Body Art...

Tess has become obsessed with stickers lately. It's pretty cute, except after seeing the girl in this photo, it made me fear how much she likes body art:



But it's just stickers. So, I said, "No big deal. She's a kid."


And then she got home from her vacation in Virginia. Never again, Virginia. Never again.

What it's like taking pictures of Tess...

You gotta be quick with the camera trigger. It's very hard to get her to pose and look at the camera at the same time. If we're lucky, we get one picture out of 73 where those two factors work out:


The other 72 pictures fall into one of the other categories below. Paying attention to something completely different, but pretending like she is still participating in the photo shoot:


Fed up with the camera's flash and completely ignoring everything but whatever is currently on the TV screen--even if it's just a reflection of herself:


And finally, giving not so subtle hints it's time to pack up the camera and move on:

She thinks she's so sneaky.

Moustache Tuesday...

That's what we call Tuesdays at our house. I think we got these from Kellie for Christmas or my birthday. I love them, and I hope to receive more some day...mainly because my real face can't grow facial hair very well. The right side of my face actually does alright for itself, but the left side of my face forgot to go through puberty. It's weird. But so is your face.

Anyhow, the pictures. Tess was adamant that she also have a moustache, but didn't want her picture taken. She tried on 3, but it was hard to get a picture of her.


Handlebar's are the way to go:


This is Jaime. Hard to tell with the disguise. Moustaches make her angry, but I'll never start shaving more than once a week. Where does it end? If I start shaving my face regularly, then she'll get crazy ideas about me tweezing my eyebrows and shaving my back hair. Disgusting, I know.


I don't really have back hair. At least that I've seen. It's hard to see my back. Doesn't Tess look adorable with a Super Mario style moustache?


We got one picture of us together before Tess finally ruined all the fun. Do I look like a creepy version of my dad?

Professorizing...

So many posts in a one day span. That should cover us for six months or so!

A new quarter just started for me, and I am teaching a class now that a number of my students from last quarter are taking. Apparently, I helped them catch up on their sleep, so they've signed up for this class as well. I actually got along really well with these students, including one student who was very upset with me on the first day of class this quarter. She had had trouble emailing me the written portion of her final project, and I never got it from her. So, her grade could have been in the B range but ended up being in the C range. This is the conversation I had with her about that:

Her: Mr. Alley, I'm very upset with you and your email?
Me: Oh? It wasn't my email's fault. I just never got your paper.
Her: I sent it like six times. I'm so angry with your yahoo account.
Me: I just never got it. I'm really sorr... Wait...What? Yahoo? I don't use a yahoo email account with students
Her: I sent it over and over to jalley at a yahoo account
Me: Nope. That's not me. I only use my school email.
Her: Then who the hell was that?! I was emailing them things all quarter, and they kept responding telling me I'm a good student and "Nice work"!
Me: ***just laughing
Her: Well, I guess I'm not mad at you anymore.

and... Scene___________________________________________

Here's another fun one. I've already told many of you this story. Last quarter I had to sit down with the Dean to go over my student reviews--where my students fill out a scantron rating my performance. Things were going well as we were reading over the comments on the back of the sheets where students can actually write things in. They were saying nice things like: "Mr. Alley made a class I dreaded taking into a good one." or "I loved this class!" Very nice things. And then the Dean comes to one and she can't make out the writing very well, so she reads, "Thanks for keeping your..." And she asks me to finish cause she can't make the rest out. So I start reading it, "Thanks for keeping your...clothes on!"

So, then of course, the Dean is a little concerned about why my students have to thank me for keeping my clothes on. I had to think about it for a minute, and then I remembered that during that quarter there was a professor at another school in the Atlanta area who had gotten naked in front of his class. So, it had been big news and we had even talked about it in class. But then I remembered, I had dug my own grave because while I was passing out the scantrons, I said to the students: "I'm not supposed to bias you in any way while you are filling these out to try and get you to give me good reviews, but just remember I'm not that one professor and I've never gotten naked in class!"

Luckily the Dean had a good laugh about it. And I'm sure she has started a special file on me. But I still have a job!

Anyhow, we're enjoying life in Atlanta and professorizing is the best!

Black Eye...

Tessa's face got beat up pretty bad last week. If you think she looks bad, you should see the other little girl.



And by other little girl, I mean the stairs the little dummy barrel rolled down. It was one of the prettiest shiners I've seen. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a picture that really did this thing justice. It's the best (worst) black eye I've seen in a long time.

Here are some fun things about having a kid with a black eye:
--You basically have to stay indoors until it heals because people assume you are beating the kid.
--Telling someone your kid fell down the stairs and got a black eye sounds about as believable as "she ran into a door knob."
--Telling people your kid fell down the stairs when you live in an apartment without stairs makes you sound even sketchier.

Also, it's really neat when you invite some people over for dinner the day after she gets the black eye, and then realize the last time you invited them over, she also had a face injury. Which again makes telling someone, "She fell down some stairs" really believable!

Anyhow, Tess fell down the stairs at someone's house after play group. Fortunately, she is back to her normal self...as in she won't stop talking. She never stops talking!

Atlanta Temple...

The Atlanta Temple is reopening. We've been able to help with the open house. Jaime helped put booties over peoples' shoes, and I helped direct traffic one night during a tornado warning. That was a fun experience having not had to worry about tornadoes for the last 10 years or so. It's nice to be back in the South! Jaime was in the car during the warning and ran into some big marble sized hail. Luckily no damage was done.

We also took Tess on the tour of the temple a couple of Tuesdays ago. She loved it, especially the Chandeweens (Chandeliers). And dancing in a circle in front of the temple. She thinks that circles were put on the earth for her to dance in.




Also, while standing in front of the temple watching Tess dance, I realized you can see my workplace from there--although you can't see the temple from my work. Who would have thought that 15 years ago when I came down to the temple on youth trips that I had seen the place where I'd be working today. I don't work in a bunch of trees. There is another building next to that parking garage behind the trees.


It's still crazy we're in Georgia. But we love it here!

Nice Weather...

I don't know how much longer this nonsense is going to go on. Blogging is such a pain.

Anyhow, we've had some fun in the last month or so since our last post. And it has included some nice weather. There are a few nice parks in the area, especially the ones on the Chattahoochee. Here's a few pictures we took at the beginning of the month.

We found a little boat dock right on the water. Tess loves these things, and it's fun taking her down there, but at the same time we have to keep a hand on her the entire time because she would just jump right in if we didn't.