Things to come

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the tons of people who read this blog..both of you will pleased to know that I am planning on blogging on: my new job with my new classroom, coaching volleyball, my first trick-or-treaters, football games, basketball games, and Thanksgiving. And some really cute videos of Mia in there.

Rest assured, it will come.

Mia's Favorite Pasttime

Meet Mia and her favoritest things in the world, and they are called her toys.

This is Mia's other favoritest thing the world, and it is called digging great big holes that Scott hates! She loves it! The feel of the dirt under her nails and on her nose and on her feet and on her blanket and in her water and on the black couch inside the house. Ahh, yes, it is a favorite.

Garden Pizza

This is our garden about a month ago. Scott was putting up some metal fence for the green beans to climb up. We also had just placed that hose. We were hoping that the extra water would help. On this side we have two different kinds of corn, melons, two different peppers, pole beans, okra, and cucumbers.
This is the other side of the garden. I think that we may well have crammed more things into this garden than I have crammed into my purse. And that is saying something. On this side we have onions, radishes, tomatoes, peas, beets, zucchini, crookneck, spinach, carrots, lettuce and potatoes.
This is Mia "helping" with the garden. She mostly just bites at Scott while he bends over the puppy fence. Or if he is weeding and is on his knees, she will bring a toy and sit on the back of his legs , or run in and out from under him. Silly puppy. So this is our garden now. As you can see the corn has grown considerably as well as the beans and the cucumbers. And I think that the okra is doing well. In fact, if I went outside and took a picture now, which I really don't feel like doing...the pole beans are actually above the top of the fence. And the melons and wrapped themselves around the corn. This side of the garden is my favorite. Mostly because the smell of summer is actually the smell of homegrown tomato plants. Every time I check the garden, I lean over and smell them, and it is precisely at this moment that Mia thinks it is appropriate to jump on me, virtually landing on my back. Its great fun. And this is the best part. This is Beet Crust Pizza! We have zucchini and crookneck on it, as well as basil pesto, tomatoes and cheese. Lots of cheese. MMMM.

Our Newest Acquisition

Before:After:
This is my Yamaha 47" Professional Upright. It's loud, and it's amazing.

The Pup

I think that it is time to post a couple pictures of our puppy. I will go in order, so that you can see how she has already gotten older and bigger.
This is the absolute cutest picture of Mia. When we first brought her home, she did not like the tile at all. She would only walk on it to get to the carpet. She also would not walk on the patio out back either. This is still her favorite place to lay down when we are in the kitchen.
We have actually recently discovered that the toy that Mia has destroyed here was good when she was not teething. She is currently loosing all of her teeth and biting everything. Everything. She figured out that there was a squeaker in this toy and that is what she wanted. Just the squeaker.

Mia loves to sleep. She is a lazy puppy. This is one of the cutest little sleeping pictures. I don't know how she ended up having two blankets outside, but she is holding one in her paws, and the blue out is like a pillow on her. Super cute.
This is Mia in Provo waiting for Scott. She loves the grass. When I first put her down on it, she rolled around and lounged. She only picked up her head long enough for me to get a picture.

Easter in St George (still catching up)

After Great Basin National Park, Scott and I went down to St. George.
We had an Easter egg hunt...my first one in red rocks and no grass! But those rocks were fun to climb on.
I decorated my first Easter egg, which I decorated to be a soccer ball, and Eliza put a cute face on it to make it look like it was being kicked!We also decided to take a practice Christmas picture...then I realized we didn't have our puppy yet! But here ya go, that is a sheer cliff behind me...I was terrified.

Catch-up: Lehman Caves!

Scott and I went camping in Great Basin National Park. It was freezing! When we woke up that morning, there was frost on the car! Yay for our mummy bags. Anyway, we then went on the cave tour. Here are some pictures from the cave!Scott is on the back of the one that I am standing next to below.

I like this one because it looked like an organ on this side.

The Trip to NC: Part IV

We went to the BEACH! For this post you should just look at my mom's blog:

thisisntthelifeisignedupfor.blogspot.com

The Trip to NC: Part III

We went to a couple of graduations.
Kirsten: Finally finished kindergarten! She was so cute!Hayleigh: She was promoted to the 6th grade! A middle school girl!

Tyler's graduation! Yay! He did it. He also has goofball hair
And, in other news about that, it was about 95 degrees outside, and we started 40 minutes late. The graduates had to be in line at 8, for graduation at 9. A few of them decided not to show up until about 9:30. Punks.

The Trip to NC: Part II

Well, I know that you have been dying to hear what we did! Well, first, we caught up on some lost sleep. Then on Monday, Scott went to work with my dad building stairs...(oo, fun..) and my mom and lounged around the house, eating popsicles. Then, on Tuesday I went to get a haircut. I now have an incredibly short a-line style, which I think looks really cute.

Then on Wednesday we went to Carowinds. It was a very hot day...about 96 or so. And in an amusement park it is even hotter! But that did not stifle my excitement!

Me...You're gonna love this place! I've been here a million times!

Scott....Okay, I believe you.

After riding what I thought was my favorite ride, "The Hurler" and being whipped around so much I thought my ears would bleed the next time they banged into the seat restraint, this is what I had to say,

Me....That used to be much more fun.

Scott....Ughhhhh

So we rode what we could, and then decided to hang out in the water park. That was really nice. My favorite "ride" in the water park was the Lazy River.

We had decided before hand to stay all day, ya know, get our money's worth. But when we got there and were sweating buckets waiting in line, we quickly changed our minds. Good thing too, right after we left, we stopped to get dinner and while we were waiting in the drive through, there was a flash thunderstorm with raindrops the size of golfballs.

So we drove home in the rain; sweaty, sunburned, and feeling old.

The Trip to NC: Part I

We just spent a beautiful two weeks with my family! We started out the trip right after I got out of school...and left about 2.5 hours after I wanted to. We made it to Laramie, WY and drove right past our hotel. We tried to pull up the hotel on our GPS, but we had no service on our phones. After driving around for a while, we finally stopped at gas station. The attendant said he didn't know, but he would get a map. I was thinking an old fashion map because we had the address but he just whipped out his verizon phone and found it. Dang t-mobile.

We had to leave Mia in the car, which was hard, but thankfully our window had a perfect vantage point of the car. After sleeping in a barely 2-star hotel, we left for Columbia. Along the way, Mia had to stop to pee at every fill up, and we think she peed in like 10 different states. We finally made it to Columbia late that night and Scott's Aunt Sharon and Uncle Jack were very gracious hosts. (The bed in their guest room hugs you back I swear.)

We left early that morning and made it to my parents house late that night. My sisters were already sleeping and did not wake up. Goof balls. I liked walking around and seeing all of the work that my parents have been doing to their house. And so our first night of our two week stay we sleep in the room where all of my brothers clothes are located and the box spring on the bed is the loudest I have ever heard. It was all I could do to keep from moving so it didn't wake up the neighbors.

Rugby

I know, I know, you all want pictures of my house and my puppy....but I just wanted to say that we love rugby! Scott and I went to the BYU rugby game two weeks ago, to a couple of my students rugby games and then we watched BYU rugby on Saturday and hopefully going to the College Premier League final on Saturday!

The first BYU game we went to was super fun! We had really good seats and watched them beat Navy 64-12. Before the slaughter was over, Scott leaned to me and asked, "Should we be worried about our nation's protection?"

A couple of my students play rugby for Herriman Rugby Club. They jokingly invited me to their game on Saturday. Boy were they surprised to actually see me! The 9/10 grade team won their semi-final game against United 62-7 and face off against Highland (yes the famous team from Forever Strong) in two weeks at University of Utah. That will also be a fun game to watch.

Then, after we went to that game we watched the California vs Utah and the BYU vs Arkansas semi-final games. We will be going to see the BYU vs California in the final at Rio Tinto stadium on Saturday. It is going to be awesome!

Anyway, everything here is great....I have currently misplaced my camera, so there are no pictures for the time being....you will know when I find it!

Our house is empty.....

So, we have officially moved into our house! It has been a very tiring week. We have basically nothing...but Scott keeps reminding me that less is more, and that not every space has to be filled just yet. Everything is still in boxes thanks to two consecutive nights of Parent-teacher conferences. Speaking of, my conferences are going great! Parents are leaving my room with smiles and laughing. However, I take an awful long time ( I like to talk, who knew?)...so parents are waiting at my door for a long time. I am going to try harder today.

Anyway, just thought I would give you a quick update...pictures of our meager belongings in our house to come soon!

The Waiting Game

We are down to the wire to get into our house. I feel kind of helpless because I do nothing but WAIT! I hate waiting with a passion. Because I know that you can't wait either, I decided to post a couple pictures of our house!


This weekend we are in Tridell again, but this time we are joined by Erik and his kids, Chris and Emily and Brielle, Amy and Dan and their kids, Josh and Amanda and Addy, and there is also William and Stephanie and Paisley and super cute three week old Stetson! He is adorable and I got to hold him. It just makes me more baby hungry. Oh well, someday. So there is more waiting.

And on top of all of that, I have to be in school on Monday! It is a make-up day from the fire in Herriman this past fall. But, even if I have to be there, there are going to be about 5 or 6 kids in all the classes. People in this community just up and take their kids on vacation for weeks on end....and when they come back it is apparently the teacher's job to follow their child around and make sure they get their work in. Good grief. So I have to waste another day because it would be pointless to teach with 5 or 6 kids. So even more waiting.

This is the Jordan River Temple in the foreground of the Herriman Fire. My school is right at the base of that hill.

But, it will be a fun day! 5 or 6 kids will be cake!

New Goals

I had a goal to post on my blog once a week this year....We can see how well that worked out. Let me do a quick recap so that we can all be on the same page!

This past Christmas, Scott and I spent it with the Merkley's. This was my first Christmas with Janet and Errol and it was really fun! I got some great stuff from Scott and apparently Santa, including books, one of which I finished on December 28th....Scott and I had a bunch of fun playing with Josh and Amanda at their house, being out with Chris and Emily on the sleds and playing games until they got too competitive.

Then, when January rolled around, it was back to the grindstone. I went back to work. Oh, by the way, I teach at a middle school in the same school district that I student taught in. It is called Fort Herriman Middle School, it is beautiful and I love it! Anyway, I went back to work and Scott went back to school to start his second semester at BYU.

The house that we were gratefully babysitting for missionaries that we had never met before was about to be needed by them again, and so we began to search for somewhere to live. To no avail with cheap apartments that I would feel comfortable living in and paying for, we decided to buy a house. We bought a house in Eagle Mountain Utah (pictures to come!) and are very excited to move in. We are going to close hopefully next week.

Scott and I spend our time doing homework, planning around basketball games that we love to attend and trying to see each other in between!

We have another GOAL: to climb all the county high peaks in Utah to prepare to climb Mt. Elbert at the end of the summer. Josh and Amanda should be in on it, and anyone else who wants to join!!

Anyway, now you are caught up! Just bug me for another post next week!!