19 years later

I last took a math class in 1990 at BYU. My last college class was the summer of 1993. I took the Praxis exam to get my teaching license just before I graduated, and while I still had all that useful information in my head.

19 years later, and with no review, I managed to score 93 on all 3 sections! I am not bragging; I am just astounded at how much my brain was able to remember--especially of math! I missed 3 math questions: one a probability and two stupid ones where you have to find a pattern and guess the next number.

Most importantly, I passed the civil rights test. You can be assured that if I end up in your kid's classroom I have proven that I know how to be sensitive to any issue regarding race, gender, religious, or disability that comes my way.

Test day

I love taking tests.  I absolutely love taking tests.  From my earliest memories of elementary school of taking the SAT every year, I have totally loved testing.  Filling in circles with a #2 pencils makes me happy.  Multiple choice is very exciting for me, topped only by writing essays.

Yes, I am a freak.

Tomorrow I get to go take some tests!  For my Oregon teaching license to be valid, I have to go take a test to prove that I understand how to "protect the civil rights of students."  50 multiple choice questions.

Next up is the basic skills test.  I took the PPST when I graduated from college 19 years ago and got my teaching license initially.  But I didn't keep my paper score, and they don't keep records dating back into the last century, so I have to re-take it.

I am really excited about the writing and reading sections.  The math one is hopefully not going to be too bad... Even though basic algebra and geometry were decades ago, I hope that my time spent helping kids with their homework over these past few years will bring those much-used math formulas from the deep corners of my brain tomorrow.

After all, who can forget y=mx+b, or that the area of a sphere is 4/3*πr3, or that the area of a trapezoid is (A+B)*h/2.  Hopefully my brain will spit those out for me tomorrow if necessary.

Wish me luck!

Back to school

 Some people were VERY excited for school.  One of them was Zachary!  The other was me!  The kids are all at the same school campus this year.  2 elementary, 2 in middle school and 2 in high school. Know what that means?

 Mom isn't driving the shuttle bus anymore!

 Last year I spent about 100 minutes of every day driving kids to and from different schools.  The high schoolers drove themselves, but I still had the charter school which was 15 minutes away...and a kindie to pick up half-way through the day, plus a middle schooler to get to school.

 This year their schools are all on the same big piece of land...And Aubrey drives them all to school and will drive them all back home at the end of the day.

 What will I ever do with that extra 100 minutes of time every day?

A wedding!

We hosted the most beautiful wedding reception and ring ceremony on Saturday.  The decorations and set-up were just beautiful. The food was delicious.  I didn't do any of it.

All I had to do was keep the yard in shape (I love Stihl power equipment) all summer, and then pressure wash the patio before the big party.

It got me thinking about all the pictures of the glamorous women I had seen recently in a Stihl catalog.  The Stihl babes look like this when they are out working with power equipment:

 However, this is what I look like:

No shower, no freshly pressed shirt, no belt.  Just home from a run, throw on a sweatshirt and boots and get the job done.  I didn't know Mark was going to be photographing me, or I would have done a little more to look like a Stihl babe.

It was a perfect night and a great party for an amazing couple.

My happy place

The Caves Branch River is heavenly.  

For this adventure all you need is a swimsuit and some good water shoes.  A waterproof camera is also a great thing to have!

 First a hike through the jungle.

 You can take a shortcut and cross the river a few times, too.

 David is the best tour guide in Belize!

 You can stop at the termite nest for a tasty, minty snack.

 Then strap on a helmet and headlamp and climb into the tube!

The moment that you enter the first cave is absolutely visually stunning!

 Lots of cool cave formations.

 If you have all day, you can stop inside the last cave where there was at some point in history a sinkhole that gives you a window out into the jungle.  This is the best spot to stop and see stalactites and stalagmites up close.  Some people aren't as nerdy as I am, so that might not be as exciting to some people as it was to me.

 The mineral pool in this part is totally clear and warm, and perfect for swimming.  There is a great jumping rock here as well.

 Water pouring in like a shower from the cave ceiling above was considered by the Mayans to be The Fountain of Youth.  Mark and I decided to try it out.  If my wrinkles go away and my hair stops turning grey I will let you know.

 Leaving the last cave.

 We prefer to spend the last part of the river ride actually IN the river and not in the tubes.

 And then we had a delicious Belizean lunch of rice and beans and stewed chicken.

It was a perfect day.

Back from paradise

We just returned from an 11 day trip to Belize.  I truly love that country.  The people, the food, the scenery, the clouds, the rain, the temperature.  It is all just perfect.

I even found a door with my name on it!  Sure, it was a restroom, but it was pretty exciting.

You see a lot of things in Belize that would never fly here.  Like people riding their bikes on the airport runway, kids sitting on the handlebars of a parent's bike, pickup trucks with beds loaded up with people driving down the highway, country roadsides full of people selling all kinds of home-cooked food from underneath a little covered shack, people doing their laundry in the river,  NO FAST FOOD OR CHAIN OF ANY STORE OR RESTAURANT IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY.

One thing you can count on seeing at every dinner in Belize is rice and beans with stewed chicken.  It is a heavenly meal.  Except that it always comes with a side of fried plantains.  The kids called them slugs.  We were fine with the rice and beans and chicken, but nobody ever ate the slugs.

We spent most of our time on the island so the boys could get scuba certified.  I love the island, but I really love the mainland.  Next time we go we will spend more time on the mainland than the island.  But you have to see them both if you go to Belize.

Our favorite thing to do on the mainland is climb Mayan ruins.

I just got the pictures off of the cameras and it will take me a while to go through them.  There are too many, but we had a blast!

Savvy got braces!

This morning I took Savanna to the orthodontist to get braces. When she came back to the waiting room after her appointment, I was surprised to see a familiar face that wasn't hers. She's always looked like a little girl version of Abram, but her new smile it's shockingly similar. She doesn't need glasses yet, but for similarity's sake, she put Abram's old ones on for a picture.

Don't mess with me, Ernesto!

My whole life I have wanted to see a hurricane in real life--from a completely safe distance, of course.  I have always loved all types of weather, and the stormier it was, the better for me.  I love a good storm.    I would have given anything for weather.com or the Noaa website when I was a kid.  Things like that were just a futuristic fantasy, though.  All I had was my cloud poster, barometer and the newspaper weather section.

Last year when we flew to Belize, tropical storm Harvey was just off the coast out in the Caribbean, and it made for the very most beautiful display of clouds I had ever seen in my life.

And then it made for the most exciting adventure to Lamanai the next day through the storm.

This year, our landfall on the Yucatan is going to coincide with Tropical Storm Ernesto, which will likely become a hurricane sometime today.  Looks like it is going to take a trip right across the island where we will be staying.   This could be an exciting adventure.  As long as our plane can land, I will be happy.  Rain, wind, clouds, lightning--it's all good to me.  Sure, I plan to get some sun in there as well, but I'll take a tropical storm with 90-degree rain anytime!

We'll see what happens.  I have a feeling that Ernesto will take a little jog north and the eye will pass over Mexico about 12 hours before we are scheduled to land.  I'd hate to be on a Caribbean cruise this week!

Motivational thought

This is my favorite picture of Noah finishing the race last month.  It is also Joel's favorite picture, but he used photoshop to add the message at the top.

Aubrey's birthday

 Aubrey had a birthday a few weeks ago.  Savanna was a nice sister and used her Cricut to make these Batman accessories for Aubrey to wear, and a cake topper.

 Beatles chord book for Aubrey's guitar skills.

 Angel food cake makes Zachary happy.