Gotta Love Kids

So I was correcting my students science tests today and I had a few laughs out loud and knew that I had to post them.

Here they are:

The question was: "Describe the steps you would take to make a simple working compass". Now---we did an experiment where they made a simple working compass by magnetizing a needle, sticking it Styrofoam, then sticking that in a cup of water- the needle points north. We also talked about it a few times and it was in a movie we watched. Almost all of them got the question right but there were a few answers that were pretty clever.

- "Take a piece of paper, write North, South, East, and West. Take a paperclip and attach it." (if only it were that easy).

-"I would take all the direction letters off" (yes...I suppose that would make it more simple)

-1st- You take the compass and put it towards north. 2nd- pick it up and walk west. 3rd- turn back north and there you go :) (the smiley face was included on the test)

Next question: "Why does a compass needle point north?"

-"It has to or else it won't work" (true, true)

Last one: "What do the magnetic fields of a bar magnet, horseshoe magnet, and disc magnet have in common?"

-"They all have magnetic fields" (as if the question didn't already state that out).



If they are going to get the answer wrong at least it gave me a laugh! Luckily for the most part they did awesome on the test. :)

A "New" House

Life has been so absolutely crazy since my last post (pathetically from July) that I have put off blogging. Especially since we've had some big events happen since our last entry.

So to start off with the most time consuming and exciting bit of news....we bought a house! We had been looking every spare moment for about 2 months and we were starting to become pretty frustrated. We definitely were coming into the housing market without too much knowledge so we had to many times adjust our price range, expectations, areas of our search, etc. Luckily Brad and I pretty much had the same idea of what we wanted.

Well the push to find something really increased when we were supposed to be out of our apartment by the end of the month. I was off track for the summer so I started making daily drives around neighborhoods looking up homes we had found on the internet. Well one day while I was looking for a house just in some Millcreek neighborhoods northeast of where we were currently living I happened to drive past a house that I became interested in. I called the number on the sign and the real estate agent basically just told me, "Sorry that house is already under contract." So I moved on. Later that night the agent called me back and left a message on my phone explaining that the contract had fallen through because the person had gotten extremely sick, lost his job, and no longer qualified for the house. She had looked up my number on her caller ID and wanted to know if we were still interested in it. I called her back later the next day and we were the first people to go through it after the broken contract. We fell in love with it. It was exactly what we were looking for: a nice neighborhood with big trees, perfect starter house size, an older house with lots of character, and it just had a good feeling inside of it that we hadn't felt in any other house before. So we played the little offer/counter offer game and finally got it under contract! We were so excited.

We moved in around the middle of August and have been working on making it our own ever since. The house was built in 1941 (very old so it has a lot of quirky things about it) and had previously had only one owner which we thought was pretty cool (it was an estate sale). From everyone we have talked to it sounds like they took care of the house like you wouldn't believe. The daughter said that they weren't allowed to run in the house, the neighbors say that it was so clean you could have eaten off the floor, and supposedly the yard was the husband's pride and joy. So needless to say- the house looks like a grandparents house complete with wallpaper, linoleum, orange carpet and wood paneling downstairs- but it is in great condition. So we'll continue to take small projects at a time to update and modernize but try to keep some of it's character there as well.

Here is a picture of the house when we bought it:


We realized that since it was going to start turning colder soon that we should tackle the outside first. It was in great shape but we wanted to liven it up a bit. We have painted the top siding (oh for quite awhile there were multiple colors up there while we were trying to find the paint we had in mind- I think the neighbors thought we were crazy), taken off that hideous storm door, painted and attached shutters, painted the door and hardware, changed the mailbox and porch light, torn off the gray porch carpet, reinforced the raingutters, painted the trim and white picket fence next to the house, removed those shade awning things over the windows, taken off the drapes and replaced with blinds, fixed some cracks in the cement, pulled out rose bushes and fitzers, and done many other things around the yard.

This is the outcome (when it gets warmer we are going to fix the trim and railings on the porch).




Now it was time to start tackling the inside stuff! I went off track the last week of October so one day I decided that it was time to work on the upstairs bathroom. When you start remodeling you realize how funny they did things long ago. So the upstairs bathroom looked like this before (notice the lovely wallpaper and light fixture):

I think we'll keep the lights as a weapon! :)

Well my mom and I tore off the wallpaper (amazingly enough it came off in full sheets) only to discover that the walls before were painted a nice really bright peach color. After much scrubbing and sanding the glue is finally off all the walls and ceiling (oh yes- there was white wallpaper on the ceiling). The most exciting part though was when Brad and I removed the large mirror. Behind the mirror was a cutout in the wall with a box that fit perfectly into the hole in the wall. It was like a moment you see in a movie when you start thinking, "What if they put their life savings or some expensive jewelry or old coins in this box???". We pulled the box out and sadly inside there was only old newspaper to fill the space (apparently it was November 1976 when they did some remodeling in the bathroom). It looks like the box (which was hollow from the other side) was the old medicine cabinet that was set in the wall. We're still looking for our hidden treasure though!


We have now torn out the linoleum, the sink, and the toilet. Now the fixing up can start rather than the demolishing. Wait to see the finished product!

More events coming soon!

Summer Happenings

This summer has been a crazy but fun one! Not only because it started out with rainstorm after rainstorm but we've also had a lot of fun doing all sorts of things. June is always crazy since I am still teaching and dealing with all of the end of year junk but we manage to squeeze in some fun as well. Here's a list of the good times we've had:

• Memorial Day Softball Game with the Davis family
• Natalie's high school graduation on the same day as Kenny and Michele's baby birth (The Buttars' side)
• My 24th birthday (thank you all for the birthday wishes and thanks Brad for the wonderful day!)
• Game night with my college friends every month
• Brad running the Wasatch Back Relay! He had to run the Ragnar (the hardest leg of the race) and did awesome!
• Sleepover at the Bunkhouse- very primitive but oh so fun
• 4th of July celebrations- Deweyville breakfast & parade, Logan fireworks, and then a gorgeous 4-wheeling ride up to the top of Mt. Logan
• Tinfoil Dinners up Millcreek Canyon with some ward friends
• Beauty & the Beast at the Murray Amphitheater
• Mother's Day, Father's Day, Kevin Buttars birthday, Natalie Buttars birthday, Bob Buttars birthday, and so many more
• Manti Pageant and sleepover in Salina
• Landen Buttars (Kenny and Michele's baby) baby blessing
• Family Reunions galore
• Finishing my 2nd year of teaching
  
• Retro dining experience at The Road Side Cafe in Oakley (if you've never been there you gotta go- it's in an old railcar and the best Philly Cheesesteak sandwich you'll ever have in your life)
  
• And so much more......

All that we have left to do is waverunning, a camping trip with some friends, Harry Potter 6, 24th celebrations, my Mom's Birthday, and whatever else we can think of to do! If you have any suggestions we would love to hear them!

Forever Strong On and Off The Field

One of my favorite movies finally came out on DVD this week! For any of you who have not yet seen this....see it! This is the best locally made movie around. It's inspiring, entertaining, and impressive. This movie reinforced my feelings of rugby vs. football....rugby is tough stuff and so much more entertaining. We just bought it and I can't wait to watch it again!

Teacher Appreciation Week

Teaching can be an exhausting job and many times I wonder why I put myself through such stress (especially during report card time). Yet it is one of the most rewarding and fun jobs as well. I think back to those days at Cookies By Design or the Dry Cleaners and it makes me so grateful I don't have to do that anymore.

This last week was Teacher Appreciation Week and it definitely helped me feel rejuvenated and realize why I do this. No, I don't do it for all the goodies that I receive (just look at the picture below!) although I definitely won't complain. It's those notes of thanks from the students and/or parents that really keep me going. The parents that tell me I have made a difference in their child's life, the students that tell me that they now love reading, and the many other notes of thanks. It's also the excitement on my students faces when we do some pretty cool science experiments or when they finally understand a difficult concept.
Thank you Utah State for preparing me to become a (somewhat) successful teacher. Thank you Brad for all your patience with the hours, and hours, and more hours it takes after school. Thank you 5th grade team for helping me along the way. Last of all, thanks to all those parents and students who make it a successful and awesome experience.

Now the questions is....what the heck do I do with all of these Peanut M&M's?

Finally Caught...Darn

So when we moved into Fox Point Apartments we plugged our TV into the wall and it worked! We just assumed that it must have come with the apartment. Then we started talking around with other couples in the complex and quickly learned that everyone else was paying for theirs. So we started to think that we were pretty darn lucky! And who in their right mind would call up Comcast or Qwest or whomever the provider might be and let them know that we weren't paying? Not us! So this went on for about a year and half until the other day when two Comcast guys knocked on our door....
Pretty much they let us know that they cut our cable and informed us that we need to sign up for a plan. They tried to trick us by telling us what the most basic package they had was; but then when I questioned them on it they finally admitted there was an even more basic package for only half the cost. Well we were even too cheap for that (since really the only things we watch are The Office, American Idol, and listen to the news in the morning) so we decided it was time to go and buy a good ole' antenna and pull out that digital box that we got. And it worked!
As any of my roommates could stand by me on this statement....I REALLY do not like Comcast. I don't know why, but somewhere in those college years they rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it was that they tried to charge us too much, or it was that they couldn't get the name right (no...her name is not Jack Poter, it's Jaci Porter), or those calls at 7 in the morning. So needless to say I was happy to have weaseled cable out of them for the last year and then able to get the channels without their help!

And I can't figure out how to get rid of the nice little link to a picture of an antenna that comes along with the text...

Oh How I Love Bargain Shopping!

Total Boxes: 40
Total Cost: $32.88
Total Savings: $157.78

Thanks to Kendra we found an awesome deal at Albertson's. The cereal turned out to be about 70 cents a box. We went just a little crazy with it! We are instructed to have a year supply of food- guess we got our cereal covered!

Fun in the Sun

We had a great vacation with the Buttars Family at the beginning of February. We flew to Orlando, Florida and spent a day at Epcot. We then boarded a cruise ship and set sail for 3 nights to the Bahamas! Neither of us had been there before so it was a fun adventure! Unfortunately we never got to swim in the crystal clear waters because at our first stop it was a little chilly so we decided we would spend that day seeing the town and the next day would be swimming. Well the waves were 25 feet at the island the next day so we didn't even dock. Luckily it ended up being good weather on the ship so we could soak in the sun on deck. We then went on an airboat ride in the swamps of Florida and saw a ton of alligators (and then ate gator nuggets, catfish, and frog legs afterwards). I loved escaping winter for a week and eating delicious food :). These are some of my favorite pics.

Model Family

We got family pictures done over Thanksgiving with my family. After many attempts to make it look professional, I think that Kendra with a lot of tweaking has finally captured us perfectly. She decided that maybe some of our beautiful features would look better on someone else's face. She should really consider making this a profession! (You should really click to see in greater detail). Thanks Kendra for making us look beautiful!

2008 Year in Review

I told you I would be slow posting stuff on here! To see what a great year Brad and I had click here: Buttars 2008 Year in Review. I recommend playing the slideshow since everything is always more entertaining with music!

The Time Has Finally Come

I know that people have started blogging. I hear people talk about their blogs and viewing other blogs. I often look at my sister's blog and from there sometimes look at family or friends blogs.

I do facebook, phanfare (for a lot of my pictures), multiple e-mail addresses, and many other things. I love keeping in touch with people and seeing what's going on in their lives but I simply don't have much extra time in my life. My life is fully packed with teaching, planning, grading, church stuff, trying to see family and friends, and then trying to put some time aside for my oh so ever patient husband.

For awhile I was thought the blog thing was kind-of lame. Then I thought that it was pretty cool, but just not for me. I slowly changed to thinking of starting a blog, but thinking that I just don't have time (hence the reason why this blog address has been around since September but I haven't done anything with it till now). I also have wanted to catch up in my journal which has almost come to a screeching halt since the wedding entry, feeling guilty every time I think about it sitting on the shelf gathering dust.

Last night I was catching up with some friends and they all were talking about their blogs. I finally decided to just buckle down and do it. This way I can count this as my journal entries and stop feeling that guilty feeling.

As I said before...my life is crazy. Therefore, I may not have a post as often as all of you. They may be short, just pictures, or no pictures. If everyone gives up on it because I haven't posted anything in awhile, at least I have it for my own journal. But please don't give up on it...just be patient. I guess since it's a new year, I could say this is my New Year Resolution. So, let the blogging begin!