What's My Middle Name?

Toward the end of the school year, most of the kids in my class had figured out that they all have middle names. Some could tell me what it was, some could even write it down, and some could even spell it right. :) During the last week of school, I told the class that my middle name started with the letter "R."

(Now, my dad gave away my first name when he came into my classroom to visit for the first time. He walked in the door and said, "Hi, Sarah!"

And all the kids turned and stared at me and said, "Your name is SARAH?!" They seemed shocked to learn that I had a name other than "Mrs. Cook." )

After telling them the first letter, there came a barrage of names shouted at me. They kept guessing all day long and I started writing them down -mostly because a bunch of them kept asking the same name and mostly because I didn't want to forget some of their outrageous guesses!

Guess Mrs. Cook's Middle Name:

Renee
Riley
Rye
Rhonda
Rhondo
Ron
Rodney
Robin Hood -hmmmm
Romo
Read Meat - Really?!
Rock
Rose
Rosebush
Rocketship - somebody must have had outer space on the brain
Red Cardinal
Red
Rudolph - apparently my nose is a little red...
Rhona
Rommate
Reccos (because that's soccer spelled backwards)
Reese
Reginald - very handsome, don't you think?
Roger
Razor
Rex
Rosabelle
Robery
Robby
Rocko
Droid - yes, I know this one doesn't start with an R but if you knew the boy, you would understand :)


Any more guesses out there?


Love,

Sarah R.

Fall

Well, a whole bunch of things happened this past week.

1. The leaves are turning colors and are in their prime. The weather has been gorgeously sunny and warm which makes it so much easier to enjoy them.

2. I picked a few pumpkins and squash from the garden at the farm. One little pumpkin went to my co-worker and friend for her son's first birthday! The others are on our front steps for decoration. Can't wait to pick some more and carve them! I also took a few pictures of my mother-in-laws squash. They are HUGE! I forget what they're called, but they're ginormous and look like a goose body with a long neck. Apparently you can use them for things similar to what you would do with pumpkins. I'll have to experiment. If I can find one small enough to fit in my oven that is...

3. The monarch chrysalis in my classroom finally "hatched" and the butterfly came out! It was hanging on a file cabinet drying out its wings when I arrived around 7:15 on Tuesday. I borrowed a big butterfly net/cage thing from one of the second grade teachers, added so sticks, and soaked a napkin in apple juice to feed the new butterfly. The kids loved stopping to look at it during the day. Around 2:45 we went out to the playground to set it free. This was the most nerve racking part because sometimes when you toss the butterfly in the air, it falls straight back to the ground... I warned the kids about this then told them to back away if it fell. So, I took a deep breath and tossed the little guy up into the air and away he flew! It was SO COOL! The kids chased it waving and yelling, "Goodbye, butterfly!" I wish I had my camera there that day. Seeing the whole transformation from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly was a fabulous reminder of how cool and awesome God is. With every change that happened, I was amazed at the creativity of God and his power over creation.

4. I took my students out to the Reading Garden this week. The Reading Garden is a grassy area just outside my classroom with picnic tables, benches, and huge sunflowers. They took a stuffed animal outside to read to however I'm not sure how much reading got done. They were so distracted by dewey grass, hot sun, and bees buzzing around the flowers that they did more talking than reading. Oh well. I'm trying. Here's a few pictures:

5. Friday night was the Homecoming parade and football game for Big Rapids High School. A couple good high school friends met me at the parade. Zach met up with us for dinner at Pizzeria Vivo (a relatively new restaurant in town that was a house they converted into an italian restaurant). The pizza was delicious. Whitney & I split a pesto garden vegetable pizza while Eric & Zach split an all meat pizza. Then it was off to the football game. Which unfortunately was not much fun to watch since we got blown out of the water.... We played the "Bay City John Glenn Bobcats" and that's how the announcer said their name every time over the loudspeaker. The whole name. All words. City. School. And mascot. Instead of, "The fumble was recovered by the Bobcats," or "The ball is on the Bobcat 34 yard line, " he said, "The fumble was recovered by the Bay City John Glenn Bobcats!" and "The ball is on the Bay City John Glenn Bobcats 34 yard line!" It was one of the only humorous things about that game.

6. Zach and I took the Trinity Fellowship membership class Saturday. It was scheduled to be from 9AM-4PM and we thought, "No way it will actually go until 4. We'll probably get done around 2:30-3:00." Oh no. It went all the way to 4. Zach was starting to get antsy because he's got another field of soybeans left to harvest and the weather was beautiful yesterday. We finished the class and he zipped off to the field. I ran errands around town and stopped in my classroom real quick to bring some stuff home to work on. I didn't feel like working there after being in a meeting all day. On my drive home, I saw a bunch of little kids standing on the edge of the field watching Zach drive the combine. They live across the street from the field and saw him working yesterday and asked for a ride but he was done for the evening. He told them to come back the next day and they did! Zach said they rode 4 rounds with him and kept asking questions but something wasn't working right on the combine so Zach was trying to figure that out and answer all their questions (all 3 of them packed in there with him at once!). He did manage to find out that they attend Crossroads (where I teach) but when I asked him what their names were, he said he didn't know. He never asked. :) Oh, Farmerboy.

7. I made Pumpkin Monkey Bread yesterday and it was DELICIOUS! It took nearly 3 hours to make because I had to let the dough rise twice (an hour each time). The best part was when it was baking in the oven and the whole house smelled like pumpkin and cinnamon! It turned out well, besides that it fell apart a bit when I turned it out onto a tray... It was 9:00PM by the time it was done and I got to eat some but it was so worth it! Full post on this yummy fall treat to come.

A little bit of life

Hmmm. Where shall I start? We've moved and just got internet installed in our house today. :) We're connected once again! I actually kind of liked NOT having internet access for a bit. It gave me time for other things like organizing a messy new house and reading a book for fun. Anywhoooooo.

School is still crazy. As in, I’m going crazy. That’s all I have to say about that. My voice is still gone and the strain has moved into a sore throat. This should be interesting since I’m singing at church this Sunday and next…

My class

My fingernail is on the brink of ripping off. It’s hanging on by a thread and I keep snagging it on things. I can’t find any band-aids in our house since we moved, so I’ll just keep snagging it until it falls off or I find a band-aid. Oh well.

Oh yeah. Did I mention we moved!? I’m loving the new house! I never realized how much I missed having a carpeted house until I moving in here. It’s so much more cozy. On Saturday, both sets of parents plus some Thorne siblings (my brothers) came and helped us move our things. Thankfully we only moved about 8 miles so we didn’t really pack anything in boxes... We literally threw everything into vehicles and hoped it didn’t break on the ridiculousy bumpy, pot-hole ridden road! Now the unpacking and putting away process begins. Ugh. The master bedroom is mostly set up as well as the living room and kitchen. The decorating will come but for now, it’s livable. I'll try to post a few pictures of the house. It just takes awhile for them to upload....

Zach has already been installing and fixing things around here. He installed new wall sconces in the kitchen, a new ceiling fan in the living room, track lighting in the master closet, and soon a new ceiling fan in the master bedroom. Eventually we’re going to put drop down lights over the island in the kitchen to replace the huge florescent light. Other than a few lighting changes, not much needs to be done. The house was built only 4ish years ago.

What else is fairly new? Hmmm. We had goose for dinner last week. I had run out of ideas and time one morning so I asked Zach to throw a few goose breasts into the crock pot with potatoes and carrots and it was great! It tasted just like roast beef. I wish I had taken a picture but we were so hungry that it didn’t last very long. We tried making goose once before on the grill, but it was awful ---so tough and gamey. The crock pot did wonders to tenderize it. As long as we have guns and geese, at least we won’t starve. J

In other small town news, we went out to my parents’ property and “shot skeet” (a.ka. shot clay pigeons) with Rachel & Jared and some of their friends. First of all, a clay pigeon is not even shaped like a pigeon. Why they gave it that name, I have no idea. It’s a thin clay disk, kind of like a tiny Frisbee and it’s painted bright orange. You put the clay pigeon into a thrower that releases the clay into the air when you pull a cord. Anyways, I’m getting off track.

Several interesting things happened out there. 1. My parents’ dog caught and killed a rabbit. We took it away from her and put it in the truck bed only to stare in horror as a giant grub/parasite/worm thing burrowed its way out of the rabbit’s body. It was sick. Like, make you gag sick. When it finally wiggled its fat, grubby body out of the rabbit, Zach squished it. Yuck. I don’t want to think about it anymore. 2. I kicked butt at a shooting game called “Annie Oakley.” Five people line up behind the clay pigeon thrower. The first person in line says, “Pull” (that’s the signal to release the clay pigeon) The first person in line gets first shot at the clay. If the 1^st person misses, the 2^nd gets a shot, then 3^rd, etc. If you are shooter #1 and hit the clay, you go to the end of the line and the next person gets first shot. If you miss and the person after you hits it, you’re out. Or, if you hit the clay and then the person after you hits a piece of the one you hit before it hits the ground, you’re out. It’s kind of like the game Lightning in basketball. This is what we do for fun in the sticks

I won. J It was great. Plus it’s a great stress reliever to pull the trigger and watch the clay smash into tiny bits. You really should try it if you ever get the chance.

It's homecoming week at CCA. Justin has a soccer game Friday night at 7pm and Travis has a football game on Saturday at 1pm. Here's a picture from Travis' last home game and Justin's.

To conclude this long and random and boring post, I’ll leave you with a laugh courtesy of the students in my class.

------------------------------------------

Me: (talking about past, present, and future) What do you want to do in the future when you are grown up? Some people go to college, some people get jobs, some people go into the military, and some people decide to get married and have a family.

Student: *under his breath* Forget the getting married part…

----------------------------

Me: D, what do you want to be or do in the future?

D: Ummm. I don’t know. Can you come back to me?

Me: Uh, no. You’re the only person who hasn't answered yet.

D: Okay. Ummmmmmm. Ummmmmmm. I KNOW! In the future, I’ll get a real sword and become a THUNDERCAT! *raises hands into the air emphatically

--------------------------

Me: J, in the future, what do you want to do or be?

J: A zombie killer! *does an machine gun shooting motion with his hands

--------------------------

Me: What do you want to do or be in the future?

Student 1: Nothing.

Me: Nothing?

Student 1: Nothing.

Me: You want to sit on the couch and do nothing?

Student 1: And watch TV.

Student 2: So you want to be lazy?!

-----------------------

Hope you got a laugh out of these guys. It’s hard to keep a straight face when one of these comments come out. :)

Love,

Sarah

Pizza

Friday night I made pizzas for a bunch of hungry boys ---Zach, Jared, and Travis. They had just got done baling and unloading straw at the farm so I fed them when they were done.

meat lovers' supreme: pepperoni, sausage, ham, green pepper

meat lovers': pepperoni, sausage, ham

veggie: green pepper and mushroom

my favorite -- BBQ chicken!: BBQ sauce, chicken, onion

They enjoyed the pizza, oh yeah, and homemade chocolate chip cookies then went their separate ways. Jared had to drive back to GR and Zach took my brother Travis home. Travis fell asleep before they were halfway there. After a 4-way scrimmage that morning and an evening of farm work, I'd be tuckered out too!

Here's a few shots from Travis' scrimmage:

Travis making a run on the QB keeper

Travis looking for the pass

So school is just around the corner and I am not a morning person. This is an unfortunate dilemma because teaching elementary school requires you to get up early every day. It's my job. Ugh. Oh well. I'm thankful for summers off! Anyways, instead of dragging myself through the first few weeks of school because my body is used to sleeping in, I decided to get myself back into the "wake up early" routine last week by going to bed at 11PM and waking up at 7:30AM. That worked fine. My body can handle that. I got up every day without a problem.

Well, this week I moved the bedtime back to 10PM and wake up time to 6:30AM... 10PM bedtime? Check. Get up at 6:30AM? Ummmm, okay, maybe it's more like the "alarm goes off but Sarah doesn't get up" time... I have failed to wake up at 6:30AM the past two mornings. It doesn't help that Zach doesn't have to be anywhere early this week so he wants to just stay in bed and snuggle, plus our bed is SUPER comfortable, plus the cool morning temperature this time of year is perfect for staying in a cozy warm bed with the covers up to my chin. It's really a wonderful time to sleep! However, I've got to get better at it the rest of the week.

Yesterday I didn't go in to my classroom.... I stayed home and made some sweet pickle relish. Which was quite easy. I'm getting in to this "canning" thing. It's so easy and the food lasts much longer. I can't wait to can some peaches in the next few weeks and then make applesauce in the coming months. Fall in Michigan is a wonderful time of year!

Okay. I'm going in to my classroom. It's still quite a wreck. And back to school night is next week. When I meet my students. And they see the classroom. And their parents see the classroom. I've got some work to do!

Love,

Sarah

Cars

My third vehicle died on Monday afternoon. I was driving home with a car full of groceries when I heard a flapping sound then the engine quit... thankfully, I coasted into a nearby parking lot of a Bed and Breakfast/Riding Stable and even more thankfully I had cell phone service so I could make a phone call to Zach. He called Tyler, who came with a pick up truck and towing chain and dragged me home. The serpentine belt went bad which threw off a bunch of other stuff. Zach tried so hard to get it going again when he got home from work until the wee hours of the morning but with no success. He drove me to work yesterday and then my dad drove me home - I felt like I was in high school again! Zach dropped me off again today and then my mom took me to pick up a rental car until we can figure out what to do with the dead car: fix it? Or look for a new (used) one?

Since my second car died back in February-ish we've been looking, and looking, and looking, and looking for a new used car. But there just don't seem to be any around.... We drove to Lansing to look at a car at a dealership, which they were going to hold for us to test drive, and they sold it the night before. No phone call to tell us, "Hey don't bother driving all the way to Lansing because we sold it." Nothing. Zach was not happy about that! It seems like every one we find gets sold before we can get there. Plus with gas prices going up, people want little cars with good gas mileage -which is conveniently what we're looking for too - so prices of smaller used cars have gone up because they're in bigger demand. Oh well. I just keep praying and praying that we find one with low mileage for a cost in our price range. For now I've got a rental car.

School's almost done and I can't wait! The heat is SWELTERING in the elementary building I work in! It's an old building so there's no air conditioning. It's been in the low 90s here the past few days! The temperature only goes up as you go up the floors in the school. Good thing we are DONE on Friday.

I applied for a 1st grade teaching position at CCA. Hopefully I won't have to wait too long before interviews. It'd be nice to know early in the summer so I can start preparing a classroom and my mind! I've already decided my classroom with have a farm theme (it just seems to fit seeing who I'm married to!). I've slowly started to collect things like farm stuffed animals, farm books, baskets, crates, and things like that.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Well, I was off to make dinner when the battery died on my computer then my sister Amy arrived for dinner. So here's the post now that I actually wrote last night.

Sarah