Farm Country

I love that there are so many things to do nearby. I love that I don't have to go to work and can spend my days with my girls exploring. We took a trip to Farm Country last week. Luci loves horses, piggies, and sheep. Gabi just loves anything that moves or makes noise. We had a blast! Luci rode her very first pony and is obsessed.

Challenge Accepted...and Accomplished!

This year I needed something to kick my butt in gear! After having Luci, I needed to get back in shape. I didn't do so well on that front and then got pregnant with Gabi close to the beginning of 2012. In hopes that I could get myself into a somewhat healthier state of being, I decided to accept the Summer Fitness Challenge. It's hosted by a friend of Eli's from high school. It's not a contest. There are prizes given away by sponsors, but basically you just get bragging rights at the end.

I decided to join the challenge at the Bronze level. That's 120 miles in 3 months. 120 miles of running, biking, swimming, elliptical, etc. I know that doesn't seem like a ton, but it was for me. I've been low-key about fitness the last 6 years. I enjoy dancing, so I did Zumba pretty regularly. I went through running phases, but never stuck with it.

I stuck with it this time. I accomplished my goal this past Thursday. I have run a total of 126.95 miles as of this morning! I've done some biking, as I attempted to do a Lazy Iron Man with Eli, but I mostly ran. I've done 3, 5k races so far this summer. I ran the Run of Remembrance, the Dirty Dash, and the Team Katrina and I have 2 more coming up. I'm running the Utah Runner Girls 5k, this SUPER special 5k in St. George to help raise funds for my cousins' IVF. By the way, Katrina and Kenny & Emily all have crazy, heart-wrenching stories. If you know anyone looking to help families in need, check out their pages. Katrina's family is local. She passed away giving birth to her sixth child. You can read about Kenny and Emily here. I'm a sucker for anything to do with babies and family, especially my family.

Also, I'm running a half. I know. Call me crazy, but I'm kind of starting to enjoy running. I'll be running the Snow Canyon Half Marathon in November. Training started today. I'm crossing it off my bucket list.

 Run of Remembrance (CJBXLR8 was Dad's Corvette license plate)

Team Katrina 6k

 The Dirty Dash

A Birthday Interview with Lucia

I cannot believe we have a 2 year-old! Luci is SO much fun. Here is a Birthday Interview I did with Luci:

1. What is your name? Luci (Woo-see)
2. How old are you? One. Two.
3. What is your favorite color? Color pink!
4. What is your favorite animal? Horsies.
5. What is your favorite TV show? I watch SuperWhy please. Alex and Leah. {Signing Time}
6. What is your favorite book? I like the Poop one. (Everyone Poops)

7. What is your favorite movie? Sully and Monsters! {Monsters Inc., but she also loves Mary Poppins,
    and Tangled.}
8. What is your favorite song? I like ABC's.
9. What is your favorite food? I eat pizza.
10. What is your favorite drink? I drink juice. {She doesn't get it often, so she LOVES apple juice.}
11. What is your favorite breakfast food? Toasties. {Toast with peanut butter and bananas}
12. What is your favorite snack? I eat yogurt. {As well as applesauce and graham crackers.}

13. What is your favorite outfit? Shirt. Socks.

14. What is your favorite game/toy? I play Bubbles iPad. 

15. Who is your best friend? Mommy my friend. Daddy my friend. And Grandma!

16. What is your favorite thing to do? Coloring my book. Shake a booty! {Dance}

17. What is your favorite thing to do outside? I color! {She loves sidwalk chalk.}

18. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Binky. Blank. {We finally got her off her dang         bink by putting it in a dog she stuffed at Build-a-Bear. She sleeps with that now.}

19. Where is your favorite place to go? I go Daddy's work. 

20. Where do you want to go for your birthday? I go Daddy's work.

Gabi - 7 months old

Our {little} Gabi isn't so little anymore. She's growing so much!

At 7 months, Gabi:

• loves taking baths!
• loves listening to people sing (even to me)!
• is moving around by scooting, rocking, rolling, and pulling!
• can get up and rock on all fours and face plants when attempting to crawl!
• drools SO much! I've given up trying to change her when she is sopping wet.
• loves pulling her sister's hair!
• likes to chomp on frozen grapes and blueberries in her mesh teether.
• sleeps 11 1/2 hours through the night and takes 3, 1-2 hour naps during the day.
• enjoys swimming.
• loves anything to do with being outside and likes going on morning runs with me and sister.
• can sit up all on her own.
• still loves to suck on her toes.
• likes reading books.
• is super interested in anything electronic...like eating mom's phone.
• is easy to make smile, but hard to make laugh out loud.
• only cries if she's sleepy, hungry, or has been bullied by her older sister.
• loves to be tickled!
• weighs almost 17 lbs. and gave me tendonitis.
• and looks absolutely nothing like me or her sister!

Gabi is so much fun! She's such a mellow baby. She's content playing alone or with her sister. We're so happy to have her in our family. We are so blessed to have such amazing girls!

Check out those thighs!

Dinosaurs

Luci is obsessed with dinosaurs. If you ask her what her favorite dinosaur is she'll either tell you "steg-a-sar-us" or a "tops" (triceratops). She's even having a dinosaur birthday party. One of her favorite places to go is the Museum of Ancient Life which features a large collection of dinosaurs and other dinosaur activities. She constantly asks to go see the dinosaurs and has yet to get bored. She loves playing with the magnet boards, the Build-a-dinosaur area, the sand and water box, and especially the digging site. Gabi loves it too and stares at the ceiling displays. I thought I'd be tired of it by now, but it's lots of fun!

                                       

Luci also LOVES taking pictures in photo booths. The top right picture is her "scared" face and the bottom right is her "excited" face. I love this girl.

Nothing Like the Great Outdoors...

We've been camping. I've always enjoyed camping. In fact, some of my favorite memories with my family and friends have been camping trips. I went to Girls' Camp 4 years in a row in high school. I was super excited to find that Eli also loved camping and we for sure wanted to pass on that love to our girls.

We've been camping three times so far this year with another two trips in the works. We just head down to our normal spot near Eli's hometown that works well for us. It's only 20 minutes from his parents, so they're able to join us for a dutch oven dinner once in awhile. Luci was excited to have her cousin Branson come visit last time.

Luci LOVES camping! She sleeps in her own sleeping bag on her own cot. We go on nature hikes and and do short canyon hikes. She loves to add things to her egg carton where she keeps her collections. And she LOVES fishing with Daddy. We were able to catch fish this last trip that we could actually use. Luci was a little sad when Eli showed her how to gut it, but she sure loved eating eat! 

There's so much to do and teach Luci and Gabi about. Not to mention it's just fun to watch them! I hope they always love the outdoors...

New Chapter

Today, I waked out of my classroom as a teacher for the last time. It's an odd feeling. I don't think it really has hit me yet that I will not be returning to my classroom in the fall. I have walked out of my classroom for the past nine years at this time every year. It'll hit in August. In the meantime, while I wait for the truth to settle, I'll just reminisce.

2004 - 2005
Heber City - 3rd grade - Internship through BYU - Miss Gallardo
- I had a giant student who was just about as tall as I was and 5 times stronger than I was. He really liked to hide under desks, and when he was angry, he liked to throw them. He turned out to be my big teddy bear.
- I made a student cry on his birthday. I didn't mean to, he was just being a little punk. I flipped his card and he said, "Miss Gallardo, but it's my birthday." I looked him straight in the face and while shoving a yellow card into his pocket yelled, "Well, Happy Birthday R!" Not my best day.
- My class thought it was so much fun to make the moon phases out of Oreo cookies. Science was a success that day.
- I took countless naps in the nurse's room during my prep period. I don't know if my principal ever knew. Shhhh! Don't tell.

2005 - 2008
St. George - 4th grade - DDES - Miss G/Mrs. Adams

- I made SO many friends that I miss so much at my first school as a licensed teacher.
- I completed my ESL endorsement and Bilingual endorsement in just a year. Palabra.
- I took violin lessons with my students through a music grant our school received. I'm still terrible.
- I got to cha-cha with the art teacher for a Cinco de Mayo celebration. The students thought we were in
  love. We were not. He was married and shorter than me.
- This is when I realized that my students have many issues outside of school and for some, education
  was not their first priority. I handled my first ugly divorce.
-  I volunteered to be in the dunk tank all 3 years for our end-of-the-year celebrations!
- Eli and I got married during this time. The students did not want to call me "Mrs. Adams." Instead,
  they compromised and called me, "Mrs. Galladams."
- Ran races against my students and kicked their butts!
- I had three students who found out where I lived and loved to bug me early Saturday mornings...
- I hope no one ever has to show up to work and find the police there with a little girl who had been
  murdered on their playground. That was a rough day.
- This was also the time I had my first meeting with parents who were not satisfied with the education
  their little girl was getting in my classroom. Bleh.
- Classic sight: 30 teachers playing broomstick hockey on roller chairs. Awesome!
- I did not get stabbed by my transfer student who stabbed  his last teacher with a pencil.
- I had to call a mother because her little girl was constantly falling asleep in class. Her solution was to
  send her child to school with coffee in a Sylvester thermos.
- I had a student make a flip book of me dancing. Hilarious!
- I had a kid promise me that he'll thank me on T.V. when he wins the World Cup. I hope he
  remembers.
- I got my first student gift from a vacation. It was a porcelain hula girl from Mandalay Bay. I love that
  she thought of me while she was gone.

2008 - 2009
Rio Rancho - preschool - Miss Mandy

- I loved being a preschool assistant! No grading. No homework. No planning.
- Hugs in preschool are the best!
- We got to make the letter "D" into a dinosaur. How cool!
- Little squeaky voices singing the days of the week is awesome.
- I was introduced to Laurie Berkner. Love her. Still listen to her with Luci and Gabi.
- Little Olivia. I believe there was a hurricane named after her somewhere. Oh my.
- TL was my little bud and I got to watch him outside of preschool. He even called me when I moved
  back to UT.

2009 - 2013
Lehi - 6th Grade - SSES - Mrs. Adams
- First time I had a room mother! Woo-hoo!
- I made a student sit by the heater because he sprayed "fart spray" in it. He threw it away after he had
  to smell it all day.
- The first time a student wrote a song about me. It was titled "Daughter of Sintin." It was a catchy tune.
- I was told after my first year at this school that I needed to take a classroom management class. I did.
  Things got much better.
- I confronted a parent (a military guy!) about being involved in his kid's life and making school a
  priority. I just found out that he's one of the best kids in middle school. I'd like to think part of that was
  me.
- Took an afternoon and made funny face pictures with my students in photobooth.

- I attended SO many plays and sports games! I have had so many active students!
- When I was pregnant with Luci, I fell asleep in the library while the librarian was reading a book to
  the students. She sent them back to class and let me sleep. I was SO happy that they went to class and
  actually worked.  
- I had two students make a video of themselves upside-down and talking with their chins. Hilarious.
- Thanks to the Jazz Read-a-Thon I got to meet CJ Miles, Gordon Hayward, and Jeremy Evans.
- And I got a pie in the face. Twice.

- As a teacher you get a lot of awkward things. Like this door decoration for Teacher Appreciation 

  Week one year.

- 4 trips to the Space Center! It's the coolest simulator ever. It's kind of like being in Star Trek.
- 4 trips to the Clark Planetarium.
- Countless hugs. I'll miss the hugs.
- Four years later, I am $5 richer. I bet a kid that by his 16th birthday he'd have a crush on a girl and at
  least kind of want to kiss one. I love when kids come back to visit!


There are so many other things that I could write about. It's amazing what happens in 9 years and when you share so much time with over 200 kids. I hope that they'll think of me every once in awhile. It'll be weird to not be in the classroom. I'm a little nervous about the future, as teaching has been my life, but I am SO ready to be home with my girls. At home is where I am supposed to be. I am looking forward to this new adventure!