Fjellhaugen skisenter

Well, yesterday was a pretty fun-filled day for us student teachers! First of all, we spent the whole school day at Fjellhaugen skisenter. The whole middle school packed their skis/snowboards and piled on some busses for the 20 min drive to the ski place near Rosendal.  We were lucky because we had perfect weather! It was sunny all morning and pretty warm.  A couple of the teachers brought some extra skis for us to borrow so that was good. When we got up there, we soon found out that a lot of the kids don't even ski most of the day. They usually ski for awhile, but they spend a lot of the day making snow forts or just hanging out with each other.  They made campfires and roasted marshmallows and hot dogs and sat around and talked.  It was unfortunate though because the big ski lift was broken so they were only able to go on the smaller hills unless they wanted to walk to the top (a few crazy people did this!) so that might be part of the reason that some of the kids weren't skiing. A lot of them are insanely good so they woudl be really bored with the small hills. Jenni, Ashley, and Kristina tried out some cross country skiing and Aaron and I did some downhill skiing with a couple of the teachers and my 10th grade students. I actually surprisingly did pretty well! I didn't fall once on the ski hill the entire day! Now the ski lift...that was a different story....they didn't have the normal chair ski lifts that we have, instead they had these lifts where you stand on your skis and grab this thing on a rope and it pulls you up the hill. Now, let's just say I had a little difficulty with this concept. I may have fallen down about 3-4 times throughout the day while trying to get onto the ski lift. One time, my skis got crossed causing me to fall. one time the thing slipped out of my hand. And another time I just got off-balance and fell backwards. I think my students got a few good laughs out of this, but I didn't mind because I was also cracking up most of the time. I have a few bruises today though and my arms are super sore from holding onto the lift thing. One of my students helped me a lot though, so I was really thankful for that! and hey, now I can say that I went cross-country and downhill skiing in Norway! J
Yesterday afternoon, we were all worn-out and sunburnt from our morning, but we had to get prepared for "America night" for the 8th graders. They have a youth group thing for each of the individual grades once in awhile and one of the teachers asked if we would host an American themed night for the 8th graders. It was a ton of fun and I think the students had a great time! We made burgers with onions, garlic, and cheese in them, baked beans, and got lots of chips and pop.  Then for dessert, we taught them how to make s'mores which they LOVED. We also entertained them with some American games for about 2 and a half hours.  We taught them how to play football, capture the flag, ping pong around the world, and a couple other games. It was a big success!!

3 days til Ireland!! crazy!