Looking Back: Labor Day

Well, teaching is over: I cried. I loved my kids like they were my own children. They all wrote a note to me that my mentor teacher bound in a book for me. They were so wonderful, my favorites saying things like: I like Mrs. Froberg because she's beautiful, or I like Mrs. Froberg because she helps me, I like Mrs Froberg because she always smiles at me. It's nice to know that I didn't scar or ruin any children, so I take that as a sign I can keep going.

Now, I told you guys that I had a million pictures, just no time to blog about them. So here's a quick look back at one.

Labor Day Weekend

We went with my family and some long time family friends to Idaho. We always camp at this river each year. Our friends always bring tubes and a canoe and float the river for a few hours. It is beautiful, isn't it?

Brent had too much fun with my brothers. He taught them how to catch some sucker fish with their hands and the boys thought he was a superhero. I was just glad to see he had some survival tactics up his sleeve if we ever needed it. I would need to have gone three days without food to eat it first though.

We had our cute little 2-man tent next to my parents. That thing if smaller than our bed at home. Seriously. At least we were snug and warm. 

We spent Labor Day at Yellowstone National Park. It was way too busy, but we got to see some cool hot springs which is all I wanted anyway. 

Old Faithful. Still faithful. 

It was a wonderful trip, I love camping with my family. There is always some fun games going on, or music, or teasing, or really good food. All activities I love. 

Trying on my 'teacher' shoes

Practicum has been going wonderfully! Honestly, I am a little in shock that everything is going so well. Usually I have random problems that are thrown at me. And since this is the ONLY thing that I'm doing in my life, it's the only thing I have to talk about.

So sometimes you have to brag. I got observed by my CFA (my major uses a lot of acronyms, but basically the CFA makes sure you can actually teach, and if not, kicks you out of the program) for the first time last week. It was a very frightening experience. My lesson didn't go exactly as planned, but for the most part I felt it worked. However, I received my official observation form from my CFA today and it made me so happy. I have a TON to work on, as she pointed out, but this was my favorite part:

"Right away I notice what a good teacher voice you have.  You seem very confident and students sense this.  Your interaction is genuine and warm.  It is a joy to see how natural you are at this job. You are so believable in the role as teacher.  As I watched you today it was thrilling to see how well suited to being in front of a first grade class you are.  It honestly was hard to believe this is your first practicum.  I saw so many good techniques that were more suited to a more experienced teacher.  You are a natural!" 

So there's my bragging... sorry. A week ago I was ready to quit. I was sure I would be a horrible teacher. But now I'm starting to understand my role as a teacher, and it's a lot less complicated than I previously thought. 

I love these kids. They say the funniest things to me! The other day I wore a dress to school. One of my sweet little girls came up to me and said, "I love your costume." I was slightly confused. "My costume?" I asked and she smiled sweetly up at me. "Yes, you make a pretty princess." Bless her heart. I like knowing that I can live in a world where when I wear a dress I become a princess. I also had another girl who explained to me that her mother was fat because she ate a lot of cookies. I'm sure her mother would really appreciate her saying that to me. I also love it when the kids invite me to play soccer or tag with them at recess. I know I'm not there to be their friend, and I always make that clear, but I like that they want ME involved in what they're doing. All in all, life is wonderful. I've never had days go by so quickly and sleep so soundly at nights. 

I'm not sure when I'll have children; hopefully I'm blessed one day with a few. But I hope that I can be a better mom because of what I'm learning right now. When you're being 'mom' for 23 children, you start to realize what's most important for them to succeed. Want to know the secret? Expectations. Yes, it is that simple. Expectations are everything. If you expect there to be no drama and you don't tolerate it when it pops up, guess what? There is no drama. It's wonderful. If you expect kids to be respectful, they will be. 

Sorry for such a 'deep' post, but I've just felt like I needed to get it all out so I can look back and remember. 

Teaching in the Real World

I have a very good reason why I haven't blogged lately. It's called Practicum. This is similar to Student Teaching where I'm partnered with a teacher and become her aid! I was assigned to first grade. Today was my very first day, and it was pretty biopolar. 23 little children looking up at me about gave me a heart attack.

I know I love children. I prefer their company over adults sometimes, I can't lie. They're just so loving and excited about life. I have a bad habit of feeling inadequate as soon as a meet a person, but what I love is that never happens with kids. Even though I love children, I just realized (and you might think I'm crazy that this is JUST hitting me after three years of schooling) that I'm actually teaching these children and I'm terrified. I have been preparing and preparing for this moment, and find none of it is truly comforting me. However, I feel confident that the more experience I get, the more comfortable I will be.

In other news, no photos this time. There are plenty on my camera, and one day I'll download them. Brent is doing another Lazyman Ironman (doing an Ironman in one month)

Ironman=
2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) bicycle ride and a marathon 26.2-mile (42.2 km) run, raced in that order and without a break

Pretty impressive that people do that in one day right? I think a month is a much better time frame.

Also, Brent and I have made a lot of really good food this month. Sometimes, I don't want to be anywhere near the kitchen. Other times, you can't get me out of it. This month has been the later.

Recipes of this month:

Creamy pasta! (I did NOT add the cream. I did a tablespoon of sour cream and it was fantastic. Also, add some red pepper flakes, the spice is sooooo fun)
http://www.cookglee.com/2013/08/pasta-with-tomato-cream-sauce.html?m=1


Easy easy curry. It's a sweeter curry, but very good!
http://tastykitchen.com/blog/2011/03/slow-cooker-coconut-chicken-curry/

Amazing asian wraps.
http://www.thecomfortofcooking.com/2012/10/asian-beef-lettuce-wraps.html

This looks better than it tastes sadly. But it was still yummy
http://www.flourishingfoodie.com/2012/03/creamy-avocado-pasta.html

End of Summer

I bet you've all been wondering about our garden. It's gotten rather big:

Our favorite thing lately is our carrots. I'm making soups and stews like crazy with these babies.

Our tomatoes are WONDERFUL, but it's starting to get cold so they're not ripening as fast. We love making salsa out of them with our vitamix. Salsa is the favorite snack in our household. Brent goes through jars in a week.

One awesome activity that Brent and I like doing is riding our bikes. There is a trail right by our house that runs all through Provo. I like it because there are no cars (still traumatized over being hit by a car last year). It's only 9 miles, so it's more of a joy ride, but we love doing it! Here's Brent in action

 Isn't it a pretty trail?? There is a river right off to the left that we stop at and cool our feet or spot fish.

This is the story of my life. Brent is much too fast for me.

Brent has told me lately that there are too many pictures of him. I told him that's because I always have the camera. So now he's making an effort to take more pictures of me. I can't say i'm too pleased about this turn of events.

I love Utah!! So so so pretty!

Called to Serve

Last night Brent and I went to my parent's home and got to watch Taylor open his mission call.

For our church, young men and women have the opportunity to serve the church for two years. They are assigned a place in the world and a language. They go there and teach the gospel to people living there.

It was really fun because my Mom had pinned up a huge world map and we all made our guesses. It was a wonderfully spiritual moment as my youngest brother Mitchell prayed, and when he mentioned how proud we were of Taylor he started chocking up...and I bawled. It was the first time that I actually realized one of my brothers and a best friend is leaving me for two years! We all wept and cheered when he read these words:

Dear Elder Shumway 

You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Canada Calgary Mission. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Mandarin Chinese Language.

He barely made it through that last part he was in so much shock. We all were. Chinese is NOT an easy language, especially when you're expected to teach people in it after only knowing it for 3-4 months. But we know he can do it, just like the thousands of missionaries before him, with the help of the Lord.

I have to say I'm so thankful he's going to another country...but one with hospitals and no crazy diseases and parasites. I've been to Canada several times now, and it is a beautiful place.

I'm so proud of my brother. He has never strayed from the path to be the best person he can be. Even though he is two years younger than me, I have looked up to him as an example and cherish his input and comfort. Taylor is a very smart kid, earning himself a huge scholarship for BYU and a promising future. Taylor has always been a funny kid. He's got a clever sense of humor that can always make me grin. He's a hard worker and has done a lot of service with my dad.

He's a 6 foot 5 or 6 (he's just REALLY tall) teddy bear. I love how he never got too cool to give me hugs and say in his silly voice "Oh my big sister". When I used to live at home (and, actually, I still do this) I would go to his room and lay on his bed with him and just talk. I don't remember all that we would talk about, but I always remember feeling comfort and a sense of peace because I knew he accepted and loved me. I'm really going to miss those talks. I never had any sisters, but I think that's okay. The Lord knew what he was doing when he sent me sensitive, kind, and sweet brothers who would let me have 'girl' talks with them even if they didn't understand me.

Taylor is going to make the most incredible missionary. That doesn't mean he's going to be perfect, and I hope he knows that. I've heard it's two of the hardest years because of the trials and challenges that come along with a mission. But he will be incredible because he is so hard working, thoughtful, and most of all, Christ-like. If anything can soften the hearts of the people in Calgary and bring them into the gospel, it's my little brother. Blast. Now I need a new tissue box. Love you T!

Birthdays

It's pretty great that Brent and I both have our birthdays in the summer. Mine was in June and Brent's in August. Here are a couple pictures for the events.

I love pie. Most of all I love my mom's pie. We had my family over for dinner than got to eat pie for dessert. It was so fun having them over. They always are feeding and helping us that it's nice to give back. 

See? Good looking pie right?

Brent also made me a special breakfast in the morning. Waffles with strawberries. He really takes care of me and is so thoughtful. 

Brent had to work on his birthday...but we made the most of the night when he got home. I marinated steaks all day and we cooked them up! Well..Brent cooked them up. I felt a little bad, but I don't know how to grill. 

BIG 25! He hates when I take so many pictures of him...

Here's the finished meal. We had corn, the amazing steaks (the marinade was heavingly...i was so glad it turned out) and roasted cauliflower. 

See? Happy boy :) He's all about the food. 

Date Night Pottery

So, remember when I was talking about trying Brent's hobbies? Well, he was a good sport and tried one of mine. I absolutely love painting. I just love creating something from a blank page. So Brent took us out to dinner (thank all the people who gave us gift cards to restaurants...it allows us to have a nice date dinner) then surprised me by taking me to a pottery art studio. We picked out a bowl to paint and did a natural scene. We were very scared for how it would turn out (especially since I made Brent paint a few things...haha just joking he did great). So here's the masterpiece!!

Here's my tree.

Here is Brent's tree

Brent did the lake and he was VERY proud of it. 

This is the inside. We wanted it to look like a pond with leaves floating on the surface. 

I had so much fun, and I want to go back again! I think once we're settled down in a house I'll make all our dishes...I might be getting ahead of myself with an impossible task, but we'll see. Anyways, we love our bowl. A little too much actually. Right now it just sits on our table because we're afraid to use it. It's just too pretty....

Memorial Day

Everyone tries to be good at something. And most of the time, I try really hard to be a good wife. This envolves a lot of trying my Hubby's hobbies. Brent loves to bike. He's just really good at it and loves to do it all the time. Before we got married, I hadn't riden a bike since 5th or 6th grade. About two weeks after we got married Brent bought me a bike, and ever since I've been trying to like it. It took awhile, but now i'm really getting into it (funny note: The day after we got my bike I got hit by a car. I blame this incident on me not liking biking for awhile). Now I love it and I ride my bike everywhere! Cars still make me nervous, but I'm finally getting over that.
So we live in Provo and my parents live in American Fork, a few towns away. We can usually get there in 25 minutes in a car. Recently, they built this huge trail that connects all the cities. IT IS AMAZING. No cars, runs for miles and miles and is very well paves and very pretty. So Brent and I decided to bike to my parents in American Fork for Memorial Day weekend. Here's our route:

We traveled from Provo, which is the bottom right corner, up to the green section in American Fork! It was a good 14 miles or so. Here is us on the return journey

It was so fun and I was really surprised at how easy it ended up being. We made the trip in one hour and 23 minutes! Pretty fast in my opinion. We had so much fun at my parents house too! They put on an awesome breakfast and a bunch of my family came over. I think we'll be making this trip a lot more often this summer.

Eating Lately

So Brent and I were made aware of a Candida cleanse by Brent's sister Andrea. The gist of the cleanse is to only eat veggies and healthy proteins. We've been going strong at it for over two weeks now. It takes A LOT more planning and creativity. Aside from the roaring headaches of sugar cravings and donut daydreams, I have been feeling amazing. I think everyone should try this at least one time in their life. My face is completely clear and healthy! My body feels so clean and light all the time. It has also shown me that I could possibly be slightly gluten intolerant. So for all of you who are fascinated with what we've been eating, here are some killer recipes. Some of them are the best dishes I have ever had.

(we actually used some of my mother's pesto instead of sause and used this amazing spice mix from Costco (Sweet ginger garlic) on the chicken. Amazing)

http://sprouts.com/recipes/zucchini-pasta

This was my Mother's Day breakfast surprise

http://www.thecandidadiet.com/avocado-omelet/

And here is Brent's Favorite:

http://www.thecandidadiet.com/coconut-chicken-with-spinach/

And my favorite, sorry I don't have a picture:

Cabbage Soup

• one head green cabbage, sliced into strips
• one onion, chopped
• 1 lb of hamburger (browned)
• 2 cans diced/stewed tomatoes
• 1 can tomato sauce
• About 1 can of water
• 1 can chickpeas, drained
• italian spices to taste (pepper, garlic, oregano, sage)

Here are the really complicated directions:

Place all ingredients in your slow cooker on low 

Mostly I loved that one because it was so easy and yummy. With healthy food, you don't usually get both EASY and YUMMY. Just saying. It's usually time consuming and yummy. 

On another note, I just got back from a girls night with my Mom and a friend. Gail Carson Levine  spoke at our library. Her books Ella Enchanted and Fairest were my FAVORITE books ever. Turns our she's under 5 feet. I don't know why I am so stuck on that fact, but it just was really funny to me. 

Hearing her speak and looking back on the books that shaped my childhood, I am just so grateful for amazing authors. Books taught me so much and opened a whole new world for me. To this day I think 'Books' is in my top three of things I will passionately talk about for hours. Especially in my Major of Elementary Education, I have learned so much about the importance of reading for kids. To me, reading for kids is like healthy food for kids. It's a must have/do. 

Anyways, life is good here! Brent and I both work all day so not much else happens. More updates on the garden soon! 

Growing Our Family

Haha. This is not a post stating that I'm pregnant. Thought I'd straighten that out first thing. However, as I've been reading other blogs, I realize what Brent and I are lacking. Adorable, hilarious children to write about. So I've decided our garden is our babies. And I will post many pictures of them and the adorable things that they do (aka...grow...). Lately, it's sprung up like crazy!

Here's the lettuce. We've already snuck a couple tastes, and it's super yummy!

Carrots. I'm just happy that they're visible. Before, you'd have to take out a magnifying glass to see them. 

Our kale!! It surprisingly tastes like broccoli...

Our Peas and Radishes. They're growing like crazy! The radishes are done, so we take a few every day. Brent's super into eating the greens of the radishes. 

PEAS! A headshot. 

This was our garden a week ago. Since then we've added a few tomato plants and a fence for the peas to grow up on. I'll have to go take some pictures of that for you guys. 

This is Brent and I's second week of full-time work. We're both exhausted by the end of the day. It's all going good though, and we're so grateful to have jobs! We also just found out we got our academic scholarships. SO happy about that. Life is pretty slow right now. Work, come home, sleep. I've been trying to do some exciting things. I'm going through books like crazy. We have some more exciting news later on that I'll need to post on. So stay tuned. 

Exploring Zion

So for those of you who have forgotten what being in school is like, let me remind you. From fall to winter it's class, class, work, class again, eat, class, work some more. All day sitting on your butt. Every day. So as soon as this semester was up we went for a long trip of adventure. With no sitting on butt action in there. We decided to head down to Zions National Park. We stayed at the cutest campsite in the world...and i'm a failure because I didn't take any pictures. 

Brent was super excited about doing a big big hike so we planned one for Thursday. It was a whopping 14 miler. It was to Kolob Arch. So we sang "if you could hie to Kolob" song a lot. ("There is no end to this trail... there IS NO END to this trail....")

Here's how the journey went.

Brent's note: Jessica has the tradish of taking a before-the-hike photo. So that's what we have here :)

Here's the stunning view of what we're about to go into(ish)

Our trail was red (after several hours of walking, I concluded it was red because of the blood of poor innocent wives who were dragged along to do this hike) But it really was very secluded and beautiful. 

My Honey looking all sexy in the wilderness!!! (another of Brent's notes. I'm going to have to have him sit by me all the time while writing. Boosts my self-esteem)

We followed this amazing stream all the way along the hike. We found it very fascinating that it was green. It looked really pretty against the red rock though. 

Here's Brent doing what he does best: exploring.

And jumping places. And giving his wife a heart attack. That's a lot further jump than it may appear from this view, the river must've been 15 feet wide at this particular canal. (Brent again, boosting his pride)

See?? I'm loving this red rock.

We had some hikers take this. In the background you'll notice an awesome mountain. We named it Orange Mountain. (note, all mountains we saw were given this name. We are very creative)

Talking about names, we saw a BILLION lizards. They were all different sizes and pretty cute. I started going through the alphabet and naming them (to keep my mind off the pain, haha)

My Honey lookin all sexy again :)

(Orange Mountain the third)

The trail that never ends

And drumroll please....here's the arch!!

I guess it's one of the largest in the world. The forth largest to be exact

The stream was so pretty up there! 

Brent being silly.

This guy below gave us QUITE the heart attack. He was lying right across the trail. He was over three-feet long! EK! I have no idea if he was poisonous, but it was pretty scary all the same. 

We finished the hike in about 9 hours. I had several blisters and was exhausted while Brent seemed barely winded. It was a beautiful hike however, so i'd say it was worth it. 

The next day I was too tired (and burnt) to do any more hikes so we chilled in St. George. That night my family came down and we had a great dinner! The next day we went to hike Angel's Landing. So, looking at the picture below, we climbed to the top of this:

Here's the beginning of the hike pose with Taylor. 

The last part of the hike is all really high up and has sheer drops on either side of you. So you see the chains in the picture to hold onto. 

Here we are (almost at the top)

(would not want to fall off at this point...)

View from the tippi-top!!

It felt SO good to go Froberging around and to celebrate school getting out. We had a great weekend!