I tricked you! I bet you are onto this thing where you can expect to find a blog on a Sunday evening. Well- It's only Saturday!

This past week was full of relaxing, researching and reading. Because it was the last week of school before the big holiday, most teachers must have decided to suck it up and go. I only worked one day this week! whew! Marlee only worked one day as well. It was sort of nice to relax and not be up at 6:30 and ready by 7 to leave for work. We were very busy researching this week planning our trip to Scotland.

The one day of work that I worked today was by far the most horrendous experience of my life! Has anyone ever seen the movie "Daddy Day Care" OR the movie "High School High?" You watch these films and see children acting like a breed of wild ape's and you think to yourself "how the hell is this EVEN possible" well folks...it IS possible! I could not even try and control the class, I gave up. I sat back and watched the craziness. There was a kid walking on the tables, there was a kid calling me names, there was a kid swearing at the teacher aide and flipping her off, there were two kids chucking pencils across the room at eachother, there were two kids physically fighting eachother. Yeah, it was insane. Finally this male teacher came into the room and raised hell. After school a teacher came into the classroom and congratulated me on lasting until 2:30. She said that most supply teachers only last until noon. WHEW! I could not believe it! I vowed to myself that I would rather survive living in London on the streets eating pizza crusts. These children were only 9 years old, I'd hate to see them in high school. never. again.

Onto more work news, I have been looking for a more permanent gig for January. I've had a few promising propositions but nothing seemed to pan out. I had given up on Thursday and decided that I could just supply teach again. I really do like supply teaching (with the exception of Tuesday). Anyways, my agency called on Thursday and told me I had a phone interview. So I did the phone interview and I wasn't to stoked about the job because it is around 1 1/2 hours from home. Marlee talked me into going to the school to see it and stuff. I went there and they offered me a job, so I took it! I will be a Reception teacher (kindergarten teacher) There is 20 children in my class, three which have autism and have a full time support worker. The school looks very lovely and the staff all seemed very nice, so I am looking forward to it! I will have to take some pictures of the school and of my classroom to share. The school is called Gainsborough, it always makes me chuckle! For those of you who don't know, the town next to Carnduff (where i did my internship) is Gainsborough. It will be nice to know where I am going every day!

After weeks and weeks of being indecisive we finally decided to buckle down and book some sort of holiday for Christmas. We were originally going to head to Ireland, but that didnt' pan out. Then we were going to go to Scotland but we couldn't find a trip that we fancied. Finally, Kristin decided that we should make up our OWN trip. That's when the researching started. Kristin got the ball rolling with booking train tickets etc and I joined her planning on where we would stay each night as well as train tickets. Marlee then was in charge of coming up with an agenda of things to do at each place. We came up with a pretty stellar trip for cheap. The hostel's are around 12 pounds a night for each of us and the train tickets are about the same. We are going to Glasgow Sunday morning at 10am, then we go to a small town called Oban and then finally end up in Scotland's capital, Edinburgh. We decided that we wanted to go to a smaller town in Scotland where we could have the chance to really see the Scottish culture. I came across Oban somewhere, so we are going to check it out! Some of the highlights of our trip are going to include, seeing the ocean :), trying to spot the Lochness monster, a famous castle, a scotch distillery and many other attractions! I am very excited to explore another part of Europe. I'm sure I will have a TON of pictures as well as some interesting stories. May even have a new section of "things I've learned today.." Keep posted! If we have the world wide web at one of the hostel's I will try to write a blog!

We get back from our trip late Christmas Eve. For Christmas day we decided it would be nice to cook a nice dinner. We invited some friends who also did not go home for Christmas. We bought a chicken so we will make chicken, potatoes and the whole works. Marlee's mom sent some Stove Top in the mail so we are going to enjoy that as well! (thanks Kelly) I know it won't be the same, but it will be nice to have some sort of traditional Christmas. We are going to hopefully play some card games and maybe a board game or two! We'll see!

The 27th is also another very exciting day! My friend Carrie is coming to visit! She booked a last minute trip and I couldn't be more thrilled! I'm so looking forward to spending a week with her. She is coming bright and early (7am) on the 27th, so me and Marlee will be at the airport ready to greet her with a beautiful sign! We are going to do some sight seeing things and do some shopping.
THEN it gets better yet! My friend Jerid flies in! He is on his way to South Africa to do a practicum for school. He will be here until the 5th as well! While we have all this company we are going to be the best of hosts and act as London Vetrans (we'll see how we do) We are going to go on a day trip to Stonehenge and bath (which is something we haven't done or seen yet), hopefully hit up a show AND find the party of the parties for New Years.

Interesting Fact of the week:
It SNOWED here! Who can believe it! Me and Marlee were sitting on the couch and I was on the phone with my agency. I looked out the window and interupted my consultant yelling that it was snowing! After I finished the phone conversation we went outside and snapped some photo's! Whew! It hardly snowed but it was still very exciting!

Ok..that's just the lead up to the story..HERE is the story

It didn't even snow enough for the ground to be covered and hardly enough for it to cause a disruption in peoples lives. HOWEVER, London is clearly ready for anything. They LOVE salt. They love gravel. They mostly love salt and gravel mixed. They love it so much that they feel it is necessary to cover the sidewalks. safety first. There is more gravel/salt in a ten foot stretch that you can find on the highway between Preeceville and Yorkton. It's crazy, we got home and had to throw our pants in the wash because they were so salted up!

Alright! Well if I don't manage to get another blog before Christmas I hope that everyone truly has an amazing Christmas full of laughter and love. I will be thinking of everyone back home that day! I feel so loved with all the cards I have been receiving in the mail, it means a lot to me!

love you all!