My new Love...

The new love in my life is...



For all of those out there that are looking for a fun work out... Do Zumba! I went to zumba for the first time about a month ago and have been going religiously ever since. Its so much fun and a great work out! The one I go to is across from Lins on main street.. the gym is called Iron Sports Acadamey I think. Its Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights at 8 o clock and also Saturday mornings at 8 o clock. Anyone who is interested should definitely come! It's free your first time and after that just 3 bucks! Let me know if you want to come...and I mean anyone!
(For those of you who don't know what zumba is ... its a lot of dancing mixed in with some excersize moves. The class I go to we do some latin dancing and some modern music. Its great!)

Beautifying my Bathroom

My bathroom was completely out dated with floral wall paper and with even more hideous counter tops and more....until now. This was my little project (with the help from my parents) I painted over the wallpaper, we had the countertop replaced with granite, got a new sink, new door handles, took down the floorboards and put up new ones, new light fixtures, and changed the color scheme a bit. Here are some before and after pictures.

Before...

After...

And there you have it. Went from old and ugly to an updated fresh look! It was a fun project to work on.

My Car Accident

I got in a car accident on Monday night. I was coming up the hill to come home and a guy rolled through the stop sign and didn't even see me. He T boned into my car. I was lucky that it wasn't by my door or I would have been badly hurt. It could have been a lot worse if it would have been a few seconds later so I'm very thankful for that. His truck sure wiped out the front of my car though. He was in a HUGE truck ... it didn't even scratch the truck but it totally dominated my nice new car. I sure can feel the effects of the crash though. My whole body is very very sore from the whip lash and I have some very deep bruises where my seat belt was. I couldn'tbreathe very well when it initially happened because my body was in such shock...the rest of the night I was dizzy and nauseous. I'm doing fine now...like I said before just very sore and some deep bruises. My car looks pretty bad and the tire is even bent inwards... its not drivable but hopefully she will be fully recovered within 3-4 weeks.The guy who ran into me was super nice and very cooperative. He fully admitted it was his doing and so his insurance is covering everything. They are even able to give me a rental car until my car is done being fixed. Thanks everyone for your concern and calls. It means a lot. Here are a few pictures of the damage done.

Halloween is in the Air

Halloween came early this year for my family. All the family was in town this weekend so we thought we would have a Halloween party. I've never been a huge fan of Halloween, but for some reason the past couple of years I have gotten very very into Halloween. I love it. I've been thinking about possible costume ideas for a couple months now. I think its one of my new favorite holidays. These are a few of the things that we did this weekend. We started out the day by preparing a Halloween feast. We had spooky jello jigglers, pumpkin bread bowls filled with yummy soup (one of my favorite personal touches is the pumpkin bread bowl), and witches brew to drink.After our delicious meal we decorated Halloween sugar cookies and made skeletons. All the boys got to put bow ties on their skeletons and all the girls have hair bows of course. They turned out so cute. All my nieces and nephews loved it...

The rest of the night we watched Halloween movies, played outside, and all the kids had a huge sleepover in the upstairs while the adults stayed up laughing and playing games.

My nieces brought their Halloween costumes to model for us while they were in town since we wouldn't get to see them all dressed up on Halloween.

We had a witch, a fairy ballerina, Minnie mouse, and don't forget out little baby bee.

I think Rachel was getting sick of her Bee costume after several pictures...

Even though my costume isn't complete yet, I had to go get it on when I saw baby Rachel in her bee costume because...

Halloween is just around the corner! This weekend was just the beginning of the Halloween celebrations. In my preschool on Wednesday all the kids and the staff are going to dress up and have a Halloween carnival. That should be a lot of fun. I guess I better finish up the rest of my costume before then. As for Halloween day... I actually have no party plans. Who knows maybe I will end up just passing out candy in my Bee costume? Halloween Party? Scary movie? I don't know what it will be, but whatever it is I am sure I will have a spooktacular time.
Happy Haunting!

What have I been up to?? Let me show you...

Oh dear... looks like I'm not all that great at this blogging thing. I need to be better. It's like a journal I always have good intentions to do it but I just never get around to it at the end of the day. It has been on my to do list for several weeks now and I'm finally getting it done. Well there is just too much to share so I better get on with it. School started.. I am LOVING it. The kids are just so darn cute for their own good. I will tell you about school in a minute but to show you some of the things I did before summer ended....

I got a call at about 5:50 on my last week of summer before school started. As I was laying in bed I thought...who in the world is calling me this early ( I am not a morning person ). Well it was Bryan. He was up early, had read in the newspaper that a new cascade falls hike was re opening and wanted to go hike it. I had my first staff meeting that morning so we were hurrying. We got up there just in time to see the sun rise and it was BEAUTIFUL. Here are a few pictures from that little trip. Although I'm not a morning person that was well worth it. We had a lot of fun.


School started a couple days after that and I have absolutely loved it. I haven't taken any pictures of my classrooom yet... I will get some though so that I can post them. But I have taken some cute pictures of a few of the kids. The most kids I have had are 17! It doesn't sound like a whole lot but then if you consider that 10 of those kids were under the age of 18 months I think you understand. The youngest child we have is 6 weeks old. The oldest is 4. Me and one of my staff members are in charge of the preschool part of it while my other two assistants are trying to handle the babies. It can get hecktic but for the most part we have handled it all really well. Here are a few of my kids. I just love them to death...


So far I just love my job. My hours are 8-2 Monday thru Thursday and I have all Fridays off (which is SO nice). I have a great staff and the kids make me laugh everyday. You never know what to expect.

Over labor day weekend my family went up to participate in our annual sale ... Swiss Days. I took a few pictures of what it looked like in case nobody has ever been. Which by the way if you haven't I highly suggest it. Its so much fun and there are so many cute booths!

Mom and Dad loading the truck before we left!

Usually it doesn't look this calm. Usually there are people all in the booth and lines of people waiting to get into the booth as well. Swiss Days is a lot of fun but there are some vicious and crazy shoppers up there! We had a little over 700 stitches going up and came back with about 1/3 of that so we thought we did really well at the sale. For those of you who don't have any idea about this family business and stitching that I'm talking about here is a link to our website so you can understand a little better what it is we do. Plus thats good advertisement right? Thanks to Bryan who designed and put together our website for us. It's a lot of work.

http://www.livewellstitches.com/

After Swiss Days was over I was only a couple hours away from Logan so Cicely and I met up and we made a weekend trip up to Logan to visit Bryan and McCabe. It was a lot of fun. I just love it in Logan. I hope I get to live there one day. Its beautiful. We had fun and will probably make another trip within the next while.

My parents made a quick trip to the temple this past Friday and I thought since I had the day off I would join them. While I was waiting for them to be done with their session I just sat out on the grass of the temple and enjoyed the weather, did some thinking, and did some reading. It was so peaceful and relaxing. It was great. This is a picture I took while enjoying my beautiful surroundings...

Just to mention the other things that are keeping me busy after work everyday:
* I'm taking 6 credits through SUU at the school district so that I can get closer to getting my ESL endorsement.
* I just got 3 new piano students this week filling me up completely taking me to 15 piano students. That definitly keeps me busy everynight after work. It can get pretty hecktic but its good extra income and I love teaching piano.
* I just got called as Relief Society President in my ward. It will also keep me busy but will be a great blessing in my life. I was Relief Society President once before in my previous ward and I absolutely loved getting to know all those girls better. This ward is all new people so it will be interesting.
* I'm still trying to learn some spanish on my own ...its been one of my goals for a long time and I've got a good start. Rosetta stone has become my good friend as I've been doing that.

Most nights I don't get home til pretty late and its always a full and unpredictable day but so far I've loved it all and its been great! Hope everyone is doing great! Until next time...

The latest happenings in the life of Me

It has been about a month and a half since I last blogged and there has been SO MUCH going on since then that I am now about to catch all of you up on. I have pictures, stories, and news to share so lets get started shall we? I will pick up from when I last blogged. Last all you bloggers knew I just graduated and had a birthday celebration... well, about a week after graduation a few of my friends and I had a LOST party. This may not seem a big deal to most of you, but to us...it was the end of a chapter of our lives. haha. McCabe, Bryan, Cassie and I all have watched LOST faithfully and it was the season finale. To celebrate we got together at my house and watched the finale and had Dharma Initiative food (for those of you who know what that is) and I made this LOST cake to go along with the theme of the party. I thought it turned out pretty good.

That very same week I got a very exciting phone call. I had interviewed for a teaching position for a preschool run through the school district that I had really wanted and I got it! They called me and offered me the job and I accepted right away! The preschool is called Even Start and it is a preschool for kids whose parents are learning English. While their parents are at school, they are at my school learning their ABC's and 123's. I have met some of the parents and kids and I am so excited. I think there will be some challanges (as every job has) but I really think I'm going to enjoy it. These people are so humble and thankful and really hard working parents and I can't wait to help make a difference by helping to teach their kids! The preschool is at North Elementary and I have been going in almost every day this month trying to get my classroom ready and set up...it is ALOT of work. You see, the teacher before me kinda left this program in chaos and I swear some of these cupbords haven't been cleaned out since the 1980's ... So I have spent a lot of hours there and a lot more to come but it will all be worth it!

Along with getting my class ready I am taking some summer classes... I know, I'm crazy. As soon as I graduate college I go straight back to school. BUT it is a great deal and I would be stupid if I passed it up. I am getting my ESL (english as a second language) Endorsement. If you get this you are "more qualified", keep your teaching license updated, and your salary will raise automatically by having this endorsement. Now that I have this job with the school district they have this program where instead of paying ridiculous tuition they will pay everything but the class fee's (which is about $45 per class). So for 3 weeks in June I have class from 8 in the morning til 4 in the afternoon everyday. One week down and two more to go! It is actually not to bad...I love learning all this information but sometimes I feel like the picture of this girl below. I just want to get out and be having fun in the summer, not be in class all day. But hey, it will be good for me in the end.

Now...for all of you who know me I am a MAJOR dog lover. They are my favorite animal and I just love them. I had a dog all growing up but when I was about 16 he died. Ever since then I have been wanting to get another dog but my parents won't let me. I was really itchy to get a pet though...so instead I got the lowest possible mantience pet I could think of...a turtle. Everybody meet Duncan...

At first he was pretty camera shy and wouldn't come out of his shell... but once I got him out walking around in the grass he was fine.

Why the name Duncan you may ask? Well I looked up some names online for some ideas and I had a list of them that I liked...Bryan helped me narrow it down and we both liked Duncan the best. Bryan was so nice...he came and helped me pick out the turtle, then built him a cage, and made it a good home for the little guy. This is the picture of the cage Bryan built Ducan. (The only sad thing since getting Duncan is he bit me one day...I guess I was holding him too much...but let me tell you what...it was PAINFUL. I never wish anybody to get bitten by a turtle. We were reading and some box turtles have up to 2 tons of pressure with their jaw during bites. Yeah... it hurt pretty dang bad. I was screaming and crying and my neighbor heard me and thought I was dying. Duncan is a little guy but he sure can be fistey. He was grounded to his cage for awhile after that but I forgave him. And I learned my lesson.)

And last but NOT least.... our trip to Vegas. My cousin works for the Blue Man Group. He does all the lighting for them. I was asking him about it and said how fun it would be to go so he got me 2 free tickets to go see them. So last night Bryan and I took a trip to Vegas to see The Blue Man Group. It was a ton of fun to see them and we had a lot of fun. Thanks David for getting us those tickets! I highly suggest going to The Blue Man Group someday to all of you have thought about it. It is a lot of fun! Here are some pictures of us right before the show next to The Blue Man group poster.Well like I have said I have been keeping pretty busy going into my classroom this summer, as well as summer classes, and I still teach piano on top of that so I keep really busy but I have fun too! That is my life the past month or so and I will update you again soon!

Celebrate good times come on!

Last weekend was quite the party! On Friday and Saturday I had my graduation and then the next day was my 22nd birthday! I have tons and tons of pictures to post so instead of writing a whole long post about all the festivities that went on during the weekend I will just post the picture and comment as I go.Two of my favorite girls from the block. Man did we have some good times together. It was good to see them again. Karli (in the middle) was due with her baby any day when it was graduation. She put me in charge of helping her if her water broke during our walk in to graduation. Man am I happy that she was able to hold off on going into labor.

The whole crew from the elementary ed block (at least most of us).

Yay! We did it!

I had some really good memories with this group of ladies! It was good to see everyone again!

Me after just receiving my "diploma"! (Really it was just trick...it was the holder for the diploma with no diploma saying that I would receive it in 6-8 weeks. But let's not get into that... It was still a good day!
Me with my parents after graduation!

Me and My Grandma Lyman after graduation.

My Grandpa Keate and I.

Mark and Krista with me. I was so happy they got to come down for my graduation. Krista just had her baby a week and a half before. They are two of my favorite people though so I was so happy they could come!

My brother Joe, me, and sister Krista. I have another older brother but he couldn't make it to the actual ceremony but he was at the lunch we had after graduation!

After graduation my parents threw a party for me. We had a big lunch to celebrate my graduation and my 22nd birthday!

Bryan came over to my house for the lunch and party! We had a lot of fun!

Anne came over too! I have such good friends!

After the lunch we opened presents and had a little party... This next picture is one of my favorites. While I was opening presents I looked up and saw these expressions on my nieces and nephews faces. Haha... I think they were getting sick of watching me open presents...I think they like it better when they are opening presents on their birthdays!

I have the best family in the world. Haha...nothing can buy these priceless expressions.

Later that night my friends threw me a surprise birthday party for my birthday at my friend Cassie's house. It was a lot of fun.


Josh was so nice and made me an amazing decorated cake with his sister. This is them singing happy birthday I'm trying to figure out a tactic to blow out all 22 candles.

Here I go.... And it was a success! All 22 candles! A lot of smoke ... but I did it!

All the smoke was coming into my eyes...I had to dodge it.

Well folks, there's all the pictures I have. It was a great weekend and I had lots of fun! Thank you to all my family and friends that supported me in graduation and did so much for me on mygraduation and birthday! I have amazing people in my life! It was a great weekend!