Jackson Hole

On Friday afternoon after school got out, SJ, Joe, Ruthie and I drove to Jackson, Wyoming. It took about 9 hours between the rush hour traffic we hit coming out of Denver and the out of nowhere squall we drove through in Wyoming about 3 hours into the drive. All of the sudden snow was blowing directly at us and we couldn't see anything. Ruthie was driving though, and she got us through it. We also got pulled over for speeding by a Wyoming cop who was the nicest cop I've ever encountered and let SJ get away with a warning.
We got to Jackson at 2:30 in the morning and went to Ruthie's brother's house where we slept on couches and the floor. In the morning I walked outside to a freezing but beautiful morning. The mountains out there are absolutely breath taking. We met up with Ruthie's brother and got to the mountain around 10am. It was Ruthie and my first time skiing, so Oliver (Ruthie's brother) agreed to hang out with us and teach us while Joe went out by himself for the first part of the day. We got our rentals for free (well, for a pizza and beer for the rental guys) and our lift tickets for half off, because Ollie works at the mountain and knows everyone there. I was told that this is the ski mountain of all ski mountains in the U.S. and that if I could ski this mountain I could ski anything. That didn't make me feel too confident. Once we got all outfitted, Ollie took us to the lift line. I thought we would take baby steps and do some lift-less bunny hill, but no. Skiing was a lot easier than I thought it would be though, and I made it down the trail without falling, and it was fun! Throughout the day I probably went down 8 times, and had a blast. Joe and Ollie went off to bigger and better trails, while Ruthie and I perfected the lowest trail. At the end of the day, all four of us went up to the very top of the mountain in a tram that held 100 people. My ears were popping the whole way up (about 10,000 feet in addition to the 7,000 or so we were already at). Ollie convinced Ruthie to ski back down, but I knew it wasn't a good idea for my "level" and took the tram back down. It turned out to be a good thing, because Ruthie ended up coming down in a sled after she was too slow coming down, according to the ski patrol. I was proud of her for trying though, I was way too scared.On Saturday night we went to a local hockey game where people get really drunk and roudy. The Jackson Moose beat whoever they were playing 8-3.
On Sunday we drove around Grand Teton National Park and saw the Elk Refuge, which was really cool. We also ate at Bubba's Barbecue for breakfast, which was pretty tasty. We made it back to Denver in about 9 hours again, because we hit the worst fog I have ever seen (again while Ruthie was driving), but we persevered once again. We also saw a moose on the way home, which was one of my life goals! It was awesome. I am really glad we went...it was an incredible experience. I definitely recommend Jackson to anyone.

Here is a link to some of the pictures I took while I was there:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028642&id=10300564&l=71d73

El dia de cien

So the 100th day is a pretty big deal in elementary school. I don't remember anything about a 100th day, but both my kindergarten and first grade classes had big celebrations for it. In kindergarten, the class had a contract with the teacher that if each of them could count from "uno hasta cien" (one to one hundred), the teacher would buy them pizza. Each kid came up to the front of the class to the number chart and counted all the way from one to one hundred, and sure enough, at the end of the day they got their pizza party. A lot of them brought in projects they had made at home out of 100 things. My favorite was a box a boy named Kevin made that had "mi 100 cosas recicables para un mundo mas verde" on it, which translates to "my 100 recyclable things for a greener world". It was a cardboard box with soda cans and paper and plastic forks taped to it. It was pretty cute.

a poem

So I have a lot to write about and I need to get to that, but for now I wanted to post this poem that a third grader in the school I'm working at wrote. He's not in either of my classes, but he's in one of my afterschool clubs. He's a really rambunctious crazy loud kid, and when I saw this poem he had written I was surprised because it is so tranquil and beautiful. here it is:

The Angels by Erik

When it snows,
I think the angels feathers are
falling
off
the
sky.

When the snow melts,
the feathers go back
to heaven.
The feathers of the angels,
grow back.
All the angels are happy again.