Manitou Springs

The sister missionaries like to get out and visit places nearby, so I told them when they came over for dinner that I would be happy to take them to Manitou Springs one of the preparation days. So today we went! We "took the waters" at each fountain in town. They are sulfur and taste really gross, but it's an experience you just have to do!

We had a good conversation with a couple guys inside this Mountain Man store in town. They gave him a contact card and told him to give them a call if he ever needed help with anything. They also placed a Book of Mormon in one of those little lending libraries.

The penny arcades weren't open, but Rosie had fun riding the little rides!

We had to stop at the park and play for a little bit too! Then we ate lunch in the car and went to the AFA planetarium. It was a fun day!

January Birthdays

We always like to celebrate Nana and Papa's birthdays with them. The kids like to go over there and have cake!

I Did a Thing. . .

I've been thinking about substitute teaching for a while now. With Rosie headed to kindergarten in the fall, I've been thinking about it even more. So with the new year, I started looking into how to go about becoming a substitute in our school district. Well, as I searched I found that all you needed now was a bachelors degree. No substitute license needed anymore. Then I found that my local middle and high schools use a specific platform for hiring subs, so I looked into that. It looked easy enough, so I started the application process. I figured it would take a while, right? Wrong! By Wednesday, I was hired and by that evening, requests were popping up on my phone like crazy! I couldn't believe it. Right now I only wanted to work on Fridays, so I changed my availability so I wasn't getting crazy texts all the time. I figured there would be some come in Friday morning for last minute requests. I woke up at 2:30 am, kind of freaking out. I mean what was I thinking?? I have no idea what I'm doing! I tried to sleep but I really didn't at all and after dropping kids off at seminary at 6:00, I came home with halo visions, knowing a migraine was coming. So I took some meds, ate, and lay back down for about ten minutes, then took the rest of the kids to school. I was still freaking out because of the unknown and I knew if I didn't take a job request that day I would be worrying all week until I could take another one. So then a request came in for just the afternoon. 3 hours, I could handle that, right? So I clicked "accept" before I could talk myself out of it, and then proceeded to totally stress out. I called my sister and she helped a ton! Then I called my oldest at college and she told me I'd be great. I could barely eat anything for lunch and I arrived a half hour early. When I checked in, the office told me that it was actually the teachers planning period for the next hour, so I just familiarized myself with the classroom and emergency procedures. Then the kids started coming in. I'm sure I did a lot of things wrong, but I did it! During the second period class I had, one kid said I was the best teacher ever and then proceeded to write "Mrs. Coleman is the best sub ever!" on all the white boards. (I tried to erase them at the end of the day, but you could still see it a bit.) At the end of the last period, one sweet girl came up to me and said, "You are the best sub I've ever had in my entire years of going to school." Wow! That totally made my day! (She was the sweetest and when I saw she had the book Renegades by Marissa Meyer on her desk, we had started talking books for a while. I loved her!) All is all, it went really well, though I have, of course, gone through everything in my mind and replayed how I should have done things better. I guess you live and learn. Hopefully I won't be as nervous next time!

Cubing Competition

 Goofy and his friends signed up to compete in a speed cubing competition. They had so much fun! It's a really long day of just meets after meets, but they mostly just enjoy hanging out and cubing together.

 They were super excited to see a famous speed cubing YouTuber from Z3 Cubing.

Goofy won several heats, but those guys are wicked fast!

Break

 We finally went to the Air Force Academy Planetarium during the break. We stood in line for over a half hour and they filled the room before we got in. Since there were still a lot of people waiting, they did an extra show for everyone, so we had to wait another 45 minutes or so, but it was really cool! We saw the one about astronauts.

 We saw these deer as we were leaving. It's always fun to see them around.

The kids liked it so much, that we went back the next day to see the Great Bear Rainforest show. Since it's inside and free, it was a great activity to do during winter break!

 PC and the older kids hiked the incline as well. We had all planned on going but reports were saying it was still pretty icy and snowy, so we decided to wait until summer time for me and the little girls to join them. It's been tradition for the past several years that they go during Christmas break, though, so they had to do it!