oh hellooo

Exciting news- my grandma is back from her mission! Woohooo! It was great hearing her talk on Sunday and being around family. I also forgot to mention all the fun we had in Phoenix for Thanksgiving. But we had a lot of fun. And the food was delicious.

It's ALMOST CHRISTMAS!! I'm at BYU proctoring an exam right now (yes, I had to get up at 5:30 this morning to be here on time- ew). I just have to come here ONE more time for the rest of the year. That feels good. My thesis is coming along little by little, and that feels good too.

I never write about working at SIP Academy, because I only do it a couple days a week, but man those kids are funny. Until I have kids of my own, I will provide you with some funny things they've said...

5 year old girl: "My brother has a girlfriend"
me: "Wow, how old is he?"
her: "Oh you know, he's Shaggy. From Scooby Doo."

I spent a good 10 minutes teaching a 6 year old to play hang man, then a couple minutes into the game she says, "Ummm what is this game about?"
me: "It's about guessing letters and trying to make a word."
her: "No. I think it's about dying. And that's not funny. That's sad."

9 year old: "Are you like going on a mission or something?"
me: "What do you mean?"
her: "Like that thing for the church."
me: "No....."
her: "Oh. You just look like you are because your outfit"

6 year old: "Good thing there's not a no farting law, because I would be kicked off the planet."

5 year old boy: "Where did you get your earrings?"
me: "From the store"
him: "Can you take them off? I don't like them."

me: "Guess what guys? I brought you some candy."
9 year old: "I hope it's not American. American chocolate tastes like wax. I only eat European chocolate."


Don't worry though, the insults are worth it, because last week one of the little 6 year old girls brought me a card she made, with a lot of difficult math problems inside (e.g. 100 + 200 = 300). It was really cute.

Birthday Month- part 2.

Happy Birthday to Matt (a few days ago)!!!
I think everybody that reads this already wished Matt a happy birthday, so it's old news, but I think it should still be documented here.
His birthday was great. My Uncle Mark took us out golfing with my dad in Phoenix. It was a lovely sunny day and the course was beautiful. I actually only played about 5 holes until my cousin Isaac filled in for me. After that, we all watched the BYU - Utah game with hot wings and pizza. Don't worry I had lentil casserole. Which reminds me I need to get that recipe it was yummy. My sister Rebecca and my cousin Maren made no-bake cookies for the birthday boy, and we took a break at halftime to sing and celebrate, and Matt read all of his poetry cards that we made for him.  All the pics are on Facebook, but this is my favorite:

Love this guy!

La la.

I'm sick. Not quite sick enough to miss work, but definitely sick enough to sit on the couch all weekend long and do absolutely nothing. That's not true. If productivity was measured by how many old t.v. episodes I watched, then I got a LOT done. We watched half of season two of Lie to Me, I caught up on ANTM (if you don't know what that stands for, then I would be embarrassed to tell you that I love it.), and Community, and also watched my Netflix pick of the week- Josie and the Pussycats :) . Don't let my picks of girly shows make you feel bad for Matt. We watched football yesterday. all. day. long. Except for when we took a break to play baseball on the Xbox.  (I'll be honest- I had a lot of fun playing.)

Speaking of give and take, Matt has been encouraging me to de-clutter some of my boxes of "treasures".  This is really, really, really hard for me. To come to terms with it, I started making some video scrapbooks of all my things so I can talk about them before I throw them away. Pretty sure these videos would be painfully boring for anybody but me to watch, but I might post them anyways so I can pretend other people want to hear about every movie, concert, and play  I attended in high school, or seeing every little trinket and souvenir I collected in China.

P.S. Stephanie visited last week and it was SO FUN having her here, I just wish it could've been longer. It's always hard saying goodbye to family. We also got to see Jenna for a VERY short time, I wish she could've stayed at least another night or two!

P.P.S. We leave for Phoenix TOMORROW! Goodbye Winter Dreadful-land, hello sunny desert.

P.P.P.S. I am proud to report that I am actually making progress on my thesis. This too shall pass.

Birthday Month!

I love that Matt and I have our birthdays in the same month, and I love that mine comes first so for a few weeks I feel like I am catching up to him in age. And although we do share the same birthstone, we do not share the same astrological sign. Not surprisingly. 

Anywaaays, first of all, thank you all SO MUCH for the birthday wishes! It was the perfect birthday. I absolutely have the best in-laws anybody could ask for, not to mention the best husband who always seems to know how to plan a perfect day (and keep it a secret). Also, Elizabeth came to visit!! Our very first house guest.  How sweet.

Highlights of my birthday- 

Getting sushi for lunch with Elizabeth, then doing arts and crafts at home on the floor.

 Later,  I came home from work to find Matt with a big bouquet of flowers and a very sweet note. 

Matt took me out to dinner at Market Street Grill (YUM!) then told me we were going to meet up with Elizabeth to go bowling. I wasn't too keen on the bowling idea so I kept trying to convince him to go somewhere else. 

He finally convinced me, so we went to the bowling alley and I was very surprised to be met with a bunch of our friends! Our lanes and tables were even decorated with balloons, and I kind of felt like I was 12, but I loved it. One of our friends even brought me a gluten free RED VELVET CAKE which was super delicious. Good times with good friends... we did manage to get a picture of most of us.

New York

New York was the best!

Here's the highlight reel:

• MARY POPPINS! Truly magical. Chicago was really great also.
• MoMA, Guggenheim, and the Met. Could have stayed there for weeks. Preferably in the Abstract Expressionism wings.
• Topaz = Best. Thai food. ever.
• Shopping, of course.
• Chinatown. Brought back some smelly memories.
• Babycakes. Unbelievably good gluten free bakery.
• Spending time with Diego, Joy, and their daughter Amalia. They are hilarious, so fun to hang out with, and really welcomed us into their home. I love their apartment.
• Central Park was beautiful! So was Times Square. And Grand Central Station.
• I loved seeing some of Matt's old mission area in Brooklyn! I might have been more excited about it than he was.

 Other than the fantastic Broadway musicals, to-die-for museums, fine eateries and such, here are some other things I gleaned about New York culture:

• About 3/4 of the establishments we visited had informational posters about how to save somebody from choking. I'd never been that worried about choking before then.
• If you want a slice of lemon in your water they can really only spare a sliver of a slice. Guess they have citrus shortage.
• Favorite thing somebody asked us on the streets- "Hey, do you like drugs and midgets?"Not sure that merited a response.
• If you want to fit in, wear black clothing, tall boots, and your best don't-talk-to-me attitude. I gave up on fitting in.

Happy November!

Lake Powell!

Well my first trip to Lake Powell was a success. I didn't really know what to expect, since I've heard people talk about how awesome this place is for about 10 years, and it seems like everyone but me has vacationed on a houseboat. But lots of other people also think Twilight and Avatar are awesome, and I'd beg to differ. ANYWAYS, houseboats ARE awesome, and Lake Powell was a ton of fun. Paul and Mary (Matt's aunt and uncle) were incredibly nice to invite us and feed us and play with us there! They are such cool people. Even though it was just a 4 day trip, it feels like it was much longer. We rode jet skiis (all day every day) read in the sunshine, played in the red sand, swam (and bathed) in the lake, napped on rafts, looked at the unbelievable stars and planets, hiked to see indian ruins, and other lake activities.

And we also went spelunking in that cool cave!

Another neat thing I witnessed for the first time was cooking a turkey in the ground! We (Matt and his cousin) dug a deep hole in the sand, lined it with big rocks, burned a lot of wood down to ashes and coals until the rocks were glowing hot, then placed the foil covered turkey in there, covered it with rocks and sand, and let it bake for 6 hours. It was delicious!  

This is the turkey being raised from the hole!

I love vacations. Taking vacations is more important than... not taking vacations.

October is looking good so far.

Okay so I have come to the terms with the fact that fall has arrived, especially because it stayed warm and sunny for SO LONG. Our last day of sunshine was on Saturday, so we wanted to get out and do a morning hike before the first session of conference. We ended up taking a different trail than what we had planned on and we had no idea how long it would take or where it would lead us.

The mountains are so beautiful right now! And speaking of beautiful mountains, I got a pretty cool mountain of a spider bite right in the middle of my forehead!

Conference weekend was great. Aside from the talks, we also enjoyed not getting dressed for 2 days, relaxing on the couch, eating bacon, rice krispies treats, chips, no bake cookies, and lots of other healthy foods. Seriously disgusting. To make up for that we've had salad for the last 3 days. But sometimes the salad has bacon. It's hard to get full on spinach.

 But one more note about the junk food. We got these super delicious "rice and bean" chips from Costco (made by Boulder Canyon) and I am addicted. In fact, I am going to grab a handful right now. Good thing I remembered where I hid them from myself!


We are getting ready to leave for Lake Powell tonight! We're going with some of Matt's extended family and I can't wait! I've never been. We're leaving just in time to escape the rain and thunderstorms. So, even though I don't normally like October and the coldness and scary holiday it brings with it, I am so excited for our trip this weekend and another one coming up in a couple weeks!