I am still alive!

It has been forever since I have updated my blog! Let me just tell you that work has pretty much taken over my life. I am sooooooo GLAD to be back in the classroom. I am still trying to get back into the swing of things but we are getting there. Roy Elementary has been a great school! The faculty and staff are all so wonderful! I still miss all my friends at the Terrace but am excited about making new friends. I want to post some pictures of my classroom and hope to do that soon. Hopefully I will remember to bring my camera home from school so I can. In the mean time I wanted to share with you some super fun songs we have been singing in our classroom. Since a lot of my friends have pre-school and kindergarten age kiddos I thought you might like them. This is an example of the letter Ww song.



How fun is that!! My kindergarten kiddos love singing these songs because they are so fun and they are learning! You can link to the other letter songs by typing, "letter _____ song" in youtube search box.

I will be back soon to update you with what is going on in my life.

Subway Video

This is the video Jeff made of our trip to the Subway! His video shows how fun and versatile this hike really is. It is a long video but so worth watching.

The Subwway

Last weekend I finally got to hike the Subway. I have been wanting to do this hike for about 4 years. Whenever my group of friends went to Zion to do the hike I could never go though. Finally the stars all aligned and I was able to go down. What a beautiful hike!! It is a 10 mile hike through some of the most beautiful country. Here we are at the beginning of the trailhead ready to begin our adventure. There were 9 of us all together. Luckily I was not the only newbie to the hike. Andrea and Jenny had also never hiked the Subway. The guys all had though and knew exactly what they were doing. A couple of them were real life savers, but will get more to that later.

This is how the hike started, really what you would expect a hike at Zion to look like. The Scenery was always changing though. For me this was the easy part of the hike. I was bound and determined to keep up with the fellas' and not slow anyone down.

We finally came to what I guess you could call our first obstacle. You could either jump in the water from the top of the boulder or you could try and down climb. Typically there is not enough water to jump in, but most of us figured that would be the easiest of the two options. Don't let this picture fool you though. That boulder seemed a lot bigger when you were standing on top of it. The trick about jumping in was there was only a small area in which you could jump and not hit any rocks. The two guys, Brett and Jake, standing in the water are marking the area we had to jump into.

When I jumped in I jumped a little too close to Brett and scraped my arm down the rock. Luckily I only received a few bruises. Andrea also jumped to close to Brett and hit the rock with her knee. We were hoping it would be nothing too serious but upon closer examination found she had cut her knee pretty deep and would not be able to finish the hike.

It is hard to tell in the picture but the cuts went almost to the bone. Luckily Brett was there to save the day. He was an EMT and knew exactly what to do. Sadly that meant Andrea and Brett were going to have to hike back out rather than continue on with us. She ended up needing four stitches and was in a lot of pain. I think we all felt a little weird continuing on without Andrea and Brett but as rude as this sounds I was so glad we did.

We finally made it to the actual Subway part of the hike. This slot canyon was amazing, so beautiful!!

There was lots of swimming and walking through water. I was so glad I had a wetsuit! Not as glad now that there are pictures of me in a wetsuit though. Really could there be anything less flattering :)

Isn't this just Beautiful!

Between the four cameras we had on the hike we probably have about 1,000 pictures. I am having the hardest time deciding which one to show you. This is already such a long post and I could just keep going. Don't worry though I will wrap things up here soon.

Other than the blasted blue rocks and the climb out of the canyon this was the most difficult part of the hike for me. Once again the picture makes it seem like nothing. We had to use rope to climb down the rock here. The only problem is I am terrified of heights! Not only am I terrified of heights, I have never done anything close to rappelling before. Let me just add, Jenny was nervous about this part as well. That made me feel mildly better, I wasn't just some nut case who was afraid of nothing.

Luckily the guys were able to rig a harness out of some webbing they found, got a carabiniere, tied some special knot and made it nice and easy for me to go down. I could not have found a better group of people to do this hike with.

Hmmm....I am really thinking I should get this one framed! All I can say is wow! I don't think I could make that face again if I tried.

Yay! Back into dry clothes!

Finally climbing the switchbacks out. I honestly think I took maybe 20 steps and then had to stop and rest. I was so tired, my legs were just shaking. Remember how I said I did not want to be the one to slow everyone down. Well let's just say somebody has to be last and that person was me. Brian, Dan, Ian and Jenny were great to stay with me though.

Now that I am sitting on my soft couch in my cool air conditioned house I can say I loved hiking the Subway. In fact I loved it all the way through until we hit the Blue Boulders. Had you asked me then I would have told you I would never do this hike again. All in all though, it was so worth it. I had so much fun and made some great memories.

Blog Giveaway

Okay I am going to get my teaching blog up and going soon. I just haven't had a chance to really get it going. I have the sight though and it will be misskuhnscreativekinders.blogspot.com. I am so excited to be back in the kindergarten classroom this year! I have a list a mile long of all the things I need to make and buy. To help me with this list I am entering a blog giveaway at Erica's Elementary Excitement. She is giving away a $50.00 gif tcard to Lakeshore and a $25.00 gift card to Target. I am sure you can only imagine how this could help me :)

Learning How To Be Crafty

Being crafty is definitely not my strong point. One of my goals this summer though is to learn how to use Photoshop. This is one of my first attempts at making something all by myself. Let me stress the fact that I did it all by MYSELF! This is kind of a big deal for me. I have made things in the past, but always with a friend sitting next to me telling me exactly what to do. So I just had to share. Now I hope to learn more and create my own cookbook. I'll let ya know how it goes.

Change

Washington Terrace Elementary

Washington Terrace Elementary has been my home away from home for seven years now. I started there as a first year teacher, clueless to what teaching was really about. I was this young, stary-eyed teacher with dreams and a passion for educating young children. Those dreams came to realization while teaching at the Terrace. I have been surrounded by incredible teachers who have taught me what it really means to teach. Children have come into my life that have touched my heart, pulled on my heartstrings and brought me so much joy, and maybe just a little bit of stress :). I have become the teacher I am because of the children I have taught, the parents that have supported them and the teachers that have guided me. What an amazing opportunity I have had to teach at this incredible school! But as often happens things have to change and my life is no exception to this rule. This will be my final year at Washington Terrace Elementary. I have accepted a position as a kindergarten teacher at Roy Elementary. I am so excited for the opportunity to be back in the classroom! I can only hope that I can continue to learn and grow at my new school as much as I have at Washington Terrace.

Faith

This weekend as I was cleaning I came across an old journal. It happened to be the journal from my last year at Utah State. This was one of my most memorable years; I learned and grew so much that year. I came to know people that would influence and shape me for the rest of my life. One friend in particular came to mean more to me than I had ever before imagined. As I read through this old journal of mine his name filled the pages. Then I came across a letter, this was a letter I had written to him but had never managed to give him. As odd as it may sound I wanted to share part of this letter with you today.

We have been friends for a while now and I feel I have gotten to know you pretty well. I think at times I see you in a completely different light than you see yourself. You are an amazing person and you have so many wonderful gifts to share with those around you. You have so much inside of you just wanting to come out. For so long I have wondered why you choose not live up to that potential. I wonder if you can see what I can see? Do you realize that you are not only hurting yourself by holding back? You are hurting those people who love you. What are you afraid of? What is it that holds you back? Let go of your fears and look within yourself, search your soul and become the person that you and I and God know you can become. Because as wonderful as you are now if you could just let go of all that fear and doubt you could be so much more. “Mike” I know this church is true. I know if we have the gospel as our foundation we can succeed. The Lord will not let us fail if we put Him first. The love he has for us is something we cannot even comprehend. The blessings and gifts he wants to give us exceed anything we could imagine. We just have to be willing and worthy to accept them.

I never gave him this letter and to be honest I don’t know if I ever told him what was in it. Who I wrote this letter to and why is not all that important. What is important is the effect this letter had on me as I read through it again more than 7 years later. Because this time the words were directed towards me. The words I so badly wanted to share with a dear friend all those years ago were the exact words I needed to hear today, in my life right now. I am not a perfect person. In my life I have made mistakes, big and small. Lately though I have let these mistakes hold me back. I have let the thoughts I have about myself be tainted by the adversary. But as I read through this letter during this amazing Easter weekend I realized I need to have as much faith in myself as I have in others. As personal as it may seem to share this story, I felt it was something that needed to be written down and shared. The Lord reaches out to us in mysterious ways. He loves us, He loves me. He made the greatest sacrifice for us, so when we are in our own Gethsemane he can reach down and lift us out.