Happy Birthday to me! I'm now 33!

"3 is a magic number, yes it is, it's a magic number." And this year I have double 3's in my birthday year, so it's going to be a magical year, right? It has been such a wonderful day. So many people have called, texted, or left messages on my facebook page to wish me a happy birthday. I truly feel like the queen of the day. It started out with some sleeping in (of course) and then we had blueberry pancakes with peanut butter on them. I love the blueberries so I was looking for the pancakes that had the most in them. Ryan got two that had a lot, so he brought them to me instead. What a great, wonderful man I married. I got an awesome Happy Birthday song from the Watts and Quincy tried to send me kisses through the phone by sucking on it. :)

I did start the day off by going to my friend Susan's brothers funeral. Her brother, Brian Scott Kelley, was in a major motorcycle accident which at first had them knowing he would be paralyzed, but they didn't know how much brain damage there would be. As time went on, they found out that there was no blood going to the brain and he was brain dead as of Monday, July 16. It was a very nice funeral and a lot of us from school went to support her.
After that, we relaxed a bit before we got to go to Chili's with my sisters, Jonelle and Maren, and my brother Eric. We met them at 4:30 for dinner. They already had the bottomless chips and salsa with queso ready for us when we got there. I got something I had never had before, Grilled Shrimp Tacos which were really good. She warned me that they were spicy, but I didn't think they were at all. They were very tasty. Maren got a sandwich which was not her favorite, Jonelle got the Monterey Chicken (one of my favorites- I was debating on whether or not to get that too), Ryan got the full baby back ribs, and Eric got this massive burger with onion rings and bacon on it. He couldn't remember the name of it, but it was huge.
My parents gave me as a gift "The Serpent's Shadow", another in the Kane Chronicle Series. Maren gave me some mini-eggs she had left over from Easter which I was so excited for because we didn't get any this year. Eric made sure to tell the waitress it was my birthday and we got this amazing caramel brownie with ice cream. Soooo good!

At Chili's. Gift from my parents.

I tried to flip it, but it wouldn't do it. This is the 3rd book in the Kane Chronicles Series.

Then we went to go see "The Amazing Spider-Man". I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, but it definitely surpassed the Tobey Maguire ones. I really did like it, even though it took me awhile to get into it. My favorite part (the one part where Eric laughed out loud) was when Stan Lee did his cameo. (Stan Lee is the creator of Spider-Man and all the Marvel Super Heroes). Just listening to his music on headphones while Spidey and the villian are fighting in the background. Awesome.
Then we went over to Jonelle's for some cake and ice cream. Jonelle had made the funfetti cake which I love and Eric had picked up from the BYU creamery a fudge brownie nut ice cream, yum.

The "awesome" funfetti cake Jonelle made.

Eric is very concentrated on lighting the candles.

Jonelle & Eric are now doing it.

As you can see Maren's candle has burned the most.

Look at ALL of those candles lit up.

The birthday song

I blew all the candles out in one breath!

Then we watched some Quincy videos before we left. It was a lot of fun and I will post the pictures tomorrow, but I at least wanted to get this up tonight. Thank you to all for making my birthday so wonderful!

Jonelle getting the Roku ready. Ryan excited to see Quincy. He hasn't seen her since she was born.

Maren & Eric chilling on the other couch.

We ended up having to video tape this on my ipad so we could all be in it. This was my first attempt to take pictures from a video. I tried to add special elements to it, but for some reason it didn't save it.

My goofy husband.

Now my goofy brother.

Love my family!

Eric was definitely hamming it up.

We have fun together.

I think Eric is really the only one who changed among all of these pictures.

Organization battles Entropy

I recently went to a Stake Relief Society Workshop and learned that organization is not a talent, but is a skill that can be learned. Well, I have been trying to work on that skill during my summer vacation and I have found the nasty law of physics, entropy, lurking around every corner. Entropy's definition states - a doctrine of inevitable social decline and degeneration/lack of pattern or organization; disorder. There is a Law of DISORDER! Therefore, for every thing that you put in order, entropy is there trying to take something else apart. (I hope it's not like the 3rd Law of Motion: For every action there is an EQUAL and OPPOSITE reaction. Uggghhh!) That has been my struggle for the past few weeks. For example, I just re-organized my kitchen exactly the way I wanted it. I had just made everything clean and orderly. The space on top of my fridge is now a space saving item, but I didn't realize I had left so little room for each item. As I was readjusting a basket, a bottle of Noni Juice fell on the carpet, hitting precisely at the bottle's neck causing the bottom to shoot off. Immediately, the sticky, nasty, tart smelling liquid, permeated into the brown carpet, splattered all over my kitchen chairs, table and wall. Entropy was out to destroy me! I had spent a good day and a half re-organizing my kitchen and it lashed back. It took me a good 3 hours to clean everything up, including the carpet (2x - thank goodness for OxiClean!)

I don't think you can see it very well, but this is the picture I took to 
show Ryan while he was still at work. It took me 3 hours total 
(not all at once) to clean!

Here is the cleaned result! No stains, just shadows from the table.

Even Ryan has felt the effects. He has been trying to get so much done with work, his new calling as 2nd counselor in a Singles Ward, and studying for the Enrolled Agent Exam. He has been doing all of this stuff to prepare and get organized and entropy comes along and he gets sick for 2 weeks straight! I felt so bad for him. He kept on trying to work and push through it, but every day he still had a fever of 102 degrees. It was horrible and there was no rest for him. In the end he had to succumb to entropy's power and call in sick. He took off Thursday and Friday and just slept. It was good for him to just sleep it all away (and go to an actual Internal Medicine doctor rather than InstaCare - not that they aren't good, just another opinion was needed). Thank goodness we got some good antibiotics and he is on the mend.

Poor Ryan. He just needed lots and lots of sleep.

I know that if you don't think about something, it takes it's power away, so can I do that with entropy? Can I conquer it and just not think about it? There must be a way to go against this Law. Maybe I'm thinking too much about this since I just finished "Matched". I need to not think too much about what I read. I just picked up "The Lost Hero" so I might be a little into Roman mythology for awhile. :-) Maybe Roman mythology and fighting bad guys is exactly what I need to fight entropy right now. I will just focus on the awesome power I feel of being organized and imagine entropy's power fading away. And if it doesn't, I guess it's another way for me to learn patience. :-)

Learning through Repetition

The best way to learn something is through repetition, right? Well, I guess the Lord wants me to be a professional at getting students accommodated with starting school in the middle of the year. I have had 10 students move out of my class from the beginning of the year. (It might be 11, I've lost track). With those students who have moved out (it seems at a constant rate), I have been selected by the school secretaries to receive the bulk of the new students. (Not by some malicious reasoning - at least I hope- it is just because my numbers keep going down and the other teachers' numbers have stayed the same).

The school secretary sent me an e-mail on Friday entitled "You are going to KILL me" and contained the name of the newest member of my class. (This will make 11 new students). My class seems to have a revolving door on it this year because as they leave, more come in. Luckily, I will be in the classroom on Monday when he comes, because it is also a joke that I am either at a training or something when the new student arrives.

I guess I just need to laugh and learn to perfect the art of helping students to start in a new classroom part way through the year. I'm glad that my fellow co-workers understand my frustration and laugh with me. The student before this one's name was Roxanne and my co-worker lovingly made me a CD that played "Roxanne" by the Police over and over again. I think I listened to it at least 15 times while preparing for my new student.

I must admit it is hard to see my other students go and new ones come in, but it keeps me on my toes and reminds me that the Lord is teaching me to learn by repetition. I must not have gotten it right yet. :)

The Family Proclamation meets Percy Jackson?

One of the things that I love about teaching 6th grade, is that I get to learn about all of the ancient civilizations. We talk about Rome, Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The best part about it has been learning how the gospel correlates with each of these different civilizations. I have seen how Mesopotamia flourished and fell because of their dealings with Jerusalem. I have also gotten a deeper understanding of why it was so important to find a Roman citizen (Paul) to help spread the gospel after the death of Jesus Christ. I have also seen how Egypt went from being a polytheistic nation (believing in many gods and goddesses) to believing in one true God during one Pharaoh's rule (Joseph's influence?). My newest insight came to me today as I was visiting teaching both of the sisters I teach today.

The title of the Visiting Teaching Message this month is "Guardian of the Hearth." (My thoughts: I have never used the word "hearth" except for when teaching about Greek Mythology, so it piqued my interest.) In 1995, when President Gordon B. Hinckley introduced "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" in the general Relief Society meeting, he said the following to the women of the church, "You are the guardians of the hearth, You are the bearers of the children. You are they who nurture them and establish within them the habits of their lives. No other work reaches so close to divinity as does the nurturing of the sons and daughters of God."

First of all, how cool is that to be called a guardian? I really did imagine a warrior princess defending her homeland and her home. Someone that is at the front of the gate, keeping evil out. It was so cool to think that we as women have that role of keeping out evil from our homes and protecting our family. Of course, the first warrior princess I looked up to was, She-Ra. :) Then maybe a Xena type warrior.

Now as I had said, the only time I had really used the word hearth, was in Greek mythology, but I know it has to do with the fireplace as well. When I think of a fireplace, I think of good things, I imagine warmth, good memories, family gathered around telling stories. The hearth is to be the symbol of what home is supposed to be like. It is supposed to remind us of good times and warm feelings of love towards one another.

Now, how does Greek mythology play a role into my thinking? One of my favorite juvenile book series is: Percy Jackson and the Olympians. It is written by Rick Riordan and is so great for my students because it teaches about Greek mythology in a fun action-packed book. In the last book, "The Last Olympian", Percy and his friends are trying to save Mt. Olympus from falling to the Titans and their leader Kronos. As all of the Olympians are out trying to fight the Titans, Percy travels to Mt. Olympus, the home of the gods, and finds that one goddess is left behind. It is Hestia, goddess of the hearth and home. She explains that she does not have any great powers and is the least of all of the gods. (Isn't that how the world would like us to think, taking care of the home is the least important of all the jobs?)

She then goes on to tell Percy that it is harder and harder to keep the flames of the fire going because of the weakening of the gods as they are away from their home. Long story short, Percy knows that in the prophecy about him, he will make a decision that will either bring the destruction or victory of the gods. It isn't until Prometheus gives him Pandora's box (if you know the history of Pandora, she was told to never open the box because of what would happen, but curiosity got the best of her, she opened it and all of the bad things such as death, hunger, sickness, fear, etc. came out into the world. The only thing left in the box is hope which means that there is still hope in the world. If she is ever let out of the box by mankind, then that means they have given up hope as well.) and tells him if he changes his mind on fighting the Titans to let hope escape to show they surrender.

Now, back to Hestia and why she is so important. :) As things are getting worse, Percy travels back to Mt. Olympus and finds Hestia still tending the fire, trying to get it to be bigger. As Percy comes closer to the fire he begins to learn Hestia's true role in the world. He sees in the hearth his mother, Paul (step-dad) and him at Thanksgiving dinner, his friends and him around the campfire at Camp Half-Blood, singing songs and roasting marshmallows, Rachel and him driving along the beach in Paul's Prius; all warm, loving, tender memories. Hestia then asks Percy if he is ready to make his decision. He looks at Pandora's box and realizes that hope is pretty useless to him with so many of his friends dead, Olympus is on the verge of falling and he had seen so many cruel things happen by the hands of the gods. In his mind Prometheus whispers Surrender, Otherwise your home will be destroyed. Your precious camp will burn. He looks at Hestia and remembers the images he'd seen in the hearth - friends, family, everyone he cared about. Then he remembered a fellow camper (friend/demi-god) saying: There's no point in defending camp if you guys die. All our friends are here. And then another demi-god, Nico, standing up to his father Hades saying: If Olympus falls, your own palace's safety doesn't matter. He then realizes that if the home is invaded and overtaken, then everything is lost. He gives Pandora's Jar to Hestia as an offering.

She is confused at first and says, "I am the least of the gods. Why would you trust me with this?"

"You're the last Olympian. [Percy] said. "And the most important."

"And why is that, Percy Jackson?"

"Because Hope survives best at the hearth," [Percy] said. "Guard it for me, and I won't be tempted to give up again."

The goddess smiled. She took the jar in her hands and it began to glow. The hearth fire burned a little brighter.

"Well done, Percy Jackson," she said. "May the gods bless you."

I hope this makes sense, but Percy realized that home was the most important because that is where you learn to trust and love others. He knew it needed to be kept the strongest in order to win the war. He realized that it was the protection of the home (Mt. Olympus) that would help to keep the evil out. The other gods had "abandoned the home" and left it vulnerable to attack, but because he gave hope to Hestia and called her the most important of the gods, their strength was renewed and hope burned brighter.

Now I know Rick Riordan is not a latter-day saint, but it is so cool to see that even in Children's literature, we can find simple truths of the gospel. The home is what is important and the most crucial to protect from the buffetings of Satan. We are the guardians of the home. We are the ones in control of what is allowed into our homes. We are daughters of our Heavenly Father and he trusts us to bring up the next generation with love, hope, and strivings to do what is right and trust in the Lord. I have a new soft spot for Hestia, the least of the Greek gods, because she is in charge of the most important spot of all: The Home.

(P.S. The picture I chose of Hestia was on purpose. It reminds me of the 10 virgins -one of the 5 wise- with their lamps. It is also a symbol of keeping enough oil in our lamp so that we can have a fire like hearth near us always - to remind us of Home.)

Happy Birthday to my Sweetheart!

It is Ryan's Birthday today and bummer! I am back at work AND I have Back to School Night tonight. What rotten luck! It is kind of nice having it on a Friday and school starting on Monday, but bummer that it landed on his birthday! Well, he is working too so we will play tomorrow! HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYAN!!

My big, buff, burly man!!

Love you and your zest for life!

Wedding Cake Luck (1 Year Later)

After we got back, we got to eat our Wedding Cake topper. We actually had two of them, so here are the pictures of the event. Since we had two, we got extra good luck!

This is the fabulousWalnut Creek, California reception wedding cake.

This cake had to travel from California to Utah, so it didn't stay in tact as well.

It may not look very pretty, but it was absolutely mouth-watering, even a year later. YUM!!

As you can see, Ryan loved it!

Okay, we both loved it! We pretty much demolished that one in one sitting! That's almost half the cake!

Happy 1 Year Anniversary!

Here is the cake from Utah. This one had the yummy white chocolate ganache frosting. So good! The actual cake part did not hold up as well on this one, so we just ate the frosting. It was like just eating chocolate.

It was all wrapped up nice right after the reception in Utah. We didn't have to travel with it as far.

The frosting really held up on this one. The other one was buttercream, so it didn't hold up as well.

So, in the end, the California cake lasted the longest and was the best quality with cake and frosting in tact. The Utah one, frosting was amazing and held up the shape the best. We were definitely lucky to have two cakes. Both were spectacular when they were fresh.

WOOHOOO! We have now been married 1 year!

For our one year anniversary, Ryan had a vacation package that he had bought before we even met to the Bahamas. It was going to be awesome. We were going to be staying in Florida for 5 days and then get on the cruise ship to the Bahamas for one night passage. Stay in the Bahamas for 3 nights and then get back on the cruise ship for another one night passage. I had never been on a cruise ship, so I was a little nervous and excited at the same time. I'll just explain it as you see the pictures.

Here we are at the Marriott Hotel we stayed in Florida. We were in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida for 5 days.

This is the view from our hotel.

Favorite thing that we did!! We went to Islands of Adventure where the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is located. So much fun!!  

We spent most of the time in Harry Potter World, but there was Seuss Land, Ancient Lands, Marvel World, Comics World, etc. Our favorite was the Hogwarts Castle ride, but loved the Dragon Ride, Jurassic Park Ride, Amazing Spider-Man, and the Hulk. (The Hulk has a cobra head, I think it's the craziest ride I have ever been on.) We spent most of the day there, long enough that we couldn't drive all the way back to Ft. Lauderdale. At first we were going to just sleep in the car, but I had nightmares of an alligator coming out of the swamp and attacking our car. So we went and found a place to stay for the night and then drove the rest of the way the next day. Better to not drive drowsy. We were super tired after a fun day at the park, so it was best to sleep. My feet hurt so bad!! 


The next day was horrible!! We wish we could have just skipped over this part. The reason Ryan got the vacation package was to of course from Ramada, so they wanted us to listen to their sales pitch on why we should buy into one of their timeshares.  We knew this ahead of time so we knew that we were not going to buy, but the guy was persistent and wouldn't give up. He kept taking us to all of these places. I think we met with him at 10 AM and we weren't done until 3:30. When he found out that I already had a timeshare (that I'm still trying to get rid of), then he tried to change tactics and we still said no. We could tell he was upset, but we had told him all day that we were not going to buy anything. We were so glad when that day was finally over. We stayed on the beach we visited that day for a while longer and then left. We tried to be honest, he just didn't want to listen.

This was apparently where a lot of celebrities keep their private boats. :)

Another view. I can't remember who's boat was behind us. Someone famous. :)

Different pictures while we were on the pier.

The bridge that goes back to the main land.

There is an island out there.

This was just funny! I used the bathroom and this was the soap that the gas station had for us to use in the bathroom.

On to another good day. We actually hadn't even planned on doing this one until we talked to my mom on the phone. I didn't even know about the Everglades and how cool it was to go visit it, so when she suggested it, we were totally excited to go. These pictures show what we saw there. Lots of alligators of course.

This is called the chocking tree.

This was where we went to dinner for the day of our actual anniversary (Aug. 6, 2011). It was called the Fish House. It was raining so much! We originally were going out to Key Largo (like in the Beach Boys song Kokomo) for the beach, but it was too wet. As we left, the sun eventually came out, but it was too late.

Ryan running out to the car while it's raining.

Now we are packing up to leave the Marriott Hotel and get on our Cruise Ship.

Here is our tiny cruise cabin. It is on the top deck, so in case there are any problems we can get out easily. Ryan understands my fear of water and drowning. So grateful for his thoughtfulness. I was already nervous enough being out on the water in the middle with no land around us.

Ryan's been on a cruise before, so he knew what to do and was totally at ease.

All you can eat food! However, according to Ryan it was not as good as the other cruise he had been on.

The buffet (it's closed now) but this is where we get to sit and eat. The pool for kids is behind Ryan in the above picture.

No land on the horizon! Only other time this happened was when I was on a bus crossing a bridge from Sweden to Denmark. That was pretty crazy to see water forever in both directions. This time it's a boat and not a bus.

Enjoying the sea breeze. It really was breathtaking and beautiful!

The sunset. Sorry it's blurry.

The ship.

Ryan showing me the safety gear on the boat. He just wanted me to know we were protected. :)

The name of our cruise line. Bahamas Celebration. (We later found out that it was a pretty crazy party Cruise) Ryan and I were pretty tame compared to the rest of the occupants.

At nighttime.

We stayed up pretty late.

Changed to leave the next day. It was just a night thing on the Cruise. I learned that we actually stopped for some part of the night. I didn't know that was what happened until Ryan pointed it out.

Getting off on the island. We are now in the Bahamas! This was why I needed my passport. That was a funny story.

We couldn't check in to the hotel yet, so where did we go? THE BEACH!! We learned very quickly that the sun in the Bahamas is a lot stronger than anywhere else we had been. We needed to put on sunscreen a lot more than normally. (We still got a bit red)

The beach is so beautiful! Love the white sands and the clear ocean.

Ryan was loving it

My model poses. :)

Ryan relaxing in the water. He loves to relax laying on his back in the water. One of his favorite things to do.

I think Ryan snuck in a picture here. :)

This is the Radisson Hotel that we stayed at on the island.

The view from our hotel room in the Bahamas.

Look a lazy river!

A blurry picture. Lots of palm trees. Love it!

Ryan decided to not shave during our trip. He said he was on vacation so he didn't want to think about it. He shaved it into a goatee in the end for fun. The sign below is to go with this picture. It was at the hotel because they were doing some construction, but we thought it was pretty funny.

They had a luau we could go to that we paid for. In the end it was another excuse for people to party, so we just stayed on the beach for most of the time. It was really a bonfire.

Ryan was excited at first for the bonfire.

Both of us relaxing. We were kind of laughing at the party girls trying to take model poses in their bikini's in the ocean.

Yes, we took a selfie of us relaxing on the beach.

Sitting in front of the bonfire. (Not really a great bonfire). I've seen better. The best yet, was in Sweden. :)

We stayed on the beach while the others partied.

This is a collage of when we went to Ben's Cave. It is the same cave that they used in Pirates of the Caribbean 4. It was pretty cool to go there. The bad thing was that it started to rain while we were there. Our camera got soaked and started to not work. It was such a sad thing, but these were some of the pictures we got.

We had a little bit of time before we got on the plane. (We had already come back on the cruise ship). So we took some crazy pictures by this park.

Oh my cute husband!

So we didn't take any more pictures after this since we thought that we were getting on the plane to go home. Nope! The plane was delayed because of weather in Texas and some mechanical difficulties (You never want to hear that), so it was just cancelled. They changed our flight to the next day and gave us a free stay at a hotel nearby. They even called a shuttle for us and paid for it. We also had a dinner voucher at the place we stayed. I had to call and tell my 6th grade team that I would not be there for a meeting we were supposed to have with our principal (he was moving some kids around). There's not much you can do when your plane is cancelled.

We had to get up early the next day and leave. At least we got to sleep on a Sleep Number Bed. That was pretty cool. I can never sleep on the plane, so it wasn't really relaxing. Of course Ryan slept. Eventually we got home and it was great to be there. I'll post later about us eating the wedding cake(s) from a year ago. Happy Anniversary Ryan! It's been a wonderful first year!