Washington, DC
I totally had a great time in DC at the Library of Congress teacher seminar! It was fantastic! I LOVE DC! (see post dated a little ways back...)
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Williamsburg, Virginia
25 teachers from my district got to go to Colonial Williamsburg's teacher institute for a week. Talk about History Boot Camp! (Another week of 90+ degree temperatures combined with 90+% humidity (Utah really is a dry heat - but you can't fully appreciate that until you've experienced the opposite!) and I would have melted into the sidewalk!) We got to visit Jamestown, Yorktown, and, of course, Colonial Williamsburg. I learned so much while I was there, and gained a greater appreciation for Virginia as the first permanent English settlement in North America, and for the founding of our country. One thing that was particularly cool was that British soldiers occupied the town while we were there - so interesting to have so much going on!
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Harry Potter!
Holly and I plotted many weeks ago to do a multi-day marathon showing of all the Harry Potter movies, and to take Mom and JoAnne. It started on Monday and wrapped up Friday morning with the 7.2 movie starting at 12:01. It was kind of sad, really, to have such an important part of my life over with. Is that dumb? A book and movie series as an important part of my life? I guess having these types of interests though is what makes life life. JK Rowling did say this though, which is helpful:
“Whether you come back to it by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home." It was fun to see all the movies on a gigantor screen and with a fun crowd. They gave us lanyards with our movie pass, and served up butter beer the last night. Oh, and the popcorn. Yum. Though I think that I'm capped out on that. Definitely a worthwhile way to spend 20 hours of my summer, lazy life.
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Accomplishments
There are some summer days when my biggest goal for the day is to shower. Other days I'm more ambitious. Like wearing shoes other than bummy flip flops.
Many summers I don't have anything to show for what I did, but with my great seminars and movie marathoning, I got certificates for all of them (yes, even the HP marathon!). I think I'll frame them and post them on my wall at school and see which impresses the kids the most.
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Crocheting
I love crocheting. I really do. I learned how a long time ago, I think when someone in my ward or a teacher or someone was having a baby, and I asked JoAnne to show me how to crochet around a burp cloth. I was in elementary school then. I liked it okay, but didn't have a lot of patience for crocheting with such small thread (I still don't...). I also didn't have a lot of time to do it, and definitely no money to fund my habit.
Fast forward to 9th grade. Ms. Woodger's creative stitchery class. What a great class - one of the best I've ever had, probably (for what we did - not so much for my classmates, that's an entirely different post!). We did a little bit of everything handiwork - cross stitch, swedish weaving, plastic canvas, knit, sew on a machine, needle point, quilting, and crocheting. I'm definitely more of a jack-of-all-trades with these skills, but they are great skills to have!
Fast forward to two years ago. Mom, Holly, JoAnne and I decided to take a crochet class via community school. It was so fun to get back to crocheting again! JoAnne especially acted like she didn't know a lot about crocheting, but it was good to have an expert with us on our table! Holly never really got into it much (college is a tough time to do anything with your life except study). Mom loved it - she only mastered one stitch really well (we're still trying to figure out what that stitch actually is...), but she uses it all the time. Her favorite thing to crochet? Dishcloths!
I've loved getting back to crocheting. It's fun, it's relaxing, it's not something that everyone does. I'm not totally creative on my own, but I am good at following a pattern, so I've made some fun things. Last spring I taught my own community school class at WXHS for beginning crocheters. I was shocked at how many people came! And how many people wanted to make sure I did another class this fall! I also crocheted a lot of hats over the summer to be sold at Harvest Days... Um, yeah, that went over like a lead balloon... but at least I've got all my Christmas gifts ready to go.
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Personal History
I've been thinking about the best ways to go about writing not only a history of myself, but a history of Dad. One of my aunts is big right now into writing biographies of deceased relatives. They're finely written for the relatives I didn't know at all... but now that she's getting more into writing about people that I actually did know, like my Grandma, I see all the holes that are there and have been wondering how to write someone's life without things missing. I guess a lot of it has to do with the documents and pictures that people leave behind, along with the stories and memories that others have of them. The latter is particularly troublesome to me - no one person has the same memories as anyone else... so how do you get it all? Any ideas?
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