Hello!

So as a new wife, I intended to keep this blog up and running. Then, life happened and I kind of forgot about it.
Next, Jake came along and I had even more good intentions to keep this blog up and running so we could document his life.
Well, let's just say being a wife, mom, full-time school teacher, and until last August-Primary President- made me put this on the back burner. I keep having thoughts about how I need to document our lives, but so far this has not been one of those ways. Follow us on Instagram @theCooleyClan where I do post at least once a week! :)

Right now Jake is 2 years +1 month old. Ryan is working on his MBA. Amanda is still teaching school. AND baby boy Cooley #2 is about 7 weeks away from making his debut!!!

I'm not making any promises to anyone except myself, but here's to trying again to post more on our blog for posterity's sake!

Jake's Birth

Just a warning, this post contains all the details of Jake's birth. If you don't want to read about all the lovely details of having a baby, go ahead and skip this one. :)

Almost from the day we were given Jake's due date (26 December), Ryan and I went back and forth between wanting him to be born on that day because it's my dad's birthday and wanting him to be born as close after the 18th (the last day of school before Christmas break) as possible because that would allow me more time at home with him. The closer it got to Christmas break for school, the more real everything became.  I had pretty much convinced myself that he was definitely coming soon after school got out for the holidays and made plans accordingly.
At my doctor's appointment on 8 December, about 3 weeks before my due date, I was measured at 1 dilated and 75% effaced. I figured that was fine since I needed to make it another week and a half or so before I could have the baby without having to miss school prior to Christmas break.
The next week I went back to the doctor on the 15th, about 2 weeks before my due date, and got what I thought was a huge dose of reality. I was only 1.5 cm dilated and still 75% effaced. I had hoped I would be a little farther along than that since it was a week later and we wanted him to come a week early. I'd also been measured-belly size-wise- a week ahead at each appointment. I know that isn't a true indicator of when the baby will come but it had continued to fuel my hopes. My doctor told me I'd most likely make it to Christmas break and I went ahead and got scheduled for my next appointment (22 December).
I left that appointment feeling largely disappointed. Then I started thinking "what if he comes late? I guess I'd better prepare for that possibility as well. Let's just hope he comes before the end of the year!" (Hello tax deduction!)
The last week of school was filled with sub preparations and a ton of work at home. It was exhausting. By the time Friday rolled around, I was pooped! The last thing I had to do at school was attend the annual Christmas assembly. Let's just say 1 day shy of 39 weeks pregnant does not make for a fun time at the North Cache Christmas assembly. I was tired, didn't feel all that awesome, and just wanted to go home. I'm really glad that we were let off early and I got to go home at about 1:30 instead of 3:00.
Friday afternoon I finished up some Christmas presents and then as soon as Ryan got home we went to run some errands. We were eating dinner at Wendy's and got a call from his brother Bryce. His car had died and needed to be towed so we finished up and went to meet him. We towed him to the car place and got home sometime between 9 and 10. I worked on a couple more baby-prep projects, finished them up, and then we went to bed.
Early Saturday morning, around 3:00 or 3:30, I woke up to go to the bathroom. I was completely uncomfortable as I got back into bed, which wasn't out of the ordinary because I'd been feeling that way for the a month or so. Then I began to notice that I was having pain in my lower back that kept coming and going. I thought for sure it couldn't be contractions so I tried to go back to sleep. That didn't work very well so I got up to take a shower, hoping that'd make me feel better. Poor Ryan was trying to sleep because he had to work at 8 and I was making that more and more difficult for him.
I got out of the shower and went back to bed. I was able to sleep for a little while until I was awoken by the pains, which were starting to come quicker. BUT, I was still in denial that I could actually be in labor.
Ryan got up and headed to work. I told him to stay in close to his phone but that I really didn't think anything would happen that day.
I didn't stay in bed much past Ryan leaving for work because I was so uncomfortable. I decided to get up and take care of the usual Saturday things, wanting to get as much done as I could because I knew Jake could be coming at any time. I was still having pains but I didn't think they were consistent enough and figured they were probably Braxton-Hicks contractions. I just kept cleaning through the discomfort and. I also decided to get some more packing done for the hospital, just in case!
Around 10:00 I went to the bathroom and found that I was losing my mucus plug. I'd been watching for this for weeks now. I knew that once that happened, labor could happen anytime. I texted Ryan about this new development but continued to think that I'd probably have the baby within a couple of days.
My substitute stopped by to pick up some binders from me so that he could get ready over the break. He asked how I was doing and when I was due. I told him in a week and thought the baby would come pretty close to his due date.
Then, since it was the last Saturday before Christmas, I had to finish up some things for the holiday so I ran to Smith's Marketplace to do some last-minute shopping. I wandered around the store, still having somewhat consistent pain in my back, but not believing it was anything serious.
I came back home and sat on the couch to rest up a bit. I began to notice the pains were now more consistent so I decided to hang out until Ryan got off work.
Ryan came home around noon and immediately wanted an update. I told him what was going on an we decided to do the time test, to see if they were contractions, etc. At the next wave of pain he began timing and we found I was having contractions that were 4.5-5 minutes apart. I was pretty much in denial but Ryan convinced me that this was real. I was still only having pain in my back so I had a hard time believing him. We got the last of the stuff packed for the hospital and decided it was probably go time. After taking some last-minute pictures of us as a family of 2, we headed out the door. Before we could go to the hospital though, we had to make a quick stop at my parents'.
My dad was the only one home. We walked in and told him all plans for that day were off and we were most likely having a baby instead! I gave him some instructions for final Jake projects that my mom would have to finish and Ryan called up to the hospital to find out for sure if we should come in. The hospital said to come up and get checked and so off we went. On the way there I sent a text to Ryan's mom that we were headed up to the hospital and we'd let her know what was happening as soon as we could. She immediately responded with a phone call where I told her what was going on and we'd update her when we could.
Pulling in to the hospital was a bit surreal. The parking lot was pretty empty, as was the building as we walked in. We headed up to labor and delivery and immediately got sent to a room with a technician. As we followed her into the room I thought, "she looks really familiar". She started to take my info and I figured out why she was so familiar. Her parents live in our ward and she'd grown up down the street from my family. Small world!
I got changed into a hospital gown, had the rest of my information put into the computer, and then we were introduced to our first nurse, Lexie. She got the monitors all hooked up and gave me a quick check. I was 3 cm dilated and 75% effaced. She told me I'd be monitored for a while to see how things progressed and that they'd also put a call in to the on-call doctor (unfortunately mine was off that day) to see if I should stay. A bit later she came back to my room and told me that I was going to stay and that she'd be back every hour or so to check on my progress. Ryan then updated our parents with what was happening and got himself settled in.
I contracted-all in my back- for the next couple hours. My contractions steadily got harder and with each hourly check we found that I was progressing nicely.
The goal I had coming into all this was to labor without pain medication for as long as I could, then try Fentanyl first, and finally go to an epidural if needed. I found that I didn't need any medication for the first 3 or so hours that I was at the hospital but once I got to 5 cm, I was ready to try the Fentanyl. I had my first dose and was able to relax a little more and even doze. This was nice since my contractions had been getting harder and I was getting more and more uncomfortable. After about 45 minutes, the Fentanyl was wearing off and I was ready for more. My second dose came during shift change for the nurses. Lexie left us and Mandy came to take care of me. She gave me medication and told me the efficacy would lessen with each dose and maybe I should start thinking about an epidural. During contractions, Ryan and I talked about what we wanted to do. I didn't really want an epidural if I could avoid it. We decided we'd go with one more dose of the Fentanyl and then see. I got that final dose of at about 7 pm. I was about 7 cm dilated. A half hour or so later, the Fentanyl was not working at all and I was feeling like I needed to push. I was also starting to feel like I was losing control of my body. Mandy came in to check me and I was about a 7 1/2 at 7:30. And then the next twenty minutes flew by. I went from a 7 1/2 to a 10, did a practice push, and a nurse called for the doctor. But before she got there, Jake came! As soon as they had made the call for the doctor I knew I needed to push again and push I did. He came rushing out after only 2 pushes and landed almost completely on the bed. One of the nurses only had time to get one glove on before rushing over to grab Jake. It was quite an exciting few minutes!!
He didn't cry right away and I remember asking if he was ok. Everyone assured me he was just fine and then Jake let out a cry to tell momma that he was in fact, OK!
Our little guy weighed 7 lbs 6 oz and was 20 inches long. He made his official entrance into the world at 7:51 p.m.
Ryan got to watch the nurses poke, prod, and check Jake out for the first few minutes of his life. Then he got to hold him! In the meantime, the doctor, who had arrived just as Jake was born, was taking care of me and stitching me up. I'd gotten a pretty nasty tear from Jake being born so quickly. Once all that was over, they handed me my sweet boy.
Holding Jake for the first time was pretty amazing! I can't believe how much love I had for him in the first moments of his life. You hear all the time about how much moms love their kids right from the start and it is so true!
We hung out in the labor and delivery for a couple more hours, just the three of us. It was perfect. I fed Jake and held him and just absorbed everything that had happened in the last 24 hours. We also had to update the family with our news and Ryan went to chat with his family for a few minutes. They'd been in the waiting room for who knows how long.
At around 10:30 the nurses loaded me and Jake into a wheelchair and took us to the mother and baby floor. Ryan followed closely behind with all our stuff.
We got set up on our new room. The nurses checked me and Jake out again, and then we invited Ryan's family to come in and meet Jake. My parents had decided that they'd wait until Sunday to come visit since it was late. Allan, Kristie, Bryce, Mollie, and Kira took turns greeting our little man and soaking in his newness. While they were there, Jake got his footprints done.
They left us somewhere around midnight and we settled in for our first night as parents!

39 In, 39 Out

Well Jake has officially been in this world as long as Amanda carried him! We cannot believe how fast the time has gone by. He is now 9 months old. He is crawling like a champ, pulling himself up to anything and everything, and walking along whatever he can hold on to. He's attempted a few partial steps on his own and it probably won't be long until he's walking! He's got 6 teeth-two on the bottom and four on the top. He was great while they were coming in. We hardly noticed a difference in him, that is until he bit Amanda!!
We introduced baby food after Amanda got out of school. His first food was mashed potatoes at Juniper Take-Out. He loved them and still loves any type of potato! We stuck with vegetables for a while and they seem to now be his preferred food over fruits. He hasn't really been a huge fan of cereal unless it's mom's oatmeal or it has some fruit mixed in it. He's also tried the Gerber Puffs and really enjoys the cheese flavored sticks. And he's been known to chow down on some freeze-dried yogurt melts. Amanda has stuck with nursing him and he still seems to be quite the fan of that.
He went on his first vacation over the 4th of July weekend. We went to Boise and stayed with Ryan's aunt and uncle. He had a great time and did so awesome in the car until the last hour or so on the way home.
Up until the last month or so he has hated being in the car after 9:00 at night. He would scream and cry until we got home. He seems to be growing out of it though and if we can get him in jammies and fed before leaving late at night, he will often fall asleep. It doesn't happen all the time but sometimes is better than never!
Over Labor Day weekend he got to go on his first hunting trip. We think he quite enjoyed being up in the mountains, taking in all the scenery, and snacking on tomatoes and dried fish-which he really liked!
He gets to spend time every day with Amanda's parents. Her dad just happened to retire right before he was born and he watches Jake for the most part. Those two are the best of friends and it's pretty darn cute!
We are loving life as a family of three and feel so incredibly blessed to have such a sweet little spirit in our home. Jake is a delight and makes our lives so much better. It's hard to imagine what life was like before him!!
And now, for your viewing pleasure:

9 Months of Jake

Ryan Jake Cooley

There's nothing like the birth of a baby to get one blogging again!

Our little guy joined our family on Saturday 19 December 2015 at 7:51 pm. We are completely and totally smitten by him. He has been such a joy in our lives and we couldn't imagine not having him here. 

We can't believe he's already 6 weeks old! As Saturday rolls around, Ryan and I joke about how at this time [insert time here] so many weeks ago we were just getting to the hospital, or just getting to the mother and baby floor, etc.
Here's a little about Jake at 6 weeks:

Last night (Sunday) we did an unofficial weight measurement and he's up to 10 lbs. Yay! He's growing!!
He doesn't like to sleep without being held so that's been a little difficult--more for Ryan than for Amanda, we think. We'll let you know how it's affecting her when she starts back to work in 3 weeks from today. :(
He's a cuddle-bug and still loves the fetal position.
He's really good at holding his head up-has been from pretty much the beginning-and also loves to stretch his legs and practice standing.
And he's smiling more every day it seems.

Jake is such a joy. We love being his mom and dad. We can't believe how much our lives have changed-for the better-and feel so blessed to get to be his parents!

2 Years!

Hello my friends! It has been a looooooooooooooong time since I've visited this little blog of ours. Wow, there is much catching up to do. But for now, I'm going to ease back into this thing with a little post dedicated to the love of my life. Two years ago he put a ring on my finger and asked me to be his FOREVER. Oh how I love you Ryan Allan Cooley! You're my best friend and the greatest husband I could ask for. Here's to forever babe!

Ryan's aunts checking out the ring...

Can you tell we were pretty happy?!?! 

(Just ignore Ty, he's pretending not to notice Kristie and her picture taking....)

Another Three-Day Weekend

The much-anticipated three-day weekend has come and gone in a blur. Friday night we celebrated Ryan's Aunt Ilene's birthday with a get-together dinner at Chuck-A-Rama.
Saturday Ryan had to work as usual. I used the time while he was gone to get our Bountiful Basket, finish re-watching the TV show "Alias" and clean up the house. When he got home, we kind of just bummed around until going to watch Jaden play basketball. Once that was over, we went home and got ready for our Saturday night Stake Conference meeting. It was an excellent meeting. I don't know why so many people choose to miss it. It's more often than not the best part of Stake Conference.
Sunday was the General Session of Stake Conference and one that I will never forget. My dad was ordained as the new stake patriarch! Wow! I don't even know how to put into words my feelings about this. It's pretty awesome! After conference and my dad's ordination, we had a family dinner at my parents' and then hung around until the finale of Downton Abbey came on at eight. By the time we got home at 10ish that night, we were exhausted.
Monday Ryan had to go to work so I spent the day grading and watching Monk on Netflix. Once Ryan was off we went to Grandma Erm's for Monday night dinner with the family.
Now, I'm back at school, ready to make the final push to the end of the trimester. Eight more days, then it's hello third tri!
Really, I'll be happy when I finally get to go home tonight after my night class. It's been a tiring past couple of days and I've got some R and R to catch up on. :)

Nothin' much

There's not a whole lot going on in the Cooley household as of late. We're busy with work, school, church, family, etc... Our weeks are pretty much back to normal, though we count the days until the next break from school and work so we can spend time with each other doing something FUN! Next break: President's Day. Can't wait!
So until then we'll keep plugging along as we study, work, and enjoy this adventure we call LIFE!

Three-Day Weekend

Last weekend was a three-day weekend for both Ryan and me, and we sure used it up well! We kind of kicked things off Friday night with our traditional Friday Night Dinner and Fringe/Blue Bloods viewing at Grandma Erm's. We made hamburger helper--I was out of creative dinner ideas--and had ice cream for desert. The finale of Fringe aired and it turned out pretty good! Now we've got to go back and re-watch it all from the beginning. We followed it up with a really good episode of Blue Bloods. We love that show! After all, it's got Tom Selleck in it, what could be better?!

There's only one way to cook a brace of coneys...

On New Year's Day, we got up sorta early and ventured out into the cold to do a little rabbit hunting. It was Ryan's first time. He'd been wanting to go out for a while and once we saw that the Christmas Eve snowstorm had turned out to be a pretty good one, we decided we'd do it. We picked up my dad and brother then headed out. Heath and Dylan met up with us at our decided location. There wasn't a plethora of rabbits but we did manage to bring home five! Ryan shot his first-ever rabbits (2) and I got my first-ever rabbit as well. And we had A LOT of fun doing it! I think we got Ryan hooked on this little New Year's Day adventure....

P.S. Heath convinced us to take them home to eat. We haven't cooked 'em yet but we're planning a little rabbit stir-fry next week!

Something old...something new...

We decided it was time to make the blog officially "ours".  Over the past week or so I've transferred all the posts that have been made on my old blog since we got married. So Welcome! to our new blog, and in case you missed it, here's the last post from the old one:

Good Morning! It's freezing outside and I'm at school holding parent-teacher conferences. My goal this go-round is 25% attendance. I'm almost there too, only one more visit to go!!
Things are going well in the Cooley household. Ryan has one week of the new semester under his belt. He seems to like his classes so that's exciting. I went back to school on the 3rd of January and promptly lost my voice for five or six days. Needless to say, teaching is very difficult when you can't verbally communicate with your students. Luckily I got it back in time for a visit from my superintendent! We're both still teaching in our ward--Ryan in Sunday School and me on the 4th Sunday in Relief Society. We both like our callings and they're pretty stress-free. It's good to be getting back into the swing of things now that the holiday season has drawn to a close. We were tremendously blessed this past Christmas and are so grateful for everything we have. We're excited for this new year and the many--I'm sure--adventures it'll bring! So stay tuned!!!

P.S. To keep up on the Cooley Clan, follow us now at ryanandamandacooley.blogspot.com.

A Seasonal Update

Happy Holidays!
Since I last posted, Ryan and I celebrated our 1st Anniversary, Ryan finished Fall Semester, I started a new session at Adult Ed, we saw the Hobbit (really good!), visited Salt Lake, enjoyed a wonderful Christmas, and went to Les Miserables (also really good!) for my dad's birthday. Here are the details with the pictures:

 A left-over from the last post: Our Christmas tree for this year...we went to Idaho with Heath, Sheila and the kids and harvested it. It was extra tall which meant lots of boughs for decorating!!!

 

Our 1st Anniversary fell on the Monday of Finals Week for Ryan so we celebrated with a nice dinner at home. Ryan cooked (steak, "Uncle Kevin" potatoes, green beans, green salad, and wedding cake (which was still super tasty!) for desert), we watched Home Alone, and exchanged presents. I got Ryan a watch and he got me a beautiful bracelet. The Cooleys gave us a Precious Moments figurine that's just adorable! It was a great night!

Tasty!!!

 Cake anyone?

(It was still super moist and tasted almost as good as our wedding day. Definitely recommend Shaffer Bakery!!!)

 Mmmmm.....yummy.....

Anybody have the time?

Oh...so precious!!!

 After finals were over, Ryan and I took my mom and dad to Salt Lake for a little pre-Christmas excursion. We did lunch at Maddox on the way, stopped at Smith and Edwards, then wandered the new City Creek Center. Dinner was at Siegfried's Delicatessen (so tasty! and I'm so happy we finally got my dad down there to eat with us!!!) and then we finished off the night with a walk around Temple Square to see the lights. The last time I saw the lights with my parents I was a little girl. We had a great time just getting to be with my mom and dad. We're happy things worked out to make it happen!

  On Christmas Eve, with a lot of help from my mum, I finally finished the tree skirt and stockings I've been working on for months. I did the design, all the embroidery, and just about all the sewing. I think they turned out sooo cute!

There are still more Christmas pictures to upload. Hopefully we'll get them up soon!

Hello December!

Well hello! We've sure started the month out with a BANG! Saturday Ryan and I journeyed to Idaho for our Second Annual Christmas Tree Harvest with Heath, Sheila, and the kids. We had a great time searching for the "perfect" tree, cutting it down, and hauling it out. Ryan particularly enjoyed the impromptu duck hunting on the way home. The only bummer was that we got home late and didn't feel like putting the tree up so it's currently sitting in my parents' backyard along with theirs.
Sunday we went to church, Ryan gave a great lesson on the end chapters of Mormon, then we came home and set to work getting dinner ready. We played host to Jaden and Kira--Allan and Kristie have abandoned them for a 9-day excursion to Disneyland. We made roast, Yorkshire pudding, green beans, and jello for dinner with homemade donuts and hot chocolate for Sunday cinema. We're pretty proud of the way dinner turned out. We even made gravy for the roast and pudding! Good thing I watched my mom make gravy all those years!! Thanks mom!I'm bummed we didn't get any pictures of the dinner though....I was a little busy! Haha! It was fun to have Jaden and Kira over. They seemed to enjoy the dinner. I hope they had a good time. Sometimes you can't tell with teenagers. Believe me, I know. I teach them! :) So that was our weekend--busy, busy, busy. And it doesn't look like the rest of the month will be any different. How exciting!!
P.S. One more week and we'll be celebrating our FIRST anniversary! Happy Anniversary babe!!!!

A Pinterest Failure: A Tale in the Life of Ryan and Amanda

I'm a big fan of Pinterest. I get a lot of ideas from there and for the most part, what I've tried has turned out pretty good. However, it seems that when there's a Pinterest failure, it's usually big! Case in point: Ryan and I planned to have brownies and ice cream for our Sunday Santa Cinema treat. (See the previous post if you're not sure what Sunday Santa Cinema is.) When we got home from eating dinner with my parents, I had a big, nasty headache. So as we started the movie--this week it was Home Alone--I promptly fell asleep hoping my headache would go away. The last part I remember seeing was Kevin realizing he'd "made [his] family disappear." Sometime during the movie, Ryan got up to go make the treat. We wanted to try making the brownies on our waffle iron. I'd seen it on Pinterest so why not give it a try? Cue epic failure. According to Ryan, remember I'm asleep at this point, the brownies pulled apart when he tried to separate the waffle maker once they were cooked. He even tried a different kind of waffle maker but ended up with the same terrible results. To salvage the rest of the batter, he put it in a small cake pan and baked it up. When all was said and done and I finally woke up, Ryan presented me with a tasty brownie sundae and the tale of how waffle makers and brownie batter don't mix. At least the sundae was delicious! And the funny thing is, we went over to his parents last night where he shared the tale and guess what?! Allan informed us that no, you cannot make brownies in a waffle maker. The moral of my story is that sometimes Pinterest is great and other times it's a complete bust. But hey at least the things that don't turn out usually make for funny stories! And if you've tried it and it worked, please enlighten us. Otherwise, know that it probably won't work. :)

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Last night we kicked off Sunday Santa Cinema. It's a Cooley family tradition where we watch Christmas movies on Sunday nights accompanied by popcorn and tasty treats. We decided to watch Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" first--we'd just finished Halloween and figured it'd be a good transition movie. I'm just going to say that if I never see the movie again, I'm not going to cry about it. It was weird! So weird in fact that Ryan and I came home and popped in "Holiday Inn" so we'd have something to take our minds off of the weirdness of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Luckily, we both highly enjoyed Holiday Inn. It's one of my favorites and Ryan liked it as well--it was his first time seeing it. We also decided it was a better holiday movie kick-off. Needless to say we'll not be watching the Nightmare... anytime again soon and I'd very much like to start any future Sunday Santa Cinema runs with something A LOT better! So here's to hoping the rest of the season's movies turn out!!! Merry Viewing my blog friends!

P.S. If you've never seen Holiday Inn, check out this trailer!

What have the Cooleys been up to?

It's been a busy past couple of months. School started and is well under way. I can't believe I'm two units away from being done with first trimester already! My classes are pretty good this year. They do have their moments and sometimes I just can't take the incessant talking! Would you just please be quiet? But on the whole school is going pretty good. It's definitely a step above last year!
Ryan is busy with classes and work. We finally broke down and got the internet at our place which I think has been a big help! We spent a lot of time running around trying to get his homework done. It's crazy how much school relies on the internet these days.
Our families are doing well and we work hard at balancing time between the Downs and the Cooleys. I'm sure that both sides would prefer they get us more but we're doing our best to have "us" time too.
We're excited for fall weather and everything it brings with it. We celebrated Halloween with my family and the traditional chili dinner. It was pretty low-key but we did manage to dress up! (See the picture on the sidebar...)I'm looking forward now to decorating for Thanksgiving and then Christmas!! We're 8 days away from our 11-month anniversary. I can't believe how time has flown. Pretty soon a whole year will have gone by.
One new thing we've started is going up to Ryan's grandma Erm's place on Friday nights. We cook dinner for the three of us and then sit down to watch our two favorite shows--Fringe and Blue Bloods. Grandma doesn't care about the shows but I think she likes the company. We enjoy it as well--it's pretty relaxing and a fun way to spend the evening!
We both have teaching callings in the ward. Ryan teaches gospel doctrine every other week and I teach the fourth Sunday lessons in Relief Society. I enjoy teaching and LOVE that my mom comes to hear me give me lesson just about every month! That's pretty special!
Well I guess that's about it for the Cooley Clan! Twenty days until Thanksgiving! Hurray!!!!

Wow!

I know I've been a slacker blogger for a while now. I've made several attempts at trying to give it a facelift as of late but it wouldn't work so I just became more and more frustrated with the whole thing! Needless to say, the months of pictures and information I want to add has gone undone because of my inability to make simple changes to how this whole thing looks! Anyway, as you can probably see, they've been taken care of and I am now ready to download a bunch of pictures from various sources and hopefully get caught up here. After all, I've got great incentive--Christmas is coming and I've got gifts that require pictures so I've gotta download them anyway. Might as well do a little blogging here as well right?

P.S. Ryan only realized last night that we had a blog...yeah, that about sums the whole thing up!

Back to School

If you read my blog does anyone actually read it? then you'll know that the last post I made was on the last day of the 2011-2012 school year. And now here I am, one day away from having my first day of the 2012-2013 school year over with. What'd I do with my summer you might ask? I have no idea!!! Well I do, but it seems like it sure was a whirlwind and was far too short. Now I'm back to school with my room all ready to welcome my kiddies. I'm still at North Cache teaching Ancient World History. I've added three more sections this year YAY!!! so I'll be a bit busier. I moved to a new classroom and we'll see how that works out. I just can't believe it's here again! And to boot, my adorable husband is off on a week-long hunting trip which will conclude on Saturday. Needless to say that though it's only Wednesday, I feel like I've already lived through the week trying to accomplish a lot of things on my own. Boy I miss Ryan!!! It's strange to come home and be in an empty place all evening. Did I mention that I miss him? I'll be glad when this week is over so we can get back into a routine. Ryan starts school again on Monday and we'll be back to the work/school grindstone. Good-bye summer, hello fall! Hopefully being back in the swing of things will give me a chance to catch up on this blogging thing....

The Last Days

Tomorrow at this time I'll be able to say that I successfully completed my first year as a teacher! It's been a crazy year, stressful at times, but also very good. And I went from Miss Downs to Mrs. Cooley in addition to everything else! How great is that?!
I have to say that I'll miss some of my students--there were some really great kids. Others I won't miss at all...but I've learned a lot, changed my curriculum a number of times, and discovered that Ancient World History isn't so bad!
Bring on next year!!! Well, after a nice long summer break that is! :)

Memorial Day Weekend

We had a fun Memorial Day weekend! Friday we used up some coupons for free Chik-Fil-A, bought Ryan more new clothes why is he so easy to buy for? and met up with Allan, Kristie, and Jaden for our first Slurpees of the summer season. Saturday Ryan had to work so I hung with my parents until he got off. We then hit up the sale at Al's and got some new bike helmets, went shopping for clothes for me a total bust! and then came home. I do have to tell you about dinner that night though: I'd made rhubarb syrup earlier in the week and couldn't figure out what to actually do with it! My dad suggested putting it on pancakes so Ryan whipped up a batch of pancakes and we topped them with some strawberries and the syrup. Oh my! They were so delicious! And yes, I am eighty years old and find rhubarb to be quite tasty! ;0) Sunday we both had to teach--Ryan Sunday School and me Relief Society. A special shout-out and thanks to Kristie for coming to our lessons!! Both times I've taught since having that calling I've either had my mom thanks mommy! or my mother-in-law there for support. How lucky is that?! After church we went to pick up Grandma Erm and took her to the Cooley's for dinner. Pepsi chicken was on the menu and it sure was yummy! We ended the day with popcorn, Linda cake, and watching We Bought A Zoo. That was such a cute movie! Monday rolled around and Ryan and I took advantage of a day off by sleeping in. It was fabulous! For the rest of our day we ate, went to the cemetery, and hung out with family. I'd say it was a pretty great weekend!

Thank-you For Your Worms

Last weekend Ryan and I had some great times with my family. It started off with catching "Dancing with Our Students' Stars" put on by the Logan City School District's foundation. I was super excited to see my kindergarten teacher dance. She did a great job and even earned perfect 10s across the board for her performance. It was pretty disappointing that she didn't win overall!
After the performance we went back to my parents' and hunted night crawlers. The fabulous rainstorm on Friday brought the worms out in droves. We filled a bucket which we figured would be more than ample for our fishing expedition on Saturday afternoon.
Saturday we did the usual chores, picked up some groceries, got my re-sized ring back (all sparkly and pretty), and then we headed to meet up with my dad to go fishing. My dad, Ryan, and I went out to Blacksmith Fork for the afternoon and spent our time missing bites and fighting the wind in order to cast our lines. Though we didn't bring any home, we were successful in actually making it out to the river--a real feat!!
Once we got home, we lit a fire in my parents' backyard and spent the evening roasting and eating. It was a great night! The hot dogs were delish and oh my those s'mores were sure tasty!!! I'm glad Ryan thought of the idea. It definitely was a great weekend. And to boot, I'm sure Pres. Hobbs would approve of the activities we did for our "dates" this week!