Life as a Teacher, it doesn't get better than this!!

So....life as a teacher has it ups and downs, but I can't imagine doing anything else. Almost every time Bryan asks me about my day he asks me, "What was the funniest thing your kids did today?" And everyday I have something to share. You can't go through a day without laughing when you work
kids. So when I got this I had to share it because it is the epitome of the funny things kids do! Enjoy!


The 'Middle Wife' by an Anonymous 2nd grade teacher

I've been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself, but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own second grade classroom a few years back.

When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell. So I always have a few sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it in to school and talk about it, they're welcome.

Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater.

She holds up a snapshot of an infant. 'This is Luke, my baby brother, and I'm going to tell you about his birthday'

'First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mom's stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord.'

She's standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I'm trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me. The kids are watching her in amazement.

'Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts saying and going, 'Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!' Erica puts a hand behind her back and groans. 'She walked around the house for, like an hour, 'Oh, oh, oh!' (Now this kid is doing a hysterical duck walk and groaning.)

'My Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn't have a sign on the car like the Domino's man. They got my Mom to lie down in bed like this.' (Then Erica lies down with her back against the wall.)

'And then, pop! My Mom had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!' (This kid has her legs spread with her little hands miming water flowing away. It was too much!)

'Then the middle wife starts saying 'push, push,' and 'breathe, breathe. They started counting, but never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden, out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff that they all said it was from Mom's play-center, (placenta) so there must be a lot of toys inside there.'

Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat. I'm sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since then, when it's show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another 'Middle Wife' comes along..

Last bit of the Family Reunion and our Oregon trip

Well, I found out that if you have a bunch of things to blog about, you should not waste them all at the same time, so I have waited a while before I finished up the sharing of our trip. One of the really cool things we did was to go to the Oregon Aquarium in Newport, Oregon. I was able to get a bunch of really cool pictures, here are some.

I know, I know, to all fishermen in the world it looks like a picture of a bait shop, but it was really cool to see how all these hundreds of fish moved as one all around there tank.

This is Danielle touching sting ray. It is not the yellow thing, it is the tan thing hiding under the sand right at her finger tips. They felt really slimy yet rough and strong.

This is a picture of a crab, yep a crab, but this thing is not small, it was at least 4 feet across. There was a bunch of them in this huge tank.

This is a picture of a lump fish, it was a dark tank, but I thought it was cool how it just came out of the Darkness.

This is one of my lovely wife Danielle touching a starfish, they also had a bunch of other things to touch like sea anemones, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and sunflower sea stars.

I think this crab was just as interested in us as we were in him, or he was planning his escape.

The had a big area that had tons of different seals that were all zooming around, with lots of them swimming around upside down, maybe they are Australian seals?

There were also three otters, and this one was putting on quite a show for us.

And this one is just one of a Puffin with an inferiority complex, or letting us know that he is not a small bird, but the big bird in the area.

This is one I really like, there was a pretty big tank full of this kind of jellyfish.

The family reunion was quite good, it was fun to see family and make new memories, and Danielle got to meet a few more of the extended family that she had not yet met and got to know some better. We were able to have a good time together and have a special first anniversary. The only downside to the whole trip was getting home. It took us 21 hours, because about 1000 feet from the Utah boarder (Idaho side) we got a flat tire. It was 7:30 on a Saturday in the middle of no-where. I put on the spare and found out that it was flat, so we needed to get help and it took several hours to get it, it was almost midnight before someone came, inflated the spare and then took us to a place that would open for us and put a new tire on. It was quite an ordeal, but as my wonderful wife reminded me, it could have been a lot worse.

First Anniversary

Well, it has been one year since Danielle and I were joined together for time and all eternity. It has been a very interesting year, a time of discovery, joy, happiness, some sickness, and togetherness. We were both commenting on how it seems to have been both a long time and also how fast it has seemed to pass. For our first anniversary (because of my family reunion in Oregon) we were able to go to the Heceta Head Lighthouse Bed and Breakfast. We stayed there and also did some other fun stuff.

The day started off with us going to the Yaquina Lighthouse. It was a very low tie so they have had lots of tide pools that you could walk around and discover. These are some of the things that we saw. (Or in other words vacation picture time)

There were lots of these green things. Pretty cool.

There were lots and lots of starfish, I thought they were really cool, this was a tide pool that had several, with a couple different colors.

This one is a little hard to see because of the glare from the sun on the pool but it has some starfish and purple urchins.

This one is a little hard to see, but all of the little bumps on the big rock are seagulls or cormorants.

This was a huge star fish, if I had held my hand up to it while taking the picture (good idea now) my whole hand would have covered the middle section only.

Another one with a couple of different starfish, I guess I have a thing for starfish (besides the yummy goodness of starfish soup)

This is one of a starfish getting ready to dine on the yummy-ness of mussel soup!

A picture of (L-R) My beautiful wife Danielle, my favorite little sister Kristen, my wonderful Mom, and my favorite cousin named David, David.

This is a picture of a tick that started crawling on Danielle, okay, well actually it is a crab that was put on her hand while in it's shell and then got out and started crawling around, and by the way the crab's name is Hermie (the hermit crab).

These are Hermie and some of his friends (L-R) Pépe, Hermie and Lequisha.

Another little crab friend that we found, they are small but they are really quick and wiry.

After visiting the Lighthouse Danielle and I went to Florence and had lunch, then we explored a little around the town, got some Dairy Queen treats and then drove down to the beach, we stopped a little ways up from the beach on a little area that looked over the jetty turns the ocean into the river. Then we checked into the Heceta Head Bed and Breakfast. It is a lovely little light keepers house that was turned into an Inn. They had a nice little garden that included:

ARTICHOKES!!

After checking in and exploring the house a bit we decided to go to dinner, we decided on one place, but as we walked in I almost choked on all the cigarette smoke, so we went down the street a couple of buildings to a nice placed called the "Bay Street Grill" and it was a very nice little place, one of the things that Danielle liked about it was this, if you can't tell what is it, here is a better picture:

Yep, foam soap, Dani loves the stuff, in fact I now have two family members that every time they see foam soap they think of Dani.

Another interesting thing we saw at dinner was the nicest arrest ever made. Dani saw a guy in the restaurant that seemed to be one of the waitresses boyfriend, then he left, as he did a cop stopped him, shook his hand and than began to talk to him. Another cop came up and really animatedly shook his hand and then Dani said she thought he was going to hug him, but instead turned him around and put cuffs on him and took him off. After dinner we went and saw the Dark Knight, in what might have been the worst theater that I have ever been in, but the movie was still amazing, I loved it. Then we went back to the Bed and Breakfast and celebrated our anniversary buy eating the top of the wedding cake that had been frozen and saved, it was actually pretty good, and then we went up onto the lighthouse at about 10:30PM. It was amazing, the pictures don't do it justice at all. It was so amazing it was a bit of a spiritual experience. We saw almost absolute darkness, and then from this center light, pillars of light showing us the way to go, just how we would imagine it when Christ is likened to a light house. Then we thought it was amazing as we realized that the light in the light house is always shining, it is just not that we see its true and full power until the darkness comes upon us.

A picture of the lighthouse from the yard of the B&B.

This is one of Danielle showing how comfortable and luxurious the bed was.

This is a picture of the B&B from below on the beach, quite the house.

This is a picture that has the mists that were coming in off of the ocean, just below the lighthouse.

A picture from the beach of the lighthouse during the day.

Another panoramic view of the ocean with rocks leading up to the lighthouse.

After one year of marriage, I am more in love with my amazing and beautiful wife that I was on the day that I proposed to her at this lighthouse, more in love than the day we got married, and I know that I will be in love with her a little bit more tomorrow. I am a lucky man to have her in my life and to have her as my wife. I love you Danielle, with all my heart and for all of eternity.-Bryan

Catch up and Family Reunion

So as you have probably noticed, those of you who faithfully check (and those who are doing their monthly check) it has been a while since we have checked-in with the cyber-world. We have been having a pretty busy time of it. Some of the highlights have been that Danielle sold her house, we bought a new one, and moved, all the while Danielle has been diligently working at Clear Creek. Well we have finally gotten some time off and will do a bunch of blogs so that we can then take another break when things get busy and school starts. So on the 2nd of August we left home and drove to Depoe Bay Oregon for a Kennedy Family Reunion. It was a long drive but a nice one. I think that one of the best ways to keep up and explain what is going on is with pictures. So enjoy and I will just provide some commentary.




These are some of the pictures that we took on the first day that we were here in Depoe Bay, we went to church (it took for ever to find) then came back and had a relaxing day. This is the picture off of the balcony from our room. We are on the second floor and it looks right over the ocean (I know I know that was a Captain Obvious statement), but it is a really beautiful scene and we can hear the ocean all day when we are here.

Also on the first day we had a pod of grey whales that decided to put on a show for us. There were (at best count) 4 whales that were rolling around for a long time, this is a picture of a couple of them waving at us.

Up in the left hand corner is one of the sprays from the whale, at the bottom is someones head that was sitting on the rocks right outside the room. They were so close, really it was a stone throw away from us, they were very close and were doing lots of things.

This is another shot from our balcony along the coast, one that we get to wake up to each day we are here. We will try to keep you caught up and let you know what is going on; both with the trip and with our first anniversary (pictures from the day are coming).

While up at Clear Creek, we are at the mercy of the weather. The first week of camp we were bombarded by very, VERY large snowflakes. We had to come up with some fun things to take place of our regular outside activities. We did some really fun and creative stuff, but my favorite was when John Jay showed these videos on the projector and we just has some laughs showing then to the kids. I laughed, so you will too, unless you have no heart, or funny bone! :)