The Walkers

I feel a little guilty about my English teacher preachiness for a few reasons. 1) I break grammar rules all the time. I overuse parentheses, ellipses, and sentence fragments. I like to make up my own words (like preachiness). I tend to throw in commas wherever I feel like it, even though I know the rules. And I like to start sentences with conjunctions. 2) I feel like I have made people too self-conscious about their blog posts and comments. 3) I know that my rants just come off as annoying. Here's the thing... I have accepted the fact (well, I'm trying to accept the fact) that certain rules don't seem to matter when it comes to electronic communications. Most people won't care about the nit-picky stuff in an email or on Facebook. And honestly, it's not stuff like that that keeps me awake at night. I promise. I'm much more bothered by the countless store signs, billboards, and local newspapers containing blatant errors. (Hire a copy editor!!) In other words, ple...

I've been in meetings all week with the other sophomore English teachers at my school, aligning our curriculum and creating some common assessments for the upcoming year. I know, it sounds boring, but it was actually really beneficial. I'm excited and grateful that we'll all be on the same page (for once). And those crazy kids can't complain about so-and-so being easier or harder than so-and-so. The suckers will never know what hit them. Mwahaahaa. Anyway, our conversation lead to common errors that we see in students' writing. But here's the thing - I don't just see these mistakes in my students' writing; I see them everywhere!! We narrowed it down to a list of 20 of the most glaring errors (most of them homophones) that adults have no excuse for making. And because I assume you care, I'm sharing the first five quick and dirty lessons with you. Its is possessive. It's is a contraction. The dragon opened its legs; apparently it's a hermaphrod...

I was lucky enough to have my 20 week ultrasound on my birthday yesterday. It is so relieving knowing that my little buddy is healthy. It's also pretty relieving knowing that we don't have to stress about "trying for" a specific gender at any point in the future, because It's a BOY! I'm still processing... Brad and I both kinda' thought I was cooking a little girl in there.

We've been doing game night pretty much every Thursday with these guys for about four years. It was about time we left Utah Valley. So, here we are... cave tubing and zip lining in Belize Chillin' in Isla Roatan Swimming with stingrays in Grand Cayman And just having fun on the boat... What a perfect way to kick off the lazy hazy crazy days of summer!

A couple weeks ago, Kaiya tried to walk down some cement steps and this was the result... Luckily, her forehead is finally starting to heal, and the "oowee" is hardly noticeable. I guess she missed the attention of the injured, because yesterday she split her face open and needed to get stitches (well - just one) below her bottom lip. (Sorry for the really professional camera phone pictures, by the way.) Anyway, I really hope this is just a phase.

Since it's taken me all morning to upload and sort through my cruise photos, and Kaiya has officially destroyed my office in the process, I'll be cutting this post short. We stopped at four ports during our western Caribbean adventure, but today you'll only be seeing (a small sampling of) pictures from one: Cozumel, Mexico We decided to take a ferry to Cancun and tour the Mayan ruins at Tulum. My parents took my sisters and me there ten years ago (wow - has it really been that long?) and I was excited to go back and share it with Brad. Clearly, I was hot/sweaty/crabby/tired/seasick/pregnant and was a little less than enthused at Brad's incessant photography attempts. But honestly, if it wasn't for him we would never use our camera. I always pack it, but never use it. I have to represent this hilarious tour guide, who shamelessly attracts Mormon tourists by sporting a BYU baseball cap and a Polo shirt with his name, Mosiah, embroidered in huge letters. Hey - wh...

We thought we'd take advantage of our friend Travis's hospitality just one more time before he leaves Washington DC, so for spring break we hauled our 16 month old across the country. (Not a fun flight, by the way.) We went with Adam and Jessalyn, and it turned out to be a lot of fun - especially since Brad condescended to let me eat every two hours - pregnancy is fun :) We were supposed to be there during the cherry blossom peak, but I guess it came early this year. I was really happy when we found a few trees still in bloom in Arlington Cemetery. Kaiya was a little "too" happy at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; she and I went for a walk while everyone paid their respects. She is such a ham! Here are some shots from the Lincoln Memorial... Kaiya insisted on walking up the stairs. I really don't know who she gets her stubbornness from. What in the world are those guys doing behind us?? I couldn't help but snap a picture of my two favorite people! (Brad's ...