Adios until we meet again!

A lovely shot of some ward friends of mine, who I will dearly miss...

Thus begins a great new adventure! This is to be my last post until 2012. If you would like to hear news or write to me while I serve a mission, then please contact a family member and they will help you to get my information.

I love you...thanks for reading the blog, and we'll see you on the other side!

(Note...I will be disabling the comment function, so if you love me and want to show it after reading this post, then in honor of me, listen to Christmas music on my B-day).

Lovingly,

Celeste

P&P Meets Trina

Me: Hey, Girls, you want to watch Pride and Prejudice with me tonight?

Sarah: Yeah! Sounds great!

Trina: Um...I don't think so. Don't you want to watch anything else?

Me: You don't like that movie?

Trina: Well, there's just too much pride, and way too much prejudice in that movie.

Remembering Kristan

Kinesthetic energy!

Reached out in love

International Pro

Sweet, pure heart

Tender loyalty to family

Awesome cousin

Needed and missed

Kristan Ruby L. We love you.

Look here at Loran's Beautiful Tribute Video

Active Learning

Today I had fun in school, and that's saying something. Everyone in the building is completely counting on this 3-day weekend coming up. But during math today, when I was demonstrating how 2 cups fit into a pint, 4 cups in a quart, etc (we're measuring liquids right now), I demonstrated, taught, had them practice, and then reviewed the lesson with the students. During the review, one of my students forgot how many ounces were in a cup. I coached him until he got it right, then I did the first thing that came to mind. When he finally said, "Eight!" I wet the top of the "cup" measuring canister, and I sprinkled his face with water droplets.

"How many cups in a pint?" I asked. Suddenly, every hand went up.

TWO!!! (I shot some water at them, ensuing screaming as the first graders acted like they were playing in the sprinklers).

"How many cups in a quart?"

Every hand went up. I felt like I might as well reinforce the measurements, so every student was given the chance to answer.

I don't think they were expecting that one, but it was sure fun to see their wet faces.

Smiling, of course.

Because she is just that awesome

Trina drew a picture this afternoon for Spencer, and on it, it has this instrument, with the following caption: Spencer and his Magnifine glass. Brilliant!

What a week!

My dear friend and old roommate, Kim, came to visit. She and I did/went to the following:

* Went to school with me one day and helped teach my first-graders

*Washington D.C. Temple (Probably the highlight of the trip, on my part)

*National Gallery of Art

*Dinner at Kobe's Japanese Restaurant (One of the most entertaining dinners of my memory! I'll never forget how well that chef at our table flipped the shrimp piece into my mouth!)

*I went to rehearsals and Kim survived Sarah's questions and Trina's affections. She loved it, too.

*Oatland's Plantation

*Downtown Leesburg

*Lightfoot Restaurant

*Can't forget Joel's b-day at Not Your Average Joe's

* 3 performances of the show, Kiss Me Kate (you missed it? Not true! You can still come this weekend!)

* Watching part of Rear Window

*Getting some sleep...with two spidery visitors. This part was not so fun, but certainly memorable.

Thanks for coming, Kim! This was such a great week!

Economics and Magic Trash

It's about time I added some record of teaching to this here blog. It's been a while!

Today my students and I had our "ecomonics day." First-grader style. First, we had a class lesson in changing money. Everyone was given a fake dollar, and then they had to change it into coins. By the end of the time frame, they needed to have 1 Quarter, 1 Dime, 1 Nickel, and 1 Penny, at least. Good example of something getting lost in translation: most students ended up with only 41 cents. If that. The "bankers" didn't really get the whole conservation of value thing either, but we definitely worked on pairing, cooperation, and communication skills. And some of them know how many dimes make up a dollar. Success! I'll take it!

After our money changing, I fixed the amounts so everyone had 3 quarters, a dime, two nickels, and 5 pennies. Then, later in the day, we had a lesson on supply and demand. I had brought in things like regular pencils, and super-sparkly pencils; glue sticks; craft kits (with popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, etc); personal packs of tissues; a bag of jolly ranchers; pencil erasers, etc. Each student HAD to buy a glue stick ($2), 2 erasers ($1) and a pencil (plain, $1; sparkly, $2). Then, they had to plan out what they would spend the rest of their money on. Would they buy their own tissues? ($2) Which three people would get the packs of colored pencils? ($4). Each student had between 5-10 bucks to buy with. They had earned the money throughout the week for good behavior in the hallway, at the end of the day, etc.
I don't know how much they would have understood this graph:
But they certainly understood the unfairness of how there were only 3 boxes of colored pencils, and 10 people had enough money and desire to pay the EXPENSIVE $4 for it. We ended up having to do an elimination game (bubble-gum, bubble-gum, in a dish...) to figure out how to keep our classroom environment safe and positive.

Management-wise, it was a zoo. Kid-involvement was 100%: they even got to be store owners! And for several of these kids, they don't have their own glue stick at home, so this was a fun activity.


Okay, now for Magic Trash.

This is my absolute favorite teaching trick. Okay, close second is the magic number cards, but this one still tops it. At the end of the day, I tell the students that I have selected a magic piece of trash on the floor. The person who finds it will get the lolly-pop in my hand. I won't check your collection of trash until all pencils, papers, etc are off the floor.

"Line up....quietly, please. Ah, good try. Nope. Nope. No----Wow! You found it! (Point to a student in need of positive reinforcement. Select something random from the trash they found.) Good job!"

This requires very little work on your part, and it is a fun way to encourage the students to clean up. Plus, last year, not even my fourth-graders got the hint that I really hadn't pre-selected the trash on the floor---just the kid.

Shhh... Don't tell any kids. If I lose that trick, I don't know how I'll teach school.

;-)

Spring Break and NJ/NYC

For Spring Break this year, we went to the Baltimore Aquarium and then drove a few hours further north to visit the Johnsons in NJ!

Our second day there, Mom and we kids went to the City to try and get lottery tickets.

I don't think Trina was very happy to be waiting in line, even if it was for Wicked. Well, she was right--we waited to no avail. The other 200+ people in line were not so lucky either. Only 13 lucky pairs were selected. During our wait we kept trying to calculate the odds of getting a ticket. I don't know how, but we kept coming up with a 33 percent chance. Just shows...tired Cummings waiting in line can sing, can probably read books and write a few good essays, even list historical facts and scientific concepts, but none of us were in any kind of state to do high-level mathematics. (For that matter, I don't know if I could have wanted to solve the problem even if I were well-rested.)


We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, navigated the subway, and then made it home for delicious bbq sandwiches with the Johnsons.

Dad joined us the next day, and we spent the day walking Times Square, seeing the Museum of Natural History, and we stopped by the Manhattan Temple and the American Folk Art Museum. Later that night, we tried for tickets again.

No luck with Wicked...but next door, Heather and I were lucky and got ourselves some tickets for The Miracle Worker, at the next-door theater "Circle in the Square."
The family went off to have dinner and see the Ferris Wheel in the ToysRUs, and Heather and I watched the well-acted and intense drama about Helen Keller and her Teacher.

We got home late that night, and went to sleep. (What is it about our vacations that make us more tired than rested? ;-) )

The next day, we had a nice breakfast and then went and picnicked in the beautiful weather. The Johnsons came along and went with us to Washington's Crossing.

We went to the visitor's center, watched a film about the important ten days that turned the tides of the Revolution, and had a great picnic lunch. Well-loved was the dessert, which was a huge Reese's PB Cup we got at Time's Square.

Thanks, Jenny, Nathan, Lily, and Isaac, for a great week! (And thanks, Heather, for that CUTE haircut!)

The White Envelope Came!

On Friday, March 26th, I came home from work and saw this in the mailbox.

At 9pm, we conferenced with the Aaron and Katy, with the Utah kids, and with Nathan J.

The Wrides and Jenny+Kids were already here.

I have been called to serve in the Colorado Denver North Mission, Spanish Speaking!

I know...it's been forever!

First things first. Heather cut my hair, and she did a great job!

Before

afterThanks, Heath!

Two delightful things

Two things have made me very happy this last week.

First of all, the sun came out! I love winter, I love the snow, but it's hard to imagine a day more beautiful than what we had today. It was slightly breezy, 70s, and sunny-rific.

Second happiness? Easter candy is the best. I sent off my EBX10 package today, which means I don't have to worry about anymore. I just get to look forward to my own coming in the next few weeks!

That's one more thing to think about daily when the mail rolls around. I am still waiting for White Envelope Time.

On a more random note, those of you looking for fun Easter Candies, I found these in several stores. Oh, they are so wonderful...especially the holiday snickers. They are so fresh and delicious. And Chocolate, Hazelnut, Lindt? 'Nuff said.

Things are going smoothly...

In the next three weeks or so, I will have one of these.

It's Official. I love RS.

Source of image

"Charity is born of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and is an effect of His Atonement working in the hearts of the members. "

I was reading this excerpt from part of Elder Henry B. Eyring's talk this week. This sentence really moved me. That combined with some very focused sacrament meeting talks and a great lesson taught by my mom on how to teach with love (in last night's Stake RS Meeting) has gotten me thinking. Things are so beautiful in deep, moving ways. The Atonement is a transforming event. There is unity in my ward, and it is wrought in the hearts and testimonies of our Relief Society women.

Great! I just bit the proverbial dust again!

For those of you who might not know, our family is lucky enough to see eldest brother Aaron a few days out of each week. Recently, seeing Aaron has been accompanied by being introduced to a new game.

For your pleasure and review, here are some games that we have recently played (and LOVED).

1. Pandemic:


The newest game Aaron brought home, Heather and I played tonight. It's all players against the diseases that are taking over the world. Heath and I played three times in a row, visiting cities and setting up research stations, and almost finding cures... and lost every time. (Thus the dust-biting title of this post.) Apparently the biologics are too much for two players. I think if we played with all four we might have more success. Still, we're getting better each time we play. It's like Tetris; you keep losing, but you know that if you just play one more time, then you'll win....


2. Small World:



This game helped us survive during the snowy recesses of the "one-two punch" storm all the newspapers keep talking about. It's a complicated strategy game where you try to take over land and strategically switch races throughout the game. It's neat because there are a lot of different combinations for how you can play each race, and unless you're playing against Joel, you might win. Maybe. Just hope the other guy doesn't get to be a flying halfling. Personally, I think the dragonmaster skeletons is a great combination. And yes, we took a sharpie and made one slight modestification on the Amazon warrior princess. Now she's as beautifully modest as the elf man.


3: Zeus on the Loose


Katy introduced us to this card game several years ago, and it continues to be a favorite. It's a game where you can practice and show off quick adding skills as you try to make the cards on "mount olympus" reach 100 while you are in possession of Zeus. There's some tricky cards in the deck, though...like a card that will invert a score (making 90 into 09). I won all four rounds (Each round you win spells Z-E-U-S) and won last time, so it's a great game in my book. Plus it lets you practice that tricky, "What's 37+6 again?"


4: The classic "Ticket to Ride" with a heritage-ly twist: Nordic Version


Makes you proud to be Norwegian, that's what. If you haven't played a version of TtoR, then this is a good one to start with--it's for 3 players and has pretty simple rules (no train stations, etc). But don't be deceived into thinking that you might win with the longest train, because those dern destination cards will get you every time!


5. Scotland Yard


Another in-law introduction (thank you, Nathan!), and I must say, I LOVE this game. The hat might be the best part of the game: when you are Mr. X, you get to wear it for strategical prowess. This is a game where it's all other players against the one Mr. X, chasing him around London. Dave Younce, have you played this one?

In fact, who has played any of these? I'd love to know those of you who've been able to enrich your lives with these great games.

Picture Post 7: not wicked.

This is a picture I attached today to a series of papers that I am sending in. If you haven't heard, I am going to serve a mission this summer! The decision came only recently, but the excitement I feel is overwhelming. I can't wait. Availability date is June... and as of tonight, I'm just two interviews away from sending my papers to Salt Lake!

Hope you enjoyed the visual update (which is now in reverse order....)

Picture Post 6: Wicked!

This will forever be a treasured memory of mine, Jen! For the record, I think that anyone who can should see this. It's by far the most significant theater experience I have had in working memory.

Picture Post 5: New Jersey. Love those Johnsons!

Picture Post 4: Jamestown. "In the Beginning, All America was VIrginia." I agree.

Picture Post 3: Christmas

Picture Post 2: Second winter storm

Here's our second huge storm...partway through. (Back porch)

Shoveling the driveway--if you can even tell! There's the yard stick in the distance

The 15-Passenger Van

I forgot to take the measurement a few hours later....when you wouldn't have been able to read the 33-38 regions on a measurement device.

This is what it feels like to shovel our driveway with three and a half feet of snow on it. Without the kind aide of our neighbors and their snowblowers, I think we would still be shoveling, a week later....