After all these years, it still brings a smile to my face!

Yes, I am referring to the movie Newsies. I brought it to school to show a clip to my students when they finished their test today. They didn't know what a printing press was...so I thought what better way to see a printing press than to watch a clip from Newsies. We watched the educational printing press clip, and then I let them watch a few minutes of the beginning. I have to say that Carrying the Banner is one of my favorite parts of the movie and I can't hear it without humming or singing along. Well as I'm quietly humming one of my students notices and points out that I'm humming. To which I reply, well I've seen this movie a lot of times. He asks how many. And I proudly answer, probably 40 or 50 times. Yep, I've probably seen this movie more times than any other movie in my lifetime. My friends and I were slightly obsessed when we were in junior high. I saw it a few times in the regular theater, many times at the dollar theater, and many more times after we could rent it. We just couldn't get enough. Our lockers were plastered with pictures of Newsies and we even created our own Newsies stationary.

I look back on many of my teenage obsessions and think they were a bit ridiculous. And I may have a been a bit over the top on this one, but I do have to say that even to this day I still think it is a pretty fabulous movie. I did feel a bit old when I looked at the date on the dvd and told my students that the movie was 15 years old. I almost couldn't believe it. That means they were only two years old when this movie came out and they have never been exposed to the goodness that is Newsies. But thanks to me, now they have, and they didn't even make fun of it despite all the dancing and singing. And now I may just have to go home and finish the movie.

5 Year Anniversary

No, I haven't been married for 5 years. But I have been working at Provo Canyon School for 5 years this week! I can't believe it has been that long; I never would have thought I would still be here 5 years later. But here I am, and there are a few good things about reaching this milestone, the best of which is I earn 3 more days off a year...which translates to 3 more days I can spend at Disneyland.

From day to day my feelings about my job change, it can be fun and rewarding one day and extremely frustrating and difficult the next day, but overall I can say that it has been a good experience for me. I've learned a lot of things that I probably needed to learn, and couldn't have learned in a regular public school job. And it is a great job for me because I constantly get to be studying and learning new things...almost like being a student again.

Some people think I'm crazy for working where I do, but I've had a lot of positive experiences with my students and they make me laugh all the time. Here some of my favorite recent conversations:

Student: Mrs. Barth, she called me bulemic.
Me: Do you throw up after you eat?
Student: No...you know, when you can't see colors.
Me: You mean, color blind?

Me: After the constitutional convention, how many states ratified the constitution?
Student: 48
Me: There were only 13 states at the time.
Student: 25
Me: Again, there were only 13 states at the time.
Student: 35
Me: There were 13 states.
Student: 18
Me: ???????

A few other favorites include the questions "Is there a life-size map of the United States?" or "Were you around when Colombus came?" Or when I'm teaching about Ancient Egypt and somehow it becomes a conversation about chickens and hobbits and what kind of shoes they wore...and my professor is observing me (and laughing out loud).

As you can see, my job can be pretty entertaining at times, but I might have a new career ahead of me. A student informed me this week that he plans on writing my name in on the ballot for president (we haven't quite gotten to the part about requirements for being president, specifically the age ones). But maybe I can get an early start on my political career...slowly working my way to the White House one vote at a time.

Why I love Fall...

While I realize that it isn't officially Fall just yet, the cooler temperatures have reminded how much I love Fall! Here are just a few of my favorite things about this season.

1. I love "Back to School" time. I used to love shopping for school supplies, getting the new crayons, pencil boxes, and backpacks. And then when I went to college I loved it because it was new classes (and most years a new major too) and it was when all my roommates came back! It doesn't have quite the same excitement for me now that I work at a year round school...but it still makes me a little excited. I was at the BYU bookstore a few weeks ago and was really wishing it was me buying my books and getting ready to back to school. (weird, I know, but true).

2. I love the changing of the leaves! I love seeing the leaves change around town and I especially love driving up Provo Canyon to see them. It's a bit early for this...but I'm looking forward to it and hoping to get some good pictures this year.

3. I love peaches! I look forward to peach season all year long and get really excited when I see that Allred Orchards has opened their peach stand. We have already made peach cobbler, crisp, shakes, and ice cream and plan on attempting peach jam this weekend. (Picture below is when I bought a peach in June in Italy...one of the best I've had...and probably one of the most expensive).

4. My favorite TV shows start again.

5. I get to start wearing sweaters and sweatshirts again.

6. I can use my favorite warm flannel blanket without getting too hot.

7. I love Halloween and fall decorations.

8. I remember the fall I spent in Jerusalem.

9. Thanksgiving-I love seeing family and eating such good food.

10. And last, but definitely not least...BYU football! Growing up I never would have thought I would get excited about football. I watched basketball, but thought football was extremely boring. I only went to games in high school if my friends were going and we never really paid attention to the games. Then in 2001 some friends talked me into getting tickets with them and once again I went along for the social aspect. But as it turns out, after my friends taught me about the game, some of their extreme enthusiasm rubbed off on me (thanks guys)...I came to love BYU football. It probably helped that BYU had an awesome season that year, winning 12 straight games. But I continued to go to all the games during the less successful or "dark years" and have loved the team that Bronco has created the last few years. I still don't care for watching any other football games, but I get really excited about BYU football. Here are some pics from the first game of the year.

The view from our seats. I love the location of the stadium, right there by the mountains. The location of our seats on the other hand, isn't so great...but we are slowly trying to work our way up in the season ticket holder hierarchy.

I interrupted Aaron's intense concentration pose...so I think that's why his hand looks so weird.

Aaron singing the fight song.

Caleb playing with his new toy. It is so fun to have him home and going to games with us again!

I wish you all a great fall season and hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Kylee

One of these days I'm going to start a separate photography blog, but for now, I will just post a few of my favorites on this one. We took some pictures of our niece, Kylee, last week. I love taking pictures of little kids. They are not the most cooperative subjects...but some of the funniest and when you get a good one where they are actually looking at the camera in a normal position with decent lighting it is pretty exciting. We would try to get her to pose, but within a few seconds she usually wanted to climb or run away or look at the water. So we basically followed her around for a half hour and tried to capture some good ones. Here are some of my favorites.

I just like this one because she looks like she is concentrating really hard and has something really important to say.