flat tire

Last week I was minding my own business driving to work. I was actually going to be early {a rarity}. Then my car started to make horrendous noises. I was pretty sure I had a flat tire, but I thought I will just make it to work then I will figure it out. {Probably not the brightest idea looking back.... but hey I had never had a flat before!}  I own a 1997 Toyota Camry with over 150,000 miles on it. It is a treasure. You cannot open the driver door from the outside. The passenger window doesn't roll down, but if you do get it down you are going to spend 20 minutes pulling on it to get it back up. Anyways back to the story, I was about to approach a round about when the guy in front of me stopped, got out of his car, and told me I can't drive on that anymore. He even offered to change my tire, but I didn't even know I had a spare! Apparently I did because when James and Adam came to help they put the spare on, and I got there only a few minutes after the kids got started. It could have been way worse! I wanted to document this so I never forgot how lucky/blessed I really was!

So I suck at blogging. I am going to try to pick it up again and pretend I was never gone {for about a year}

This summer was so fun! We went to New York and D.C. We did so many fun things! In New York we saw our first Broadway play, the Newsies. We went to the Statue of Liberty and Elise Island, spent time in Central Park, and walked the Brooklyn Bridge. We also ate at fabulous places such as Gramaldis, Shake Shack, and many many more. In D.C. we spent a lot of time at museums including several Smithsonians, and the Holocaust museum. We saw quite a few (but not all) National monuments, and met our newest niece Elise! (oh and Richard and Sarah too :) )

School has been crazy for both of us! James is VERY busy with full time school, working in his microbiology lab, doing his MCAT prep course, and soccer. I have been very busy with those 6th Graders. I have 13 of the same kids I had last year. They are awesome. My class is relatively small. I have 24 kids. 12 boys, 12 girls. 12 in track 1. 12 in track 2. They are the best! I have been loving my second year teaching. It is so much less stressful and I feel like I enjoy it even more. Here is a picture of me in the 6th grade.

I am on a million committees though. Just to give you an idea I am the student council advisor. I kinda love that. I was on student council in the 6th Grade. I was treasurer. I am on the student recognition committee for the school. I am the skyward, go math, and prevention dimension rep for the school. I am also on the district committee for the new common core. Guys, that's a huge one. I am going to be teaching other 6th grade teachers in the district how to teach the new Language Arts core. At first I was a little discouraged. I thought "Language Arts? Why couldn't they choose me for math?" I feel like I have a really good handle on math, but now I am really excited about it because I am just getting better and better in Language Arts. That one of my favorite parts of my job. You have to keep working and keep getting better and better. You'll never be perfect at it. :) That is all for now.

Oh there is a soccer game this Friday and Saturday if you want to come! There was a game last Friday and James did GREAT!!

Summer Summer!

Summer is finally here! Although it doesn't really feel like summer. It is in fact here. School ended Thursday. I thought I would be sad, but I wasn't AT ALL, a lot of factors went into that. We are in the middle of INSANE construction. I am in a trailer next year (aka I am trailer trash now).  It was very stressful moving in the middle of my teaching. I think it is mostly because I will be moving up with most of the kids into 6th grade. So next year will be tough. I have had a lot of these kids for 3 years. I was a student teacher in 4th grade to them, taught 5th grade last year, and 6th grade next year. Crazy right?

James is STILL in Russia, but having a great time.

I don't really have a summer. I am in meetings all week this week. Then next week I am teaching summer school. I am teaching a 3rd grade/ 4th grade split. My theme is going to be Avengers  (if you have any fantastic suggestions or ideas for me).

That is pretty much what I am doing... I am currently in a meeting right now :) I am such a bad student after being the teacher. It is so bad. I should be a better student after being the teacher. Why is that not the case?

Happy Mother's day!!

To my mom and my mother in law!

It happened...

I have turned into that type of blogger where I blog bi-yearly about stupid updates everyone already knows. The sad part is I don't even know how to change it! I don't know what "interesting" things there are to talk about anymore. So I give a few random updates.

* I am going to be teaching 6th Grade next year at the same school I am at now. Which means, I will move up with a lot of the same kids. Sometimes that's exciting, most times that's exciting, except for the times when it isn't haha. Come on they are 5th Graders. Being 11 is hard. Being a teacher to 11 year olds is hard. Although after being in the upper grades I wouldn't want to be anywhere else! I was considering a 1st grade position and it freaked me out!!! Someone peeing on my floor gives me the eebie geebies (sp?)

*James is currently in Costa Rica with the soccer team. I am really not sure what to do. I ordered Cafe Rio online (during my lunch break) so I could pick it up on my way home. I watched 4 shows (while grading of course... when do I ever just watch a show/movie?): American Idol (x2), Greys, and Vampire Diaries.... and I don't really know what to do now! haha I better figure it out soon James doesn't come back to the states until July! (He'll be in Russia most of the time).

*I don't really mind being by myself. The only thing I don't want to do by myself is teach Sunday School. We teach the 17 year olds. You would think hey you're a teacher you should be better than James at that kind of stuff. The truth is I'm not. Church classes are strongly based on lecture. I am great at coming up with fun creative ways for them to remember, but lecture not so much. I have let the class go in the direction of James's strengths because that is the norm, but I think I am going to change it up. But that also means I need to prepare well if I want to do it differently and I am the only one in the teacher role.

* Sometimes I think I will be the last person I know to have a kid and I am okay with that. I love my 26 kids but I am really happy they go home at 3:30.

What would a blog post be without a picture? I taught my kids order of operations through hopscotch. See I am the creative one, not the lecturer!

Graduation

So I graduated last month.... {minor detail} the more important thing is I GRADUATED! It was so fun to have my family {dad, mom, kendell, lexi and stephen} and some of James's fam {Tami and Paul} come! It was a blast to hang out and to have them there for such a special occasion!

My favorite memory from graduation: some random children ran up to me screaming "Mrs. Bindrup!!!!" Then they hugged me! I have never seen them before in my life. Apparently they go to the school I teach in. Story of my life, every time I go to the grocery store a random 7 year old says "Hi." But at my graduation? I love it!

Babies, babies, babies!

Today will be forever known as baby day (nothing to do with me, of course, not that I don't like babies I just don't want my own.... yet). 2 of my best friends had babies within a few hours of each other! I mean really close friends, they were both bridesmaids at my wedding (... proof to come!) Here is a blast from the past picture of the three of us (plus Anna who is currently on a mission in Texas, well, still in the MTC). This picture had to be Junior High because I still had braces.

Me, Anna- mission, Amanda- baby boy, Whitney- baby girl

First of all in the wee hours of the morning this lovely lady's baby was born.

She named him Jonathan Eric. I can't wait to meet him next month when Amanda Panda and I graduate together! They live out of state, so I couldn't visit today! Isn't he cute?

Then at about 10:30 in the morning this lovely lady had her baby.

She named her Stella Rose. Stella, Whit and I are pictured above. I was lucky enough to have a chance to visit their cute little family at the hospital today. She is beautiful isn't she? Stella and I are going to be best friends while James is it Russia. Whit and I have already planned a ton of baby crafts to do :)

I was just so excited all day today to know my friends have such a wonderful experience, to be able to meet their child for the first time. It is both of their firsts. Such a good day. I am so happy for both of their families!

Russia

This is where James will be May 17 to June 23. This is Moscow State University. He will be there doing research (in a lab- science stuff) with 5 other students from all around the country. George Washington University started this program, so it is not through BYU.  He will be speaking Russian in the lab and everywhere he goes! It is James's perfect niche because his major is Russian and he is doing the pre-med requirements. So now he will go to Russia, speak Russian, while doing sciencey stuff! He is also planning on volunteering at Russian hospitals with his extra time. We are so excited about this opportunity! How awesome is it going to look on med-school applications?

James's time there is completely paid for. They pay for his housing, classes, food, and airfare. Because they pay for his airfare we are also thinking about vacationing in Europe for a week or so. Just because we would only have to pay for my ticket and pay like $100 for him to fly over, his internship will take care of the rest. But it is just a thought right now. We will see if it happens!

and... I'm back! Let's talk about birthdays.

I think this was my 10thish birthday? Let me tell you about my birthdays.... in the past I have had the birthday curse. I'll give you the top 3 not so favorite birthdays.

 I was 16ish here. When I turned 16 I had an awesome party with 100+ people at my house with a monster bounce house like this.  It was awesome. At one point I was in the bounce house. It was kinda crowded, but my friend Sean still decided to do a backflip. He lost control and tried to hold on to the nearest thing to him so he didn't fall on his head. The nearest thing to him was my back pocket. It ripped my back pocket entirely off with the rest of my pants. Awesome. At least I was at my own house and I could change into pants fairly quickly...

When I turned 17 my best friend and boyfriend (not James) threw me a surprise party. Ya I lost my phone that day. When he eventually found me the party was over and everyone was gone. I was 17ish here.

When I turned 19... well... let me just say, everyone was crying by the end of the day. EVERYONE. Enough said. I was 19ish here.

I always thought I had all of these bad birthdays because something good was in store for me. And it was!! Let me tell you about my 23rd birthday....
*James took me to Jamba for breakfast, which is awesome before school. I love it!
I went throughout my morning normally teaching my lessons in the morning. We had track time, went to library, had class meeting, went to recess, had science rotations (I even had a BYU teacher observe me during my science lesson), then it was time for lunch. Then James came to take me out to eat. A little weird because he was supposed to bring it to the school because lunch time is pretty short. But not that big of a deal. Also when I walked my kids down to lunch a lot of them decided not to eat, also weird but not that weird. When I got my stuff and walked down to the car some of my kids were in the office and they fell to the ground when I passed by haha. Now I knew something was up but I did not think it was anything close to what it actually was....
I get back to the school and James and I are walking toward my classroom. There is this string of red heart lights in my window. Super weird. I open the door and turn on the lights. 25 ten-year-olds jump out and scream "Surprise! Happy birthday!" The room was incredible. There were streamers everywhere! Balloons everywhere! And at least 10 huge happy birthday signs some homemade, some not.

After I take in the environment, one of my girls comes over with a huge bouquet of flowers for me. Then I walk over to one of the tables it is covered in food. The table had a giant sheet cake (my favorite chocolate with raspberry filling), chips, cookies, and more.

Then there was a table filled with presents. I found out later my kids' plan. They met during recess for weeks! They chose a boy and girl leader. They had the entire office involved. They even permission from the principal if they could be inside during lunch time and if another teacher could come watch them. When I entered the building the office called my room so the kids knew I was coming. They made sign up sheets to bring certain things. Some kids brought presents. Some kids brought snacks. They even thought of putting tape on the sign up sheet!!! It was so well thought out! First of all look at that team work. They must have an awesome teacher who teaches them all about working in groups (every single day!) Second of all isn't that the sweetest thing you have ever heard of? What ten-year-old thinks of something so thoughtful? Let alone 25 ten-year-olds working together? My kids are the best. EVER.

Here are some of their sweet notes for my birthday. Please ignore spelling, grammar, etc we are working on that!

My 5th graders are obviously the best ever. I couldn't have a better class! One of the administrators at my school told me that one of the girls in my class asked him if he thought the class did too much. The teacher said, "Well it depends do you think you did too much?" She said "No I think I like Mrs. Bindrup more than my mom." Being a teacher is the greatest job ever. It is hard, draining, overwhelming, and super crazy. Every day is an adventure. The hardest and best part are the little people and their not so little personalities. It is funny because everyday I try so hard to help them be the best they can be and try to make them feel important. But in the end they are the ones that make me feel important. So to sum up I am happy I had those crummy birthdays in the past because my 23rd was awesome!
p.s. I wrote this while watching tv.. my main points are there, but the execution not so good haha. Oh well!