November 2008

Jen's Brother's Birthday - Downtown Denver

Jen and Josh

Jen and Justin are shuffleboard champs!

Action shot

SQUASH!!!!!!!!

This was our 1st Spaghetti Squash experience!

Erica & Emma came over and visited with Sammie & Sophie

Santa Sammie, and Emma in a sweater

Erica with Sammie & Emma

Sophie is spooning Emma in her pink hoodie

October/November 2008

More happenings for you to enjoy!

November 15, 2008

Mary's first totally solo apple pie!

Golden Gate Canyon State Park
October 22, 2008

Nuggets Game
October 2008

Kira and Ryan Visit
October 25, 2008

Halloween!

August/September 2008

It has been a while, hasn't it! However, we are still here- staying busy and taking lots of pictures. Here are some descriptions of our adventures in August (when we returned from Michigan) and September. They are kind of out of order because I forgot how they get uploaded backwards- sorry!

Fourth of July Trial- near Nederland, Colorado
Labor Day 2008

Sammy fell into a HUGE mud river! He was pretty freaked out at first,
but after that he was still jumping and running as happy as can be!

Mary and Emma, towards the part where Sammy fell in. We hiked up a bit, then there was a pretty flat part, then we went up to the very top to view the glacier.

This is the southern-most glacier in the Rocky Mountains!
It was so beautiful- the color of that pool of water was a sparkling blue/green.

Justin's dad's visit
September 17-19, 2008

Justin and his dad on a trail near their condo in Frasier.
It was so beautiful there, with lots of clear views of Winter Park.

Counting Crows/ Maroon 5 Concert
Mary's 25th Birthday

Michigan State/ Notre Dame Game
Downtown Denver September 2008

Carter was back drinking again- but he definitely beat Mary in the chugging contest!
Mary is losing her touch!

Justin's Mount Shavano Hike 14,229
August 2008

Rockies Game
08/08/08

Justin's mom's Visit
August 2008

Double rainbow driving back from Conifer.

This picture was in the Alpena News!

Michigan trip

Well, we made it back from a wonderful trip to Michigan! We spent about 5 weeks traveling all around Michigan to visit family and friends. Here are some pictures of our trip, and only some of the many videos we took. Hope you enjoy them!


School is starting up for us soon, and we are excited to start another great year. Justin and I are both staying in the same classrooms as last year, and we have already been in to our rooms to get things prepared. Mary will be receiving her SMARTboard sometime in September, and she is very excited about playing with and figuring out the new piece of technology to the school.

Be sure to check out our snapfish pics for a lot more of our trip to Michigan!

Megan pretending to be tired.




James eating ice cream.

Katie eating an ice pop.

Jessica Lynn looking cool.

The whole family.

Justin and Makenna.

A beautiful hike.

Ashley and Aidan with Sammie and Sophie.

Mariposa looking at Uncle Justin.

Ring around the rosie at the Rochester Hills fireworks.




MacDonald family.

Bernadette with Sammie.

Lake Christensen in Ionia.

Dogs jumping.

Dogs howling.

More Summer Pictures

Justin's second 14er--- Mount Shavano
He hiked this with Jen's Uncle George and brother Josh.

A view from the top. Those trees are really 20 feet tall!

Another beautiful view from the top.

Justin at the top.

A view from the first false summit.

Random hike with the puppies.

More hiking with the puppies.

Spring/Early Summer Events

Hi everyone! Well, since our last blog, Justin's computer crashed, erasing all of his lesson plans and pictures!! So, that the main reasons we have been struggling posting pictures! We have some on our camera now, and all we need to do it upload them, which we will do soon. But, I wanted to update you all on what we have been doing this last month or so.

School's out for summer!! School ended well, and, as always, it was so hard to leave the kids! You spend all year with the same kids, that it's hard to leave for the summer. The hardest part is that I know I won't see some of them next year- lots move to another school or another city over the summer. But most of them will be back, so that is good.

A couple of days after school got out, Justin and I taught at a Technology camp for the teachers in our building. Justin taught iPhoto, and I taught Bluetooth tablets. We also attended sessions taught by other teachers, including iMovie, using Word to determine text readability, Comic Life, and instructional movie searches. I didn't really learn anything knew; since I did the Computers for Teacher program this past year, I learned most of those tricks already. But it felt good to help other teachers figure out the programs and how they might be able to use them in the classroom. The exciting part is that since my whole team was there, we are eligible to apply for an iBook cart, which is a cart of 16 laptops for kids to use. It would be just for our team, so we wouldn't have to check it out or wait for it to become available. I am excited, I hope we get it!

Also, in the last days of school, I interviewed for and was offered the math department co-coordinator's position at our school! I am now stepping into a leadership role in the school, and I will be organizing and leading the math department in all types of things, mainly focused on closing the achievement gap. This is an increase in work load for me, but also increased pay!! Woo Hoo!!

What else... Justin just bought a pottery wheel for his classroom, so now he can teach kids how to throw clay. It is very nice, used but it doesn't have that many hours on it. He is very excited to start that at the beginning of next year!

Summer things... we have been having a lot of fun times so far- I have started biking to the gym instead of driving there, which is a nice work out. It is about 9 miles away, so I can bike there, lift some weights, and bike home. I get my cardio AND I get to be outside!!! Yeah! If only I liked running...

As I have been typing a million things, Justin uploaded the pictures! So, here is a nice treat for you!

Justin's Art Show- early May of this year.





Justin with his newest art piece (he has to eat red hots while he does art).

Jam making- I made two batches of canned jam - one strawberry and one triple berry. Then, I had enough strawberries to make one more batch of freezer strawberry jam. Yummmm.

This is why Justin likes it when I make jam...



This is what our dogs do during the day... do we have dogs or cats??


We tried to go for a mountain biking ride, but Justin's bike had some issues...
Then it snowed on us! Here is what it looked like from the car about 5 minutes after the snow was over. Weird... weather changes so fast here!