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!

Brigham Young University Idaho

For the past four years I have been going to school at BYU-Idaho-with the exception of two semesters I spent at BYU-Hawaii. My whole experience has been great. Sure there were some rough patches but that's to be expected. I took wonderful classes, met wonderful people, and had a wonderful time. I made life long friends. I gained knowledge that I will use again. The education program is amazing. There were some semesters when I would be taking classes that would frustrate me and I remember thinking there is no way I will ever need to know this stuff! But I can honestly say that every class I took has prepared me to be a better teacher. During student teaching I found myself referring back to what I learned in my college courses. I am eternally grateful for the education I received from this university. Here's my favorite things about my college experience:

• Prayer at the beginning of each class


• Stadium Singing


• Student Ambassadors


• Cake Decorating!!!!!


• Piano lessons


• Taco Bus Tuesdays :)


• Snow Cones in the summer


• Living in Camden #4


• Motivation Management with Sister McManus


• Prep for Eternal Marriage with Brother Ladle


• Late night runs to Mill Hollow haha ;)


• Going to the gym


• Devotionals every Tuesday at 2:00


• the Rexburg Temple being built


• Guitars Unplugged


• Mother's Weekend


• Going to Rigby Lake


• Working at Jamba Juice


• Teaching Gospel Doctrine-crazy huh?


• Dodgeball


• Sugared almonds at the Nordic


• 1:30 church


• Sleepovers in the living room on conference weekend


• Dancing to High School Musical!!!!!!!!!!!!!


• Delicately folded toilet paper-you know who you are haha


• late night talks with my roommates


• Sunday dinners
  
• Personal Achievement with Bishop Davis
• chocolate chip panacakes
• Visits from General Authorities

And the list could go on forever! In short I'm thankful for BYU-Idaho and for the spirit there. The campus is beautiful and the people are great. I had a great experience there.

I went to a graduation banquet on Friday before graduation and President Clark spoke to us. He asked us to take a moment and think about how many prayers had gotten us to this point. I couldn't even begin to count them! He also read the scripture D&C 97:3. It says: "Behold, I say unto you, concerning the school in Zion, I, the Lord, am well pleased that there should be a school in Zion..." He went on to say that for many of us the school in Zion has been, is now, and will be BYU-Idaho. I believe it.

Almost done!

I'm almost done with Student Teaching! I have to go back Monday and Tuesday, but then I'll be free! Last week I turned the class back over to my teacher, so I've had a pretty laid back week. And also very boring! I thought I would really like not having to teach but I miss it! It makes the day go by so slow and I'm not used to being in charge of my kids lol. I spent the week observing other teachers, making copies, and grading papers and such. Oh and putting together my Teacher Work Sample-which is a huge project! I had my exit interview on Thursday, which is where I presented my work sample to my University Supervisor and another lady from BYU-Idaho. It went really well and I felt so stress free walking out of there. And also excited and very sad! Yes, sad. I will miss my sixth graders! I never thought I would hear those words come out of my mouth but it is true. I have become so attatched to them and feel like I was just getting the hang of things and then had to leave. That's how it always is, right? The last few months have been the most stressful and exhausting months of my life! But I feel so much more prepared to be a teacher and so much more confident in myself. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I want to be a teacher and can't wait to get started. I'm working on getting applications in everywhere and had my first interview a few weeks ago. It was with a charter school called Providence Hall. I really liked the school and the principal and would be happy to work there. We'll see how it goes. I know for all my millions of blog viewers out there that you're all dying to see something new on here, so here's a few pics of what I've been doing for the past three months.

I taught a unit on the Renaissance and had my kids make a map of the world out of play dough. They had to label the oceans, continents, and major mountain ranges. They loved it and I was so impressed with how well their maps turned out.

The sixth graders met their reading goal for the month so all the sixth grade teachers had to do something for the kids. We dressed up like hippies all day and at lunch time did a lip sync to 'California Deamin' by the Mommas and the Poppas. The kids loved it and the funniest thing was they ALL took out their cell phones and videod the whole thing!

This is me going to my first interview, I was so nervous!

Is it any surprise that I see Eden practically every day since I've moved here? We're best friends :) She always gets into my purse and plays with my tampons. So here she is...

Me and Shantae made a cake for Adam for his birthday. It was on Super Bowl Sunday and his teams was the Colts, so it worked out perfectly. Well would have if the Colts had won ha ha.

My family went to Island Park for President's Day so here's a few pictures of the great weekend.

And of course I love being so close to my girls! And Michael ha ha.

Surviving the first month....

Well, it's official-I'm done with the first month of student teaching! Woot woot! Only two more to go. I'm enjoying my sixth grade class a lot more than I thought I would. Here's why;

1: They are a lot more independent
2: The girls are the sweetest thing ever!
3: The sixth grade staff is amazing
4: I'm actually decent at sixth grade math
5: I love my cooperating teacher
6: The kids make me laugh everyday, seriously, if you think your life has drama, just ask a 6th grader-they have wwaaayyy bigger 'issues' than you :) They also know everything, so I'm probably learning more from them than they are me :)

There are definitely better days than others, and if anyone knows how to deal with sixth grade boys, I would love the advice! They can be quite the little stinkers sometimes. I'm just hoping that I can make it through the next two months without getting sick again-I've been sick twice since we started!!! Those kids are out to get me!!! ha ha But I am learning a lot everyday from my wonderful cooperating teacher and can't wait to have the class to myself. I LOVE teaching!