"Let's go shake their hawnds"

One of my favorite movies has always been Cool Runnings. The best part of that movie is at the very end when the Germans win the bobsled race and they see the Jamaicans who have just lost (sorry if I just spoiled the ending) and they say "Let's go shake their hands" with their thick German accents. I don't know why I think it is so funny but yesterday we had the perfect opportunity to use that phrase. My family and I went to a Thanksgiving program in Millcreek. We played in their community orchestra and then they had special guest speaker Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf. After the program Elder Uchtdorf hung around to greet people and Clark suggested we "go shake his hawnd". As we were waiting Clark, John and I were double and triple dog daring each other to say something in German to him but since the phrases we know are pretty ridiculous none of us really did except John who threw in a couple of "ja"s into the conversation. Anyway after he shook our hands we walked to the back of the room to pack up and leave but before we did we ran into Elder Uchtdorf again and he said "hi again" and shook my hand again. I know what you are thinking... twice!!!I took this picture right after the incident so everyone can see the hand that touched Elder Uchtdorf's hand twice! It really was a great way to start Thanksgiving Day. Elder Uchtdorf is a spectacular man.The rest of Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. We ate dinner at my mom's house. Clark, John and I made pilgrim hat cookies for table decorations and since we had left over frosting we decided to use it to write our names on our plates.
I think my mom was a little bugged by our immaturity but it sure was fun!

Giving Thanks!

This year I have been feeling extra festive so we have been celebrating Thanksgiving all week long at school. Last Wednesday the school cafeteria was serving a turkey dinner so we decided to push the desks together to make a few long tables and eat lunch in our room. My students weaved some paper together to make festive place mats and they made themselves Indian and Pilgrim headbands. It really was hilarious how much they were getting into it. They even started calling each other "Chief Mose" and writing "Nicole the Pilgrim" on their papers.Since my students were becoming such Thanksgiving aficionados I decided to teach them how to weave with yarn. Our looms were pretty small so the finished product turned out to be more like a weaved coaster. It became a great fast finisher. When they finished their classwork they chose if they wanted to silent read or silent weave. It was great!!

Excitement on Legs

Last Saturday I went to watch Clark shake his thing at BYU Dance Sport. This was a dance competition for kids from about 6 or 7 years old to college age. Clark won a sixth place prize in the novice standard ballroom competition which was impressive considering how many people were dancing in his category. The highlight however was the little kids doing the latin dances. Classic!

Halloween! Halloween!!

One of the reasons I love being an Elementary School Teacher is holidays, especially Halloween! Some of the highlights of today were: the Halloween parade at school, making Witches Brew with my class, eating Irene's English soup and watching the Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D. And as always the thing I love most about Halloween is dressing up. Here are my picks for best costumes this year:
"Off with his heeaad!" This was one of my most favorite costumes (worn by Brittany) mostly I am jealous of her flamingo.
This is our fearless leader (aka Principal) complete with his walkie talkie (in case he needs to call for back-up)!
My class boogie-ing their way through the school parade!
As an added bonus to Halloween festivities here is the gang at our ward Halloween party. (I just wanted to use the phrase "the gang". I don't know why.)

This is Halloween!

I love Halloween! I mean really what's not to love...dressing up, candy, pumpkin treats... yes, yes and yes! Over the years I have taken a fashion to dressing up as someone famous. There has been Steven Tyler, Paula Abdul, Punky Brewster and this year I was Ugly Betty. In the past my costumes have been...good, but this year it was...awesome! I mean, I thought I looked pretty good at our ward Halloween party but then Mandy found this picture and the similarities are uncanny.

Can you tell who is who?

And yes, those are my real eyebrows!!!

Calling all Johns!

After three long torture-ous days my brother John finally opened his mission call. And the winner was......not me (I couldn't be more angry!) anyway I made a video of it so we can re-live the moment over and over and over again. So without much further ado here is John...

In case you missed it, he is going to Hiroshima, Japan!!!
Konichiwa!

"I Like You Because You're Not Right in the Head"

Last night Mandy and I went to the concert of a lifetime...
Morrissey live in a barn!
It was fantastic... the intimate setting... the lyrical genius-ness... and Morrissey took his shirt off twice. Apparently that is his signature move to remove his shirt during the song "Let Me Kiss You". The shirt removal was also appropriately staged because does it while singing:

Close your eyes
and think of someone
you physically admire
and let me kiss you
let me kiss you
But then you open your eyes
and you see someone
that you physically despise (remove shirt)

The best is that his shirt is all sweaty and then he kisses it and throws it to the audience. A fight almost broke out because of it. It was sweeet!

Sure Morrissey is old and a little chubby but his voice and songs are timeless. This was my first time seeing him live and I was glad to do so with the original, ultimate fan Mandy (I know there have been a lot of recent converts but Mandy is still the original and a s she puts it "I know I am not a significant part of his l ife but he is a significant part of mine. I have loved him for 2 decades.") I think that is pretty hard core. I only wish I had seen him 20 years earlier then I would have seen this...

Other concert highlights included the backup boy band or "Boy's club" as Morrissey most likely refers to them. And of course my Morrissey belt buckle which was given to me by Tara... Thank you Tara!