Unbelievable! A new post already! Nothing too out of the ordinary happening out here, but I realized all of my posts were centering around Arizona exploring events and when we go through a stretch without any new explorations, the blog goes untouched. So, here's a lil update on our everyday life.

We spent Rob's weekend and the end of my spring break getting some work done. Exciting stuff, clearly. I've been fighting with the Ohio Department of Education over being fingerprinted for an Ohio teaching license. Thankfully, Miami's police department helped me sort everything out and sent me an Ohio card to use for fingerprints out here rather than flying to Ohio just to be fingerprinted. I also applied to three more school districts, and now have applications in at seven districts total. Tomorrow is Chandler's teacher job fair and I have a screening interview scheduled after school. My cooperating teacher and I met up Thursday morning and I talked with her a lot about job openings/interviews. Apparently, districts have to notify current employees whose contracts aren't being renewed for next year by April 15th, which is hopefully when the interview process will really start up. The general consensus is that jobs will be offered very late this year because districts want to drag their feet as long as possible to determine how much money they will be getting from the state and how the economy is doing. Realistically, whether I'm hired in May or July matters less to me than just being hired.

Rob has been working on filing our taxes this weekend and it looks like we should be getting a good amount back, which is fabulous news. Here's a picture of him hard at work :)


It has been gradually getting warmer here and has been in the 90's the past few days. We went running along the canals one afternoon in the heat and it was pretty rough. The treadmills are going to be looking really good this summer :) We have an indoor-outdoor thermometer in our apartment and no real good place to sit the outdoor sensor. When the sun is shining on it, the temperature is ridiculously high. For example...

The 81 degrees in our apartment, however is not an exaggeration. Soon, we'll be needing a/c for sure. And it's still March! This desert stuff is pretty intense.

We are making some good use of the sunshine though. My mom sent us another package and this one had, among other delicious things (Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks beans!) a container to make sun tea in. I have been searching for one for quite some time and she came across this perfect lil one for super cheap at Marcs. This picture is from when we first set it outside this morning...and it is still brewing! I am looking forward to coming home from Rolly Pollies today and having a glass of sun tea :)


Okay, last random picture. Here is the baby bit of Easter decorations that crept into our apartment...beautiful plastic eggs! I keep meaning to have a practice for Easter egg hunt with Rob, but am still plotting the best hiding spaces in my head. Meanwhile, the eggs make a beautiful lil filler in the rose bowl that Cindy and John gave us as a wedding gift. I am still searching for a good permanent filler for it, but right now, seasonal decorations are working best.

I have a party to work in about an hour and am going to finish some laundry and get ready to head over to Rolly Pollies now. I am back to tutoring tonight as well. Break is definitely over, but I am actually looking forward to getting back to school. The two weeks was a perfect amount of time to relax and still get a good bit of planning done too. (I have the final 7 weeks of my student teaching all planned out!) We hope all is well with you. Love, Sarah and Rob

PS- We developed the pictures from the old school film camera this weekend and have pictures of the gila monster to post as soon as they are scanned into the computer. Check back soon :)

More Spring Break Fun

Last Friday, Rob and I headed back to Goodyear for a spring training game. It was college id day (Rob bootlegged his way in with his BG id; I on the other hand, am legitimately paying Miami tuition this semester.) We spent all the money we saved (and then some, I think) on beer...stupid sporting event prices, but had a wonderful summer afternoon.

In the stands, enjoying our beer (I may have purchased a girly Smirnoff. It's fine...delicious too :)

the view from our seats

Not the view from our seats :) We spent some time exploring the ballpark again.

We discovered when we arrived that it was also autograph day. Here is a picture of Bob Feller autographing a ball for us!

After Friday's fun, I have been getting back into the work mode little by little. I spent Saturday at Rolly Pollies, but had two great parties. The family at the first party owned a Chick-fil-a and left us with ridiculous amounts of chicken salad sandwiches, fruit and even birthday cake! It was a delicious, simple and free dinner that night--can't complain! At the second party, I met a woman who teaches in the Chandler district and another who teaches in the Gilbert district and had the opportunity to do a little networking. I have spent most of the past few days finishing up applications and reading 1984, which I will teach when school starts back up. My goal is to have the better part of the fourth quarter planned out by the end of break so I have plenty of time to grade the research papers that are due in early April.

I have done a good lil bit of cooking this week already as well. Yesterday, Rob and I both ate a beef roast cooked in the crock pot. Yes, I ate beef. The evidence is below in a not so attractive picture.

Today, I made homemade rolls. Last week I baked banana bread with plain yogurt and was on a hunt for recipes that will make a bigger dent in the huge container of plain yogurt in our fridge. (Suggestions still welcome.) I found a recipe that used the yogurt, mixed with a little bit of honey and heated on the stove top, instead of milk to active the yeast. It was the stickiest disaster ever at first (I was disappointed Rob was not awake to take a picture of the mess and my hands were so caked with sticky dough thatI couldn't get to the camera). I had just about given up, when the dough actually started resembling dough, and the rolls turned out remarkably well. I made half of the batch into lil baby pepperoni breads and we used the other half for bbq beef sandwiches tonight. (I ate them too, ps. Go me.) My beautiful roll creation is below.

Not too much else is new out here. Rob's checkride has been scheduled for March 31st. It's a little later than we both had hoped, but as I am learning more about the aviation field, I'm realizing that the setback is not abnormal. We are planning on doing our taxes this weekend and I have more parties at Rolly Pollies. Quite the exciting life we lead :) Oh and an update on the much-anticipated Ostrich Festival post. Turns out, the admission and parking is neither free (as anticipated), nor cheap. Maybe next year the ostrich will creep into the blog. There was a bird that lives near water that popped up on our run yesterday and scared me half to death though. It's either called a pelican or a heron. Honestly, I can't remember which wouldn't live in Arizona. It might be both of them. Rob knows. I'll ask him later.

Okay, enough for now :) Hope all is well with you! Love, Sarah and Rob

Desert Scenery in the Spring

Eek! I knew it had been a while since I'd updated, but not this long! It has been a busy few weeks for both Rob and I. Last Friday, Rob had his stagecheck, which is basically just a test to make sure you are ready for the final checkride. Rob passed and now is just waiting on his checkride (final exam with the school, more or less) to be scheduled. We don't know an exact date yet, but his instructor said today that it could be anytime between this Saturday and next Saturday. We will update more often to keep you in the loop!

The end of my week was busy as well. Grades were due last Friday and my cooperating teacher is very lenient when it comes to letting kids make up work, so I was scrambling to grade late essays and make-up quizzes up until 10 minutes before grades were due. Yuck. I learned that at the end of the quarter, all my focus should be on is school. Unfortunately, I was also preparing for job interviews, applying for jobs and writing the paper that was due to Miami on Monday.

Saturday morning was my interview at the Gilbert job fair and I interviewed with the principal of the new high school opening in the fall. (I am hoping that I was intentionally matched with him, but realistically, who knows.) I think the interview went well, he seemed fairly positive about the fact that I was a younger teacher and was interested in working on the yearbook and newspaper. I haven't heard anything back yet, but am also not positive what their timeline is. He didn't seem super certain of it, as until enrollment numbers are in, he has no idea how many teachers need to be hired. I was glad when the interview was over, but still had 4 parties at Rolly Pollies and this crazy Miami paper to write! Needless to say, my last day of school before spring break was Friday, but my break really didn't start until after I'd finished everything up over the weekend.

professional interview suit!

However, now break is wonderful! I have two weeks off, which gives me time to relax and still get done all of the planning I need to work ahead on. I have been scrapbooking...I have been meaning to print pictures from the wedding for quite some time now and work on a wedding scrapbook and I finally found the time to get started on it! Our living room is cluttered with scrapbook mess...which makes the whole apartment seem messy, but I am surprisingly alright with it.

scrapbook mess!

Rob and I went out to the Superstition Mountains this afternoon and did some off-roading in his truck through the mountain. We both had a great time! I think we missed the peak of wildflower season, but found a few lil patches and got some really good pictures of the flowers and cacti and desert landscaping. We also had a few encounters with some scary wildlife. We saw a gila monster crossing the road, a rattlesnake laying in the middle of the road (I even heard it rattle when Rob honked the horn. Then I rolled up the window because I was worried about it slithering up somehow.) Rob brought out his dad's old non-digital/film requiring camera...honestly, what do they even call those now?!?! He was brave enough to chase after the gila monster with that camera, so we have no digital, instant-access pictures of this poisonous lizard creature, but I did take a picture of the rattlesnake with my digital camera. It's below in the huge mess of pictures I took and uploaded :) Also, driving back we came upon 3 cows!!! Just hanging out in the middle of the road! I took a few pictures of the cows and even threatened to milk them when they wouldn't face the camera. Crazy animals. Rob was thoroughly entertained with me I think :) Cow pictures are, of course, below as well.

We are planning on going to a spring training game on Friday and to this crazy Ostrich Festival in Chandler, which from its advertising reminds me of Strongsville homedays a lil. Obviously the ostriches should make for a fantastic post, so check back often for updates. If I don't continue to let the scrapbook suck up all my time, there should be some real entertainment to come :)

Okay, pictures are below. Enjoy!!

the scary rattlesnake.

I actually climbed up a lot of rocks and may have gotten stuck up there taking this picture.

cows!

this cactus is kind of blooming a lil.