Yes I am alive!

ALOHA! I know its been awhile, okay a long while, but I am here to play catch up. Okay so you know about graduation so from there...

 First: I finished my student teaching! Wahooo!!! It was great on the last days of school all 5 of my classes threw me surprise parties (which because of culture/tradition it translates to during this time I was eating a full meal for each of these classes= overstuffed Lacey!). They were so sweet and all signed a card for me in one of their other classes. They all pitched in a few bucks here and there and gave me $100 visa gift card and some Leis.

 Second: My parents, sisters, and grandpa got to come have a blast with me on the island. We partied hard, listened to friends jam on their ukes, climbed mountains and just enjoyed being together.

 Third: Because of housing drama (lots of it and not fun) I decided it would be cheaper to go home for the summer. So It was a summer of nieces and nephews! That's right folks I got to see all 5 of my nieces and nephews this summer. A big feat considering they are spread from Washington to Texas. While mainland I also got to go to my beautiful cousin Janica's wedding. While there I was able to catch up with family that I hadn't seen in years and meet all the new additions (both through marriage and birth) to the Wilcox clan!
One super cute picture of a proud new sister

 Finally: I am back on the island! I decided to take a job with BYUH and am now a special instructor teaching English 101. I have an office and everything! It's great because I only work Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 5:20-6:20 and a few extra office hours...so my schedule is really full right now... NOT! I am loving this new found freedom just being able to sleep in, kick back, and chill. Thankfully I have had plenty of time to put into our house as well. It needed some good cleaning and stuff when we first moved in so I have taken on a few projects. One is that since I have so much free time it is like I am the stay at home mom of 5 daughters. I cook for some, make sure the house is cleaned up, do dishes, etc.. but the biggest project thus far was the pool/spa. It was a nightmare! After a couple days, filling and draining it like twice and Cloroxing the crap out of it, I turned this dark and dingy, nasty septic tank looking pool.
   
Into this beautiful, crystal clear, soothing escape.
 
 And just a little added fun: a picture of the 4th of July with with Wilcox clan!

Graduation and other festivities!

Well it has been a whirlwind week/weekend! First off, I was still teaching and working for my last week of "college". Thankfully I am awesome enough (or lucky enough) to not have any finals! WAHOOO what a blessing or I think that would have put me over the top. But anyways, I still tried to make the best of my time and PARTY and live it up with some of my friends who were leaving. Part of the partying it up consisted of playing and hanging out with Bree's family. They were so loving and gracious and let a bunch of us hooligans come over and practically be apart of their family.

So Bree's dad works for Oakley and so his company let their family stay in their company house. Now these company houses are awesome! This is where the pro surfers who are sponsored by the particular brand stay during the surf season.The house is RIGHT on the beach and not just A beach but PIPE LINE. Kind of a big deal since there are three different surf competitions that take place there. Anyways this house was awesome and had a huge back porch that looked out over the beach and had surfer paraphernalia all over the house, including a Andy Irons signed jersey (he was an awesome surfer who died last year). Yeah and of course with surfers come surf boards... There were over 180 Surfboards in the house! HOLY SURFBOARDS! (I have pictures but those will have to be posted later.)
Company House: House on the left is Target, house on the right is the house we played in, just to the right of it was the Nike house but you cant see it in this picture. AWESOME RIGHT?



Like I said the Master's were wonderful and had a big BBQ and so we got to eat out kababs on the poarch while watching a BEAUTIFUL sunset!

All of us hooligans!




The next day, Saturday, was GRADUATION! wahoo! So, I have pleanty of pictures and I am going to let those do most of the talking with a few explanations and captions! enjoy!

Waiting to be lined up and posing with my girls!


Shaking Prs. Wheelright's hand and getting my "diploma"

Its hard to see but I am totally throwing up a double rock on sign as I begin my walk across the stage! "WAHOO I was DONE!" was all that was running through my head. well that and "DON'T TRIP!"

So the tradition after graduating in Hawaii is getting Lei's from all your friends and family. So all my friends and adopted families took care of me and so the pictures below are from those after hours of craziness trying to find everyone.

"Tan Man" Bree's little 7yr old brother who was the life of the party and who now has a couple 20 something year olds phone numbers and texts us :)

Some of me and my good friends that were able to make it to graduation.


One of my Hawaiian families!


Me and some other good friends and roommates


The classic "my mother would shoot me if i didn't get these kinds of pictures" pictures.




Unfortunately though I am not OFFICIALLY done yet. I still have 5 more weeks of my student teaching. But I am going to try and enjoy that and focus on that so I don't get sad and lonely about the fact that SO many of my friends are leaving and I don't know when the next time I will see them will be :( Thank goodness for modern technology though so we can at least keep in contact!

Forgot

the picture was supposed to go with the last post. see even my pizza man (hes actually a good friend of mine BEFORE he started working there, no I am not a fatty who orders that much pizza) gets in on the fun.

Ehh Miss

So when a lot of my friends find out that I am student teaching at a high school with freshman I often get the ever so common"Ehh miss" to the extent where I will now walk down the halls of BYUH and my friends even refer to me as "ehh miss". Well it doesn't stop there. They never simply refer to me as ehh miss but also include things like, "you like go movies after class," or the ever so common "you like go get spam musubi" (if you don't know what that is click here). Well in all fun I would go with it and just laugh at my friends being dumb...

Until........

today while I was teaching a student walked in to say hi and just see whats up (which is perfectly normal for this student) and then he proceeded to ask, "eh miss, do you have a boyfriend" my response "no why? (thinking he was asking for get to know you purposes or just in case his older brother was interested or something) well that was not the case, and since I became so flustered I cannot remember his exact response but it contains these essential parts.

• him ASKING me to go to the movies with HIM
  
• Him telling me "he has game"
• another boy who was taking his test in the corner piping in and saying how he wants to take me out too.
• Them both being dead serious about this, neither said any sort of just kidding or naw after.
  

Which was then followed by me freaking out trying to act busy and not look at them while repeating the phrase "I'm too old for you, I'm too old for you" because I could think of nothing better while trying, not quite succeeding, in holding back a laugh.

Yeah that day came when I was asked out by a student, and not just one mind you! They are 14 years old MAYBE 15. AHHHHH

I had to share this hilarious moment because it still makes me chuckle! More great stories to come!

I'm a MOM

After the terrible loss of my first child, may she rest rest in peace, I decided to adopt again. And since I have been telling everyone I will post pictures, I guess its about time since I have had her for about two weeks now. So here she is.

Name: Twisted Sister or Mom Mobile
Mother: ME :)

Father: still looking for one
Born: 1996

Location: Haleiwa Hawaii

Adoption Date: March 18th 2012

Ethnicity: Ford
Race: Escort
Gender: Girl

PS. sorry for any misconceptions :) I just thought it was a fun way to introduce my new car!

since we could all use a good laugh

So whiling having a long not so good day I thought to reminisce and laugh at my stupid antics. So I hope you enjoy as well.

Background info: one week we decided to do a bunch of "fun" things with exercise balls... well it was really fun alright. we decided to think of all the things we could do. well here are some of the things that we did:

wrapped someone up as a burrito and squished her between some balls and also just resorted to pushing her around too. (PS I did Becky's hair in this picture too.)
Then we also decided to stack people and balls... the results lots of falling and laughing, and cool pictures like this and a lot of fun movies that would take ages to load.
and we also decided to roll on the balls in the house.

The Pièce de résistance although it was not me it was still really funny to watch. also sorry it is a bit dark outside.

May Truck Truck rest in peace!

I will end up missing my truck like you wont believe but it is time to move on from my first car (well more like Truck) and sell her. Yup this week is spring break and also the time to sell my little truck truck and get something with better gas mileage since gas is currently at $4.37 (ouch!).

We have had many great and wonderful adventures together including...

• Pulling my friends boat many times to go out to picnic on the sandbar and go spearfishing

PS we are standing ON the sand bar here->

Its just a bunch of sand in the middle of the ocean and its AWESOME and so much fun to just go chill, mess around, and grill a couple burgers!

• Hauling around all the free stuff I have been able to find: an entertainment center which included the TV, a reclining couch, a loveseat with a pull out twin bed, and two wooden bed frames :)

• Piling loads people in the back of my truck to get everybody to a really fun beach day (we are in my friends truck for this picture not mine but this is exactly what it would look like)

• experiencing really taking care of a car including oil changes, washing it, getting parts fixed/replaced, paying for my own insurance policy, and putting HOLES in my pockets from all the gas

• towing other peoples car with my little champ of a truck

I could not have asked for a better first car and now I am just asking for a great second car (look for that post coming soon hopefully).

P.S. if someone wants to buy my truck check it out on Craigslist for more details. (the link will take you right to my cars page)

How you know your students listen...

So yesterday we had the opportunity to take our freshmen to Pearl Harbor to go see the USS Arizona and board and tour the USS Missouri. This was an awesome opportunity to go and do this and it went with only a few minor flaws... however as the the title of this suggests how do you know your students listen. Well in preparation for this field trip we had a lot of information to give the students with one of the most important being BRING A Lunch... so me being a little bit of a joker (surprising i know) also announced that they should bring me lunch too. And this is how you know your students listen... SOMEONE (who's name will remain anonymous due to FERPA stuff) actually brought me a lunch. He brought me a baby Lunchables! yes! score... so now this makes me think of what I said about a fundraiser the school is doing with roses on valentines day. Yet again while announcing this i said they should buy me a rose. So if there is a another post that is titled How do you know your students love you, undoubtedly it will be a good one! I will also most likely include the stories of the student who wants to marry me and the one that always gives me hugs (well tries to at least)... Until then!

Got a Job... well another one at least

As if im not doing enough already, I am now officially a nanny for a little 4 yr old who has ADHD. I get to go play with him and occasionally his siblings (5mo. and 12yrs) every saturday starting in March with a couple visits in Feburary as well. Im am so excited to work with this family and enjoy playing with one very energetic and cute little boy. Im sure I will be posting a lot of cool things we do, but if you have any suggestions feel free to leave a comment with your ideas.

AND anyone who is coming to Hawaii, specifically the island of Oahu, if you know me personally call me up and I can babysit for you. OR you can check out the website for Nannies Hawaii by clicking here and get a hold of Kim so she can help you out and find you a nanny! She is great and will help take care of you and all your child care needs.

I had to give my shout-out because I am so grateful for Kim and all that she does and what this job gives me: Reall mommy practice and I get paid for it! Double Win.

Students say the darndest things!

I'm sure these posts will be happening often so to start off the many this one happened yesterday Monday 1/9/2012.
Man oh man this one has brought me quite a few laughs!


Student: Ms, do you have kids?
Me: No
Student: Do you wanna get pregnant?
Me: ughh what? (im sure at this point I had a priceless look on my face showing a mixture of "are you seriously asking this question" and "what are you thinking" with a hint of "EWW your like 13 MAYBE 14" included).
Student: (while doing a hand gesture to symbolize birth) I mean it like hurts when you have the baby, so do you still wanna have kids?
Me: yes i do.



Today's (1/10/2012) treasure was in a vocab test. They had to write a sentence with the vocab word, that gives context clues to what it means.
"The ninjas prevailed over the townspeople"
haha yeah this one made me laugh. Yeah my awesome students talk about NINJAS!


And one last funny for the day.
Today while I was reading the announcements for the day I was announcing a sports event that was taking place at a neighboring school called "Kaimuki". Well being me, I was going along and just said the town name how I was pretty dang sure it was pronounced. Well my extrovert of a student then decided to correct me and say, "ms. its pronounced Ka-i-moo-key." To which I gave a typical Grandpa Follett answer: (while pointing to the underside of my forearm,aka the whitest part of me that is decent for others to view) I asked him if he could see this. With a quizzical look on his face he asked "what" and so my retort (another vocab word this week) was IM WHITE! I'm doing the best i can. yeah i got a few laughs for this one! and im my defence his correction did not sound much different from what I said.