Beautiful weather for a bike tour of our small town!
Samuel designed and built this cabinet as a way to store the tables more efficiently. It is named "Thompson Room." I am constantly amazed at his ability in our own home to make everything run more efficiently, a trait that I do NOT possess!
Dad wanted to visit Samuel at work. Here he is at his desk :)
In front of Samuel's work
We probably got more joy out of getting huckleberry ice cream than Dad did.
Dad got to help out with chopping wood!
All those years that I dressed up like a lumberjack are truly a joke now that I married a true lumberjack. And you think I'm joking? This is serious business, y'all.
The weather was not entirely cooperative but it did not stop us from taking Dad kayaking/paddleboarding in Payette Lake. He was such a good sport and we outfitted him in head-to-toe rain gear :)
Here he is! And Samuel is in the background on the paddleboard
Baby's first ultrasound. We're a little excited. Just a little!
A picture of Samuel studying for the PE exam. Not posed, actually
Corn mazes are nothing to take lightly. We got lost in this thing for over an hour! It was in the shape of Jimmy Kimmel's face, ha!
A hike to Lake Blanche with Nicole - huffed and puffed the whole way up.
One of my goals lately is to learn how to cook amazing Asian food. This is a start! AMAZING
My Korean cooking teachers :)
Dinner & game nights with the Schultzes :)
We celebrated our one-year-since-first-date anniversary by hiking Grandeur peak again!
We even ate boiled eggs at the top like we did on our first date.
Samuel, returning all of his books that he used to study and take the PE exam. I made him pose like this, lol.
One of my favorite activities is a leisurely bike ride through town.
Having pad see yew (sp?) & pad thai at Sawadee in honor of our first first date. Ok yeah we're sentimental.
A hike up Frary Peak! Worth the climb & view!
Fav hiking buddy 4 life
Ensign peak strolls.
Swimming & Korean food trucks with Catherine! Paid for it after with serious digestive issues. I'm sure you wanted to know that!
THANKSGIVING IN MOAB & COLORADO!
Moab explorations with Angela & crew
Samuel and I both agreed that this was such a relaxing couple of days with the Hays.
A hike up to Jeep Arch with the whole family :)
On to Colorado...I didn't take a ton of pictures with Samuel's family. I'm not at the point where I feel like I can whip out my camera selfie-style without feeling like a millennial. We enjoyed some awesome hikes, wonderful food, competitive strategy game-playing with the Thompson nephews, ultimate frisbee fun, Star Wars movie nights, naps, socializing, and exploring. Samuel's parents' home is run on solar, geothermal, and water energy, designed and built by Dad Thompson. It is always super enlightening to spend time with S's family because it helps me understand him better.
Exploring Samuel's childhood playground - a Colorado field with old, abandoned houses and wells :)
The whole family enjoyed a beautiful hike in the Colorado canyons. I forgot the name of this place but it was awesome!
I mentioned I loved hay bales and he indulged me in getting a picture :) He's the best.
BACK TO SALT LAKE CITY
Celebrating Cathy's birthday with waffles & blueberry breakfast! So glad she was available!
Blowing out the candles on her dirt cake :) It has been so fun to have her nearby; we are really going to miss them.
BACK TO WINTERY MCCALL
Huckleberries are my spirit animal. Syrup here pictured.
Winter in McCall is SO magical. It is like nothing I have ever experienced, and although I feel some trepidation in embarking on a four-month-long cold winter, I also feel a lot of excitement as I get to experience something I never have before! It is also especially magical for me because it is the time that I feel in love with Samuel last year. I especially love it later in winter when all the trees sag with feet of snow. I am looking forward to getting into more snow sports like snowshoeing and cross-country skiing this year! Samuel is the best teacher and lights up when it snows.
A walk through Ponderosa Park.
Tree-cutting in McCall :)
We cut down this tree by one of the remote forest service buildings for our Christmas tree. Samuel was eyeing it at one of his inspections he did on the building earlier this year when he realized it would have to be cut down because of its closeness to the building. It has a wonky trunk & we decided it was symbolic of our first year of marriage (still moving up but a little strained at times, haha!) We LOVE it.
Baby bump is definitely making itself known & is now warranting the touches of random strangers. :)
The Rampton and Jones girls that we cut down our tree with.
The Jones & Rampton boys (+ Samuel). It was a FUN group!
Locations for cutting down trees are always really secretive- you have to discover them and people don't share their locations with you. I'm pretty sure we won't be looking anymore though!
A formal analogy between The Hunger Games and the international phenomenon called pregnancy.
I am now 15.5 weeks this morning. I know some people say, "This pregnancy just flew by!" but to be honest, I'm not feeling like that...maybe because it's new, and I am hyper-aware of my body right now as I have a lot of time to pay attention to it and it is constantly changing.
I downloaded an app called "What to Expect when You're Expecting." It includes weekly videos of your baby's development (usually littered with weird analogies to fruit and corny sayings), daily articles that are either meant to freak you out or make you feel like, "Oh, so that's why I was acting or feeling like that", advertisements for a plethora of things you probably need to eventually buy, and my favorite tab, "Your Body."
Every time I click on the "Your Body" tab, I feel like I am Katniss from Hunger Games and I am entering the arena - about to become aware of a series of random things (or symptoms) bent on causing my destruction.
Swarms of bees that cause hallucinations? Ok, got it.
(Cute) Parasite in your body that will scream out if you don't eat every two hours? Got it, ok.
Pack of wolves that will rip you to shreds? Ok, I guess I'm ready for that one.
Bloating and gas that causes socially awkward situations and makes you look like you're six months pregnant instead of 1? Yeah, ok, cool. BRING IT. Lack of water that causes near-death dehydration that can only be saved by a merciful onlooker who will provide water floating from heaven? Done.
Lack of food after that two hour mark, riding the bus with ravaging hunger that can only be saved by an aptly-placed Lunchable (formerly disgusting to you) at the Campus Book store? Ok, got it.
Fire that burns through the forest in your direction bent on killing you? You got this Katniss.
Emotional mood swings that make you difficult to be around, crying at a dead ant, or exhausted by 8 pm? GOT IT. Teammates that are trying to kill you and steal your supplies? I will not give up!
Pants that don't fit, runs that don't feel good ever, hikes that are slower and harder than they should be, heightened sense of smell, joints and body that feels like they are falling apart (are my limbs still attached?), forgetfulness (hasn't that been happening for years already? uh-oh), possible DECREASES IN VISION? Bring me MY BOW, man.
Don't get me wrong. Compared to everyone else on the planet, my pregnancy so far has been mild. I've only puked once or twice, and I luckily have a schedule that allows me to sleep 9 hours a night (or more), do Yoga every morning. It kind of makes me think I might give birth to the devil. I mean, it would only be fair to all those other mothers who have had terrible pregnancies (and make sure to tell me about it, or at least cause me to feel a literal wave of guilt every time I answer, "How are you feeling?" )?
The most surprising element of pregnancy has been the responses of some* of my friends who already have multiple children and have been through pregnancy.
*[Note: this by far has not been the experience or perspective of all of my mother friends, just some.]
Their responses are mostly summed up by this video by Studio C, which I have found hilariously accurate:
Obviously isn't this bad, but I can't tell you how many times I get the response, "That's what I was like before I had kids..." and "I used to want more than one kid before I had one kid." or "I remember the days when I used to XYZ before I had kids..." or "Just have super super low expectations and expect your life to be miserable and then you'll be fine."
I understand having kids will rock my world in ways, I am sure, that I can not even fathom at the moment. And I will experience many, many moments where my expectations will need to be adjusted. Or maybe even surprises and unforeseen adjustments. But, for heaven sake, don't write my story for me! And make sure to share some positive aspects of parenthood with me.
This morning I was browsing through a friend's blog and bravely clicked on the "birth story" post of her first child. It was beautiful, and terrifying, and beautiful. Yesterday I babysat my nieces and was reminded of how much I love kids, only half-worried that I wouldn't love my own as much as I love my nieces and nephews. I visited my friend last night and held her one-year old on my lap and was surprised by the unsuspecting joy of the weight of his little wiry body on my lap, his endless fascination with my hair clip, and his big unassuming blue eyes looking up at me (and I didn't even know the kid).
Parenthood rocks your world, and check my blog in a year after I've had a baby for a while and I'm sure you'll find a different story than this one. Experience has a way of changing you in ways you may not have anticipated, and I respect that 100%. But for now, I'm excited for the wild ride of this future of ours.
PS. I'm really looking forward to being home again with this guy. On the top of Ponderosa peak. Missing him all. the. time.
This post is mostly just a venue for me to vent about problems I find and experience with our educational system.
I'm currently in graduate school at the U. Many of my classes are undergraduate courses with a graduate label, meaning it has both undergraduates and graduates taking the same class. I would be totally fine with this if there was some accommodation where the graduate students were given extra or additional instruction. However, it nerves me that the professor is giving the exact same lecture, and assigning me four times the work as the undergraduates (all spur-of-the moment, too). I would be okay with a separate syllabus presented to me at the beginning of class, outlining extra expectations, but instead, the professor spontaneously decides (in the middle of the class, in front of the whole class) that I should write four times the amount of everyone else (a writing assignment, by the way, which is complete busy work), and also that I should read two extra books, just for my information. Infuriating. Am I okay with doing extra work? Sure. Am I okay with being presented with higher expectations than peers? Yes. As long as those expectations are purposeful, clear, and organized. None of which these have been.
Which brings me to my next point. One of my biggest concerns with higher education is the fact that the professors that teach the highest level of courses (university courses) have LITTLE to NO training in teaching methodology. They are professors because they are "book smart" and know how to research. Your ability to research, in my opinion, has very LITTLE correlation to your ability to teach. They are entirely two separate and different skills. I can not even count the number of times I have sat in a lecture, clearly driven by the professor's desire to aggrandize him/herself and their research and fame, instead of a lecture that is driven by the motive to help the students by sound teaching practices that unfold unclear principles and make them clear. Why aren't our professors more trained (and more interested) in learning how to become better teachers instead of better researchers? The difference between a professor who understands how to teach and a professor who is only there to talk about what he knows is monumental.
On the same token, I believe because of the restrictions on professors about research, many exceptional and highly-qualified educators are being kept out of higher education because they don't produce enough research. Some of my most stimulating and interesting courses (and applicable courses) were taught at community colleges, from teachers that had been teaching in lower education for years, or PhD candidates that have real-world teaching experience. Your ability to teach is the tool by which you communicate your passion for the content. Passion without the ability to teach clearly and convey it to someone else is useless!
Another problem I have with the education field is that the hoops required to "jump through" do not have enough purpose, meaning, or explanation. Speaking of research, what is the research behind the standardized tests used to evaluate teacher knowledge and ability? For example, I spent years, and hundreds of dollars trying to pass the "Chinese Praxis," a standardized four-hour test meant to assess my proficiency as an educator. Instead of finding predictable indicators of proficiency on the test, I was faced with unrealistically fast time limits on questions, obscure and geographically isolated topics that only someone from that town would have known. None of these topics have ever come up in my teaching, in any of the courses I have taken in Chinese (clue: I've taken ALL the courses about Chinese available), and none of which have any bearing on my ability to convey knowledge about the Chinese language or passion for the culture to young learners. This test was a huge obstacle to my own confidence as a teacher, to my ability to become certified, and an unjustified smack to all the hard work I had invested into the lives of these children and into studying and becoming proficient in the content myself. After two failures of this test, I witnessed other educators, native in the language but terrible educators that left students feeling discouraged, quitting the program, and giving up on themselves and the language, continue teaching.
Although I spent months rallying to change the test, resulting in a lowering of the passing score of the Praxis for candidates for certification, the issue still remains. The test is the same. It will leave anyone who takes the test feeling discouraged, saddened, confused at the questions and the content. And I would still give more than anything to see the research behind the test, and to understand why they chose the questions they did, with the time limits they did.
Fast forward to this past summer. I walk in to meet with the Superintendent of the school district in McCall where I am now living. I meet with him to tell him that I am qualified and willing to pioneer his Chinese program. He responds with, "Between Spanish and Chinese, I just don't know which language will mesh better with the children's brains." What? You're telling me that learning is a matter of brain development? How about learning will help your brain development.
1. For the first two weeks of the Olympics, all we did every night was watch the Olympics. And we loved it. And I am pretty sure Samuel memorized all the gold/silver/bronze counts of every country and pretty soon I realized our life was becoming a little unbalanced...but it was so worth it! I mean, LeDecky & Phelps...and the entire U.S. Gymnastics team...good thing they are only a few weeks! We made this amazing Brazilian inspired meal to celebrate the opening ceremony (all dishes inspired by my sister Emily who made the same dishes).
2. Cath & Matt's Wedding: Sister hike in Utah to celebrate Catherine and Matt's nuptials! Its was so fun to hike up Lake Blanche with all four of my sisters. Only missing our sister-in-laws!!
On Catherine's wedding day in front of the Timpanogous Temple!
The Shultz team is born!!
3. Soaking in the last few days of summer in McCall (the most epic summer yet) for some amazing huckleberry ice cream with my huckleberry hunk, relaxing on the beach reading Gone with the Wind (Scarlett is the worst!), & our "Cast Away" kayakamping :)
The morning after we camped on the island, I wanted to swim back to the shore (I think it's a little over a half mile, which is a lot in a lake with tons of waves). I've decided that swimming in a lake is 10000% harder than in a pool. I used to think I was just out of shape but then I came to the pool here on campus and I don't struggle nearly as much as in the lake.
Samuel is the best because he supports me in crazy ideas...
4. Saying goodbye for now: For those of you who don't know, I moved back to SLC to finish up my last semester of graduate school. Leaving Samuel and my home in McCall was actually more traumatic than I had anticipated and I cried for the first two hours of the drive. I can't decide whether it was because I have done "this drive" a billion times when we dated (PTSD), but I think it's mostly that I have gotten used to having this Babe around and life's not as sweet without him, simply put. He is always so supportive of me, says what I need to hear, and helps me do hard things. He is such an inspiration to me! He is doing a lot of hard things, too. Although he couldn't get a detail in Salt Lake, his boss was nice enough to say that if he finished all of his projects and things on his evaluation by the end of the fiscal year (Sept. 30), he can have flexibility to telework for longer periods of time in Salt Lake. (YAY!) He has been working SO hard, putting in overtime every day, studying for hours for the Professional Engineering Exam he has coming up in late October. He is a GEM. Also, I love technology...
5. Weekend Adventures: we have driven back and forth twice and it was so nice to be home in McCall for a weekend and now to have Samuel up here this weekend (he is napping now). Last weekend I made it in time to join up with some ladies in our ward who went backpacking. It was SO fun to chat with them and get to know them. Not to mention the scenery was amazing.
McCall Visit
The lighting kiiillleeeddd me on this hike. I mean, isn't this beautiful!
Saturday mornings should always have amazing breakfasts...like huckleberry pancakes, bacon, and fresh fruit with this guy. :)
Samuel and I have been talking about hiking this hike called "Twenty Mile Lakes" (NOT twenty miles). We finally made it ! We saw these amazing wildflowers along the way and had some nice chatting along the way.
Here we are at the top! It was a rough hike physically for me in some ways (wasn't feeling amazing the whole time, but I finished!) but I still enjoyed it a lot.
Salt Lake City Visit
Sam has come down this weekend for five days and it has been SO nice to have the undistracted, focused time together. It has been awesome to have him around and "feel whole" again. We have enjoyed chatting, eating out, going backpacking, shopping, enjoying time with friends, and tomorrow going to the theater with Cath & Matt!
Apparently it is fall in the High Uintas! These aspens were killing me.
Christmas Meadows got me feeling like Christmas, in August.
Sometimes I make Samuel do silly faces, bless his heart
Sam's bed head (100%) and the amazing Amethyst Lake!! Clearest blue water!
