Sweet 16

Last night my little sister Ayrika received her Young Womanhood Recognition Award. I was so proud of her. She is an awesome girl. It's so fun to watch her grow up. And see which qualities she has that are similar to mine, and those that are similar to Andrea. What a great mix she is.... We sure do love her!

She is starting her jr. year in high school tomorrow. Luckily she is a lot like Andrea in athletic abilities and she is on the Volleyball team. She will be turning 16 this weekend and will be driving my old green camry.... I can't believe she is old enough to drive and date!!!!

In the pictures below, the dress she is wearing, she made. Don't worry she is awesome. I do NOT know how to sew like that. (Maybe one day she will teach me.) And I am wearing heels, she is wearing flats. We are the same height, or she might be like a quarter inch taller than me. haha.

{derby}

To celebrate the end of summer we got together with the Nelson's last Saturday. We went to the demolition derby in Spanish Fork. This may have been one of the highlights of my summer. Bob had been to a few previously, but this was my first and I had no idea of what to expect.

Bob and I enjoying the derby. Mary, Quinn, and I. Don't worry that he peed on Mary during the derby. haha.

Not only did I love watching the cars chase after each other, crash, and catch on fire.... but I loved watching Korbin's reaction to all of the cars. Everyone around us was commenting on how excited he was.

Sweet Deal

Bob and I just got signed up for this.....

Each "Pass of All Passes" includes all of the following thru Labor Day 2011

Seven Peaks Waterpark
-- Unlimited admission on days of normal operation
-- A 3% discount on food in the park

Trafalga Fun Center, Orem
-- Unlimited Mini Golf
-- Unlimited Slick Track
-- Unlimited XD Theater
-- Unlimited Batting Cages
-- Does not include arcade tokens

Trafalga Fun Center, Lehi (formerly Liberty Land)
-- Unlimited Mini Golf
-- Unlimited Laser Tag
-- Unlimited Slick Track
-- Unlimited Bumper Boats
-- Unlimited Rush Coaster
-- Unlimited Rock Climbing
-- Unlimited Carousel
-- Unlimited Frog Hopper
-- Unlimited Kiddie Area
-- Unlimited Pirate Ship
-- Unlimited Train & Airplane
-- Unlimited Mini Track
-- Unlimited Drop Tower
(Does not include arcade tokens)

Orem Owlz Games (at Brent Brown Ballpark)
-- Unlimited General Admission Tickets
(one ticket per home game per pass)
Utah Flash Games (at McKay Events Center)
-- Unlimited General Admission Tickets
(one ticket per home game per pass)

We paid $130 for 4 passes. We are really excited about this, especially since we love Trafalga and it is so close. (You have to buy 4, so if you only want 2- find a friend to go in on it with you.)

If you want more info, click on the link below. And search under entertainment for 4 pack passes.
http://www.citydeals.com/?ref=CDUMTE5MjQ3

Post 200

I left my house this morning and saw that my poor tomato plant had a miracle. (I have 2, they both have struggled all summer and have only had 1 tomato each.) When I glanced at them, I saw that one of them had gained some color. I have a tomato!!!!Next stop was Walmart. I needed to grab some notebooks and labels for my classroom. I wanted all of my notebooks to be the same color for all of the students. As I was pulling out yellow notebooks and throwing them in my cart some old lady started talking to me. She asked if I was a teacher and I replied yes. For the next 10 minutes she proceeded to bash on 1. Alpine School District, 2. Public Education, and 3. Property Tax and how 80% of hers goes to Alpine. She was quite upset. I just got to be the person who she vented to. It was quite interesting.

Grabbed some hair color with my cousin Emily. And then we went to her house for the afternoon where I got a little make over. I am going back to brunette, got rid of all of my split ends, trimmed my bangs, and got my eyebrows waxed. (pictures coming soon)

The whole time I was there I got to play with this little boy. Max is getting bigger everyday and it was a blast to hang out with him this afternoon.
Bob cleaned our entire house while I was gone today. I just have to say, I am spoiled and I am so grateful for my wonderful husband.

Tonight I baked 3 dozen chocolate chip cookies and made my first layered jello dessert. Tomorrow we are having a funeral in our ward and those were my assignments. I am so proud of myself for making the jello. My aunt Lisa is a professional at Jello desserts. I know mine doesn't look as good as hers, but I hope it tastes good.

Postcards

I just finished 27 hand written postcards to my new students. My hand is dead. I should've chosen a shorter message to write... but oh well.

I can't believe I am sending these out tomorrow, reminding them about back to school night, NEXT WEEK!

While I was working on the postcards and looking over my class list, I learned that:

-I have two students who were in my class at the beginning of last year when I was teaching the 2nd/3rd split. Both who are darling and I am so glad I get to teach them for 3rd grade.
- I have 17 girls and 10 boys. Uh Oh.

24 hours

This post is to show our quick 24 hour getaway. Before we left, we went and tried some cupcakes here. They were great, I loved the minis they were perfect size.

Then Bob took a quick nap. He finished up his 3rd MBA class for the summer. He gets one week off from school and then he starts pharmacy classes. I am so proud of him. He was dead tired after taking his final that morning.

We hopped in the car and picked up my sisters in Spanish Fork. Around 3:00 we began driving and made the drive in 3 1/2 hours to St. George. When we got there, we met up with my parents.

We went to dinner at Chilis after much debate on where to go. After we went and saw Tarzan at Tuachan. It was beautiful, I always forget how much I love their outdoor theater. We loved the performance. My parents saw Cats the night before and loved both shows.(Notice the mist.... Everyone around us was complaining of being wet. But Bob was loving it.)

We stayed in a nice condo and it was nice to be able to sleep in. We had breakfast at Dennys and then Andrea and Ayrika dropped us off at the St. George temple. It was a neat experience to attend a session there.
Packing and lunch followed the temple. We ate at 5 guys and then got smoothies at this fun place next door. And by 3:30 we were back on the road. Thanks Mom and Dad for a fun getaway.

Babysitting

A couple weeks ago we babysat my cousins kids for a couple days. We had a great time with Ethan, Jake, and Ryan. One of the highlights was going to this park. It had some fountains and then a little fake river with rocks and the river came flowing through. The boys had a blast.

Salmon Supper

Last night we celebrated my Grandpa's birthday by going to the Salmon Supper in Payson. This was my first time, along with Bob and Andrea. I had no idea what to expect, except I knew that we would be eating salmon.

There were tons of people in the park, my dad guessed at least 2,000. We didn't have to wait very long in line. I was surprised when the man put my roll on top of my coleslaw. He said, "You're going to need all the room you can get."

When we arrived at the salmon I saw the lady cutting a nice size piece in half, and then putting the small piece on a HUGE piece of salmon. This was my dinner....

Grandpa was very impressed with his portions and was glad he didn't tell them it was his birthday, because he wouldn't have been able to eat anymore.

Bob ate all of his salmon quickly. All of us girls took some home as leftovers. (We had a small problem finding a seat and then my grandparents both came down the same isle, so I had to crawl under the table to the other side to make room. That is the reason Bob and I are on opposite sides of the table. haha.)
Andrea and I enjoying our dinner. During dinner she told me she felt like she was 80 eating this dinner. We were surrounded by lots of old people.

I asked her how she did her hair with her staples and she said she just let it air dry, and then straightened around it. Her boyfriend counted and she actually has 7 staples.
After dinner we went to the park in Mapleton. My favorite park with the white gazebo across from the white church. We gathered with family to sing happy birthday and eat cake. - Sorry no pictures.

What a fun night. We hope to make the salmon supper a tradition every year.

The Molecule

Warning: Not for the squimish.

Today I met my Dad and sister Andrea at my Dad's office. We took pizza up to our family who were boating and having my cousins birthday party at deer creek. The party ended around noon and my uncle was having his young men come up at 4 for their activity. So we came right in the middle to take advantage of the boat in the water.

When we arrived our new tube named the Molecule was attatched and Andrea and I jumped on for a ride. When we were laying down, we had to hold on... but we stayed on the tube for the most part. We decided to be a little bit more daring, and we sat on our knees and held onto the the front 2 balls. We were on the tube for no more than a minute before Andrea flew off and I was flipped. It was a lot of fun.

We put the tube away and Andrea started in the water wakeboarding. The water was pretty choppy, but she did a great job. After 4 or 5 runs she asked if I was ready. I told her I would after one more turn. That last turn, turned into a huge face plant for Andrea and her board came back and hit her in the head. She didn't realize it at first, she was just trying to catch her breath from the face plant. When she got on the boat, she told me I needed to check the back of her head because she thought she had cracked her skull or something. She separated her hair and I could barely look. She had a huge gash on the back of her head.

We were lucky that my uncle and family were there to take the boat from us. We hopped in the car and drove to the clinic in Spanish Fork. They were awesome working quickly to help us. She got some stitches on the inner layer since it was deep and then some staples to close it all up.

This was when we first got there, her head wound hardly bled at all, she was very lucky. Dad and I waiting for the doctor to show up. I look like a mess, but I'll blame it on tubing and being wind blown.
This is right before they started stitching her up. This sad face was for the camera.
I don't know if she is related to me, because she hardly cried. She had a few tears, but I know I would've been sobbing the whole time. I am so glad that it wasn't anything worse.

It looked so much better after she was stitched and stapled.

Girls Camp 2010

Wow.... This was my first time experiencing girls camp, as a leader instead of a participant and all I can say is Wow. Surprisingly it was a lot harder then I thought it would be. We had a wonderful time amidst all of the rain and rodents.

-We ate wonderful food and had tons of leftovers.
-Living in an A-Frame cabin #7. Leaders on the 2nd floor.
-We enjoyed one another's company each night talking and playing games.
-Going canooing and participating in the confidence course.
-We had late nights of laughing with the leaders as we tried to fall asleep.
-Making picture book for children in need.
-Hearing wonderful messages from our Stake Presidency
-Calling on one of the youth to come save us from the rodents, night after night.
-Many trips to the "biffy" to use the bathroom and brushing our teeth.
-Stringing tarps from every tree to protect us from the sun and rain.
-Making my first baby hat during the service project, to be sent to a baby in the Nicu.
-Getting "Best hair award" apparently my curls held up for a few days.
-Singing lots of camp songs, some familiar and some not so familiar.
-Trying to come up with different songs for roll call each morning and night.
-4 leaders working on building a fire while the youth mocked us. It took 45 minutes.
-Not showering for 5 days straight.... that was hard.
-Giving gifts to my secret sister who thought they were from her BFF because they were just what she wanted.
-Being secretly happy when the rain, lightning and thunder canceled the hike.
-Not getting any secret sister gifts because my girl didn't show.
-Learning and doing the Haka for one of our roll calls.Here is our group of YW and leaders. In all we had 10 girls and 4 leaders, with some girls coming late and going home early. The leaders, Me, Hilary, Anna and Jacqueline. Not smiling in pictures is hard for me.

-Making my first tinfoil dinner with chicken.
-Eating lots of popsicles that the Bishop brought up.
-Playing the no teeth showing fruit name calling game.
-Reading our scriptures and sharing devotionals on the young women values.
-Meeting 10 new friends/sisters in the ward.
-Sharing our testimonies with one another.
-Meeting the Potguts, naming them, feeding them, and shooing them away.

-Cleaning, cleaning, and cleaning.
-Having to use my teacher voice EVERY DAY to get the YW to help us.
-Being very appreciative to my previous leaders, and hoping I was a YW who helped out.
-Laying in bed each night full of gratitude even though each day was hard.
-Coming home and enjoying a hot shower and a long nap!