More Gatlinburg Pictures

I had some glitches on the last post while trying to add pictures, so they get their own post:

Upon arriving at the Buckberry Lodge in Gatlinburg, we were greeted by this lovely hiking bear.

This picture's for Doug -- This Moose sat pointed they way to a breakfast of pastries, cereals, and yogurt. Steve and I opted to eat outside on the balcony overlooking the woods, instead of eating inside by the moose.

Here is one of the barns at the apple orchard. The orchard consisted of several different buildings -- creamery, candy, winery, Christmas shop, Grill, Restaurant, and the Cider Mill. I imagine that the place is hopping during late summer and early fall. We really liked the Restaurant. Steve and I split a meal which included apple fritters, side salad, soup, beans, mashed potatoes, fried apples, pork loin, cobbler, and apple spice cake. It was delicious!

Steve convinced me that we should do this 2 mile hike which somehow was uphill both ways! Halfway through the hike, we were greeted by this sign (to the right) pointing that the falls were to the right. In case you missed the sign, someone created a circle of leaves surrounding an arrow made of sticks pointing to the falls (left of picture).

Here is a picture of Beskin Falls. I was convinced several times along the hike that I would never make it; however, Steve was very encouraging and I made it to the end! I sat on a rock by the falls while Steve got as close as possible.

Along the path to the falls we had to cross a creak. Steve got a kick out of my dainty rock hopping. On the way back to the car (pictured), it was raining. If you don't know me very well - I HATE rain, especially on my neck! The rain did not help in the trek (uphill somehow) back to the car. That little red Honda never looked so good!

Smokey Mountains Road Trip

Before I have a bunch of holiday stories to blog about, I better get our Gatlinburg stories up. Sorry it took so long, Steve stole the camera for work and I came back from the trip really sick -- but we'll get to that.

A couple weeks ago, Steve got off work early on Friday and we headed to Knoxville, TN. We spent 5 hours in the car, with a dinner stop at Chipotle (Steve's favorite place, which we don't have Jackson). While headed to our first of many hotels, we saw a cop car going crazy (driving SUPER fast). I thought it was pulling us over, especially since Steve pulled over, but the cop was zooming ahead of us to a car on FIRE! We drove by it and were in shock at the scene. We never found out what happened or if anyone was in the car.

The next day, we woke up early and headed into the Smokey Mountain National Park. We first did a driving tour. If you've never done a driving tour before, here is some helpful advice to not tick off others in there cars -- If you drive slow to take in the view, be kind and use the pull offs to allow faster cars to get around. If you can guess, we got stuck behind a car driving extremely slow. Steve and I got a kick out of the pile up of cars behind us. The people in the car behind us were livid. I think it just added to the whole experience.

After our little driving tour, we did a "beginner" hike to a waterfall. It was a pretty steep hike, but the pathway had been paved, which made it quite nice. I was freaking out for most of the hike. If you don't know me, I am not very adventurous because I'm terrified of heights and falling for that matter. While headed back down from the water fall, Steve rolled his ankle in a pothole. All I saw was Steve falling to the ground and I thought he was falling off the path (it was a steep edge with trees). We thought he had hurt his ankle and wouldn't be able to hike the rest of the trip, but he pulled through. Whew!

After our hike, we headed to our new hotel, or should I saw Lodge. We stayed at this wonderful little log cabin style lodge. It had a full kitchenette, fire place, and huge bathroom. We headed to dinner to Fuddruckers in Pigeon Forge. This was my first Fuddruckers and one of many for Steve. When we got back from dinner, we went on a little walk to an "open-air pavillion" on the lodge grounds. By the time we went on this walk, it was pitch black, no lights, and on a declining hill in the woods. I was again convinced we were going to be attacked by a bear and killed and no one would know what ever happened to us. But luckily, that did not happen and we can add a midnight hike onto our list of adventures.

The next day was much like the first. We got up and headed back into the Smokey's for another drive through the mountains followed by a hike. This hike took us to one of the tallest peaks in the Smokey Mountains. As we drove up towards it, the temperature dropped significantly and there was lots of snow on the ground. The actual hike was a chilly one, and very steep. I had to stop a couple times to catch my breath. I claim "high altitude" and asthma was the culprit; however, Steve thinks it is my lack of adventure. It doesn't matter what it was, I made it to the top!

We were going to do another hike, but Steve informed me it was going to be like a 4 mile hike. I was having none of it, so we headed on to our new hotel -- The Inn at Christmas Place in Pigeon Forge.

The rest of our trip consisted of lounging at our Christmas themed hotel (complete with a Santa & Mrs. Claus every morning in the breakfast area). The breakfast at the Christmas place was quite nice. They served a hot breakfast (eggs, sausage, ham, biscuits, gravy, potatoes, & create your own omelette) as well as donuts, waffles, fruit, and yogurt. We also explored around Pigeon Forge & Gatlinburg. We even had some adventures at an apple orchard. We had quite the fun trip! (Although, the ride back was pretty rough for me, I had a major headache, hurt all over, and returned home to a fever of 100.5 & an Upper Respiratory Infection. I guess I paid for all that fun travel).

Not the way I wanted to end vacation. . .

A week ago at this time, Steve and I were just beginning our long weekend vacation in Gatlinburg, TN. I have many pictures and stories from the trip that I have been meaning to blog about; however, it has taken me so long to pull a blog post together because I have been under the weather.

I started feeling bad on our ride home from Gatlinburg on Tuesday. I had a bad headache and my body hurt all over. By the time we finally got home, I took my temperature and discovered I had a fever of 100.5. All day Wednesday I battled the same headache, achiness, high fever, and a cough. I was supposed to sub on Friday so I knew I had to get better by Thursday in order to sub. So Thursday came and I still felt awful. I contacted the teacher I was to sub for and cancelled on him. I felt awful doing that, but Steve kept reminding me I had no other choice.

My mom kept asking for updates on my sickness and kept telling me to get to a doctor. Since Steve and I have just moved, we hadn't found a doctor yet. I texted my friend whose family lives in Jackson (she just moved to the area too) and asked if she could recommend a doctor. I researched the names she sent me & found out they are from the Jackson Clinic. So, I called up the clinic and got an appointment for Thursday with Dr. Garey.

I think God was working behind the scenes on this one, because I couldn't have asked for a better doctor! He went above and beyond what he needed to and was very polite. Any other doctor would have just said that I had a cold and to go home; however, he ordered a flu swab to make sure that he covered the basis. I gagged when the nurse swabbed the back of my throat with a long q-tip and then had to wait 20 minutes for the results. The doctor came back in and said that I had an Upper Respiratory Infection which is viral. (For all you non-medical savvies out there, you can't treat viral infections with antibiotics; only bacterial infections respond to antibiotics).

He went ahead a prescribed me a cough medicine that was supposed to knock me out (however, it only makes me slightly dizzy after I take it, and then nothing). He also went ahead and prescribed a Z-pack (antibiotics) and said not to get them unless I'm showing more symptoms or no improvement in 48 hours (again, other doctors would've just said "see ya!" but he didn't want me to be stuck over the weekend being miserable). He asked if there was anything else he could do for me, asked about my background, and wished me a happy thanksgiving and to call if I or Steve ever need anything.

I hate being sick & tend to get sick alot. So this whole week, I've just been miserable, sleeping, and watching lots of tv. I just have to keep reminding myself that it took me getting a URI and feeling terrible to find such a great doctor here in Jackson!

Police Academy

Today marked my 4th day of subbing. I'm taking the next 2 days off of subbing (meaning I don't have any subs; if I get an offer, I'll turn it down) and will sub again on Friday. Today I was at a middle school subbing for the choir teacher. I got to meet with her this morning and she quickly walked me through the schedule, gave some names of students who'd help and who'd hinder, and she sent me on my way to the gym for bus duty.

Bus duty consisted of staring down the students and telling them to Hush Up. I felt like I was a detention officer. I understand the desire for order, but I felt bad for the students. You could see it how the school effects each kid. Those kids who work hard and obey look dejected, and those kids who break all the rules look forward to the days challenges. This got me thinking, which came first -- Do the staff treat the students like inmates so the students act like inmates? OR Do the students act like inmates so the staff has to treat them like that?

My job throughout the day was to walk the students to the bathroom, wait for everyone to be done & return to the classroom; take roll & grade each students' behavior; and push play on the VCR. That sounds easy; however, when you have to through in Behavior Cop, my day quickly was filled with yelling at the students. Several other teachers kept coming and checking on me and saying that the choir teacher had the roughest bunch and that I was doing a good job.

I had a couple of breaks between the different grade levels, and I reflected on the classes. I realized that all my college training meant nothing. I had been trained to become a teacher for rural schools, and here I am substituting for inner city schools. I even went through sub training for the schools, but it was the wrong training -- it should have been police training. After all, my job all day is to really threaten and punish students according to their behavior. Oh well, I just have to keep reminding myself I'm getting paid to chorale students. . .

I think that this was probably my best day, so far. I am guessing it has a lot to do with building the experience working with this kids even though i'm in different school and classes each day. I'm learning that I'm not there to be "the cool sub" or even to be nice. Every teacher keeps telling me I need to be more mean, I look too nice. I also had issues with the age thing again -- some staff questioned my age and thought I was a student teacher. So now I'm learning that I look young and am too nice. I should take those as complements, but as a substitute they are a hindrance.

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse. . .

So Friday marked my first day as a high school sub. I was going to be subbing for the Theater teacher, how hard can that be? The day was broken up into 4 classes called blocks. During block 1, I actually got to meet the teacher I was subbing for. He had to meet with some students, so he showed me around the school and explained how the basics worked. After he left, I had an hour to kill before my first class. Luckily, I brought a book (Harry Potter #3- I'm getting ready for the movie next week!) and read it until the next block began.

The students were very talkative and didn't want to do the assignment-- read the chapter for 40 minutes, then answer the questions 45 minutes. So instead, they just talked. I tried to encourage them to read by allowing them to do popcorn reading, which turned into a bigger fiasco. So I gave up on the reading and just told them the questions to do. They were supposed to work alone; however, I couldn't get them to stop talking so they ended up just helping each other out. At least they were getting the work done, right?

Another teacher came into the room and asked if I had let any boys go to the bathroom (which I had) and he asked who they were. He then took those boys out of the class and they returned shortly (I later found out that during the beginning of the class some boy had smoked marijuana in the bathroom and the teacher was trying to figure out who, luckily not the boys from my class). We made it about 3/4 of the way through class with me fighting them to keep the chatter down. This is when a REAL fight began. A boy in the front row got up and went to a boy sitting in the back row and just started wailing on him! The boy who was sitting then jumped up, pushed the attacker and they started wrestling & throwing punches! I quickly ran across to the next room which had another sub in it (but she had subbed here a few times) so she ran and got another teacher. When the other teacher (who was the same one who had come into my room earlier looking for the bathroom boys) came to my door, another student was pushing one of the fighters out of the room. The teacher grabbed the fighter, slammed him into the wall where he fell to the ground, and then picked him up by the sweatshirt and took him to the office. I returned into the classroom to try to take back control. The teacher then returned for the other kid (the attacker) involved in the fight.

I was pretty shaken up about the whole ordeal but tried to not let the other students see it. However, they thought it would be best to spend the rest of the class talking about the fight (and got a kick out of how I ran out to get help). They then turned the story on me how I was fleeing for my life (I forgot to mention that I was definitely a minority in this school). Whatever.

So Block 3 started with the teacher, who came to my rescue, asking me if I was okay. He then proceeded to tell me that breaking up fights was his favorite part of the job (good for him!). I ate lunch by myself in my classroom (which was an auditorium since I was taken over for the theater teacher). The students returned from lunch and were out of control. They wouldn't sit or stop talking, and they definitely weren't going to read. One girl decided to collect all the textbooks and stack them up in her chair. I told her to put them back and sit down or I would write an office referral. She then proceeded to backtalk and make the class laugh, so I wrote a referral. She then threw the textbooks at my desk. Excellent. The rest of the class thought this was hysterical and wouldn't do a thing I said (even though I've been told once you lay down the law with one student the rest will get the picture- NOPE). I don't even think half the students did the assignment.

Block 4 was by far the best part (besides the fight) of my day. It was a class of 15 upperclassmen who wanted to be in the class. They only had to read a short assignment because a pep session was planned for the end of the class. About 3 students actually read the assignment, another 4 looked through the pages, and the rest just talked. By that point, I didn't care, I was just watching the clock for when I got out of there! These students were the most respectful to me. They asked who I was, where I was from, and then asked how old I was. They couldn't get over how young I looked to be a sub. They kept saying I looked like a student. I'm guessing that this point right there was the reason for all the problems throughout the day. This will probably be one of the last times in my life I actually wish I look older. Oh well, I got paid $70 to watch a fight, yell at students, be made fun of, and get called names-- I got tough shoulders.

Oh the Life of a Sub

So I woke up this morning at 7:45 to a phone call. I was asked to sub for a 5th grade class & needed to be there around 8:15. I quickly got ready and arrived to the school for my first sub job. After signing in at the office, I got escorted to my room which required walking outside to an annex. The teacher I was subbing for was in her classroom as well as all the students. Even though school starts at 8:30, they were already there and working when I arrived at 8:20. The teacher quickly explained the day and left me alone with her class (she wasn't feeling well upon getting to school so that's why I subbed). She warned me that her class was talkative, but I was not prepared for what was in store.

Her class talked non-stop! I gave warnings, used her behavior chart (color-coded popsicle sticks according to the students' behavior). Once I started learning names, disciplining became a little easier. When lunch rolled around, I tried to stick to the teacher's procedures according to what the students told me; however, when you have 5 students shouting different procedures I just rolled with it. Apparently, the students are supposed to walk single file with no talking while in the hallways. I of course figured this out as all the other teachers popped their heads out of classrooms and yelled at my students (oh and the art class was in an open area situated in a high-traffic area, so the art teacher laid into my students quite often!).

After lunch, we were supposed to go through their vocab words & have students use them in sentences. What should have been 10 minutes was more like 25 minutes due to me continually having to refocus the class as well as yelling at students for talking. One student ended up receiving his red stick which gave him a trip to another teacher's room. With him out of the class, things went a little better. I felt like I just roamed around the room putting out fires. And to make matters worse, it was one student's birthday and his mom brought in donuts for the class which just sugared up the kids and added to the fiasco. Some 0f the students swapped classrooms for a Math class. I felt bad for those students coming into my room from next door. The kids that had been in my classroom earlier were way out of control and caused most of math class consisting of me shushing them all! Plus, during the math class, the students found the answers to the worksheet in the book. I had the teacher's book and was supposed to read through the steps and help the students figure out the problems, but with the answers the students just shouted answers without knowing how to do it. Ridiculous!

Here is when the day really went sour (for the students). Last class of the day required them walking through the annex, through gym class, outside, and into the cafeteria. I told them upon leaving the room that they were to prove themselves in the hall by not making a peep. Yeah right Mrs. Ackerman! All it took was the little trip down the hall and through the gym for the chaos to begin. One of the students apparently farted which caused all the other students to go crazy. Another teacher rounded the corner as I was coming up towards the scene of the crime. The other teacher went NUTSO on the kids! She started yelling at them for being rude & misbehaving and then wanted to know who farted. Myself as well as the whole class knew who had done it (he had been farting all through my class earlier which also happened to be birthday boy). Since he wouldn't fess up, the entire class got a detention instead of going to music class. They had to do something called "write-offs" which all I could figure out was something like writing "I will not, blah blah blah" 100 times or so.

I thought my day was almost over when I went back to pick the kids up. We returned to the classroom for the dismissal. Instead of all the students leaving at once, they had to stay in the classroom and one bus at a time would be called out. The whole process took 45 minutes. Close to the end, one of my students informed me that the teacher made them sit in their desks quietly until their bus was called. Thinking that they would leave quickly, I made them put all their seats on the desks (as told my janitor) and let them talk and roam around. This just made a chaotic ending to a chaotic day. I even had teachers come into my room to yell at the kids. The secretary kept telling me that they were really a good class. So either they're a good class and I'm an awful sub, or they're an awful class and I was an unlucky sub. I guess I'll figure it out when I sub again for that teacher on Monday!

Oh, and once I got home at 4:15, I got a call from another school asking if I would sub tomorrow. SUUuuuuure. Why not? So tomorrow, I have to be at a high school at 7am in order to sub for the theater teacher. Then, I get to bee-line it home to hang out with a cute baby all evening (and no I'm not talking about Steve, even though I think he is cute and I get to hang out with him too all evening, I'm talking about little Hadleigh).

Trip Complete!

My trip has gone as quickly as it came. The weather was way hotter than it usually is for October. So instead of wearing the jeans I had planned on wearing, I ended up wearing shorts and tees every day (good thing I threw in a couple pairs of shorts last minute!). The crowds were lower than I'm used to and had the weather been cooler, I probably would have to declare it the best time to go to Disney.

While we were there, we got to go to a Halloween party in the Magic Kingdom. We bought special tickets to the event that let us trick-or-treat around the Kingdom and collect candy. My family dressed up for the event. The three little girls were princesses (Cinderella, Ariel-in-the-wedding-dress, and Belle), Sara was Figaro, Amber was Snow White, Chris was Prince Charming, Dad was Sorceror Mickey, Mom was the Fairy Godmother, and I was Tinkerbell. We had a great time, and had several people stop us and talk to us about the costumes and even took pictures of us. There are pictures of our costumes, but I don't have them yet, so I will post them when I can!

Here is a picture of my costume. If you look closely, my hair is in fact yellow. I had a colored hair spray that I used. It turned my hair into a yellow brick! I was afraid of how it would do when I washed it, but it came right out without a problem. You can't tell by the picture, but my wings were quite large. I kept bumping in to people and things with them. Disney cast members were joking around with me about developing "Wing Awareness". When we rode on rides, I'd take them off, but other than that, they surprisingly stayed on!

I have a bazillion other stories from the trip, but can't think of any to share. All in all, I had a good time with my family. Sure there were times of drama, but I expected that going into the trip. I laughed a lot and made some great Disney memories to spur on my Disney craze.

My travel back to Tennessee was a new experience for me. Originally, I was supposed to fly from Orlando to Atlanta around 3:30, and then fly from Atlanta to Memphis at 9. My family had an earlier flight to Atlanta, so I did standby and got on the earlier flight. Steve looked up all the flights from ATlanta to Memphis for me, and I discovered an earlier flight (6:20). So when I got to Atlanta I went to talk to an Airtran representative. They sent me to a gate that was loading a flight to St. Louis. So I stood off to the side while the agents were working with all the other passengers for that flight. After they got that flight taken care of, I talked with an agent about my situation (I also forgot- I was never given my boarding pass for my connecting flight). So he said that he could get me onto the earlier flight and that he had bumped me to business (1st) class for being so polite and patient! Thanks mom & dad for teaching me good manners :).