Fun in the Sun

Over the weekend, we rounded up the troops and headed to a dry lake bed near Hisperia to ride quads and bake in the sun. Ha! We had a great time and as you can see we had wonderful provisions. Clint and I got to sleep in the "covered wagon" while the rents slept in style in one of their friend's motor homes. Clint's mom and brother decided to tough it out under the stars on cots. They turned in to go to bed around 9ish. Little did they know that the desert crew doesn't go to bed early. The majority of the gang didn't even arrive until about 9:30pm. Then when my brother and his friends showed up, they parked their truck with the front bumper at the foot of the cots Diane and Jack were trying to sleep on. They even started a small party right there next to the cots until my dad moved them by the fire. One of our friends, Big John, got out his "big speakers" and started blaring music. I remember waking up around 3 in the morning to music still playing. At least it was Sound Garden and they were playing good songs. I'm not sure Clint's mom will volunteer to go "camping" with the desert gang, but she seemed to have a good time. We even got her and Clint's brother on the quads!

Welcome back to KS

Clint and I left CA's blue skies and warmth to come home to lovely weather. NOT! On the Monday after our return we had tornado watches and sever thunderstorm warnings. So much fun to drive home from work in! You know when you drive down the road and you hit little puddles of water and water goes splashing from your tires out the side of your car? Well the wind was blowing so much yesterday that the water would splash up, then right onto my windshield! After I got home a stronger storm rolled in causing the dime to nickle size hail. Sorry that the pictures are a little blurry. My camera doesn't always like to work the way it's suppose to. :)

I remember a time when we first moved here that I was excited to have some "weather." After all, they don't call it Sunny California for nothing! I liked the change of seasons and had fun when they came, but now they are just an irritant. :( Guess it always keeps us entertained, because as they say here, "if you don't like the weather, just wait 20 minutes."

Leav'n on a Jet Plane

If any of you have flown recently, you will have noticed that the quality of customer service has significantly decreased. It seems like after they hand you the boarding pass they give you the finger and say "NEXT!"
Then there's all the extra charges. For a seat on this plane it will cost you twice as much as it did last year that the same time.
Here are some other sayings you may hear while on your next flight:
"For a small bag of snacks that will be $3.00:
"For you're own personal bottle of water, it will be $6.00"
"For a set of headphones it will be $6.00 for regular t.v. programing and $8.00 for the movie package."
"For the use of the latrine, that will be $10.00."
"Yes, you idiot, there is a charge for your bags now. Don't you know this you moron!"
"Oh, let us not forget, you want to breath while on this flight, it will be an extra $200.00 for our filtered air."
I'm surprised they didn't charge me for the barf bag I had to use on the way home. Got to love the turbulence. :)
Fortunately, United had a little higher quality of customer service then Frontier. I remember when I was making the reservations that the website asked if I wanted to upgrade. Little did I know that the upgrade allowed us to check our bags for "free." I'm glad I didn't pay for it, because Frontier doesn't have any differences with their seats. So even if I had paid for the "economy plus" we wouldn't have gotten more leg room. Frontier sucks!
So beware next time you plan a trip, their going to try to nickle and dime you every chance you get!

How to torture your teacher...

So one of the wonderful aspects of being a teacher, is that you get to make Scholastic Book orders for your students. This means that you get bonus points for the money they spend. With these bonus points you get to buy books for your students to enjoy, but don't have to use your own hard earned money to buy them. Yipeee right? It's great until one of your students tries to torture you by handing you 10 bucks in only 4 quarters, lots of dimes and nickles and even more pennies!
I got to learn some really cool things about the bank due to the student who loves me so much. I went to the bank thinking that the poor lady would have to sit there and count all this money out to make sure that it was exactly 10 bucks. Well, thanks to technology, the lovely bank personnel get to dump the coins into a machine that counts it for you! Talk about a cushy job! HA!

Kute Kitties

O.K. I'm gonna be the crazy cat lady and share pictures of our cats,because well, I think they are adorable when they look like this. They are not adorable when they sit on your head when you are trying to sleep, or start pulling your hair or meowing constantly to get you out of bed so they can be fed breakfast. Yeah, the cute black on, Wesley, is the crier and the orange and white on, O.C. is the head sitter and hair puller.
Despite this blemishes in character, flaws if you have Clint's point of view, they do provide a lot of entertainment and comfort. For example, Wes is sitting on the couch with me while I write this blog. :) They also are hilarious when they do wacky things like jump and touch the wall about half way up. So they are lots of fun and you get to see our new cool bedspread that Clint's grandma got us for Christmas!

D.A.R.E.

So over the course of the last two months or so, one of our Riley County Police Officers has been coming to our school and teaching our 6th graders about our D.A.R.E. program. Officer Gambel cam out and had a lot of fun with our 6th graders. This last week we had our D.A.R.E. graduation. During the graduation the kids got to be handcuffed, and put on these goggles that make you have double vision. The officers had our students do the same tests they do when they pull over a person they suspect of driving under the influence. They got to walk a in a straight line and try not to sway or fall over. It was hilarious. I can't show you the videos of the kids, but I can show you the pictures of us! Eric, the other 6th grade teacher, and I volunteered to be handcuffed. Hurt a lot more then I thought it would! We also put on the goofy goggles and did the "test" the officers give drunk people. We had to stand on one foot and count to 30 (one thousand one, one thousand two, and so on). Then we had to walk the line by putting one foot in front of the other 9 times, pivot around on one foot and walk back. Of course I forgot the directions about 1/2 the way through, which is one of the signs of being intoxicated. The best part was the one of Eric's students said, "Mrs. Wayland must have had a lot of practice being drunk, because she did a lot better than you!" Little does he know how much his teacher likes to party! We even played a game of kick ball of the teachers against the officers. Teachers kicked their butts!

Recycle

So one of the fun things about owning a dog is that you get to make him do really fun things like recycle! Yes, Reiner can recycle. He recycles paper, plastics, you name it, he recycles it. Here are some examples of his "work."