HUGE UPDATE (as per many requests to do so...SORRY!!)

Sorry that I haven't updated since last year--terribly sorry about that! I know ya'll are wondering what has been happening in our lives lately so here's a HUGE UPDATE:

• School year is going amazing for me.  A little rough at the beginning--just getting back into the swing of teaching/speaking German but the kids are super patient with me and for the most part, I don't have many complaints about the type of student I have in my classes. :)
•  I still have a job next year to my knowledge. I will be traveling a bit (starting at Capital HS for 4th period--about 23 minutes away from Timberline HS where I will finish out with 5th and 6th period).  I will travel through my lunch and word on the street is that I will get my lunch paid out, as well as, mileage so I will get a little more pay than I am now.  This is a lot better than what I originally thought I was going to get which was a pay cut--Timberline is cutting one period of German so I would've only had 2 periods instead of the 3 that I had this year.  So this new deal is much better...other than the traveling...during lunch. But at least it's paid!!
• Since the current German teacher of German at Capital will be on leave of absence, I will get to takeover her position as group leader for the 2013 Spring trip to Germany...which means that I get to go to Germany FOR FREE!!!  Kyle gets to go with me for a very large discount--almost paid for but not quite but since we have 11 people signed up for the trip altogether with my school and Capital, the cost for him to go is greatly defrayed.  It will be a spring break to remember next year!!
• Kyle is working (not quite tirelessly) on his Master's and his Master's defense presentation is on the 11th of May. He's been under a lot of stress trying to get it edited and cleaned up.  He will then submit his entire paper for approval to the grad office after the final edits are made and we wait until about August until he can finally graduate as a MS in Electrical Engineering. 
• Tiger is doing well. He's the same lovable kitty! Social as ever and we have fully accepted him as a child. haha!!  We love him so much! Kyle has even come close to considering letting him sleep with us at night. ;)
• Summer vacation is approaching and we are definitely toying with the idea of taking a nice, relaxing vacation somewhere that has a beach and tropical atmosphere in order to escape the stresses of the past 2 years+ of Kyle's Master's work and now that it's almost finished, we're in desperate need of escape. Now, only to find the perfect location...

• Zumba® has DEFINITELY kept my extra time filled with teaching classes, subbing for other people's classes and going to the extracurricular events that it all encompasses such as many a Zumbathon®, choreography learning/practice sessions and specialty trainings... I am now officially licensed in regular Zumba® and Zumba® Toning (Zumba workout involving light weights).  The Toning classes will start this summer, although I've already introduced my students to it by doing a 50/50 mix of Toning and regular Zumba®.  We do the first half of class with the weights (warm-up not including weights) and then finish out the 2nd half without and just do the regular dance fitness.  This summer I will add Fridays to my schedule by doing a full hour Toning class at my Nampa studio that I teach at.  I'm already seeing the results in my arms and shoulders just by adding the resistance to my workouts.  Of course, Zumba® Toning is a whole different animal than that of the regular workout.  Since we incorporate weights in the dance fitness workout, our upper body motions have to be more controlled to avoid injury from holding the weights. We only work with 1-3 lb weights because this is not a class where we will build SIZE in our muscles but we will build TONE (hence the name) and we will build muscle endurance.  It's really been fun trying to practice for this class and I've got at least a half hour built up in choreo but I need the other half before I can start my whole hour class in the 2nd week of June. My students are loving it so far! My schedule is so jam-packed each week, Kyle can't hardly keep up with me but that's okay because he's busying himself with his thesis...

Well, hopefully that was a big enough of an update so far.  I'm sorry that I've been so terrible with keeping this thing up lately.  Just a hugely busy schedule has kept me away but I will try at least to update each month with all of our goings-on.  The summer should prove to be a little more laid back....maybe. ;)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Here's to hoping you and your families had the best Christmas yet and will be having a great new year when 2012 comes along!!! Love you all!


*On a side note, I've decided to get another type of Zumba license. I'm going to a Zumba Toning certification in March! Didn't take me long to spend the Christmas money once I saw that a training was coming to our town! Yay for no traveling! Just get up, get dressed and drive down the road! :) I'm super excited about this! Can't wait to add another dimension to my Zumba classes after March!!

Kyle's still working hard on his thesis. He's got 2 out of 4 chapters written so I'd say that's major progress!! He's got articles and papers strewn out all over the office floor...I'm trying to be patient with that.. haha! He's a good, hard worker and he'll have it finished by this spring and be able to graduate in summer if all goes the way it is going right now. :) Then maybe we might take a nice trip in the summer somewhere to celebrate his success.

Well, I better cut this off because I've got a CPR training to go to and then I'm out to lunch with a friend of mine.

An Update

Well, it's been a little over a month since the last time I've written. Sorry for being so lazy on this blog lately. Just got busy with a lot of other things so I'll give ya'll an update on the goings-on in the past month..

*Zumba has definitely been the major thing keeping me running from one place to another. Seems like I've got something Zumba-related most weeks and sometimes every night! As it stands now, I'm teaching regularly 3 times a week, soon to be 4 regular classes. A friend of mine had been teaching at Idaho Power for an employee wellness program they've got going on there. She's gotten too overwhelmed with other things in her other jobs and whatnot. So, she's handing it over to me. So after Thanksgiving week, I will be teaching M, T, W and F! Once the holidays are over then, I'm going to restart the Zumba Fitness for Faculty for another 6 week session. Whew! But the good news is, I'm really close to my final weight goal and all of this Zumba has definitely been the driving force to get me there! I'm pretty happy with that!


*School: Kids are still acting pretty decent. They're teenagers and they're talkative and at times, immature, but that'll be kids for you. If talking and immaturity are my biggest problems, I'd say I've got it made in terms of student quality. :) I love them to death (well, most of them ;) ha!).. They're great and I can always count on a pretty good laugh from them every now and then. Grades are good for the most part and I feel like this is going to continue to be a good year. I had my first formal observation today and the students in my 5th period did extremely well for me. They were attentive and mostly engaged and the principal even chuckled a little at one of my students. I think that's a good sign.


*Personal life: Hectic. What with Zumba and Kyle doing Master's work, we rarely find a lot of time to sit back and relax but lately we've found a little time. So I can't complain too much. We have a friend couple who have invited us out to their cabin in Donnelly (in the mountains) a few times. We've only really been out there once so far but we love going out there. It's so peaceful and quiet! Not to mention, great times with friends! We eat good too. ;)


That's what has been going on so far in our lives lately. About to have some very special visitors here on Monday night to stay with us through the Thanksgiving week. We can't wait to have my parents here for a nice, relaxing visit. I'm sure we'll try and take pictures. Until then, have a great rest of your week!

Almost halfway there..

Well, it's almost mid-October (which means Thanksgiving is near and so are the Christmas holidays, which means the year is almost halfway done..) and so far, I've survived the first couple of months of school. I've started up a Zumba Fitness for Faculty for a couple of schools near to my high school. We're having the classes at one of the elementary schools since they won't charge rent. :) We're having a blast!! Class is every Thursday right after school.


One thing though is that I am so busy. There really isn't a night or weekend where I don't have some sort of commitment. It's beginning to get tiresome. Granted, it's great exercise but at some point, I'm going to have to sit tight and not commit to stuff right away. I swear that Zumba is keeping me more busy than my real teaching job--haha! At the same time, if I don't have these classes or have to skip one for some reason, I feel bloated and I don't feel good. These classes are like a drug. I have withdrawals, like the bloating and icky feelings, when I don't get to partake in the classes for some reason. I'm hoping that at least in November, I'll be able to take a little breather. I've got 2 parties I'm going to be participating in for Zumba purposes: Zombie Zumbathon and a "Wicked" Zumba party...sheesh! Lots of fun but after I get done with those, I'm going to collapse! :) I'm not having my Saturday Zumba class on the 29th so that Kyle and I can escape town for that weekend and have some peace and quiet. No Zumba. No nothing. It'll be nice. We can be refreshed and then come back that Sunday afternoon ready to start it all over again--full force!


The kids in my classes are all pretty good kids. Only minor problems such as the normal stuff like, too much talking and not staying on task. However, I've remedied that for the a little bit (especially for my 6th period). It's called new seating charts and a heart-to-heart talk with them saying I know they can do better. So far, it's worked. *cross fingers*


Kyle is still working on his Master's. He hasn't started writing yet. He's hoping to start that soon. I'm hoping he'll start that soon too because that means this madness will be done. :)


Well, I better get going. Gotta go practice with a fellow Zumba Instructor for the Zombie Zumbathon later this month. :)

1st couple of weeks down, several to go!

School has gotten off to a great start! My kids are great and (mostly) behaved. :) Sure, they're talkative and can be a bit rambunctious but they're good kids, all in all. I've been majorly saved by my fellow German teacher, Jamie Gilderhus, with all of her lesson plans she so graciously gave to me this summer. I've been trying to beef them up where I can to make them my own. I've been trying to figure out my own pace as well and doing lots of trial and error attempts...although since school has but barely started, I haven't had that many "errors"...yet.. I should get a picture of my classroom up on here pretty soon.


I've also volunteered to be the Wellness Champion for my school in order to get more involved with the teacher community at Timberline HS. All a Wellness Champion does is be the contact for the lady at the district office to send posters and flyers and whatnot to me and I can hang them around the school for faculty. I also get to help decide what health initiatives we'd like to implement for the district based on needs and desires of the district. With that said, I've decided that I want to start up a Zumba Fitness for Faculty class on Thursday afternoons. I've already had about 8 teachers at my school say they were totally interested in participating and so we'll see once I get an actual location how many more I'll gain. I would do it at my school but there's been a snag, (don't want to go into details) so I'm working with the district lady to get someplace else worked out. :)


Basically, I've been going nonstop lately. I'm tired. Whoever said half-time employment was actually half-time? Yeah, it's called half-time because I'm only paid for HALF of my time spent. ;) No worries, I love my job so far and don't have very many complaints about getting to school at 10am... that part is awesome, I won't lie.


I've also started up a German Club and have a few student participants already. We're having a "Club Rush" this week to promote all of the school clubs and hopefully grow ours. I also have a Back to School Nite event tomorrow where I get to meet some of the parents of my students. I'm also going to try and snag some and try and convince them to come to my Germany trip parent meeting the following night so they can have their kids take part in a wonderful travel opportunity. I think the parents are the ones who I can grab and actually get their attention about this amazing opportunity. Who wouldn't want to go to Germany in 2013 with a couple of AWESOME German teachers?

Well, that's what has been happening with me so far since school started. Kyle has still been plugging away at his Master's. Not a lot of spare time lately except for last weekend when we drove up to Donnelly, ID to stay a night at one of his coworker friend's cabin. They were up there and so we had a nice visit with them. The fresh mountain air was just what we needed. It allowed us to have a nice sleep that night and we woke refreshed the next day. It was a great weekend.

Jennifer Campbell rocks Zumba at the Canyon County Music Festival

Here's a video of me teaching a Zumba routine (Bollywood music) at a local music festival. :)

And it's begun!

The school year is nigh and I'm gearing up for it this week, which means meetings, meetings and more meetings! I'm getting at a taste of how exhausted I'm about to become. Although I will say, these days I've been going all day. With this part-time gig, I probably won't be as tired. But the anxiety and good stress of starting something new will probably weigh on me for a little bit. Nonetheless, I'm completely excited!!! I've got new ideas for the classroom (stuff for getting the kids to participate, etc...). I've met one of my students already--he's a German exchange student. Already forgot his name. LOL! Anyway, he's gonna be my teaching assistant for my German 3 class,where I only have 9 kids and he'll be my resource for culture questions and any doubts I have about my language skills. I'm sure he'll be willing to help me out. :)


I'm sharing a classroom with another teacher who's there in the morning and the great thing is: I DON'T HAVE TO MOVE ROOMS FOR EACH CLASS!!! I get to stay in that room in the afternoon!!! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HAPPY THAT MAKES ME! I get to plant myself right there and stay. I have my desk all set up for the most part, aside from odds and ends that will be added I'm sure as the year goes on. I plan on making a filing system (I'm not organized--not quite sure I'm gonna do this but it's gonna happen). I've got ideas for small projects. I'm excited for them. I think the kids and I will get along just peachy (here's hoping).


I'm sure I will have updates for ya'll soon. I'll let you know how the first few days/weeks went.