It's been awhile...

so obviously a lot has happened.  But, to spare you of hours of reading about not that much I'll fill you in on the latest two excitements.


#1
Setting: Room 103
Plot: Girl leaves class for Texas. New girl student is going to come.  New girl student is a no show, but in her place new boy is assigned to our room instead.  Mother of this boy informs that there are some behavior issues. 
CT: It's okay, we have lots of issues in our room
(new boy enters room)
CT: (whispering to other teacher) Maybe we don't have issues quite like this!
So, if you got my little story, we got a new student today.  His scores were very low and he didn't listen much if at all.  In short it was a long day.  I have to keep thinking that this is just another challenge we'll have to overcome and it will make me a better teacher.  Let me tell you one thing though...my little hometown Byron school has got nothing on this school!!


#2
Back up a little to Saturday...We (Patrick and I) had our food tasting for our reception.  We brought our moms along too for some more advice and taste buds.  People train for a lot of things, marathon, olympics, ect, but I didn't know that you really should train before going to a food tasting.  We ate for 3 hours straight.  People... 3 HOURS!!!! 12 appetizers, 3 salads, 12 main courses, and bread. The craziest part is that when we got home Patrick ate a huge bowl of ice cream right when we walked in the door. Apparently he needed something sweet.  I however needed a bed (and a bucket just in case).   Good news of this marathon of food is that no matter what we end up or what our lovely guests choose to have as their dinner, it will be fantastic! 145 days...pretty soon to be 144.  I'm getting more and more excited as each day passes.


I hope you're having a lovely start to your week and keep safe from all the snow about to fall if you're in MN!!

DUH! What else would one do with an orange seed?

I go to pick up the kiddos from lunch yesterday.  I notice the kids are having oranges as their fruit for lunch.  These are not the simple oranges from a can, but real legit oranges so the smell has filled the lunch room and the hallway.  I'm standing there just trying to get a feel of how many students are done and boy "J" says to me....

"Ms. Shupert, I got an orange seed."  (He puts the seed in my face to make sure I get a good look.)  "I'm going home and going to plant my seed and grow myselft an orange tree."

Ahh I just about died right there in the lunch room.  I gotta give the kid credit for having high hopes...maybe I'll have to come back in a few years and see how that tree is coming along.

Hope you could enjoy a good laugh with me tonight. :)

What a weekend!!

Wow!  This was quite the weekend so obviously I have a lot to share :)  And yes this includes pictures, not just words.  This weekend was the annual KVSC Trivia weekend in St Cloud!  If you recall, this is the precise beginning of Patrick and I's forever (where we got engaged).  Here is a short video that shares a little about Trivia and starts and begin with yours truly!!  VIDEO!! The minute we walked in people started to bring up these wonderful memories again and watch our video all over again.  I have no doubt we have a large group of people excited for our marriage underneath the Stewart Hall building. So Saturday Feb 11 at precisely 6:00 marked our one year of being engaged...I can't believe how fast it has gone.


So a big thing about working the phone bank for Trivia is your phone alias.  As you may have seen, I didn't have one as of Friday night (and Saturday morning) and was asking for help.  None was given on facebook or at Trivia, so I began thinking hard and quick.  Result...what I believe should be the best-phone-bank-name-ever winner.  My name was Who.  Now the best part of this is that when a team is awarded points you read this..."That's ___ Trivia points to team #___  for question ____ from Your alias.  (they need to keep track of who awards the points in case there is a problem) So mine ended with "who."  People would be so confused and tell me their name again and again as I kept repeating "this is who".  Others got it and laughed.  Needless to say I had a lot of fun with it.  Next year Patrick and I decided I need to be "Who?"  because then it will sound more like a question when I say it.  Plus it's always nice to have a returning name.  I just hadn't found one I liked...until NOW!


Another thing you'll notice in the pictures below are the treats I made for Patrick's birthday (the 13th).  Every year I bring something special to celebrate his birthday since it always falls on his birthday weekend.  I can't lie...I spent many many hours making these this year, but it was definitely the talk of the weekend so I guess it was worth it ;)


Alright picture time :)

Clearly I destroyed the kitchen in the cooking process...I had to take a sec to snap a pic because usually I'm really a very neat cook!!! 

Product #1  Cupcake, brownie, and colored frosting

Product #2  Obviously we needed french fries to go with our burgers.  These are simply sugar cookies

Set up at Trivia

Patrick at the phone bank...we weren't very busy when I was snapping these next pictures.

My computer login in screen :)

A small moment when it actually stopped ringing!

You might ask "what is so funny"  The fact that this was about the 10th one I took before we got it!

Yes I can't lie, these are Red Lobster cheddar biscuits and fresh shrimp...phone bankers are treated well and there is NEVER EVER a shortage of food...well except when Red Lobster shows up ;)

We sure had a lot of fun (even if it wasn't as epic as last year).  However, all this fun left me in tears when Patrick had to leave tonight.  Saying good-bye will never get any easier. 160...it will come eventually.  I hope you have a great week!

What better to do...

Than post a blog while you're home sick.  Although it practically killed me, I didn't go to school today and took a sick day to get better instead of just pressing on.  My stomach has been aching since yesterday afternoon and can stop at any time!  Anyway, I thought I would share how wonderful my Saturday was.  I wish I could do it all again!  


3pm we had our first premarital counseling apt.  It went very well and made me get very excited!  At 4:30 we headed straight to the cities.  Yes, this means we went to premarital counseling very dressed up...a little weird, but we had a tight schedule.  We got to Buca di Beppo's 10 minutes before our reservations!! Perfect timing...I think so.  We enjoyed baked ziti and fettuccine alfredo for dinner and then AMAZING cannoli for dessert.  We left a little after 7 and made it to the parking ramp directly across from the Orpheum at 7:30.  Perfect timing again?!...I couldn't believe it myself.  8:10 (10 minutes late due to these women who kept wandering around finding their seat) The Lion King began. It was more amazing than words could ever describe.  Best Christmas present ever?  I just think it might have been one of those.  I can't believe that people were blessed with such talent.  When the show first began I think I lost my breath.  Now, I leave you with a few fun pictures from our night.

Read to go!  After poking Patrick to get a smile

Time to eat!

"Patrick say cheese"

"Now your turn Amanda"

So I meant to take a picture of our beautiful dessert, clearly I turned into a starved beast  and dived in before taking the picture...therefore you get a picture of our empty plates...sorry to disappoint.

Let the show begin!!!

A very nice man offered to take our picture after watching take a few failure attempts ourselves.  Yes my dress was only knee length...thank goodness it wasn't too cold!!

This allowed us to see all the talented people that were in the show that had actually been on Broadway before!

"Tickets please?"...certainly!!  Main floor seating?...Why yes I do believe so!

Where the magic happened...only it was much more exciting than this backdrop.

Okay so this has nothing to do with our wonderful Saturday, but I had to show off my one amazing moment of artistry....please notice the reflection on the piano key.  What can't be seen...the amount of time I spent balancing that ring between the keys!!!!

Have a great week...at least better than mine has began!

172...the clock is still ticking

The clock is still ticking so we're trying to keep checking things off as the days tick down.  As of Friday morning our wedding registry is officially started.  We began at Target.  Patrick typed our information into the computer, which was half his size, to get us started (he finally gave up and got on his knees).  Then, the lady gave us the scanner and said have fun.  We both just kind of looked at each other and said, "where do we began?"  I felt like a tiny ant who just got placed in the middle of ocean. So to say the least the whole registry thing was slightly a little a lot VERY overwhelming!!  After 2 1/2 hours we got a really good start, but gave up and decided we needed some time to think about what we just did and then pick it up again this next weekend.  We did some at Target and quite a lot at Bed Bath & Beyond.  This next weekend we'll finish up those two places and also go to JCPenny.  

Matt had two games this last weekend.  They were quite opposite as they get,  winning by 3 (at one point 7) in one game and losing by 7 in the next.  But...Matthew got a goal!!! It's only his second of the season, but very well deserved.  He's had many assists though which is good for his team, and shows how he's a great team player!

This week is going by dare I say pretty normal so far at school.  I found out on Monday though that my little friend with ringworm was not getting treatment and therefore exposed the entire class, including myself, all of last week.  I can't help but feel itchy all over when I talk about it!  Here's a little list I thought I would share of things I love to go to school for.

• "Bye Ms. Shupert" being shouted from a car as I walk out of school (even though I was just with the girl).
• Giving the very last piece of the puzzle to a child to finish...even though I put together most of the rest.
• A child who tells his mom that school is the place he feels the safest.
• hugs
• hugs
• and bigger hugs

Hope your week is going well :)

Only 3 days?...yeah right!

So due to Monday being a record keeping day for teachers and my usual Fridays off for now, I was with the kids three days this week.  Two of which I was only there for after school.  How much could really happen in those few days?  Well let me attempt to share them...

1. A child suspended (for reasons I can't even write on here)
2. A girl sent home for fleas
3. Phone lost and then found...in the snowbank 
4. Ring worm...hopefully it will stay with the child it's currently latched on to.
5. Birthday celebration with more cupcakes than I have ever seen
6. The circus coming to our classroom

I know the last one sounds crazy, but you can't imagine how much our  room actually seemed like a circus this morning.  The good thing about that...a lot of laughs happen at the circus.  For example, laughing because the tiniest girl in our room is jumping up and down after solving a math problem. Laughing because of the sweet little grin that happens after a student moves up a level in their benchmark books.  Clapping at the end of a really good story and then finally leaving the circus at the end of the day with a perfect picture made with love as a reminder of what I'm missing over the weekend.

So three days not that much?  Well they seemed like quite a lot.  Those sweet little monsters keep me busy, but I love them...even if it's hard at times.  A lot of people tell me they could never be a teacher...I can't even imagine NOT being a teacher.  Guess it's my calling. I hope you're out there living yours, or in the process of getting there like myself :)

Some call it climbing a mountain

The past few days have flown right by with a hockey filled weekend.  Friday Matt got out of school early and the whole bunch of us headed to Anoka for a hockey tournament.  The drive up there seemed to set a bad tone.  I think if someone was watching a movie of my family Friday they would have been screaming at the t.v. to just stay home.  We got a start to our drive a little late.  Once we got on the road and mom started plugging in the address to our hotel, it said it could not be found.  After a nice chat with the hotel, the gps finally found where we were headed.  The roads were also not in the best condition, but we just took it slow just plowed ahead. The closer we got, the more traffic there was.  So imagine as I retell the car situation....traffic, more traffic, bad weather, Matt has to pee,  Matt has to be fed so he has time to digest so he has energy to play,  gps keeps saying we will get there later and later, dad is not concerned about the roads,  mom is part crying, part laughing, and part screaming whilst having heart palpitations. 5:15 approx arrival time.  We had exactly a half hour to do the following: get some food in Matt, unload things into hotel, get Matt to the rink which by the way we don't know the location of.  WE MADE IT ON TIME!!!  I couldn't believe it.  The game however was what you would expect after all this.  Horrible.  I'm not sure if we left our team in traffic, but they were so not with it.  It was like they forgot how to play.  I would like to say I was happy to just get into bed that night, but after mom and dad started snoring I realized I shouldn't have been so excited for that either.  

Luckily when you're climbing a mountain it usually only gets better.  Although they didn't win their game Saturday, it was a nail bitter! I really thought they had it, but they lost by one in a shootout. 

So, after a long night we all got up today and to the rink at 7am.  Yes I said 7am.  I guess when you're playing for the last two places in the tournament they don't really care about how early you have to play.  Good news though....the team showed up!!!! They won 5-1!!  They played the best they have played all season.  It was a good ending to a very long climb.  And although Matt didn't get any goals this weekend, he played a game today worthy of being proud of.  So, now you may have fun looking at a few fun pics of the weekend....ENJOY!

After a long drive...but still upbeat! Ready for some hockey!!

Matt is number 7 in the middle of the ice.  Coming on for warm-ups.

Coaches

Team pow-wow before the start of the game...some good pep talking from their head coach.

Saturday dad did a chuck-a-puck.  Those are Matt's numbers.  Dad didn't do so well, but he had some fun.

Boys playing shinny in the hotel, because clearly a hockey tournament is not enough hockey!

Matt at face-off

Right after their first goal was score today.

Matt ready to go!!

Matt is the one up against the boards, just passed the puck.

YAY DODGE!!! Right after they won!!

I hope everyone had a good weekend.  Here we go again.  Hope you're ready for another week!