Apples Apples Everywhere

After our apple picking adventure last week, we were blessed with 15 pounds of apples. Unfortunately, there were still 15 pounds of apples in our kitchen after one week. So, I decided to put our apples to good use before they spoiled. While Cody watched the BYU game I was busy at work making apple dishes- I had to have something to do because watching the game was unpleasant :( Here are the fruit of our apple picking labors...

Raspberry Apple Sauce

Apple Butter

Apple Dumplings

Let's hope we don't get sick of apples anytime soon!

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Working in a first grade classroom, I hear and witness a lot of funny things that kids do. I try to remember at least one of these funny moments to share with Cody every night. I thought it would be fun to recap some of the funny things that happened this week.

-One of the students hates Justin Beiber with a passion. He calls him Justin Beeba and says it in his sweet little accent. Apparently Justin Beeba was at his house this week and kissed his cousin, so naturally he had to kill him. I had several worried students ask me if Justin Beiber was really dead.

-I have another student who loves to play with Beyblades. These are essentially little tops that spin on the ground and kids battle their tops against each other to see who's can stay up the longest. I bought one for this student to play with when he is good. This week he asked if he could bury my Beyblade. I told him that we were just going to play with it in the hall, we weren't going to take it outside. He responded, "But my teacher last year let me bury her toys, I took it home for the night and then brought it back the next day." :) 

-I bought some color changing markers for a student in my class. Every morning I bring him a piece of paper that has every half hour written down with an empty box next to it. I use my clear color changing marker to write a number in each box and then he uses the colored markers to color in the box when he behaves in class. The number I previously wrote in the box is invisible so a number 'magically' appears in the box when he colors it in. This has convinced the class that I am magic. One girl came up to me and asked if I was magic. When I told her yes, she told me to make her pencil disappear. I held her pencil and then dropped it into my sleeve. She gasped and told me to make it reappear and I used my other hand to push it from my sleeve back into my hand. A couple days later I was talking with her teacher and she told me that the same girl brought a new box of pencils to school and sharpened several of them that day. When the teacher asked her why she was sharpening so many pencils she said 'I keep sharpening pencils because they keep disappearing, I think Ms. Katie is doing magic on my pencils and making them disappear.'

Apples and Pumpkins

Last weekend Cody had a lot of homework and we both spoke in church, so naturally our weekend was ruined. The good news is that Cody finished all of his homework for that weekend and we made it through our talks! The other good news is that I only had to work on Monday and Tuesday this week and then got Wed-Fri off because of MEA (like UEA in Utah). I was able to do a little shopping, clean the house, and start thinking about Christmas presents.

Friday Cody was able to escape from his homework for an afternoon and we made the most out of it. We started at Afton Apple in Hastings, MN. This was our first time apple picking and we had a blast. We started by tasting the different kinds of apples that were available to pick. We ultimately decided on Connell Red and Regent apples. We then took a hay ride that dropped us off at the different apple locations so we could start picking. Cody was an expert apple picker and climbed a couples trees in search of the best apples our money could buy. We then drove by a huge pumpkin patch and decided to pick out our pumpkins while we were at it. 

Fun sign at Afton Apple

The hayride with the apple orchards behind Cody

Cody picking apples

Pumpkin Patch

Ever seen a deflated pumpkin? Now you have!

After picking all we could carry, we headed off to go bowling. I bought a groupon for 2 hours of bowling and we milked it for all it was worth! We bowled 8 games each and our arms were tired by the end. We bowled normal, bowled with our left hands, I tried spinning the ball for an entire game, and we bowled 'granny' style. Cody bowled a high of 224 and I bowled a high of 163 so we were pretty happy with ourselves (it only took til the 6th game to post these scores, maybe we just haven't been bowling long enough before!) 

After bowling we headed home to make an apple streusel for the Stake Relief Society meeting that I attended Saturday morning.

Saturday night was our Ward Trunk or Treat and this was the first time I have participated in one. We decorated our trunk and passed out all of the candy we brought so now we need to go buy more for next week!

Our Recent Adventures

This month has been an exciting one! So exciting that I haven't had time to update our blog, so here we go...

Cody and I decided to venture into Wisconsin to find a cheese factory. We decided on Bass Lake Cheese Factory because it was the closest (about 45 min. away) and because you can watch the workers make the cheese. We were shocked when we pulled up to the factory and saw 75 motorcycles parked outside. Apparently it was Harley Day at Bass Lake Cheese Factory. We had come too far to turn around so we held our breath as we walked through the cloud of smoke (from the motorcycles and from their cigarettes) to the entrance. Inside we found a variety of cheeses. We purchased cheese curds, cheddar gouda, garlic and onion, truffle, and string cheese and have had fun trying them all. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the cheese factory, I was too scared of the Harley people :)

Our next adventure was a Twins Game with Sean and Danielle McCleary. The Twins had lost 99 games so we must have been their good luck charm because they didn't make it to 100 on this game. The stadium is in downtown Minneapolis and we had a nice view of the buildings from our seats inside the stadium. It was a pleasant night temperature wise and we had a great time!

Twins Game

View of Minneapolis from the stadium 

My family always gets together before the Sunday morning session of General Conference and has a big breakfast and then watches conference together. Since we are not living by our families, we decided to invite some friends over to eat breakfast and watch General Conference with us.

Watching Conference

Our Conference entertainment. This is Carter (Sean and Danielle's son) and Michael. Carter loved smelling the flowers, seeing himself in the mirror, and playing with stickers. 

The Conference group- Adam and Natalie, Rob and Moriah, me and Cody, Danielle Sean and Carter, and Vanessa and Michael

Our most recent adventure was to see a movie at the Riverview Theater. This theater was originally built in the 1940s but has been updated. It has only one theater but it is at least twice the size as a normal movie theater. Though it has been updated it has an old movie feel with an older looking marquee and our tickets were taken by a man in a tuxedo. We happened to attend the premier of Harry Potter and a local group who makes costumes and dresses up for occasions came in their Potter costumes.

Harry Potter characters

Our final adventure for this post is that I found a job! I am working at a K-12 charter school in Minneapolis helping special education students. It keeps me very busy and on my toes because I am working with a student in 1st grade, a student in 3rd grade, a student in 8th grade, and I am also helping with the middle/high school transitions class. I feel like I am running all over the school, but am happy to be able to work with so many different students. The first week was a little crazy trying to figure out my schedule and also meet kids, but now that I have that figured out I feel much more confident. I love the kids I work with, they make me laugh every day. It has been my goal to remember at least one funny thing to tell Cody at the end of the day and so far I haven't had a problem finding things to tell him. 

I'll share one of many funny things that happened this week. A 7th grade student was giving a presentation on his future career ambitions. The career he picked requires a masters degree and one of the teachers asked him where he is planning on going to college. He told us that there is a university in Phoenix that he has heard of that he wants to go to- the University of Phoenix. When asked about how he felt taking online classes he replied that the university was in Phoenix and that he would be moving to Arizona for his schooling :) It's a good thing that he is in 7th grade and has some time to learn about the University of Phoenix (an online college) before he applies for school :)

As you can tell we have been very busy, but are enjoying our time here in Minnesota.

Home Sweet Home

We have now officially been in our new apartment for over a month! 

I originally found the apartment online and was able to sign a contract through email because we were not living in Minnesota at the time. I talked with the landlord on the phone several times and also talked with the current tenants before signing a contract for an apartment I had never seen in a city I had never been to. Fortunately for us everything worked out and we are happily settled on Cromwell Avenue in Saint Paul, MN. We live at the end of a quiet road with a bike path across the street. We also live close to campus so I am able to drop Cody off for classes. Here are a few pictures of our new apartment. 

 The Kitchen

 Living Room

Kitchen Table and Homework Area

Bathroom

Bedroom

We are grateful to have found this apartment (and will be even more grateful in the winter because it has underground parking).