I miss President Hinckley :)

Pretty much what I do every day

Ice, elevate and watch tennis

Blooming

Last week the ladies at school sent me some flowers:

June 15

What have I been doing since school is out and its my summer break?  Well, here's some pictures to sum it up:

Pretty much this sums it up :) I had surgery on my foot to remove a cyst. During the surgery a golf ball sized tumor was also found and removed. I have two incisions in the top of my foot and will be off it for the majority of my summer.

This is my follow up appt with Romney. He's my nurse and washes and bandages my foot each Monday.

I've had so much help from my family and friends. Pizza was apparently on the docket for food this week haha

I've also gotten flowers from work, Jordan almonds from my niece and my mom saved me the "special" bags the hospital sent us home with haha

Finally, my little niece thought my ice pack was pretty awesome to play with for bit lol
I've been really well taken care of. My mom was here and did what only moms can do :) My two oldest nieces came up for several days to help out. I've had countless phone calls and texts to check in on me. Thank you everyone!

My family does the silliest things

First, I'm not even sure if "silliest" is the grammatically correct way to say that, but I'm using it. ☺

My mother has an apron that we all want. It's this giant piece of cloth with a hole in the middle for your head... Haha ok maybe it's not exactly like that. But for one reason or another, we all think its the greatest apron ever made.  Its made out of duck cloth and its blue with yellow flowers.  Its faded and has definitely seen better days.  Its a little piece of family "heritage."  Since we can't all have it, Meg made a pattern of the original and we've all made our own version.  Here's mine. 
I went with this fabric because its as close to the original as I can get without actually OWNING the original.  Also, let me just add, this is apron #15 for me... hey- I'm a home ec teacher! Give me a break!

There's another piece of family "heritage" that will go down for ages and ages to come.  Years ago, my grandpa, who was very handy, made what we called a hamburger masher.  This was before you could buy something similar to what he created in stores.  My mom ended up with the hamburger masher after all was said and done and divided.  I'm not sure who started the "fight" over who was going to inherit the hamburger masher, but arguments have been presented that go something like this:  I should get the hamburger masher because I'm the only single one in the family.  Meg should get the hamburger masher because she's the oldest.  Herc should get it because he's the only male heir.  Emi should get it because she's the beauty of the family.  LOL please keep in mind, when I say my family "fights" over this, its truly all in good fun.  Its family legend and lore at this point.  However, there WAS a moment where the girls thought it got shipped to Texas with the only male heir and we were almost bitter... HA! Thank goodness for modern day handy men and my mother searching out their talents because she had one made for all of us.

You put the ground beef in the center and then use a fork to mash it out to the edges.  You pack it in tight and then lift the mold off.  It produces a well packed, perfectly round quarter pound hamburger!  

What will happen to the originals of these two family heirlooms?  I can't say.  We'll figure it out later, but for now, we're good.

Little Treasures

Each summer I try to tackle some project around my house.  This summer I decided to organize the upstairs closets.  This entails going through about a dozen cardboard boxes, sorting them, deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, transferring the keepsakes to new Rubbermaid containers and then taking the rest to the garbage or the D.I.  Since I'm the only one at my house, this isn't something that has to be done in a day.  I can leave messes wherever I want and get back to them later.  I've been working upstairs a little at a time and finally got to the boxes of my school work.  Pretty sure I used most of the trees from Portland during my time in elementary school alone!  WOW!  There was a lot of paper.  Instead of just throwing it all out, I went through each piece lol  I'm actually kind of glad I did because I found some stuff with my SS# on it.  In sorting through all the mess, I found some treasures I'd like to share.
FIRST:

My sister and I were HUGE fans of the Donny and Marie show when we were little.  We even had Donny and Marie Barbie dolls LOL I cracked up when I pulled this from the rubble of spelling tests and math scores.

NEXT:

My stylish, yet practical, school folder.  Who knows what grade this is from.  It was literally hanging on by a thread!  I wish I had actually kept count of how many times I've watched Star Wars but I would estimate it to be somewhere in the 100's.  (Laugh it up, Fuzzball.)

FINALLY:

This is my jewelry box from when I was a little girl.  My sister had one similar to it.  When you open it up, there's a fake mirror on the left side with a ballerina.  It used to play music and the ballerina would twirl on her stand.  Its lined in some kind of cheap velveteen red fabric, but it kept all my treasures safe!  I didn't think there was going to be anything of value inside, but then I found out I was wrong.

These pieces belonged to my grandma.  They are genuine AVON originals :)  My grandparents were not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination.  But my grandma was a faithful AVON client.  The gems are colored green to simulate emeralds.  I think this must be why I think emeralds are about the prettiest stone out there.  When my grandma would wear these, I used to think she was really dressed up and going somewhere special.  The chain is now tarnished and my ears are pierced, but it was definitely the best treasure I found while cleaning. 

There is someone who thinks you're perfect

Last week we went to a soccer game (I know THAT'S new info...  haha).  It wasn't an MLS game, just kind of something to keep the boys in shape during a break for the league.  Four of our starting players were out with national teams playing friendlys and getting ready for World Cup qualifying.  As a result, most of the players on the field were bench players.  Any remaining starters sat the bench to give the rooks some playing time.

At the beginning on the second half, whoever is on the bench gets up and starts warm ups in case they get subbed in.  They warm up directly in front of our seats (its rough...). One of our normal starters, Fabian Espindola, was in this position and was doing his stretches and sprints.

As he was standing for a moment, a boy about nine years old crept down the stadium stairs and leaned over the fence to try and get Fabi's attention.  You can see the gate in the picture. "Excuse me.... Fabi?"  the boy was trying to be inconspicuous as security gets really annoyed when people try to get through that gate or stand in the aisle.  Fabi turned around and waved.  The boy held up a camera and indicated that he wanted a picture of Fabi.  Fabi kind of thought for a second, wondering how he could be kind to this kid, but not make a scene in the middle of the game.  You could see it rolling around in his head.  He leaned on the wall and looked back and forth several times, making sure the coast was clear, and then waved the kid over the gate!  LOL The result was this!

It had to be one of the nicest things I've ever seen a pro athlete do :)  The boy quickly snapped his picture and ran back to the gate where security was waiting to open it for him.  Fabi sheepishly looked at the security guard, raised a hand and said "Sorry!" haha  The little boy ran up the stairs as happy as a clam.  I was ALSO happy as a clam haha 

It reminded me of this saying:

“Whoever you are, there is some younger person who thinks you are perfect. There is some work that will never be done if you don’t do it. There is someone who would miss you if you were gone. There is a place that you alone can fill.”

Braude

Thanks, Fabi :)

A few firsts

Friday was my last day of school.  Its always a relief to walk out the door and know you won't be coming back for awhile.  This was my first year doing that when I didn't wait until noon to leave.  Officially we have to stay.  But usually when I leave at noon because I'm such a rule follower, I'm one of the last.  So this year, I left early. Whoa- big step for me haha

This was also the first year in 15 years that I was shocked over a parent asking for a grade change.  Don't misunderstand.  I have parents complaining about grades all the time and wanting extensions or exceptions made for little Bobby who was just irresponsible.  But this is the first year where I had a mother come in after school and literally asked me to change her son's grade just because he was usually a straight A student and I was the ONLY teacher who hadn't GIVEN him an A.  Keep in mind, this was a mom who had done TONS for our PTA this year, is fun and supportive and had actually prefaced her request by telling me how much she appreciated the extra credit options, supported my late work policies and knew that her son hadn't done any extra credit, BUT!.... there's always a BUT.  So after saying all these nice things, she then said that he was just about 4/10 of a percent away from an A-, couldn't I just bump it up?  Couldn't I just make an exception and help him keep his amazing grades?  She realized this was junior high and that it was more difficult and blah blah blah.... every excuse imaginable.  The more she talked, the more offended I became.  I told her I was sorry but I didn't GIVE grades and I let my computer program figure out what each student had EARNED based on their scores.  I was sorry her son didn't do any extra credit but there were 16 projects to choose from and up to 50 points.... The more I talked, the more she stiffened.  I held my ground.  After she left, I checked his grades.  I wasn't his ONLY B+ and he was more than 3.5% away from an A-!  Yep, there's a first for everything.
THIS!  Is also a first:

My very own Tiffany bag!  With a cute little pair of earrings in it!  Like real, honest to goodness Tiffany earrings!  haha I work with this awesome science teacher named Brenda.  She used to be an undercover cop before she became a teacher.  She met her husband while she was a cop and they've been together 31 years.  Her husband approached me almost 2 months ago and asked to help throw her a surprise party.  They've recently moved and Brenda has been wanting to show off her new place.  All of us at school were wanting to see it.  Her husband wanted to do something to honor her and show her how special she is to him.  So after weeks of planning and being sly, the party came together yesterday.  Brenda was surprised and we had a lovely afternoon.  As the party was wrapping up, a woman from Tiffany's walked into the room and said she had some gifts for a few people.  I assumed Brenda's husband had really splurged and was looking forward to seeing what he had purchased.  No one was more surprised when this woman was looking for me first!  As a thank you for my help, he spoiled me a pair of sterling silver earrings, engraved with the signature Tiffany logo.  WOW!  That was completely unexpected and so generous!  Thank you!

With summer here, I'm sure there's bound to be more firsts somewhere...