Pics of my class and of the halloween party.

24 wild and crazy kids in my kindergarten class.

Another picture showing the kids at the pumpkin patch.

The front of Robert Mitchell E.S. My room is the 2nd and third set of windows to the right of the red door.

Another pic of my room from the outside.
The front of the school. You can see the name of the school above the windows.

Classroom pictures and our field trip to the pumpkin patch.

Another view from the classroom. Behind the bookshelf is an old-fashioned heater that makes my room like an oven. I have to open windows to let in cool air, but then you hear the noise from the busy street outside. My desk is to the right.

More of the classroom and my desk and kidney shaped table for mini-lessons with kids.

This is the back of the classroom. The door is to the right where the kids come in. You can see the Halloween decorations hanging up.

I have these six cupboards that open up for storage. The doors are covered in chalkboards and some dry erase boards. They are original to the school about 60 or 70 years ago. The kids made bats with patterns on them and we traced our feet to make ghosts.

This is kind of dark but it is the hallway looking down to the other kinder room. The floor is all tiled and the walls are tiled. We have a small corkboard that runs the top of the tile to hang artwork from. I think the ceilings are over 12 feet tall.

This is looking the other direction towards the office. The door to the left is the teacher's lounge and the bathroom. Lucky for me it is right next door.

Here we are at the pumpkin patch. The first three boys in this picture are my "special" boys that have to be watched at all times. This was my group to watch. I picked two bright girls to show the boys how to act. There were about 4 or 5 other schools there that day.

Showing all the crazy shapes and colors of the pumpkins. The kids were very impressed.

More students from my class. We had great weather for October 30th.

We are on the hayride being pulled by a tractor. Everyone is sitting on bales of hay.

This is the cute tractor driver. She was fun to talk to.

View of the pumpkins in the field. Some of them were smashed and rotten. All the good ones were already picked from the field.

More pics from the hayride. Notice all the buses. There were hundreds of school children there that day.

One of the teacher aides helping get the kids off the hayride.

Barry came to help on our field trip. He is writing the kids names on their pumpkins.

My students had a great time picking out the biggest pumpkins that they could carry. They all behaved so nicely on this trip.

I only had one parent volunteer. This is a specialist from our school who came to help watch kids on the field trip.

The woman of the left is our school counselor and on the right you see Barry in blue and next to him is the parent who came with us.

Here is a picture of me and my group. My hair is a little shorter since I got it cut.

Pictures of my classroom and house.

Moving around the room, this is where the kids play in housekeeping and where the computer is. The tv and vcr are on the moveable cart. The blue shelf is our library and it can roll out of the way too. My room has three big windows that let in lots of sunshine.

My classroom at Robert Mitchell school. This is where I do morning calendar, pledge, shapes, colors, etc...

This is the back of the house in the alley. This is the door that we enter through and it opens up to the kitchen. It makes it easy to put groceries away and not too many stairs to climb. We love not living in an apartment with neighbors slamming doors and kids bugging us every five minutes. Our neighborhood is really quiet. We have met two neighbors and they are both very nice.

The small kitchen. The next room behind it is the living room.

Our living room is tiny. The door leads out to the front yard. Tony and Barry doing what they love best. Watching sports. Yuck!!

This is our front yard that faces Moran St. But you can't get to our front yard from that street. We enter the house from the back through an alley. We have to walk across the yard and through a fence to get our mail which is on the Moran St. Pretty confusing. The owner will put in some grass in the spring after all the snow is melted. We will have snow sometime, but for now, it has been in the 70's and warm.

This is the side of the house and the little garage that we put some of our things. Barry's red truck is in the driveway.

Pictures from Oregon and of Reno, Nevada

An older picture from Siletz Bay. This is looking from the houses at Salishan. Maybe this was taken in July or August.

Looking south toward the road that takes you out to the bay. Beautiful Oregon sunny summer day.

Looking North at Lincoln City and the hotels. Kind of blurry pic. I need a new camera.

This is a picture from Fogarty Beach. One of the many beaches on the Oregon Coast.

Tony Lee walking away when I asked to take his picture. I took one anyway. Of his backside.

Barry Lee at a big tree at Lake Tahoe. We were there looking around. I think this was taken October 21st.

Tony at the same tree. His car is in the background. A Mitsubishi Montero. I want a car like that.

I love this picture. It says, "Stop.. Hammer Time!" This is a stop sign that we see everyday on our way to work. I laugh at it everyday. Remember MC Hammer in the 80's?

This is Reno. We are looking West at the downtown buildings and casinos. It reminds me of Las Vegas and the desert.
Same area, just a different picture showing the desert and houses.

I'm back on-line in Reno!!

Well, I just finished reading everyone's blogs. It only took me two hours to catch up and find out what's new. I love seeing the grandkids and greatgrandkids getting so big now. I can't wait to start having fun with my new baby. I have about 7 more months to go. I feel fine although sometimes I start to gag if I think about or see a dirty toilet or dirty sink. I almost threw up at lunch the other day. Maybe morning sickness will find me soon. I still weigh the same which is good. I don't want to gain too much weight early on. I am tired and irritable especially at school. My kids drive me nuts!!! I have 24 students in Kindergarten. 13 are boys and 11 are girls. I have six pretty terrible boys that punch, hit, spit, pinch, kick and choke each other and anyone else that they feel like torturing that day. I am out of ideas on how to handle the aggresive kids. I have had the principal, the nurse, the counselor and other special ed teachers in my room in the last week. Hopefully they will have some more ideas to help me get my class in order. Next week is half days at school and I will get to talk to each student's parents. I have to have a Spanish interpreter for half of the parents. I want to make up a contract for good behavior and have the parents and the child sign it. I can't teach a lesson with so many distractions and misbehaviors. I am firm, strict, and yell a lot. That is not working at all. I try to be positive and offer rewards, star bucks, which are like money to shop at the school store each month. They like earning star bucks, but I have some boys who came in at lunch time and raided my desk stealing star bucks and writing their names on them. I found out after lunch when I saw my desk a mess and papers on the floor. I blew up and lectured the class about not touching my things, not coming inside during lunch, blah, blah, blah. Some of the kids get it, but a lot of kids just look at me like I'm crazy. Who knows how much they are even paying attention to me. I have been reading my college books on Classroom Management, and Tips to Better Behavior Guide. If anyone has any advice for me let me know. We did go on a field trip the day before Halloween to a pumpkin patch. I didn't even lose a kid. I had Barry as a parent volunteer and I gave him some hard kids to watch. He thinks it is funny that I have such hard days. He trys to give me advice about being more strict and making the kids sit in time out. I try but it just doesn't work. I don't give up and I don't cry, I just get really mad and frustrated with myself because I can't solve this problem. I have only had this class for one month and they are all kids who started the year with another teacher and then had to move classrooms where they had substitutes for weeks until I was hired. The other kinder teacher told me that they have to have more time to bond as a class and learn to appreciate each other. The kids are only 5 and 6 years old. I would be happy if they just left each other alone and let me teach them. Anyway, I'm going to try to update the blog and add some pictures of the school, the house, and of the pumpkin patch.

My car blew up and I got a teaching job!!

My little blue Toyota Corolla that I have been driving for the last 14 years finally croaked. Barry and I were headed to Reno on Saturday and the car was driving fine for the first 3 hours. We decided to take my car because it isn't a gas hog, like his truck is. We started to hear a funny sound on the highway near Sutherlin, just north of Roseberg. I thought the tire was going to blow, but instead we heard a loud BOOM and smoke came pouring out of the hood. We pulled over and another car pulled over too. She went to her trunk of the car and pulled out a fire extinguisher. We didn't even know that the engine was on fire. I was going to open the hood and Barry came right over and moved me out of the way. He peeked under the hood and opened it carefully and indeed there was a big fire melting away at the engine. The lady who stopped to help us said that she saw flames underneath our car when she was driving behind or around us. Her dad is a fireman and insists that she carry a fire extinguisher in her car. So, she sprayed the whole can on our engine and the fire went out. Then, another guy stopped by and he had a fire extinguisher also. I guess when I get another car, I will keep one in the trunk. It sure came in handy. So now my car is at the towing company in Sutherlin. It's beyond fixing and I just sent them the title to my car and said good bye to my faithful friend for all these years. The towing company will turn the car over to the junk yard for other people to pick at the spare parts. I still can't believe that I don't have a car anymore.

Now for the fun part. We called Barry's brother Tony to come and rescue us. He just got a 1997 Mitsubishi Montero and he drove from Newport to get us. Barry and I were too embarrassed to call either of our parents. We thought we could make a road trip all by ourselves. We had to wait four hours at the local Dairy Queen for Tony to get us. Then, we all drove to Reno and got there at about 1:30 in the morning. Sunday we drove around town and found the locations of the three schools that I was going to interview at. We also looked at downtown Reno and walked around the casinos. Once you have seen one casino, you have seen them all. Reno looks and feels like a smaller version of Las Vegas. Monday I had two interviews and they went well. Tuesday I had one interview and then we started to drive back to Oregon that afternoon. I got a phone call from the school where I interviewed at second. The principal offered me the full time kindergarten job. She wants me to start on Monday, October 8th!! Barry and I are going to be giving a couple days notice at work and start packing the apartment. We are going to get a moving truck this weekend and drive to Reno on Sunday. We don't even have a place to live yet, but while we were there, we did look at several apartments. Hopefully, we will find something nice really fast. So now, I have a new job, a new apartment, a new car, and a new baby to look forward too. Hey, "Life Comes at You Fast" saying is appropriate here. I'm exhausted just thinking about everything that I have to do in just a few days. It will all be worth it because I am so much happier being a teacher. Home is where my husband and my things are. As long as I have Barry and a teaching job in Reno, it will be home. I will sure miss the green Oregon Coast and my monthly trips to visit Mom and Dad, Tiffany, Rhiannon, Ryder, and Racer. Everyone can come and visit after we get settled in. Maybe next summer when my baby is born, we can have a family reunion at Lake Tahoe. It's an idea. I'll write more soon.