Viva Las Vegas!

Have I mentioned how much I love teaching because of all the breaks you get?!! I will never be able to go back to a job where you only have 2 weeks off a year. This past week I had a 4 day weekend. Monday was MLK day of course but the Friday before, we had off just to have off. Apparently elementary schools have to align with secondary schools who ended their term so we had the day off. It was called a recess day. Although I don't fully understand it, I'm not questioning it! So having a 4 day weekend usually means some sort of road trip for me and this time is was LAS VEGAS!
I know I don't live that far away from it, but I must admit that this was my first time visiting Vegas. I've driven through several times but never went down to the strip or anything. I went with my good friend Kristen who has been several times since her brother and his family live there and I don't think I could have gone with anyone better who would have shown me a true Vegas experience :)

We walked through the Bellagio and saw the botanical gardens,

then saw several of the fountain shows.

 

We walked a little of the strip as well. There were some interesting conferences and events going on this weekend but we managed to avoid most of the creepers. 

 

We had a delicious breakfast buffet that messed my stomach up for the rest of the day Friday (surprise, surprise), played some bingo, and spent plenty of time in the casinos. I think I only lost about $10 :). I have pretty good self control but can definitely see how gambling is addicting. Getting a bonus or free spins on a slot machine was very satisfying and I wanted to just try one more! I did win my money back a few times at least.

Saturday night was the highlight of the trip for me. You can't go to Vegas without hitting up a show and we decided to see Celine Dion. My friend Kristen is a huge fan and has seen her several times. I'm not as big a fan but am not ashamed to say I love me some Celine as well. We did have to wait in the stand-by line for a couple of hours but it was definitely worth it. The show was awesome and made me even more excited and anxious to see Titanic in 3D!!

We also hit up the outlet malls, ate at the very delicious Capriotti's sandwich shop, and stayed up way later than I normally do. It was a wonderful trip and I'm glad I was able to go. Now it's back to work for a long 5 weeks before another day off, but who is counting? :)

Work Update

I haven't written about work lately so I thought I'd give a little update. Overall, it's been going really well. For the past month, I've been teaching the older kids basketball. It has been very fulfilling watching them improve and get better each time. I'm constantly impressed how quickly kids pick up on things. Other teachers keep telling me how fun it is watching their students play basketball on the playground and to see how excited they are about it. Then today, one class wanted to do soccer really bad for their free day so we did. I then had students coming in all throughout the day asking to borrow a soccer ball to take out to recess. This is why I teach. I still have some extremely tough days and hard classes but at least I know I'm getting through to them!

Christmas 2011

I know Christmas was over 2 weeks ago so I figured I better blog about it before I forgot what I did! I don't want to bore anyone with a long description of the 10 days I was home so I'll just cover the highlights.

Colorado had a nice snowstorm just before I headed home so we were able to have a white Christmas which was awesome.

A couple of weeks before the break, I found out my car wouldn't last much longer. So on Christmas Eve I went out and bought myself a nice Christmas present, a car! It's a 2010 Hyundai Elantra and I love it.

I loved having Christmas on Sunday. It was a nice reminder of why we celebrate it. 

We took our time opening presents too. We didn't start until after church so we were done opening them at 4 pm. It was fun taking our time and enjoying the reactions of others.

The rest of the break was spent sleeping in, shooting guns, riding the ATV, watching movies, and eating WAY too much food. I enjoyed spending time with family and finally having time to completely relax and not worry about teaching. But now it's back to the real world and hoping 2012 will be another good year!