Post Edit of Mr. August

Just as I was pressing "publish post" on the picture below I got a call from Bret saying he twisted his ankle a little and I might need to pick him up. Turns out that while I was posting embarrassing pictures of him on the internet he was breaking his fibula. I tried to get him to show off his cast in a picture by only wearing a volleyball but he would have no part in it.

Mr. August

While scrolling through some old pictures I came across this one. I never realized that it looks like bret is only wearing a volleyball. I laughed really hard by myself and Bret is gone all night so he's not here to tell me not to post this. It's just too good to pass up.

I Floss My Teeth Daily

I'm not scared of many things, you could put some spiders on me while a snake is wrapped around my arm in the dark and I'd be okay, maybe. If you mention the dentist, my whole body tightens and I feel sick to my stomach. It's a fear I've had since childhood, maybe since Dr. Gordon told me I never brushed my teeth and to get out of his office (I do brush my teeth and I always have, I can't help my genetics though). He meant it, and I had to pick my 8 year old body out of the dental chair and walk out of his office never to return again.

Let's fast forward to present day. Bret and I went on a date to the dentist the other night. I thought if I threw in the word "date" or "activity" I could trick myself. Our dentist in Alameda is truly a family operated business. When you call it is the 16 year old's cell phone and when you walk in the mom is doing the cleaning, dad doing the dental work, daughters running the front office, and son tending the dog that is running around the dental office... is that even allowed? The family-ness doesn't stop there, today while getting my teeth drilled the Dr. was yelling at the daughter to turn off the refrigerator and I could see her standing in front of it with her bum-crack showing, and she wasn't even bending down... I though this might lead into a family discussion on professionalism in the work place but instead another daughter came in wearing a hot topic t-shirt ready to assist her dad. They also handed me "protection goggles" i.e. sunglasses from TJ Maxx, so in the chaos, everything was extremely dim. I think this dental scenario might frighten some people but when I was there the teeth drilling was my last concern and therefor I think I will return.

"I'll be right down"

I'm not really sure of what I want in the future (should I be admitting that?) but I do know I want this...
which I guess requires having kids and money. Neither of which I have right now so I guess I have to put those two things in the future plan.
picture found here

summmaa timmeee

Last night as Bret and I got home from an 8 hour drive I said, "we better make sure to get the caramel chexmix and all our food wrappers out of the car because of the bears". We've pretty much been on vacation for the past month and some of that has included time in the wilderness where we feared every night that our car doors would be ripped off due to a french fry under a seat or a hot tamale in the cup holders. Luckily no car doors or tent doors were ripped off during the past month.

Anna did a good job summing up our trip to Sequoia but she forgot to mention that although I only had about 12 troops left on the risk board, I was still planning world domination. Here are some more pics.



Then Rhett and Mon swung by and she took some pics too.. as seen here

Utah was next on the docket, a summer must do for any Mormon. It was everything I could have hoped for.

We also headed back to girls camp to take a group of 15 year old girls backpacking for three days. The girls all squealed when they realized I could totally decipher their coded language to talk about boys.... they didn't realize that I too spent my formative years talking in code about boyz. Oh and there was snow in July, but it was still a good time and Bret caught a fish that the gutted and fried, such a man.


Finally we went down to Huntington Beach to meet up with family and friends. I think we slept a total of 10 hours in the 4 days we were there.

I love Hawaii and Shave Ice and Bret- In That Order

Don't let my mullet and sweat pants gathered at the ankle distract you too much from the glory of Hawaii. In case you were under some false impression that I was at all cool, this video will prove otherwise. And can I give another "what what" to Bret with his video taping genius, and that baby... Ms. Brooke Muff, greatest adventure baby in the world.


Ode to Hawaii from Bret Baker on Vimeo.

Come On Over

Today while walking through the park I saw two boys playing monkey in the middle, but instead of a child or a friend as the "monkey in the middle" there was this huge german shepherd. I laughed out loud while walking alone. German Shepherd in the middle? maybe the worst idea ever. I only stuck around long enough to watch the dog attack one guy's leg and I decided I had had enough.

On another note, I spent the past 730 days scouring craigslist for a white sectional couch with skinny legs, and low and behold two pot-smoking, mid-twenties oaklandites had one in their apartment and on Saturday they sold it to us, two non pot-smoking mid-twenty alamedians. It's 7ft x 8ft of pure joy. You, your mom and sister and german shepherd could all fit on it. Laying down.
please disregard the wall heater

If I act a fool on the bus, I can't go on no field trip

Every time I announce something in class that my students don't like or say no to something there is always one student, Kaliyah, who says "Ahhh dat's jus coolld". One Monday morning she came bouncing in SO proud of herself and presented me with a drawing she had been doing all weekend...

Richie Rich

A few weeks ago at school one of my students said, "Ms. Baker when I first saw you today I thought you were a man". Note to self- don't wear baggy shirts to work. When I looked in the mirror later in the day I realized I did kind of look like a man, but not just any man, I looked just like my dad. The main difference was I was wearing stretch pants with my baggy collared shirt, and my dad usually wears jeans pulled up to his belly button.

Happy Birthday Dad, I'm glad I inherited some of my looks from you and also the tendency to move my mouth when I'm thinking.

Buckle Your Seatbelts

As I have said before, I make a lot of bold statements like, "Bret, I wouldn't eat at Applebees if that is where they held your funeral". Most of these are obviously false, but when I made the statement that we would make a theme to every year of our marriage, and this is year of the learner, I was serious. So I will now give a nine month progress report of how our learning is coming along. I will being doing this in bullet point fashion as I have been told many-a-time that people read bullet points much more often than paragraphs, so for your reading ease:

-I've learned a lot about the urban education system and in three weeks I will have a California Teaching Credential and 1/3 of my masters (I didn't know until two weeks ago this thing was a partial masters program, and it suddenly made sense because it has been insanely time consuming)

-Bret has learned a little about design and in a couple of weeks will be a certificated graphic designer and will be moonlighting with some graphic design projects

-We decided to learn about all of the regional and state park systems within three hours of us so if you are interested in going to Briones Regional Park, Las Trampas Regional Park, Pt. Reyes National Seashore, Muir Woods, Redwood Regional Park, Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Sibley Volcanic Reserve, The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, Sunol Regional Wilderness, and any other state/regional park you can find on google maps, we may have some tips as we have spent some serious time at each of them.

-We learned that the bacon sandwiches we eat at least twice a week contain 900 calories, then we laughed and continued eating them. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, but in this case, i have full fat content knowledge and those sandwiches are still pure bliss.

-We learned that you can go caming in Hawaii in a VW camper van parked in the middle of nowhere and not be killed... see the following picture: