Spring Break at the ZOO!!!

Tuesday of Spring Break I took these four lovely ladies to the zoo in Cincinnati... we had so much fun!! And then we went to this International Supermarket and then watched a movie and had a sleepover when we got back. It was super fun! Here's some hot shots from the day...

The girls (and Ryan) came over for lunch before we left for the zoo. Here we are in my driveway, ready to hit the road... from left to right it's: Caitlin, Sheryl, Hannah, me, and Kayla!

A shot of the girls as they adventured into the Reptile House! (Not one of my favorite places!)

These dudes were SO fun to watch!! They were probably the first thing I saw when we got to the zoo, and then you could see them most of the day, just swinging away!

These lions were SO loud! I thought they were roaring into a microphone!!
Not sure, but I think lions are Ryan's favorite animal. Funny... when he was in Korea the little kids would call him Lion because they have a hard time with r's and want to make them all an l sound. I guess every day Ryan would write his name on the board next to Lion with a big x through it so they'd remember he wasn't "Lion" but "Ryan". :)

Flamingos!!! I wish I could sleep while standing on one leg!! :) Ha!! Such crazy birds!

These polar bears were cool just wandering all around. Sometimes the animals are just laying there... it's fun to see them get up and wander around. I hate that they don't have much space though and are caged up. :(

Ok, ok... so this zoo didn't have my favorite animal: the camel. But they did have this awesome interesting crazy beast!! It's called a takin. It's a mix of an ox and a mountain goat. I LOVE IT!!! Totally my favorite beast at the zoo!! And it wandered all over and had this ball thing it could play with!! Such a cool creature!! I want to meet one someday. (Except they live in China!)

And here was big lazy Mr. Takin. The little guy was way more interesting to watch... but they both captivated me!! I've never seen anything like them!!! (Check out the slight hump on this dude's back... I bet he's a distant relative of the camel!!) I love camels. And takins!

Sheryl swinging from a tree like a monkey!

Caitlin in front of a monkey... monkey's were her favorite!

Hannah waited ALL day to see the manatees!! And check out this awesome butt shot I took of her and the manatees!! Such a cool picture... and such a sweet creature!

And then Kayla chased a peacock...

I was hoping it would open it's feathers and run at her or something!!
(But not hurt her, of course!)


Zebras!! :)

These elephants were pretty awesome!! They had just been given piles of peanuts... it was really fun to watch them scoop the peanuts up with their trunks and shovel them into their mouths!

Ok... so as we left the zoo there was this massive rhino and a little rhino we wanted to get on and have our pictures taken on. I jumped up the big guy first and then helped Sheryl up...

Then we had to trade places so I'd be in the back and could then help Kayla up...

but I fell off!! That's me right after... and you can see Kayla's foot trying to keep Sheryl up there!

Here I helped Sheryl get her balance and then got myself back up with her...

Now we start to get Kayla up with us... but we needed Caitlin's help...

HA HA HA!!!! Is this picture hilarious, or what!?! :) Caitlin... where's your head!?! :) Ha!!
Needless to say... Caitlin got Kayla up...

And here we finally are... happy and atop the ginormous rhinocerus!! :)

Then Hannah and Caitlin got their picture taken on the little rhino!

So then, we were off to the International Supermarket... and this dragon was in the entrance to the parkinglot... I stood on top of my car and took this picture...

And then I tried to put Kayla on my shoulders so she could get in the mouth of the dragon... it didn't quite work out as I planned!! :) Ha! Sorry, Kayla!! :)

The place was MASSIVE!!!!!!! Check out this one aisle... devoted to CHEESE!!! From all over the world!! Ryan told us about this store... and about the aisle full of cheese... so this shot was for him!

Ryan also wanted me to bring him back something... so I debated lots of things... including this wonderful pigs head and nice little sheepy face...

And then I found Kimchi! That's what Ryan had at meals daily in Korea! But then I thought if I got it Ryan would make me try it... and that's a really big jar... and I'm not sure I could willingly eat rotten cabbage... unless I was in Korea...

so I brought him home some coffee and some chocolate I've had when I traveled overseas and we had that a few days later. So much better than pigs head, lamb face, or kimchi! :)

It was an excellent day and a great way to spend Spring Break!! Thanks ladies for letting me take you to the zoo!! :) I hope you had as much fun as I did!! :)

P.S. Next time... we're going to Louisville. There's camels there! ;)

I am a resident of the beautiful state of Indiana!

It's official, folks.

I passed my driver's test (finally) today. And now I have a license in the State of Indiana... I am an Ohioan no longer!! (Except at heart... a Buckeye forever.) And my license plates say:

INDIANA; In God We Trust.

:) Alright!!

I AM A LEGAL RESIDENT AND VOTER IN THE STATE OF INDIANA!!!!!!!! :)

a good week!! :)

I FOUND THE CORD TO MY CAMERA!!!!!
yay!! that means i can post pictures again... and you should totally scroll down because i went back and added pictures to my old posts!! :)

this week has been really fun!
here's a picture of ry and i beautiful in blue... he loves blue. i never wear it. so we went shopping last weekend after my birthday and i got a blue shirt. it does look ok, he's right. it's an ok color.

this is ryan and his puppy dog, claxton... who amy accidentally called grover. so now i'm calling him claxton grover. ;) but isn't this hilarious? i can't belive one, that claxton would let ryan pick him up like that, and two that ryan could pick him up like that. the dog is massive. i can't pick him up! in fact, i let him sleep with me a few nights and he pushed me out of the bed and i couldn't move him to get back in! i had to wake him up and yell at him! poor guy. :)

chris and amy stopped by on their way to ft. wayne thursday night and i made us all dinner... it was so much fun!! this was the first time they'd been to north vernon and seen my apartment! :) here's a shot of amy and i!

here's our hot fellows...

and here are all four of us!! :)


yesterday, friday, right after school ryan and i took off for ohio where my little brother caleb was the lead in the play little house of horrors. he was seymour... and he did SO good!! :) this is cabes and audrey II. that was quite the play!

then we hung out at my house a little and got to see anna and austin, a boy from our church who i used to babysit, perform at solo and ensemble contest. we missed anna's ensemble by like 2 seconds. that was quite the bummer!! but she did so awesome... she got a 1!!


and austin did really well too on the trumpet... he got a 2 but later they said he'd have gotten a 1 had he told the judge he was playing with braces. what a bummer... but that was really neat!! :)


and now we're back home again... getting ready for church in the morning... and all next week i'm off work for spring break!! i'm excited to lounge, clean, work on taxes, jobs and bills, and i'm hoping to go to the zoo one day with a few girls! :) more pictures to come!! :)

love you!
-kara joy

precious babies!

this post is dedicated to all the sweet babies in my life...

slash in the lives of all my wonderful cousins!

(i have 33 first-cousins: 15 of them are married and 7 of them have kids)

meet my cousin mark and lauren's sweet new little baby boy, owen michael.

he is only two weeks old!

this is brand new little baby paige renae born january 27,

my cousin jake's first little one

i don't have a recent picture, but this is my cousin jenni's little boy, seth micah...

and a picture he drew this fall. seth loves trucks!

this is seth's little brother eli bhin. this is eli's five year old picture. he's so sweet!

this is smiley baby drew (andrew gordon)... he's my cousin nathan's little boy.

ashlyn mae is my cousin courtney's little girl. she's so cute!

and her momma takes pretty swell pictures if i do say so myself!

mr. braden emry is ashlyn's little brother... and man, he's growing up fast!

i love this one of michal sophia, my cousin steven's baby

, goin' at some tacos!

ella love, my cousin candace's girl, is getting so big!!

and i hear she really enjoys making faces!

and now a shout out to several more little babies on the way...

luke & elizabeth - due mid-april... or any day now!! :)

lindsey & joel - found out about little bean-sprout at Christmas,

and lindsey's due the end of june... isn't the following picture hysterical? :)

andrew & ann - ann is seven weeks!!

so... we look for a new little burkey baby come october or november

yay for babies!

I am a Disciplinarian.

disciplinarian, definition: 

dis·ci·pli·nar·i·an

-a person who enforces or advocates discipline

-a stickler for the observance of rules and methods of training

-one who disciplines; one who excels in training, 

especially with training, especially with regard to order and obedience

Today has been the busiest day student wise thus far in my career as a Period Detention Supervisor.  (Hopefully my career will change soon!)  I am finding more and more that I am a disciplinarian... and it is one of the most difficult things I've ever done!  The job itself isn't difficult... I just sit here and wait for students to show up, and do things like this: update my blog.  However, I struggle with encouraging the students to behave.  Currently my face is hot and my head hurts from trying not to smile and from being serious.  I hate it when students think that I am mean.  Last period, however, a teacher called me to say she was sending down three students who wouldn't behave and told her they have fun in my classroom and like to sit and talk to me because I'm the nicest teacher.  (Ha!)  I assured the teacher I would NOT be talking to the girls while they were in detention, and when they walked in giggling I immediately separated them, gave them writing assignments, and told them if they disrupted the class that they would be taking a personal visit to the Dean's office.  So they sat down and worked hard and were quiet... but goodness, that was hard!  You could tell they were shocked by the looks on their faces.  (I'd had two of the three before.)  And it's so hard because I just want to talk to the students and be their friend and tell them jokes... I know a lot of jokes!!  (You should ask me to tell you one sometime!!)  But, alas, I do not give in to my longings and do remain cold, straight-faced, and mean.  I enforce the rules... but I do tend to not write students up when they deserve it.  And as they leave I always try to joke around a little and I tell them not to come back.  That always gets them to smile.

Yesterday a student who wasn't in trouble sat in my classroom to finish her homework because it is supposed to be a quiet place.  I had 6 boys and another girl besides the homework student, and one of my boys was in particularily obnoxious, rude and disrespectful to me.  At one point he borrowed my scissors and proceeded to cut up and destroy his binder.  As you can guess, I promptly took the scissors from him telling him that cutting his binder was not relevant to his homework.  So he began to shred the binder with his bare hands.  It was great fun.  Eventually I convinced him that I would not send him to the office with a write-up if he would stop messing around and simply quietly sit and complete his homework.  He still had difficulty doing this, and I continued to persist in trying to get him to calm down, stop distracting the class, and not get a write-up as I know he's had too many and it would turn into worse disciplinary action (like a Saturday School).  Finally he stopped messing around, and I gave him a wordsearch, and he was rather shocked and excited about my kindness as he's been in my room before and know I only ever give those out to students who behave.  (Honestly, I have no idea whatever compelled me to do that!  Maybe God!)  But anyway this little girl, who'd been sitting there the whole time quietly, wrote me a note.  She said she couldn't believe my job was so hard and was shocked at how rude and disrespectful the other students were to me.  Then she went on to say that I am her new favorite teacher and she wants to be my T.A. next year.  :)  I thought it was sweet and encouraged me because often I feel like the kids don't like me, and I hate being mean!

There's that verse in Hebrews about discipline I've been thinking about...

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it."  -Hebrews 12:11

My Mom used to make me write that after I got in trouble sometimes.  I always remember thinking, "Yup, God, it hurts.  I hate getting in trouble!"  And I'd long for it to be over.  But now I see discipline from a new set of eyes.  It doesn't just hurt the kid... it super is painful for the disciplinarian... but it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace.  Or as the NLT says, it produces "right living".  My goal is to not give up, to encourage and empower these kids to be the best they can be, and hopefully they'll stop coming to my classroom and be better students and people!  (And maybe a few more of them will become my friend in the meantime!  That would be wonderful.)

my birthday surprise!! :)

i have the most incredible boyfriend in the whole world!!!!!!

for my birthday... he baked me a cake... from scratch!!
and it took him like 4+ hours. seriously.
i had a dinner meeting and was planning on going to his house at 9 for some surprise he was preparing... i was half an hour late and when i showed up at 9:35 he still made me sit in the driveway for 20 minutes before i could come in. :)
ha ha. but it was SO worth the wait!! this is what i found... :)

he got me a veggie tales movie and stickers!! :) it was an incredible birthday!! :)