Reason #1

I've decided to start listing reasons of how Bunny is smarter than Olive. This may become a regular on the blog.

Reason #1:

Here's our pup, Bunny, being super cute. If she gets in our bed, she hides at the foot like this hoping you won't kick her out. She believes if she is very still, we'll forget about her and she can sleep there all night.

Olive, on the other hand, insists on squeezing under the covers right in between me and Matt, and licking us in the face until she falls asleep. This will ALWAYS result in Bunny maintaining her post, and Olive getting thrown in the cage. She never learns.

Yumion the Onion

Well, I spent Memorial weekend in the deep south. I'm very sure you are asking yourself "why Vidalia?" I cannot answer this for certain, for I still don't know. However, our original purpose for traveling to this oh-so foreign place was to see Matt's little sister, Kyla, graduate from high school.I must have abandoned all senses when I forgot to take a book with me to read, so in my utter desperation, I searched Matt's grandparents' house for reading material. And I stumbled upon this:


It is an actual book about where Vidalia sweet onions come from. If you have ever been to the Babyland General Hospital in Cleveland, GA (where Cabbage Patch dolls are born) it is equally upsetting and disturbing. The general plot of the story is that a farmer and his wife hear someone screaming under their onion patch, and so they pull and they pull at his "stalk" until a humongous onion with feet and wearing overalls emerges from the soil! He proclaims himself as "Yumion, the Onion Ambassador."

After reading this, I was in hysterics, that someone had actually spent time to write such nonsense, when I was regretfully informed, that the story in fact was true! Yumion the Onion still walks around town to this very day, and remains the head representative of Vidalia Onions.

Sunday afternoon, Matt and I ventured out to go grab some ice cream right outside of Vidalia, as we were returning to town, sure enough, there HE was. Hitch-hiking. Matt threatened to turn around, stop and let him in, but I screamed and cried, so Matt continued driving. I managed to snap this picture as proof right before he flicked us off. They say he's never killed a man, but I'm not so sure.

Indiana Jones

After the party, about 7 of us decided to go to the midnight premier of "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull." Hmmmm......what to say, what to say.....

I have actually never seen the first three of the series, and was surprised to find that this new chapter in the Indiana Jones saga was all about aliens! Much more supernatural than I believe any of us were expecting. We all gave it our ratings when it was over, on a scale from 1-10. The highest I remember hearing was a four, the lowest a 2.

Another facet of the evening, was that my husband, Matt, decided he wanted to dress up (as he does for many popular movie goings). A small few examples of this are: dressing as Johnny Cash for "Walk the Line," and us dressing as Harry Potter and Severus Snape for the Harry Potter movies. Fortunately, I don't think those were documented.

Jason's birthday

Last night we invited our group of friends over, I tend to refer to them as the "Big 12," for Jason's birthday. Bethany provided Tirimisu from Johnny Carrino's, seeing that is Jason's favorite dessert. It was delicious, and as you can see, we had to monitor Melissa when she came close.

Another highlight of the evening was that the guys collaborated and bought Jason a gift certificate to a local tattoo parlor so he can finally get that Captain America shield we all know he wants. No backing out now, Jason!

French 1 Teaching Highlights

Here are most of my hellions. I have 2 level 1 French classes, and they have certainly worn me in for my first year of teaching. I thought I'd share a few of the teaching highlights I've had during these past 9 months. I polled my French 1 classes to find out some of their most memorable moments and here's what we got. (Read on-I saved the best ones for last).

• Playing bocce ball (in French its called Le petanque) outside, which of course I kicked sophomore-tail at!!!


• Making our French silent film for a project....this included fake mustaches, cheesy French accordion music, and slap-stick Charlie Chaplin humor.


• Their Family Tree projects (L'Arbre de famille). This caused me to learn all kinds of interesting family histories and dramas. Plus, you've never seen 16 year olds get so excited about crayons.


• My students taking apart my telephone and strategically hiding all the pieces. (I'm not positive, but this may have been the first time they made me cry...but it's hard to say).


• My students stealing my keys and hiding them inside a lampshade....that took days to recover. (Heads almost rolled for this one).


• One of my students saying that he had never been baptized, because he wasn't Baptist. He's methodist, so he said...."I guess I was just methodized."


• A few of my students calling 911 from my classroom phone. I got in big trouble for that one.


• My most problem/mean student doing everything he could to freak me out...joking about killing me, pointing his hands at me like guns and shooting, staring me down with the utmost hatred in his eyes, etc. One day, I had had enough and during one of our stare downs I burst out laughing, and in front of the entire class I said, "I'm sorry, Joseph, I know you're trying. But you have got to be the most unintimidating person I've ever met." Being the scrawny little underdeveloped 15 year old he is, the entire class roared with laughter. He is still referred to as "unintimidating." Even by students who aren't in my classes. Sure he'll probably come back and shoot me one day, but it was worth it!

And their absolute favorite French class moment:

• Early in the year, I was leaning heavily against my podium when it slipped out from under me. The podium nearly flew across the room, and I (not so gracefully) had a 'cartoon-running-on-something-slippery' kind of moment with my arms flailing about all over the place. Rather than concern, the students' eyes filled with tears from their vigorous laughter. It's a miracle I did not die....of humiliation.

French 2 Teaching highlights

These are the juniors from my French 2 class. Unfortunately I'm missing the seniors because they don't have to come to class the last week of school.

My French 2 class has certainly had its moments, but for the most part been a joy. They are a rouge bunch of juniors and seniors that have a vivid desire to play pranks on me. But I was able to get them back a few times. After polling them about some of their favorite class moments, and adding a few of my own, this is what we came up with.

• Sticking it to the man. Often, being a part of a Christian school, there are many restrictions and controversial topics. One of which was the movie "The Golden Compass," an anti-church novel made movie that was pushed for Children entertainment. Of course the administration had a field day with that one, forbidding faculty and students alike to support this film with our time or money. I was curious what my older students were feeling about this censorship and closed mindedness, so I encouraged in-class discussions, where we pondered these ideas and more. The results were impressive. It really brought out a serious maturity in my students that I hadn't seen before. Some held their ground about not supporting something that they felt was anti-Christian, while others saw it in the theaters to merely broaden their perspectives.


• Our many food days, which we all loved, that included all sorts of French food. Quiche, brioche, pain au chocolat, brie et baguettes, croque monsieurs, et cetera...


• This class loved hearing funny Matt stories, so often we would plot together how we could play some ultimate pranks on my husband. They loved hearing about his irrational fear of midgets, and so the majority of the pranks revolved around obtaining a little person and somehow hiding it in our house.


• Probably my personal favorite French 2 moment was completely fooling my entire class with a little prank website called "Peter Answers." http://www.peteranswers.com/ Seeing that I have access to alot of personal information of my students, i.e. addresses, birthdays, parents and siblings names, not to mention all of the wild conversations I overhear in class, I had these kids really freaked out. The idea behind Peter Answers is that you can ask it any question and the typer disguises the answer inside the question undetected. When this website could tell them what color shirt they were wearing, their parents names and their birthday, they were....needless to say....freaked out.

I have to admit that their highlight of the year was a doozy! They collaborated to prank me good on April Fool's day, and they had great success.

• As many of you know, among many things, I am terrified of masks. Stupidly, I confessed this to my students one day early this year. On April 1, Zach asked to go to the restroom (particularly common for him), and I obliged. And as I innocently walked around the room to check homework, they waited for me to inch closer to the door. Meanwhile, Zach had obtained the mascot head (a creepy looking Wolverine with barred teeth) from administration, who were also somewhat in on this. When I was about 8 feet from the door, the wolverine burst in and grabbed me. I let out a few blood-curdling screams at the top of my lungs, which caused nearly every teacher in this zip code to come running, thinking someone had just been brutally murdered. My students had been prepared, and filmed the entire thing and planned to put it on YouTube. But I was totally the man, and confiscated the camera and deleted the footage. I wasn't about to have that viewed by the world, even though it was pretty funny.

Happy Day Mom!

Happy Mother's Day Mom!!!! I love you! Here's us in front of L'Arc de Triomphe in Paris. One of our many adventures over the years. This one included an Opera singer alarm clock, a crazy spanish soap opera on the plane home, lots of laughs, and fall leaves.

Denial

So Matt always tries to act like our puppies, Bunny and Olive, are some awful sort of burden....but ladies and gents, the proof is right here. When no one is watching... he soaks up his puppy time.

Scooby Doo mansion....as Bethany calls it.

Okay, so apparently my wildest dreams have just come true!!!

I have always dreamed of going to a Murder mystery hotel/ bed & breakfast weekend event, like the one on Saved by the Bell. I totally did not believe they existed. So randomly, out of mere curiosity, I googled it and low and behold there were hundreds of them all over the country!!! I don't think I've ever been this excited about something! I have talked Matt into taking me to one....and soon, but did not think anyone else would really be interested. I'm the nerd that falls asleep reading Agatha Christie murder mysteries every night. But upon informing Melissa of my new found treasure, she also got excited and thought it might be something that her and Anthony would be interested in attending. This news encouraged me to tell the rest of you and give you some information about some of the places I've found.

I know I'm a nerd, and most of you will not be remotely interested in spending any money or your time off on this sort of adventure.....but if you find yourself intrigued....awesome! Join us!

Vampires

Just to get things rolling...I'll go ahead and give you a glimpse of life with Matt.

So I had a nightmare the other night...this is the child in me...and it was about scary vampires! The scariest of which was like this little kid/midget vampire that for some reason had a slit throat and was named "little Joey" (I know...morbid. But I'm guessing this was after seeing LOST when the doctor washed ashore with his throat slit). And in my dream I was having a conversation with Joey and that's pretty much the whole dream. However, I have been on my toes ever since and cautiously creeping around corners, sleeping with one eye opened, and opening cracked closets....just to be safe.

Many of you saw me recently RUN out of the movie theater while watching "I am Legend." This is the kind of irrationality we're dealing with.

I told Matt about my recent fears, and rather than comfort me, he decides to have some fun. So now he randomly gives me the crazy eye and talks like he's a vampire. This new past time also includes chasing me around the house and acting like he's going to bite me! This usually results in me running in circles in the kitchen until I hit the island, hiding for extended periods of time, freaking out in general, and pinching the crap out of Matt anytime he comes near me as a precaution (pinching is my default defense mechanism).

Eventually, this "little Joey" will die down and be replaced by another weird figment of my imagination that Matt decides to embellish.

Here I am world!

So I'm hopping on the blog-train:

1) Because I'm bored at school while my students are in an assembly.
2) Because it might be a good idea to document the craziness that is Matt Moore
& 3) Because now my family and friends can have a window into my daily life.

I have 7 (yes....SEVEN) days left of teaching for the year! I have agreed to come back next year, so we'll see how that goes. As much as I love toning up my French on a daily basis, I'm not sure that teaching is for me....well at least not high schoolers. They can be rotten.

So, here I am world....watch out.