Baby Clint

My cousin Neil and his wife Erin had their first baby a short while ago. I haven't met him yet but from the pictures, he looks adorable!Two of Clint's great grandmas!The new grandpa!

Little Clint Doty, the first grandbaby on the Doty side of the family!

Rachelle & Taylor's Turtles

Rachelle and Taylor got a new baby turtle to be a friend for the one that she has had for a while. Then they got worried about the turtles having enough space and they got a new turtle tank. I liked looking at the pictures so I thought I would share them. I am jealous that they have turtles, they are so cute!
And the happy newly-weds, I can't believe that they have been married well over 6 months already!

P.S. We have a new fish, maybe I can get Andrew to take some pictures of the fish tank!

This Week

Exciting things this week:
Rachelle and Taylor will up from Utah! It will be a short trip, but I am hoping we can get together for at least a little bit.

Andrew has another Pan Pan show, this one is on Friday May 1st at 9pm at Jinx Art Space here in Bellingham.

I have my student teaching midterm evaluation on Monday, after which I start teaching full-time.

Once again, here is what I want to get done this week:
1) Completely finish that sub portfolio. No excuses or almost dones, I want it finished and turned in so that I don't have to think about it.

2) Finish reading my book, Tears of the Giraffe, the 2nd No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency book.

3) Type up 5 more recipes.

4) Teach full-time. All day long. All of the groups. All me.

5) Find time to see Rachelle and Taylor while they are up here.

6) Plant the new hydrangea that Lynne gave me, thank you so much!

7) Research digital scrapbooking and decide if I want to do that. Does anyone know a place that they like to get their pages made into a book? My dream is to be able to create my own pages on the computer, save them digitally, and to have them made into a book instead of printing each picture. Is this possible?

8) Post pictures from Pan Pan show and try and get Andrew to finish his recital video so that I can post that.

9) Work out 3 times this week. Run at least 3 miles each time and try to run 4 miles at least once. The 5K we are running is on May 9th here in Bellingham. It is free if you are interested!

Recap of the Week

Here is our week in summary:

Andrew's show with Pan Pan at the Old Foundry on Friday went great, it was really fun! Tyler was able to come up to hear them too, thanks Tyler! I will check around to see who else got pictures and I might get some pictures of that up soon.

Andrew still is playing with the Harp Concerto group at 4pm and with the Orchestra on campus tomorrow at 8 pm.

I got observed 3 days in a row by my principal, another teacher, and then my supervisor from Western. That was a little much.

Andrew bought a fixed gear bike and is picking it up today. He is pretty excited about that.

Here is what I wanted to get done this week:
1) Complete my substitute portfolio so that I can get my substitute teaching certificate and sub for my teacher (and get paid!) on the two days that she will be gone in May. I am not quite done with it, but I think I will be able to finish it up tomorrow or Monday. It was a lot more work than I expected it to be and I will be very happy when it is done!

2) Update my reading blog with the book I just finished, the first No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency book. I loved it! Just finished doing that! You can read about it by clicking here. My description doesn't really do the book justice. You should just read it.

3) Blog about Andrew's recital and about at least two sets of old pictures that I want to get posted. Blogged about my favorite cornbread recipe, some old Christmas pictures, and some old pictures from Andrew's uncle, but not about Andrew's recital. I am still waiting for him to finish putting together the video so that I can upload that. We didn't get many pictures of that night, so I don't know what else I would blog about.

4) Type up 5 recipes for my mom. Typed up all 5 recipes! Lucky you mom!

5) Work out 3 days. I am going to run a 5K on May 9th and have to stay in shape! I ran 3 miles on 3 separate days. 3 miles is a new long distance for me (I know, I know, it's not that far) so I am really happy about this. I didn't even die when I did it.

6) Start the next book I want to read, the 2nd No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency book. I started it and I am about halfway through. I love these books but I find that I am still finding it difficult to find time to read.

Old Pictures

Andrew's uncle was scanning in some old pictures and emailed them to us, they were so fun to look at that I thought I would share them!Andrew 1984
Andrew at Deception Pass 1988
Andrew 1984
Carina 1982-1983
Carina 1987-1988
Lynne 1987-1988
Wade 1987-1988

Old Christmas Pictures

Here are some pictures from this last Christmas. I don't know how I missed them when I posted about Christmas, but I like them so I thought I would share. Andrew and I, at my parents house at Christmas time during the big snow.

Taylor and Rachelle on the same day.
Taylor and Rachelle at the hospital from when Taylor had his appendix taken out right after Christmas.

Cornbread

I think it was about a year ago that I gave my mom the birthday present of typing up all of her recipes. I am still working on it. But it has been great for me too because then I get copies of all of her recipes. As I have been working on typing my moms up, I have also been typing up recipes that I have found and that I want to keep using. Here is a recipe for healthier cornbread that I got from weightwatchers, I love it!

Healthy Cornbread
Weight Watcher Points: 3

1 cup uncooked cornmeal, yellow
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
14 ¾ oz cream-style corn, canned
½ cup low-fat buttermilk
2 large egg whites
2 tsp corn oil

• Preheat oven to 400ºF.
• Coat an 8-inch square cake pan with cooking spray.
Combine 1 cup cornmeal, 1 cup flour, 2 tsp baking powder, ¾ tsp salt and ½ tsp baking soda in a large bowl.
• Mix well with a fork, then make a well in the center and set aside.
Combine 14 ¾ oz creamed corn, ½ cup low-fat buttermilk, 2 egg whites and 2 tsp corn oil in a medium bowl.
• Mix until blended.
• Fold mixture into dry ingredients; mix until blended.
• Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth the top.
• Bake until a wooden pick inserted near the center comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
• Allow to cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.
• Remove from pan; cool completely before cutting into 8 squares.

Goals

Don't forget to scroll down past all of this reading to see pictures!

Big news for this week, Andrew has some shows!
Pan Pan at the Old Foundry on Friday the 24th at 8pm
Orchestra on campus on Sunday the 26th at 8 pm
Harp Concerto on campus on Sunday the 26th at 4pm

Here is what I want to get done this week:
1) Complete my substitute portfolio so that I can get my substitute teaching certificate and sub for my teacher (and get paid!) on the two days that she will be gone in May.

2) Update my reading blog with the book I just finished, the first No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency book. I loved it!

3) Blog about Andrew's recital and about at least two sets of old pictures that I want to get posted.

4) Type up 5 recipes for my mom.

5) Work out 3 days. I am going to run a 5K on May 9th and have to stay in shape!

6) Start the next book I want to read, the 2nd No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency book.

Recap the Week

This was a busy week!
We had Andrew's recital on Thursday, which went really well. He played very well and there were a good amount of people there. Everything went smoothly, thank you those who could come! I will post pictures and video as I get them.

I threw a baby shower for my friend Sara today, my first one ever. It went well too! It was small and cozy, which was really much more enjoyable. All the food I made turned out well, which always a relief. And everyone seemed to have fun with the games. Whew, glad that is over!

Andrew went skiing with his Dad, Tyler, Uncle Dirk, and Uncle Garth today at Steven's Pass. I just talked to him and he said that he had a lot of fun!

We have been administering the WASL test all week at school. It is really painful to have to administer a test to students who are struggling so much. It is especially hard to watch them put forth so much effort and have them ask questions and not be able to help them. I will be glad when we are done with that and back to teaching!

Here is how I did on my goals this week:
1) Work out 3 days. Doesn't sound like much, but this week is going to be crazy. I did it! I ran at least 1.5 miles on 3 different days!

2) Finish my book before Thursday so I can loan it to my mom. Done!

3) Post pictures from Josh's birthday, his track meet, and my hike. Posted pictures from Josh's birthday, my first day of student teaching, Josh's track meet, and hiking.

4) Finish planning my friend Sara's baby shower that is on Saturday. At my house. And buy her a present. And clean my house. And make food. Bought present, made food, cleaned house, planned games, had fun!

5) Make cookies for Andrew's recital, which is this Thursday at 5pm. Done!

6) Type up 3 recipes for my mom's recipe book. Done, you have a recipe stack started for you mom!

I am giving myself a pat on the back for this week!

Hiking with Maggie

I went hiking with my friend Maggie on the 7th, during our Spring Break. That feels like so long ago now! It was our first hike of the year and it was beautiful. It was the perfect Northwest day, mid 70's and sunny with a cool breeze. We did a hike off of Chuckanut Drive, just on the south side of Bellingham. Chuckanut Drive runs right along the coast so there are terrific views of the San Juan Islands and of the Olympics on a clear day. The steep 7.5 miles we hiked were very enjoyable as we kept stopping at these amazing little view points. Can't beat the Northwest on a sunny, spring day!

Even being in the middle of the trees was beautiful!

Maggie and I trying to take our own picture.

We hiked from Chuckanut Drive, but there is a dirt road that takes you to a lookout point from which you can connect to the trail we were on. Even though it added about 1 mile to our hike, we thought it would be worth it to hike over and see what the lookout was like. This is us in front of the view.

This is part of the view from the lookout point. You can see most of the Skagit Valley farmlands. I didn't get a good picture, but if you pretend you are right where I was when I took the picture above, and you turn to the right, you can see all of the San Juan Islands. It was worth the extra mile.
This is me contemplating how I want to get over all of those logs.I guess I figured something out.

One of those amazing little viewpoints that would just pop up unexpectedly along the trail.
We hiked to the top of that rock up there. It's called Oyster Dome.
At the base of Oyster Dome are some bat caves. We didn't really see any bats.

It was still quite a hike from the bat caves to the top of Oyster Dome. I don't know what I am doing in this picture.

The view from the top of Oyster Dome was amazing. And it was so warm just sitting on the big rock.
There were a few parts of the trail that I didn't really like. This bridge was a little bit sketchy.
But I gave it a try.And it wasn't so bad, especially the second time around.
I was still happy to be on the other side.
One last view before we went home.

Josh's Track Meet

Last Saturday, the 11th, Josh had a track meet up here in Bellingham. It was his birthday, and I had never been to a track meet before, so I decided to go. It was quite eventful. I decided I don't like hurdles because people fall down. And that there is a lot of sitting around at track meets.Here is Josh stretching.
That's him running laps to warm-up.
Josh is the one with the black uniform on and the bright blond hair. He is getting ready to start the race, 2-miles, too long for me!
Can you still find him? The whole pack is there, ready to go!
Once the race gets going, everyone spreads out a little bit. Here is Josh running by, somewhere in the middle of his 8 laps.
This is him running towards the finish. He ran 2 miles in about 10 minutes and 50 seconds. (Sorry if I am off a few seconds Josh!) Sounds fast to me!

It was a fun way to spend a few hours of the afternoon, lots of people and things to watch and everything was very interesting. And it was fun to hang out with Josh for a little while and see what he spends his time doing. Happy Birthday Josh!

First Day of School!

This is a little bit old, it was taken on March 23rd, my first day of student teaching. This is an example of what we call teacher clothes around here.

Josh's Birthday

Josh turned 16 on the 11th, but we celebrated his birthday the Thursday evening that I was with my family. It was a fun little party with my parents, Josh, Alec, Emma, Granny, Poppy, and me. We were missing Andrew, Rachelle, and Taylor. Most of my pictures are of Josh, but I guess that's fitting as he is the birthday boy!Drinking "fancy pop".
Happy guy
My mom and Emma
What is it?A Spiderman book, his favorite superhero!
Strawberries and Angel Food Cake...
With lots of whipped cream!
Josh also got a Spiderman toothbrush to get rid of all of that sugar.
Sugary pop, and the toothbrush.
And his big present...a fancy running jacket. We are hoping this will help keep him from getting hit by cars!