may | 2014

My friend and fellow blogger, Anna, has linked up with Chatting at the Sky each month to write a blog post on "what I learned in the month of _________". I thought this could be a cool idea to try, so this is my first attempt!

1) Barbies made nowadays have bendable knees. Without hinges.

2) If you are cold and you are a major Gopher fan, do NOT ask your friend Brooke to bring you a sweatshirt. It will have a giant ugly Sioux logo on it. And then she makes you take a photo so there's evidence of this happening:

We can still be friends, I guess. Disclaimer: I did cover her up with a Gophs tie blanky at our last sleepover. She was just shaking & shivering so bad that I had to do something!

3) When reading a series, I take forever to finish the last book. I did it with the Twilight series (in fact, I went to the part one movie based on the final book, and it ended right where I stopped reading. I don't really have a desire to finish it. I'm very over my vampire-fascination era), I did it with The Hunger Games trilogy (and, the last book is definitely my least favorite), and now I'm doing it with the Divergent series. Not sure what my deal is. I guess I have a hard time letting things go.

4) Having my best friend live just a 3-minute drive away from me is literally everything I hoped it'd be. Sorry I don't have a frilly cute photo of us together...yet. We usually look pretty "ratchet" (yes, I just used that term) when we hang out. Also, Marce gets married in 77 days. How is this possible? Just yesterday we were laying around in my parents' basement putting Bugles on our fingers pretending to have claws, weren't we? (Annnnnd I just realized we were pretty "ratchet-lookin'" then, too).

5) My current obsessions are finishing season 2 of Revenge on Netflix (sooooo good...gahh), getting a sleeve tattoo (I don't know of what yet, and let's be honest, I'm not bad-ass enough for a sleeve), and owning a Harley. With lots of chrome and ape hangers. The latter is an old fantasy. Also, it doesn't make a lot of sense to own one, because I plan on living down at least a half mile of gravel for the rest of my life.

6) I have lost 4 pounds just by moving home from school. THAT is cray cray, because the food here is delicious.

7) To date, New in Town is still the most hilarious movie I have ever seen. I think I like it so much because it's pretty much my life. "Can I ask you a personal question? Have you found Jesus?"

8) Ordering a banana split at DQ is the easiest way to get that 5th fruit in. In addition, it tastes that much better while consuming over a conversation with an old friend:




What did YOU learn in May?

Love,

Kalli

life lately...

Hello, world!

I've been quite neglectful of my little blog so far this year. My bad. I'll bring you up to speed:

SCHOOL is HARD. I've said it before and I'll say it again - do NOT go into education thinking it is going to be easy! Don't get me wrong - it shouldn't be a piece of cake. If it was, we would be lacking in quality teachers. I am not exaggerating, however - this was the semester from HELL. I totally had the "D's get degrees, amiright?" attitude for most of the month of April. Anyway, with all the slacking, I could not believe how my grades ended up:

Seriously. Best news ever.

I also got my fall semester schedule all planned out. I may be absent from the world from August 26 til October 17, but everything in red is over after that:

My favorite thing about this semester was the classroom I was placed in for field experience. I got to spend time with the Title I reading teacher in one of the public elementary schools in Crookston. I have always loved reading (for as long as I can remember) and this was actually something that made me kind of nervous about teaching. While we've been instructed model an appreciation and love for reading, I was always reminded of the peers I had growing up who loathed reading - I even have friends now who still hate it! Struggling with reading is never something I had to go through, so I have always been worried I won't be able to relate to students who don't like to read. Being placed in this field experience was extremely beneficial for me because I was able to learn how to teach them tools that will help them succeed. And when they did succeed, their little faces lit up, just like the kids who learned how to do a back float on their own when I was teaching swimming lessons. Each day I was in there I was reminded of why I'm going to school for what I'm going to school for. And when classes are hellish, it's nice to get those reminders every once in awhile.

Anna, Haley, and I (as well as Haley's mother and aunt) took a much, much needed vacation to Las Vegas practically as soon as school got out. We flew out Monday afternoon and came home Thursday morning. I'm not so sure that I could've done another day there - it's expensive and there's a lot of people and the air is smoky and I just love Minnesota so much. It was a blast though.

We stayed on Fremont Street at Four Queens. I don't think I would ever go to Vegas without staying on either Fremont or the strip. It's just so convenient to be able to go walk around and then run up to the room if we wanted to without having to pay for a taxi. Transportation between Fremont and the strip is pretty slick too; you just hop on a bus and pay a fee and you're at your destination in 20 minutes! These Vegas people have it figured out I tell you what.

Because the hotel we stayed at is a bunch of liars (it claimed to have a pool, but the pool that it owns is at a different hotel/casino, and that pool was not open daily as advertised) Anna, Haley, and I went to The Golden Nugget. We paid a fee to use their private pool on the 3rd floor, which got us each our own padded lounge chair. And, it got me the nastiest sunburn you can imagine. And I mean the nastiest. It is currently peeling and I feel so itchy all the time now.

I swear I am the most tourist-y person when it comes to vacationing. I have to take photos with everything and I'm really good at embarrassing myself. For example:

"I bet you get asked this a lot, but did Caesar actually live here?"

Alan. From The Hangover.

With the Coca Cola Bear.

Selfy at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

The view from the Eiffel Tower at Paris was amazing. I would definitely spend the money and I do that again, particularly at night:

Now I'm back in good ol Kittson County, and I don't plan on leaving a whole lot for the rest of the summer. I'm working at AgCountry for the summer 3 days a week like last year, which is fun, because now I a) get to talk to farmers again all day long, and b) have an excuse to wear cute outfits.

I'm sure I'll also be helping my siblings take care of these precious littles, too:

That's it for right now! More posts are coming, I promise. :)

Love,

Kalli