEGGING for us to climb it. so, climb it, we did!(it doesn't look hard at all, but there was literally nothing to grip your feet on to, the sand wasn't packed at all. to get to the top i had to find things to grab and pull myself up)

on my way to the top...



almost there...



yea, i made it!! i then had to slide down the loose sand.



all that climbing made us a tad bit tired. what do you do when you're on the beach and wore out? build a fort, of course!

slaving away,putting on the finishing touches:



c'est fini!



now, kasey can go inside and meditate:



11 hours later, she was fresh and ready to finish our adventure!



we started to head back to civilization and saw a few neat-o things along the way:

the biggest starfish to ever exist in the whole entire universe of starfish ever:



a pretty view of the tacoma narrows bridge:



and washed ashore jellyfish:



highlights of the rest of day include:

*receiving terrible service/food from a corner restaurant that i'd always wanted to go to. my bagel had more cream cheese than bagel, and the waitress who helped us pronounced tomato like to-MAH-to. and not in a cute way. in a condescending "i'm walking around using a fake british accent so that i feel superior to you" kind of way. when i told her i had asked for no toMAYto on my bagel she informed me that she would (imagine this in a terrible fake british accent)"rectify the situation immediately". really,who talks like that besides queens from mid-evil times? gimme a break.

*stopping at the taste of tacoma and visually eating food from every booth we walked by.

*bargaining with a mexican man selling fruit on the corner of 30th and orchard to sell us his $12 dollar strawberries for $10.(that's safe,right?)

*meeting the nesquick bunny

*searching for kasey's dream house-then finding it

*searching for the 10 things i hate about you house-and finding it

*fresh baked peanut butter and chocolate chip cookie from previously mentioned terrible restaurant

and last,but certainly not least, a few straggler pictures from our afternoon(i know they're your favorite part):

beautiful rose garden at the taste of tacoma:



random deer and peacock, just chillin outside the zoo:




i was SO excited to see a cupcake booth at the taste...however i was a tad disappointed to see these were not edible cupcakes, they were cupcake bath bombs. not as tasty, but just as cute:



i haven't blogged in almost 2 weeks, which is a super long time for me...which means i have a lot of posts built up inside of me! this week, look for an explosion of posts coming your way (and by explosion, i mean, maybe 3 more, haha)

talk to you all soon!! <3

my favorite

i'd like to introduce you all to my most favorite person in the WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD...




my dad.

tomorrow is my dad's 50th birthday. he's leaving for houston tomorrow so i got to celebrate his birthday with him today. this was a totally special treat for me. i cannot remember the last time me and my dad went out to dinner, just the two of us. it's been YEARS, at least. we talked about everything under the sun from our current favorite beers, whether or not "lesser" is an actual word (according to websters online dictionary, it is. score one point for ME!), to life in general. it was the best.

i can't pinpoint one thing that makes my dad my favorite. we are opposite in almost every way. he's the WoW playing, syfy channel watching, church going conservative republican (is conservative republican redundant??anyway...). i am...not. but i can talk to him about almost anything without feeling judged or looked down on. he's always there for me when i need him, which is one of, if not THE most important thing to me. even when i would be angry at him because i didn't think he understood what i needed/wanted and thought he was turning his back on me, i see now he only did what he did in order to help make me a stronger, more independent person. sneaky, sneaky how parents teach you those lessons and you don't even notice until years later. they have no doubt helped shaped me into the person i am today, who i think is a pretty decent,well-adjusted adult. but i'm a little biased.

so, to my dad i just wanted to say thank you for all those sneaky lessons. you are the best dad a girl could ever ask for. happy birthday/father's day!!


(dad and i out for his bday dinner at famous daves)

professional auditioner

as i mentioned in my last post, monday and tuesday i tried out to be a contestant on the wheel of fortune! i took two half days off of work because i wanted to make sure i got in to each day of auditions. needless to say,that was no problem at all!

i don't want to bore you with every single detail of the tryout details, but basically you fill out a form and sit in an audience/gameshow setting. on stage there is the traveling host(marty),and the traveling vanna(heidi). heidi draws 5 names at a time from this big tumbling container thing. these five people get to come on stage and talk about themselves for about a minute. they then play a speed round of wheel of fortune where everyone picks a letter and gets to guess the puzzle.
this process repeated for about an hour, allowing about 25 people the chance to come on stage. this goes on for 2 more rounds,the exact same way. getting on stage doesn't guarantee you get on the show, solving the puzzle doesn't guarantee you get on the show. it's all basically a who has the best/biggest personality contest,or who has the "it" factor. which completely makes sense, that's what makes good television.

unfortunately, my name was not drawn either of the two days. however, they take all the entries back to l.a., sift through them, then a select few will be emailed and be asked to come to the final auditions in seattle in 3 months...so hopefully i will be chosen for that!

in general the whole thing was pretty entertaining. i like learning about people and what makes people unique,so i enjoyed hearing the prospective contestants talk about themselves.

the best part and probably funniest moment of my LIFE was when a lady(let's call her jill) who was about in her late 40's was called up stage and was talking to the host about herself. she seemed a little...off. considering we were in a casino, it wasn't uncommon for a few audience members to be drunk, and i suspected she was. anyway, whenever someone mentioned they enjoyed karaoke-ing or dancing of COURSE the host made them sing/dance on stage. this particular woman just happened to mention she loved to dance. some music was turned on and jill started shaking her tailfeather as hard as she could. now jill was wearing a dress with two layers. the top layer was this black mesh type material, while underneath was a cream slip. while she danced the slip kept riding further and further up her body. at one point i turned to heidi, my roommate and said "do you think she's wearing underwear???". 30 seconds later, we got our answer. she was. and it was green. she completed her dancing and walked to the other side of the stage and stood next to the other contestants while the host called someone else up to talk about themselves. it was a good 2 minutes or so before anyone mentioned that her underwear was fully exposed. luckily she just pulled her dress down and laughed it off. i was literally in TEARS i was laughing so hard. that's the kind of thing you only see in movies! most definitely the highlight of the auditions for me.

and nowwwww, the best part...pictures! (i would never deny you)

(disclaimer:while my camera phone is excelente in well lit situations, the showroom was very dimly lit,therefore some of my pictures didn't come out too well)

as you can see, i was a tad bit excited to be filling out my time off request and said i was auditioning for "wheel of future":


everything looked sooooo offical! it got me really excited!






one of my many applications(i found a sticker option on photobucket and was a little fascinated by all the options,therefore i may have covered up a little more personal info than was necessary):


marty,the host, talking to a contestant:


my view of the stage:


full view of the stage:


traveling vanna/heidi getting ready for the next round of letter guessing:



there was a cardboard cutout of vanna white, and i, never one to pass up a great photo op, tried to see if i could pose as well as her. i think i did a comparable job...

vanna doing what she does:


the next vanna white?:


vanna is gonna have to retire SOMEtime, so if anyone from wheel sees this, you have my contact information...

the loser and the wheel

if you know 3 three things about me, these are them:

1. i have a scar on my right wrist that i got from falling off my bike when i was 7. when i was little i used to wear a watch every day to cover it up because i was embarrassed. good thing i'm left handed ;)

2. i cannot do that wavy thing or curl my tongue. i can,however, tie a cherry stem in a knot and unwrap a starburst wrapper in record time.

3. i am inSANEly good at wheel of fortune. no. really. when i'm actually paying attention to the game while watching at home i get the puzzle right 95% of the time before the players do, usually with most of the letters left. which is gonna work to my benefit because...

the wheelmobile is going to be HERE! in tacoma, on monday and tuesday!!! it's been on my "to-do" list to try out for wheel of fortune for a few years now, so there's no way i can pass this up. i'm taking half days off of work and heading to the emerald queen casino, which is where the tryouts are being held.

coincidentally, a co-worker of mine has tried out in the past. she said that you show up, they let everyone in the building, you fill out a form, then they place it in a big container. they spin the container around and around bingo balls style and then draw a name. if they draw your name, you get to tryout, if they don't, better luck next time. this is a great idea(i think)because then people aren't camping out or getting to the venue at ridiculous times of morning to be first in line. it's also great for me because that way i can try out both days instead of just one(i would have taken one full day off instead of 2 half days). to my surprise, i have several coworkers who are trying out as well! my ideal situation would,obviously, be me getting chosen to be on the show, but it would be prettty cool to see someone i work with on it as well! i'm really pumped for this...wish me luck!!!

biggest loser update:

4 weeks down of the biggest loser competition-5 months to go.

in one month i lost 11 pounds,and i am STILL the current biggest loser! because i won this month i got a small percentage of the money that is in the "big winnings" jar-a total of $9. my usual walking trails around my neighborhood have become too easy for me, and i often find myself trying to find steeper,longer ones to take on. my current route is 6 miles and takes me about 1.5 hrs to complete. i love it. if i am too tired/don't have enough time to do that route, i find ways to enhance my easier routes. for example, i pull in my abs(they're in there somewhere)so they are working harder while i walk, or i'll add more jogging. i attempted hiking as a work out for the first time last week-holy crap that was hard. i would like to work harder and get better at it,though, so i'm definitely going to continue doing it,hopefully once a week. i still have 5 months to go...but i think i'm off to a pretty good start!