Emily Smith

Just so you all know, I got my assessment back on my Teacher Work Sample. I PASSED with a 3.3 out of 5. I needed a 3 to pass so I barely made it, but made it nonetheless.

I unleashed the 5th graders again to do the bulletin board for December and this is what they came up. Not bad.

The high school covered with snow.
Most of the leaves are still on the trees so the snow was quite a beautiful effect.
Me under a drooping tree. All I have down here is a sweater and a light jacket. So, it was a little bit cold.


I stayed at the Farnsworth's house with Brittany this weekend because they were out of town. I woke up on Saturday to snow and it snowed all day without stopping. By the time it stopped there were somewhere between 3 and 5 inches of snow. They live in the middle of nowhere so their orchard trees were just covered and the hillside was so beautiful. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera. At 4:00pm the power went out. Luckily we already had a fire going. It took us a while to get that going in the morning because the logs were all wet but we succeeded. Brittany and I found some candles and lit them when it started to get dark. We were bored out of our minds because it was too dark to read or play games. At 8:30pm, the power came on. We started watching 'White Christmas'. At 10:00pm, the power went out again. I really wanted to finish watching the movie. So, I used the rest of my battery power on my computer and we watched it. We went to sleep without power in a freezing cold house. The next morning, the power still wasn't on, so we heated some water on the stove and did the dishes. We drove down into town, but no one there had power either. There was no church because there was no lights and more importantly, no heat. So, we went on a walk and I was able to take some pictures. The power finally came back on at 1:30pm Sunday. Nearly 24 hours without lights. It was a fun adventure.

This waterfall is near Copper Canyon. It is a 1,200 foot drop from top to bottom. Very stunning.

The outside of the cave. The people spend most of their time outside. It's just too dark inside. You can see the black part of the rock. That is where the chimney comes out.




The native Tarahumaras live all over in the area of Creel (southwestern Chihuahua). Many of them live in the canyon but some live in cave houses. We went to visit one of the houses. There were 14 people living in a space no larger than the living room and front entryway of our house. It was a cave too so the ceiling and walls were rock. The ceiling sloped in at one part so that you couldn't stand up straight. The kids we met there were adorable. It was a very humbling experience and made me realize just how much I really have.

This is another hacienda. It is in really bad condition and badly needs to be repaired. It was previously owned by Luis Terrazas who was really rich and eventually become governor of Chihuahua. He owned lots of haciendas, possibly 27. They were all really close together so that they could be within one day's distance ride. He would show up to his haciendas unexpectedly so the workers always needed to have meals prepared because they never knew when he was coming.

This is a little town outside of Colonia Juarez. It was named after one of the revolutionaries in the Mexican Revolution. There is a man there named Juan Quezada who figured out how the Pauquimeans made their pots and what sort of designs they do. Now, they are world famous in that town for making those pots. Everything is done by hand and is done naturally. The pigments used to paint the pots come from rocks crushed up. I was able to get a couple of pots. If anyone is interested, let me know. The top picture is a little old lady that followed us around in Mata Ortiz. The rest of the pictures are some of the designs used on the ancient pots.

Brittany, David, and Kay Pierce in front of some of the ruins. Just wanted to get a picture with some scale in it.
That's my shadow. Cool huh!
This culture had a thing for this t-shaped window. Lots of their windows and doors had this shape. I'm still not sure what it symbolized.
If there are any archaeologists or anthropologists, you probably know about Paquime. It was a very industrious city about 800 years ago. This was a trading city. Anyway, it is about 20 minutes away from Colonia Juarez. We went to the museum and learned a lot about this civilization and how they adapted to the land around them. The ruins were really interesting. This civilization had a thing for sacrificing macaws and decapitating all sorts of things.

On the way home from the Hacienda, we saw this hawk or some bird of prey that had been tied to the barb wire fence. It was a beautiful bird. Too bad it was dead. We stopped off in Old Town (AKA Casas Grandes) and took some pictures of the really pretty Catholic church they have there with the sunset in the background.

A view of the courtyard that I took from the roof. Notice the hot pink paint.
This was taken from inside the shower. Imagine having a stain glass window in your bathroom.


This is the porch on the outside that surrounds the entire hacienda.

Bob Whetten has an hacienda near Casas Grandes. We went to visit yesterday for the second time. This time I had my camera so I got some shots. It is really an amazing house. I believe it was built in 1902 and remodeled sometime within the last 15 years.

I went on one of the best vacations ever this past weekend. I'll post lots of pictures later when I have time. For now, here are some of my pictures.

Shiloh and Tamara, the mostly creators of the Turkey bulletin board. They did most of it.
I figured I should include at least one incredibly flattering view of myself. Thank heavens for GoalSmith.
In case you can't tell, the white crinkled paper is a cloud and the yellow and orange crunched paper is the sun.

First, I want to remind Mom of the fact that she said she would do my bulletin boards in I teach in Boise. I will take you up on that. Second, I believe in democracy. I let my class think of several bulletin board ideas and then vote on it. They decided to make this board. They did it all themselves because I didn't really want to. The sign on the turkey says, "Turkey's over there (with an arrow). P.S. I'm not a turkey." They had a really good time making the turkey and it turned out pretty cute. Third, I'm really proud of myself for not being obsessive compulsive and trying to make it look perfect. I let them do their thing. Too bad it took them nearly 2 hours!!

We had no school on Friday, November 2 because it was Dia de los Muertos in Mexico. It is a day where they celebrate and honor their deceased relatives. I guess you could sort of compare it to Memorial Day. Brittany and I went to the cemetery to see the graves. Everyone went all out with colorful but fake flowers, crosses, images of the virgin, etc. It was really interesting and the cemetery was really pretty. As for the members of the church living down here, the temple presidency decided to have a marathon so they held 4 sessions on Friday and 4 on Saturday.

I'm not quite sure what this is. It has a rat-ish tail but I think it might be a groundhog or gopher.

We took a walk through town the other day because there was no school. Here are some of the things we saw. It made me happy because Fall is finally starting to come to Colonia Juarez.