I am thankful for...

• My family
• my friends
• the gospel
• education
• my job
• cadbury mini eggs
• glee's new christmas album
• Paul Mitchell hair straighteners
• living in Idaho
• music
• laughter
• cell phones
• my health
• living in a free country
• technology
• lavender mint shampoo & conditioner
• Eden and Hannah-my cute nieces
• Shantae feeding me dinner :)
• having a washer and dryer in my apt
• contacts that allow me to see :)
• mineral powder foundation
• I Love Lucy
• delicious food
• Black Friday shopping that I will take part in tomorrow....
• CHRISTMAS

The list could go on and on....but these are a few things that came to my mind today. I hope we can continue to have an attitude of gratitude beyond this day of thanksgiving, especially with the holidays. With that said.......it's time for CHRISTMAS! and I'm so excited!

Am I really a teacher??

So this week has been kind of rough at school. I don't know what's gotten into the students but it's been hard to keep them on task and get anything done. I have to admit I haven't been as patient with them as I should be, but I was seriously at the end of my rope! Today during my prep hour I walked into my classroom and it just kind of hit me-I am a TEACHER. And it's not like this is my first week, this is like my 3rd month! How the heck have I been teaching school for 3-almost 4 months already? I can't believe the time has gone by so fast. I think back to a year ago when I had just found out my student teaching placement would be in a 6th grade class and I cried because I thought there was no was I could ever do that. But I did! And it was a great experience. And now I'm 4 months into my first year of teaching. I've made it this far, I'll be able to make it through the rest of the year right????? Or at least until Christmas I hope? Really the only thought that's getting me through this week is, "3 more days of teaching till Thanksgiving." or "one week from now I'll be in relaxing in Idaho with my family, sleeping in, stuffing myself with food, shopping, not grading papers, not teaching how to write using alliteration or whatever...." Anyway, that's my venting session for the week. I can assure you that not every week is like this one, but somehow the bad weeks stick out in my mind more than the good. Thank goodness we're on the home stretch for this week!

The big 24!!!!!!

I think the only bad thing about birthday's is that they only come once every 365 days. You have this great day and then you have to wait a whole year for it to come again. Let me tell you I had an AMAZING birthday on the 13th. And ps...I'm 24???? When did that happen?? Well, the number sounds old but I don't feel old. I'm the exact same...just older haha. My amazing day was all because of my friends and family that I was able to celebrate with. My mom, dad and Kyran came down from Idaho for the weekend. First we celebrated with a few rockin presents at Shantae's house.....

Seeing these cuties just makes my day :)

New straighteners! We should have a moment of silence because I seriously love this thing! Thanks mom and dad!

Then we celebrated by having lunch at Benihana's. MMMMmmm...

A tiny asain lady sang 'happy birthday' to me while beating a drum and shaking a tamborine-I don't think I understand a word she said, but it was cute :) I love this picture because of Eden's face-she wanted to blow out the candle so bad!
We went back to Shantae's for some delicious ice cream cake. Once again, Eden is entranced by the candles.
Then I got to spend the evening with my most favorite people! We started by eating super greasy pizza at The Pie-by Jenni's request ;) hehehe
Next we went bowling. While we were waiting for our lane we played some arcade games-I felt like I was back in 5th grade but hey, who cares? Me and Jenn rocked this game!

The thing about these games is even though you know they're rigged, I think we all have this secret desire to be that one person who actually outsmarts the machine and wins a great prize. As much as we were rooting for Jarom to win this one....it just didn't happen :( Maybe next time though :)

I cannot begin to explain how much I love these girls! They made me feel so special and we had so much fun! Thanks girls! You rock!

So just to prove how amazing my friends are, they gave me awesome presents every place we went. At the bowling alley I got these super cute socks. At dinner it was cute jewelry and back at my apartment it was Reeses and the most comfortable pj's ever! Seriously I wear them all the time. And not to mention the best movie-Newsies!
Jenni made this delish (non chocolate :)) cake which was great!
And finally a whole group shot. Most amazing friends a girl could ever ask for. Thank you everyone for making me feel special on my birthday-love you guys!

I love my nieces!

So I don't know if any of you have noticed by I happen to have two of the cutest nieces ever. Yep, I don't want to hear any argueing!! After Eden came back from trick or treating we kind of had a mini photo shoot on Shantae's computer and we were laughing like crazy! Isn't she adorable?

I absolutely love this picture! The funniest part is that Eden just got in from trick or treating, and it was freezing, so you can see her snotty nose! Haha...

She's a little hyped up on candy, she wouldn't let go of those suckers!

Now I do realize I have another super adorable niece that you don't see in these pictures. But, Hannah fell asleep so she missed out on this photo shoot. But I promise there will be more to come and she'll definitely be part of them!

Halloween at Reid School...

Halloween at Reid School was so much fun. I'm not big into Halloween and haven't dressed up in years, but being a teacher has now provided me with lots of opportunities to dress up. And it was fun. First of all, our school has been decked out for Halloween since the last week of September. And when I say decked out, I mean verrry decked out. Like there's a whole committee that decorates the whole school. We had a Halloween carnival last and it was the best one I've been to. The parents were so amazing and it really was a success. Then we had a costume parade and class parties. My class was also in charge of decorating one of the glass cases in the entrance so we made two halloween crafts to display and they were a hit!

Shantae, Eden and Hannah came to my carnival. Isn't she the cutest ballerina?

And look at that cute flower!

I was in charge of "Cookie Concoctions". Eden had a fun time decorating and eating her cookie.

All the teachers after the carnival. We are so tired!

Call me Miss Palmer!

I'm alive and have survived my first month! It's been crazy but also fun. However, I feel like I spend more of my day being Miss Palmer than I do being just Lindsey :) It's okay though. I absolutely love my 4th grade class; the kids are the best! I have 13 kids total-11 boys and 2 girls! Crazy! And I just got a new student in my class from Saudi Arabia. We've been doing a lot of fun things and I enjoy teaching...but I'm so tired!!!! There's so much more planning than I ever anticipated and I'm being completely serious when I say teachers definitely work more than what we get paid for. There's one other first year teacher at my school and we're always the first ones there and last ones to leave. At least for the first few weeks. Here's a few pics of where I now spend the majority of my time:

So these bulletin boards take forevvvver to decorate!!!!!

This is my fancy brand new computer!

Good luck flowers from my parents on my first day.

Officially Miss Palmer, the name tag says it all!

The parents of one of my students invited some of the teachers to a fundraiser at The La Caille. We got all dressed up and went to a fancy dinner and had a really fun night. The food was delicious and it was a really beautiful place!!

God Bless the USA

Happy 4th of July! A few weeks ago my friend lent me this book called Left To Tell. It tells the story of a woman who survived the genocide in Rwanda. Some of the events shocked me and after finishing it, it made me realize how fortunate and blessed we are to live in America. We have so many more opportunities living here and it's a beautiful place!

I spent the weekend in Idaho and celebrated the 4th with my family. We has barbeque's with both sides of the family and watched a great fireworks show put on by my Uncle Russell, and then watched the fireworks in Idaho Falls-which I love! Seriously the best show!

Watching the fireworks in Idaho Falls.

Summer!

I am so excited that it's summer! I love the warm weather and being in the sunshine. Sunshine makes me happy :)
I also love Idaho! I've been home the past two weekends and it's been so nice! I love my small hometown of Aberdeen and especially love being there in the summer. I love going home for Aberdeen Days, too. This is a picture of my Grandpa Duffin and his tractor that he drove in the Aberdeen Days parade this year. What a great looking bunch :)

This is a cute picture of Eden I took last week when we were swimming in her kiddie pool. Isn't she a doll?

Reid Ranch

So, for my teaching job in the fall I had to go to a two week training to learn the reading program. It was so intense! We went to a beautiful place in the mountains called Reid Ranch. This place had the prettiest lodges to stay in and tons of fun activities; horseback riding, swimming, canoeing, paddle boats, volleyball, archery, hiking, miniature golf and tons of other stuff. BUT I didn't get to do any of it :( My schedule for the 2 weeks was breakfast at 7:30, teach the reading camp from 8:30-11:30, Lunch, then training from 1:00-5:15, Dinner, then study, study, study! Each night we had to memorize lessons and pass them off and that stressed me out so bad! Also, we didn't have cell phone service, which was killer! With all that said, I survived and I learned sooooooo much! I'm going to be teaching at Reid School, which was started and still run by Dr. Ethna Reid. Let me tell you that woman is amazing! She is the most knowledgeable person I've ever met. She created the reading program that we will be teaching and she has traveled all over the world doing seminars and teaching others how to implement her program into their schools. She said she's probably taught about one million students and about 16,000 teachers. She's traveling to Oxford this month to do a seminar with her daughter. And she's my boss. No pressure right? But even though the training was stressfull, I feel so lucky to be trained one on one by Dr. Reid. And excited to be teaching at her school. Here's a few pictures of Reid Ranch.

My friend Genevieve is also going to be teaching at Reid School. We both graduated from BYU-Idaho together so it's exciting that we get to work at the same place. We were at the training together. This cute girl was at the first week of camp and is going to be in my 4th grade class in the fall.

We did get to go on a cool hike. These are 2 of the girls that were there the first week.

The view was incredible. This place was so beautiful!

This is the view of Reid Ranch from the hike.

The last night we were there we had a campfire and the kids did skits. These girls were so great!
This was the group for the first week of reading camp.

Graduation

I did it! On April 10, 2010 I graduated from BYU-Idaho with a BA in Elementary Education. I went back to Rexburg for this, which was a neat experience for me since I'd been away for the past three months while student teaching. I missed Rexburg! Here's a few pictures....

At the Graduation Banquet-Trynda, Dad, me, and Mom


Some friends in the Education Program. My roommate Alaina and I before walking into the Commencement Ceremony.

My roommate Eryn-we lived together during Student Teaching and our friend Genni-all Education Majors.
My family! Love them!

My sweet grandparents-Grandma and Grandpa Duffin. They have always supported me. I love them!