Christmas

This Christmas we're in Indy. It's been a lot of fun! We've been shopping, seen old friends, kept old traditions alive, and started new traditions. All while managing to not kill each other(yet). I'd call that SUCCESSFUL!

One of the highlights of coming home for Christmas is serving Christmas Eve Dinner at Wheeler Mission. It's a homeless shelter and it's been our way of giving a little back each Christmas for the last 9 or 10 years.

Apparently, a new tradition we've started, is that we don't get out of bed until 8:30 on Christmas morning... (we're usually 6:00 people). Dana informed me I wasn't 10 anymore so I shouldn't be all excited and wake up early. Needless to say, this year we ate breakfast BEFORE opening presents. That has NEVER happened in the 22 Christmas I'd been home before this one. We did carry on the tradition of cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate for breakfast. I figure since I was up HOURS before everyone else I would make them. For some reason the oven burnt the bottoms and didn't fully cook the tops so we had loads of fun fixing them so they were edible! Good times...

One thing that hasn't changed is my mom saying we're "not doing Christmas", or that it's going to be very minimal and, as usual, she goes overboard. There were loads of presents and I somehow had the most to open, which was very fun and very unexpected. I got sweaters, necklaces, shoes, and Dana brought me a scarf and Christmas ornaments from Jerusalem. Luckily, no one seemed too upset that we didn't get them anything.

My family has adopted the local missionaries since Logan's been gone, and is continuing as Skylar will be headed out soon. We had a pair of elders and a pair of sisters over for Christmas dinner. We ate, played Cranium, and gave them stockings full of fun little things including little guns that shoot airplanes and discs. They had a blast running around the house shooting each other. Their final gift was to go through the 100s of ties Logan brought home from his mission and pick one or two. He has all kinds of designer ties... louie vatton, calvin kline, Bordeaux, etc... John is bring home quite a few... And I stole the Louie Vatton one. The elders were so excited! They threw ties in the air and buried Elder Housekeeper underneath them all. Pictures to come of Elder Housekeeper at the bottom of all the ties.

Overall Christmas was great!

Pies, Pies, Pies

Well this Thanksgiving I volunteered to bake/make the pies. Usually this is left up to Kami (my MIL) and she cooks 12-17 pies... I'm not kidding! Plus, the most people there have ever been at Thanksgiving are 12-14 including children. She always has an elaborate display and everything. Oh, and she ALWAYS stressed and exhausted by the time we get to the eating and celebrating part. So this year I said I' would bake the pies, but there will only be 3. So I made apple, pumpkin (which the recipe made two... oops!), and chocolate because my family ALWAYS has chocolate pie at Thanksgiving. They turned out really well. And thanks to my Pillsbury dough boy, the crusts were easy! As you can see, my apple pie kind of exploded everywhere, but I was assured that it happens all the time and still tasted yummy. I've promised Joe (John's dad) I'd figure out how to make him a pineapple pie for next year. Any one have a good recipe? Also, Dana's informed me I'm doing a repeat performance for Christmas, since there weren't any pies served at her Thanksgiving/4th of July celebration in Jerusalem. Overall, a success!

Baby Carter... Whose almost 2 months old already...

Where does the time go? I mean honestly I was just snuggling this 3 day old little guy at his house the other day, and now he's almost two months old! Here are some pictures of my cutest new nephew! And yes, I look happier here than in almost any other recent picture... babies do that for me. Pure JOY! I'm so loving him! We're ecstatic to have him in the family!

My Mentoring a Student Teacher Experience

Well here's the short version:

BEST EXPERIENCE EVER!

And here are the details:

I've had a student teacher since September sometime. She is wonderful. She is a natural born teacher. She is great with the kids. She is excellent at teaching, and she has great classroom management. The kids love her, I love her. I loved having an adult in the room to laugh and chat with. I think that is the part I will miss the most. Teaching is just so much more fun when others experience it with you. The feeling of teamwork was great too. We were both working together for the same goal. It was also nice to have everything done on time most of the time. I'm a last minute person, only because I have so much in my head at once, I have a hard time organizing by importance so usually the stuff for next week is all ready but the stuff for right now isn't. Needless to say... I loved my first student teacher mentor experience!


Her last day was Friday... Today was a very sad day for me and my class. More than once did a student say "I miss her. I wish she was back. She's a good teacher." She's volunteering her time to tutor other kids at the school until break. She made the mistake of walking down the hall at the same time as my kids... She got mauled! But she didn't mind.

The best thing about it is now, I have a great friend, and my kids have one more person they know they can trust and that loves them.

Halloween Treats

For Halloween for my class I tried out a few new treat ideas. I made Candy Corn Bars and Halloween Chex. The kids loved the chex mix and not so much on the candy corn bars... I felt the same way. John really liked the bars, bt they were a lot of work, so I won't be making them again. The chex mix was super easy and has been added to the list of must have Halloween treats from now on.

***This just in****
Apparently the candy corn bars weren't a success because I can't find the recipie anywhere... ah darn, now I can never make them again! lol

alloymail.com

This is the e-mail I recieved from Customer support last week...

Dear Alloymail.com Customer,
We regret to inform you that as of December 15, 2009, we will no longer be providing email services for the alloymail.com domain. As a result all email accounts will be deactivated.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. If you wish to retain any information from these accounts it must be removed before the service termination date.
As an alternative solution we invite you to register for a new email account at Mail.com. To learn more or to sign up for a free account click here.
Sincerely,
Customer Support Team

The 15th is the end of an era. 13 year with 1 e-mail address that has stayed the same. All comes to an end. Please switch all of your contact information to the new e-mail address given in a previous post.

It's been forever

Well Let's see. I just haven't wanted to blog lately... I've been reading everyone elses and just haven't done anything but GOSH I sure have a lot to catch you all up on... so maybe this week John won't have much homework and I can have some computer time. Right this very minute he is making me chille rellenos. YUMMY! He's such a fabulous cook!

Here are a few things you have to look forward to

Halloween Treats
My student teacher experience
New Baby Carter
My first attempt at pies
Thanksgiving
Sub for Santa
Christmas Plans

WOW, I have a TON of work to do!

Yeah... They didn't have anything we wanted... Surprised? No.

Going to mesquite walmart heaven help all involved!

New E-mail Address

I have a new e-mail address its

etr2003 at gmail dot com

I am in the process of transferring EVERYTHING including my blogs over to my new e-mail address. It is turning out to be quite the process. However, I thought I'd throw it out there so if any of you are needing to contact me you could. It's going to be hard to get used to a new e-mail address after 13 years of the SAME one!

Also, if you have a private blog please re-send me an invite at the new e-mail address and you can delete the old one. Thanks so much for all of your help. I hope I'll like gmail. Nothing will ever be as simple as my old one (which they've told me isn't going anywhere, but I don't believe them!).

E-mail issues

My e-mail all of a sudden disappeared today. Meaning, the site I always log in on said it was no longer able to be used. Why, I'm not so sure, other than the fact that i've had that e-mail for 13 years... which is why I love it so. I mean, I know changing e-mail isn't a big deal for most people, some people I know change it ever year. However, for me, because I've never changed mine and I've always had the same e-mail, I have a feeling it's going to be a very big deal. There's no way I will remember to change my e-mail address with everything I'm supposed to. It's my log in for everything, attached to everything I do, and so unfortunately It's going to be a while trying to set everything up for a new e-mail address. Right now its working, but I'm not sure for how long.

So leave me a comment with your email if you want me to have it when I make the transfer over to something else... I'm just not sure where to take my e-mail business quite yet!

Happy Birthday Miss Dana!

My kids have been writing to Miss Dana while she is in Jerusalem for BYU study abroad. She has been writing back too and they are LOVING it! Her birthday was 3 weeks ago and I'm finally getting these up. I posted all their letters on her blog in the comments but these pictures were too cute not to share, and since this is one of the only ways I KNOW she can get them I'll share them with all of you! We LOVE you Miss Dana! Happy Birthday, even though I'm a little slow!

Walmart....Mesquite Blow out!

I have a LOVE/HATE relationship with Walmart. In general I love walmart and it's endless aisles of low priced merchandise. HOWEVER, the walmart in Mesquite NV is where the HATE part of the relationship comes in. It is the closest walmart to me, but it is a "little" walmart. "little" translating to mean smaller without all of the things you come to depend on walmart having. Friday night was a breaking point for me.

I shop with coupons. I will not buy something that I have coupon for without using the coupon and most of the time we try and only buy things that are on sale and use the coupons to maximize our savings. Which is why until the last 2 weeks I haven't stepped foot in the Mesquite walmart (well that and all the traveling, swine flu, etc).

I was there last Saturday so 8 days ago and had a mostly fine shopping experience. The downfalls were that they've stopped carrying my yogurt and my favorite flavor of my favorite brand of ice cream. But alas, all was well, I got most of the things on my list and had NO PROBLEMS checking out with my 20+ coupons (all printed from the Internet on reputable coupon sites).

This Friday we went again to get a few things and we had a bunch of coupons expiring that we wanted to use. We get the cashier from _______ who doesn't even try scanning all my coupons (which this time I only had 6) but throws a fit saying they don't take Internet coupons. So we wait for the manager who because she doesn't want to type the numbers in off the coupon (a whole 10 seconds) agrees saying they don't take coupons printed from the Internet. I explained that their coupon policy was online and it said they would accept them. But the lady just kept insisting that they didn't accept them... So I spitefully told her she'd better inform the rest of her employees that they should break company policy and not take them either.

I WAS LIVID! (and that's probably and understatement!) OK, lets be honest... I still am LIVID (I'm writing this aren't I?)

I told John to get out all of the items we were planning on buying with the coupons. (The one item I found I basically threw it at the cashier lady). We paid for our items and left. By the time we got to the car I was telling John I was never going back because not only were there items on our list they didn't have, but that I didn't need my blood pressure shooting up at Walmart higher than it does at the school board meetings... so I'm done.

If I need to go to Walmart, I'll be heading up to St. George, because this isn't worth it. Fairly soon however, I think I will not be doing ANY grocery shopping at ANY walmart so I don't have to deal with it.

Hope

Hope is something I've been lacking a bit of as of late. It is also something that I've been clutching onto the little bit that I have like its my life preserver. This hit me like a ton of bricks. I LOVE IT, and thought I would share. Because we all need a little more hope!

I'm still here... barely

Well it has been a crazy beginning to the school year!

We've been in school for 8 weeks and in that 8 weeks I've missed 6 days of school plus two more half days...(which may not seem like a lot... but it really IS!).

I started off the school year with bronchitis and laryngitis. So for the whole 2nd week of school I couldn't talk... (OK only half of the 2nd week, til Thursday when I yelled at a kid and my voice came back!)

The next week I was in Phoenix for 2 days.

Needless to say, my classroom, and my class, and myself had a really rough beginning. There was a good 2-3 weeks where we flat out didn't like each other.

During this nightmare I was in Indiana for 2 days.

In those 2-3 weeks there were 4 days where 14 children went to Think Time. 1 student went 2 days in a row... His mom called and asked that he be removed from my classroom because I'm too mean... I invited mom in to see I was equally mean to each of my students. Mom hasn't ever come in, he's still in my classroom, and he hasn't been back to Think Time since. (And all this about 1 of my 23 darlings)...

When I got back I was in my classroom for a whole week and I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT! We fell in love with each other, my students and I. It was a turning point for all of us. Since we've only had the occasional Think Time and they've earned their first party.

The next week I missed a half day to go meet my student teacher and learn what I needed to do while she was in my class.

The following week my student teacher started and I was supposed to go to Phoenix for 2 days... Lucky for me (so I thought) our ELL director hadn't gotten a substitute so I got to stay home. YAY! But in reality it was most lucky for the other 3 people that had to go to Phoenix. On the 2nd day I would have been gone I GOT SO SICK! So I left halfway through the day and went to the doctor while John was in class (Oh did I forget to mention he's back in school!).

2 words


SWINE FLU

Yup, me of all people had swine flu.

(Here's what went through my head in 1.2 seconds...
I was in nursery on Sunday, I babysat the girls on Sunday, I taught my class for two days, I've graded all their papers, I sent all those papers home, I've touched everything, I have a funeral to go to, I have a baptism to go to, I have a RS activity to go to, I have to call SO MANY PEOPLE!)


We take a break from the "Back to school story" for the "Swine flu story"
I'd been texting my mom the whole time so she was the first to know... But I called my principal first. He was literally speechless, thought I was kidding, and kinda freaked out. Then I called my friend, whose girls I had watched, she's also my superintendent's wife so that worked out. I called everyone that I had spoken with in the last 3 days... It was loads of fun telling all these people they were possibly exposed.

Anyway, the first day was awful... after I got home from the Dr. office I hurt so bad I could hardly walk... But by Friday I was fever free for 24 hrs and feeling lots better.

There is nothing worse that being told you cant leave your house until ____ especially if you're a control freak like me! So I stayed put till Monday like I was told... grr

We no return you to the regularly scheduled "Back to School Story"

Swine Flu, home for 2 days.

So my poor student teacher go her first go at teaching a little earlier than either one of us had planned... but she did GREAT!!!

Anyway, I was at school all last week feeling much better, and loving it all, kids, student teacher, teaching in general...

Until I happen upon all the things I HAVE to do DIFFERENTLY this year because I'm teaching first AND second graders.

Just think; spelling tests, homework, reading material, not to mention all the different variable in WHAT they know. So, it is DEFINITELY been a learning experience for me, and I'm only motivated by my desire to have them learn all the can. Perfection at certain things is possible.

Some of the things we hope to perfect this year:

• Walking down the hallway correctly
• Capitol letters and punctuation in our sentences
• Short and long vowel sounds
• Addition
• Subtraction

Anyway, I'm alive... I survived the Swine Flu... All is well.

Where are you from?

Right now I'm sitting in the very kitchen that I ate thousands of meals in, mostly pizza or hamburgers, had many birthday parties at, and helped my mom tape straight lines so she could paint :) I'm using the computer I helped my dad pick out and buy for my mom at least 5 years ago if not longer (I'm thinking 8). It is missing the apostrophe key, hence all the I'ms(oh wait spell checker fixes them! lol)... So much has changed, but much has remained the same.

People ask where I'm from all of the time. I always give them this long drawn out story of how Ive lived in different places equal number of years so each is part of me. This is true, but riding in the back of the car this time down my street it was different. It hit me like a ton of bricks.

THIS IS HOME.

Walking in the door was very different this time. My mom is in Utah with Bob, he had surgery yesterday. Dana is in Jerusalem. Logan is in California. And of course, my dad is gone. But my two youngest brothers, who are both much littler than they were the last time I saw them (I think together they've lost 75lbs) greeted us at the door. Along with Griffy the family westie.

I love Indianapolis and actually, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the town my family has spent the last 14 years in. Its definitely not the same as when I lived here over 8 years ago, but it is still home.

This house, this kitchen, this yard, this dog is all home. It smells like home still, too. I love this place, I love being here.

Even though my dad is gone, this place still is home.

Even though Ive grown up and moved on and have John, all that started here. This is home.

A huge portion of my heart will forever be in this place. First, a chunk stayed when I left for college. Another chunk stayed behind when I left this place as a wife. The largest portion stayed behind when my father passed away and I rushed HOME to be with my family.

I think for all of these reasons, I feel most complete in this place, as a human being. Everything seems to fall into place a little easier, I think more clearly, I am most like the me I remember before LIFE happened.

I love my life now. Sure would I change a couple of our current situations if it were up to me, probably... but I love it. However, I now know I have a very simple answer for a very simple question. This is the place I will ALWAYS call home, no matter who lives in the house, or where I spend Christmas or Thanksgiving holidays. This very house, where I no longer have a room, will always be HOME to me.

It's been a while!

Hey Everybody... I'm sure most of you know who read my blog that I've been on many adventures over the past month. I'm working on getting posts up with LOTS and LOTS of pictures for you! It will be my weekend project to keep my mind off of school, plus I have to get it done before John goes back to school next week and I'm back to very rarely getting to use the computer. But not to worry I keep up on all of your blogs from my couch using my iPod. A very neat tool but not conducive to posting (since it only lets me write in the title part ;) Oh yeah, you'll have to scroll down past this post because I'm back dating my posts to when they should have gone up ;) O how I love blogger's ease at keeping my journal writing in cronological order (and letting me cheat, just a little!)

San Diego with Cousins :) Beware MONSTER POST!

***I'm going to post this without all the pictures just to get it up but will be adding slideshows all day as I get the pictures uploaded and made :) I can't just sit here all day anymore though waiting A) I'm way to impatient! B)I have a very dirty house to clean!***





We had a grand time on our last hu-rah of summer. We headed to our favorite vay-cay destination... San Diego! And we didn't do what we always do... ok yes we did, but we did more too! We expanded our eateries, and our sight-seeing spots. We had a blast!

One of the first things we did was go to Sea World which was open until 11:00 or so and tried to catch a bunch of their night shows (which of course they schedule them all at the same time or overlapping). Anyway we had fun, and that's all that matters! We didn't take nearly as many pictures as we did last trip, but I did take a bunch of videos!

The next morning we headed to Point Loma and Cabrillo National Monument. IT IS AMAZING! This was probably one of the highlights of our trip for me. I loved sitting up on the point and watching the ships, boats, etc head from San Diego Bay into the Pacific ocean. The best part was hearing all the sea lions barking. I couldn't see them, but they sure are noisy! After exploring the history of Point Loma and learning about Cabrillo's many adventures we headed down to see the tidal pools! I was so excited about this. Unfortunately it was high tide so we didn't get to explore the tidal pools, however watching the waves crash against the rocks and feeling the spray was lots of fun too! The coastal rocks have some very cool looking formations as well!

After Cabrillo National Monument we headed to Old Town... we were planning on Old Town Mexican Cafe... but we decided we should try out one of the other 100 restaurants in Old Town, especially this one


Yup that's right Cafe de Reyes! So COOL! And honestly SO DELICIOUS! I of course ordered the Chile Rellano, I've been on the search for my favorite one, and this one is close to topping the list. The only reason it doesn't is because it's in San Diego, and my other topper is 15 minuts away so much more convienent to be my favorite! Here are some more pictures from the Cafe de Reyes area of Old Town.

That evening we headed to the zoo with Tyann and her family. We rode the bus and the skyfari and got our first glimps at the new elephant exhibit. I also got this video of the lion... he was pretty fiesty each evening we were there! Pacing around, growling/grunting, and spraying the onlookers. This video was right before he sprayed the first time, and I about got it, but didn't thanks to John grabbing me out of the way.

Thank Heavens! That night we had our first taste of "parenting" lol ok so not really, but Kamryn did come spend the night in our room, in our bed, right between us all night. It was a lot of fun, and worth it for one night :) The funniest thing is that Kamryn talks in her sleep so in the morning we asked her about all the things she told us and she didn't remember a thing! OH and this I didn't even remember to tell Tyann, but I have to share with you!!! It is so funny, but also a little TMI so if you don't want to know stop reading!

That night when Kamryn(5) got to our room she went in and used the bathroom. She came out and declared that in the morning I HAD to put lipstick on her. I don't own any lipstick and told her that. She said, well what's in the box on the back of the toilet then? I just told her it wasn't lipstick. She said oh and dropped it (thankfully!) I wasn't sure how I was going to explain tampons to a 5 year old! TOO FUNNY! I love kids, they say the greatest things!

Here are some more pictures of, OF COURSE, the Pandas :) We took Lauren and went early (we waited for at least 30 minutes before the park opened) to make sure we got lots of time to spend with the panda bears. They had the sisters out since mom had just had a new cub the day before! I started getting really annoyed with all the people asking where the new cub was and why it wasn't out on exhibit with mom... (John had to remind me that not everyone knows as much about panda bears as I do) So for those of you that don't know much about pandas, they are 4 ounces when they are born. That's the size of my cell phone... The mom is only considered pregnant for 6 weeks. This is the 5th cub bai yun has had. 2 have been sent back to China, the other 2 girls should be there as well, however China has allowed us to keep them since the earthquake there destroyed their research facility. There's tons more I could tell you but...OK well enough panda 101.

We also decided to do breakfast with Shamu when we were let into the park 30 minutes early, hadn't eaten breakfast, and they still had poolside tables! It was fun, but nearly not as GREAT as it usually is. We were told it was because they were practicing for their morning show, but the food was good, and they refilled our big cup for FREE! so that was great. I did get some great video though! Here you go!

Here are some other random pictures from our vacation. I'm going to have to steal some of tyann's pictures because somehow I have NONE with any of them! This was one of the BEST trips we've had. Thanks to Tyann and her family for letting us play tour guides for them and show them around some of our FAVORITE places!

Visit to Salt Lake/Provo areas

The last week in July we headed up to northern Utah to see Dana(my seester) doing here thing (archeological dig) in SLC. I love my sister and she ALWAYS does the COOLEST things! Take for example... in just 1 week she will fly halfway around the world and spend the next 4+ months in Jerusalem! See I told you she's cool, waaaaaaaay cooler than me!

Did I mention that we have a blast together? We did some shopping, ate yummy food, and went to through the Oquirrh Mountain Temple Open house.



My wonderful friend Jessi whom I didn't get a picture with (!?!?! not quite sure how that happened) went through the open house with us.

Such a beautiful place.


It was a very different Open House experience for me. Basically we walked through the whole temple in a giant line. I felt like I was a cow being herded... the problem with this was the lack of reverance and lack of time to linger.

But it did not take away from the beauty. The best part was the couple at the end bearing their testimonies of eternal families in one of the sealing rooms. That was a great experience!


Afterward we went to dinner at Johnny Carinos. Very Yummy! I mostly ate John's dinner though (which was the point since I just ordered an appetizer) He had Pepperoni Macaroni... IT WAS SO YUMMY! We had a great time catching up with Dana and Jessi. It was great to see you Jessi! We've decided it was time for Jessi to come visit us next. We can't wait to have you at our house!


We had an amazing time... One of the highlights was Dana showing off her tan lines, they're pretty hilarious! I can't look at her feet and not laugh... it shows what a white girl she really is :) Here are some pictures :)

The Grand Canyon North Rim

I've begged John to take me to the Grand Canyon since we moved down here 5 years ago. Last year when my mom and brother went and I couldn't go really spurred the desire. We had wanted to go earlier this summer but with John's HUMUNGO load of homework we didn't make it. So John finished school and we headed out. We were actually planning on staying at the North Rim Lodge so John had been watching to see when there was availability. The day before John was done with school he checked and there was room. So of coure we waited til the next day to reserve it once his last final was over. When he went to reserve a room there were none, he even called twice and still nothing. At 9:00 the night before we left (the same day he had called twice and nothing was available) John was checking again and sure enough there was a room for us. We had such a great time! The Grand Canyon is truly an amazing place!

More of our hiking around the Grand Canyon Lodge

We drove out to Cape Royal ( at least I think that is what its called) and that was amazing! The hole in the rock is called Angel's Window. This was also where we got to see "the bottom" of the canyon...the Colorado River!

I was amazed by all of the flowers in bloom so of course we had to stop and take pictures!

Missing

John's cousin's son Justin Hughes is missing from Reno. He is 23 years old and hasn't been seen since last Monday. The link is http://justinhughes.blogspot.com/ please check there for more information.

Sorry about first the wrong link yesterday, and then I didn't know it was wrong because I sent it from my phone right before we watched Harry Potter at the movie theater and when we FINALLY got home yesterday I didn't have access to an actual computer because John was working on the last of his homework.

Some people's bad attitudes

So I posted this:



Remind me to tell you about the jerk at costco :)



and thought I'd share the story.

Let me just start by saying yesterday was a roller coaster day anyway.

If you knew me 3 or 4 years ago my attitude on life was much different than it is now. I was a downer, wanted everyone to join my pity party, feel sorry for me, and not a whole lot of good could be found. (I tried to hide it but my constant complaining about everything and trying to one up your bad day with how bad MY life was is kinda hard to hide) Anyway, since my lowest point which I'm not exactly sure when that was, I've tried to have a much more postive outlook on life. I'm not always successful with this, but I'm still moving forward and trying to look for the good in everything.

My point in sharing this is that I understand where this guy is coming from and really feel sorry for him. In the checkout line for costco I'm trying to tear out our coupons while John is unlaoding the cart, in the line next to us this guy is very loudly going on and on about how he hates costco and how they don't take credit cards and flipping out that they will scan his card before its "okay" with him. He wasn't shouting but he definately was wanting to be heard.

This is how it went down...

Guy: quite loudly "I just hate this store!"

Me to John: (in a normal person voice (not my normal voice...lol) but a real normal person voice) Then why bother comming? I mean if it's so bad...why come?

Guy: Excuse me?

Me: contiued to clip my coupons becaue I didn't really want to know if he was talking to me or not...


We check out and go to leave the store. On the way out I smiled at this grumpy man and then it continued...

Guy: AND THEN SHE SMILES AT ME ON HER WAY OUT... overly loud.


So I stopped my cart, turned and said
Me: If you hate it here so much save your drama and don't come.

Guy: Get the H*** out just get out!

Me:"Well you have a great day!" very genuinely. Cause I did mean it. I really felt sorry for this guy, I mean I know how I felt about the world when I acted that way

So maybe I was out of line saying something to my husband about this man. But his negative attitude was really obnoxious. Obviously, I've rubbed off on John because he went back and spoke with the man who continued to swear at him. I don't know what John said though.

But I really was going to share the story of how I have changed over the years, until he started swearing and then it became about the jerk at costco... anyway, thought I'd share ;0) Needless to say a more postivie attitude is something I will continue to work on!

My Birthday

Well this year I turned 26... ugh do I feel old, I don't know why this one is so much harder than any other but it has been. But it was probably the most celebrating that has gone on EVER! It was so much fun. In the couple of days before my birthday John brought me home gerber daisies which are my FAVORITE!

Also, Kami brought me a card and an Olive Garden Gift Certificate. For my birthday the Frei's took us to breakfast which was a ton of fun! Then we went to check on Joe who was going to have surgery that day.

John had class, came home, and we went back to St. George and I bought some new church clothes from Lane Bryant (my favorite store for clothes) and we went to dinner at Olive Garden. I had the new Steak Crostada dish and it was SO yummy! Then we got dessert and they sang to me and I got to blow out a candle and make a wish. That was fun, I haven't done that in years!

Then we went to Home Depot in search of my lawn chair I've been wanting since we had a good coupon. We found it and I LOVE IT! Thanks to my neighbors for introducing me to these great chairs! Then we came home and crashed!

Then Thursday my mom came down and helped me all morning in my classroom. It was so nice to have her here and helping me for a bit! We got a TON accomplished, thanks mom! Then she took me out for lunch (chile rellanos of course) and we got pedicures.

That night she and Bob took John and I out for dinner. We went to Samuri 21 in St. George. I only wish I would have had a video camera to show you the reaction my mom had to the grill being set on fire. It was TOO perfect! Anyway, we had a great time.

And finally my birthday celebrations came to an end.

Dear power chrystler jeep dodge, how stupid are you!!? First you change the price, then you can't find the 2nd ke and then the one you send us doesn't work!

My New Car!

Dear Chrystler, I really hate you for taking ALL the Dodge dealerships out of Southern Utah DAYS after I bought my new Dodge Caliber! Now to Vegas for service

Update**
I know I didn't ever post pictures or the whole story. However, the story is one I'd like to forget. Maybe one day I'll write it but I'm not in the mood today... However here are a couple of pictures of my now month old brand new dodge caliber. I LOVE it! Oh yeah, it also has a TON of miles (4,000 +) already... School for John, ugh!

Fourth of July Fun!

We had a great fourth of July. John cooked for the ward breakfast in the morning and then we headed up to spend the day with Jenny, James, and the kiddos. Here are some pictures from our fun filled day. Oh yeah, I finally got a picture of the hair twins... We always wondered where Toby got his wild hair. Then John cut his and it's just as crazy!

It's 10:00 PM...

What are you doing right now? Sleeping I hope for your sake!

I'm helping John with his homework... we just found MORE (we've already completed 3 assignments together this evening with me reading and him doing the computer thingys... he'd already done at least 4 other assignments already). We have at least 6 more to do!!!! They're due 1 hour and 5 minutes ago up at the Computer Lab on Campus... So that John can be cleared to take his test tomorrow... It's a good thing I drank 64 oz. of Mt. Dew today!

6:00 is going to come very early Lindsay!


Now I'm in trouble for writing this... My most patient person I've ever met in my life, my husband, is losing his patience... I think it may be time to wind down.

Habits...Another Rant... It's something I excel at ;)

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a
habit." -Costco Connections July 09 pg 11 ( I think it's originally from Aristotle)

I read this quote the other day and I've been thinking about how true it is. The few things I am excellent at are something I have practiced perfectly long enough for it to be part of my routine and become a habit. Whether it be drinking enough water, certain routines used in teaching, etc, etc. (OK so not really etc, there aren't many things I'm excellent at!)

But the same is true for all of the things I'm horrible at, eating junk, lack of exercise (which thanks to Lindsay has been getting lots better :), not thinking before I speak/react, my lack of patience, etc, etc, etc (and yes all of those etc count with many many more!). These are things that have also become a part of my routine either in a counter productive form or they are non existent. I have not practiced perfectly long enough for it to be a habit. There is much I still need to become excellent at by repeatedly doing them correctly/well/best for me.


Stepping away from me to be a tad bit... ok a lot... judgemental.
I guess what I've noticed is that some people in my life (including myself) complain about things that only THEY have control to change. Complaining about not being good enough at X, not liking how they responded to Y, and wishing they wouldn't have done Z. So my advice is practice perfectly what YOU want YOU to be and excellence will eventually come.


Here's the issue...Don't pretend to be one way when you're really not, just because you think it's what I or anyone else wants you to say or what type of person you think I want you to be. We're human, we're not always going to make everyone happy (believe me I never make everyone happy EVER!) I'd rather know the REAL you than the you you think I want you to be.

I guess my thing is be who you are, not who you think you should be because of me or anyone else.


Ok so moving on to the nicer (only slightly) version of me :)
So I have a few things I'm going to work on doing repeatedly so that I can be excellent at doing them. I have a spiritual goal (daily scripture study for 20 minutes), a physical goal (continuing to walk 5 days a week with Lindsay), and a relationship goal (writing to my brother every week for the rest of his mission, :(I've been the opposite of excelling at this).

What do you want to do repeatedly so you can excel at it?

Dear College of Hubby's Choice,

I write this is with the utmost respect for lifelong learning, education, and college in general. I mean I am a teacher after all, and I am thrilled my husband's going back to school. I just have a few small (with major consequences) changes to suggest/complain about :)

First of all, some of the courses my husband is currently taking are RIDICULOUS! I mean what class has 12 assignments due every Tuesday that aren't even graded but must be done in order to take the test that is due on the SAME day... (ok do I sound a little annoyed? I HATE my husband spending hours at school and coming home angry with himself, and this particular class isn't helping me have a happy John).

Let's move on to the next "are you kidding me?!?!?" class. It's a library class, but it's online. (What?) He has assignments and tests for this class as well, but the tests are honestly worded so they are trying to trick you and if you don't read it exactly correct, with all the commas in the right place you're screwed! I mean honestly what kind of teacher writes a test with questions meant to trick/screw over/frustrate the students?

So dearest college, you're kicking my butt, is basically what I'm saying. It would be different if it was me, but it isn't, it's my wonderful husband. Please be nicer to him. And if at all possible, please be LESS frustrating!

Oh yeah, one more tiny request, please require teachers to give students a syllabus for the semester with ALL assignments on it. This homework hunt on blackboard each week to even find out what he needs to do is getting old.

Sincerely,

Erika

The funniest Scrabble Game EVER!

I LOVE my family! This last weekend was the family reunion that John and I knew we were in charge of for the last two years. We had a great time seeing many family members for the first time in a long long while. I also found out that I have a few family members close by which is fantastic!

Friday night was spent eating, introductions, and playing games. I sat down and watched my dad's oldest brother's (my dad was the youngest of 9) family play Scrabble. The ages ranged from 17-78 and let me tell you, I've not laughed so hard in a long while! Here's some pictures of the Scrabble board and the group that played. My Aunt Shirley kept asking why I thought she was so funny, but she's like me in the fact that she says whatever comes to mind and tells you exactly what she things of things. Because of this I love her dearly and thoroughly enjoyed her company! Thanks for such a great Friday Night!

PS this was wayyy back in June, I wrote the post but didn't have the pictures so I never posted it. We'll see how this works :)

Oreo Cream Cheese Chocolate Covered Truffles

The original recipe is in the "Cooking the Costco Way" cookbook (thanks to Sarah for picking me up a copy and making these so I knew how yummy they are). Here's our recipe:

3 packages of cream cheese
2 package of oreos
3 cups of melting chocolate (we used ghiradelli 70% pure cacao chocolate chips)

• let cream cheese come to room temperature
• crush 1 package of oreos (use a plastic bag and a rolling pin)
• mix both together thoroughly
• refrigerate mixture for 10-20 minutes
• use gloves if possible to roll mixture into 1 inch balls
• refrigerate for 30-45 minutes
• melt chocolate in a double boiler (metal bowl inside a pot filled with 2 inches of water on low heat) *** do not allow water/steam to get into chocolate!
• line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil
• crush 10-12 more oreos
• roll oreo/cream cheese balls in chocolate and place on pan
• Sprinkle oreo crumbs on top
• Refrigerate until chocolate coat hardens
• Eat and Enjoy!
• store in the refrigerator and give the rest of the oreos to the kids so you have more truffles to enjoy :)

Well we finally made it to tucson...im sure all the fellow teachers in the van HATE me by now for making them wait for HOURS but hopefully they'll get over it!

Car dealers SUCK! Unless you have Smitty picyures of him, the new car, and the whole story tomorrow... Just know that the 6 teachers with me are really patient!

Johns on the phone with the dealership in phoenix... We're screwed is the summation of the conversation

Well no car in vegas for us today lets hope this deal is for real tomorrow or we're out of luck and back to square one.

Well just got done with the insurance and that went great! The bank was pointless I think she applied us for any old loan/line of credit so were off to vegas

Nothing new...rrrrriiiiiiight

Well not a whole lot is going on here... It's been at least 100 degrees every day this week. John has had school all week (they're last day was today) and I'm working every day as usual through June for some extra money.

The only thing that's different is that John's grandma has been in the hospital for a week or so after having major surgery. She had a baseball sized ulcer and they had to cut out part of her stomach and reattach the intestines. She ate her first meal in a while yesterday so hopefully she will be all recovered and headed home soon!

We also have been without a car for 2 weeks now. Our car is dead. Everyone seems to think they can fix it and that our repair shop is ripping us off, however we've taken our car there for 5 years and we trust them. It has been sitting outside Bob's house inconveniencing him for over a week now. But alas, it is dead and we will not be paying the $1800 to fix it.

Kami has been very kind and let us drive her car as often as she can since she's been up at the hospital with grandma so much. We sure do appreciate all of her help! Luckily we have many friends who have driven us to and from school, church, meetings, etc as well as handing over their keys to their cars for us to drive. I can't imagine nicer people than those that have helped us out. You know who you are, even if you've offered and we have it already figured out we really appreciate your offer!

So with all the car issues, our car being 11+ years old and having over 180,000 miles on it we are buying a new car. We thought we found the car we wanted for a FANTASTIC price... but with all of the fees it's too much for us, so we're trying to negotiate, however I'm not sure what will happen. We're also looking into the same type of car at many other dealerships. If we had a way to get to where we need to go to figure out financing and look at some ACTUAL cars instead of just online I would feel better about things, however, since we have no vehicle I doubt that will be happening.

John starts school on Monday up in St. George... how he will get there I'm not sure. Maybe he'll ride his non-existent bike...

So there's an update for you. Hopefully the new update will be pictures of MY NEW CAR! At least that's what I'm hoping... but likely not since my husband can't ever make a decision.

One of the Longest Days of my Life

It is 8:30 pm. I've been at school for 13 hours. I've cried and laughed multiple times today. I also went on the water slide with my kids. I'm tired!

Here are some highlights

• Water Day, Sun Burn, Went down the slip n slide with my kids, was wet for HOURS afterward ( I was fully dressed)
• On our end of quarter test the kids have to write a friendly letter... Imagine my surprise when reading one of the letters it went like this

Dear V,

I like you. We have the same shoes. When will you come to my house? You are nice. I like you shit.

Sincerely,

K

Yup I like you shit... Now I'm not one to swear, at least not often... but I've retold this story so many times today, just so I could laugh. She was trying to say I like your shirt (I asked her). TOO FUNNY! At least I had a bright spot in my day :)

More from LA

These are pictures of Dana's banana tree (you know, the one last february she thought was the coolest thing ever that we had great fun taking pictures with...) that we both thought was so COOL last year when we were there. This time you can see how many it has...however they aren't bananas (like the ones people eat that are yellow)... they're plantanes. If you haven't tried plantanes, you're missing out. I've only had them a couple of times but I LOVE THEM!


They also had beautiful roses over by the green house. The one of the tight rose bud is currently our background on our computer... it is an amazing picture and I still say...I took that picture... I have a great camera for taking close up flower shots!

Steph's Baby Shower... I need pictures of this new little one!

Well I've been told the new addition to the Peterson family arrived on Thursday, have NO details nor have I seen any pictures like I was promised... Okay you guys, do you feel guilty enough yet! Good! I'm so excited about their new little addition to their family.
I've become quite attached to their little family the past two years, and will be sad to see the majority of them not be at our school anymore. But as long as Steph keeps her blog updated then we'll be ok. (hint hint) Plus, I know where they live... and hopefully the new big brother will still think it's cool if I come watch him play baseball!

A couple of weeks ago we had a baby shower for her at my house. It was so much fun! Almost everyone from school was there, and we had a great time chatting and having Steph open all of her gifts for the new little one. I learned from this that my house isn't very big and I don't have enough seating for all that were there! Sorry about that guys, but I must say it was better than the library's hard chairs. Don't you agree? Anyway, congratulations Peterson Family! We're SO thrilled for your new little addition, hope it's a smooth transition!