Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...
There are so many song lyrics that are so fitting right now. But, NEVER have I seen SOOO much SNOW!!! I am in disbelief and shock! I love it however, unless it prohibits me from getting home to Arizona for the Holidays.

I was joyful when the first snowfall hit, a little less than a week ago. It was a fun change, especially since I haven't seen snow in a loooong time. Then....the second snowfall hit and I had to drive to work in it. Yuck. So the snow is super fun to drive in when you have the whole road to yourself and it doesn't matter if you spin out or swerve all over the place. It's a completely different story when the roads are packed with people trying to get to work and the roads haven't been plowed yet. Let's just say I survived!!

Then the THIRD snowfall hit today after school. It's crazy I tell you, just plain crazy! I would have never imagined this much snow. Needless to say, it's been fabulous wearing my moon boots all over the place, even to school. My students got a kick out of it! One student told me, "If only we were friends Miss Anderson.....we'd have so much fun!"

The sad part is I haven't had even a second to play in it....even build a snowman, even sled down a hill, even throw a snowball at an unsuspecting person. And tomorrow I'm leaving....I have to say goodbye to this Winter Wonderland. I guess I won't miss the freezing glacial arctic frosty bitter icy cold numbness I feel every time I step outside. Even my car has icycles on it for goodness sake! Icycle....that's a very strange-looking word, don't ya think?

These are the views outside my school and apartment. I'll let you decipher which one is which...... And it IS snowing on both accounts!

"If you put a dent in my snowball....."

So I have a ton of hilarious stories from teaching high school. Even though my students can be punks sometimes, they always bring a smile to my lips and a hearty laugh. Such one occasion occurred the other day.....

I had parked my car in the student parking lot because it had snowed and was blocking off the back part of my school where I normally park. Well one student tells me, "We were throwing snowballs at your car Miss Anderson." Then he proceeded to say it was on accident, not on purpose of course. So I said, "you better not have dented it!" I told him he wasn't that strong anyway :) He said he could and if he did I owed him 20 bucks. Ha! Ya right! Then I said, and here's where it's funny, "If you put a dent in my snowball, you will have to pay for it!" Can you tell it's the end of the year? My brain is losing it's power! Last night I told the basketball players to be careful and not trip on the ice. The same student (who also plays basketball) said, "don't you mean slip Miss Anderson?" Haha. It's fun to laugh with them!

Anyway, so this student wrote this on the board.......
He just thought that was the funniest thing he's ever heard!

We Won our First Game!!!!

Not only did we win, but we killed the opposing team! I'm so proud of my girls! We played our fourth game today. They played extremely well and I was pleasantly surprised.

Ok, so sometimes I make my girls run in practice for certain things. How much they run depends on them....the more shots they make, the less they have to run. So......one of the girls came up with the idea of having me run. Her idea was if they win, then I have to run the number of laps that they win by. So I agreed to this to give them a little more incentive to win.

So we won today, right? The score was 53 to 20. Which means I have 33 laps to run (laps = baseline to opposing full court baseline). That's going to be a killer!!! Hahaha! It's pretty funny though. I never expected them to win by that much! Wish me luck.........

Things to do in Thatcher, AZ… gotta love it!!

Go running, Hike the mesas, Mountain bike in the desert (these are my personal favorites)

View from the top of the mesa....

Longboard!!

Explore natural caves at Red Knolls


Hiking, Picnics, and Mtn. biking on Mt. Graham

Floating down the river or just playing

Module Hopping

Shooting


Go to EAC basketball games

Hang out at Sonic

Go to Walmart at least once a day, if not more.......hahaha

Go out to eat at R&R Pizza Buffet or one of the many local Mexican restaurants. Which one is your favorite? You may like one so much you go there twice in one day! Ok so I didn't do it on purpose.....went out to lunch with a friend then to dinner with the family

Not to mention Fry Mesa, Fishing, Bonfires, 4-wheeling, Hot tubs, Mud-bogging, Crawdad fishing, Floating down the canal, plus much more! I didn't get to do any of these last week, hence no pictures. As you can tell I really packed the fun in!

Thanksgiving

Early in the morning of Turkey Day my family woke up at the crack of dawn in the pouring rain to run in a 5K out yonder in Pima....also known as the Turkey Trot. My Dad got a little spunk in him or something and just signed the whole family up one day....without consulting us of course! No, I'm glad he did. I enjoyed it. And I made it sound worse than it was. It wasn't really that early, just meant that I couldn't sleep in till 9:00 am....dang it! haha. And the rain didn't start really coming down until right after we finished the race and boy did it come down! I was drenched. I did stick around though for the raffle and won a gift certificate to a local Mexican restaurant. My only comment on the actually race is....boy, am I out of shape! hehe

Here's the family in an action shot....

Then we had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner later in the afternoon with the family. Deeeelicious! My mom really went all out.


I really enjoyed the Thanksgiving break. It's the most productive and the most exciting trip home I've had. I think I enjoyed it so much because 1) I was in Spain last year so I didn't get to celebrate Thanksgiving at all and 2) we did a TON of stuff! I packed so much into the week I can't even believe it!

It was fun to see former students and their excitement. "Hey Miss Anderson! I miss you!" That was shouted to me while I was running the 5K. hahaha. So I just shouted back! "I miss you too Logan!" Thatcher was my favorite place to teach.....great students!