Big Bertha

Devin has recently been called to work with the scouts. Scouts = Camping trips and this weekend's trip just happened to include the Rabbit Hunt. We will not spend a lot of space or time telling about how horrible of an activity I think killing little rabbits is. The point being: This was Devin's first time away from home since we've been married. It is debatable who missed who more. But for whatever it is worth, I decided to try and be domestic and have a yummy treat waiting for him when he got home. I pulled out a recipe, that I have never made, but I thought, heck! anyone can make bread. So I gave it a try. Needless to say, the bread did turn out great, except for one small factor that I'll remember next time. When making bread, you might want to make two small loaves, instead of one BIG BERTHA, as Devin calls his yummy bread.

Out With The Old

Running is lots of fun. When I started BYU my good friend Nikki help me catch the vision of how much fun it is to just run, for fun. Since then, I have run many races and have actually turned my husband into a little runner himself. Running, unlike most sports does not require a lot of expensive sports equipment. No special gear is needed other than a good pair of shoes. Experts tell you that you should change your shoes...more often than Julie does. Well, news flash! Julie finally got her new pair of shoes. Same shoe, different color. I guess it's like a good car, you've got to run it until it's dead. Or in the case of my running shoes, until you've gone through 3 or 4 pair of laces, and the soles are starting to falling off.

Once a Wildcat, Always

As some of you know, for the past four years I have been teaching 2nd grade at Freedom Elementary in Highland, Utah. I love teaching there! I love the kids, the teachers, the great and spacious classrooms. It truly is an dream as far as elementary school buildings are concerned.
But what would life be without a little change now and again. I am one that hates change, but I am not opposed to it when I really feel strongly about it. Recently, I have had the opportunity presented to return to my elementary roots of Westmore, and well... I'm going. CRAZY! Little Julie, is going to be a 2nd grade teacher at her elementary school. I won't be in my old 2nd grade classroom, but the fact that it is the same school, same green tile, same low hall ceiling, it is kind of crazy! I am very excited to sing the good old Westmore Wildcat's fight song again. I never did learn BYU's fight song, maybe it was because I'll always be a Wildcat at heart.

Read Around The World

Reading is one of my favorite things to do. Sitting down to read a good book is just as good as listening to it as I drive to and from work each day. Children's literature is my favorite. Maybe that is why I'm a teacher, it gives me access to the latest and greatest children's books.
My reading adventures lately have had a Latin twist to them. I just finished reading Becoming Naomi Leon. Which I must say has one part that you really want to just scream at the characters. Unlike many books that I have read lately it has a really good ending.

Another great book that I have read to my students lately is. Skippy Jon Jones. Anyone who knows Spanish, even just a little bit, would love this book. I have read it to tons of people and I still laugh every time I read it. Not to mention that my students literally fight over this book on a weekly basis. Because so many students want to read it, we have set up a rotation so that my students in the morning and afternoon can have their turn with the "Skippy" book. This is one that MUST be read aloud with whatever kind of Spanish accent you can muster. Hands down my favorite thing about this book is the fact that for days after reading it to my students, every once and a while, when all was quite in my classroom someone would just bust out in a muy muy soft voice saying "My name is the Great Skippito" or they just like saying "Skippy Jon Jones." Yup, it's a classic. There are two other Skippy books. I like the first and third the best so far.

Every Boy Needs A Cave

As some of you know, we live in a condo. It's nice in some ways and quite the project in other aspects. We love it and really enjoy the ward we are in, so we are planning to stay here for a while.
When we got married, we got rid of cable and dish, because we just don't spend a lot of time in front of the TV. Not that we are against it, we just don't spend a lot of time watching it to make it worth paying for it month after month. Devin, is always full of exciting technological ideas. He has often told me about how his wants to get this computer "thing" to get TV and be able to record it and do all these cool "things." Great! Sure! Whatever makes you happy! But in order for him to do this TV "thing," he would need to drill a hole down through the attic to our living room to run this wire thing to make the TV work. The exciting part is that to get to the attic to drill the hole Devin has to crawl through a little hole in our bathroom upstairs to get to the attic. He loves it up there! He gets all excited! He loves putting on his grubby jeans, T-shirt, and his cute little pink scarf thing so he can either look like he is going to rob a bank or just help not breath in all the dust up there. Then he crawls into his "cave" and spends all sorts of time drilling holes to make the TV "thing" work.
Needless to say, every guy that comes over is invited to spend some time in the "cave" as I like to call it. Countless trips have been made to Home Depot (ok only two or three) to get a drill that is longer and longer and stronger and stronger, so he can drill through whatever it is that needs to be drilled through.
We are now very close to getting our TV "thing" or at least the first part of it to work. But for now, I'm just glad that my husband has somewhere to play. Every boy needs a tree, a field, a dirt pile, or cave in our case, to play in.

Taking Matters Into My Own Hands

Hello to all of you who are just about ready to pop because devinandjulie.com has not been updated for a month or so. Devin has been very busy at work, which means he does not have time to update our site. Thanks to my good friend Sarah, I have been introduced to the wonderful Blogging World. I figured I needed to help my husband out. So, instead of adding to the sticky notes of things that he needs to add to our site when he has time, I thought I'd add to our site myself. And I bet that he can put a link to this one so we can now both keep things up to date when we have time. Me with the "user-friendly I don't know anything about computers" blog site and him with his "I build it myself" site. Hopefully this will keep everyone up on things. Because, YES, the Baldwins do have many exciting adventures! Enjoy!!!