I HAVE A JOB!!!

It's been awhile since I've posted here, but I figured getting a JOB might be a good enough excuse to put down some thoughts! I'll be teaching at Overland High School in Aurora, CO. Go Blazers! What is a blazer anyway? A sport coat? I'll have to find that out. Their (our) colors are Blue White and Green, pretty much the same colors as Caley's team's old kit :) I'll be teaching three sections of Biology and one of Physical Science. I think the bio will be sophomores, and the physical science will be freshman, but that's just a guess. The only step remaining is to get things squared away at the district level; I think they do another background check and make sure they have all my transcripts etc. Then I'll get an employment package in the mail with all the pertinent dates etc! Holy cow!! I'm so excited. This could not be more perfect! I'll be commuting about 45 minutes each way...although with traffic and some construction on the way back it was only 40 minutes, so without traffic early in the morning and later in the evening it shouldn't be too bad. I feel like I have all summer ahead of me now! Trying to find a job was a serious weight on my shoulders, and now all things are possible! I was also really worried that I wouldn't be able to find a job that fufilled the requirements for kstf, but this one does! So relieved, I really didn't want to have to suspend my fellowship for any amount of time.

Other happenings from this summer....

PA trip #1 for KSTF Orientation

Burlington Trip for a week with 6th graders and Caleys family, sans Caley...that was interesting :)

North Carolina Trip for Evolution in the Blue Ridge

Coming up.....

PA trip #2 for Summer meeting

Europe trip? Still have no idea if I'll be able to get over there to visit Caley. He leaves for the Tour at the end of next week, and I don't think I'll be able to go for that, but if he goes to Switzerland in Aug. I might be able to get out!

Getting back into shape...

Lesson planning! Hopefully I can get ahold of someone to give me an idea of their curriculum map etc. Yay!

Photos to come as soon as I can get a micro sd card and reader to get them...I reaaaallly don't feel like emailing every single pic I've taken this summer individually.

Food Dehydrator

http://www.target.com/dp/B0000665TM/ref=cm_reviews_pg3?ie=UTF8&page=3&sortReviews=-votes#communityReviews


I'm thinking about getting this. Thought you should know. Or, if anyone would like to get me an early birthday present, I would like this :) Thanks!

Spring Break 2011

I had the most wonderful Spring Break a few weeks ago! Started out with a few days at home in Durango with the family, then headed south to visit Caroline in New Mexico! From her home in an old monastery, we headed north west to Bluff, UT for some desert camping and hiking. I was sort of sad to come back to the craziness that is student teaching, but the end is so near!! Now I just need to focus on applying to jobs!

Here are some photos! Enjoy!

Photo Highlights

Photos from Christmas! Sadly we didn't get any of Christmas day when the Uncles and Grandma Ruth came over. Quite the relaxing week. It was so awesome to see Caitlin for more than a day, and we basically focused on the food the whole time we were there.

Grandma and her cross word, a morning staple

Christmas morning mimosas by sister chef Caitlin. Our first "adult" Christmas, meaning we had alcohol at most meals :)

Christmas eve Cassidy Family tradition: dinner made entirely out of h'or devours

Grandma in her new Christmas pj's, another Cassidy family tradition: one present opened on Christmas Eve, and it's always a new pair of pajamas!

Our exotic 2010 pajamas, zebra... :)

Traditional Cassidy Family Christmas day breakfast! Mushroom omelets and leftovers from dinner, plus extra special Christmas bread (Norwegian coffee bread) made from Granny's and Gramps' recipe.
One of the few pics of Caley, trimming the tree.

Sisters!

New boots! Gift from Laura, they are super awesome, and I've actually worn them quite a few times :) Just had to get my confidence up to pull them off. :)

Family photo in the back yard, first not-white Christmas in awhile!

Wow, It's Been Awhile

So much life has been lived in the past few months, I don't even know where to begin!

First of all, Caley and I moved to Boulder on the 1st of January, an interesting way to start the New Year. Huge thanks to Erick and Roger for helping us load everything up and even unload it, all in the cold and snow.

Christmas was spent in Durango with my family this year, I was so happy to spend a few days with my sister who amazingly got some extra time off of work! Both Grandmas were in attendance, as well as Uncle Paul and Pat, I feel like I haven't seen them in forever! Talk about a different scene from Caley's family. My extended family all fits nicely around our small dining room table :) We did miss watching the little girls open presents for hours on end though :(



Caley started full time at VeloNews!!! His first full week was kind of crazy...he almost got sent to San Diego permanently! Luckily someone else in the office offered to go in his place, so we get to stay here in Boulder at least until May when the decision will be revisited. Talk about stress, we were kind of at a loss for a few days trying to figure out how we would handle living in two different places for those few months. Thank goodness it worked out! With the current single digit weather, I must say California doesn't sound so bad...

I started student teaching!!! So far it's been pretty good, really stressful and causes me much anxiety. The craziest thing about student teaching is that I'm teaching real students whose academic careers are going to be affected by me, either for good or evil.....hopefully for good, or at least neutral :) I love all my students except for two....and they were so mean to me on Monday!! Gah! I'm not sure what to do, I think the next time the one kid gets out of hand I'm going to give him the option to either sit quietly and be on task, or leave my classroom. If he chooses to go, which I actually think he might, I'm going to have him sit in the science office and if he's not there the whole period I'll mark him absent. :( Ugh, scary, I hate discipline, but this kid is a tough nut, I'm not sure what to do.

I'm excited to start on the next unit in genetics, I'm going to do "development" which means I need to do some studying up, but that was the part I found the most exciting in my intro to genetics class in college, and hopefully I can impart my fascination with the topic to the students.

Other happenings in bullet form:
-Caley went to Tucson for a week, abandoning me in my second week of student teaching. They were there when Gabrielle Giffords was shot, it was a weird emotional week.
-We rode our mtn bikes for the first time in Boulder! It was a beautiful 65 degree, sunny day. I am now more motivated to exercise...but the cold is making me wimpy and keeping me indoors. Maybe tomorrow I'll get back on the wagon.

-We've had two snow days in a row!!!! Loving it!
-The count of high school classmate who are married/engaged/having kids continues to grow. Just sayin. Really nothing implied in that statement...:)


Well, that's about it I guess. I'll post pics from X-mas as soon as I can find the do-hicky that takes photos off of Caley's camera and puts them on my computer :)

I really miss Fort Collins, we haven't had a lot of time to hang out in Boulder, too darn busy, so I'm sure things will improve and we'll find our groove here, but it's so different. #1 major complaint is the attitude of the people that live here. So dang entitled.

The flatirons are sure gorgeous covered in snow though, almost makes up for all the rich assholes :)

First Ski!!!!!!

On Sunday Caley, Nick Frey of Boo Bicycles, and I went up to Happy Jack to do some cross country skiing! It was our first time out on snow this season, and first time ever for Nick! We had an absolute blast! It was warmish, and not too windy, the grooming was awesome, and Nick did great. Usually when we take someone out for their first time, we don't get much skiing in, but Nick was moving along quite well and we ended up getting in a good solid hour fifteen or so. Can't wait to go up again!

Some no poles work:

Epic Thanksgiving Adventure Trip!

Ok, I took pictures this time!! They are all from my crappy camera phone, but you'll get the idea.

Friday the 19th Caley picked me up from work, and we headed south to the airport! Best way to leave town, didn't even stop by the house for a last minute pick up or anything! The trip was very smooth, we both "won" at the security line (no pat downs) and the flight was uneventful. All we had to do was wait for dear Emily to pick us up!

Caley waiting...


That night, Kelly came over for dinner and it was a grand Fort Collins reunion! Next day we headed to the coast for a gorgeous hike through the muddy woods to an overlook of the ocean. Gorgeous day, it was even sunny part of the time!

Caley at the beach


The hike was followed by a delicous picnic in the car, care of the always prepared Emily! Oh man was I ever glad to eat some lunch :)



The rest of our time in Portland was spent hanging out, eating delicious food. Case in point:

The food carts


And the best pizza place I've ever been to!!! We saw it on Anthony Bourdain, and had to check it out. The more than an hour wait was totally worth it!


Soon our time in Portland came to an end, and we headed out on the bus to Salem and family!

Our first bus ride!

There was a crazy guy up front who kept yelling out innappropriate comments...very entertaining!

Aunt Erins new house in Portland is super nice! And it was wonderful to hang out with most of the cousins...only my dear sister was missing, and we missed her terribly :(
The day after Turkey day was a blast! Caley missed out because he caught a flight home to prevent premature death-by-stress with all of his homework and work work. This time of year is really busy at VeloNews. But anyway, the rest of us ventured off into the countryside to taste some wine and visit an olive orchard! We went the long way and took a ferry across the river! The water was really high and it made me a little nervous, but we all made it safely across, whew!

View from our car


And the view from the other side watching Uncle Kevin's car


Jesse at the Methven winery tasting room!



After Methven, we made our way through the twisty and winding hills of Oregon wine country to the most charming inn/herb shop/garden shop/olive orchard I've ever been to (and the only one...). It was incredible! The views were fantastic, and the olive oil was delicious. Aunt Erin and I agree, this would be the perfect place to get married. They have a huge trellis thing in their garden that is covered with flowers in the summer.

Views



The olive press


This beautiful day ended with some coffee and dessert in Portland with Kylie and her friend, and Martha and Lloyd, who just happened to be in town visiting Martha's family for turkey day. Small world.

Uncle Kevin, Meara, and I headed out the next day for the long haul home. Part way through the Columbia River Gorge (which thankfully wasn't as icy as everyone was saying...) was Multonomah Falls. It was breathtaking in the mist, and everything was covered in ice.




We dropped Meara off in Missoula after a tasty Thai dinner, and headed out for Fort Collins. Uncle Kevin was a champ and drove through some really bad snowy and limited visibility conditions late at night. I did quite a bit of the drive myself, but had dry roads, much less stressful. Also, I stopped taking pictures, it was dark, and I was driving or sleeping.

We made it home around 10:30am the next day. Brutal drive. I hope to never do it again.

So that was Thanksgiving break! I didn't post pics of the meal because Caley has a whole album on facebook. You might be able to see it if you paste in this link http://www.facebook.com/caley.fretz?ref=ts#!/album.php?aid=2442845&id=19226249 but I'm not sure what his security settings are.

It was an awesome trip, I'm so glad we went! I think it was really special for Aunt Erin to have us all out there this year.

-Megan