Tuesday, November 11, 2014

A New Adventure!

Well folks, it's time for a new adventure! I haven't written about this before now because we didn't know if this would work out (and that would be embarrassing if it didn't) but it is all official: Justin has been offered a new position, and the company is in Washington! We are really excited about starting a new adventure together, and we're excited that this time it will be closer to family.

Up until a few months ago, I had no intention of ever living in Washington. In fact, when I was dating Justin I said, "If you want to marry me, you need to know now that I will not live in Washington." But at James's wedding in September it just clicked in my head like, "I could live by these people!" <---- AKA: the in-laws. Justin started looking for work a few weeks later. Initially he applied for a different position, but that led him to apply for two other positions giving him a good shot at getting one of them. I would say "lucky for us" but I know it's not luck, it's the Lord, so "blessed are we" that Justin got the very best position of the three offered to him! The interview process has been going on for about a month, so it is a huge relief after extensive interviews and tests.

So...now what? Well, we need to figure a few things out but what we know for sure is that Justin starts December 1st (this is all feeling frighteningly like last year at this time). He found that out on Sunday, so just in time for him to put in his two week notice yesterday. He has this week, next week, and then we are taking a week to spend in Seattle for Thanksgiving and he starts the next week! So basically, we will fly to WA together, and then I will fly back to Vegas while he stays and starts his job. Crazy! So we are figuring out when I can join him and where we're both going to live and all that.

In other news, Justin celebrated his 26th birthday last week. Tuesday night I surprised him with tickets to Wicked: it was playing in Vegas until the 9th, so we caught it just in time. We loved it! Wednesday for his actual birthday we went out to eat at the Cheesecake Factory and he opened his gifts: some new clothes and a fitbit! Totally surprised him with that one. p.s: ALWAYS buy protection on your expensive toys! Hello...$20 for a two year protection which we ended up using that very weekend!







Justin's work people decorated his desk for his birthday: cute!


They know him so well. =]




...Because we had an Ultimate tournament this weekend! Thankfully it was in Vegas this time so everybody came to us. There were 11 teams that came out to play. We didn't do so great: we went 1-3 on Saturday. Don't be deceived: I played awesome. Ha. Just kidding. But seriously, Justin and I had tons of fun playing together and we both played well even though we lost a lot. During one game some idiot flew into Justin ripping his fitbit off causing him to lose the connecting piece rendering it useless (as it needs to stay on your wrist to work). Thanks to my $20 investment, we went to Best Buy that very night and got a ban-spankin' new fitbit totally free. Win.

*No pictures yet, but they will come...

In other good news, it's "No School November." We've had two three-day weeks so far and it's been glorious! Little do students know that teachers are more excited to miss school than kids: every time.

Since I know Justin and I will be separated for my favorite time of the year ever, I put our Christmas tree up. Judge me all you want, but I want to celebrate Christmas while my husband is around! So yes, the tree is up, it is lit nearly 24/7, and Christmas music has been playing off my Pandora station for the past few days: deal with it. Pretty soon my students will get to deal with it as I will be playing Christmas music in class. I'm already looking forward to spending Christmas in Idaho with Dad's homemade strawberry ice cream, salmon and waffles, fudge, and all the rest of Mom's delicious food. Not to mention the SNOW and the COLD I am looking forward to and everything that entails: snowboarding for sure, maybe some sledding, maybe a snowman or two...I can't wait! The 70 degree weather has been great, but it is just WRONG to sing "Let it Snow" when it is 70 degrees outside! So not festive...#endrant.



That's about everything I have to say for this week. Wish us luck on our new adventure! We know that as we continue to make decisions with Heavenly Father's guiding us, we will always be happy. That's what brought us to our Vegas adventure which has been amazing in a lot of ways. We've felt for some time that the Lord has something new in store for us, and we're excited to start a new chapter of our lives.

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Halloween!

We had such a fun week! This year Nevada Day landed on the 31st (apparently it changes...weird holiday) so we had school off on Friday. Since there was no school on Halloween, kids and teachers got to wear their costumes on Thursday. I was Tinkerbell this year and had a ton of fun! My costume was made of an elastic waist band, green ribbon, and as much tulle as you can imagine! It was glittery tulle too, so by the end of the day there was glitter all over my room. I was considerate to the custodians and only wore my costume in my room so as not to glitter-fy the entire school. A lot of the other teachers and students dressed up so it was a lot of fun.

A while back a student in student council approached me about being in the pie eating contest during the Halloween dance. I accepted, and after school on Thursday was the dance. I was also asked to chaperon, so it was a win-win! The pie eating contest had a teacher, an 8th grader, and 7th grader, and a 6th grader. At some point shortly before the contest began, it occurred to me that the objective was to actually eat the whole pie as fast as I could (which somehow slipped my mind when I initially accepted the challenge). I was going against an 8th grade boy and was sure he would win, but I ended up winning the contest! It was no easy feat: I nearly threw up. You couldn't use your hands, so that would have meant me barfing all over the student who was holding my pic tin for me...speaking of pie tin: I was a little aggressive with my pie eating and ended up cutting my chin on the aluminum pie tin! Sheesh! my strategy was to get as much pie on my face and in my hair so as to eat less which ended up paying off. My reward for winning? A $20 gift certificate to Marie Calendars for more pie. Awesome.

Overall I think I had more fun at the dance than any of  the students. I was dancing the whole time! When "Shake it Off" by T-Swift came on, there was a circle of students just watching me dance because I love that song and I was working it! So so so so so much fun.

*Plenty of pictures were taken of all the above, but not on a camera I have access to yet: I will show those pictures when I get the chance!

When I got home to shower the chocolate pie out of my hair, Justin was on the phone doing his second interview with DaVita. He won't find out what they thought about the interview until Friday of this week. We don't really know what to expect, but Justin felt good about his interview, so we will see.

Thursday night was also our ward activity. A lot of the youth and kids were dressed up, but not as many adults: lame much?! Justin and I dressed up of course: you can't NOT dress up if you're married to me! I made our costumes and I worked on them for quite a while throughout the month. I was stoked to show them off! Another couple in our ward had the same costume idea which was hilarious: she was Tink, he was Hook, and their baby boy was dressed up as Peter Pan! Of course we had to get a picture. Justin and I brought soup and a dessert to share and we were in charge of one of the kid games after dinner. We enjoyed hanging out with a few people in our ward during the trunk-or-treat part of the night. It was an awesome ward party!
This is Justin's red jacket fresh from Goodwill. I transformed it into his costume!

All of this is homemade: I added the gold trim and buttons to Justin's red coat, we made hit hat and added the feather, his hook is his hook from his kitchenaid, and his shoes are also trimmed with gold ribbon. My costume is all tulle with a green ribbon tied around my waist and wings safety-pinned to my back. So much fun!
Somebody has great taste in costumes!

The Bishop drove the kids around in this darling train. Love it!
Friday I had school off so I deep cleaned the entire apartment. There is this thing you can buy at WinCo: SOS. It's steel wool with some kind of soap/bleach integrated: it has totally changed my life. Our apartment will never be the same: it's totally spotless! Sinks, stove, bathtub/shower...it's all been transformed thanks to this new discovery. I am one of those crazy people who will clean for 3-4 hours and enjoy every minute (which was my Friday morning/early afternoon).

That night we were invited to a Halloween party by a couple in our ward. We got to hang out with a lot of families and their kids. We took them trick or treating around the block and ate lots of delicious food. Trick-or-treating in the city is amazing! I was explaining to my friend Rachel how in Lost River you bundle up with your winter coat underneath your costume, drive a mile to get to a house, trick or treat, and then drive a mile to get to the next house. Wow Mom and Dad are total TROOPERS! It took two hours to trick or treat! We trick or treated for 15 minutes and we were done! It was actually more like 30 minutes but, you get my point.
sorry for the camera weirdness, but it's trick-or-treating time! We have Tinkerbell, Dorothoy, a pirate, a 50's girl, Thor, and Minny Mouse. 
I trimmed my costume up for Halloween: it looked so much better!

Saturday Justin and I traveled to the west side of town to visit Red Rock Canyon. I am obsessed with this place because geologically it is baffling to me! Since Justin might be getting a new job, we are fitting in all the things we want to do in Vegas before our time here is up. It was COLD. The goal was to drive around and hit up some of the hikes, but the desert heat has officially changed my tolerance for cold. I couldn't stand to be in the brisk wind for more than a few minutes. Luckily, much of the canyon is easily enjoyed via car anyway. We enjoyed our morning seeing the different sights.












All sandstone...and a random strip of oxidized sandstone sandwiched in between....I don't get it! It's obviously time to start my research.



















One of the best examples of preserved wind direction
gorgeous alternating red and white sandstone
weather permitting, I probably would have bouldered all over this place all day. I think Keaton would have loved it. It's so easy to climb around, and there's so much to explore!










That afternoon we worked through some Best Buy/Verizon drama to figure out our phone situation, but by the end of the day I walked away with a free upgrade so, not really complaining. We ate at Red Robin to stuff our faces with bottomless fries before starting our fast. 1:00 church is kind of nice on fast Sunday because you get to start so late on Saturday, but also pretty horrible...especially on daylight savings Sunday. Wow, I officially hate daylight savings. At 6:00 this evening it felt like bed time! There is still plenty to get done after 6:00, yet I feel like it's time to watch Netflix and eat the rest of the night. This is not boding well for my figure.

Today Justin and I subbed in Primary. The last time I attended primary for any reason I was 11: it was an adventure! We only had two boys show up for our class assignment. Another class had seven rather rowdy five year-olds which was quite the sight to behold. Our two boys were total rock stars and we had fun doing singing time with them and teaching them about service. I made lasagna soup for dinner and it made a ton, so we went to the Haymores and shared with them. Rachel made a Texas sheet cake for dessert which was totally awesome! Isn't food the best thing EVER?

Tonight Justin's family did a Google Hangout with him and played a game where he earned a gift card of his choice for his birthday present: he won a Red Robin gift card and a movie gift card. This special guy has a birthday coming up this week! I am lucky to be married to such a gem!

That was our fun-filled Halloween week. Until next time!