Best. Spring. Break. Ever.

How ironic is this: in college, Michelle and I never got Spring Break because we went to BYU and for some reason unknown to me they don't do Spring Break; however, now that we are working folks we got over a week off for Spring Break! Well, the reason is because we are teachers....I think that is ironic, don't you?!? Anyways, Michelle and spent a whole week in Florida for our break. We drove down on Friday night after work and stayed in Palm Bay (closest big city is Orlando) with some good friends who live there. We absolutely love living in D.C. but the change of pace, atmosphere, scenery, and weather was very much appreciated for one week. Since we didn't even get a Spring Break in college I am not sure how much this statement means, but I can say with certainty that this was our best Spring Break ever! We did a lot of fun things, such as visit Universal Studios Orlando. Hopefully you can see how drenched we are in this picture. It was as if we jumped in a pool! Michelle and I liked this ride the most, it was called Bluto's Barge or something like that (Popeye theme). I almost forgot to mention we went on it four times.
Obligatory theme park funnel cake. Can't think of many things worse for you, but can't think of many things that taste better! This tasty funnel cake came with some extra toppings I had never had on a funnel cake before. The Marvel super heroes section was probably our favorite part of the park. That is a pretty big picture of old Wolvey, no? I am about as big as one of knuckles.
This is me on Storm's (from X-men) ride. The theme of the ride was that you had to spin around as fast as you could to generate enough energy to defeat Magneto. Yes...very cheesy! All the rides had really cheesy themes, some were so cheesy that you just have to laugh!

This is me on Hulk's ride. I was planning on filming the whole ride but the ride started very abruptly! It caught me off guard because instead of going slowly to the top it just blasted off! Frankly, I am lucky I didn't lose the camera because I was still getting it ready when we took off. I did manage to get some funny pictures like this one.
Harry Potter's Wizarding World (a new addition to Universal Studios that they are making) doesn't officially open for a couple more months but we were still REALLY excited to just get to see some of the parts like Hogwarts.
Look out, Michelle! That Stegasaurus (sp?) in Jurassic Park is going to get you! I know, I am lame :)
Michelle looking cute as a button on the Jurassic Park boat ride.
Us boarding the Jurassic Park boat ride. Not bad for a take-it-yourself-with-your-own-arm-extended picture.
A very lucky coincidence for us was that the Sony Ericsson Open was being played in Miami the same time that we were in Florida. Don't know what that is? That's ok, you must not be as big of tennis fans as we are. You bet your bottom dollar we went to a full day of tennis in Miami. We bought full-day tickets and got to see a lot amazing tennis. My man Rafael Nadal gave a lesson to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, beating him in straight sets.
We enjoyed watching the doubles as much as the singles matches. Here I am watching an all Spain doubles quarterfinals match. Maybe it the fact that we were in Miami or the fact that there were a lot of Spanish tennis players still in the tournament the day we went, but there were more speaking Spanish than English. Its always fun to practice the old Spanish.
Bob and Mike Bryan (American twins and best doubles team of all time) in their matching outfits.
Michelle and I watching Henin and Wozniacki on center stage.
And now for the most important part of all: we got to spend four full days on some of the best beaches in the world (well, at least according to the Floridians). I don't know how you can really determine what the 'best' beaches in the world are, but I digress. We went to Cocoa Beach twice (and went to the famous Ron Jon's Surf shop in Cocoa), Daytona Beach, and Melbourne Beach.
Yup, we were pretty much the whitest folks out there. We didn't let that bother us though, we had a great time.
Having fun with the waves. Michelle probably won't like this picture up on our blog but I think she looks cute, bracing for impact of the wave. That is our friend Juleen to her right.
Running from the waves...or something.
Had to come up with some corny pictures on the beach.
Had so much fun, can't believe its over. Well, as long as we are teachers I guess we can do this every year!

Teaching So Far...

Today marks the 3/4 point of the school year. I can hardly believe how fast time has gone by so far (I know that is terribly cliche but it is true). I haven't really written about how the year has gone so far so I thought I would do it now. As is common for all first-year teachers, the school year started out pretty tough. I had a large class with a several individuals that liked to keep me on my toes. I am very fortunate though; I work at a very small middle school and teach a one semester long Spanish course. Since the course is only one semester long, I got to take everything I learned halfway through the year and start anew with the 7th graders. So halfway through the year I got a fresh start with a new group of students -- what a blessing! I learned a ton in that first semester. I learned how to be firm, how to be tough, how to handle all kinds of distractions and disruptions, and I was prepared for just about anything. Luckily, my new class (the 7th graders) is significantly smaller and their overall behavior is outstanding. This class that I have now is amazing. I know that I will not always have such a well-behaved group of kids so I know I can't let my guard down forever, but I am certainly enjoying teaching this group of students.

Overall I love teaching. It is a great job and I feel lucky to be where I am. I love working with people and getting to know so many people. I love the school I work at as well. Like I said before, it is a small school so I only teach one middle school class. I do other things around the school though to help in other grade levels. I also do a Spanish exposure type of class with different elementary school grades where I see them once a week. I think it is really great that I get to work with almost every kid in the whole school (because of being a middles school teacher and doing the exposure class to the elementary school classes). I am enjoying being at this school so much that I actually decided to become an assistant coach for our track and field team this semester. I don't really know anything about this sport but I help out as much as I can. Some of the kids call me 'Coach Wallace' now, which sounds funny to me.

Some other exciting news is that yesterday I found out that an anonymous donor funded a proposal I made online at a website called donorschoose.org. I made a proposal and explained why having an LCD projector would significantly enhance my teaching. I have lots of pictures and videos and stuff I would love to be able to show my kids, and now I am going to be able to. The projector will be mine so I am very grateful for that. Thanks to that anonymous donor, whoever you are! Another exciting thing about being a teacher is that we get a week off for Spring Break. Michelle and I are traveling to Florida tonight; I hope to come back to DC tanner after having spent some time on the beach. Michelle and I are trying to decide what to do with our time off this summer. Since we are both teachers for DCPS, we have the same exact work schedules. This is nice. We have the same days off, get done at the same time, etc. Other than these two years we that we will both be teachers, we don't think we will ever both have so much (paid) time off. We kind off feel like we should take advantage of this time and travel the world or something. On the other hand, we could both work summer school, make some extra money to pay off student loans and save for the future. It is a tough decision.

New York City

Michelle and I visited our cousins in NYC this past weekend. We had really been looking forward to it for a long time. We took Friday off and took a bus up on Thursday so that made it even more fun. It rained almost the entire time we were there but we didn't let it slow us down, we just grabbed an umbrella and put on an extra coat and hit the city! We walked through Central Park and visited a couple amazing museums. The Museum of Modern Art had a huge exhibit on Tim Burton along with all the usual interesting stuff. We also visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This is hands down the most incredible museum I have ever been to. It is basically the best of all the Smithsonians here in D.C. all rolled into one. The first thing we saw when we went there was the Egyptian stuff and it blew us away. It was amazing seeing all this stuff in person. We also just had to see what all this cupcake craze is all about (we are always hearing about people in NYC going to gourmet cupcake shops). We went to Crumbs and got a couple cupcakes. They were delicious! We had a great time strolling through Times Square and also through parts of Brooklyn where my cousins live. There are some incredible views of the city and some bridges that we saw from Brooklyn. My cousins know a lot of really good restaurants so they took us to a Peruvian food restaurant (it had been way too long since I had a lomo saltado) and a Korean restaurant. We had a great time and look forward to our next trip to the city that never sleeps.

D.C. Happenings of Late

Michelle and I have been busy here in D.C. We love living here and are determined to do and see as much as we can. Above is Michelle and I in front of Capitol Hill. Below is a picture of us inside the main rotunda (the big dome you can see in the picture above).

Below is a picture of us and some friends with our feet in the exact center of all four quadrants of D.C. Below is Michelle and I visiting the U.S. Botanical Garden. I would describe it as an indoor greenhouse divided into different climates and regions from around the world. There is a tropical jungle area, a desert section, and several others.
Michelle atop the 'reading room' in the Library of Congress. You may recognize this room from National Treasure 2. It was also in The Lost Symbol.

Below is a picture from inside the Smithsonian Castle. You can see Michelle if you look, she is wearing an orange sweatshirt.

Valentine's Day

Michelle and I celebrated our third Valentine's Day together today. I got Michelle an external hard drive as a gift so we have been going through all the files on our computers and DVDs and compiling all of our pictures on the hard drive. Below are some pictures of us from when we had only been dating for about a month and lived in the Barlow Center in Georgetown (when we were interns on Capitol Hill through BYU's Washington Seminar program). We found these pictures while compiling all of the old pictures we have. It has only been three years, I don't think we really look all that much different.

Snowverkill

That video is of Michelle walking from the office of our apartment complex to our apartment. Today is Wednesday, and school was canceled again for the third day in a row. I am betting that school will be canceled for the rest of the week. The road conditions are absolutely awful and there is no way anyone is going anywhere anytime soon. It is still snowing and according to weather reports it could keep snowing all night and next morning. What makes the storm so bad right now though is that it is actually like a storm - it is extremely windy. On the news all morning long they have been talking about how little visibility there is and that you should stay off the roads unless it is an emergency. Anyways, here are a couple pictures of what things look like right now where we live.

Snow Days I and II/Snowpocalypse Update

The last few days have been a little crazy because of the record-breaking snowstorm dubbed 'Snowpocalypse.' The storm was so bad that the school district Michelle and I work for, DCPS, has had to cancel school yesterday and today (Monday and Tuesday). It is extremely rare for DCPS to declare a snow day so that should give you an idea of how bad of shape this area of the country is in right now. Michelle and I and a group of friends were crazy enough to go out to the movies last night and see what the roads are like right now. Some roads are very bad, others are pretty much fine. There is still so much snow on the roads in some places that I cannot foresee this city getting up and running like normal for quite a long time. The temperatures are just not warm enough to melt the snow and ice and the DC metropolitan area is not equipped to plow and salt on scale this large. If it did not snow anymore, I would say maybe by the end of the week life would return to normal...but unfortunately it is going to snow again today. In fact it is supposed to snow up to 20 inches again. If it does indeed snow that much more I don't see how we could be going back to work anytime soon. There are so many roads that are still in awful conditiom; there are so many cars still totally buried in snow and barricaded by walls of snow from the snow plows; things are a mess. In the meantime Michelle and I are having a great time hanging out with all our friends here in our apartment complex! We are lucky enough to live in an apartment complex with a ton of friends. Pretty much everyone's work is canceled so we have all just been playing games and hanging out all day and staying up late because nobody has to work the enxt day :) It has been a really fun time! We have used up all our snow days now though so if they cancel anymore school days after today we will probably have to make them up somehow. Here are some pictures and video of the aftermath of snowpocalypse. If it snows anotrher couple of feet today I will be sure and put some pictures up of the madness.

Snowpocalypse II

That is my car, believe it or not. This weekend, DC got hit by the worst snowstorm since 1922 or something like that. Michelle and I only had to work a half day yesterday because of the storm. We have had a lot of fun with this rare snow storm here so far. As you can see by the picture of the road that my car is parked on, we aren't gonig to be able to go anywhere for a while. There are some funny videos at the bottom.

Christmas in Idaho

We spent our whole 2 week Christmas break in Idaho at my house this year. It was a very much needed break from teaching and was so much fun. We had lots of yummy homemade meals that I didn't have to cook, we read lots of books we haven't had the time for, played Rock Band, watched some good movies, went to dinner and the movies, went shopping, and really enjoyed spending time together. Chad's parents even drove up to my parents house to have Christmas with us and stay a week. It was a lot of fun to have both of our families there. Luckily, they all get along great. We did a lot of really cool things over the Christmas break. The pictures and explanation below are going to be a little out of order. Sorry!

Here is us with Chad's parents on Christmas

Chad told me before we left DC that he wanted to really experience what Idaho has to offer this vacation, so on Christmas day after we opened presents we all went skeet shooting in the hills near our house. It was Linda's first time, so here is Chad teaching her how to do it. Almost everyone hit at least a couple of clay pigeons, so that was fun. Cara hit 3/3 when she first started!

On Christmas eve day, to show Chad a little more of what Idaho has to offer, we took our four wheeler to the mountains and did some four wheeling and sledding. We didn't last too long on the four wheeler because our faces were getting so cold, but it was fun to be enjoying the outdoors and time with family. I love that in Idaho, even when it's really cold, you can just dress warm and be totally comfortable (as opposed to DC where no matter how warm you dress the cold humidity chills you to the bone).

While we were playing around in the snow, Chad lost his cell phone. He didn't realize until the next day (Christmas) that it was missing. After searching the house and cars, Chad was convinced that the only place his phone could be was in the snow in the mountains where he had fallen. So after skeet shooting we drove back up to the mountains to look. Most of us didn't really think we would find it, and if we did, if it would even work after being in the snow for 24 hours. Amazingly though, Brandt found it in a little hole, right where Chad had fallen the day before and it was perfectly fine. We were all very relieved that it was still there and hadn't been buried by more snow! Our mothers called it the Christmas miracle! We played around in the snow for a little while and then headed home.

Michelle and Chad skeet shooting

After Christmas, we decided to go to the Bruneau Sand Dunes near our house. They are the tallest Sand Dunes in North America. There's not much to do there when it's cold outside, but we did hike up one of them.

Chad and I learned how to make beef jerky while we were there. We bought the beef, cut it into slices, marinated it, and put it in the dehydrator. It turned our really well and was fun. We really love my mom's beef jerky recipe!


Chad, his mom, Brandt, and Cara all went night skiing/snowboarding one night at Bogus Basin.

My family (minus Brian who is in the Philippines, but will be home in less than 2 weeks!)

One of my family's Christmas traditions is to make gingerbread houses with homemade gingerbread. We struggled with getting our roof to stand up, but finally got it to work. We bought way too much candy and decorated it with everything we like to eat. I guess we forgot to take a picture of it all done.

Another Christmas tradition - matching pajamas to be opened on Christmas eve. Very comfy and cute!

Chad and I got a new PS3 for Christmas.

It snowed a couple of days after Christmas, so we took our four wheeler to the park and went hooky bobbing. It was a lot of fun! That is one of my favorite things to do in the winter.

Before we went to Idaho, we went to see the D.C. Temple lights with some of our friends.