Book Club & Bachelor

I participated in my first ever book club a couple weeks ago, and it's honestly the best way to force me to read (because I love it, but I don't give myself to do it often enough).  The book we read was called, "The Happiness Project," which I really did like, but I felt like I needed an entire year to really take in everything she said.  She has some really great advice, and there were several things that I'd love to implement in my life.  I tried to take notes throughout the book, and I was surprised at how much I actually wrote down (just in my phone...easiest way for me).  A few things I loved from the book...

• "Acting as if you feel more energetic, you can become more energetic."
• "Do it now!" do anything that would take less than a minute (already doing this one, and it's GREAT!)
• "Sometimes the most difficult part of doing a task was just deciding to do it." 
• Both men and women need a woman to confide in
• Happiness in one spouse will boost the happiness of the other spouse...your habits start to blend together.
• "We tend to think that we'll be slightly happier in the future than we are in the present." (I can definitely relate to this one...as humans, I think we always think, "If 'such and such' happened, then I'd be happier)
• People think better/more flexible when they're happy (I totally feel like this is me...when I'm happy at work, I'm easier to work with, and I'm nicer to my students :)
• "The days are long, but the years are short."
• "Depressed people have as many nice experiences as other people, they just don't recall them as well."
• Sometimes traditions take time, but that's ok! (I hope I get good at making/keeping traditions!)
• "Group membership makes people closer and brings a significant boost in personal confidence and happiness." (I feel this way with being a member of a gym for the last few months)
• "You can choose what you do; you can't choose what you like to do." (especially with social media these days, it's easy to see what other people are doing, and wish that you liked the same things they did-because they look like they're really enjoying themselves- but we really should just be happy doing the things that make us happy)
• "Spend your money on things you LOVE, even if it means spending a little more than you were expecting."
• Discover things that you enjoyed as a 10 year old...you probably still enjoy those things (I still love children's books-so did the author-but I don't ever read them because I think I was afraid of the reactions from people.  I'd really like to start reading more, especially since I'm a 5th grade teacher :)
• (This one TOTALLY stood out to me-again, because I'm a teacher) "when researchers tried to figure out what helped 3rd and 4th graders remember what they read, they found that the students interest in a passage was far more important than the readability of the passage...30 times more important." (I see this probably every day with my students...no joke)
• "The things that go wrong often make the best memories."
• "Following through is the hardest part with goals."

Ok, so that wasn't a "few," but there were just too many good pieces of advice to not mention all the above.  

Another thing I've been doing for the past little while is getting together with other girls to watch the Bachelor.  I one hundred percent agree that it's a silly show, with not too much to offer, but I do thoroughly enjoy watching it, and have identified it as my "guilty pleasure" each week.  I really don't have too many TV shows I watch, so I don't feel bad ;)  It's just a good excuse to get together with friends once a week.

Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day, Tyler and I decided that I would be in charge :) We don't usually do anything grand for Valentine's day, so I decided to keep it low-key, and laid-back.  We started off by going on a hike up on South Mountain.  I brought dinner and snacks, and we hiked up to see the sunset.  After the sunset, we opened gifts (I did a gift for each "sense" for Tyler), ate some more food and watched "Fantastic Mr. Fox," a movie by one of Tyler's favorite writers.  Just a nice, simple evening :)

Olympic Opening Ceremonies

Courtney and I knew we wanted to do something fun for the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics, but really weren't sure what we wanted to do... So, we came up with the idea of going to their cabin with them and the Evans, and create our very own "Olympics."  We first decorated a bit...

Then we ate dinner...

After we ate and watched the opening ceremonies (probably 10 pm or so...), we started our Olympics...

The bags had goodies that could "help" each participant

 The face paint...

Our scoreboard...

The events!

First up: Ring Toss...

Next: Target Shooting...

Third: Cup Stacking...

Our fourth task (actually, I think it was first, but I really can't remember) was a trivia quiz about the origin of the Olympics...

Next: Speed (the card game)

Then, ping pong (Around the World)!

And, last was the obstacle course!

Sorry for the blurry pics, but the last obstacle was running up the stairs...

Chris ended up winning the whole thing, and did what the athletes do...bit his medal (trophy)

The next day, we just relaxed, went shooting, watched more of the Olympics, and did a little bit of reading.  It was such a nice break from school/work.

The boys trying to look hard-core

If you finished that entire post, props to you!!