Well, hello there!

Ok... considering the fact that I haven't written anything since... February? (wow...) You are all probably expecting an update... here is the [very] short version:

1- Mitch got his mission call the first week of March to Sapporo, Japan. He actually said a few days earlier that he felt like he was jinxing himself, but that if he could choose his own mission, he would go to Northern Japan... I guess it wasn't a jinx! He was like a little boy on Christmas morning:
Notice the dazed look? Yeah... he was in blissful disbelief.

2- Mitch left for the MTC (Missionary Training Center) on May 19th. Matt, Michelle and Callan were able to come down for the farewell!

The Oh-So-Handsome Missionary:

The Fabulous Family:


And the most delightfully, darling, chunk of a nephew around!:Mitchell is absolutely loving the MTC and is devouring the Japanese language. He's always had a thing for Japanese culture and language, though -- so we aren't surprised :)

3- School ended. I officially survived my first year of teaching! (With no parents yelling at me either... though I was assumed to be a HS/College aide more than once...) Once the year was over, I spent the next week cleaning out my classroom for the summer, sorting supplies, etc. It's a never-ending job! I miss my kiddies, but it's nice to have the summer off and still get the same paychecks! ;)

4- The week after cleaning and before starting #5, I got to see my dear friend, Camille, her hubby, Cody, and their darling boy Jaden! They were in town for a bit during their crazy 3-week road trip so we took a morning to enjoy a Smoochie Smoothie :) I also got to go to my friend, Greg's, cabin at Bear Lake.

5- I've been working EFY again. I worked three weeks straight, had last week and this week off then go back next week. I love it! I had forgotten how exhausting being a counselor is, though. All three of my groups have somehow worked out with more guys than girls. For anyone who has been to or done EFY, you know that this is unheard of... and yet this year is crazy common. I had it 3 weeks in a row! And 2 of those weeks it was two guy counselors with me! Craziness! (My girls have been loving it... ;) )

6- Last week I was actually somewhat social! (Ok... I have had a few other sporadic social events since summer started...) I went to a birthday party one night and a house party another night.

I also went out to lunch with some of the girls from High School and was pleasantly surprised when another of my best friends, Katie, walked in the door with her baby, Kyson! They're living in Texas, but randomly decided to drive up since her husband wasn't in school and she was still on maternity leave -- it pretty much made my day!

7- Today Alex (16 and 6'1") and Jackson (13 and 6'2") left for a 19-day trip. They are on the 100th anniversary Boy Scouts of America National Jamboree and I'm pretty sure that they were more excited than they were willing to display... they get to tour in NY, PA and DC as well as camp and go to Busch Gardens... I'd be excited! (I love roller coasters...) The rule at our house is that to go they have to be an Eagle Scout... all four of my brothers have gone on the Jamboree now. Isn't that awesome? :)

8- Tonight... I'm going to the Days of '47 Rodeo!

How was that for an update? Still breathing? Seeing straight? Good...

♥ you all! :)

A Bit of My Crazy Life . . .

Ok, so I randomly decided to update you on my life. Now, as of right now, "you" (as far as I know) is Camille and Cody. So I hope you wonderful people enjoy this! If anyone else happens to read this, then I hope you enjoy it as well!

Life in Provo is pretty crazy, so back over Valentine's/President's Day weekend I took a getaway trip up north to Logan. I was fun to be able to spend a couple nights at Merica's apartment, hang out with Kameron and catch up with my B.E.S.T. :). I have the greatest friends!

Camille and I enjoyed the chance to talk and Cody was nice enough to allow us to reminisce on the countless sleepovers that we had growing up. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful best friend and sister! I'm so glad that she married Cody (he makes a great best friend/brother-in-law) and I am so excited for the arrival of Baby Cutler in October! (On a side note -- my brother and sister-in-law are expecting in August, so I get "2" neices/nephews this year! Yay!)


After the weekend, it was back to the real world -- lesson planning, teacher work sample, and my car in the shop. I did finally get my car back the last week of February after having driven my Grandma's car for over three weeks. (Yay!) While I love having the Volvo to drive around P-town, it will be nice to get a new car this summer. Hopefully I'll end up with something a little more reliable ;)

The rest of the craziness deals with the fact that I'm GRADUATING in a month. I love teaching! But working full time (student teaching hours are the same as those of a contract teacher) while still living the college life is a bit exhausting. Correction: it's a lot exhausting. My TEACHER WORK SAMPLE was due at 8:00am (at the school I'm teaching at in West Jordan) on February 25th. I finished it at 6:00am that morning. For those of you who don't know what a teacher work sample is, it's an intensive planning, execution and analysis of an academic unit. Let's just say that it's a good thing I only had 17 students' work to analyze and not the 29 that I have in my class now. Forty pages. Yeah. I'm happy to say that I found out on Friday that I passed it! TWS is now a thing of the pass and I will officially be able to graduate with my teaching licence on April 24th! At that point, hopefully I'll finally have the chance to catch up on sleep! (Gone from 7-5 everyday including 1.5-2 hours of driving and being on my feel all day is nuts. Good thing I love those kids!)

Here are pictures of the wonderful students I've taught. They are the greatest!

Mrs. Burch's 3rd grade class at Sharon Elementary
Winter 2008 -- 4 weeks

Miss Bybee's 4th grade class at Lindon Elementary
Fall 2008 -- 4 weeks

Mrs. Rosskopf's 2nd grade class at Midvale Elementary
1st Block Winter 2009 -- 7 weeks

Mrs. Bodtcher's 5th grade class at Riverside Elementary
2nd Block Winter 2009 -- 7 weeks

Oh, and just to give you an idea of some of the things I've done, at Midvale (with my 2nd graders and a class of 1st graders combined) I read the book THE RAINBOW FISH about the little fish who has beautiful, shiney rainbow scales which he gives away to be a good friend then we talked about what they could do to be a good friend and each student wrote/drew how to be a good friend on a 4.5 diameter circle of bright paper. These friendship scales I then put on a poster I made as the fish's scales. Here's the end result! (and yes, I drew it!)
Even with all the craziness, I still manage to have a good time. Two weekends ago I had a night out with Kelsey and Ashley. We went to the mall and tried on some crazy Chucks! Kelsey's were clear, Ashley's were knee-high, and mine were covered in glitter. I'm not going to lie, there was a part of us that wanted to buy them! We also had an ugly outfit photo shoot at Sears. Yeah. On Saturday I went to the final BYU Men's Basketball game then had a reunion with my Sophomore roommates. Oh -- and Kelsey and I opened the freezer to find the bottle of sparkling cider we'd put in the night before and forgotten about!

Last weekend we went to Kelsey's uncle's cabin for the night -- so much fun! We stopped at Smiths on the way up (in Heber) and the shorter roommates took a turn on the mini merry-go-round! Ash is my favorite -- haha! :)

I also got to go to AIDA at good ol' Viewmont High School last Saturday. Can I just say that my Alma Mater is amazing? Wow. It definitely made me want to go back and do another show. Check out some of the pictures (my friend was the photographer) from it HERE.

This weekend was another roommate reunion -- with the originals! I love my freshman roommates! It's crazy to see how much our lives have changed over the past coming-up-on-four years! It was great to catch up with them and see how close we still are. We were even able to grab Megan for a bit -- that old married woman ;). We missed Alyse though! (She's serving an LDS mission in Belo Horizonte East, Brazil)

Life is grand -- ain't it? :)