Christmas 2009

Bring on 2010...

I have never wanted a year to be over more than this one. With the passing of 2009 comes the joy of ringing in 2010. I have had many prayers answered this year and I feel so blessed to have the joy of the gospel in my life. I also feel blessed to have a loving husband and family who are there for me unconditionally. But with all these wonderful blessings I still am grateful to have 2009 over and a new year beginning.

Christmas 2009 was one filled with many emotions. With the passing of my Mother this August I knew it was going to be hard to celebrate the joyful season without her. Will and I traveled to New Jersey to spend the holiday with my Father and Brother. It was a great trip back east and even though my Mother was not physically present you could feel her sweet spirit everywhere.
My Dad made sure that her memory lived on ALL over the house. He had all of her Christmas Angels up and out in each room of their house, her pictures were everywhere, and the needle-points that she completed throughout her life were up and framed for all to see. It was a great way to remember my Mother.

Will and I traveled to New York City on the 23rd. We were caught in the major electrical backup on the New Jersey transit (The train to the city) and spent 3 "wonderful" hours stuck in the tunnel waiting to cross into NYC.

Here are some pictures from New York City:








On Christmas Eve we went with my Father to Midnight Mass at St. Gregory's Church in Robbinsville, NJ. It was lovely and it was Will's first time at Mass. Then we went and saw a huge light show. This light show is not like anything you have ever seen before. You travel by car through the cheesiest display of holiday lights you can imagine. There is even a radio station that you can tune into so that you can fully enjoy the experience by listening to Holiday Music. It is about 2 miles long. All the proceeds go toward the MS Walk.

Here are some pictures to explain the light show:




On December 26th my Father put on a HUGE holiday party for close friends. It was so good to visit with so many friends who I have not seen since August. It was also good to visit with people who I really didn't get that much time to talk to during the week of my Mothers passing. Catching up in a happier environment is always better!
During the party Will got the award for best "food preparer and server" - he was awesome and without him the party would have never happened.
I didn't get picture of the party, I was way to busy, but I did get picture of the after party. I got pictures of the way my Dad decorated and the amount of wine people brought as thank you gifts for inviting them to the celebration.



All and all Christmas was great. It was a successful trip and I am so grateful for all of your prayers over this Holiday season. Will and I could feel them and send our love back to you.

MERRY CHRISTMAS and A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Love, Will and Tiff Strong

Canyon Crest Christmas 2009

Theme of Christmas 2009 at Canyon Crest:

Chocolate and Laughter
Singing and more Chocolate
Smiling Children and specialty Chocolate
Chocolate Yuletide love

They look so innocent don't they?
Sweet Jackson playing the "Orph" instrument for the concert.
Ty, Sydney, and Lynley played special instruments at their concert. They sounded awesome!
6th grade choir
I love my students and their Christmas socks!
Great Christmas outfit! She looks like "Cindy-Lou-Who" from the Grinch!
Ty read ALL day! No joke, he didn't even go out to play football at recess.

Two cute girls who share a very special friendship.
Look at the origami boxes these two made! They worked all through lunch recess.
I have the best kids in the world!

Video below is from the 6th grade Holiday Concert:

And the best part of the Canyon Crest Holiday Sing-a-Long - THE KINDERGARTEN!
They are so cute! They make me laugh and smile so much. Seriously the best!


Video of the KINDERGARTEN singing "Must be Santa" - listen to how excited their little voices get when they sing the Santa part!

Thank you William

Dear Will,
Thank you so much for helping me in my classroom each Friday. Thank you for being there to teach the kids about art - and give them art lessons. Thank you for loving my 12-year-olds like I do. Most of all...

Thank you for loving me.

Will you have made me a better teacher.

I love you,
Tiffany

PS: I think my students would rather have you give them their spelling tests on Friday's anyways. You do leave the words up on the spelling wall for them to copy from - and that rocks.

Thanksgiving 2009

This year for Thanksgiving Will and I traveled to California. It was a blast, and of course the food was awesome. We had dinner on Thanksgiving at Nathan and Jenny Strong's house, Will's brother. His sister Katie, her husband Delance, and son Mark were also on the trip, along with Will's parents.

We spent 5 beautiful days in California.

The first stop on our trip was a night in Las Vegas were I had to get a picture with Donny Osmond's picture at the Las Vegas Flamingo. I feel very connected with his amazing family because his cute son is in my 6th grade class this year. So "Dancing with the Stars" was a weekly event and I was overjoyed when he WON! GO DONNY!
Most of the Thanksgiving Pictures are of cute Mark. He is such a fun little guy. He has the best smile that lights up a room. He played with these blocks all day at Nathan's house. We would pour them all over his head and he thought it was so funny!




I was allergic to these two guys but they were my friends anyway!
Mark got a kick out of hitting Uncle William with these "swords." See the video to get a good laugh!



Also check out Will's blog for a cute note from my class.

No Snow, right?

If it is going to be 15 degrees here in Provo Utah there had better be snow on the ground, right?

If your boss is going to have a Christmas Party at work it should be literacy based, right?

If you teach your students something new one day, they should understanding it at 100%, right?

Everyone that speaks English can identify what "Appositives, indirect and direct objects are, the prepositional phrases, and the primary predicate" of a sentence is, right?

And one more thing, everyone knows how to text talk - lol, right?

Just a few thoughts.

I am not sarcastic, right?

Thanks for letting me vent on my blog. I will post something fun this weekend, that is a promise!

Sad Day

I can't even type what happened...
Read the attached link...cry with me.
November 20th, 2009

A night to remember

On Friday November 20th at 7:30 pm I will be sitting in the Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake City watching and listening to THE BEST musician and piano man of all time.

Billy Joel...and oh yeah Elton John too.
I am going to their FACE 2 FACE tour concert!

"All I needed was a little faith so I could catch my breath
and face the world again."
- You're only Human, Billy Joel.

Life Time Dream come true - I can take it off my bucket list! More pictures to come after the concert.

Comic Life: The smile of a student

Click to enlarge

Comic Life: 6th grade love

Click the picture to enlarge.

Halloween and Such

A Little Dancing
Dancing is a favorite activity for my class this school year. "Jai Ho" from the Slumdog Millionaire Soundtrack is their favorite song to dance to. Hopefully I can teach them the whole dance this year so they can show their moves at the Cotillion in May.
Will was taping them in "Secret" from the back of the room...they didn't realize it until the end of the tape, and that is a really cute moment.

HALLOWEEN 2009

Being in an elementary room for Halloween makes the Holiday 10 times better. It is Will's favorite time of year. He gets so excited for the big day. He has created some pretty amazing costumes over the year, so of course this year was another creative spell of great-ness. Will and I went as Waldo and Wenda from the Where's Waldo? books.

My students this year had some pretty amazing costumes as well.

Where's Wenda?
Bert and Ernie Have you ever seen a walking bathtub? Or Cyndi Lauper? Or a pretty witch and pirate?
Woman in Black
Napoleon Dynamite and Doctor Frankenstein
(Can you tell who has the famous father?)
We played the mummy game with toilet paper.

My class room not only became a party for the kids, but for the adults as well. Our good friends Jed and Tanei Henry came with their adorable baby Nohea (In the chicken costume). Kat Wyatt was there as a pirate. And then our friends Jake and Nikki Sanchez (Magician from previous post) came dressed as the Wii remote control, and their personal "Mii." It was awesome!

Happy Halloween 2009