Oh the things they say...

So my kids are full of funny stuff. On a daily basis they say things that crack me up. I thought I would share a few on here.

So I have a student who I was testing. I was showing him letter flashcards and I wanted to know the sound for each letter. Each letter he replied with the same sound of "eh." So I was thinking, okay, he doesn't know his sounds. So I kept testing hoping he would know some. Well about halfway through he looked at me and said, "Miss Clanahan, this is easy." And he was dead serious. He believed he was doing an awesome job!!! It was all I could do not to laugh. He was so adorable! Good news..he has progressed and knows more sounds now.

Another student I have took an item from my classroom. She told her parents who in turn told me at Back to School Night. They said she was going to return it tomorrow and apologize. So the next morning sure thing, she popped on over and said, "Miss Clanahan, I'm sorry I took your bunny. I hear you are very disappointed in me." -I am NOT lying. Those were her EXACT words. I about died. I remained serious and told her I was very sad that she stole from me.

This same little girl also calls hand sanitizer, "hanitizer." I don't correct her because it's absolutely adorable!

The student from earlier who said "this is easy" also did another funny thing. I was giving out candy as a reward for knowing their number. Anyway, I kept calling it candy or treat. Well about 10 min later when we were outside at parent pick-up he told me, "Miss Clanahan, I gotta tell you something. This isn't a candy. It's a Starbusrt." Once again he was very matter-of-factly. I smiled and said thank you for telling me!!!

And one of my sweet little boys had the hardest time saying my name. So he was calling me Miss Hanaclan. I thought it was so cute that I didn't want to correct him. His mother later told me that she worked with him every night to get it right. He now says it right and I am a bit sad because it was so cute!

I'm sure there are a million other things but for now that is all I can think of. When more arise, I will post them.

Until then...

Happy Halloween!!

I realize that it has been awhile since my last post. However, this post will be full of pictures!! So hopefully that makes up for it just a little...

Things have been going well in our life. School is keeping me busy, but of course I am having a great time as well! John is still working at KSI and doing a great job! Halloween in Kindergarten is an interesting time...and by interesting I really mean INSANE!! The kids were soooo excited! Here are some pictures.

I dressed as Dorothy! This is me before I left the house. It was supposed to rain and I wanted one decent picture in case it DID rain.


I happened to have a couple of twins in my class. We had to take a picture!!


This is my class after the parade on Friday. Aren't we cute?


Earlier in the week my class went to the Pumpkin Patch.


And of course...it wouldn't be Halloween without pup pictures!!




The first picture I found on my camera. John had put poor little Socks in that shirt and she wasn't too happy. Needless to say, Scout stayed in hiding during that time!

That's pretty much all I have to post right now. Until next time....

The Kindergarten Update...

Life in Kindergarten...is well... SUPER FUN! I can honestly say I am having a lot of fun with my class. I have 19...however, I lose one student tomorrow and my new count will be 18..exactly 9 girls and 9 boys. Makes same sex groups of 3 quite nice. I was exhausted everyday after school, but this week I have gotten a better system and am not AS tired as I was. I think I can really get the hang of this. I'm a slacker and haven't taken pictures of my classroom. I have pictures of my students, but well, that isn't very fun to look at 18 kids that you don't know. I love Endeavour (my school). It is absolutely wonderful. Everyone has been really nice to me and is making me feel like it is home.

As for dance, I have been teaching my same two classes on Thursday nights. My new batch of girls isn't what I'm used to. I have a lot of new girls who just aren't at the level they should be. It makes my choreography a bit more difficult but I can manage. I am enjoying whipping their butts into shape! But then again, that's my forte! Company will start next week with a meeting and officially the following week. I am excited because I can do more work this year, but we lost a lot of girls this last year and so I'm bummed about that. Brittany (after baby) and Kelsie (when in the state) I am leaving this as an open invitation to come take my tap and/or jazz classes on Thursday nights. It would definitely liven things up!! I think Desiree will even come take when she is in town!!

Anyway, that is pretty much all I have to update right now. I hope to have some classroom pictures up soon!!

So Much to Post...So Little Time...

Okay, so yes I am back. I know it has been awhile, but it has also been quite eventful. Let's begin with Las Vegas. This was in July. The girls did great and I have pictures from banquet night!!

This is actually the night before banquet. Kassi and I went to N9ne Steakhouse at the Palms that night. It was a fabulous night, but I really hate being photographed next to Kassi! She is such a pretty girl!


Me, Kassi, and Aunt Jenny on banquet night.


Kassi and I on banquet night!


All the older girls!


And Brooklyn is just too cute not to include! She asked to take a picture with me. She is so little! I love it!!


Moving on...next we went to our friend Brent's wedding. We know Brent from both Original Mike's and La Cave (the restaurants we worked at in Orange County). We had a lot of fun and got to see our La Cave friends! We miss them tons!!

Our dear friend Josh. He is angry we haven't move back to Orange County yet. He keeps offering to help us move. It's really quite sweet.


John and I


Which brings us to NOW. So, I started my school year off as a sub again for Kristen Neuman's 5th grade class. However, the budget caused so many cuts that the districts had over enrollment in many places. This forced them to hire more teachers the first week of school. So, if you hadn't heard yet, THAT is exactly what happened to me!! I interviewed the Friday school came back with Fruitvale and on Monday was hired to teach Kindergarten at Endeavour Elementary!! It's a dream job and I'm so excited!! I got to set up my classroom this week and on Tuesday I start with my full class! I'm nervous and excited!! I miss my 5th graders, but Kindergarten is one of my favorite grades!! I love it!

Here is John and I celebrating the night I was hired! I chose Tahoe Joe's! YUM!!


My classroom is super cute! I will take some pictures and post them eventually. I have already been so busy and it's just going to get busier for me! I promise to post as often as I can. But hey, I got like 3 good events in this post. :) Let's give me some credit!

Until next time....

The biggest post of all time!

Wow. I didn't realize it had been the end of May since my last post. I guess I have really been slacking. It's been really busy around here. Let's see...where to start.

There is a stray cat who was taunting Scooter months back and she would run around our yard. Well back in April she decided to have kittens in the yard behind ours. That house is abandoned and so the "mom-cat" decided that is where her and her kittens would live. We actually saw them the day they were born. They were so tiny. The reason we saw them is because she gave birth to them right on the other side of the fence and Scooter was barking insanely. Anyhow, John started hopping over the fence every night to feed mom-cat. I'm not a cat fan, but I felt bad for the kittens. It wasn't their fault their mom got knocked up. So anyway, this is them a few weeks later...



Because I got tired of calling them by color etc, I gave them all names. I know...it was the beginning of the end. I started getting attached. Well we still feed them everyday...but now they come over into our side yard to eat so John doesn't have to hop the fence. Sometimes he plays with them too. One day John decided to kitty nap 2 of them. The mom cat was pretty mad at John. These are our new little kitties.

Meet Socks...she is John's favorite.




Meet Scout...he is my favorite.





So now we have 2 kitties. Have no fear though...they will be outside cats...because all though they are cute right now, they WILL become cats and I am not cool with cats running around my house. But for now, they are hanging out in the office in my house until they get bigger.

Next...we had the dance recital and sadly I didn't even have one picture on my camera. Oh well...I have danced in plenty of them. No worries. The week after recital we went to a Dodger game. Before you freak out...it was a Dodger vs. ANGELS game. Dr. Ahmed (who I work for in the summer) has season tickets and I got to use them on June 28th. We took Allison and Matt who are Dodger fans. Our seats were on field level between 1st base and right field/outfield. Here was our view and a cute picture of John and I.




We went to Orange County over the 4th of July. I don't have pictures from our fireworks show as I was sick. You see...we went on John's uncle's yacht out in Long Beach. We went out to the Queen Mary where they have a fireworks show. I, however, was sea sick. Yes...it sucked. Well I watched the fireworks...but from the couch inside the yacht. So I didn't take pictures. Anyhow, we took the dogs over to his uncle's the next day to play with Penelope. She and Penny got in the pool to play. Well Penelope decided to roll around in the dirt and so I had to take pictures. This is another reason my dogs are short hair dogs!!!





I still don't have a job for the school year. I have pretty much just accepted the fact that I will be subbing again next year. I have taken a job subbing for Kristen Neuman again in 5th grade when school starts. It will last for 10 weeks. If on the off chance I do get hired before school then they will just find another sub. In the meantime I am still working at the doctor's office. They have been really great there.

I guess I will wrap this post up. I will leave you with a cute picture of Scooter. He made the pup bed into a sleeping bag. What a cutie!!


My dance girls have DEA nationals coming up. I will be in Vegas with them. Hopefully I get some pictures!! Until next time...

Just a quickie!

So school is officially out for the summer! My last day with kids was yesterday and I had to go back today to close down the classroom. It's a little sad for me. I said goodbye to the teachers/staff I have gotten to know this school year at Patriot. I have no idea where I will be next fall and so there is a possibility it may be the last time I see many of them. Everyone was so nice and wished me well in my job hunt! I can only wait and see what positions open up after enrollment changes. On a good note, the kids in my 2nd long term (5th grade) were really sweet! I got a few presents and a lot of hugs! I hope I get to see many of those students again someday!

Anyway, no pictures as this is just a quick post. Hopefully my next post will be good news of a job. We shall see!

Until then...

The big one!

So as promised, I have downloaded my pictures onto my computer. I forget about doing it because they have to go on my laptop which I have stopped using because it is ridiculously slow now.

So as mentioned, Scooter had an incident with a bumblebee. He unfortunatly lost and was stung right on the nose area. He swelled up really fast (didn't get a picture of this unfortunately) and we rushed him to the vet. They gave him some shots and said he would be fine. Well he was not and the sting swelled into an abscess. He had to go under for a drainage since it was close to his eye. Anyway, here is Scooter with his "space dog" cone on that he actually loved wearing!




If you look closely, you can see the puncture of where his abscess was drained. This isn't where he was stung but rather where they went in to drain. Poor Scooter.


In other news, the 5th grade assignment I took is going well. We only have 3.5 weeks left of school and that makes me super happy! I can't wait to have a mini break and find out if I'm going to get a job teaching or move on to something else. I hate being in limbo. It gives me anxiety. Anyway, I got a cute hair cut too thanks to Kassi. She attempted her first "bob" and I think it came out quite nice.



As for John, things are still going well for him at his job. His company is a huge sponsor for Cancer research and all year they raise money for Relay for Life. The owner's daughter died of a rare bone cancer in 2005. KSI (John's employer) has raised a lot of money for this cause. John signed up to walk in the Relay for Life and I decided to tag along. I had never attended this event which is held every year (for all you non-Bakersfield people who aren't aware). I must say, I was blown away. It was a very emotional place. So many survivors and so many deaths. The booths were all raising money for this cause. The amount of support there was awesome. I plan to go back each year to walk. John's company was a Gold Team which meant their team raised an average of $517 per person. We saw teams who raised almost $1000 per person! If you have never gone, I encourage you to do so. It's 24 hours so you can go anytime and walk. It really made me think about the people in my life who have lost their battle with Cancer, as well as the people currently fighting this disease. I love my grandma and each day I pray her leukemia can be beat!

Whew, on a lighter note I took a few pictures of Penny and Baxter which I thought were adorable. Baxter is really getting big. He is so long. Much longer than we thought he would be. He is still pretty skinny, which I'm happy about. It's coming up for that time when he needs to get "fixed." I'm sure he won't be happy about this day when it comes....

I got Penny a new shirt. It truly fits her personality.


John and Penny. She has such a crush on him. Seriously.


Just a couple of Baxter.



Well, I think that about covers it for this post. Unfortunately because I just used a ton of pictures for this post, I may not have anything interesting to talk about for awhile. Oh well. Something will probably come up!

Until next time....