Christmas 2011

We had a great Christmas this year! Ammon and I were staying at my parent's house (they were out of town for Christmas) as we were packing up our house. Christmas morning we slept in, showered, ate breakfast, got ready for the day, THEN we opened presents. First we looked at our stockings and opened the gifts that Santa left with our stockings. Then we opened presents from under the tree. We noticed that we sort of had a "travel" or "camping" theme this year! Next we went to church where they had a beautiful Christmas program. There were narrators who read the Christmas story from the bible intermixed with musical numbers. When we got home from church, we started getting lunch ready - our first time making a turkey! Mark, Carrie and Amber came over for lunch (we had turkey, potatoes, gravy and stuffing). We opened more presents with them, played a fun new game we got for Christmas (Quirkle) and had a very enjoyable afternoon. A little while after they left, the Powell's came over and we had a fun time talking with them!

We had a wonderful Christmas and were so happy to be able to spend time with family. We are so grateful to have this holiday to remind us of the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ, and of all He has given to us.

Temple Square

The Powell's came into town right before Christmas, and we got to go to Temple Square with them. We had a really fun time! We parked a couple of blocks from Temple Square and rode Trax the rest of the way.

Avri (6 years old) said, "The trees look like they're growing glow in the dark berries!" Sadie (3 years old) said that her favorite part was riding the train. Talmage (5 years old) just talked and talked! We even found out who he's going to get married to! We love spending time with our nieces and nephews, and siblings too :)

Graduation Party

Today we celebrated Ammon graduating from BYU in Manufacturing Engineering. We had a wonderful party, where friends and family were invited to come celebrate with us. It gave us a great opportunity to see friends and family before we move.

I am so so proud of Ammon. I am so grateful to be married to someone who values an education and has worked hard to earn it. Because of Ammon's hard work, he has a job with Caterpillar. I think he deserved a celebration in his honor!



Thank you to all of you who helped us celebrate!

Thanksgiving!

Elise, Ryan, JD and Maia came in town for the week of Thanksgiving! It was so much fun to have them here, we hadn't seen them since...October ;) But it felt like a long time! We spent Thanksgiving at the cabin and enjoyed the retreat! Everyone loved holding, playing with and baby sitting the babies! On Saturday we had our traditional Christmas Breakfast out. It is an Eggett family tradition to go out to eat for breakfast during the Christmas season. It is probably the only time we ever went out to eat for breakfast growing up (and still).

Ammon's Birthday

Ammon's birthday was on Monday this year, and we had a fun time celebrating! On Tuesday night we went to my parent's house and enjoyed a second birthday celebration!

Arizona

Elise and Ryan decided to drive to California for the weekend for Maia and Josh to meet their Great-Grandma Huffaker. My Mom was planning to go too! Because it is so hard to resist a trip to see our niece and nephew, we went with my mom to Arizona! This is an example of why we are loving the combination of Ammon not working or going to school on Fridays, and me only working the days I want to work - we're able to go on weekend vacations whenever we want! In the pictures you'll notice that I refer to MY grandma as Grandma Huffaker, but sometimes I refer to her as Great-Grandma Huffaker (from JD and Maia's perspective) but they're the same people. Same with my mom vs. Grandma Eggett (from JD & Maia's perspective).
Enjoy!

Good Reads

This school year I've been able to do a lot more reading than I've been able to do in the past few years. It's been great! I mostly read Teen Fiction / Young Adult Fiction. So they're an easy read, but they are very good! All of the following books have sucked me into them, most of them to the point I don't want to put down the book!

The Compound
By S.A. Bodeen
This book won a Utah book award.
In a burst of panic about a nuclear attack, nine-year-old Eli, his sisters, and his parents move into an underground bunker built by Eli's billionaire father. It's an enormous complex, with rooms similar to those in the family's Seattle mansion. Only his grandmother and twin brother don't make it in. The first ix years of the planned 15 have been fairly routine, but now some food has spoiled, and certain things just don't seem right, or even possible. Eli is starting to have doubts about his father's motives, explanations and sanity.





The Chosen One
By Carol Lynch Williams
This book won a Utah book award
13-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated community without questioning the fact that her father has three wives and she has twenty brothers and sisters, with two more on the way. That is, without questioning them much - - if you don't count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with Joshua, the boy she hopes to choose herself instead of having a man chosen for her. But when the Prophet decrees that she must marry her sixty-year-old uncle - who already has six wives - Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family forever.





The Trolls
By Polly Horvath
National Book Award Finalist
Ten-year-old Melissa, 8-year-old Amanda, and 6-year-old Frank know nothing of their aunt, except that every year she sends a Christmas card from Vancouver Island with a picture of a moose with tree lights strung on it. Still, it doesn't take long for the children to warm up to her, this unusual, beehive-sporting, sparkly-eyed woman who lets them draw monsters with her eyeliner, uses string beans as walrus tusks at dinner, and tells extraordinary stories about her family history, all of which she insists are true, even the ones about the trolls. This story tells about the time kids get to spend with their aunt while their parents are away on a vacation.



When You Reach Me
By Rebecca Stead
Newberry Medal Award
This book kept my mom and I guessing until the very end!
Miranda has lost her best friend, Sal, who lives in her apartment building. One day, while the two of them were walking home from school, a neighborhood kid named Marcus punches Sal, and from that day on Sal just seemed to drift away: he no longer waits to walk with Maranda, and he refuses even to look at her when they bump into each other. In the confusing void left by Sal, Miranda strikes up new friendships with Ammemarie - who was recently ditched by her sometimes snotty best friend Julia - and Colin, :this short kid who seemed to end up in my class every year." One day Miranda finds her apartment mysteriously unlocked after school, and the spare key missing from its hiding spot, unnerving both her and her mother. Shortly thereafter Miranda starts receiving a mysterious notes. The notes set her a mystery to unravel: Who is sending the notes? What kind of trip is the sender planning to take? Which of Miranda's friends will be saved? And from what? These and other questions, along with the rift between Miranda and Sal, drive the story forward.



Among the Hidden
By Margaret Haddix
Luke has never been to school. He's never had a birthday party, or gone to a friend's house for an overnight. In fact, Luke has never had a friend. Luke is one of the shadow children, a third child forbidden by the Population Police. He's lived his entire life in hiding, and now, with a new housing development replacing the woods next to his family's farm, he is no longer even allowed to go outside. Then, one day Luke sees a girl's face in the window of a house where he knows two other children already live. Finally, he's met a shadow child like himself. Jen is willing to risk everything to come out of the shadows - does Luke dare to become involved in her dangerous plan? Can he afford not to?

Moab Anniversary Trip

For our 1 year anniversary, we decided to do something that we might not have the chance to do again since we'll be moving soon. So we went to Moab to do mountain biking and hiking!

We left on Friday morning and drove to Moab. We went and set up our campsite then went on a hike. That night we went to a really nice BBQ restaurant called The Blu Pig.

Saturday morning we woke up, ate breakfast, packed lunches, then went to Slicrock where we did some mountain biking. Then we went on Morning Glory Bridge hike. The last physically exerting activity was mountain biking Gemini Bridges. After that we were so exhausted! We went to Pizza Hut to eat dinner. Last, we went and sat in the hot tubs at our campground.

On Sunday we woke up, ate breakfast, packed lunches, packed up camp, then drove to Arches National Park. We enjoyed driving and looking at all the pretty scenery, and hiking to Delicate Arch. Then we drove home.

It was a fantastic vacation. I loved learning how to mountain bike and Ammon loved getting one more Moab trip in before we move!

Silver Lake

Over Labor Day weekend, my parents, Ammon and I went up to our cabin and spent the night. While up there, we hiked Silver Lake. We had tried to do this in late June, but there was too much snow melt (the river was very flooded) and we heard there was snow to hike through, so we didn't make it all the way. Anyways, we had a fun time hiking it!

In the mail

Today I got the cutest letter in the mail. I have to say, I have THE CUTEST 6 year old niece EVER! Thank you Avri for sending me a letter in the mail, I loved it! Watch the mail for something in return!

From Avri Letter

From Avri Letter

Dear Aunt Alli
You are the best aunt ever! I love you very much! I miss you very much!
I am so excited that you're moving here!
I'll be so happy when you get here!
From Avri

Dinner!

The other night I was planning to cook spaghetti for dinner, and I wasn't too jazzed about it. Spaghetti is good, but nothing exciting. So, I decided to make it exciting! I made some french bread rolls to go with the spaghetti and made some extra good spaghetti sauce! I just followed the directions to a recipe for the sauce, but added some browned hamburger meat and a little onion to it. The rolls, YUM, they were divine! I thought it might be fun to take some pictures of some of the food I've been making lately, so here they are!

Boating

On Friday we went to a ward camp out. We had a lot of fun! Saturday morning after getting home from the camp out, some friends from our ward, Rob and Matney (kids: Taylor and Jordan), invited us to go out on a boat with them! They also invited Lucus and Daleeta and their daughter, Amy, to come too! It was so much fun playing in Utah Lake and getting to know friends better! When we got out in the middle of the lake, we jumped off the boat and swam around a little. Then we pulled out the wake board and gave that a try. Rob showed us how it's done, then Ammon gave it a whirl. Ammon did pretty good! It only took him a couple of tries before he got up! Next Daleeta then I gave the wake board a try. Neither one of us could get up :( Next was Matney, who got up easily and last was Lucus and was able to get up. All of this was intermittent with jumping off the boat to swim a little! After everyone had their try at the wake board, Ammon put on the water skis and got up on his first try. He did a beautiful job, it looked so easy! Then we pulled out the tubes. Amy and Taylor absolutely loved riding in the tubes with their mommies! Ammon and I took a turn out on the tubes, and Daleeta and Matney went on the tubes without their girls too. Hope you enjoy the fun pictures compliments of Ammon!

2011 Summer Fun!

Since this is our last summer before Ammon gets a "real job" aka career, and only has a certain amount of vacation days, we thought we'd go for an extended vacation this year. We drove to Illinois to see Ammon's parents and sister's family. We told them we would be getting there on Tuesday night, but surprised them after church on Sunday, arriving 2 1/2 days before they expected! We spent that week with the family, enjoying the time we had to grow closer and become reacquainted with each other.

As Ammon and my extended family is growing, we've decided the best way to celebrate our niece's and nephew's birthdays is to take them out to dinner when we see them on summer trips. We took Avri, Talmage and Sadie out to dinner then to the park where we sang happy birthday and ate cup cakes. We were planning on playing at the park with them, but then we found out the county fair was in town. So we met up with Grandma and Grandpa Dietz and had a lot of fun there too!



At the county fair we got to feed goats, camels, and other animals. Then the little kids got to ride on a camel. It was funny, because Mark asked Avri if she wanted to ride it, and she said no. Then Mark asked Talmage, and he said, "Have Sadie ride the camel." I wanted to laugh, it reminded me of those cereal commercials... "Mikey will do it!" Anyways, Sadie rode the camel, which gave Talmage the courage to ride it. After that Sadie and Talmage were going to ride the camel together, when Avri decided that she wanted to ride it too. So the last ride was all three of them on the camel together. Then Carrie, the kids and I rode the carousal. Carrie, Talmage and Sadie on the Farriswheel and Avri rode a motorcycle-go-round. As we were leaving the county fair, we saw a robot. We talked with him, he was pretty cool!


We went on a trip farther east with Kendall and Melissa's family. Our first day we drove to a campground by Kirtland, OH. We spent the night there, then the next morning we woke up and went to Kirtland.


In Kirtland we went to the visitors center where we went on a tour of the LDS church sites, including the Newel K Whitney Store, Saw Mill, and the brick making factory. Then we ate lunch in the shade because it was a wickedly hot day. Last, we went to the Kirtland Temple that the LDS church doesn't own anymore.


On our way back to our campground after being at Kirtland, Ammon had the idea of going swimming in the Lake Erie. So we asked the campground owner for directions to Lake Erie, and he said it was really close. So we bought some dinner and took it to a park by Lake Erie where we ate it before going swimming. It was a spontaneous thing, but a very memorable one!


The next morning we drove to Niagara Falls. We went on the Maid of the Mist. Most everyone really enjoyed it! The falls were beautiful! We also walked a path that took us up by the falls, it felt like a monsoon! After Niagara Falls we drove to our next stop, Palmyra, NY.


We spent the next day in Palmyra. First we went to a printing press that printed the Book of Mormon. Next we went and looked at the 4 corners of churches.


After that we went to the Hill Cumorah to save our seats for the pageant that night, to hike the hill and to go to the Visitor's Center. After that we ate lunch, then Kendall and Melissa took their kids back to our campsite to give their kids a nap, and Ammon and I went to the Palmyra Temple to do initatories.


Next we went to Joseph Smith's home and walked through the Sacred Grove.


We went to dinner to a really good burger place that we found the night before, then went to the Hill Cumorah Pageant. Everyone really enjoyed it. Kendall brought a hot plate and his whirly pop popcorn popper, and we enjoyed very yummy popcorn during the Pageant! Sadie sat on my lap for a little while, and she was so cute. Every time there was a war in the Pageant, she'd look up at me and say, "Somebody is going to die!"


The campsite that we stayed in in Palmyra was almost laughable. When I researched places for us to camp in Palmyra, this one was at the top the list. It was the Wayne County Fairground, and that they opened up for campers during the 2 weeks of the Hill Cumorah Pageant. They said to guarantee a campsite, you needed to mail in a deposit. So I figured that this was a popular place to camp. It was very close to Palmyra sites, and to the Hill Cumorah. So I mailed in the deposit. When we got there, it wasn't much of a campsite. There was nobody there when we finally found it to direct us where to camp, no campsites were marked off, the shower was so small you could barely turn around in it. The bathrooms were old, but clean. It was just interesting. It made us miss our first campsite!

The next day we drove to an Amish community in Wimot, OH. We stayed at a cute Amish Bed and Breakfast. The owners were Amish, but the managers weren't. There were animals in the back yard, chickens and goats that the Amish took care of, except for on Sundays when the manager's family took care of them. That night we ate at an Amish restaurant, then went swimming at the pool.

The next morning, after breakfast, we got to go in the backyard and look at the animals. We had so much fun doing it! After checking out, we went to a cheese factory, then a couple of Amish stores. Then we drove back to Peoria.


A few days after returning to Peoria, we went to Nauvoo for a day trip. Ammon and I went to the Nauvoo Temple with Mark and Carrie to do an endowment session. Then Kendall and Melissa joined us to do some sealings with family names. Next we went out to lunch, and then to the Family Living Center. We got to play and do a bunch of Pioneer activities before we watched the Nauvoo Pageant then drove home to Peoria.


We went on another day trip with Mark and Carrie to Chicago. A friend who went on a mission to Chicago suggested a couple of restaurants to us last year. So we tried one of the restaurants, Giordao's. They have Chicago style, and it was VERY yummy!


We ended up staying in Peoria for about 2 extra weeks to work on a project. Mark and Carrie offered to let us stay in their extra house while we live there. We're 99% sure that is where we'll be living next year, so we started "fixing up" the kitchen. Mark said not to show my parents the pictures of what it looks like now, so that my mom doesn't get nervous about me living there. So I'm not posting those pictures yet. I told my mom what we were doing, and she said that all young married couples live in places that aren't the Hilton. I'm excited to live there, it will be a nice place by the time we move in!

We had a wonderful time on our trip and we are glad that we were able to spend time with family!

Shopping With The Girls

Whenever all of us Eggett girls are together, my mom likes to take us out shopping. Since Elise is in town, all of us girls went shopping, including Maia Jean! We had tons of fun (well, at least most of us)!! Here are the my results :)



Oh ya, about the last picture. Ammon needed a new hat for when we go camping, and while we were at the camping store looking for one, Ammon found some cute girl hats. After trying a few on, we decided I should get one too. I think that hat is very cute, and I like it :) So, although it wasn't bought on the Eggett Girl's Shopping Trip, I thought I'd put up a picture of my new hat too!

Our First Campout

This past weekend, we went on our first campout since we've been married! We went to some ponds about 30 minutes south of us, by Mona. There is a famous rope swing at these ponds. We didn't ever go swimming or go on the rope swing, but we did have a very enjoyable time!

We went camping with some really good friends of ours, Ian and Emma Clouse. We had an awesome time! We even got to try out our campfire grill for the FIRST time! It was AWESOME, it worked so great! We're excited to use it again this coming week for a family BBQ!

Camp Fire Grill

For Ammon's welding class, he decided to make a camp fire grill. It's kind of hard to explain, but basically there will be a main pole that will be hammered into the ground. Then there will be different cooking things that you can put on the pole. Ammon is making a grate/grill, he's also making a griddle, and he ingeniously designed a rotisserie that we will be able to cook small chickens or pineapples on. He got the idea from a picture online, although the online picture didn't have a rotisserie, that was just his genius of a plan!



Yesterday I spent the afternoon and evening working in the shop with Ammon. There always has to be 2 people in the lab, just in case somebody gets hurt, so I was there to protect Ammon ;) While I was using the sandblaster cleaner machine, I realized why women typically don't work in shops like these. How many women clean using dirt? Really!?! Lol. But I had a lot of fun working on this project with Ammon too.

Our Firsts

We had a "first" today, we planted our first garden! We had so much fun! We planted cilantro, zucchini, hot peppers, sweet peppers, green onions and carrots. Our hope is to make home grown salsa this summer (my parents grow lots of tomatoes so we'll use their tomatoes).

I remember as a kid helping plant and weed the garden, it was torture back then, and I'm glad I enjoy a nice good-sized garden now! But I don't think I've ever started a garden. So it was fun learning from Ammon how to prepare the soil, measure and mark off the spots, and label each area.

Civil War Trip

So I finished publishing each day during my trip a while ago, but I had a few "random" pictures that I wanted to add. I finally finished all of it today. Ammon told me that nobody would probably notice since I started the post about a month ago. So I thought I'd make a new post saying that my old post is done :)

Enjoy!

Our First Easter!

We decided that although we don't have any kids, we still wanted to have a traditional Easter celebration. So we bought Easter baskets and the Easter Bunny came!! All growing up, my sisters and I always got a book (or occasionally a movie) from the Easter Bunny. So I was happy to see that Ammon and I have the same Easter Bunny from my childhood, the one who gives books for Easter! Of course the Easter Bunny hid plastic eggs filled with yummy candy, too. The Easter Bunny also left us a big chocolate bunny in our Easter Baskets too! Man, the Easter Bunny sure does love us!

From 2011-04-24 Easter

For my birthday, Mark and Carrie gave me gift money and I bought some decorations for the house with it, including Easter Baskets. Here's the cute door decoration I bought!

From 2011-04-24 Easter

From 2011-04-24 Easter

Allison's Civil War Trip

I want to document my trip, as well as tell everyone about it! I went to Civil War sites over Spring Break! It was an amazing trip, I learned so much, and can only remember some of it!

For the whole time we were back east we had to men traveling with us, one was our "scholar" meaning that he is an expert on the Civil War and was kind of like our personal tour guide at all of the places we went. His name is Matt and he teaches at Dickinson College and is a published author of a book about Abraham Lincoln. Towards the end of the trip, we spend some time at Dickinson College; this college has been around since before the Civil War. It is a very small school, but it was very pretty. It is located in a city called Carlisle. The second man was named John and he was from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. This institute helped to pay for our trip. John was there as our "Institute Staff" meaning that we had a few sessions where he would teach us how to apply what we were learning on the trip to our teaching.

Most of the pictures have explanations, but I'll tell about each day as well.

Sunday, April 10, 2011
Today we left the SLC Airport, with an end destination of Richmond Virginia. We did have a short layover in Atlanta, Georgia.

Monday, April 11, 2011
Today we drove to Petersburg and went to the following sites:
Petersburg National Battlefield Park
The Battle of the Crater (which is inside Petersburg National Battlefield Park)
Grant's Cabin
Pamplin Historical Park

As we were driving through Petersburg National Battlefield Park, there were battlefields ALL OVER! When you looked out the window of the bus, you'd see cannons and battlefields everywhere!



Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Today we stayed in Richmond. We visited:
Tredegar Iron Works
Museum of the Confederacy
Confederacy White House
President Lincoln's Cottage (aka The Soldier's Home)

At Tredegar Iron Works, I got the help in the reenactment of shooting a civil war cannon. I learned a whole lot! It was so much fun!
There are two types of balls:
Explosive (a man named shrapnel came up with it) this ball had a fuse in it, and when the fuse ignited the ball, it would explode, and there was shrapnel inside of it! This one was used for killing people. When the powder bag lit on fire, it would also light the explosive ball. The explosive ball was NOT lit before putting it in the cannon (the cartoons got it wrong!)
A Regular ball was used to cause damage, they didn't really kill many people.

Cannons did NOT have a fuse, again, the cartoons got this wrong. They were more sophisticated than that!
1. You dip the sponge end of the stick into a bucket of water then put it down the shaft of the cannon. Meanwhile, another man has a leather "glove" for his thumb and is holding it over the hole at the base of the cannon shaft. Why stick a wet sponge down the shaft? NOT to clean it! They did it to make sure all the fire was out from the last shot before sticking in the next cannon.
2. You stick a nail type thing (actually it reminded me of a stake you use to hold a tent down) into the hole that was located at the base of the cannon. This would break up the powder bag.
3. Stick the cannon ball in. The man turns the sponge stick around and uses the other end to shove the cannon ball all the way to the back of the cannon shaft.
4. They had this metal cylinder thing, it looked like a straw with a horizontal hole going across it. They stuck the straw shaped cylinder down the hole in the base of the cannon shaft. Then, inside the hole that went horizontally, they stuck a rough metal stick (it reminded me of a drill bit). This rough metal stick was attacked to a string.
5. Pull the string, which pulls the rough metal stick out of the metal straw. Sparks are created, and go down the metal straw, into the powder bag.
6. The powder bag explodes (lights the fuse, if it has an explosive ball in it) and the ball shoots out of the cannon.

At the museum at President Lincoln's Cottage, they had the flag that Abraham Lincoln was wrapped in after he was assassinated. It still had his blood on it! It was amazing to be able to see the flag!



Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Today we went to a civil war era house, called The Tudor Place, however, we weren't able to take pictures inside. After the Tudor Place we went to Ford's Theater. They have a museum in the basement, and then we went into the actual theater, where we watched a short show about what happened the day that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. Next we went to Frederick Douglass's Home. After that we went to the Library of Congress. They had a few big exhibits about the Civil War since it was the 150th anniversary of the start of the war. Unfortunately they only let us walk through, not look at, one of them. The other one was an exhibit about pictures of the common solders in the Civil War. It was pretty cool!



Thursday, April 14, 2010
Today we went to Harper's Ferry and to Antietam National Battlefield. I didn't have any space left on my memory card, so I didn't get any pictures. But don't worry, I bought a new memory card that night!

Here are some things that I learned today:
Antietam was the first battle to have pictures taken of the aftermath and shown in public media.

When we talk about casualties in a war, the word casualties means all men who were killed, wounded, Prisoner of War, etc, NOT just those who died.

Before the battles at Antietam, the Unions were loosing in Virginia and winning along the Mississippi. So the Union was only winning about 50% of the battles.

The first battle at Antietam was one of the bloodies battles in the Civil War. there were 100 casualties PER MINUTE!

Friday, April 15, 2011
Today we went to the Gettysburg National Battlefield and saw the different battlefields. Then we went to David Will's House (really wasn't that interesting), then to the Gettysburg National Park Visitor's Center. There we watched an amazing film about the Battle of Gettysburg. Many of us in our group wanted to buy the movie, but they don't sell the movie. That's a shame because they would make tons of money off it, lots of people would want to buy it! We also went into this exhibit called the Cyclorama, which was a circular room, and they talk about the war. I can't really explain it, but it was AWESOME! If you're ever in Gettysburg, the movie and the Cyclorama are TOTALLY worth the money!!!

That night we went to a Civil War Short Film Festival. They were films that students at Dickinson College made, and they were really good!



Saturday, April 16, 2011
Today we spent the whole day at Dickinson College. We went to a workshop that they were putting on because of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. The workshop was called the House Divided Digital Resource Project Workshop. It was really interesting. We got to go to 2 classes on resources to use in our classroom.

The first class I chose to go to was on the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center. On their website (www.armyheritage.org) they have many things, but what interested me the most is the pictures of soldiers with that soldier's story.

The second class I went to was on the National Archives and Records Administration. On their website (archives.gov) they have a lot of teacher resources, like lesson plans using primary source documents. On another website which you can access through their website (or type in docsteach.org) they have a lot of activites based on primary source documents.

Next, everyone came together and we were taught about the House Divided Project (www.housedivided.dickinson.edu) and the different teaching and student resources found on their website.

After the workshop we went to a place that I can't remember the name of, and it's not on our schedule...but they have stories of soldiers there, museum exhibits, and a huge library full of information about war. It was a pretty cool place as well!

That night we went to listen to a speaker at Dickinson College, whose name is David Blgiht. He's famous for his knowledge on the Civil War. I think he teaches at Yale.

Driving the 30 minutes back to the hotel was very eventful! It was raining SO hard that the road we were supposed to take was closed! So we went down a different road, but it was flooding as well, but we made it through the river of water. But the next stop sign we came to, the bus had problems. I guess the engine had gotten wet when we went through all the water. I don't completely understand, but the RPMs were way to high, even though we were stopped. So we had to sit there for about 30 minutes while the RPMs slowed down. But we finally made it back to our hotel :)

Sunday, April 17, 2011
This morning when we went down to the hotel lobby (with all of our baggage and everything) the bus wasn't there waiting for us like it should have been. It took a few minutes, but eventually we found out that our bus had a flat tire. Because it was Palm Sunday, the bus driver was having a really hard time finding somebody to come fix the tire (we were about 2-3 hours away from where the buses were kept). After calling 16 companies, the bus driver finally found somebody to come fix the tire. But needless to say, we sat in the hotel lobby for about 2 hours.

After we got on the road, we went to Baltimore, where Fort McHenry is. Fort McHenry is famous from the war of 1812, but we still had a great time there! After spending a few hours there, we loaded up on the bus and drove to the airport and came home!



Here are a few random pictures.
This first one has a story behind it...when I was a kid and my family went on vacations where we stayed in a motel, my mom would always make us make the bed so that the maid didn't think we were mess. One morning, I pulled the sheet and blanket up (my idea of making the bed) so that I could sit on it when I put my shoes on. When I stood up, I realized I had made the bed in a hotel. Oh man! So I took a picture so that I could prove to my mom I had done it :) Haha


This next picture is of how they hung pictures in the Civil War days. I thought this was clever! The "baseboard" type stuff next to the ceiling is called a picture rail. This method of hanging pictures created no holes in the wall. Pretty cool, huh!?!




It was a great trip, and I'm so glad I could go on it!

Hatching Chicks

In my 5th grade class we hatched baby chicks a couple of weeks ago. In science we learned about life cycles. The week the we were hatching the chicks we had a discussion about what we had learned. Through the discussion we came up with a script that they used to teach the younger grades about life cycles. I recorded the presentations that we made and took lots of pictures! It was a wonderful experience for my students! The students split into groups of about 10, but each group gave the same presentation.

This fits perfectly into the 5th grade curriculum because they have to know about life cycles, AND they have to be comfortable talking by them selves in front of a group of people.

Cupcakes

In the past week I've made cupcakes twice! And both were sport themed. Once it was for March Madness (GO BYU!!!) and the second time was for my Inter-tube Water Polo intramural team. This reminded me of a couple of summers ago when I was on a Kickball intramural team, and how some friends and I made cupcakes for that occasion too. So I thought I'd post some pictures of my sports themed cakes/cupcakes!

Interesting Discovery

When I was in jr. high and high school I was taught to only put one space after punctuation. I was taught that putting a double space after the period was the wrong and "old" way of doing it and that now the proper way to type was a single space after periods. So that is what I've taught my students. They've all heard me say, and could probably repeat it "if you have to push the space bar more than once, you're doing something wrong!" (this was mostly to make them use the tab key instead of pushing the space bar forever, but it counts for after punctuation too). This week my students have to type a paper at home that we wrote in school. I had two parents today ask me why I was teaching their child to only single space after periods, because they believed that you were supposed to double space. This made we curious. It made me ask myself two question: Which is the correct/proper way of typing, single or double space after punctuation? Who is it that says what is correct?

I didn't find the answer to both questions, but I did find the answer to my first question. I was mostly correct. A single space is the correct way of doing it, but a double space isn't considered wrong, just old fashioned. Here's the information I found as to why:

Two Spaces After a Period--The Old Way
Here's the deal: Most typewriter fonts are what are called monospaced fonts. That means every character takes up the same amount of space. An "i" takes up as much space as an "m," for example. When using a monospaced font, where everything is the same width, it makes sense to type two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence to create a visual break. For that reason, people who learned to type on a typewriter were taught to put two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence.

One Space After a Period--The New Way
But when you're typing on a computer, most fonts are proportional fonts, which means that characters are different widths. An "i" is more narrow than an "m," for example, and putting extra space between sentences doesn't do anything to improve readability.
Notice how in this example, the "i's" and "t" take up much less space in the proportional font than they do in the monospaced font.

Although how many spaces you use is ultimately a style choice, using one space is by far the most widely accepted and logical style.
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/spaces-period-end-of-sentence.aspx



With the introduction of proportional fonts in computers, double sentence spacing became obsolete. These proportional fonts now assign appropriate horizontal space to each character (including punctuation marks), and can modify kerning values to adjust spaces following terminal punctuation, so there is less need to manually increase spacing between sentences. From around 1950, single sentence spacing became standard in books, magazines and newspapers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_spacing

Vocal Point Concert

For Christmas I got 2 tickets to a Vocal Point concert that we went to last night. We went with a bunch of our friends. It was SO much fun! They are a really talented a'capela group who are great at entertaining! They beat box and do all their own everything - song arrangements, choreography, etc! They are a BYU group. Here is a youtube that shows their great entertaining skills:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYU3tSZMLCg

Here's another clip showing them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtGaIVJ0LXs&feature=related

Of course they're so much better in person. But they are just so good!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVSgvoroQkg&feature=related

Anyways, I could youtube them all day and be entertained! I just thought I'd share with you what a fun time we had last night! LIke I said, it's all better when it's professionally recorded or in person! We had a fantastic time!

California

I was able to go to California Friday night to Sunday night for Elise's baby shower. It was so much fun! Elise's best friend, Jen McVeigh, threw the baby shower. It was at one of Elise's old co-workers house, Melanie's house. Elise's sister in law made an adorable cake!

New Violin

So here is the new violin that Allison and I made last Christmas. It turned out really nice.

Allison's Birthday

I had a wonderful birthday weekend! It all started on Friday morning when the secretary at my school brought in a beautiful bouquet of flowers for me from Ammon. So naturally my students and I thought Ammon was at the school. My students convinced me to text him to see. He wasn't there, so we were baffled about how he got the flowers there with a card from our house.

My students were great that day. It helped that they had earned (through good behavior) a class party that day. I spent a lot of time creating a very fun class party based on the TV show "Minute to Win It." The game went great, and we had a fantastic time!

When I went out to my car after school, I found that Ammon had put sticky notes on my window. That's when I KNEW he had to of been at my school! Come to find out, he had brought the flower and decorated my car. But then because of our school's schedule, had waited about an hour to deliver them to my classroom (she waited until all of my students were there instead of just half of them).

Friday night we met up with some friends and went out to dinner to Siagon, our favorite Chinese place. Afterward, everyone came to our house for cake and ice cream.

Saturday was a surprise, Ammon hadn't told me much about what we were doing. That afternoon, Ammon told me he had planned on us going for a bike ride, however, it had snowed the night before, so we couldn't go. On top of that, I was starting to get sick and didn't want to push it. So instead we played a game that Ammon bought me for my birthday (it's called Carcassonne). After he took me out to a late lunch at Olive Garden. Then that night he took me to a play. It was at a play house in Lindon, and it was pretty good.

Sunday night we went to my parent's house for a birthday dinner. We played Carcassonne with my parents as well. We had a great time there!

I had a great weekend, and I definitely have a FANTASTIC husband! Thanks Ammon for a wonderful birthday!!!

Cabin

After getting back from California, we went up to my family's cabin from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning.