Ay Vomito!

That's right. Vomito. I feel this will be the defining quote for my year: Ay Vomito! I did the math, and after today's puker, I have averaged one puker for every 4 days of school. In the words of Ricky Ricardo, ayayayayay.

AY VOMITO!

I really do avoid political conversations...

Take this story the way you want; however, after a long week of work, I had some pretty hillarious conspiracy stories swirling around my head by the time I got home:

I was driving home from work today and two cars, at separate parts of the commute, both merged into me making me slam on my brakes. These two cars had one thing in common. Both had identical "W '04" stickers on the back.

Hmmm...

Wedding frenzy

This weekend was the last of the crazy family wedding frenzy. Our immediate family is now officially all married off, with the next to probably be my niece who is 10 years old. Hopefully we have a while! My brother Scott got married this weekend in a BEAUTIFUL wedding. The weather held off -- it was freezing cold for us bridesmaids but the bride seemed to stay plenty warm and the guests had giant heaters warming them. The ceremony and reception were beautiful and a lot of fun (minus the scary moment of my aunt finding my 87 year old grandma in a side room blue from choking on a piece of chicken -- thankfully some nice man gave her the heimlich twice and she was ok -- scary!). I saw people I hadn't seen since high school and I loved getting to see a bunch of my extended family in from Michigan.

Here is a picture of Chris and I at the reception...

Scott and Betsy during the wedding...

A good time was had by all!

Watch what you say!

I think as adults we don't always think about the fact that kids are going to believe anything and everything we say. I had a kid (one of my more advanced 1st graders) with a mosquito bite raise his hand and tell me "my mom works in the crazy house. She said she got a new patient who got a mosquito bite and she itched it so much that now she's in the crazy house. Make sure you don't itch your mosquito bites too much or it drives you crazy." I don't know if the mom intended for her son to believe this but he believed it with every ounce of his being. It worked, he wouldn't itch his mosquito bites and he would warn others not to, but man did this kid believe that story was true. I wonder what I've said in the past that kids have believed... hmmm...

When it rains, it pours

This has been an interesting weeked (but then again, when is a weekend not interesting to me?).
Last week ended with 4 kids throwing up either in my classroom or in the hall. I was down to 14 kids with the ones who had either puked in class or were already home sick. I spent Friday hoping that I wouldn't be next, and luckily, I've escaped the vomitting wrath so far. I feel sorry for the little ones puking all over, they are so cute and so sad when they get sick. I'm loving my class, they are going to be a fun and entertaining group.
On Friday night, our friends Erik and Michelle got married. It was a beautiful ceremony. They were supposed to get married outside which made me worried when it had been pouring rain all day. Luckily the rain let up and allowed the ceremony to be held outside with only a short delay. They looked very happy and it was all beautiful. I'm very happy for both of them and yes, jealous that they are in Hawaii for the next week. On the way home from the wedding I stopped to get gas in my mom's car while Chris filled up the Element a few gas things down. I got back in the car, saw some creepy guy walking towards the station, instinctually locked the doors (thanks to my drivers' ed teacher who always said to lock the doors even before you put on your seatbelt) and the creepy guy proceded to try to get in my car. He pounded on the window and tried to door handle and I slammed on the gas and squeeled away. I spent the next 30 minutes driving to my parents' house in complete shock. I was scared to death and crying hysterically/hyperventilating the whole way home. I needed Chris but my parents were the ones who sat and calmed me down when I got there. All I needed was a hug, and you can always count on your parents for that. Call me a baby or an overreacter, but it was, by far, one of the scariest moments of my life. I don't know if it was some drunk kid or some creep ball out for a good time, but either way, I thank God for the advice of my drivers ed teacher. That's a first for me, very very very scary and I'm sure it will make me paranoid for a long time.
Yesterday I woke up to pieces of ziplock bag on the floor -- turns out that my lovely golden turbo had decided to eat an entire plastic bag full of stickers. A year or so back, he ate a plastic bag of chocolate chip cookies. Back then, we rushed him to the vet, they made him throw up the bag, and told us that any later and he would've needed surgery. This time I freaked out, took him to the vet, and now he is on a Metamucil diet to make the stickers and bag "slide" through him. Eww. Yesterday was also spent in a marital tiff but ended with a tasty dinner at Pei Wei's near our old apartment. It's owned by P.F. Chang's but is faster and cheaper -- one of my new favorite places to eat. Today I got to use this miraculous floor scrubber contraption to revitalize our nasty kitchen floor. The thing has magical powers -- how it can take our ugly ugly floor and make it actually look decent is beyond me. I've been able to veg on the couch and get some knitting done while watching some cheesy movies that I haven't seen in a while. Next weekend is my brother's wedding and I'm very excited! I'm hoping they get the same weather luck that Erik and Michelle had -- Scott and Betsy's wedding is planned for outside and the weather people are forecasting terrential downpours for three days surrounding the wedding.
I wonder if next weekend will prove to be as interesting as this weekend... hmmm, I sure hope not...

Long weekend, long post

This was a much needed long weekend away from work. The beginning of school is hard, new, fun, but stressful. I'm happy with my cute new class of Kinders and 1st graders. I have some challenging little ones but, on the whole, they are a good group. This new position brings with it much more stress and less flexibility and fun. It's hard to be part of a new program and feel at least partially responsible for its success or failure. I think I'm still too young to feel that stress in my career right now, but I'm running with it and trying to make the best of it. It all comes down to the kids anyway. No matter what I teach, I am partially responsible for their success or failure. Just part of the job and I like that part. Tomorrow I start my new after school tutoring program for a group of five 2nd and 3rd graders in the dual language program. I'm a little nervous about that, but happy to have quit job #2 to be able to do this. Better money and I get to help out kids that really need it instead of kids whose parents can afford to pay $50/hour for a professional tutoring program. In other news...

I went riding with the group on Wednesday. New trail, new friends, great time. Almost decided to divorce Chris after the ride went well into the dark, but luckily I love him and quickly forgave him when he bought me tasty dinner afterwards. Got to meet and ride with Scott's new girlfriend, Melissa. It was refreshing to finally have a girl my speed to ride with and we had a great time. She was a lot of fun and definetely a keeper for Scott.

Me doing my ride/walk/complaining bit at the end...
Me looking a little happier at the beginning of the trail. Deep thoughts, hmmm...
Scott and Dave. Nice glasses Scott, I think those are meant for your eyeballs...

I've been working on some new knitting. Jenny at work graciously taught me how to purl and now I'm making a great ribbed scarf. It's requires much more thinking than a regular knitted scarf but it looks a lot cooler. We're even thinking about starting a monthly knitting group at Starbucks after work. The blurry picture isn't so good but shows the ribbing...


This weekend was relaxing and fun. I had a friend's bachelorette party here Saturday night. It was interesting and fun. I was happy that the stripper didn't show up because I was a little wary of some strange guy stripping in my house. Today we decided to go up to Boulder and ride the mountain bike trail that Chris took me on a few years ago as my first ride in 8 years. Back then, I cried and yelled and couldn't believe he took me on such a horrible trail. This year I had a blast and took some risks and went faster than usual. I thought I was going to eat dirt a few times but stayed up, so that was good. I cruised the 3.2 mile trail in 30 minutes and had a good Chris-and-Marni ride. It's been a while since it's just been the two of us on a trail that challenges me.


Off to another week of school. We have two upcoming weekends of weddings and a bunch of family coming into town in two weeks for my brother's wedding. I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone and getting to know my cousin's almost-hubby. Hopefully this week I'll feel less exhausted than I did the last two weeks or I'll be visiting the doctor to make sure there's nothing physically wrong. Hmmm...