Our First Apple Pie

My beautiful mother makes the most beautiful and delicious apple pies. Last Thanksgiving, I decided that I was going to help my mom bake all of the pies so I could learn from the master. I did an okay job, but didn't feel that baking a pie was too difficult.

Until, that is, I tried to bake one without her.

Man, that was a challenge!


The story begins with an apple orchard. T's parents have an orchard in their backyard and when we visited them over Labor Day weekend, we were given a box of apples. We borrowed our sister-in-law's dehydrator and dehydrated a ton of apples, but then decided to bake an apple pie with the rest of them.

I was feeling pretty confident until it came time to roll out the dough and place it in the pie pan.

I've never been so misled by such easy-sounding directions!


T and I both tried multiple times to roll the dough out to the perfect thinness and place it carefully in the pan, but we failed every time.

After an exasperated phone call to my ever-patient mom, we made a decision to just press the dough into the pan, fill it with the apples, and throw the top crust on it.

It sure looked ugly! But it tasted pretty good!

It looks like we need a few more lessons from the master pie-baker!

Somebody pinch me!

Sometimes I wake up in the morning, get ready for the day, head to work, and walk into my classroom and feel completely awestruck.

I just can't believe that I'm a teacher! A real teacher! My dream has finally come true!

I have to say, I love every minute of it. My kids are amazing and hilarious and adorable and I love seeing their faces every morning.

Most of my students have pretty tragic histories and it's heartbreaking to look at their files and read about all the terrible things that have happened to them in their short lives, but, as my aide told me my first week, "You love them while you have them. Make this classroom a safe place where they know they are being cared for."

And that's my goal with this class. I think I'm doing a pretty good job! I get a lot of hugs and compliments each day and it warms my heart to know that they like having me as their teacher.

I think my favorite part of the day is journal time. Each morning we write a journal entry from a prompt that one of the students has come up with. Today's journal prompt was "If I could be a dinosaur, I would be a..."

Needless to say, we got some pretty amazing answers.

"If I could be a dinosaur I would be T-Rex because I can paly videogames with my tiny arms."

(If you look closely, you can see that the T-Rex is playing a T-Rex themed video game. Awesome.)

"If I could be a dinosaur I would be a T-REX. I would go to the market but I'll try to hide and fit in the meat selection because people will FREAKOUT! And they are GIGANTIC! The market would be WALMART."

It's official! I have the best job in the world.

Summer Recap!

T and I got married three months ago and it was the most beautiful day! 

The day after our wedding, we decided to add a new member to our family, a beautiful kitten we named Ringo. He and our other cat, Reesee, are total BFFs now.

We had a wonderful summer with each other and even got to travel to the exotic land of Cleveland, Ohio for our work conference/honeymoon!

Now that summer's over, it's back to real life for both of us. I got into USU's Alternative Teacher Preparation program which is a certification program that lets me earn my Special Ed teaching certificate while I teach. I have classes twice a week in SLC after work and those days are long, but I really enjoy learning more about Special Ed. It's nice to finally feel like I belong somewhere and to know that Special Ed is the right place for me. I am really doing what I love and I've never been happier! I am currently teaching an Emotionally Disturbed (ED) unit in an elementary school in Lindon and I sure love it! My little kiddos are so wonderful and I love going to work each day. 

T, on the other hand, has decided to do some contracting work as we're saving up for our own place. He's been super busy taking over for another contractor and has had a lot of late nights, too, but he's really enjoying his work. 

We've had such a fun September so far! We spent Labor Day weekend celebrating T's dad's birthday and helping out with his parents' new addition to their house. The following weekend we were able to go to Bear Lake with some friends and that was pretty awesome, too. The weather wasn't very good, so we didn't get to go to the beach, but we loved being able to just relax and hang out with our friends. 

Since the past two weekends have been so busy, we spent this weekend taking lots of naps, spending Saturday evening in Sugarhouse, eating at Mazza, and watching Die Hard 2 at home with our kitties. In other words, it was the perfect day! 

Even though life is crazy busy right now, we sure are happy together. It's great being a Lake!