Call Me the Dollar Store

November is about being thankful.  

And this November, I feel like I had more reasons than ever.

A few:

My family

My job

The holiday season

With that being said, here are a few highlights from each of them.

My job

This week, I got a beautiful card from a student.  I opened it and read this message:

Miss Waite, 

I'm so glad I got you!  :)  Thanks for helping me.

You are the bomb!!! :)  
P.S. Thanks.  What's your phone number? (sell)  

P.S.  Please write back

Hahahaha.  How can THAT not make your day?  I mean, what exactly is a fourth grader going to do with my "sell" phone number?

My Family

Thanksgiving break this year may have been one of my favorites.  Ever.  Still not totally sure why.  It didn't dampen my spirits that we had to leave a day late (the Utah "blizzard" actually WAS real in Idaho, closing the roads when my parents were going to leave), that we had to get up at an obscene hour and travel from NV to AZ on Thanksgiving morning in order to make it in time for the food, or that we had to listen to the BYU football and basketball game in the van on AM radio where it was intermingled with some sort of mariachi music...

Nope.  None of those made a dent in my Thanksgiving bliss.

Pre-Thanksgiving Snack

Perhaps it was my nephew, who now sleeps through the night, doesn't have to eat every two hours, and is quite possibly the cutest little boy I've ever been around.  We got a lot of good "Bubs and Tia Lou" time.  I helped him out with his Spanish lessons, was there to celebrate his first birthday (okay, technically they'd already celebrated, but you can never have too many parties), and was able to give him the book My First 100 Farm Words (My personal favorite was the two-page spread on tractors) along farm animal bath toys that squirt water.

Because we were at someone else's house for once, we didn't have to cook or clean up.  We just had to eat.  In the 65 degree weather (be jealous).  Plus, we went shopping Friday and I got to buy cowboy Christmas stuff for my classroom (yes, we have a cowboy themed Christmas tree!).  Nikki made amazing food (as always) which gave me new recipe ideas.  

Quite possibly the most fun of the break was Game Night.

I LOVE Balderdash.  I just do.  I mean, where else are you going to get the movie "Hips Hips Hooray" and fake people into thinking it's about two people in a rest home who enter a dance competition as a way to help them recover from their recent hip replacements?   I think you can see why I won... ;)

After Balderdash, when it was far enough past ALL our bedtimes that we were starting to crack, we pulled out Imagine If...

I'm still deciding whether or not to be offended.  See what you think:

Nikki: Okay, we're talking about Melissa.  If Melissa were a store, would she be:
a) Macys
b) The Dollar Store...

Everyone pauses and starts to laugh.

Nikki: Really, do I have to even read the others?  I think we all know what Melissa is.

Thanks.  Thanks a lot, guys.  I mean, yes, maybe I was the child who hid all her money in the bottom drawer instead of buying candy, and I have been know to frequent a dollar store or two and I may buy everything on sale and I am cheap...but hey....I'm working on it!

We decided if Kelli's life were a movie title, it would be High Anxiety...which rivals The Dollar Store in terms of flattery.  Nevertheless...hers wasn't unanimous.

Kind of like a raccoon, right?

My other favorite part:

Kelli: The word is meerkat.

Melissa: What is a meerkat?

Kelli: An animal.  You know, it has black around it's eyes...(starts acting out what it look like)

Melissa: Oh!  Like that thing on Pocahontas!

Awkward silence for a second

Kelli: That was a racoon....

Melissa: Right......

The Holiday Season

To top it all off, Thanksgiving Break had a great ending.

My parents got to stay an extra day (not so good for them, but I enjoyed it) and we set up Christmas in our apartment.  Because it was after Thanksgiving, I didn't even feel guilty.  

The stockings were hung...