So hypocritical

I constantly find myself wanting my friends to "update" their blogs. I love reading other peoples' blogs, but find that I am certainly not great at keeping my own blog current. So, here's an update on my life, if anybody out there actually reads my blog :)

Over the weekend, we did a few fun things... ate Cafe Rio and saw "Contagion" with Pate & Kacee, had lunch with Tyler's dad, played cards with Michelle & Trevor, and opened Mom's Christmas gifts with Tiersha & Josh. Cafe Rio was delicious (it had been too long!), Contagion was interesting...more like a documentary then a movie, but still good, Wing Nuts was great (it was our first time there, but we will definitely return), cards are always a good time, and Christmas gifts were homemade crafts from Mom. My mom sent these HUGE gifts home from Thanksgiving with my cousin, and we decided to open them Sunday since Tiersh & Josh are leaving this Sunday for CA. They did not disappoint, and they most certainly show how talented my mom is...

Us, super excited about the gifts (well, at least me)!

Predicting the future

Remember these from Elementary school...?
Yeah, I found one of my student's playing with this during class...So, I did the teacher thing, and said, "Thank you, this is mine now." I totally forgot about it until later in the day when I pulled it out of my pocket. The future for these 5th graders could be any of the following (this is what it said on the flaps):

• You will be stupid
• You will fall in love
• You rock
• You will be pore (poor)
• You will be in love
• You will merry Caroline
• You will die on Christmas

These kids are hysterical...

Black Friday 2011

We did it....Black Friday. Even Tyler came. It was quite the event.
I went last year with Tiersha, but we didn't go until about 5 am. This year we left Blackfoot (Idaho) at 11:30 to make it to Idaho Falls by midnight... We made it right in time. We went first to Best Buy, and waited an hour just to GET IN. Mind you, we're in Idaho so it's freezing outside, but definitely not as cold as it could have been (no snow, thank goodness).
We went with Lisa & Shawn, and Tyler's uncle and aunt, Heather and Kevin. The boys were troopers the whole time. We found a few things we wanted in Best Buy, but nothing great so the boys waited in line, which ended up taking an hour and a half!! Meanwhile, us girls headed to Old Navy. We bought what felt like the whole store. We took care of Sub for Santa gifts, as well as many things for ourselves. I got a coat that I'm in love with for $24 on sale from $80.
We then proceeded to go to what seemed like every store in the mall. At this point it was 4 am. I got a few Christmas gifts taken care, and Tyler and I bought a few things for ourselves. Black Friday is a funny thing...I started to feel really delirious around 2 or 3 am, but then I started to feel super jittery from the caffeine (I drank a Dr. Pepper before we started), and then I was hyped up the rest of the time. I was on a roll. I was on fire!
While we were at the mall the boys finally did meet up with us, and Kevin ended up falling asleep on a mall bench. Tyler and Shawn lasted the whole time. Talk about AMAZING husbands. They had no idea what they were in for when we said we just wanted to go to 3 or 4 stores. After the mall we headed to Target while Lisa & Shawn hit up Kohls, and Kevin & Heather slept in the car.
We went in to Target really only looking for cheap DVD's/Blu Rays, but ended up with a second PS3 controller and a Christmas tree!! So exciting! The tree was $30 on sale from $60, 6 1/2 feet tall, and pre-lit, which made it PERFECT. We really do enjoy getting a Christmas tree every year, but this is so much easier. I think we will still go get a small, real tree, but as for our large tree, it will be fake with a yummy smelling pine tree candle next to it :)
At 6 am (give or take) we headed home, arriving at 6:30. We had a fabulous time. Being with Lisa and Heather was a blast, and our energy was incredible. We will definitely be crashing later today. Women are so funny when they get shopping. Boys, on the other hand, last for a good 2 hours before they're completely over it!
I'm really glad we did Black Friday this year. Not so sure if I would do it again this early, but I am a believer in it. I saved a lot of money!

The big 26!

Happy birthday to my love! Today is Tyler's 26th birthday, and in his opinion, he is OLD. However, the older I get, the more I realize that age doesn't matter, and you are only old if you let yourself be old. I'm grateful for a wonderful husband who's always kind, patient (way more than me), and honest with me. Last night we headed up to the outlets in Park City, and had dinner with our friends Pat and Kasey.
Here's to a great year!

Halloween 2011

If you know me at all, you know I am not a fan of Halloween. Welll.... being a school teacher, I HAD to dress up. I waited until the night before (of course) to find a costume, and what I found at Tyler's mom's house was a skunk costume, ha! I put my costume on at lunch, and then proceeded to participate in the school parade, where I marched around with ALL of my students through the entire school, and gym (quite large) where, I swear, EVERY child's parent was. It was quite the experience. I hate being in front of people, to say the least. Tyler and I always joke, "don't look at me," b/c I really do NOT like people looking at me. Anyway, I dressed up, and it was a success. That night Tyler and I went over to our neighbor's house for a party, and Tyler also waited until the last minute (literally), and decided to be a nerd. For putting it together in 10 minutes, it was awesome! He looked like a great nerd. We were not a couple with a theme, but our costumes were a hit.

Home

The babies using Gracee as a jungle gym

Recently Tyler and I drove home (to CA) with Josh and Tiersha. Tiersha and I had Fall Break so the boys took a couple days off from school and drove down with us. Tyler went riding with my dad all weekend while I stayed home, played with the babies, hung out with Nicole, watched Annie play volleyball, had lunch with Grandma, Grandpa, and Robyn, and did a little bit of shopping. It was a fun weekend, and a nice break from school.

Provo River Trail

Tyler and I have made a few trips down to the Provo River trail in the last month, and I thought I'd share some pictures from a few weeks ago. Enjoy!

A lot of Utah in one day

About a week and a half ago, we went with Tanner and Allie, and Lisa and Shawn to visit many of Utah's wonderful places. I wasn't expecting the day to be as fun as it turned out to be, and I really enjoyed learning more about the state I've been in for over 4 years (can you believe it??)! We started the day off with "This is the place," which I haven't been to since I was a little girl. It was really cool to read the stories and see statues of the people involved in the coming to Utah. We then headed to Promontory Point, which is a LONG drive. Tyler and I fell asleep for almost an hour and a half, and we still a little ways to go. If you haven't heard of Promontory Point (like myself before I went), it's where the east coast railroad and west coast railroad met. There's the "golden spike," which the last spike they put in the railroad. It's not actually at Promontory Point, but we did see some replicas and other really cool things. They had 2 replicas of the trains they used to use as well...definitely my favorite part of the whole place. After Promontory Point, we headed to the Great Salt Lake. It smelled awful! Everybody but myself (because my shoes were paper thin and would get SO ruined) walked out to where the water starts, and they saw several dead birds...gross! After the Great Salt Lake, we went to our last Utah monument for the day...Kennecott Copper Mine. It was quite the site. The trucks they use for that place are HUGE. Massive. Lastly, we went to dinner at "The Pie." We've never eaten there before, but have only heard great things about it. It's quite a dive, but it was just as good as everybody said, and better! Yum!
All in all, it was a really fun day, and it was good to finally see the things that I keep hearing so much about.

Vegas or Oklahoma??

Currently, Tyler and I are waiting to hear back from dental schools. This is all to see if my smarty pants husband will be admitted to dental school next fall. So far we have gotten some no's, but we HAVE gotten 2 yes's. And, when I say yes's, I mean interviews. For those of you not familiar with dental/medical school, students have to interview before they are admitted to the school. The 2 places we have heard from (drum roll please...) are UNLV (Vegas) and OU (Oklahoma). These may not sound super duper exciting to anyone else, but Vegas is perfect location, being right in the middle of both of our families, and OU is awesome because our best friends and Tyler's uncle and aunt leave near the school. Either would fabulous. Tyler has an interview in Oklahoma in 2 weeks, and one with UNLV the first week in December. Wish us luck! :)

Super 8

Saw this movie last night... It was so great. The kids were hilarious, and definitely made the movie. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it! Best part? It's at the dollar theater now :)

Busy busy days

Once again I am behind on blogging! My days have consisted of planning, teaching, planning, and teaching...it's the same thing ALL day, everyday. Don't get me wrong, I love my students, but sometimes it's a bit tiring. I plan for a day and think everything is going to go peachy (like today), and then it turns out to be a disaster b/c the kids can't focus, or whatever the reason may be. It's just that I get home, and all I want to do is sit on the couch when I get home and do nothing! And, that's pretty much what I've been doing, sadly. However, last night I did make homemade meatloaf (Grandma Gregory style), along with cheesy mashed potatoes (also homemade). It was quite a treat for Tyler since he's been deprived of good dinners for a while now.
Even with our busy schedules, we did make it up to Idaho last weekend for some time with the grandparents (the Gregory's). We drove up with Tanner and Allie, and stayed Friday to Sunday. It was a short trip, but very eventful. We went to "Spud day," and met up with Mike & Vicky (Tyler's aunt and uncle) and some of their kids. We walked around, got some amazing kettle corn (best I've had), and chatted a lot with family. We also went to a corn maze, which was actually a really good maze. It took about 45 minutes to get through, and the boys went in for more (almost took them an hour).
The rest of the evening consisted of being extremely disappointed with the BYU game, and more eating :) We ate so much food, and every meal was better than the last. Grandma Gregory is the best cook, seriously.
The weekend before Tyler and I celebrated a belated anniversary gift. Tyler bought me Rascal Flatts tickets at Usana theater. It was a great concert and it was packed!! Holy cow, there are a lot of country folk in Utah. Sooo, the music was great that night, but the boys did not look very good at all. They looked extremely odd, wearing black leggings or tight white pants. It's a very odd for 3 married men, in my opinion. Then, on the way home from the concert, we got stopped on the freeway for 2 1/2 hours! We got stopped first for a car accident (I'm guessing it was a fatal accident), and then for construction work. We didn't end up getting home until 1:30 ish...it was terrible.
The next day I went to a bridal shower for Lisa Hoppie, a good friend from home. It was really good to see her and April, another friend from home, and catch up on a lot of things.

A good day

Being a teacher is a funny thing. When you're a student, it looks so easy. Easy enough, that anybody could do it, right? Wrong! It's not that being a teacher is hard necessarily, but it's a lot of work and it's difficult work. It's very rewarding too. When a student who is normally confused and lost during a discussion understands what you are saying (finally), it's a a really good moment. Being a teacher has been overwhelming for me and at times I think to myself, what am I doing and what did I get myself into? However, it's days like today when I think, today was a good day and I remember why I chose this profession... The kids were great, almost the entire day. Mind you, it was an early out today so I only had them until 1:30, but still, they were great compared to the last couple days. At the end of the day 2 students had me in tears because I was laughing so hard, and that really made my day. I'm not sure why and I have no recollection of what the 3 of us were even talking about, but it made me happy and it made me glad that I can be apart of so many childrens lives. I know for a fact that some of these students really need me and my support, and I'm starting to really love each and every one of my students more and more, even the ones who make me go crazy once in a while :) A realization I have had in the last few weeks is that children are much easier to teach and connect with when they're in small groups or alone...teaching 26 ten year olds all at the same time is tough, but they are so sweet and nice when I've got their undivided attention.
I just wanted to blog about how overwhelmed but happy I am today (and hopefully this will happen on several more days) and how it's the little things that really make a day better (at least for me).
*Side note: remember when teachers would say, "I really don't want to do this but you guys are making me take away blank (some sort of reward) or making me give you more homework?" Do you?? Well, I do. And I remember thinking, well just don't give us more homework, or don't take our reward away. Well, I find myself doing this every day. It's interesting what kinds of things happen (especially when you swore they would never happen) when you become an adult.

Labor Day Weekend

This past weekend we were invited to St. George with some friends of some friends (we're now all friends). We went with Tom (Ty's friend from high school), his wife Caity, and their darling baby Riley. Their friends Lauren and Devon have parents who own a house in St. George so we went down with all of them and had a fabulous weekend. We laid out A TON (Caity and I were in heaven), shopped a lot, played Ping Pong over and over again (I went undefeated!), visited the St. George temple briefly, and even played a few games. We also made it down to Vegas one day to hit up the outlets, and got some GREAT deals. I got 2 winter coats for only $15 a piece from RipCurl...I was thrilled! We did a little boys versus girls challenge the whole weekend and played the Mormon version of Beer Pong. We used Sprite, Root beer, orange juice, mango juice, cherry 7up, sprite w/sherbet ice cream, and more. The girls ended up winning the whole thing, 4 games to 2. All in all, we had a great time and it was such a relaxing weekend (especially since we slept in until 10 almost everyday :) Oh, and Lauren is the best cook, so we ate really well the whole time too.

Lisa's Birthday

This past weekend was my mother in laws birthday. We decided on Friday to head up to SLC for the night and check out Tanner and Allies new place. They recently moved into a main floor of a house. The house is old, but its pretty nice, and much better than their last place (and in a safer neighborhood). We had a good time just chatting, eating pizza and cake, and watching the Office. The next day we went golfing and had a blast. Towards the end it was getting tough because of the heat but we stuck it out and had a good time. Happy birthday Lisa!

The gift we got her is called, "Subway Art." There's a picture (more like writing) for whatever holiday you want and you change the frame depending on the holiday. We got here Valentine's day, Easter, Christmas, and then a filler one (one about home). It's a really cute idea and I stole it from my friend Caity.

We also had the pleasure of seeing Melissa Pitts this weekend...always a treat to see anybody from the Pitts family. She was here dropping Tanner off. We had dinner at Michelle and Trevors, and it was some of the best food we've had in a while.

2nd Anniversary

We celebrated our 2 year anniversary this past weekend! I seriously feel like I've always been married (in a good way). It's hard to even imagine my life before I met Tyler. We've had a good 2 years and hope to have many, many more. For our 2 years, we celebrated by going up to a friends cabin up in Timberlakes (past Heber) and just taking it easy. We watched 6 movies, did 2 1/2 puzzles, hit up the outlets (got my first day of school outfit), checked out the Olympic park (I've never been), and slept in until 10 both days...it was heavenly.