Rats!

So I haven't kept up on our family yearbook. Life has been crazy. We moved. Lilly started school. I had to find new doctors, stores, and what about friends? Just finding a new pattern to my life has been difficult. And then in the middle of my new life, I started an after-school dance program. I am teaching for Deer Valley Unified School District. I saw that there were no nearby dance studios and called and interviewed with the district. I know I am crazy. Right now, I am just teaching at Lilly's school, but they would like me to do it down the street at another school. (I am not sure I will) It has been fun to teach Lilly dance with the other kids from her school. I have about 40 kids spread between 3 classes. This is on Tuesdays after school. It runs for 12 weeks with a performance for their family with costumes the last day. Her school doesn't have a dance program, even for the older kids to select as an elective in there daily schedule. It has been fun to dance again and I cannot believe that I haven't taught dance in 5 years. Whew! I can't believe how time flies. Its a whole new experience too. I taught High School students and not Kindergartners. Boy was I tired after the first day. Not that the dance moves were so hard but teaching dance and managing the behavior of little ones is a challenge. It was also a bit hard the first couple of classes to get my creative juices flowing but it has been going good. Dave and I also volunteered to register people to vote and that has been fun. I also have been teaching a busy bumbles dance class down the street for an hour on Tuesday mornings at Tutor Time. It is daycare/preschool/kindergarten place. They have like 300 kids on campus. I take Josie with me. And for the hour I teach dance; she goes into one of the little toddler rooms and plays toys and has lunch with them on the tiniest table I have ever seen. It is has been fun. I am really sad for those kids who are dropped off at 7:30 AM and their parents pick them up at 6:30 PM. Don't get me wrong, I think the staff is great! I am just mostly sad for the little babies who should just be held by their mom's and not dropped off at a school. Anyways, I guess I really have started a little side business that takes about 4 hours total of my week to do and it has been fun. It is called the Sonoran Dance Institute and Dave made me some great flyer's, brochures, and pamphlets and currently I can be found at Tutor Time or Deer Valley School District.

This is how it got started. I moved to planned community and they have a big club house. I informed them I would be happy to teach a children's movements class for the community, since they didn't have any. After three different failed attempts with my community director, who is an old lady, who doesn't want to be bothered with the noise in the big empty clubhouse that we pay for as community, I moved on.
I called down the street to Tutor Time and asked them if I could demo classes for them in the month of August. I guess they liked me and told me they fired the old dance teacher because she wasn't so reliable. Speaking of reliability, I have a funny story from my first day of work about that topic. Well, on the first day that I am about to start work. I am driving down the street (It is five min from my house) My cell phone beeps. By the way, I cannot get cell reception in my home. It is the school nurse. Lilly has been sitting in Nurses office with Pink Eye for an hour. My home line was down that day because of construction. I had no idea. I am that dumb mom, who sends her kid to school with pink eye and infects the entire class. Yes it was me! I am feeling terrible and panicked. What should I do? Leave Lilly with the nurse for another hour? So, I pull into work, march in to the front desk, and cancelled my first day of class. Great. How reliable is that. Anyways, teaching dance has given me something to think about, since I am starting over again in a new area.
We just recently had a big relief. Dave's work laid off 2000 employees in AZ. Yes 2000 people and families that are counting on a job. We still have a job. American Express have many different campuses all over Arizona and until last week had about 7,000 employees total here. I just think about all of those different families suddenly unemployed. I feel really blessed and lucky. Anyways, Halloween was fun. We threw a neighborhood party and invited all of our neighbors to come over and eat before they went out to trick or treat. Really nice people mostly from Chicago, Philly, NY. I thought I lived in the South West. Who knew! I need to post Halloween and our recent trip to Huntington Beach to visit Grandma/Pa and the new baby Grant. Hopefully I will do better at keeping track of my family through the blog.

PS Rats! Dave and I have been married six years. I have been collecting butterflies, acorns, fairies, etc... for my Enchanted Christmas tree since then. Last night I was flipping through the Pottery barn magazine and they just came out with a butterfly tree. I hate that! I know people have butterfly trees, but now everyone and their dog will too. Boo Hoo. It is one of my most favorite thing to look forward to all year. Lilly's most favorite tree! I got to go. Josie is smearing her cream cheese/bagel all over me like it is lotion. She is a character.