Grand Canyon...on a whim

So the other day Felicia and I were in St. George Ut. on a family reunion.  And when I say "the other day," what I really mean in this case is two weeks ago.  My mother's side goes down there every year to see the shows at the Tuacahn outdoor theater.  It's an outdoor theater...which as it turns out I already said...set in a canyon about 30 minutes north of St George.  It's an incredible location and they often put on great shows. This year they put on Disney's Aladdin...I mean broadway's Aladdin...and Hairspray.  I withhold my own judgement of these shows and just say that if you happen to be down that way and see them, I hope you enjoy.

In any case, on our way home on Saturday we wanted to stop by Zion National Park. On our way there, we saw a sign that said the Grand Canyon was only 160 miles away.  That sounded more fun than Zion so that's where we went.

However, instead of going to the 160-mile-away north rim, we decided to go to the 250-mile-away west rim.  We wanted to go to the skywalk, which we didn't end up doing because it's too expensive.  What we didn't know before, but know now, is that side is run by an American Indian tribe and they are trying to make as much money out of the skywalk as possible.  It's on their reservation, and to get into their reservation you need to pay around $60.00.  And then to get on the skywalk, it's an additional $29.99.  This is the per-person charge. It was crazy.  I could write an entire blog how ridiculous that pricing model is.  But I won't.

 In any case, we left there and decided to drive to the 400-mile-away south rim.  And it was awesome.  Pictures don't do the Grand Canyon any justice whatsoever, so obviously I'm going to show you some anyway.

Here Come the Pictures

As promised here are a few pictures of the Disneyland trip. Not many, just a couple of my favorites.

Star Tours is one of my all time favorite rides at any theme park. Ever. And the new changes they made to it are awesome. When we were in Orlando, Felicia and I probably rode on this thing six times. The outside of the one in Disney World is probably a bit more cool, but I had to have my picture next to this one because I was actually the rebel spy the one time we rode it here. If you don't know what that means exactly, do yourself a favor and go to Disneyland to ride this.

Fun Fact: observant people will notice Felicia's reflection in the window taking the picture.

This is one of my other favorite rides. We didn't get to go on it when we were in Florida due to a consistently long line and no fast pass. This one had no fast pass either, but Felicia knew I really wanted to get on it so she agreed to stand in line to ride it. I have the best wife.

This one is of the ferris wheel in California Adventure. No we didn't go on it. Honestly the thing scares me to death. Just snapped this photo as we were waiting for the World of Color.



Last time I was in Disneyland, part of the California Adventure park was closed for renovation. They were making what is now called the World of Color. Put simply, the World of Color is the most amazing water show ever devised by man.

It makes the water show at the Bellagio in Las Vegas look like the type of small water fountain you might find in a mall. In addition to shooting huge jets of water into the air set to music, at times during the show they will actually project movies up onto the water.

On Sunday we were planning on going to visit Disney Studios. Since Felicia's brother Jared works for disney, he can get people in there from time to time. Unfortunately, this was not one of those times. We made it to the lot and were told that since it was a holiday weekend, the studio was on blackout. So we went to Los Angeles instead. I had never been there, so walking Hollywood Blvd. and then seeing the Hollywood Sign was all pretty cool. And being able to fist bump Shrek was icing on the cake.

Ok so maybe this isn't the best picture of the Hollywood Sign. Whatever.

Update Time

You asked for it. You got it. I can honestly say that the number one request that I have had over the last two weeks is to update this blog. Or more accurately, the number one question I have had over the last two weeks is "when are you going to update the blog?" An unnecessary distinction to be sure, but there ya go.

Let me actually start with some sad news. As of tomorrow, Felicia will no longer be a teacher.

 Felicia has known all year that there was a chance her current position would not be available next year. There are four first grade teachers at her school, and the number of upcoming kindergartners was small.  The school didn't know if it was going to be able to keep all four teachers. Since Felicia was the junior teacher, and only on a one-year contract, if a position was canceled it was going to be hers. She found out around February or March that it was indeed going to be discontinued, and she was going to have to find a new job.

Shortly after spring break, Alpine School District posted all the first grade teaching jobs that opened for next year. There weren't many, maybe like 20 or so, and we were confident that Felicia had a great chance to get one of those jobs. She is a current teacher as opposed to a recent graduate, and she isn't a teacher that has been out of the game for a while. The only reason she needs a job is because her current school can't keep her. So we figured she was basically a shoe-in. Apparently we were wrong. Of those jobs, only 6 schools actually interviewed her, and zero hired her. Needless to say, Felicia is taking it all very well, and I am incredibly upset. I mean, who doesn't want an experienced first grade teacher to teach first grade?

So I guess the way it works in Utah, and maybe elsewhere...I don't know...is there are anywhere between 200 and 500 applicants for every open position. That is the consequence of having two universities nearby that have excellent education programs. So because there are so many applicants, the best way to get a teaching job is to get your foot in the door as an aide and hope a teaching job becomes available at your school. When it does, you apply for it, and because the school knows who you are, you basically become their preferred candidate. Schools have to interview a certain number of people for each position though, even though they know who they are going to hire.

The schools don't bother telling interviewees when this is the case, so people go into these interviews thinking there is a job available when there actually isn't.  Felicia has been taking it all in stride, very confident that when the right job comes around the way will be opened for her to get it. But I haven't been quite so kind in my thinking toward these schools. There was one situation in particular that really got my blood boiling. Most of the schools allowed her to finish her teaching day and come by after hours for the interview. One school though asked her to come in during school hours. So she hired a substitute (I found out this year that teachers have to pay for their own substitutes, not the school...weird) to come into her class and went to the interview. When she got there she found out two aides at the school were interviewing for the job, and the interviewers didn't even bother writing down any of her answers or any thoughts they might have had during the interview.  It was pretty obvious, before she even left the interview, that they already had their minds made up and she wasn't going to get the job. So she had to miss half a day of class, pay out of pocket for a sub, and prepare and outline a lesson plan for the sub to teach (which is not a small task) to go to an interview for a job she never had any chance of getting just so they could fill their interview quotas.  I throw invisible tomatoes at the school every time I drive by it, which is a lot because the school is two blocks from our house.

Anyway, I talked a lot more about that than I intended to, but this subject really gets me riled up. On to more happy things.

I married the best person in the whole entire world.  She is a Disney fanatic! Which works out well for me because I am a DisneyLAND fanatic.  So when prospect of a three day weekend came up, the first thing that came to her mind was, of course, taking a trip to Anaheim.  Her brother has the good fortune of working for Disney in their corporate offices, which gives us the good fortune of free tickets into the park.  And oh man was it fun. We left on Friday after she got out of teaching, and after I got out of my classes (oh yeah...I'm taking 15 credits over the summer...but that's the only personal update I'm going to give because we collectively or Felicia individually are far more interesting than I am).

We drove to a rest area about two hours from Anaheim and slept, as much as you can sleep in a car, until around two hours from the time the park opened, met Felicia's brother, got into park, and basically had the time of our lives until well after sundown.  We have some pictures that will post another time.

One little anecdote before I quit writing tonight. On the way to Disneyland, it seemed like all of California was heading toward Las Vegas. On the way back, the stretch of I-15 between Primm, Nevada and Las Vegas was basically at a stand still. For those of you who haven't driven that stretch, that's around 35 miles of three lane interstate that was bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go. Glad I don't like Vegas, cuz it would have been packed over the holiday weekend.

This has turned into a really long, boring, text only post. Sorry about that. Pretty excited to put up some pictures though.  I'm sure that's a lot more interesting for everybody involved.

AHHHHHH...I'M BLOGGING!!!

Uhhhh...well...not sure exactly what to do now. So I'm going to give the computer to Felicia and let her figure it out =)

Just kidding. Well, about giving the computer to Felicia. Not kidding about not knowing what to do. I'm pretty sure I have just created a blog. Something I swore I would never do. Which means that I broke two solemn vows today. I also signed up for twitter. I'm even more lost there. In my defense, the twitter thing was for a class. I'm very afraid, however, that I may end up liking it for some reason. Truthfully, I still don't know what to do with the thing.

And no, I'm not letting anybody know what my twitter account is so nobody can follow me. I don't think I know anybody that tweets anyway. Seriously that just sounds silly.

So anyway, I'm sure at some point this thing will be loaded with pictures and stories and funny anecdotes and whatnot, but for now all you get is text.

Actually, as soon as I put the period on that last sentence, I figured this blog could really use some pictures.  Unfortunately I have no pictures on this computer, so I'm going to have to raid Felicia's Facebook account.  This will take some time, but thanks to the wonder of modern technology, you will be able to see the pictures just as soon as you are done reading this sentence...

There. Pictures. I hope you're happy. We thought about making comments on some of them but honestly that just sounded exhausting. So go ahead and caption them however you would like. Not literally, cuz only I have the power to edit this page. Well, and Felicia.  And I'm sure some hacker somewhere has the knowhow to get into this and do whatever, but that guy would have to be a total ________.  Felicia wouldn't let me type what I wanted to there so you can make up your own word (I love you Felicia =)

Hope you enjoy getting these updates. I have no idea how often they will happen or how interesting they will end up being. But time will tell right?

P.S. Kevin, if you ever end up reading this...yes that is your hat.  Or more accurately, it was your hat. It may or may not have gotten blown off the top of a moving car. What it may or may not have been doing on said car is not important. And where it is now...let's just hope you weren't too attached.