Winter Wonderland

My first concert went very well.  It was a very crazy day because I woke up with Pink Eye and I should not have gone to school that day but I had no choice, what would they have done without me?  I felt just fine but I looked like crap!  Luckily some of the wonderful ladies told me to rub lemon juice on my eyelids and she even had a lemon sitting in the fridge.  It took the itch away for a bit which was wonderful.  I got the stage looking as nice as I could for what I had.  Ahh the joys of working in the ghetto!  The family resource center which is run by parents decided to have a big all school potluck before the concert. It was a great success and I didn't have to worry about getting fast food in my ghetto neighborhood!  My eyes at this point were so red and puffy it looked like I had been crying all day.  Some of the teachers were asking me if I was ok, if my nerves were getting to me.  I told them I was fine and that I had pink eye.  They just laughed.  My assistant principal was like, you do know thats contagious right?  Haha yeah I know, but what was I supposed to do?  The concert went great.  There was a huge turnout.  I wasn't quite sure what to expect, and I think more showed up than they had planned.  One thing I need to work on is audience behavior.  They were horrible, it was so noisy the whole time.  I had everything mapped out but since more people showed up things didn't go as planned, but it still worked out just fine.  Everyone was pleased and the best part is that its over! 

Then as soon as we got home my dad and I went driving around to find an urgent care that was open so that I could get some drugs.  My eyes felt so much better after that.  They asked me if I knew if I had been in contact with anyone with pink eye.  I told them that I'm a teacher and that earlier that day one of the kids said "Ms. Jones, your eyes look just like mine did the other day when I had pink eye, that's why I wasn't here!"  It was splendid.  The joys of being a teacher.

During that next weekend I went on a day trip with my mom and dad to Snowflake to deliver flowers for a wedding.  It was a fun little trip, but so cold!  Snowflake is so windy it makes it even colder.  It was nice to see the snow and then go back to Mesa where we don't have the snow!

The last week of school before Christmas wasn't as crazy as I thought it would be.  The activity that I was doing with the older kids went better than I thought it would.  It made me so happy and it was something they could learn from!  I am now enjoying 2 weeks of bliss not having to drive to phoenix everyday!  I will post more of our lovely christmas adventures later.

December = craziness

December is here in full swing!  The craziness has already begun.  Tuesday Emilie and I made 2 delicious cakes to donate to the Mesa High Orchestra Dinner on Wednesday.  They turned out awesome and I hope they tasted as good as they look.  Wednesday was the delicious dinner and we enjoyed Outback, yum yum.  Thursday I went to institute and Friday I hung out with Linsday and caught up on drama in our lives!  Saturday my mom had gotten tickets to a free screening of Disney's new The Princess and the Frog.  It was so good!  Great story, great music great fun!  Can't wait till it comes out, will see it again.  My concert is on Thursday so I am in freak out mode.  I know it will all turn out fine.  The teachers have been very helpful and supportive, its been great, making my life easier.  They have let me know things that the other teacher had done in the past they they would do every year.  I don't want to break any traditions since they guy was there for 35 years!   There is a quick update, I will add more later, but its my bed time I have a super busy week!

A little catch up

 

October was a really fun month, from my amazing trip to Orlando to all the fun stuff for Halloween.  I carved a pumpkin for school, ahh the joys of being a teacher!

   

I really enjoyed my face painting from Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party.  She did just what I wanted, I was really sad to wash it off.  It would have been nasty if I slept in it.

 

I also enjoyed my Hallween costume.  The kids at school really didn't know what I was dressed up as. Ms Jones what is a flapper?  I bought the dress at Savers for $3 and then sewed on the fringe which cost me about $20.  When I decided I was going to be a flapper I was super excited to wear my awesome black heels with it.  They are kind of retro and I love them, super cute.  That is what went down the end of October.

I heart my ghetto kids! part 2

My students continue to say some of the funniest things.  Here is another installment of some of the greatest.

A couple of years ago my sister in law made me an amazing crystal necklace to christmas.  I love to wear it because it is so pretty.  My students like to ask me if it is real and are always telling me how pretty it is and how much they like it.  I replied to one student one time and said yes they are real.  They then told me that I should pawn it and get money for it.  I just had to laugh.  I would never pawn that necklace, I love it so much and I am not desperate for money right now.  They were like 10, how do they know you can pawn stuff and get money, I didn't know what pawn shops were until later.

One of the funniest stories happened yesterday.  So I have a cold right now.  One of my students told me not to get him sick, and I replied, "Well I'm not going to get you sick, you got me sick!"  They then tried to play the you are being racist card.  I told them I am defintely not racist, hello my niece is half mexican and my grandma was born in mexico.  I told the kids I would show them a picture of my niece.  One of the guys got really excited and then asked how old she is.  He was kind of disappointed to find out she is only 5.  I started laughing to myself when I realized why he asked her age.  No you will not go out with her, she is way too young for you!

Here is another story, this is a kind of sketchy one.  So my other school is on a dead end street inside of the durango curve of the i-17.  The past like 2 weeks there has been a bunch of cars parked on the street and I couldn't figure out what they were from.  I think I might have figured out it was some landscaping business and everyone would park there and they would get in trucks and leave to jobsites.  Well this week the cars are gone and the lot were all the landscape trucks were parked in the afternoon are gone.  The property is locked up and there is a for sale sign.  Does anyone else find this a little skecthy?  Illegal operation going on?  I do work in wondrous ghetto phoenix!

One more to make you laugh. Today I was teaching them a song for our concert and it is about caroling.  I asked if any of them had been caroling before.  They replied, no, you don't do that in this neighborhood, all you hear are gun shots.  I heart my ghetto kids!

Yes, I went to Florida again!

   

Going to Florida during Ocotber break was so much fun and much needed!  Call me a weirdo, but I needed it! I went with Tiffany, my cousin Lindsay and her friend Jessica, we all work at schools so it was easy for us to take time off to go, except for Tiff who still goes to school.  We truly had a blast.

 

We stalked Tiff on Main Street while she worked to keep her seasonal statues so that she can continue to get us in for free! She took our picture in front of the castle, didn't she do a great job?

   

We watched the American Idol Experience.  It is one of my favorite shows, well at least the finale show.  You get to see the top 7 singers from the day.  I love the judges, especially since most of them I have seen somewhere before at disney.

   

   

Next off was the Magical Kingdom where we met the princesses.  This Cinderella was not one of my favorites.  She was quite ugly, casting what were you thinking?  I don't mean to be so harsh, but hey thats life.

   

Animal Kingdom was a blast for the short time we were there.  The thing that was wonderful about this trip was that we had all be numerous times so we just hit our favorites. We only did Everest, Finding Nemo and Dinosaur.  Sorry Festival of the Lion King and Safari, we didn't have time for you, we will hit you again on another trip!

  

Tiff and I on our way to the Magical Kingdom!  

     

Watching Muppets 3-D.  Why is it that people always have to take pictures with 3-D glasses I don't know why but it is always fun!

     

Here we are after a lovely florida afternoon downpour. The rain can be nice and overly excessive at times.  It was just coming down in sheets during this particular storm, luckily we came prepared with ponchos.  That is one thing I learned, always have a poncho or umbrella with you in Florida!  It was funny to watch everyone hiding under buildings waiting for the rain to stop and then stare at us smart ones who could still play because they brought ponchos. One little girl wasn't too fond of wearing a poncho and told her mom "I look silly in this"  We told her no you don't we are all wearing them!

Here we are post ponchos when we were far enough in the line where we were safe from the pouring rain.  Don't we pull off the wet look just wonderfully?

  

UP, need I say more, my favorite movie right now. Too bad Carl had to go in, but Russel will do. If you haven't seen the movie, pleae do, you are missing out on a great adventure!

 

Another one of my favorites, MISICI, or for those that aren't literate in Disney lingo; Move It Shake It Celebrate It.  It is more than just a parade, you get to join in and dance, great music and great fun.  Make sure you wait for it to circle the hub infront of the castle to join in the celebration.    

 

Fresh baked chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich = heaven! So good.

 

Old man at the Grand Floridian, just had to stop and take a picture with him.     

 

 

Enjoying our Flame Tree BBQ pulled pork sandwhiches.  When we were deciding where to eat at Animal Kingdom or DAK, we unanimously all said Flame Tree.  Their BBQ sauce is so good.  They don't even use the same sauce at different restaurants around proptery. 

    

The birds have started becoming really dependent on people feeding them, it is bad.  They have started giving you a card with your meal telling you not to feed the animals. 

   

Kitchen Sink, enough said

    

We have now made it to Universal Studios.  I love how Universal is definitely not Disney.  They are really hurting right now, which was nice for us.  We got a 2-day park hopper, but could have done it in 1 because the longest we waited for a ride was 20 i think, but on average everything was like 5 min.

   

This picture is for my sister Marilee.  We were in Seuss Landing and saw this and had to take a picture.  It is the egg that Mayzie had Horton sitting on.  

    

 The last nigh of our trip we went to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party.  It was a blast, you pay extra for it, but there are awesome firworks, amazing halloween parade, candy and face painting are included in the price, and special characters are out.  We had a great night.

    

Modeling our awesome face painting.  I asked the lady for fun whimsical halloween and this is what she gave me.  I loved it!

   

Cindy and her Prince.  She was a lot prettier than the one the other day.

    

Here we have Susie and Perla.  Can you name what movie they are from? (hint: the picture above)

     

  

The creepy ghost keeper of the boat.  He looked super creepy.  The barbershop that is on main street also was decked out as a dead quartet and on their costumes you could see how they died.

 

The headless horsemen starts of the parade, it is pretty awesome, one of my favorite parts of the Boo to You Parade.

 

As you can tell we had a blast.  I can't wait to go again.  Mesa High is going in the spring for Festival Disney.  I volunteered to be a chaperone, because who better could go on the trip.  Hello I am Festival Disney and I could fill everyone in on all the totally awesome things down there.  Who knows. Until next time!

Boo to you!

Halloween is an interesting holiday, it is kind of a love hate relationship. I'm not always a big fan, but there are somethings I am a big fan. One of them is how creative people get for their costumes. I saw some really interesting things this year. One of my cousins whom I love dearly and we have had a love hate relationship had an awesome costume, he dressed as the artist Bob Ross. He has been growing out his hair for this occasion and fluffed it out quite nicely, he also had a paint palate to complete the ensemble. It was awesome. As we were at his sister's house for the intense cardboard maze her husband does each year,I was talking Bob and his friends as they had just finished the maze. This teenage girl looks over and says, "Hey your the guy from Channel 8 (for those in AZ you know that is our PBS channel)." We all just busted up laughing, it was hilarious. Another girl said something similar later, but the first reaction was the best with the was she said it. He was quite pleased with her reaction.

Bob was not the only one of my family to have a cool costume. I have an aunt who likes to dress up in different ways. For my sisters wedding since it was Cinderella themed she came as the Fairy God Mothers, for my cousin's wedding when she was marrying a guy from Canada back before the election, she dressed as Hillary Clinton. Friday night as we were at my cousins house having a party and people were previewing the maze, my aunt showed up as Obama, she had painted her self black and had a black wig on. As soon as I saw this dark figure walking up I knew it was her. Again I was laughing hysterically. It was pretty much priceless. Highly entertaining as we Jones' like to be!

As I was looking at the paper today I found a costume that I love from one of my favorite movies, UP. This kid had built a replica of the house and blown up like 30 balloons and was carrying the house with a hose. He had scouting stuff on and his dad even decked out in a suit to be Carl. I might have to take that into consideration for next year, pretty awesome, I love it! People can be so creative.

Being Loved

Sometimes I really like my other school, and today was one of those days. There is a teacher who teaches 5th grade, and she is like my favorite her class is one of the most well behaved and well mannered classes anywhere. I enjoy working with them, I feel most of the time that I have them right in the palm of my hand eating every word I give them. It is an awesome feeling. Today I was teaching them a fun line dance I learned to Thriller, yes Thriller. I thought it would be a great treat because the kids are all obsessed with Michael Jackson. All of the classes enjoyed the dance. While I was eating lunch this one teacher was talking to me and she told me how she had told her class how lucky they were to have me, because I guess the other guy wasn't very good (maybe thats why he was a sub and he didn't last the whole year). She told me that she can tell I am a very good teacher. I hope I can live up to that, but it makes me feel happy and appreciated when teachers tell me such things. I enjoyed finally having my own room at my other school. Yes it finally happened, well I have half of my room, they just condensed the huge book mess to half the room, because it is a rather large room. The first day was kind of interesting because there were no chairs, so I had to improvise because the 7th and 8th graders would have had a fit if they had to sit on the ground. I was pulling out piano benches from the digital pianos, random stools and then some of risers. I felt at that moment that I truly was in the ghetto working with highly underprivileged students. So yeah it is good to feel needed, gives you the boost to make it through the day before Halloween!

Mi Familia

I love my family, they are absolutely amazing! I will post more of my trip after I finish getting all of the pictures, oh how I also love digital cameras. So this past weekend was a ton of fun. We started off saturday morning with a breakfast with the Riding family. I love spending time with the fam. Then on Sunday morning my cousin Ethan gave his talk in church before leaving on his mission aka missionary farewell. It was fun to see a lot of the Jones side of the family. My sisters came home just for sunday to see ethan talk in church. Afterwards they were going through closets looking for halloween costumes and other dress up stuff for EAC's spirit week this week. We got a little crazy as sisters do and it was just tons of fun. We hadn't really done anything like that for a while and it was so much fun to be super goofy! I got to see all of my babies this week and just spent part of the night holding Treyson (my adorable new nephew) and playing with his older sister Cali who I love so much. Abby is turning one soon which is crazy from what she was a year ago. You sometimes forget how small she was because she is not small anymore! Well it's bedtime and I will post florida stuff as soon as I can! No promises.

I heart my ghetto kids!

Let me start of with a CAUTION! This post will contain some language, if I were to edit the language it would take away from the story, and in all honesty it is not offensive in the context of my story.

This week there was the quarterly district testing know as the AzAC, I forgot what exactly it stands for, but anyways on wednesday all the teachers got together to grade the writing portion of the test. As we were sitting in the cafeteria grading, one of the teachers started freaking out about what she was reading. I became very curious as to what she was "Oh My Gosh"ing. She let us read it, and the paper went a little something like this, and I forgot what the prompt was for the paper.

The teacher told us she had a shit for us to work on. We worked hard on our shit. The substitute told us that our teacher had some shit for us to work on.

I was like wow, this student must not like going to school, but then another teacher read the paper and she thinks the student was meaning to say sheet. Yay for my ghetto English Language Learners, who knew that i could make the same sound as ee?

Ok no more issues, just more funny stories!

That was exhibit a, now here is exhibit b. On my lovely id i get to wear, and I have a different picture on each id for my two schools. One of my students said "Miss Jones, you used to be really tan" How I wish I were still that tan.

My final story of the evening and it is my favorite so far. So we are about to start week 9 and at the school I am at 2 days out of the 6 day cycle I still don't have my room. It is full of textbooks from a barcoding activity that was supposed to be completed in July. So I have been teaching in the art room and trying to come up with fun things to do with the kids in the art room until I get my room, which is a really nice big room that I would love to utilize! Anyways last week the 8th graders were being punks like 8th graders like to do (let me tell you jr high general music is interesting because they have to be there, it isn't an elective like I'm used to) I told them that I was upset I didn't have my room yet and I could tell that they really weren't liking what we were doing. I am trying my hardest, but I am about out of ideas what to do with them. So anyways later on that day after I sent my principal my lesson plans for next week, she sent me an email saying that she wanted to see me sometime that afternoon. I was little scared thinking I had to fix my lesson plans or something. When I went to go talk to her it was about what had happened earlier in the day. Some of the students went and told her I was unhappy I didn't have my room and she asked me if that were true and I told her yes. There isn't much more I could do, and I asked her if there was anything I could do to get my room. She told me that she had some parents scheduled to come work on the room. We will see what happens when I go back there in the morning, I am still planning on being in the art room because I don't want to get my hopes up!

Woohoo!

This past week was pretty fun and very busy. Legally Blonde was hilarious, there were some parts and innuendos that aren't necessarily needed but some think they are! It is always fun to go to the theater. I love people watching and going to the theater is a great place to do such things. The population of Arizona is rather quite diverse state, and when you go to such places you witness that. There was a lady sitting on our row who reminded me of Edna Mode from the Incredibles, except her glasses frames her square not round and she had white hair, but everything else was about the same. Unfortunately I didn't get to hear her talk. I laughed to myself a little.



I "officially" graduated friday night and that was fun. Walking kind of helped close that chapter of my life. I am done with school for now and probably a long time. I got to meet the president of my school who I had really never heard of and I haven't taken any classes there for a year now since I was student teaching a year ago and then we sang the Alma Mater. The ceremony was nice, there were about 120 getting their Bachelors and about 100 Masters so it wasn't too horribly long and it was at a really nice Baptist church in Phoenix. The bad thing is I sat next to a guy that was a little bigger and a smoker, so I was starting to die towards the end. We then went to Culvers to get some custard. Abigail had ice cream for the first time and it was so cute. She was unsure of it at first but then she wanted more.

Random thoughts

I have had a bunch of random thoughts in my head. First off I will be back in Florida in less than a month for a much needed visit. People laugh at our family for our countdowns to disney, but it is my second home and it is time to go back for a visit. My cousin and I are going to have a blast, even though she has she might have other reasons for her trip that might be discussed at a later time.

I miss driving my red mini van soccer mom car for festivals. They were really fun to drive and I miss Stitch and Mickey, thats how we distinguished between the two. It wouldn't be bad to drive one someday.

Sadly my social life was better in Florida, I think part of that is in the ward we are all kind of forced to make friends because we don't know anyone and thats how we roll. My ward is kind of in a funk right now, I'm trying to do the best I can, but its hard.

Continuing with my social funk and longing to be back in florida I pass by the airport everyday on my way to and from work. I just want to go jump on one. Don't get me wrong I enjoy my job it is tons of fun, there is tons to explore. I think I might have like a post disney depression or something.

My nieces are super adorable and keep getting cuter and cuter and I can't wait for my nephew to arrive, only a couple more weeks.

Next week is going to be tons of fun. Me and some of my cousins are mini subscription holders for the broadway season at gammage. Thei first show is next week and we are seeing Legally Blonde. We are also going to see Phanton, Annie and Marry Poppins. I'm so excited that I have a job so that I can do fun things like that. Also next week I am officially graduating from college. I get to attend Ottawa's graduation ceremony. I missed the one back in April and they are allowing me to walk. I paid my $100 graduation fee, I'm going to walk and get my cap and gown and all the hoopla associated with it, just so that it really feels official that I did all that work!

I love watching "Toddlers and Tiaras" on TLC. The pageant moms crack me up, most of these mothers are living vicariously through their daughters. They should just have a pageant for all the old crazy ladies to live out their dreams!

I think thats enough random thoughts for the day. Enjoy!

End of Summer :(

Since Labor Day has now come and gone, and school has been in for a few weeks, summer is now over (it doesn't really feel that way outside very much). The past couple weeks have been tons of fun and very crazy! My cousin who got married and moved up to Canada and then had a baby came down to surprise her mom for her birthday. It was fun seeing her, her husband and their adorable baby. He is really cute but my niece is still the most adorable thing ever! We'll see what happens when my nephew gets here in about 5 weeks. We got together to celebrate my grandpas birthday and it was a blast to hang out with the whole Jones family.

I love 3 day weekends! It was so nice to not have to go to work today. I could have gone out of town to the cabin or Sedona, but I decided to just stay home and chill. It has been so nice to sit home and get stuff done. We cleaned off the back porch and reclaimed it from all of the spiders and who knows what else was living there. We also discovered that our neighbors peacock has made a nest in the very back of the yard. I don't that if it has eggs they would be fertilized so we will see what happens.

On saturday was the grand opening of the newly renovated Rhodes pool. The facility is gorgeous, a major improvement from what it was, it isn't going to be the lame boring pool it used to be, now that it has the flow rider. I talked my dad into riding the flow rider, I figured it would be good publicity for the Vice Mayor to ride it don't you think, especially after the little speech he gave! It was tons of fun to ride on it again because I got to go to paid training thursday night to learn how to use it so that the lifeguards can teach others how to use it. I think I'm addicted, it is so much fun. You can go boogie boarding with out getting sand everywhere!

That is pretty much all there is to my life right now. Work is still going well, it can be interesting at times but I'll survive. We'll see what adventures come my way this week!



Hopefully my dad doesn't kill me for posting these pictures, but I just had to, they are awesome!