Viva Las Vegas

Well I was always told what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, however I think I will share our Vegas experience.

On Wednesday night we left after school and headed down to Grandma Bergs and get a head start. That night we heard on the news that there was going to be some strong wind the next day, we just said we were grateful that it was not snow. The next morning we woke up to no power. The wind had blown down all the power lines. We decided to just get ready and head out.  As we walked out into the wind we were a bit surprised at how strong it really was and how cold it was. Holding my two bags I had to grab on to Grandmas porch to keep myself from blowing over. I finally made it to the car and popped the trunk. I knew right away what happened. CRACK. Our trunk had been caught by  gust of wind and had shattered our back windshield. 3 hours later we finally were able to get an appointment in Salt Lake to get it fixed. Finally at 3 that day we were off to Vegas.

The first night that we got in we did a quick trip up the stratosphere tower (thats where we stayed). And went to bed so Kevin was well rested for his interview the next day. Kevin headed to his interview on Friday and I spent the day working on school work in our hotel room. When Kevin got back we walked down to Circus Circus and then made it back to the hotel for the Pac-12 championship game. GO DUCKS. Half time we went to get some dinner. Our dinner ended up taking the second half of the game (luckily they were playing it on the tvs there). 2 messed up orders later we left after receiving 2 pastas, 1 calzone, 2 salads, and 2 ice cream cones (we only ordered the two pastas). After the game we celebrated by going to the top of the stratosphere again and riding the blast off ride. It was a bit nerve racking and the picture they took of us was priceless. Okay it actually wasn't priceless it was $30 and we were not willing to buy it. We then headed down the strip and spent the rest of the night walking around and enjoying our time together and the beautiful lights.

The next day was more or less the same, we walked down the strip and enjoyed the sites. We then headed back up to St. George to spend the night. We headed home on Sunday with a quick pit stop in Salt Lake to see Mark Kevin's friend. The rest of our trip was very smooth compared to the beginning. We were happy to be home but not ready to head back to work the next day.

a quarter of a century old

Yes you read that correctly, my handsome husband turned 25! For his birthday this year Kevin said the only thing he wanted was for me to learn how to make my mom's homemade noodles. So we headed to Rigby early for the party and with my mothers assistance I made him some homemade noodle soup for dinner.

Then after dinner we of course kept the Berg tradition and did the face in the cake. We were happy to be joined by Carly to help out with the cake as well. The nieces and nephews love it. (Well except Carson who cries every time we do it).

Happy Birthday to the most incredible, smart, handsome, sweet, goofy, lovable, funny, did I mention sexy man I know! I love you and here is to the many many more years to come. 

C' is for cookie

I love Halloween. Kevin asked me where I learned to love Halloween, due to the fact that my mother and father are not really into it. I guess you can blame it on my sister Becca who was always preparing her costumes months ahead of time and full out decorating the house in Halloween things during my childhood. So somewhere in this mix I grew to love Halloween. However, Kevin does not. And lets just say I know already this is going to be a trial in our lives. :) Convincing him to dress up with me typically takes the whole month of October, and then convincing him to smile and act like he is enjoying the party usually takes all night. Nonetheless by the end of the night I can usually get him to smile and he typically says "that wasn't too bad" after everything is said and done.

Well this year I had the brilliant idea of letting Kevin dress up as himself. You see, Kevin loves cookies and I love Halloween so why not make him a cookie monster for Halloween. Even though I thought it was brilliant Kevin still was not very thrilled. In the end though I thought our costumes turned out very cute.

We went to the annual Halloween party at my brother-in-laws office, and then we also had a ward carnival. Both were very fun. I also had the opportunity to dress up for school. Although without my cookie monster by my side I kind of looked stupid, as just a cookie.

A cookie and cookie monster

I have no idea who the little boy is who managed to jump into our beautiful picture

This is my rock star niece who got a little confused and thought she was a vampire :) 

That kind of day

Have you ever had that kind of day, you know the kind when your alarm doesn't go off, so you sleep in and have to rush to work. Your computer decides to quit working so the movie you "promised" your students won't play, so you go to plan B which turns into plan disaster. Then you get five bites into your sandwich before you realize that the cheese is covered in mold. There goes lunch. Then someone  forgets about a meeting you had scheduled in which you spent all morning getting paper work ready for . You get some "My student swears he turned in all his assignments so why is his grade so low" emails. By the last hour your blood sugar is low and you can't think straight, it doesn't help that you broken computer is really really loud, your heater is broken and it is now 80 degrees in class. And then someone dares complain that you did not give them any candy today (Say what? Was it not Halloween yesterday. Go get your own). Off to home with two cankers, only to say goodbye to the husband who works all night. Well in case you were wondering, I just had that kind of day.

The good, the bad, and the ugly

I will first admit that during the last year of college I often debated whether or not teaching was the correct career choice. I never realized how much work went into teaching. You are not just in charge of making sure 120 students behave during the day, pay attention, and pass all the state tests.  You also have to create "creative" lesson plans that match all the state standards for each class you teach, create another set of assignments for students who need modifications, and finally grade all the assignment, record the scores and put them into the computer. And then you get to start all over again. The truth is, it was not the show up and hang out with teenagers job I thought it was, but it is very rewarding like I though it would be. Nonetheless like every job, there is good, there is bad, and there is ugly.

The good: I Have some marvelous students who at the end of a long day make it well worth it. It is the little comments from the students like " Oh I finally get it" or " I have never liked English until now". Or the comments from parents at parent teacher conference "My daughter comes home from school so happy and she tells me it is because of your class" or "I hear you are the funniest teacher here" or the simple "Thank you for being such a great teacher". Or my favorite comment that came in a little note stuck to my computer after class that said To: Mrs. Berg  and inside read "How are you doing? How are you feeling? You are an awesome teacher, and I am so excited to have you all three tri's. I hope you will be my best friend that is a teacher. You are awesome. Love..." These simple comments make it all worth it. And yes I will be your best friend that is a teacher.

The bad: First of all I had this crazy idea that all students somewhat cared about getting good grades. FALSE. Some do not care at all and just getting them to pick up a pencil and write their name on the paper is a huge accomplishment. Along with that 7th graders tend to blurt out things. They are not afraid to share their opinion about how what we are doing is "so stupid" or "pointless". They also tend to blurt things out about their life that I don't think their families would like them too. I sometimes feel like I know a little to much about their home life and sometimes it breaks my heart to learn what these students have to go through. I was very blessed as a child to have a secure home to back me up. Also 7th graders love to talk and talk and talk some more. Sometimes the only way I can get them to calm down is to allow story time where they can tell me all about their day. And the "rock that was shaped like a heart" that they saw on there way to school. OH COOL I really wanted to know about that rock. I guess this could go under the good category but there is never a dull moment and they definitely keep me entertained.

The ugly: "Mrs. Berg, you have a double chin". Thank you for pointing out the fact that my working out goal is not being accomplished. Turns out however they were talking about the dimple in my chin, that I inherited from my father. :)
"Mrs. Berg here is the fly I just killed and I am going to continue putting in your face, even though you have told me throw it away 10 times and to sit down". It was so fun calling the mother after that and explaining that your student would not keep a fly out of my face during the spelling test today.

Don't get me wrong,  I love my job and the students and often come home tired but with a smile on my face. And surprisingly I have not been brought to tears yet, like I was warned would happen my first year. So I guess even though I really doubted this career in the end it was the correct choice for me.

GO DUCKS!

Due to the fact that we live in Idaho we get a one week harvest break from school. I begged Kevin to take me somewhere over harvest but he happened to get two jobs that had to start that week. However on Monday we found out that he would still have the weekend off. We attempted to get tickets to the Oregon vs Cal game but we were a little late and Papa Staceys tickets were already called for. Kevin then made a quick phone call and found out he had the next weekend off and Oregon had another game. So we quickly planned for a quick trip to Oregon. I was able to have another teacher cover my last two hours on Friday and Kevin got off at two and we took off. We drove for 10 hours to Bend Oregon and got in about midnight. Slept in a little bit and then went on a drive up the butte to see a beautiful view of bend, then to  the duck store to buy gear for the "black out" game, and went and wondered around the Nike store.

We then made the beautiful drive from Bend to Eugene which took about 2 hours. In Eugene we met up with Pat and Stacey for a yummy dinner at PF Changs and then walked over to the stadium. Kevin was all giddy of course and so we walked around and waited for some of the players to walk by and of course Chip Kelly. Kevin was all smiles and I will admit I was too. The game was great. Their was ups and downs in the game but luckily more ups! It rained a little but stayed a decent temperature throughout the game. And YAY for Oregon winning 41-27. The win made the whole trip worth it.


The game got over about midnight and we got to our cars about 12:45, stopped and ate quickly and began the drive home. We were exhausted, it started pouring, it was foggy, we were in dark mountains, and we were miserable. What was supposed to be a 2 hour drive ended up almost 3 and we got back to our hotel at about 3:45 a.m. We were tired and Kevin even made the comment that he didn't even want to brush his teeth, and if you know Kevin (the future dentist) that is very rare! Well we had a good nights rest and drove the 10 hours back to Rexburg Sunday.  In the end it was a long drive but SO worth it! We really enjoyed the game, seeing Pat and Stacey and getting to spend time together while driving. And in case anyone was wondering a cow is a female, a bull is a male, and cattle is the generic term. (This conversation may have occupied us for an hour or two of our drive).

GO DUCKS!

Last splash of summer

Before school started Kevin and I wanted to do one more fun adventure. So we called up some neighbors from our ward and invited them to Fall Creek.

Fall creek is about an hour South east of Rexburg and right before Swan Valley. The best part about these waterfalls is you do not just look at them you get to play in them. You can climb down them and play under and around them. The climbing down part was a little difficult considering one of the couples had their two year old son. But once we got down we enjoyed the water and the beauty of the falls. I won't be saying this once it starts snowing, but I LOVE IDAHO!