Recently in Ramblin' Squatch Category

Today we had our 1st annual Faculty/Student Tennis tournament.  The kids on the tennis team all got to choose teachers to play doubles with them.  Apparently, I was highly sought after in the geek crowd.  My partner was an 8th Grader named Zach who is the number 3 player on the team.  I had played a couple of times in the last week in order to get back in the groove.  I forgot how much RUNNING there is in tennis!  Our strategy was to get me up at the net as fast and as much as possible.  It turns out, I'm kinda good at playing the net.  I really like slamming the ball on them. 

We played a team of 7th graders first round and we had a really hard time putting them away.  We were definitely better, but it took us 16 games to finally beat them.  Everyone else's matches were decided in 9-10 games.  Our win meant we were pitted against the School Police Officer and his partner, the number 2 man on the 8th grade team.  Officer Andy has a wicked 1st serve that I just could NOT return.  Luckily, he didn't land it in very often.  This was a really even match.  we kept going back and forth.  By the time we were finishing up, everyone else was done with their matches and we had a little crowd watching ours.  They kept hitting it cross court on us in an effort to run us into the ground.  I thought I was gonna throw up twice.  I think I strained a glute chasing down a ball, but I didn't want to let the Zach-man down.  I jumped up close to the net and punished them with hard shots directly at them.  It was really cool having everyone cheering us on.  This match went 14 games and we finally went down 6-8.  I know I'm gonna be sore tomorrow.  I think I'm gonna have to hit the court some this summer.  I can't believe how much fun it was!

Earlier this week, there was quite a storm.  It dropped a lot of rain on the area and brought some high winds.  It began with a massive clap of thunder, which brought Myra running into our bedroom.  Then the hail began.  It was only pea sized at our house, but it was REALLY coming down for about 15 minutes.  We opened the door for like 3 seconds to snap this pic click for larger:

It didn't really turn out that great but we soaked the floor in the process so I decided I'm posting it no matter what!  The next round of thunder brought Noah running into our room and we woke up with a bed full of people the next morning.

One of my students brought a digital camera to school the next day to show me the damage at his house.  He lives about 2 miles south of us and they had their trampoline thrown into the neighbors tree as well a BIG U-Haul truck turned on it's side.  He had a pipe from the trampoline thrown through his bedroom wall.  All of this happened WITHOUT WAKING HIM UP!  Kids can sleep through anything!

What a break!  I spent all last week at Camp Goddard with 50 sixth graders.  I had a cabin full of smart young boys who were excited to be there.  All of the adults that went with us were great.  I'm so glad I could be a part of it.  There was more than once this week where I sat back and thought, "I can't believe they PAY me to do this."  I even called Ricky from the boat dock to brag to him that I was having the time of my life.  This was easily the best teaching experience I've ever had.  I can't wait until next year. 

We hiked three different trails and taught different lessons on each one.  The first day we hiked the longest, hardest trail:  Cedar Canyon.  It was only 1.5 or so miles long and had a lot of ups and downs over loose rocks.  We learned about ecosystems and raced corks in the fast-flowing stream at the bottom of the canyon.  We then climbed (on all fours) up a steep rock face.  Later we canoed and rowed in the lake while some of the kids fished.

The next day we hiked the Geologic Time trail which was over easier terrain but took us to a beautiful bluff overlooking the lake.  Later we dug for fossils in the fossil pits and made cabin flags.  My cabin named themselves the Davis Demolition Squad.  We lost out in the flag competition to Ms Dean's Jelly Beans.  On Thursday we hiked the Man and Water trail which had us traipsing all over camp taking water samples that we analyzed that afternoon during our lab.  We even had a girl get a sample out of the sewer lagoon.  We cheered her on with the chant:  "P-O-O-P!  Get THAT POOP!!!!"  Yes, that WAS the most interesting sample under the microscope.

Wednesday night was the big campfire and being an Eagle Scout, I got the honor of starting it.  It was pretty soggy so I cheated and used a little lighter fluid, but that thing really turned into a GREAT fire.  We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and sang campfire songs (a lot of which I'd never heard).  Each cabin put on skits and most of them were original works (not ours) AND were really good (but not ours).  Our last night there, we were treated to an amazing lightning show through the numerous windows in our cabins.  My boys slept through the whole thing but I heard that some other teachers had to deal with some fraidy-cats.  Glad it wasn't me! 

Friday was a long trip home and I was absolutely beat.  All I wanted to do was hit the sack and sleep late, Unfortunately, that didn't happen.  Before I knew about Camp Goddard, I'd volunteered to work at the Saturday TAKS Academy, so I had to drag myself out of bed early the next morning and sleepwalk through a few hours of TAKS tutoring.  I made it...barely.  All in all, it was a GREAT experience.  All of the rewards of teaching with very few of the headaches and all of it with a beautiful backdrop.  I recommend it to anyone.

Just in case you aren't keeping up with our Project 366 over on flickr, here's a link to a few more pics I took last week.

Thursday after school, Ms. Dean was telling me how they needed another male teacher for their annual weeklong Camp Goddard trip.  I shot off my mouth and said I'd do it.  She got very serious and said, "I'll make some calls."  Next thing you know, I'm slated to be that missing adult.  So, on Monday morning, I'll be loading up into a bus with 50 6th graders and heading to picturesque Sulphur, Oklahoma for 5 days.  I'm a little apprehensive, but I'm sure it's going to be fun.  I'll have a cabin with 7-8 boys and we'll spend the days teaching environmental science lessons, hiking, and doing all that camp stuff.  What's not to love about spending a week at camp when I'm supposed to be working and getting paid extra for it?  I always liked Scout Camp, so this shouldn't be so bad...I hope.

I spent all day Friday pulling together lesson plans for my sub.  I'm sure my lab will be a wreck when I get back, but I pulled their internet connections, so hopefully they'll stay out of trouble.  I've never dealt with kids this young before.  All of my students now are 8th graders.  Before that, they were high school age.  I already plan on hitting Scout Camp this summer for a week so I think this will be a slightly more civilized (air-conditioned cabins) warmup trip.  Wish me luck.  I'm sure I'll need it.  

Pic from last weekend's wedding. I especially like how the sign is covered with soda stains.

So, after 3-4 hours of searching by the whole family plus about 5-6 neighbors, we finally gave up on my ring.  Our nice neighbor, Terry, even called up a friend who brought over a metal detector.  He and I scoured the backyard together for about 2 hours.  He believes that one of the searchers probably stepped on it and pushed it deep into the dirt.  We must have hit 50 false positives but could never find it.  He planned on coming back the next day, but it rained for almost 24 hours straight.  Terry's yard has a little creek that runs through it when it rains.  That's not good. 

Jewelry has never been that important to me.  I love the ring I received on my wedding day, but I'm not particularly attached to it.  The inscription inside was more special to me than the metal band around it.  It's easy to engrave a ring...I hope.

Chris and I went ring shopping yesterday because without that ring, the ladies just couldn't keep their eyes off me!  We ended up buying one, too.  It was cheaper and looks totally different from my original, but Chris says thats OK.  My new ring is made out of Tungsten Carbide and is a whole size smaller.  That's right, Tungsten Carbide.  The same stuff they make oilfield drilling bits and armor piercing ammunition out of.  The cool part is the black stripe on it.  Chris complained that it didn't match her ring so I told her I'd take a Sharpie to her ring to fix that.  And so, without further ado, here's a shot of my new ring:

Granny got Myra a tether ball pole for Christmas and I finally got around to putting the thing up.  It took me a whole lot of digging to get a hole deep enough for the cement base, but I finally got it poured and let it cure.  We stuck the pole in this afternoon and Myra and me spent some good quality time together playing.  She caught two balls in the face and only cried a little bit, but she seemed to enjoy it.  Noah took a shot to the head, too, when he got to close to the action.  Later that evening Chris and I decided to hold a grudge match.  I was well on my way to an easy victory when POW!  I hit the ball and felt something weird.  It was my wedding ring flying off my finger.  I listened but couldn't hear it hit the ground.  As near as we could figure, it went over the fence and into our neighbor's yard.  We enlisted a few neighbor kids to help us and when our next door neighbor came home, he helped, too.  He even called up his buddy from work who brought over his big fat metal detector.  We searched in vain until well past dark.  Tomorrow, the metal detector guy is going to give it another go.  Meanwhile, we have heavy storms predicted tonight.  We're keeping our fingers crossed.  I'll let you know how it goes.

The other night, while I was sitting on the couch with a scared Noah at 3:00 am, I heard an odd scratching sound...coming from the ceiling! I knew it had to be a mouse. I got up and began throwing a rolled up sock at the noise --didn't want to wake everyone--and that shut it up. Of course, Noah got a big kick out of this and wouldn't stop giggling. Finally I told him there was a mouse up there. That was the wrong thing to say. Suddenly, he was very worried. Then I couldn't get him to go back to sleep for a while. The next day, we went to Wal-Mart and found the mouse trap department. Wal-Mart patrons must have a lot of rats because they had a HUGE selection. Mouse traps, poisons, rat traps (literally the size of a paperback book!), and "humane" traps that caught the little buggers alive. The rat traps scared me, because in my mind, that scratching I heard kept getting louder and louder and the mouse I imagined got bigger and bigger. Anyway, we settled on the plain old ordinary traps and set one out in the attic with peanut butter on it. That very night, I heard a muffled snap and I could barely contain my glee. I got him. AND good. The next morning I carefully stuck my head up in the attic fearing a possum sized rat, but it was just a tiny little one about the size of this one. I joked it was Chris' friend returning for another ride in her pants. Both kids just HAD to see the body as I triumphantly carried him to the trash in his plastic Wal-Mart bag casket. I kinda felt like a hero.

Been a while since we've posted. We've been kinda busy trying to keep up with Project 366, and we're pretty proud that we've made it 18 days in a row without missing one. Other than that, things have been pretty slow around here. Luckily, we have a 3 day weekend coming up so I just KNOW that we'll have some cool things to write about soon!

I was going through some wedding footage and this shot just really stood out in my mind. This young groom got more than he bargained for when he let the bride pick out his boutonnière.

OK, so maybe it's just a little optical illusion with the bridesmaid's boquet, but it still looks like a great addition to that tux!