What was I going to say?

Tobin and I were up with Maylee for 2 hours last night trying to get her to stop crying and back to sleep. This is pretty typical these days. Anyway, as I was rocking her I thought to myself, its been a while since I updated the blog, I should do that. And I even thought of a blog title and lots of things to say Well, seeing how that was about 4:00 am, I can not remember what it was I wanted to say. Oh well. I guess I can just say I do not like to blog so I don't usually write much, maybe just upload a few pictures and call it good. Maybe I should try writing more about our lives but then again who even reads this blog? Chelsie? I tell her everything when we talk on the phone or skype so what ever I say on here is old news to here anyway. Plus she gets her "daily dose" pictures of Maylee. So...I feel that there is nothing to say! Oh besides the fact that my father-in-law asked "What happened to Tasteful Tuesday?" So, I guess he gets on and checks this once in a while. I have been trying to find new recipes still and that has been pretty fun. One of the EASIEST I have found is for BBQ Mango Chicken. (recipe called for fish, I used chicken) Get a load of this- 1/2 cup bbq sauce, one 4oz jar of mango baby food and a little garlic powder. Mix it, dump it on your chicken and if you want, sprinkle with bread crumbs. Bake it at 375 for 20 minutes. I served it with a green salad and wild rice. Yeah, it is going into the "favorites" rotation. Ok so, I guess if I ramble enough then this post may actually turn into something!

Hmmm, what else is going on in our lives....So, Tobin was set to graduate in May. Next semester was going to be his student teaching. The end was SO close! He was going to graduate, and we were hoping to move to Wyoming over the summer for Tobin to find a teaching job. Leave it up to ISU to mess up any plans you have. There is ONE math class left he has to take. They offer it every OTHER fall. He planned on taking it this semester. 2 years ago for an education class he took they had to make this big chart with every class they had left to take and when they would take it etc. So he had everything pretty well planned out. ISU was supposed to be offering it this current semester. Well, because of "staffing shortages" they were unable to offer it. Tobin met with the math department chair, he says "We will offer it next semester" Well, while student teaching, you are not allowed to take any classes. So he wrote an appeal to take it while student teaching and it got approved! (On the condition that it did not conflict with his teaching schedule) Well Mr. Dept Chair pretty much tells Tobin "OK great! It won't conflict, we will work it out" 2 weeks ago, they post the schedule for next semester..... MA 343 MWF 12-12:50. awesome. Tobin meets with the department chair again and he feeds him this crap: "For the past seven years its been offered at this time, I am NOT going to change it for you." OK REALLY?! Why did you not say that in the first place 2 months ago when we talked! So, I looked and looked and looked for an online class that would work. The only modern geometry class online I could find was offered at University of Phoenix. Same class, just SUPER expensive. ($1800 for ONE class) Well, it was worth it to us. So Tobin contacts the department chair AGAIN and gives him the class info. He will not accept it because they do not have proctored tests or prerequisites. OH MY GOSH!!! So, after exhausting all of our options we have come to grips with the fact that we will be here one more semester. frustrating. I know things will work out and one more semester really is not bad. I think the real reason we were so mad is because ISU is pretty ridiculous. Anyway, we also recently decided that Grad school is going to be next for Tobin. We have talked about it several times and for teachers its actually better in the long run to start teaching with only your bachelors. That was the plan, even after being urged several times from family members to look into getting a masters degree. We knew it just wasn't what we wanted to do or what we were supposed to do. Maybe because we were only considering ISU physics masters program. When we found that University of Wyoming has a Masters of Science in Teaching Physics (MST Physics) we were pretty excited. I think there are only 4 or 5 MST Physics programs in the country. After several days of researching it and contacting advisors and professors we decided that is what we are doing! We wanted to go to Wyoming (much better pay for teachers) just not eastern Wyoming. That is exactly where UW is. We can handle it. It is close to Cheyenne and not to far from Denver as well! So, we still might move this summer and just have Tobin do student teaching in Wyoming. That way, when he starts grad school we will only have to pay out of state tuition for one semester (if we move early enough) So thats our story for now... long and rambling but I guess thats what I was going to say. Oh one more thing. I just want to say I am very grateful for Tobin and his hard work. Last week he took the Praxis II which is the big test for student teaching, this week he took the CLEP French test (since he has to take one more class next semester, he is going to take some french too) He passed that with FLYING colors even after 3 1/2 years of being home from his mission. To get 16 credits worth he needed to get 59/80.......He got 72/80 :) He is pretty awesome! Next week is the GRE and then he gets a break from tests for a few weeks!

PS Maylee is pretty darn awesome too! I guess I will devote a post to her here in the next few days!