Fall Break

Oh my gosh. I've been in school how long? And this is the first time I've had a Fall Break? And man oh man, did I make up for not having one before. I had plans to go to the Corn Maze Wednesday night with Amanda, but she ended up calling and canceling that because it had been raining and we didn't want to tromp around in the mud, and the boys she and her friend invited backed out, so the group had dwindled drastically. So that was lame, because I was all excited to have plans and then they fell through. It was okay though, I ended up getting a lot of errands done and then had a low low key night.

Thursday morning Alysha and I woke up early so that we could drive up to Sandy, grab Amanda, and head up to the Salt Lake Temple. When I called on Wednesday to make an appointment, they acted like they were going to be super busy. (I asked for a morning appointment and they said that the only ones they had left for the morning were 8am, noon, and 1pm- well seeing how noon and 1pm aren't the morning, I thought they were booked.) So when we were running late and then couldn't find the right entrance (we walked right passed it, but Alysha and Amanda yelled at me when I said I was going to try the door), I was a little nervous that they weren't going to be able to take us late. But we get to the door, and we're checking in and I apologize for being late and they tell me it's no problem. And it really wasn't- there was no one else there!! So, going to the temple is great, going to new temples is fun, going to a temple with so much history is moving, but getting to see 3 apostles walk in as they go to their Thursday morning meetings was AMAZING. When we first went in we saw Elder Packer. Then after we had gotten our clothes and were getting ready to go into the dressing room we saw Elder Oaks and Elder Bednar. All we did was see them, we didn't get to shake their hands or anything, but it was still so cool. We had a great visit to the temple, on so many levels (like I already said), and then we headed out to breakfast. We went to "The Waffle House" or something like that. I'm thinkin'... if you name yourself after a waffle, you must have some pretty darn good waffles right? Not a chance. It was nasty and pricey. How lame! But at least now we know we never have to go back there again.

Alysha and I drove back to Orem, and on the drive home I was thinking that I could be so productive as soon as we got back. I could get some more things prepped for school, and then I thought that I had enough time to go for a really nice run, and I was super excited for that. But... as soon as I pulled into my spot, I decided that I REALLY needed a nap, and that was the idea that won out. I napped for about 2 hours before waking up and getting ready for my trip to the zoo. I'd never been to the Hogle Zoo before, and I figured since Jon, Ryan, Eric, and I had grown up going to the zoo together back home, that it seemed fitting that I take them along to this zoo. We've talked about it forever, but we finally made it happen. After Ryan and Jon got out of classes, they picked me up and we headed up to Salt Lake. (Just a little side note, we had to drive RIGHT past George's place to get to the zoo. Lame!!!) Oh my gosh. That was THE saddest thing I have EVER witnessed. Eric told us that the Hogel Zoo must be where the animals go right before they die. And, I'm pretty convinced that he's correct in that theory. There were animals without fur, birds without feathers, the saddest, mopiest animals, the most common creatures like house cats (no lie, there were at least 5 different cages with house cats), and june bugs. The giraffes were eating hay, just like the elephants and the camels and shoot, I wouldn't be surprised to know that the tigers eat the same hay. Oh, speaking of camels, there were two there. One had a kind of crooked hump, and the other one had a hump that honestly flopped all the way over, it didn't stand up at all.

I'm not kidding when I say it was the saddest thing ever. But we did have a great time. You know us Kerby kids, we're pretty sarcastic, so this zoo gave us plenty of material to joke around about. At one point in time I apologized for my negative comments and told the guys that if I was annoying I would try harder to hold it in, but Ryan just joined right on in, and the other two didn't take too long to follow suit.

We got back from the zoo with just enough time to get me back for tutoring. Because it was fall break, we weren't expecting too many students to show up, so we were pretty happy with the four that did come. I actually got to tutor a kid that night, which was a first. Usually I'm just the overseer who tells the tutors which kids to take and where to go, and monitor the halls, etc. But this kid came 30 minutes early, so no one else but Alysha was there and Alysha was not going to tackle Algebra 2. I on the other hand really like math and was all over the opportunity to tutor- well, until another tutor came and I went back to my supervisor position.

Friday I spent all day shopping for my trip. Nancy and I were supposed to go camping in Zion's, but for the 4th time, it fell through. She had another option for us, to go canyoneering with a group from BYU. I wasn't so sure about that because I didn't have all the gear and I didn't no anybody in the group. After quite a bit of hesitation, I made up my mind to go, but then had to run all over town to get all the stuff I needed. Ew... so I spent more money than I wanted (which, let's be honest, I'm pretty cheap and would rather not spend any money), but at least it's reusable stuff. I think I finished shopping around 3:30, went home and packed, and had to leave my place around 5:00 to meet up with Nancy. I drove down to Nancy's place and we walked over to the duck pond (our meeting place) together. Luckily I didn't need to pay the dues or fill out paper work like I had expected because they couldn't actually get a BYU advisor to come and so it wasn't officially a BYU trip anymore. The reason I say that's good is because I would have to have shown proof of insurance, and I don't think I have any right now. My school provides me with insurance, but new teachers have a 90 trial period/ waiting period thing, which I think means that I'm not actually insured until January or something crappy like that. Yeah, so good thing I didn't need proof of insurance, because I don't have it :o)

We met up with the group, split up into car loads, and headed out to Hanksville Utah (yeah, I went there and I still don't know where it is, so don't worry that you don't know either). The girl Nancy and I went with was driving because she had to leave early the next day. Someone leaving early should have been my first clue not to go with her. The fact that she was driving other people, who had camping and climbing gear with them, yet her trunk and back of the car were fully loaded should have been my second clue not to go with her. But the other cars had left, and I didn't have any other way to get there (I drove my old car to Nancy's and that's the car without insurance, so I couldn't really justify taking it on a four hour drive to North Wash UT). Oh my gosh. I know that there are some people that live in their car, but I am NOT one of them. My car is very clean, and if there is anything in it, it's because I'm moving it from one location to the other and as soon as I get to point B, it's out of my car. Not this chick. I have NO idea how she fit our bags in her trunk, and I don't understand why she thinks that the back of her car, by the brake light is a shelf/storage area. I can't tell you how many times those water bottles came flying off the back "shelf" and hit me in the head.

Okay, so first of all, it's WAY crowded because there are 5 adults in this car, and SO much crap, that you could keep a bonfire going for days. Second, this trip is supposed to take 4 hours, and I'm the only one who doesn't have someone to talk to. Celest (the driver) was talking to Brian, who was riding shot gun, and Nancy and Rebekkah (the Austrian) were talking in German. Lame!! Don't even worry about it, it gets worse. About 3 hours in, Celest swerves to the shoulder and slams on her brakes (probably bottle hit number one). Her check engine light had come on, and she freaked out about it (the whole swerving and slamming on the brakes was not completely unnecessary in my opinion). Brian looks over and sees that her temperature gauge is red lined and he asks how long her car has been over heating. She has no idea how long because she hasn't been paying attention, and nothing caught her eye as being out of the ordinary until the light came on. (Are you kidding me? You have an old car and you don't monitor things like that?) So Brian and Celest get out and start looking under the hood. As we know, Celest's car is fully loaded, so of course she had coolant in there. So Rebekkah, Nancy, and I go, carefully unload enough of the trunk to get the coolant out. After we take it out, we carefully cram everything back in (remembering to put in Brian's shoes, which had been laid on the very top so they fell out as soon as we opened the trunk. The three of us get back in the car and wait. Then Celest says something about needing tape, from the back. Rebekkah looks up and says, "Did she just say she needs tape... from the trunk?" Nancy and I just start cracking up. Because she throws open the trunk and just rips stuff out. Then she can't find it so we have to look in the pockets of the seats, on the "shelf" and finally Nancy finds it somewhere it shouldn't have been.

Holy cow, so we spend forever on the side of the road, and then take off again. We have to pull over 2 other times, with the SAME exact routine. First there's the unsafe maneuver over to the side of the road where I end up getting pelted with freaking water bottles, we spend forever on the side, while Celest unload and reloads and unloads and reloads the trunk. Not only that, but we were also given slightly faulty directions and we ended up going 20 minutes out of our way (so a wasted 40 minutes because we had to turn around and go back). So, the other car loads had made it there around 10pm. We didn't pull into camp until after 1am. We got our sleeping bags out, put them on the ground, and went to sleep.

Yeah, about that.... I did not sleep very well. The sleeping bag I had Dana bring me from back home is for times when our family went camping in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado in the summer... are you getting this? their all warm places. So when the temperature in the canyons got down in the low 40s that night, I did NOT sleep well. Well, the cold didn't help, plus Brian snoring right next to me wasn't that fantastic either. At least I knew SOMEONE was sleeping well that night, because it sure as H- wasn't me!!!

We woke up the next morning, took a long time getting people and things together, but finally headed out. Oh my gosh, can I tell you what canonyeering is? It's amazing. It's part hiking, part repelling, part rock climbing/wall walking, and part walking in a maze (walking through VERY narrow canyons). We had a large group, like 17 people. So we split into two. Most of us were new to this whole canyoneering thing, so it didn't really work out to have a new group and a more advanced group. It ended up being the scared newbies (the more high maintenance girls) who went with the attractive, experienced guide, versus the tough first timers with the more entertaining guide. Yeah, although it would have been nice to hike with Nick the whole day, I way preferred my group. The first trail we went on just had 2 repels. One was about 30 feet, and the other was about 90 feet. It was awesome. You start the trail hiking to the repel spot, then you repel into the canyon, and hike out of the canyon. My proudest moment on the first hike was when Creighton told me that it would be easier to get through this one area if you I put two hands against one wall and two feet against the other I told him that wasn't very funny, only to find out that he was serious. For real, it worked. I was completely parallel to the ground, making my way through the canyon. It freaking rocked!!! The first trail took us about 2 1/2 hours and then it was time to break for lunch so we could meet up with the other group, switch ropes, and head out to the other trail. The other freaking group was on a shorter trail, but because they had the squeelish girls, it took them forever. We ended up waiting for them for an hour. And we all know me. When I'm ready to go, I'm ready to go. So, after waiting for them for an hour, when people in my group decided that it was time to go to the bathroom and put on sunscreen once the others got there, I was irritated. Oh well, we were off soon enough.

So, it turns out that we missed the turn off for the canyon that the other group did the first time, the one we were supposed to be doing the second time. But... I'm so glad that we dropped into the canyon that we did. This one was way more awesome. It's obvious that it's less popular (meaning it's used less), it was more challenging, and it was SO FREAKING AWESOME. There were 3 or 4 repels this time, one of which was a repel into a dark shaft. It was cool. Super trick to start, but way cool. There were more opportunities to walk on the walls, even more narrow canyons, more free climbing opportunities, and better chances to test out our repelling skills.

We were a little worried that the other group would be waiting for us for a while seeing as we didn't know at all where we were at, but by the time we made it back, the other group had only been waiting like 5 minutes. We all loaded up our stuff pretty quick and head down the road to grab some dinner in Hanksville. There's only 2 restaurants in town as far as I could see, and the one we ate at was pretty nasty. The burger was expensive, they forgot to make mine, so by time I got mine, everyone else was done or at least half way done, and it was disgusting. After dinner we piled back in our cars (oh, don't worry, we drove home with Dave this time, not with crazy Celest and her crapped out car) and headed back. I was so tired and I wanted to sleep so bad, but I just couldn't do it. Most of the ride back Brian and Dave were talking about hiking equipment, but there were times when I could join the conversation and I would chime in, but most of the ride us backseaters were pretty quiet (I think we were all trying to get some sleep, but I don't know that any of us were highly successful).

We got back to BYU campus and I walked with Nancy to her place and then to my car, drove home, and went to sleep. It was pretty much the best weekend!

It Really is the Little Things

So, this blog is called "The Little Things" because it was the random small trips that made my summer big and exciting. And, it really is the small things in life that make it so entertaining and so enjoyable. I've been SOOOOOO insanely busy lately and haven't had time to blog much, but I think that if I just give a brief synopsis in terms of the "simple things" then it'll make up for many of the blog entries I haven't had the time to write. So, here it is. It's the little things that make the biggest difference.

School:
That one child, that's in everyone's class, the one that makes it hard to sleep at night, is now out of mine. I'm excited for him and so happy to see him placed in a setting that will really benefit him. As I send him off, all I can say is "good luck to ya." But, now that he's gone, it's the little things in the classroom that make me so excited. I don't have to keep one white board marker in my pocket to use at the front and back board. I actually can have all four colored markers on the shelf at my board!!! I actually have a bookcase back, it's not full of blocks, and broken crayons, and ripped papers. (Okay, well it's not all the way back to being mine yet because I haven't had time to organize it yet.) I can have my jar of M&Ms set out now to give to the guided reading groups, like I haven't had a chance to do yet because the candies were locked in the closet for obvious reasons. I can use the projector in my room way more often without being worried it's going to get knocked over. The list goes on and on. And even though these really are all small things, it was SO nice to have the white board markers on the white board.
It was funny. The first day he was gone, all of my lessons ended 5-10 minutes early. It was weird. Oh, the little things.

Energy:
Teacher parent conferences were this week and that meant that I was putting in 12 hour days, no exaggeration. I showed up at 7am and left after 7pm. And it's two nights in a row, and they're Wednesday and Thursday, so we still have to come back and teach on Friday. Who planned it that way? I'm not sure. Anyway, Wednesday night I came home and was absolutely exhausted. I did a little more prep and paid some bills or something, but then went to bed at 9:30 (wasn't able to fall asleep for hours, but that's another story). I was worried because Thursday is the community tutoring that I'm in charge of and so I had to go straight from conferences to that and I was scared I wasn't going to make it, but it turns out that I had so much energy and pep that night. Not only did tutoring go well, but I came home, did some more bill paying or something, and felt the need to go for a run, so I did. Mmmmm.... I think energy is my favorite little thing :o)

Plus, there's an instant energy that comes from it being Friday. So, Thursday, I had all that energy, and then right after my run and shower, I felt a serious drop in energy, which was fine because it was bed time. But again, I couldn't fall asleep. It was hard to wake up for my alarm Friday morning, but as soon as I was up, I was up, and had all the energy I needed (and way more). I talked to Stacey about it at lunch. I asked if she automatically had extra energy on Fridays and she said it had something to do with seeing the end in sight. I loved it. I was way more relaxed with the kids, able to joke around more, and was smiley all day. After working 12 hours two days in a row, with some community tutoring thrown in too, and not being able to fall asleep, I should have been way zombie-ee, but no, I was FULL of energy.

Kids:
The kids are hilarious. I don't usually realize how adorable my students are or appreciate the funny things they say, but Friday my eyes were much more open to their adorableness. Friday was picture day and so I curled my hair to try to look nice for the pictures. On our way to lunch, Abigail comments on how she likes my hair. I thank her for the compliment and then Kristoff adds in that he likes it too and then starts questioning me about how I did it. It was so adorable that he would be so interested in my curling iron :o) And right before all of this, Salvador, my little slow speaker who always has something that he NEEDS to inform me about looks up, and out of the blue asks me if I can do a jumping summer-salt. But he kept walking as he asked me, didn't even wait for an answer, just kept walking. It was pretty funny.

And I'm not going to lie, I really enjoy getting compliments from the 2nd graders. Most of the time, it doesn't even come from the kids in my class. I'll be standing in front of my door, waiting for my class to come in, and the other 2nd grade classes will be coming in and the kids will pass by and say, "I really like you shoes Miss Kerby" or glasses, skirts, shirts, hair, whatever it is, they'll compliment it. It's so adorable- plus, my outfits get complimented so rarely, I'll take it any time I can get it, even if it is from 7 year olds :o)

And the hugs. I get absolutely bombarded at lunch from 3rd graders that I students taught with last year. 3rd graders that weren't even in my class, but had me when we did rotations will run up and give me hugs. It's fun. Although it does make it hard to help my class through the line sometimes when I get a big swarm of them going.

Nature:
One of the things I bragged about in the blog about my new apartment was the view of the lake that I have from my window. I meant to write about this forever ago because it was one of those things that was keeping me sane. There was a period of time when I was just really frustrated and that was just about the only emotion that I was feeling. One day I was driving home and looked out at the lake and realized how lucky I am to have that view. It was what cheered me up on those extra hard days. Unfortunately they are now building a grocery store right across from the complex, and they are working really hard at wiping out my view, but even still, if I take the "longer" way home, I can crest the hill and at least still get that view of the mountains and the lake before getting home. Not the most beautiful site you'll ever see, but it's one of those simple things that warms my heart <3

Service and Family:
I have become very self involved. For real, for the longest time I had NO idea what was happening with anyone in my family (I'm getting a little better now). It wasn't that I was selfish, it was just that school was keeping me very busy and I didn't feel that I had the time to blog, call home, visit cousins, etc. I was doing things for other people (my students) but I didn't really feel great that all I knew was my life, my stresses. I started going to the temple every week and some amazing things resulted from that service. And I got a calling to be put in charge of a community tutoring program. Oh my gosh, this thing is so much work, but I'm so excited for it. So it is one more stresser, but because I have to reach out to so many people to ask them to help, or ask for ideas, I'm getting more involved with other people's lives. I'm no longer only caught up in my own problems, and I talk to people that aren't 7 :o) And I've gotten better with the family thing too. I made dinner for Eric, Ryan, and Jon and it was great to have them over and visit. Then Dana and Josh came up and I tried to be very hospitable to them. That same weekend I saw Mom, Dad, Grandma, Roman, Isaac, and Aaron and spent time with them (although I do need work with the boys because I was mean aunt Brooke that trip and that's not alright with me).

Ah.... for real. Life is hard, and that's why I'm so grateful to be reminded of all the little things in life that make it easier to keep going.