Halloween and Emily's Wedding

Emily and Michael got married October 17th and we all got to go out! Loved it! I always love family gatherings. Mike, Christy and Chris.

A sampling of Rice cousins.

Father and mother of the bride! They did a great job.

The happy couple!

Hope you all had a great Halloween! The Wednesday before we had a carving (and eating) party with our neighbors, Liz and Ian. Below are our pumpkins all together.

We took our carved creations to Mom's where we hung out and gave out trick-or-treats to numerous trick-or-treaters. Mom's neighborhood always gets a ton and they are so cute!

Year Numero Dos...

Mid-year is approaching fast and I am in disbelief that I am well-into my second year as a special educator. The year began much more smoothly, as I came up with a stress-free, and hence, better way of arranging service times by way of Post-its. This allowed schedule changes, which happened a lot in the beginning of the year, to be a simple re-positioning of those fantastic sticky-note inventions. Post-its and Expo markers are some of my very favorite, and most-hoarded, office supplies.

I added this picture comparison because look at the left side - that was me at the beginning of last year and then there is this year - I feel like I look way older! It was a stressful first year. I knew the ease that I started the year with would end as soon as SFSU credentialing classes commenced once again. The institution of Level 2's Special Education credentialing proves to be a perpetual thorn in my side; with ever-increasing tuition costs, and a lack of required classes offered. When in one of my two three hour classes after 8 hours of teaching, I fantasise about writing, "These classes are a huge intrusion to the beginning of my teaching career. I would be a better, more sane, teacher without them," on my end of semester evaluation. Rumor has it that SpEd Level Two's will be changing their format to resemble BTSA, which I also have been a part, since I am working on clearing my General Ed credential. I'm hoping and praying that I will have my clear credentials by this next Spring, so that rumor does nothing for me.

Chris is still unemployed, so he's been a great husband and has been taking care of our house more. I come home and everything is done! When he was first out of work, I told one of my fifth graders who said we should have kids now so Chris could stay at home and take care of them. That very student, in whom I poured a lot of effort, never came back this year. Very sad. I was told his father got out of jail and had to be deported. My student was deported with him.

Good morning!

We found a friendly neighborhood black widow near our doorstep this morning - fortunately for us it looked like it had given up the ghost. Smally flicked it around a little to give us the official confirmation of its passing. This is our second run in with the Widow family. When we initially moved to Chico our landlady visited us and smooshed a black widow that was living in our mail box. "I forgot to get that last time I was here" she mentioned in passing, as if it was no big deal. Not scary at all...

Day 12 - Moorpark

Fun with the Burkhardts and Krista!

Day 11 - San Clemente to LA

New Baby at the Hunts!!! Welcome Elijah! We were lucky to score a visit when Wendy just had the little bugger Tuesday.

Next on the ticket was seeing our good friends, the Mehls!

Here's Harper and Addison being adorable as usual.

Addison likes cool shoes - Chris found this particularly picture-worthy.

The Mehls sans Harper.

Harper only wanted to hold Chris' hand on the way to get ice-cream AND on the way back.

Day 10 - San Clemente

We walked from San Clemente Beach to Del Mar and back.

Surfin' Chicken was one of our favorite places to eat.

Here is our hotel - Holiday Inn Express. It was totally renovated and really nice.

We also visited the place we got married: Rancho Capistrano in San Juan Capistrano.

Day 9 & 10 - San Clemente

We regretfully forgot to take pictures of our double date with Francesca we had Wednesday evening. We were nannies together in Switzerland.

Day 8 - Arizona

What is not featured in these pictures is the fact that we also:

- Ran errands for Chris' birthday, which would be a Mexican food feast. Thank you Katie for the pre-dinner 7-layer dip! We are all not very hungry for dinner after that tasty treat. And the Price Domestic Goddesses made a killer apple pie, especially for Chris.

- Made a new flower arrangement for the dining room.

- Christy and Kelsey went to see Jodie at her place of work and went to Target. Weeee!!

That evening Aunt Louise, Jodie and I had a water aerobic session - refreshing and invigorating!

Day 7 - In Arizona with the Prices

Even in extreme heat, we drove to the Cardinal's Stadium (Chris' favorite team), visited the disorientating Botanical Gardens (do not do that in summer - everything is closed inside, like the butterfly exibit and cafes), and then played games with the Price cousins!

Road Trip Day 6 - Grand Canyon Hike and Meteor Crater

-The trail down!

-Strata changes on the way down into the canyon.




-Barringer Meteor Crater, Arizona. A very big hole made to look small by following our Grand Canyon visit.

Road Trip Day 5 - Las Vegas to Grand Canyon

Thunderstorms in the Grand Canyon.

We entered into Arizona, crossed the Hoover Dam (which, I believe was in Transformers 1, right?). We were lucky to be followed by the desert thunderstorms, which cooled things off and provided some shade on our drive. Arriving to the Grand Canyon, is truely breathtaking. I think we would like to return there to hike down to the bottom for a few days. Chris will hopefully post pictures from his hike a few miles into the Canyon. It was on a trail shared by the guided mule rides.

Road Trip Day 4 - Las Vegas

Chris at CircusCircus, a conflict in values, pirate ships, and one lioness at MGM.

Las Vegas was a lot bigger than we were expecting. Finally pulling into MGM Grands' parking structure was like going to the airport. No bell hops or getting registered first before parking - we felt sort of like cattle, cash cows more like. So for the first couple of hours we were not impressed, even though our hotel room was very nice at the MGM.

So we decided to play the slots, the penny slots that is! We figured out that you are offered complimentary drinks whilst playing. With a $1 tip and $1 on the slots, that's a $2 drink - pretty nice! I (Christy) personally liked the pool area, which I didn't get to until around 4pm on Thursday because we walked the Strip for about 3 or 4 hours. This place definitely is a party all the time with tons of people, music playing at all hours. If you want peace and quiet you have to go to your room. Even on my lounge poolside, there was DJ music and I didn't get much reading done. Oh well!

Our favorite slot game was Village People Party! Probably super annoying to the neighboring players, but it you got "Village," "People," "Party" to line up then you got to play another game for bonus points, with little dancing Macho Men!

MGM Grand is huge! All the Casinos were like small cities in the Strip.

The Venetian and Paris looked super cool. I also liked the look of New York, New York with, I think was, the Brooklyn Bridge replica.