McLoud Homecoming

Last Friday was McLoud's Homecoming. As you might expect, Homecoming in a small town is a whole town affair. Each group (like student council, pom, and then all levels of little league, junior high, high school cheer and football) got to decorate a float in accordance with the theme for the parade. This year's theme was "Super Heroes." My girls really wanted to be Avengers, but found out someone else had that already. So then they decided to do Hometown Heroes with a military theme, but found out someone was already doing that. So I suggested doing Hercules and being Greek goddesses with the Zero to Hero song and everything and they loved it! So thats what we did. I rode in the bed of the truck while the girls waved and threw out candy and mardi gras necklaces to people. We had 2 police cars at the head and end of our parade, as well as police cars stopping traffic at the intersections to let us through. Apparently there is one cop that looks like Channing Tatum, but I didn't see him.

We started at the Veterans Park behind the elementary school and drove by the elementary school (where the students and teachers were all out lining the street with bags for their candy). We then continued on through the main street of town, and then finished at the high school and junior high campus, where, again, the students and teachers were all outside watching and cheering. Here are some pictures of our homecoming day. It was about 87 degrees during the parade in October.

This is definitely one of the perks of small town living. Everyone is supportive and excited for the little town parade and lots of kids get to participate. I never had a parade... and if I had, I probably wouldn't have cared. So its fun to experience.

Junior High Cheer had a REAL tank. It was awesome. They're slogan was "Not All Heroes Wear Capes." I have almost all of those girls in my classes. 

8th grade Football - I have a lot of these boys too. They're so fun.

Here's ours! Like the girl riding Pegasus? ;)

 Hercules killing our villain: The Tecumseh Savages (the team we beat later that night)

7th grade Football -  I have a bunch of these boys in my homeroom 

Like the tractor pulling the High School Football boys?

Then that night was the game, but it was a blow out and our dance wasn't that great. But at least it was with the theme - Holding Out for a Hero.

Junior High combined with High School Band for Oklahoma and the National Anthem

Horrible picture of me, but one of my girls was on Homecoming Court

 First game with our new pom poms and they looked AMAZING! So sparkly :)

Earlier that day, though, we had another impromptu monologue, but this time he needed other students to act with him and lots of them were actually willing and excited to participate and did surprisingly well. The boy in the glasses is definitely one of my favorites and reminds me a lot of my brother Aaron.

I love it when they ask if they can do this sort of thing. Its fun to watch them get into it and its a nice break for all of us to enjoy.

Q&A with an OU Dental Student

Yesterday was Blaine's fall break. Yep, one day. A Friday. Which means that the ONLY class on Friday (that people often skip out on anyways) was cancelled, so the students could thoroughly enjoy the Red River Rivalry game (Oklahoma vs. Texas). It's played in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas every year, which is only 3 hours to the south. We really wanted to go but tickets are SUPER expensive, and Texas has really stunk it up this year, so we used that money to buy a puppy and decided we would just go another year before we leave. Whenever I do go, I'd like it to be a close game and an OU win. So now we're watching it on TV and it turns out that TEXAS is winning. COME ON, SOONERS!!!!

Anyways, because Blaine doesn't have any work to do this weekend, I thought I'd use this time to conduct our first 1 on 1 exclusive interview with an OU Dental Student!! So here is an update on Blaine's school. Let me know if you think of any other questions.


1. What classes are you taking?

25 Credits - Biochemistry, Physiology, Oral Radiology, Dental Morphology, Cariology, Principles of Materials Science, Community Dentistry, Communications in Dentistry, Preventative Dentistry, Ethics in Dentistry (a couple of them are not a semester long, though)

2. What has been your favorite class and why?

Morphology (the form of the tooth) - because of the waxing that I get to do.

3. What has been the hardest part of Dental School so far?

Just that it never lets up. You finish one test and you probably have 2 more later that day, and then 3 more later that week. You don't really get very many breaks. Plus, you sit in class from 8-5, and that makes you tired.

4. What has been the best part of Dental School?

Being around the same group of people everyday. You get to know them and realize that you have 55 other people suffering with you.

5. How has the transition been from BYU (a prestigious academic university) to Dental School?

At BYU, my science classes made you read the textbooks but here they provide you the information thats relevant in powerpoints and handouts. I would say, though, that its not any more difficult than BYU, just like three times as much information. In some ways it might even be easier because I've gotten older and wiser.

6. How are you liking Oklahoma?

I like it. I like the weather, I like how laid back people are.

7. Do you ever think about what other Dental Schools would've been like?

Uh, sometimes. But this is one of the better schools and I like the way things are done here.

8. Tell us something about Dental School that you were NOT expecting.

Everyone made it seem like it is SOOOOO hard, but it hasn't seemed like that to me... yet.

9. How has Alayna's job effected you?

It hasn't. Sometimes I wish she was at home so I could come home at lunch or something.

10. When OU plays BYU again, who will you cheer for?

BYU

11. Why?

I don't know

12. How have your grades been?

I've gotten As on every test, quiz, and assignment... except for one... when I got a 52%. :)

Jake

We have talked about the benefits of having a family dog a couple of times, but nothing serious. But then 3 weeks ago as we were leaving the football game on Friday, Blaine said, "Lets get a dog."
From there, the subject escalated rather quickly (as is usually the case for us). We were online a lot doing research, watching videos, and searching for puppies. We even went to the animal shelter one time. Eventually we found a puppy online that lived a little over an hour away from us.

Last Saturday we drove out to Fletcher to see him in a tiny town in a part of Oklahoma we haven't ever seen before. (We even thought we saw some hills slightly resembling mountains). The lady was very nice and was telling us about how she got her 3 golden retrievers and part of the story was that it turned out that both she and the lady she got them from "were the same religion - both LDS. Mormon." So I smiled and said, "Thats funny. So are we." We decided that this was meant to be and she pointed out that we could appreciate that these puppies were "born in the covenant." It was funny.

Anyways, the puppies' dad is average size for a male golden retriever but is very happy and playful and likes to jump up and look at you and dance with you. Their mom is smaller and calmer with such soft, smooth hair. (But I guess that was just due to her pregnancy hormones). So our puppy Jake will be 3 weeks old on Monday and we can take him home when he is 6 weeks old, so the first week of November. We'll probably go visit him tomorrow, though, since he's already bigger and more active than he was last week.

We want to bring him to Montana for Thanksgiving, but I'm worried he'll be too big to fly. I'm going to try anyways and hopefully the airline people will just think he's so cute and not give me any problems during the holiday season. We'll only have had him for about 2 weeks when we leave, and we'll be gone during the day, so I want him to be with us as much as possible and interact with people and get used to traveling and adapting. We'll for sure bring him to Christmas with us, though. He'll be too big to fly, so we'll just drive, but we've been on a TON of road trips in our 4 years of marriage, so thats no big deal.

We are very excited to add him to our family! That's right - add him to our family. We don't want people to think of us as the weird dog people who obsess over it and treat it like their child, because we're not and it's not. Golden retrievers are very smart, gentle, playful dogs and who doesn't want a happy, loving puppy (or person, for that matter) around? And as you all know, we want a baby very much and can't wait for that blessing as well. Once we do have kids, I think our dog will be a friend and a blessing to them as well. In our research, I was amazed by the stories of dogs caring for and helping people with a variety of things like PTSD, anxiety, blindness-- my favorite was of this golden retriever playing with and comforting a little boy with down syndrome. And, have you ever seen Marley and Me? I'm guessing that's probably a pretty accurate account of typical dog owners. (And thats also where I got my "Boca-hantas" joke) Lots of people told us not to get one and some of them had some good points, but we are grown ups and make our own decisions and have our own reasons.

Anyways, now about the name Jake. We thought about a couple of different options but wanted to make it special somehow. The runner-up name was "Boomer," after Boomer Sooner since he's our Oklahoma dog. LOTS of people have dogs named Boomer around here though anyways. So here's the story about why Jake is a sentimental name:

When Blaine was like 7, he wanted a dog SO bad. So his parents got a golden doodle from the pound and he named the dog Jake. But it started to chew on everything, so his parents gave it back pretty soon after that. And the story goes that Blaine prayed for Jake every night until he was in high school, and was so grateful that he got to have a dog for at least a little bit. What a cute boy!

Hopefully we can make the drive out there again tomorrow and come back with some new pictures of how big he's getting!

Our Puppy Jake

More info to come, but here is our new puppy Jake! 

He is almost 2 weeks old and we can take him home at 6 weeks!

Friday Night Off

This past Friday was the first Friday night in a month that I've had off. Usually Fridays are my busiest days - I'm at school from 8-3, then come home from 4-6, and then the game from 7-12. But yesterday I was home free at 3! Our Redskin football team had an away game last night and the band wasn't going, so we didn't go either, since we do not perform at away halftimes and can't do sideline dances without a band. So after school, I came home, painted my nails, and actually laid down and watched TV. Then me and Blaine went to the temple since it was our only opportunity since school has started.

It's a small temple in the parking lot of a stake center. It only has 5-6 sessions a day, and half that on Saturdays. It's out away from the city in a suburb called Yukon and you pass 3 targets, 2 walmarts, and 1000 restaurants to get there. Tonight we did Sealings with a couple of family names from Blaine's grandma.

Unlike Provo, where the temple is packed all the time, there were hardly any people there. I even got a personal escort. There ended up being a couple other people in there with us after they finished their session. One of them was a cute old man who was standing proxy with another older lady--he was my favorite. He asked her, "Are we getting married? Are you going to be my wife?" So she teased back, "you only have to have one wife now."And he said, "Thats ok, I couldn't take on another one anyway." And then one of the couples they sealed was the same husband as the previous couple, but a new wife, so the cute old man smiled and said, "See! I told ya!" :) It was hilarious. We also got to do family sealings, standing proxy as siblings, not just one child at a time. That was cool because we had never done that before. I have, however, stood proxy for someone's mother during their own live sealing of a woman to her parents, and that was pretty special.

Keeping with our fast food friday night tradition, we stopped at Five Guys on the way home from the temple. I wanted to stop at Wich Wich, but by the time we got out of the temple, it was closed. There was a lot of talk about a big storm hitting tonight, so we just got some burgers and headed home. Its coming down pretty strong now, though. Constant lightening, lots of rain, and a couple scary bursts of thunder.

Now for a quick update on McLoud:

-  During 5th and 6th hour, it is me, the head girls basketball coach, and the head boys basketball coach (both of which are boys) with all the junior high boys and girls basketball kids. Once the season gets closer, we'll separate the boys and girls, but for now its pretty laid back. Sometimes it's nice to just hang out and shoot around in the middle of my day, but sometimes I get so bored. I wouldn't say the majority of these girls are too athletically talented, but a few are. Sometimes the coaches just bug the heck out of me, so after complaining to my dad about it, I've learned to just distance myself. But sometimes we do have interesting conversations. They, like everyone else in Oklahoma, is very open about religion. One of them has asked me questions about BYU and being Mormon ever since he found out I was a BYU grad. He's amazed by the honor code and all that, and when I gave him the brief overview of Mormonism like he requested, he was surprised that he agreed with all our basic concepts. When the baseball coach walked into the gym one day and I met him for the first time, the other coaches told him I went to BYU and he said, "Wow! That makes my liberal arts degree from the University of Central Oklahoma look like a booger!" :)

- Apparently, some small towns have houses or housing stipends for their coaches. I thought that was so interesting. The boys coach said that at his last job, he lived in a nice house with lots of land for free directly across the street from the school.

- The basketball coaches told me to call a certain company to get my t-shirts and other random supplies from because they'd send me a free pair of nike shoes. So I did, and my shoes are in the mail!! Not a bad deal :)

- I got us new pom poms for our pom squad and they are so cute! Holographic red and silver!
(new ones on the left. old ones on the right...obviously)

- Recently I was teaching about time management and priorities and planning. We did an activity where I gave them a long list of obligations and tasks and I had them try to schedule their sample week. When I was growing up, we had mutual on Tuesday nights, so one of the tasks on my list was "Youth grou - Tuesday from 7-8:30." They were up in arms!!! They didn't just ask why I put Tuesday, but they demanded that it be changed to Wednesday even though this was just a sample activity. It was a huge deal to them. I tried to explain to them that it didn't matter and that when I was their age I went on Tuesdays, but to no avail. One of my favorite boys put his hand up and said, "Um, Ms. Baker. Here in OKLAHOMA, church is on WEDNESDAYS." (typing it does NOT do it justice)

- We have homeroom everyday where the kids just read and once a week we have a discussion. One of my favorite boys always asks if I can write him a pass to come to my room during homeroom because he doesn't like his homeroom and obviously we likes me. So most of the time, I give in. He reminds me a lot of my brother Aaron - they've even started to look alike. He's the one that walked straight into my room last week and said, "Were you at the game last night? I made a huge interception!" :)