update

hi friends,

i haven't written in a while. i am less busy and more busy at the same time but i will try to update the blog frequently. i thought i would update you on the things happening this summer.

1. i finished my writing class and it was great. i will now be more conscious of the writing i assign my students and the purpose it provides. i also have a renewed desire to be a better writer myself, sample work coming to a blog near you.

2. now that i am finished with class i can focus on jamaica! we are leaving the evening of the 17th. i am not prepared, but getting there. please pray that i can clear my mind, get everything ready, and not come back with a sickness of some kind.

3. carrie is coming today! she will be here for a week so make sure to get in on the hang out time.

4. we decided against a new dog, for now. bella is getting older so she is better behaved and two dogs does not seem helpful to us as the humans who have to take care of them.

5. my summer seems to be slipping away leaving no time for actual work. i need to get ready for next year! ahhhh

6. i am running the huntsville 5k on friday. i am not in great shape, but it should be fun. if you want to make t-shirts we should do it tomorrow! if not, oh well.

that is all for now. i am also enjoying more books. if there are books you think i should read for sure, let me know.

hope your summer is relaxing

cabin reunion and grow group bbq - moab coming soon

mayo family reunion, june 2008

from now on, captions fit with the picture above - yes, my family is proud to be italian, and american i guess

view on the drive up

the view outside the cabin, mom and grandma in the background

my parents and many others spent the las year remodeling the cabin, doesn't it look good?

dad, chillin' in his chair

ratzlaff family playing a classic, box hockey!

shirley and son, todd, playing horseshoes 

shirley won, yep that's a double leaner

ethan and pete playing tether-ball  

jadea always wants to see the picture if you take one of her.

i love that swing, ethan showing off his skills - he learned to pump his legs

this is jessica, doesn't she remind you of avery? she also has a problem keeping her pants up

mayo family (3) sitting around the table

dinner time, so good. 

my grandma (and mom) put strange things around the cabin. these are light-up grapes

aspen trees all around - they are my favorite

grandma and grandpa (he said, "stop kissin' me and look at the camera")

that's better (i like the first one, classic g&g mayo)

i made pete get a picture too (i felt like my grandpa telling him to look at the camera)

grow group bbq at mount ogden park

sarah was on fire the whole night!

bbq pork, so tasty

i got a picture without a silly face- he must have been talking to someone

they were looking at pictures, but it looks like whitney is picking something out of sarah's hair

thank you for viewing my summer fun, our trip to moab will come soon. i have to get the camera chord from sarah first (hint, hint)

have a great day and don't forget to tell your friends you are glad to journey with them

i found a form of poetry i like, this is a sample of what happens when i try to be creative (and when i avoid homework)

there once was a young guy named pete,

the gas prices he could not beat.

everyday he drove far,

so he bought a new car,

said, "not a treehugger, just cheap!"

tell them what they've won...

a new car!

that's right! pete and i bought a natural gas car today! it is a honda civic gx 2004

I found this quote on gas2.org it was written may 5 by clayton b. cornell...

"Unlike the world’s most fuel efficient car (VW’s 285 MPG bullet), the Honda Civic GX looks like a standard passenger vehicle. What makes it special is what you don’t see: tailpipe emissions that are often cleaner than ambient air.

The Civic GX is powered by compressed natural gas—methane—the simplest and cleanest-burning hydrocarbon available. With an economical 113-hp, 1.8-Liter engine, the EPA has called the Civic the “world’s cleanest internal-combustion vehicle” with 90% cleaner emissions than the average gasoline-powered car on the road in 2004.

And get this: in Utah, natural gas can be purchased for $0.63 per gallon."

pete will pick it up in sandy tomorrow and it will serve as his commuter car. the nice thing is, the car payment is about the same amount we will save in gas every month! how cool is that

the downside, he will have to fill it up about every day but there is a station in ogden.

so there you have it, we have been looking for a while and we finally found a car that is nice and the bank will help us with. (it is difficult to get loans for these cars)

i am posting this a bit prematurely because it would be sad if it fell through, but most likely it won't so i am very excited. we will be giving rides if you want one.

oh shakespeare

hi friends, the last two weeks i have been in a class that is helping me learn how to better use writing in my classroom. it is a four week course full of three writing "pieces" as they are called, reading a book and various articles, and presenting a demonstration of a technique we use in our classroom to enhance student writing. my presentation was yesterday and i thought i did a good job of making it applicable to other content areas. some fellow teachers even told me they were excited to use the activity in their own classrooms. over all the class is going great. the problem comes when they (the english teachers) start talking about things only language arts, not necessarily about writing. today we spent 45 minutes talking about shakespeare! the various plays, versions of plays, and who makes the best othello. other than the occasional side-step in conversation, the class is going great and i am learning a lot about how i do somethings right as a teacher and most things i need to keep working on. 

i am excited that i get summers "off', though it seems busier than when i was working. my class is mon.-thurs. so call me on fridays. i have decided to stay at chs this year. i have a lot to get ready if i want to be a better teacher than last year. 

i hope your summers are going well, love you all 

pictures of the wonderful, musty library where my class takes place:

i will leave you with a voice exercise i learned today 

"whether the weather is cold, whether the weather is hot, we'll be together, whatever the weather, whether we like it or not!"