Maestro, the Cat!

It is Friday evening and I am sitting outside with a cool breeze and gray clouds overhead and I am loving it. I am now officially on my fall break and this is a perfect way to start the week. Not only is it beautiful but I have some fun entertainment. Maestro, our kitten/cat, is mostly a house cat. He has been outside once for about 10 minutes and that was it...until now. He is outside with me and he is very fun to watch. It took him a few tries to get used to walking on grass. Granted, we don't have the softest grass in the world but it is so funny to me (a farm girl) to see a timid cat. I also watched him try to pounce on his first bird. Thankfully, he didn't catch it. I'm not sure what I would have done. I don't think the bird expected to see a cat here either because he let Maestro get pretty close. Either that or he was just a confident bird. :)

I can't believe the first quarter is over already. For those of you who don't know, I switched schools this year. I am still in the same district but I am at a brand new middle school. It is a lot closer to our house so that has been a blessing. I am glad to be at this school but I never would have guessed how much goes into starting a new school. There were so many things that I took for granted at my previous school. I didn't realize how much time and energy went into establishing the policies and procedures of a school. It sure makes me appreciate it a lot more. Even though one quarter is over, in some ways I feel like I am still in the first few weeks of school. I have this feeling it will be like that to some extent all year.

Brian is still at the same high school. The school went back to a traditional schedule and that is really good for his programs. He does have to do band this year, which is not his choice but things seem to be going ok in that area. The band played at their first football game last week and they sounded pretty good. It was fun to be there to see and hear them. Brian also had his first choir concert of the year this past Tuesday. That went really well and he had the biggest crowd he has ever had so things are starting to look up.

Well, that is a quick update for us. Until next time...

Back to School!

Well, it's that time of year again. I am back to school tomorrow. Brian goes back next Monday. I can't believe the summer is over already. I'm not quite mentally ready but I don't really have a choice. I transferred schools to the new middle school in our district. It is a beautiful school but not all the things we ordered are in and some of the things that arrived were not the right things. For instance, the pianos that arrived are the wrong ones so we don't really want to use them since we will be sending them back so I am starting choir tomorrow without a piano. It should be interesting. :) All in all though, it could be a lot worse. I have chairs for my students to sit on and the air conditioning works so we can make it through for a while. Anyway, I am looking forward to a good year and the team of teachers I work with are all wonderful so it is already has the makings of a good year.

My previous school was 20 miles away, one direction. Now it is only 8 miles. It is a wonderful change. I drove home from school the other day and was surprised at how fast I got home. I used to be able to call Kjirsti in the morning and have a decent conversation because I had a 40 minute drive. Now, those calls will be down to 10 minutes or so. It was a really good set-up because she is a few hours later so she was already in the middle of her morning when I called. Oh well, life is full of adjustments. Well, I will try to update again soon but again, no promises.

Busy Summer almost over!!

I know it has been way to long and I apologize (again) to those of you who check back here faithfully. Our summer has gone by way too quickly but it was a fun one. I went out to Connecticut for 2 weeks to visit Ryan and Kjirsti and their family. It was wonderful to spend so much time with them. Then we relaxed for a couple of weeks and got ready for church camp. We were at camp all last week and had a ton of fun. And now after catching up on laundry, it is time to get ready for school again. It's amazing how time flies when you are having fun. Here are some pictures from the summer. Also the other piece of news is that we have a new member to our family! No, we are NOT expecting...we got a kitten! His name is Maestro. He provides a lot of entertainment and fun for us though our arms and legs look like we have been through a briar patch. Well, enjoy the pictures! (The pictures: Kaylee and I the day we left camp; Brian and I the last day of camp; Ronda with her camp girls; Kristin, Ronda, Melissa, and Ruth when we went to see "Wicked"; Maestro)

2 blogs in less than a month!

Here are some more pictures from when Kjirsti was here. The sculptures are from the Desert Botanical Gardens and the Chihuly exhibit. It was really warm outside and in the second picture of Annie, she is holding a cold water bottle by her legs. I think she enjoyed the coolness of it. It was really amazing and beautiful. Enjoy the pictures.

It's Been Too Long

I know it has been way to long since I last updated this so I apologize to those of you who consistently check back still. Thanks for being patient. Spring is in full gear down here in Phoenix. Spring break was nice and relaxing, especially since Kjirsti and Annie came to visit. It has been a few years since Kjirsti has been here so it was nice to have her down here again. Annie has never been here but I'm sure she won't remember it. Anyway, things are going well but they are very busy. There are no breaks between now and the end of the school year so we take a big breath, pray a lot and charge on ahead and hope to make it to the end of the school year in one piece. We usually come out unharmed on the other end, so Lord willing, we hope the same for this year. Well, here are a few pictures from when Kjirsti was down here. I hope you enjoy and I will try to do better at posting more often, even if it is just something short.

A Short Update!

I know it has been a while and I apologize to those of you who check back here often. School is as busy as ever for both of us, especially now that we are into the performance season of the holidays. I love this time of the year and I hope that you all enjoy them, too. I will update you more later.
For now, here are a few pictures of some things Brian and I got to do this fall. We went for a drive up north and saw some beautiful scenery and some scary but incredible tarantulas. We were in our car when we took the picture of the tarantula but even then it was still kind of creepy. We saw it crawling across the road about 20 ft before we pulled up next to it. That's how big it was. The picture doesn't do it justice. We also saw some beautiful scenery.


The other pictures are of us at a Diamondbacks game back in October. It was a lot of fun, as you can see! Well, enjoy and I will write more later.

The Storms of AZ

I love the storms that we have here in Phoenix. There is a lot of lightening and wind and sometimes a lot of rain. Recently we had a wonderful storm. Brian and I went out driving to see the lightening and rain. When we came home we saw a very funny sight as we turned on to our street. They are doing construction on our street and so they have port-a-potties for the workers. Well, in the strong wind this night, it carried the port-a-potty into the street. It was really a funny sight so we thought we would share it with you. Enjoy!