House Warming Party

I had a house warming party last night with many of my close dear friends. It was so fun to host such a social event in my new home.... Ahh, I like the sound of that.. my home... I made a seven layer dip, had the famous mango salsa from Costco and I made my first cheese ball. It turned out pretty dang good if I do say so myself.

I figured the cheese ball needed a close up...


This is my colleague Rebekah. She is one of my favorite people. We both teach fourth grade and have so much fun together. She got me a rice cooker and not just any rice cooker, but a red one. She saw the color scheme in my front room and decided to add to it. She did a great job decorating the wrapping. Each side of the gift had a very special note on it.





Six of the eight folks from our Havasupai trip earlier this year were there, so
we had to get a reunion picture! It was so great to see them all!



A few other pictures of great friends...

This is Cherise and the twins Kali and Kaitlin. They are a part of my dinner group.



I work with Halle and Gina and I was so glad they could both come!



This one is Clay. I hadn't seen him since the STP road trip we took in July, so it was extra fun to catch up.



This is Cody (good friend from high school) and Keri (friend I met through the frisbee club team).



I met Jim through my friend Jake. We are in the same ward now!



This picture shoes Dave and Sam, who go all the way back to Campus Plaza days, Keri, Jake (Macey's Boy) and Mark



These next two pictures are Dan. Dan is a substitute teacher and that is how we met. He has subbed for my class a few times. So the first picture is our picture as colleagues and "professionals". The second one is not...



This is Dan's attempt at seductive eyes... He is such a crack up!


To top the night off, my cousin Heather stayed the night. She had driven down from Salt Lake for the party and decided to stay. We stayed up talking until 4:00 AM! I can't remember the last time I stayed up that late. It was so great catching up with her.



All in all, a very successful night! I love people and my associations with them are very important to me. It brought my heart a lot of joy to see so many people I care about.

The last few months...

The last few months....

With moving and having Pnemonia the last month, I haven't placed blogging as a high priority... so here is a quick update on the events of the last few months.

For general conference in October, my friend Shawn got tickets to the Saturday morning session. We stayed on temple square all day.



For the Sunday sessions, I watched the general conference with my family. It's a tradition to get together and have breakfast burritos and strawberry waffles.





On October 11, I celebrated my 28th birthday. My colleague had her students make me a big birthday sign that they hand delivered. It was great and quite the surprise!



To celebrate my birthday, I went out to lunch with a few friends. Here is a picture of Kristy, Cara and I at lunch at the Macaroni Grill.



On my actual birthday (Sunday afternoon) a lot of friends came over for cake and ice cream. Here are Lani, Nicole, Shawn and I.



Also in October, I was part of the PiMi Charity Race team for the second year in a row. It is a lot of work to put on, but well worth it. All the money goes to a charity organization.



I decided to run it as well. There was a new course that was a lot more difficult than last year, but I really enjoyed it!



For the first science unit of the year, we teach about the biomes of Utah and the animals and plants that can be found there. As as part of our unit, we had a guy from the Bean Museum come and do a presentation. He brought some real animals with him. Greater love hath no teacher than to hold a snake for the pleasure of her students...



At the elementary where I work, we always have a pumpkin decorating contest, where we decorate a class pumpkin like a favorite book character. Our class had recently gone on a walking field trip to the Scera Theater and saw the theatrical production of Stellaluna (the bat), so we decided to decorate our pumpkin as Stellaluna.



On Halloween, I had some past teachers come for a visit in my classroom as guest storytellers. Brienne Dayton came in and brought her little son Owen, who was dressed up as "Frankenstein".



On Halloween night, I went out to dinner with some friends and went to a few costume parties. This is my friend Kaitlin. She was dressed up as Penelope.



My niece Haley also got baptized on Halloween...



I have recently become a part of a dinner group consisting of my friends Cherise, Kali, Kaitlin, Shawn and Mark. We rotate cooking and eat together twice a week. Over the Halloween holiday, we got together, made homemade pizzas and watched some great Halloween movies. Here is Shawn making some great gourmet pizzas...



Kali made a cook cemetery cake and put all of our names on the gravestones. So much fun!





The first week of November, I went to Arizona to visit my great friend Kim. She is in grad school there. It is amazing how when you are really good friends with someone, you can do nothing and still have the time of your life. It was so fun to be in Arizona.

Kim, her sister Pam, Pam's husband Rob and I went to see the Phantom of the Opera traveling Broadway show. It was incredible!



My friend Nate also lives there, so Kim and I met him for breakfast/



After church on Sunday, Kim drove me to see the house that I grew up in. It was very nostalgic for me. Here it is!



We also stopped by the Mesa temple and walked around the grounds.



The day after I moved into my new place, I got sick. After 15 days of horrendous coughing, I finally went to the doctor and found out I had "walking pnemonia". Thank goodness for antibiotics. I felt so much better after being on an anti-biotic for just one day! I talked to another friend of mine who is a nurse and after telling her about my experience, she thought that I probably had the swine flu and it turned into Pnemonia, which is very common I guess...

Either way, I am glad I am healthy again!

I'm a "real" adult now...

So I figure that having a mortgage now qualifies me as a real adult. I finally bit the bullet and bought my own place. I would have done so years ago, but I wanted to wait until I was done with my graduate degree. Since I graduated in August and have no more tuition to pay, it was time!

It has been so much fun. I took a day off work and Kristy came over and we went shopping for all of the stuff you need that you didn't realize you needed, like a garbage can, toaster, broom, microwave and the list goes on. Here are a few pictures from the moving in process and of the house.


Kristy had to take a picture of our Target excursion... It looks like I'm a contestant on Supermarket Sweep!



After we made it home with all the goods, Kristy helped me to assemble...



Here we are after hanging up pictures and finishing all of our assembling projects



A different view of the living room that shows my favorite feature of the room... the red wall!



The kitchen



Joe and Dave are going to come put shelves in my garage and hang some hooks so I have a place to hang my bikes. It is so fun to have a real home... a home of my own. I have the place to myself for this month before I have a roommate move in and I am enjoying it thoroughly!

A nasty trick...

So someone played a nasty trick on me tonight. The trick wasn't meant for me necessarily, but I was the lucky girl to fall into its grasp none-the-less.

I headed out to go to the gym tonight for my daily run. The gym in the evenings is especially busy and tonight was no exception. The place was packed and I was excited that there was one treadmill still left open. I don't like wasting the time waiting for a machine. (For the record, I would go outside if I could, but I won't go after dark by myself, which means I go to the gym often...)

So I parked myself next to the only open treadmill and went to set my jacket and keys down. At the same time, I stepped my foot up onto the base of the machine. Ha ha, funny joke! Someone had left the machine running! I'm sure you can picture what happened here... Yes, as soon as my foot hit the runner, my body went down. Talk about embarrassing. I some what caught myself on the rail, but I can only imagine what I looked like.

The guy on the treadmill next to me quickly jumped off the machine to make sure I was okay. I tried to compose myself and brush it off like it was no big deal, but I can only imagine what I looked like.

So word of advice... Sometimes people like to leave the machines running when they are done with them. Look closely before stepping onto treadmills! You might end up with some sore knees!

The Joys of Childhood...

When I was younger, there was nothing I loved more than Art. I LOVE art. Getting markers, crayons, pastels, paper, or anything else that had to do with art on my birthday or Christmas was like a dream come true. I can't count the amount of coloring contests I entered...

I have been given the opportunity this year to teach an after school art class for 3-6 grade students. Thus I have taken some time out of my hectic schedule to return to my childhood love and explore art once again. My sister-in-law Marina teaches an art class out of her home once a week and she has shared some cool ideas with me. In-between conference sessions today, we had a little "art hour." Here are some of the projects that resulted. Doesn't the self portrait look just like me!

Sunday Morning Excitement

As I pulled into the church building this morning, there were herds of people hanging out in the parking lot... odd. As I parked and joined the crowd, I found out that there was a fire drill of sorts at the church. I don't know if it was truly a drill or if it was a real scare, but firemen and a ambulance showed up. It was kind of odd to experience a fire drill outside of a school setting. Suffice it to say, Church had an exciting start today!

So I told a falsehood...

So my last post saying that I am "all raced out," is apparently a lie because this blog post is a call to you all, possibly a plea, to have you all come run a race with me. Let me explain...

This race is called the PiMi. I have a friend that started this race two years ago as a way to raise money for a charity. They invited me to be a part of the team that puts on the race last year and I am now an official member of the "PiMi" team. Pi stands for the number 3.14 and Mi stands for mile, creating a 3.14 mile race... in case you hadn't put two and two together yet...

Really long number, really short race. This year there is not only a 5K, but there is also an option to do a 10K relay. I have five good reasons why you should run this race... hear me out...

Reason #1: All of the proceeds go to a charity... this year being the Women's and Children's Crisis Center. There are so many that have so much less than we do and this is a great way to help out some of those folks.

Reason #2: If you know me, you probably know a lot of my friends... many of whom have already committed to run. Yes, this includes co-workers, neighbors, friends, my chiropractor... what better race to run than one with friends!

Reason #3: Everyone needs a little motivation to get in better shape!

Reason #4: You can be a part of the elite group of people who own a t-shirt that has a "pi" symbol on the back. Everyone who sees you will think you are extra smart.

Reason #5: Consider it a birthday present...

The date of the race is Saturday, October 10th. If you are interested, check out the website to register at

thepimi.com

Hope to see you there!