Alayna's Fall Break

This past Tuesday - Friday was my fall break. And lucky for me, my fall break was longer than any other teacher I've heard of!! But as with all breaks, it has ended too soon. While most of my students went hunting or to Branson, MO, I stuck around town because Blaine still had school and because we had a football game. But it certainly was a FALL break, because just the day before it was mid-80s and sunny, but for the majority of this week it has been really cold and rainy.

On Tuesday, I met Blaine at school for institute. Every Tuesday during lunch they have institute at the student union and every Wednesday at lunch there is a Baptist equivalent. I miss my religion classes at BYU, so it was nice to be back in that type of environment. There is a senior missionary couple in charge who brings lunch, and then there are different teachers or guest speakers. This week they had Little Caesars pizza, salad, grapes, and cookies. There was a good amount of people - many I recognized from church, plus others in different wards, and a couple of non-member students.

This week, the speaker was from another Edmond ward and was a federal prosecutor from Oklahoma. The lesson was on putting family first, and how being a good husband and father will carry over to help you be a good dentist/doctor and have a good practice. It was good, but the part I liked the most was something he just mentioned on the side. He referenced James E. Faust saying, "Women can have it all, just not all at the same time."

(So I went home and wanted to look up the exact quote, but as it turns out, James E. Faust did give a good talk called, A Message to my Granddaughters: Becoming "Great Women," but the exact quote is actually from Madeleine Albright.)

Anyways, that quote stood out to be because I hadn't thought about it, but I do agree with that for the most part. Usually I have thought, "Its too bad we can only get one go round," meaning that there are several different jobs and situations and lives I think I would really enjoy, but its kind of sad that you can only pick one.

But going along with what THIS quote is saying, I can go to work and be a teacher and a coach, and I can be a "stay at home mom/trophy wife," and whatever else I'd like to be, like a photographer, a Zumba instructor, etc. Just not all at the same time. I've thought about that more since I've been here, because I wouldn't be teaching or coaching if I had a baby right now, and I enjoy my job and it is a fun and unique experience I wouldn't have had otherwise, and many people will never have.

Anyways, after Institute, I went on a little shopping spree with myself :) I got a couple cute new clothes, but I held myself back from getting shoes, but I AM still hoping to go get some new necklaces. Needless to say, that was enjoyable. Usually shopping and spending money makes me SO nervous and I second guess my decisions and fear we'll be broke, but this time I just enjoyed myself and it was nice. (It was also comforting to know that I got paid during fall break!)

On Wednesday, I went to the temple and did my first session all alone. It is a small temple right across the parking lot from a Stake Center. But it's pretty. From there, I stopped for some lunch, took the car to Jiffy Lube, and went to JoAnn Fabrics (with coupon in hand!) to buy material for my Halloween costume. And as it turned out, I got the exact same material that my sister Alivia bought for her costume. We're being Ariel from The Little Mermaid.

We'll skip Thursday and save it for the next post, but Friday was a cleaning and errands day. Blaine studied a lot for his big test this week while I attacked the showers and tubs. I used a homemade concoction that I saw on Pinterest and it actually worked fabulously. Then I made chicken cordon bleu for dinner and it was super delicious. Thats gotta be worked into the rotation more often. We watched the Louisville-UCF game while we ate, and then went to Walmart for a couple of slumber party items - snacks and movies :)

We love movies. We always have. Lots of times we'll bring the mattress of our other bed onto the living room floor and just watch football or movies while we eat our snacks and cuddle :) (You can tell who is writing this, huh) Last night we each chose one from the $5 bin, plus a family one to build our collection. So I chose This Means War, Blaine chose Warrior, and we got all 4 of the Shrek movies. We're building our family library and it's so fun.

Food Drive

As I've mentioned, I was in charge of the Food Drive at school. I made the posters for the hall, wrote an article for the local paper as well as the school newspaper, wrote the announcement for the morning announcements, wrote the script for the automated phone call messages to the parents, and printed off the food drive word searches for each homeroom. The success or failure from there depended on the homeroom teacher and how much attention they gave to it.

Long story short, my class blew everyone out of the water! They brought in a TON of cans and freely donated their own money. The winning homeroom won a pizza party, just like they do every year. But towards the end of the food drive, I am told we have $0 in our activity account. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nothing. But I didn't want to disappoint my class after they had worked so hard and been so generous, so I thought I would just buy it myself out of pocket.

My sweet mommy, however, suggested I call the local pizza places and explain our story and see if they'd be willing to help out. And they were!! Little Caesar's donated 6 free pizzas for my class of 20, and one of the girls in my class (and on my basketball team) brought in a cooler of water bottles for us. So I wrote a big "THANK YOU" on the board and took a picture of all my kids in front of it holding the pizza and then we passed around a thank you card that I drew. So I need to send that to them soon.

We watched Nemo while we ate :)

Then, fun fact, today was our only day of school for the week since the next 4 days are FALL BREAK!! I am soooo excited. I've never had a fall break, let alone a 4 day one. I'm so grateful, I need it. And just like Blaine text me today at 2:52 right before school got out, I deserve it ;)

The bell rang at 3:00 and all the kids were clearing out, when the one LDS girl walked into my room. She had introduced herself once and the 3 LDS kids and I always say hi when we see each other, but thats it since I don't have any of them in my classes. But anyways, she came in and wanted to tell me that she likes how I always dress so nice and look so pretty while being modest, which is nice since most of the time "modesty" usually looks frumpy or ugly. So I thought that was very sweet of her, since its hard to look both pretty and be modest sometimes, especially being tall. What a nice note to start my fall break on :)

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!