"Teacher-- I heard that President Obama died of Swine Flu."

The above quote, from a second-grader at our school, well embodies the attitude of the students at my school this morning. Since three students in Park City School District are being tested (and they have closed their schools for two days accordingly), my school in a neighboring district was filled with nervous students all day.

When my fourth-graders walked in, several of them immediately grabbed a tissue and taped it over their noses. If they hadn't looked so worried I might have laughed. As it was, I asked them to throw away the tissues and ask me their questions.

We had a 35-minute conversation about what the flu is, what a vaccine really is, what anitbodies are, how many people there are in the US versus how many people in the US actually have the flu. I talked to them about the common-sense advise newspersons are giving about doing things like staying home if you have a fever (what a novel concept!) and washing your hands frequently. Talking about the epidemic which has been portrayed as a pandemic was good for my students this morning, and honestly, I don't think we would have been able to get past our morning board work if they hadn't had a chance to vent.

My favorite quote of the day (other than the one in the title) was this: after THOROUGHLY explaining how unlikely it was that my class would contract the swine flu, and after we all agreed that it was nothing to stress over, I let them chat for a few minutes to get it out of their systems.

Immediately, one of my boys yelled the following:

"We're all gonna die!"

If that's so, then I think I might die laughing. Today was pretty hilarious.

Check out this website (thanks adam!) to see if you might have the dreaded disease:
http://doihaveswineflu.org/

Guess what I did this last weekend?

More pictures to come...with far more details, and fun family anecdotes as well.

Above should suffice until I get Papa Cummings' photos of the weekend.

This is one of my favorite pictures I was able to snap on my camera, because it is with best friend Abi.

It was an exciting weekend, to be sure. They even lit the "Y" up for us....

Remember this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTSdUOC8Kac

It's been a while

So here are some pictures:

M. and me in Park City (March)

November Fun with Ashley and Kim. We made these shirts, and then when mine shrunk in the wash, I had to give it away. Nothing like irony when your Honor Code shirt gets too tight.


The most expensive dinner I've ever had...and the most delicious. Midway (March)

Some profound friends.

Jenny and Isaac (Thanksgiving)

Goose and Shell (October)

Do you like music?

Because I do.

And I like Heather for finding this: she knows me very well.

I hope you enjoy. Melinda and I will start practicing for Beach Week.... oh wait. I won't be there. Ahem. We'll start practicing for the family Christmas concert. We'll have to get Isaac Johnson to help us out with the drums, though. I don't know if I can multi-task like that.

Watch the video HERE

Spring Break Begins

After an amazing conference weekend, and before Easter Sunday rolls along, I have something completely wonderful: Spring Break.

I haven't had a Spring Break since high school, and let me tell you--with the first day almost over, I am beginning to see what I've been missing. Granted, I did actually spend all day in my classroom, but this time it was because I just wanted to. I did lots of cleaning, lots of filing, and I ate lunch up in Midway's delicious Tarahumara's. It was delicious.

Tomorrow, I will be doing some Spring cleaning at home... and maybe some baking. Speaking of which, I tried Kari's grapefruit cookies over conference weekend, and they were some amazingly wonderful. I added some extra grapefruit zest to the icing in the middle, which I liked (somehow mine tasted far to sweet to be paired with grapefruit, so I had to zing it up a bit). Yum!

Truly, my wish for each of you is that you may, in some season of your life 1. Have Spring Break and 2. Taste Kari's awesome cookies.