Baby Avery

I had a lot of pictures from Avery's first year that I had printed out. I decided to take some time this week and scrapbook them. Here are a few of the pages I did. This is the first time I've scrapbooked in a few years so it took me a while to get into the 'zone'. I think that after I use up all of my supplies I am going to switch to digital. It's cheaper and should be fun.

Life Since December 12

I got home on December 12. Since then I've been doing stuff. I subbed at Joplin for a few days. I worked in the ERR room and one half day in 5th grade. I also went to Ustick Elementary for a day. Subbing is not as nerve-wracking as I thought. All the kids I've seen so far have been pretty good.

I'm attending the Chinden Ward. I'm trying really hard to withhold any judgment until I've gone for a few weeks and actually know some people.

I try to go the YMCA everyday. It has been really nice to have exercise facilities so close. This summer I am determined to do a triathlon or two. Who wants to do them with me??

I'm also trying to get everything organized. I was looking through my old school stuff a couple of days ago and found those two poems. Dad should definitely be an author part time. His poem is really good. I am awaiting his book that has been talked about for years and years and years. My poem proves that I should probably teach not write poetry for a living.

I got a guitar for Christmas. I'm not very good yet but I'll keep practicing. When something interesting happens in my life, I'll post again (with pictures). Merry Christmas everyone!

Poem #2

No Title
Composed by Terry A. Smith sometime before 1999

Sometimes things are hard to say
Because of fear of what may sway.
It is so for those who see
The shallow forms of apparent speech;
For those who look more at the past
To review, decide, to keep or cast.

Yet for me this can't ever be
For even the Savior could not be.
For even the woman caught in sin
Was not judged and in hell thrown in.
She was told to go sin no more,
Cleanse herself and come to Christ once more.

Because of this I'm caused to think
That one of the important truths is the link-
It's where you're going, not where you've been;
The perfection that's coming, not the past of sin.
Which way you are heading is plain to me.
Keep going to same direction-perfect you'll be.

Poem #1

ODE TO MY FAMILY
composed by Emily Smith in May 1999

My Father is the funny guy in town
All my friend's parents say he should be a clown
He's also really smart and helps me a whole lot
He got a new program and made a real neat robot.

My mother is the sweet one
She helps me out a ton.
She's always there to talk to
And she doesn't like to clean up our dog's poo.

My brother, Mike, is awesome
And he likes to play his drum.
He is such a cool guy
Though in Rio he might fry.

My brother, Nick is crazy
But not at all lazy.
This is his senior year
And twice he saw a deer.

My brother, Tom, likes when girls call
He's got a real big bouncy ball.
He loves to play Nintendo
When girls see him, they say "Wow"

My doggie, Moose, is the looker of our group.
He likes to beg for food, and eat our chicken soup.
His face starts to itch a lot
He spends all the money that we got.

Now there is more I could say
But, this is plenty for one day.

A Quick Glimpse

I Eat Cheese

Closed Captioning: "I'm eating cheese in a cheese factory"

The loud whooshing in the background is the steam and stuff from the factory.

Milk, Curds, Snow, Cheese

These pictures are taken in a cheese factory. Notice two things first off. 1)They are wearing hair nets. 2)They are wearing aprons. So, it was decently clean and sanitary. We who toured the factory, however, weren't wearing aprons or hair nets. This is a Mennonite stirring hot milk that has started to turn into curds. They have to do this for several hours. They stir with a pitchfork. This pitchfork is only used to stir milk cheese. There is steam everywhere. My camera fogged up. Brittany's glasses fogged up. We couldn't understand their German.
After all the milk has coagulated itself into cheese, it is cut up into large slabs. These slabs go through a cutting machine and then it looks like snow cheese. A person adds salt by the bucketful and stirs lots and lots. Again with a pitchfork. I couldn't leave the factory without eating some cheese, so I reached into that gigantic tub and pulled out a piece of cheese. Then I partook. It was warm. At no point in time was I wearing a hair net, apron, or gloves. I am taking a worm pill tomorrow.
Here you see some action. Put the slab of cheese into the cutter and it turns to snow. The other is pitchfork mixing.
The snow cheese is all compressed into circular shaped things. They press all of the liquidy stuff and you are left with Mennonite cheese. This is stored in a refrigerated room. The flash works well on my camera. My hair is flipped out.

After the enlightening experience inside the cheese factory, we explored the premises and found High Quality Dairy Feed. Because there are thousands of cows, they buy in bulk.

The Mennonites really are awesome. I loved my day. We also hung out with the Minister and his family for an hour or so. I understand German sounds but not German words. They speak Low German.

Anyone want some cheese?

Mennonite School

There are 55,000 Mennonites living in Estado Chihuahua. Elder Guenther and his wife are in charge of fellowshipping all of them. We went with them today to one of the colonies called Capulin. I've learned a lot about the Mennonites in the last few weeks and they have a really interesting history. They speak low German so we can't communicate much. We went to their school this morning. They sang us a song and read us a prayer. The boys go to school until they are 13 years old. The girls go until they are 11 years old. They learn in German.

Baptism

One of my fifth graders, Kathia, got baptized today. Her grandma got baptized as well. I couldn't have come up with a better way to spend my last Sunday in Colonia Juarez.

Decorations of Red

I don't like to decorate bulletin boards but I do enjoy a good blog makeover every once in a while. You'll have to bear with the color change until after Christmas. Thanks for the idea Jessica. By the way, I helped Kennie Romney set up her house for Christmas yesterday. We helped put ornaments on the tree, do the garland and the lights. You all would have been proud of my skills.

Revelations for Today

I have never been very street smart. That should be no surprise to anyone. When we went on our trip down to Copper Canyon, I decided to take a couple of videos to try and capture the scenery but I didn't talk because my camera doesn't record sound. Every time I recorded a video and watched it, it was silent. Imagine my surprise when a couple of weeks ago, I decided to watch the video on my computer and discovered there WAS sound recorded. My first reaction was happiness. Now I can take quick and easy videos. My second reaction was sad. 'You mean I had this camera in Thailand for nearly 18 months and never took any videos because I thought there was no sound. My third reaction was embarrassment. I felt really unintelligent not to have figured this out until now. But, I figured I'd shared anyway.
Another revelation that came this week is how to upload videos onto my blog. This is just the beginning of the videos. If you want to watch one of my fourth grade class, go to robinsonpictures4.blogspot.com

Lastly, after watching this video you may or may not agree that it is sometimes hard 'for an old dog to learn new tricks.' Notice the two slightly older but certainly not old ladies trying to play the cup game.

FINISHED

Fifth graders and me in the back doing a really awkward pose.

The fourth graders. For more pictures, check out the blog I made for them at robinsonpictures4.blogspot.com

The fifth grade boys doing their thug poses.

It is official. I passed my Teacher Work Sample. I sent in my CPAS evaluations. And I taught my final day. I am now finished with my undergraduate degree. I think I get a yellow tassel. Magically, facebook changed my status from BYU '07 to BYU Alum '07. How did they know? I decided that today should be fun so we did some science tricks, read some books, sang some songs. It was a pretty great day. Lots of kids gave me chocolate, which is exactly what I need during the Christmas season. It is so good though. My 5th graders threw me a surprise party. I had to be surprised. Luckily, I'm the best actor in the Smith family and no one suspected a thing. I'm happy to be coming home but the closer it gets, the more I realize that I am going to miss these kids. It will be weird to have a class of kids with blond hair and blue eyes staring up at me. I'm not used to white kids in large doses. I'll miss not being able to ask my students how to say words like "bridle, cranberry, and glue stick" in Spanish. But, its life. I'm happy to be done except for the fact that I have to be a real grown up now.

Quote

I know that this is my second post without a picture. I promise to put some pictures up soon. But, I just wanted to report that I have finally moved out of the Vizcaino's boarding house. We are staying with Hermano y Hermana Pinera right now. They have a 6 month old baby named David who is so cute. I'll put some pictures up.

In the room where I am staying, there is a nice quote by Marvin J. Ashton.

"The Lord never asks us about our ability or inability. He only asks us about our availability. And if we can prove our dependability, he blesses us with the capability."