Graduation!

So I am officially a graduate of Brigham Young University. Most people would be excited to graduate, stop going to school, doing busy work, jumping through hoops, etc. I, on the other hand, wouldn't mind freezing time and staying at this school forever. By FAR, these past four years have been the best of my life, and I wouldn't change a thing even if I could.

So now in order to keep myself from getting all mushy... I'll talk about my MOM!!! She came out for my graduation, and I had a blast with her! She got here late Monday night the 16th, and she left the next Monday. We were exhausted all week, we did so much running around and visiting and partying. After I actually walked early Friday morning, she, Keith, and I headed up to Idaho for the weekend. I have a lot of family that lives up there, mostly second cousins. And I don't know any of them haha. It was great going up there and actually getting to know these family members I had previously only heard the names of.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was that I went shooting!!! It can't be a proper Idaho experience if you don't mess around with some guns right?? So the husband of one of my cousins took Keith and I out to the middle of nowhere (which isn't hard to find in Idaho) and we got out some clay pigeons. First he taught us how to throw them. That was absolutely hysterical; my first few tries were horrendous, and I almost collapsed from how hard I was laughing... multiple times. Trying to pull that thing left handed was the best. So then my cousin takes out 3 shotguns and all these ammo boxes... but they were all empty! What the?! He didn't have any ammo for the shotguns he brought with him. So instead he gave me his handgun, and I got to shoot that. We just propped up some clays so I had something to aim at. It was still so fun. I've never shot a gun before, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Maybe it was that I was doing something new, or something dangerous, but I really enjoyed it! Which doesn't make any sense because I'm truly terrified of guns? Maybe not as much as I thought. :)

Anywho, I loved spending time with my hilarious mother and seeing once again how insanely similar we are. And I'm glad that Keith got to meet more of my extended family as well. We had a great time.

These are my elementary education girls! We made it through two years together!

This is me and one of my besties M. We've been through a lot haha.

 

Of course Keith and I had to take a picture together...

 which was reminiscent of this one taken last year, still one of my favorites :)

This is my mom's cousin... the one who owns all the guns.
This is his gun safe... bigger than a refrigerator, currently holding at least 30 guns.

Hoppy Easter!!! heh heh...

One of the best things about the first year of marriage is starting new traditions. I have always enjoyed Easter. And no, it's not just because of all the candy.  Easter is a great time of year. Spring has started and everything is coming back to life. Coincidence that the holiday celebrating the Resurrection of our Savior falls at this time? I think not.

Anyway, as of yet, we don't really have a ton of traditions, but we did do a few things for Easter today. First of all, we actually had TIME to do some fun things, considering it was the first Sunday in a while that Julie didn't have to spend the entire evening planning lessons for the upcoming week. The first thing we did was color eggs. We boiled a dozen and got the dye ready, but by the time everything was set up, it was time to go to church.  When we got home, we decorated our 6 eggs each. The egg-dying kit we got had a magic crayon that you could use to make designs and whatnot.  I'll tell you what, it's rather difficult to draw something without it looking ridiculous or just plain creepy when you're (1) using a clear crayon, (2) drawing on an egg, and (3) can't really draw in the first place.  We'll just say that the Easter bunny I attempted looked more like a Halloween bunny...  Most of the eggs actually turned out pretty well though!  See!

All of the eggs:

Julie's eggs:

My eggs:

After we colored the eggs, we made a bunny cake!

Julie's family would make a bunny cake every Easter. We thought it was a good idea as well. I mean really, any excuse to make a cake is a good idea. We basically made two round cakes and cut the ears out of one to make the bow tie (don't judge if it looks more like a shirt than bow tie). We shared the cake with Julie's old roommate and her husband. It was a lot of fun to spend some time with them.

Also, Julie likes to make sure that my posts are worthy to go on the blog. She makes sure to edit them and take out any random rambling that I may do. Which in some cases means she almost rewrites the entire post. I love you babe!

A Car!

We got a car!  Yes indeed.  We bought a car.  We found a 2007 Suzuki Forenza for $5400.  It has about 68,000 miles on it and a little bit of damage to the fender, but it's still in pretty good shape. We feel like it was a really great deal. Man alive. Can't tell you how exciting it is to actually say that we own a car now. Can't wait to put it to use!

General Conference

I love conference, and I mean LOVE it.

And every six months I am blown away, once again, at how much I love it. Which is honestly a weird thought. Not gonna lie, it's hard for me to watch conference. If you know me, you know I have a TERRIBLE time sitting through hours of television or watching movies. I usually fall asleep. And if that isn't the case, it's always the opposite. I go crazy if confined for too long! What makes it even better is that I have the privilege of watching it alone... I HATE being alone. Curse Keith's work schedule...

At any rate, in the midst of my intermittent napping, the drifting of my easily distracted mind, and my inability to sit in the same position for more than a few minutes at a time, I find myself in tears by the end of a session. Though I usually have to reread all of the talks at a later date to get anything out of them, one thing has always been consistently clear. The men and women that speak to us are prophets and apostles of God. Their messages are inspired and crucial to our happiness. I know that if we want to feel honest joy in this life, it is my responsibility to take heed to their council.

Rarely do I feel as humble, gracious, charitable, and grateful as I do at conference time. It is then that my eyes are opened once again to the many blessings I have received in the beautiful life that I live. I have a testimony that those blessings come because of the choices I make and the people I spend my time with. I love the Lord and everything He does for me. I know that even though He has billions of things to worry about, I am still one of His first priorities, and He truly concerns Himself with my happiness and welfare.

For some reason, these confirmations of my faith cause me to be a bit emotional. (Me?! emotional?!) Conference weekend and I have a love/hate relationship like that. I've been sporadically crying for like, the last five hours... In any case, I would rather be filled with these overwhelming feelings of gratitude, peace, and joy than not. The first two sessions of this, the 182nd General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, have been uplifting, enlightening, and profound. I encourage everyone to listen to these inspired saints.

Here is the link to happiness, peace, and love. Enjoy. :)

I rock. The end.

Yeah, I'm a good teacher, and I'm going to brag about it. :)

My mentor teacher wasn't at school again today because she was at home taking care of her sweet husband. The poor guy is finishing his last week of radiation/chemo. He is so adorable, and I really admire his determination, but sometimes it's just too much for him.

I had a substitute in the classroom with me today. (Even though I solo teach for the entire day, I still technically need a substitute in the room with me because I'm not officially certified yet. So they get paid for doing nothing while I do all the work. Lame, but that's just the way it is.)

Anyway, apparently this lady is a retired superintendent. She has been the principal of an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school. And of course before that, she was actually an elementary school teacher for many years.

This lady had the opportunity to observe me all day today. At the end of the day, she wrote a VERY nice letter about me and my abilities to my mentor teacher. She gave me one of her cards and told me that she would be more than willing to write me a recommendation. She even talked to my school's facilitator over lunch and told her that she should hire me for next year!!! Hahaha, that part made me laugh, but hey, I'm not going to complain! She told me that I was one of the best student teachers that she had ever seen. Not only do I have an excellent grasp of the content knowledge, but I know how to deliver it effectively while properly managing a classroom of 30 rambunctious 7-year olds.

It may just be me, but I feel like after hearing all of that from a former teacher, principal, and superintendent, I deserve to boast about it. And treat myself to a nice snack later on tonight. :) Maybe some ice cream? Or cookies? Either way... yay me!

Talking in her Sleep

As you all know, we don't have kids, and we are both really busy with school and work. With few exciting things going on, it's hard to remember to update the blog on a regular basis. We have done a few fun things this week, and Nancyann is going to be coming out one week from today! Not that we're at all excited for this, nor have we been looking forward to this for who knows how long.... right.

Anyway, as we finished watching tv tonight, I tried to wake Julie up so we could go to bed. She told me she would prefer to sleep on the couch. (If I do let her sleep all night on the couch, I'm pretty sure she won't be happy in the morning. But when you're asleep, all you care about is staying that way). So I figured I'd check facebook and do a few other things on the computer before I try to wake her up again to bring her to bed. I'm sitting here on the computer, minding my own business when Julie asks me, "Did you get it lower?".....Uh... what? She has a tendency to talk in her sleep. Just a few sentences, never much more than that, and I am never able to get a conversation going. It's too bad. I think it would be quite entertaining. I'm really curious as to what inspired this one from a few weeks ago, "I think his latest would have been for Kyle probably..." followed by her chuckling a few times.... I have NO idea how to interpret that one! Oh, and the other night she started humming in her sleep. That's a new one. It was just a few notes, but it was definitely humming and not just some random noise. Perhaps if she has some more great ones I'll share them in the future. Well, it's late. I think I'm going to go try to convince her to get off the couch to go to bed again...

*As a side note, all of my friends tell me that I take too long to tell stories... I wonder why in the world anyone would ever think that I was long-winded? Where would I get that from?

I prefer it awkward?

Okay, we are LONG overdue for an update.

Last Friday while I was at school, I checked my phone during my lunch break. One of my old roommates texted me and mentioned that BYU was having their preference dances that weekend. They were going to get tickets for that night and wondered if Keith and I wanted to go as well. That text was a freakin dream come true! I had just talked to one of my other old roommates about how Keith and I haven't gotten out of our house in so long. I specifically mentioned how awesome it would be if we could just get to one of those lame on campus parties. TA DA!

So Keith and I, two of my old roommates, and their cute boys all went to preference last Friday night. We showed up to the ballroom... and it was an incredibly anticlimactic sight. The place was empty... like COMPLETELY empty. I have never seen such poor attendance at a BYU dance, ESPECIALLY a preference dance! Those things are always packed! On the bright side, we actually had enough room to dance. The other thing that made this dance so awkward was that all of the lights were on... Yeah... who actually dances when all of the lights are on?! No one. Even those of us who enjoy dancing feel a bit self conscious in the light.

But though the conditions were poor, we still had a ton of fun. First of all, the company was great. I absolutely LOVE my friends. Their presence can make anything enjoyable. Also, there was a triangle pair there. Triangle meaning, that those two definitely belong together. Maybe I'll explain that analogy in more detail later. Anyway, watching them dance made the entire night worthwhile. SO FREAKIN HILARIOUS. Some people (like myself) hide their horrendous dancing from the rest of the world. Luckily though, others don't, which provides those people like me with some fantastically awesome entertainment.

Keith and I also had some fun with our friends in a photo booth! I swear I haven't seen one of those since I worked at the mall back home. I forgot how fun they could be! We stuffed all six of us in there and took some wonderful pictures. Too bad Keith and I didn't get to keep any of those ones. Then of course, each couple had to take their turn in there alone. Pretty sure that my roommates did some pretty scandalous things in there haha. Anyway, I really like the pictures that Keith and I took. I just think they all turned out really well. Maybe it was because we actually went out and tried to look decent for once! That usually helps. Anyway, enjoy!

And does anyone think it odd how similar we look?? We definitely look related... and not just by marriage!