Vegas was RAD

I’m taking a women’s self-defense class called ‘RAD’ which stands for “rape aggression defense.” It is two hours twice a week for three weeks. At the end a man dressed all in protective gear ATTACKS YOU and you defend yourself using the skills you've learned. I feel a lot more confident in defending myself and a lot more paranoid.

March 2nd & 3rd was the annual “Trouble in Vegas” ultimate Frisbee tournament. As some of you may remember, I went to this tournament last year with a mixed club team (men and women). This year we were able to take a men’s team down as well as a women’s team. Justin and I are involved with both teams so we took the weekend off to play in Las Vegas!

We left Thursday to start the weekend off early. We drove down in our little white car with another married couple that we’re good friends with, Scott and Christina. We rolled into Vegas around 11:30 PM, but not before a state cop decided to pull me over! I was so confused when I saw the patriotic lights come on in my rear view mirror because I wasn't speeding! Turns out he said I was ‘crossing the yellow line’ a lot (whoops!) so he wanted to make sure I was ‘okay’ aka…checking if I was sober. If I wasn't awake before he pulled me over I most definitely was after. Holy smokes I was shaking for like 20 minutes after that. Adrenaline rush!

At the apartment we locked ourselves out of the bathroom...whoops. We stayed up for an hour trying to open it with Justin's trick he used on his mission to no avail. This involved a hanger, floss, paper, and a computer cord...Good times.

Friday we saw all the sights we could see. We drove to Las Vegas Boulevard and walked up and down the strip. In 75 degree weather we saw the Luxor, New York New York, MGM, the Bellagio, Monte Carlo, Circus Circus, the Mirage, the Venetian, Treasure Island, Excalibur, and Caesar’s Palace. We also saw the M&M store and a bunch of stores in between like you see on The Devil Wears Prada. $1550 for a pair of men’s alligator shoes whaaaat? It was fun. Justin and I packed lunches but we were starving at around 2 so we split an appetizer as our friends got lunch at Gilley’s. We were on our feet from 11AM to 7PM. After we were done walking up and down the strip we went to the outlet malls to kill some time before dinner.

Caesar's Palace

M&M store

I'm sorry Mom!

The Mirage

Vintage Cars Museum

act 'fierce'

Excalibur

One thing that was fun on the strip was all the people dressed in costumes. There were people dressed in hello kitty, master chief, minney and mickey mouse, optimus prime and bumble bee, and Darth Vader. Our friend Scott got a picture with Darth Vadar and he got to hold his light saber. Sweet!

I made a dinner reservation for us at the Stratosphere. 800 feet above Las Vegas you can eat at the three star restaurant “On Top of the World!” that rotates counter-clockwise, so by the end of dinner you see the entire city from 800 feet in the air! It was amazing. Like I said, we packed food for our breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the whole trip so we could spend money on fun dinner Friday night. Justin ordered lamb and I ordered salmon; both were to die for! We also ordered a dessert and the four of us split it. Delicious! That was definitely the highlight of the trip.

dessert...red velvet cheese cake with a white chocolate shell...and reindeer chocolate horns and fruity garnishes

waiting for our elevator...it took surprisingly long

Saturday morning we got to the fields at 9:30 and it felt like 3 PM. The sun feels so weird down there! At 9AM it feels and looks the same way it does at noon and at 6PM. In Idaho there's definitely a morning, afternoon, and evening "look" to the day. Down there if you didn't know what time it was you would guess it was 2 PM no matter what time of day it was. Anyway...our women's team played three games plus a pick-up game with BYU and our men's team played five games. We won our first game and played awesome! We were so happy to have a win! This was my first tournament win in a year and a half! We lost the next two but we were fine with that because we were so happy we won the first game. The other teams were good sports so even though the last team killed us 13-2 we had a lot of fun. Justin's team won two of their five so that wasn't too bad. We headed back to the apartment and cleaned up, then went to dinner at a buffet. We drove by the Mirage and saw the show they put on every hour with huge flames you can feel from the street. We were dead after that so we made it back to the apartment for the night.

The show at The Mirage; it goes off every hour. You can feel the heat from the street.

Dinner in the Stratosphere

Men's Team

Because this is my favorite

captains

Sunday we drove back all day with no harm or accident and no cops pulling me over. Overall it was a crazy fun trip and I'm so happy we went! Now it's back to reality in Rexburg with 20 degrees outside...spring come quickly! 

meanwhile in the 11th ward...

Hey all, it's been a while. Today I am very grateful for Sundays. I get to spend all day with Justin, and we don't have to do any homework. It's the best!

Relief Society...for the past several weeks that I've been serving every week we have new girls moving in and other girls moving out.. It is so hard to stay on top of! It makes visiting teaching a nightmare. On top of that, ward council...not my favorite. I got called in the beginning of January and had tentative VT assignments by the end of the month. Turns out that report got in super late at only 15% while the Elder's Quorum "killed it" with 62% in January.

Mmmk. Hold up. Before I listen to everyone start to council me at ward council, can we remember for a tiny sec that I got this calling, like, yesterday, and people didn't even get their assignments until the end of the month? I'm shocked we even got 15% to do their teaching. I was expecting more like, I dunno, zero. In the meantime, everyone's telling me how Elder's Quorum is "killing it" and Relief Society needs to step it up. K guys...we'll do that.

And can we also remember....I've done this before. I know how to do this job... so before everyone goes around the room and tells me, "You know, as president you really should..." and "One thing you should really consider..." yadayadayada can we all just...not? In the mean time, I want to extend a calling to two sisters who are new. Let's get them involved in the ward pronto! ...not. Idea shut down. Needless to say...I won't say it.

Justin and I got to see some family in Boise a while back. Gabe invited everyone to go ice fishing. Justin let me know he's never been. As much as ice fishing is very "hit 'n' miss" we decided he needed to have the experience! We drove over with Chase and Rachel and stayed Friday night with Gabe and Christy. We played a few rounds of "Saboteur" where I enjoyed being the "Saboteur" with Christy and Rachel the last round. Take that men! Gabe and Christy's kids are as cute as ever, and Brigitte now refers to me as 'Keaton's girl.'

Brigitte: "Where's Keaton's girl?"
Christy: "You mean Kelsey?"
Brigitte: "Yeah...Keaton's girl."

Ha.

Ice fishing was as fun as it can get when you're not actually catching fish. We had beautiful weather and great company. Lance and Kaleb joined Gabe, Chase, Justin and me for some cornbread and beef stew on the lake. The ice was crrrracking like crazy. There was one time Justin, Gabe, and I literally jumped out of our chairs because I swear the ice dropped an inch after we heard a huge crack right under us! If you've never heard ice crack beneath your feet while 20+ yards away from the shore, you can never quite understand the fear felt in that moment. Good times. We caught a whopping two fish (both from Kaleb's hole--nice work kiddo!) after setting 15+ ice fishing poles out. Not even Chase's A capella hymn solos could make the fish bite.

We hit a sweet outdoor hot springs after fishing. Hot water came springing out of the beautiful granite full of hornblende, quartz, and micas. Poor Chase caught a norovirus and felt sick from 9 that night until the middle of the next week. Justin and I stayed at Mitzi's that night. We had a fun visit. I miss hanging out with her all the time. We played tripole which I was surprisingly good at. Who accidentally gets a straight? Awesome. I was killing, but then Justin snuck up on me. No worries; I still beat him by four points. Score!

Justin and I played in our last floor hockey game Friday night. They had a guy who hit the small, rubber ball extremely hard and he hit me with that small, rubber ball three times and hit me with his hockey stick. Lame. I have the bruise of my life from that event! Thanks dude.

This week my 2nd block New Testament class starts (online). I am so not excited. Who would be when your professor emails you a week before and says, "If you can't commit 15 hours per week on this class alone this is not the semester to take this course." Really dude? Whatever.

Justin and I are going to Las Vegas this weekend.  We will be playing in a frisbee tournament wooo! I have two offers to student teach in Las Vegas. One is a high school, one is a middle school. After fasting and praying about it I've chosen the middle school. I figure that's when most schools have their students learn earth science so I better take advantage of having a mentor help me get it right. I love the power of fasting. We were able to go to the temple Saturday night with fasting and prayer in our hearts and we both felt very good about things we've been praying about. It definitely helps us grow together as a couple.

Well that's our update. On a funny note, Justin bought some spicy Doritos that were on sale, and after eating some before bed the other day I woke up the next morning with a swollen face! This exact thing happened over Christmas break...so weird. Beware of spicy enchilada Doritos!

Comic Frenzy

This week has been pretty chill. Justin and I have been getting ready to go to a Las Vegas tournament in a few weeks. It's the same one I went to last year but this time we are taking a girls team down so that means a lot more fun for me.

Tuesday was my spiritual high day. For a class I studied a talk by Elder Maxwell all morning, and then Justin and I went to devotional. The speaker was really good! I love devotional every Tuesday. That's something I'm really going to miss when we leave Rexburg. After devo I had a class until 4 and then I walked to the temple. Justin and his brother James met me there and we did the 4:30 session. I love being at the temple and living so close so we can go so often. It's the best part of the week.

Thursday my group was on again to teach Geography at the middle school. We taught supply and demand with red and black licorice, and then we taught scarcity with twinkies. It was fun to get on Ebay as a class and look at prices for twinkie boxes. The highest price is $100,000! For one box! Pretty crazy. Friday we taught about resources in different regions by using the "Settlers of Catan" cards. They had to trade with each other to get the resources they needed. It was a fun activity that got everyone moving and thinking, but the kids were wild on Friday afternoon! The classroom was so loud and the boys were especially hyper. How do people do this job by themselves? I'm pretty sure I lost about half my Settler's cards...oh well. Thank goodness I had two other girls who were helping keep everyone in control. Monday we teach again and I'm in charge of the lesson. I'm hoping to get some positive feedback again like last time, but if the kids are wild like they were Friday....we'll see.

Friday night Justin and I had a floor hockey game. The other team was not very good at all so we beat them pretty bad. The team that played before us, however, called "The Knucklepucks," is very good. I was watching their girl before we played and she was shoving guys out of her way and being super aggressive. Their guys are also really aggressive and Justin told me they're not afraid to shove people hard, including girls. I don't want to play that team! I'll get worked up; I'm too feisty to have someone start shoving me around. I hope we never play them, but I doubt we get so lucky.

Saturday morning we had a Relief Society activity where we learned how to reupholster furniture. We had like seven girls come which is too bad, but after we learned how to do a few things with tables and chairs we all went to D.I. together to see if there was any cheap furniture we could use our newly acquired skills on. I didn't buy anything, but I'll be on the lookout. For the most part, Saturday was spent doing much homework. I hate when my Saturdays are spent in our room on my laptop getting caught up. My dear, sweet husband detail cleaned our bathroom. We made a deal that if I scored in our hockey game he would clean the bathroom, and I scored twice. ;) That night Justin played our Zombies game with some friends and then Justin and I went to a "Comic Frenzy" show on campus. This is probably my favorite show of all time. It's stand up comedy and they involve the audience a lot. The show is an hour and a half but the time flies by because Justin and I really get a good laugh out of it! And it's refreshing because they are able to keep things clean and yet still be hilarious which is nigh impossible these days. They are very witty.

Today I am grateful for willing and proactive counselors who have taken a huge load off my shoulders. For the past few Sundays, all afternoon I've been working on spreadsheets for Relief Society for Visiting Teaching District Leaders, Compassionate Service members, and the Workshop committee, along with doing the headache of visiting teaching assignments. Now each counselor and the secretary are heading up each of these committees and I can take turns going to their meetings. I feel like now we have a handle on the whole Relief Society and it feels good not to be drowning anymore.

This week should be fun. We have a ward activity and a stake activity all centered around Valentines Day. I'm debating if I want to take Justin cross-country skiing with me on Saturday or if we want to zip over to Boise and see my brothers and sisters for some ice fishing. Either way I'll be looking forward to the three day weekend. My friend Kelsey Montgomery is reporting for a mission in a few weeks and she gives her farewell address this Sunday, so Justin and I are going to go see her for that. All my friends are either going on missions or they're pregnant--ha! That's all for now--until next time.

Feels like Spring!

After a couple weeks of -20 degree weather, lately it feels like spring with these lovely 20 and 30 degree temperatures!

Last week my education practicum teacher kept me after class and showed me my "progress sheet" thus far. To get an "A" in the class, we need to exemplify 13 specific teaching methods throughout the weeks we teach. She sat me down and pulled out my sheet and showed me I had six of the 13 checked off, and that was after our first day of teaching! She said I could walk away from the class with a C right now if I wanted to. She then went on to tell me all these good things she's noticed about my teaching. Sure we have co-teachers, but she said she's picked up on me and she is impressed. I was beaming. Not to turn this into a brag-fest (my mom wisely taught me..."nobody cares") but it was most exciting. "I bragged about you," she said!!! She is from Oregon, and she quotes Mean Girl...she is the best.

School this week was very chill. I didn't have to teach at all so everything felt much more relaxed. My body weight management class is kicking my trash! We cycle every day and it is my new favorite thing. Sure it's hard, but it's so great! It is very low impact, so it's really good for your joints. We are supposed to set a weight loss goal, so I just did something really small. Two years ago I went to the wellness center and got several body measurements, one of them being my body fat percentage which was 33% at the time. They did our body fat percentages at the beginning of the class and I'm 24% now. What a crazy transformation but I am very happy and Justin and I have been using myfitnesspal and exercising every day to stay/get fit.

My best friend from Boise (when I lived with Hart and Jory fall 2010) Mindy came to Idaho for a friend's wedding and asked to stay at our apartment for one night. She brought her boyfriend who she's been dating since September. I'm really happy she's found a really nice guy to date--we'll see where it goes. She and I had the best of times right before I left for college. It was good to see her and to catch up!

Friday night Justin and I had a floor hockey game. I haven't played floor hockey since middle school P.E, and here there were serious hockey players out to dominate the floor hockey rec league. Lo and behold, my husband is one of them! He and James (Justin's younger brother) have experience playing floor hockey, and Justin has experience playing real hockey so they tag teamed while our friend played goalie and Jessica (my Ultimate co-coach) and I tried our best to mess up the players on the other team. We didn't have any subs, while the other team could sub in a whole new team. We were dying by the end of the game. Who knew it was going to be so exhausting? But Justin and James were happy with our performance and said we played feisty (because that doesn't sound like me). I almost scored once, but I've got nothing on real hockey players. Justin and I celebrated our five month anniversary that day by buying some Dominoes pizza. Spicy Hawaiian is now one of my new favorites!

Saturday we played some indoor Ultimate in the morning and then spent some time in Idaho Falls at Winco. Justin signed up to play in a racquetball tournament next weekend at Apple Athletic Club. That night we hung out with Chase and Rachel and played my new zombie game. Chase managed to steal the win from me just as I was about to succeed! We watched 500 Days of Summer with Chase and Rachel. I don't know how they felt about it, but I love that show and think it's hilarious.

Today I think I finally got a handle on the Visiting Teaching assignments. It's taken longer than I thought which has been frustrating! But I feel like I know most of the ladies' names by now and I'm starting to get more of my personality across now that I'm not so timid. I don't know why but the married ladies in my ward kind of scare/intimidate me. Maybe because for the most part they either have kids or are pregnant, I don't know, but I feel like some of the girls don't like me. In fact I'm pretty sure there are some that definitely don't like me. Oh well. I had a meeting with the stake relief society president. I am so grateful I had this job once before with half the sisters I do now, because I would be totally overwhelmed otherwise. I wrote my old bishop a letter thanking him for all the training he did in ward councils and after church meetings because in this ward there is no such thing. Ward council has been interesting being the only female. The bishop brought up that the stake wanted to put together a Valentine's Dance and everyone in the room made it seem like it would be absolute torture and claimed it would have no success. I was the only who chimed in saying I thought it was a good idea. C'mon people--let the stake put something fun together! Sheesh.

I had student teaching interviews all week. My favorites are a Las Vegas middle school and a Mesa high school. I was happy because none of the interviews made me nervous. I feel like I have a lot to offer because I'm interested in getting involved in sports programs, and many of the teachers expressed that they need earth science teachers. The middle school is my favorite because the principal expressed they definitely need earth science teachers, and their school just got donated a ton of new ultimate frisbee gear. Jackpot! I am sold. Justin interviewed with a company in Las Vegas on Thursday for an accounting position, so we fasted and prayed for everything to work out. We are really hoping that works out for us and to live there for at least a year. We'll play life by ear from there.

Ever since I had my cavities filled my jaw has hurt pretty bad. I'm having trouble opening my mouth as of late. I can't open my mouth big at all, and Justin says I chatter my teeth at night. It's not quite like grinding my teeth but it's like doing little "chomp chomps" in my sleep...weird. I'm calling the dentist tomorrow to see if they can help.

This week we are on again for teaching. We have a great Halloween-centered idea to teach Supply and Demand...should be interesting.

My parents are coming up on their 42nd wedding anniversary. As far as I'm concerned my parents could be movie stars, and when they were my age they should have been! Their marriage is such a great example for Justin and me as we start out early trying to make righteous habits. I want to have a big family just like them one day.

Tuesday morning thoughts

Here are my thoughts on this Tuesday morning...

It snowed all day Sunday and halfway into Monday. This is what my dear husband and I got to walk half a mile in to get to school. I gave Justin a hair cut for the first time. We'll be getting that fixed...

Observe the large pile of snow in the middle of the two lanes. Apparently in Rexburg instead of plowing the snow to the side of the road, they decide to plow it to the center of the road. Good luck turning left! Also, I went to my friend's apartment before driving to the middle school. I remember these sharing-one-bathroom-with-six-girls days and I don't miss it. Marriage is bliss.

We drove this car to the middle school to help with some teaching stuff in the afternoon. There was almost a foot of snow piled on her car!

I've never been into doing my nails but last semester I got into it a little and now I'm obsessed! I did French tip on Sunday afternoon using masking tape, white nail polish and clear nail polish. Love!

In the meantime we are trying to sell my dress. I paid for it using the wedding budget my parents gave us, so whatever it sells for will be profit for us. We've put it all over craigslist and the bulletin board. People should be getting engaged about this time of year for those in-between semester weddings, so hopefully this baby gets an offer. Compared to the other dresses we've seen on the bulletin board, there is no competition. People are selling ugly dresses for like $800 on there. Hopefully someone wants this one.

This week already feels so much more relaxed because I'm not teaching. Now I get to go to my cycling class and sweat all my makeup off....more student teaching interviews to come in the next few days. Big life decisions are coming up for Justin and I...should be interesting!

Teaching Middle School

I can't even think about everything that's been going on around this place! Last week was the busiest week yet because it was the week I started teaching at the middle school. My two friends who teach with me are Christine and Valerie, but we refer to each other as 'Mrs. Brooks' and 'Ms. Gundersen." These two are awesome and it's nice because we are always on the same page.

Wednesday through Thursday we taught the eight geographic regions of North America. Day one we covered three of the regions. Each day we have 45 minutes, and for the most part we used our time well. However we didn't get a lot of praise for our performance. It's so weird going from college lecture mode to basically entertaining 6th graders. Why did I pick education, exactly? No, it gets better.

Thursday we had a good plan but it failed miserably. We each were a "station" with our region to teach and the students were going to rotate to every station. Turns out one of the students at my station was not happy to be in our group. There was a clique that just happened to end up at my table (we had a seating arrangement, but somehow we managed to concentrate all the bullies together. Woops) and they started teasing him. I tried to remind everyone that we need to respect each other and threatened to separate everyone into other stations (which I should've done immediately) but the boy would not have it! He threw his glue stick (thank goodness it wasn't the scissors!) at the kid right next to him who was teasing him. I told him to go see Mr. Kurtz (his for-realzies teacher in the back who's observing me) and tried to carry on but, yeah right, everyone's focus is definitely not on the Interior Lowlands. Before we knew it we were out of time so we dismissed class. Now we were in trouble. We were supposed to teach three regions to all the students, but now everyone only had information on one region. We knew we didn't do well, but Mr. Kurtz tried to assure us that we could still figure Friday out. On the other hand, some other lady observed us and was basically like, "Well now you're behind so I hope you figure it out." Valerie hates her. Ha.

Thursday night I schemed with my teacher Sister Hall (bless her heart...she is single but I don't get it because she is cute, smart, and her personality is the best. Seriously, I want to say she's been my favorite teacher since I've been here at school) and Valerie. We stayed at the Middle School until 5 brainstorming ways to not only teach the regions the students missed that day, but also the regions we had planned for Friday. We had to make it feel like we weren't cramming as well...blarg! Mr. Kurtz actually gave us the solution without knowing it. He was just shooting out ideas and mentioned we could have the students teach each other since they knew at least one region. Oooo wheels started turning in our heads! Here was our genius plan:

Friday I led the day by standing at the door greeting students and asking them to sit in the same place as the day before and "brain dump" everything they could remember from the day before on a piece of paper. As I did that, my co-teacher Valerie was formulating "teams" by taking one kid from each group to make a group of three. Each student would be the "expert" on the region they learned the day before and would teach the other two what they learned. I made eight posters that morning that had the region at the top (example: The Coastal Plain) with sections that had numbers that correlated with the group number. The groups started at a particular region and had two minutes to write as much as they could in their group section. I kept time, and when time was out I flipped the lights off and told them they had five seconds to switch! It ended up working like magic. When the students would call us over for a question instead of just answering myself I'd ask, "Who is the expert on (let's say) The Rocky Mountains?" That student would acknowledge they were the expert and then I'd ask them to help out their classmate by teaching them what they learned. It was truly genius. After that everyone was given a "worksheet" that had a section on each region with a blank. They had five minutes to fill in the blank. It looked like this:

Name:_____________

Date:_ ________________

Coastal Plain

Along the ­­­­­________­­________

And the Gulf of Mexico

Here lies the coastal plain we know

Lots of wetlands, it’s really neat

GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS

Appalachian Mountains

West of the coastal plain

Stretching up to Canada

Here lie the Appalachian Mountains

______________ mountain range in the states

GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS

Canadian Shield

Canadian Shield up by the _____________ Bay,

Looks like a horseshoe some might say

Old rocks and lots of lakes

GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS

Interior Lowlands

West of the mountains

East of the plains

Interior Lowlands, now shout hooray

Valleys and _____________ and rivers and hills

GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS

Great Plains

Here are the flat lands

Known as the Great Plains

Not very many things can grow

Watch out for a _________________!

GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS

Rocky Mountains

West of the Great Plains

Is the Rocky Mountain Range

________ miles  is a ________mountain range

Rocky Mountains are where I live

GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS

Basin and Range

Valleys and mountains

And then valleys once more

Hike in these mountains, it’s a dangerous chore

___________and __________ all over the place

GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS

Coastal Range

The coastal range

Along the ____________

Stretch so far, this is what we know

Fertile soils for lots to grow

GEOGRAPHIC REGIONS

Fill in blanks as a table

Word bank in front

WORD BANK

1.) oldest

2.) Atlantic

3.) Graben

4.) 3,000

5.) tornado

6.) Hudson

7.) trees

8.) Pacific

9.) long

10.) Horst

 After they did this I held it up an announced that the worksheet they just filled out was now the lyrics to the macarena that we were going to dance. Instead of saying "Hey Macarena!" we would sing "Geographic Regions!" Some of the kids looked at me like, "Are you kidding??" like bratty 6th graders do, but luckily I sold them on it. We sang it through all together once, and then split the room in half. One side of the room sang the macarena with our geographic regions while the other half danced, and then they switched. I danced with the students and it ended up being really fun! I think the students finally like us. Before they left they wrote their favorite region on the back of their worksheet and turned it into me at the door for their "ticket out."

From the day before, the student who was being teased, turns out, was being teased because the other kids told him his name was lame. So, Friday morning I googled information on a famous celebrity who shared his name. I found some interesting things about him and printed it out along with his picture. After class he was the last one to leave so I pulled him aside and gave it to him to read. I assured him his name was super cool.

Sister Hall was there Friday to observe us along with Mr. Kurtz and all they had for us was praise! They said it was a total 180 from the day before. We are graded on several things throughout the semester and we usually take them one day at a time like teacher mobility, pacing, discovery learning, clear messages, clear instruction, etc and they passed us off on like seven. The first thing they said was, "You guys were teachers today," and I beamed! Yes! I can be a teacher!!! I was (and, let's face it, still am) especially happy because Friday's everything was mostly orchestrated by me, including those lyrics for the macarena. It felt so good! When Justin got home and walked in the door I basically started screaming I was so happy! Ha poor Justin--I'm such a psycho. Anyway, it was a huge success and now I'm super motivated for the next time we teach. For now we are off for 6 days so it's time to get ready for the next content.

Thursday night Justin and I went to the temple and had a really nice time doing sealings. The Rexburg temple has been so busy lately because Idaho Falls is closed for cleaning. The session rooms are filled to capacity, and even then they bring in foldable chairs until the room is optimized. I love the temple and I have such a testimony of the work we do there. Life is so busy it is nigh impossible to turn my brain off and just relax. Even in my sleep I'm stressed out. I have bad dreams almost every night. But at the temple it's like I can just breathe. And I get to do it while staring at my handsome man. =] 

Friday night we went to the "Zoo Zoo" show. It was weird, but cool too. As it started I couldn't help but think of Dad and how there's no way anyone could pay him to watch that show. Basically acrobats dress up as animals and give a show. They did frogs, cats, hippos, penguins, polar bears, and the like. The best part of the show was the kids who were laughing so much. They were cute and the perfect audience. I thought about Brie and Shae throughout the show because I just know those two especially would have loved to watch it.

Saturday all day I had to catch up on homework. Because of teaching all week, all I did all morning was think about what I'd teach, and then once I'd taught all I did was think about how to make it better for the next day. Luckily, I'm taking several online classes which have saved my bacon! I was able to catch up on hours of missed homework all on Saturday. Will I get full credit for doing it so late in the week? Probably not...but I was able to catch up so that's good. That night Justin and I finished season four of 24. We love that show! So far season three is my favorite. We have netflix on my laptop which is fun for us if we want to watch a show. 

Wednesday we had our ward opening social. The purpose of it was to get visiting teaching/home teaching callings. Tuesday night I stayed up until 1:30 AM to put them together with a directory that was certainly not updated. I was frustrated because I didn't know the ward well enough to know who was new and who had moved out. There are almost 70 sisters in the ward! Gag...so I stayed up all night doing them, then Wednesday I had to cut them out. Unfortunately I'm a perfectionist so I had to go to Porter's to get scrap book paper to glue the callings on, and then glue on magnets so they could have them on their fridge...Let's just say that between school, work (did I mention I've been working 20 hours every week since school started?), and teaching I got them done just in time for the activity at 7. Luckily most of the ladies were proactive and let me know where the mistakes were (because I obviously didn't know) but I had one come up to me after Relief Society today to complain about the mistakes I made. Gee, I'm sorry your address is wrong that I got off the lds.org directory and stayed up all night getting ready for you. Maybe next time update the directory every time you move. In the meantime, I'll make you a new one right quick so you aren't offended (for goodness sake!). But for the most part I think I'll have all the mistakes fixed so the visiting teaching can be perfect next Sunday just in time for everyone to get going for February. 

Here's what they ended up looking like...image 70 of them.

Tuesday we got to hang out with Mom and Dad for lunch with Chase and Rachel. We were slightly rushed due to Chase and I having class but it's always great to see them come to Rexburg. My parents are such wonderful examples of service and work. They have to cross that nasty desert whenever they want to do temple work, and they have to work around my dad's horrible schedule that thankfully slows down in the winter. But no matter their schedules, they still find time to serve in the temple regularly, and I can remember them doing that all while I was growing up. 

Monday I went snowboarding with Chase and Rachel, and Kelsey and Deejay (Kelsey's boyfriend). We went night skiing at Kelly. We had a deal for four hours of skiing for $20 which included a meal. It doesn't beat Bogus, but it was good to hang out with Chase and Rachel, and I hadn't seen Kelsey for ages so it was nice to visit with her. I'm excited for her to serve a mission. She has a very strong testimony and I'm confident her service in New York will help her be a wonderful mother one day. Did I mention she and her boyfriend got called to the exact same mission? No joke they are both reporting to the New York New York South mission. Crazy! When we talked we both agreed that the age change is more than just getting more missionaries; it's about giving everybody more spiritual strength to raise children in this world which seems more and more impossible every day. 

Tomorrow through Wednesday I have interviews with schools from Las Vegas, Nevada and Mesa, Arizona for student teaching. I'm supposed to bring my resume and personal bio to each interview...I guess that means I should make both of those tonight. Ha. 

Guess Who...

Guess who has been called to be the new relief society president?...this girl! I am so excited! But sort of sad too. This last week I was thinking about where I was a year ago; I had just been called to be relief society president in my singles ward. I LOVED IT SO MUCH and I was thinking about how I missed it. Currently,  I am one of the ward organists and at first I was very reluctant to take that calling...gag I barely knew how to play the organ, and the other organist was very good! But just YESTERDAY after practicing I told Justin how I really enjoy it now, and I'm getting a feel for the spirit of the hymns. Practicing the hymns feels like studying my scriptures! So it's ironic that right when I feel "yeah I can play the organ!" I am released. So, I'm a little sad I won't be playing the hymns for sacrament meeting anymore, but I'm also very excited for this new calling.

This semester is busy busy for Justin and me. I am in an education practicum course where we teach 6th grade geography to Madison middle school students. I have two co-teachers, and we find the content on our own and create a way to teach it together. Of course, we are all math and science majors, so we have to become experts on geography within the next week to be ready to teach. We teach three days straight, then have six days to prepare for the next section of content. I happened to find a "macarena" jingle that goes with the "eight geographic regions" of the U.S. and Canada. Sweet! This has been the "make you or break you" course for education majors, and luckily I happened to get a great teacher. I have heard horror stories about some of the other professors (bless their hearts) and I did NOT want to get stuck in one of those sections. I took a gamble by selecting a lady who just moved here from Oregon and she's GREAT. Go Sister Hall!

Justin and I are both working and full time students. He is still in the foundations department and I am training new tutors at the Reading Center. I put in 20 solid hours last week. Hopefully every week isn't that busy. Justin is earning enough credits (150) to get his CPA so he is also busy with classes. We are both involved with our frisbee friends. The men have created a solid club team and as of now I've been helping organize a women's team. We hope to play in Vegas at the end of March. We had practice on Saturday and had a good turn out. It just might work out!

Rexburg has been freezing, as usual. We drove to church this morning in -19 degree weather. Our car is such a trooper (thank you Hart and Jory, Mitzi and Scott, and Mom and Dad)...it starts no problem in this deathly cold weather.

Justin and I reupholstered our kitchen chairs. They are SO CUTE now! I love them. Here's the before and after. We did four of them. Thanks to a 50% off coupon at Porters, this was a $10 ordeal. Love.

That's about it. Until next time...does anyone have any great relief society activity ideas?

3 months of marriage

Today marks three months of marriage for us! What a wonderful three months it has been. Before I get to that I have a lot to get caught up on.

We spent Thanksgiving with the Beals in Arco. Justin and I went a day earlier than the rest of my siblings because we wanted time with just us and Mom and Dad. I took Justin to Pickle's Place, we did business for our car insurance, put up Mom&Dad's Christmas tree, and by Wednesday evening we had the rest of our group home. Hart, Mitzi, and Trisha came with their families, and Chase was also home. We had our pie pig out Wednesday night (I love this tradition; pie stretched out for days woot!) and we watched "Trains, Planes, and Automobiles." I was planning on bed after that but we stayed up to watch "The Incredible Spiderman" thanks to Hart and Jory for bringing it over from the Meridian Redbox. It was great!

Thanksgiving morning we all pitched in to help Mom make the whole sha-bang for our dinner. The food was ready by 10 AM but don't worry, we waited until 11:30 to eat. ;) We are a little disfunctional when it comes to the time we eat Thanksgiving, but I like it. It lets me eat leftovers all day long. That afternoon I went for a walk with Justin and then later on with my sisters and my mom. Priceless times! Justin and I taught our family how to play Five Crowns which we played many times.

Thursday night we watched "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World." I am stressed out by the end of that movie because of that mother in-law who keeps yelling the whole movie, but it is so funny! I curled a lot of hair during the break which I had lots of fun with. I'm going to bring my iron home for Chase's wedding reception to see if any grandkids will let me curl their hair for the event. We played a game of Rage that night as well.

intense game of scattegories

Friday we left for Rexburg around 1 in the afternoon. Everyone else had cleared out, so we put up the other Christmas tree in my parent's house before leaving. My mom gave us her very amazing, but painfully frustrating vacuum. I love it because I've wanted to vacuum but vacuums are so expensive! When we got home that night I totally vacuumed and you wouldn't believe how great a job it did. On our way home we drove through Idaho Falls and got Justin a new smart phone. Due to it being Black Friday, he got an $800 phone for free. Don't ask me how that works, but it did! I bought some boots (I've been dying to get a pair of gray boots!) at Sears. We enjoyed getting deals later in the day when things weren't as crazy as earlier in the day. By 4PM the crazy 4AM people are usually dying out, so we didn't have to stand in any crazy lines or anything. We thought it was funny when the checkout lady asked us how long we'd been shopping for& I said "since 1" but then realized I had to clarify PM not AM.

Sunday I played the organ for the first time. I was grateful there was practically NOBODY at our ward due to the holiday. The power went out in the morning so I thought I was going to luck out and not have to play at all, but at 12:30 the power turned back on so we drove to the church and I practiced for an hour before I had to play. It turned out OK.

As for this week, we were busy busy as usual. We had a ward temple trip, a volleyball game, a ward activity, a banquet, and a Christmas program all this week. Not to mention school: welcome back from break: here's a geology test, a physics test, a physics presentation, and teaching your teacher's nine year old daughter how fat, sugar, and protein is digested. Crazy!

I had a geology test I took today that did not turn out well, but I'm hoping for a large curve to save my grade. Today for our 3 month anniversary Justin took me to the BYU-I Christmas with the Canadian Brass which was so great! I'm so weird, but during one of the songs I just about burst out into tears. They had dancers performing to the music too and I felt like such an idiot because I felt like I was going to cry, so then I started laughing at myself for being so weird and poor Justin is thinking "what the heck woman?" Ha! But the program was so great. I loved it! We ate at Pizza Hut before the concert, then frosted cookies after the program to give to some people tomorrow. Justin has plenty of gadgets that let us do anything we want with frosting, so it was a lot of fun. What a great way to recover from my bad test. I am truly blessed to have Justin in my life.

T-Rexburg!

This week has been one of our busiest which has been a great way to get us ready for Thanksgiving break. Monday Justin and I had frisbee practice. The men have a club team where they take all the great players from competitive and travel to tournaments. There was an opportunity to play in Utah this weekend, and there would also be girl teams playing, so I decided the girls needed to get in on this club action and I put a team together to practice.

Tuesday was my last day to take my geology test, so I went in the testing center at 5:30 and came out at 8....it took forever! But I think I did very well on it, so we'll see when I get my score back. I wanted to get out before 7 because Justin and I are on a volleyball team that played at 7:15. Oh well. Our team lost pretty bad; we have a couple people on our team who aren't the best which is fine but it stresses Justin out big time. He and another guy on our team are really good.

Wednesday Justin and I had practice for frisbee and that night Kyndra (one of my teammates) and I made shirts for our team that say T-Rexburg. I love the design; it has a dinosaur going to eat a disc as a player is bidding for it...love it!

Thursday I went visiting teaching to one of our ladies. She lives in the complex right next to me so that makes it easy. Justin and I made Christmas ornaments that night and I spent a couple hours in the geology lab studying fossil preservation while Justin saw his friend Ryan. I had to work extra hard to get my work done before we left for Utah which is why this week was so busy.

Come Friday we hit the road for Utah around 4:30. We took my friend Sophie down with us and stayed at the BYU frisbee coach's house for the night. They are friends with Kyndra and offered their house for players to stay for the night. What generous people!

Saturday Justin had a game at 9:30 and I had a game at 11. It was very cold in the morning! By the time my team played it was raining pretty hard which makes for a lot of drops. We played well though! We barely lost to BYU's team (13-12) but we had a blast. After that we split our players with theirs and played with a bunch of new people for another game. We were supposed to play two other teams but they dropped out at the last minute, so we had two games and the men had four. They won three out of four and played amazing! They beat BYU's team which they were stoked about. Kelsey Montgomery lives in Orem which is where we played so I got to see her. She's going on a mission. Her papers are turned in and everything. She told me her friends have got calls but they aren't told where they're going. They're entering the MTC next August, so we think that means they're opening CHINA! One of her friends has half her call to one place and the other half is in China, so I guess that means it's on the way. Talk about fullness of times.

The Men's team; my team all left before we could get a girl picture.

We went to Five Guys for dinner and headed back to Rexburg. We decided to make a pit stop in Idaho Falls to see TWILIGHT! I know family members will think differently of me upon reading this, but I thought it was great--better than the book, even. It's always fun to watch  movies with a crowd of people because it makes the funny things more funny, and my friend Sophie and I were pretty animated about all the crazy things that happened. And I'm so vain, I loved everyone's clothes and hair. Give me give me! Dear Santa, I want a shopping spree for Christmas. XOXO Kelsey. My only complaint: could they have at least bleached Edward's teeth? I mean I know he's British, but c'mon...

The temple rededication today was so great. I loved when President Monson got up and looked at a youth in the congregation and said, "I see a future missionary," and moved his ears at him/her. It was so great! I love our prophet.

I'm so excited for Thanksgiving. I look forward to putting up Mom and Dad's decorations plus eating Mom's amazing Thanksgiving brunch! ;) Two more days and we're out of here!

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Hi hi, once again. This week we had ultimate playoffs so that kept us really busy. Monday was Justin's birthday which I talked about last time. Tuesday was voting day and I had my 3:15-4:45 class cancelled so I took that time to vote! I got sent to three different districts because I couldn't prove I've lived in our apartment for at least 30 days, so I went where I used to be registered but they told me the boundaries changed so I had to go somewhere else. Annoying! Oh well. Some of my friends had to wait two hours in line to vote. Crazy. But hey, I'm grateful we have the opportunity to vote, even if it took a few years off my life. My friend's facebook post made up for it the next day when she quoted Mean Girls: "I voted for Cady Herron, because she pushed Regina George in front of a bus." Awesome.

Justin and I played on a rec frisbee team this semester. We had the championship game Tuesday night and blew them out of the water. Their girls weren't very good so our guys used me and the other girls a lot which was extra fun.

Moose, Brett, Justin, Me, Nate, Taran, Mellisa, Christine, &Todd

Wednesday morning Justin and I did temple work for an hour. That night Trisha and I threw Rachel a bridal shower. We both brought a game to play along with a treat. Trisha brought chocolate dipped pretzels and strawberries and I brought oreo truffles. Yum! Rachel did really well at guessing things Chase would say, and her friends did a good job on the "how well do you know the bride?" game. It was good to have Trisha there with me because if either of us had done it on our own we would've felt awkward just because we didn't know everyone else as well. Overall it was a successful night.

Thursday we had the first day of ultimate playoffs. One of the girls has serious beef with me because I wouldn't let her play in the playoffs, but that was because she was skipping out the whole season. Of course she stomped around the whole night complaining about, "the coordinator won't let me play!" but I wanted to throw agency in her face and be like "You prevented yourself from playing when you chose to skip out all season!" Lame. Whatever, love thine enemy& pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you, right?

one of my students at work; her teammate was the one who couldn't play

Friday was more frisbee but we woke up to lots of snow! Grand...the poor girls had to play in it but at least their blood was flowing. I had to stand out in the cold from 6-10 keeping stats and making sure play was fair. We had a huge upset when the 5th seed (out of 5) beat the first seed! It was way exciting, but so sad for the other team; statistically they should've won the whole thing but, oh well. For men's ultimate we also saw an upset where a not-so-good team beat a pretty good team so that shook things up a bit.

Saturday we had more snow but it cleared out by 2PM for the women's championship game. Spartans and Vikings played a two-hour game that was very exciting! The Vikings (5th seed out of 5) ended up winning the whole tournament! It was CRAZY to watch. They didn't win a game all season, and then for playoffs they took the whole tourny. Once again, many tears were shed by the other team. It was hard because I had favorites all across the board when it came to players on other teams, so it was sad to see anyone lose, but so fun for those that won. Great season for sure but I'm glad it's over. Dealing with Competitive has been the trial of our marriage! Now we are at a loss for what to do on our Friday nights.

After the men's championship Justin and I drove to Idaho Falls to celebrate our freedom of being finished coordinating! We returned some things and exchanged his birthday gifts. We got Christmas tree lights and scented pine cones for our apartment to gear us up for the Christmas season. I can't help it...with the snow and the wreaths all around campus we put the tree up and we're starting to make ornaments. We went to dinner and saw "Skyfall," the new 007 movie. I really liked it. It reminded me of The Dark Knight in that the movie made me really like the villain.

At church I led the singing and I'm supposed to start playing the organ soon but church is cancelled next week for the Boise temple rededication and we'll be in Arco the next week so...who knows maybe I'll never play...ha! Yeah right. I have a geology test I have to take Tuesday and lots of projects in my classes are becoming due. This semester is going to be over before you know it. This weekend Justin and I will be playing in an ultimate frisbee tournament in Utah. He's part of a men's club team and I'm putting together the women's club team so we'll see if any girls show up. That's it for this week.

Halloween...we're gonna party like it's your birthday

Hello all! This last week has been fun for us. Monday for FHE we went to Costa Vida. Now that's my kind of FHE! We also had a lesson, but it's fun for us to eat out every once and a while.

For Halloween this year Justin and I decided we wanted to hang out with Trisha's family. Justin didn't have work in the morning so he made cupcakes to share with our married friends at their party and with Trisha's family. We dressed up as Han Solo and Princess Leah!

I just used a Walmart bed sheet and cut a hole in it for my head. Then when it draped over my body I put the belt around it giving me instant sleeves. Awesome!

We so enjoyed trick-or-treating with Shae and Brie. Hailey is all grown up now so she went with one of her friends. It was fun listening to Brie and Shae gab and gab to us. Justin and I carried Brie a lot in between houses, and at one point Brie said, "Justin I love you!" Priceless.

We watched some of "Snow White and the Huntsman" with Trisha's family but then we needed to get to our friend's house because I had a surprise birthday cake there for Justin! He was very surprised...as he should've been. It was 5 days before his actual birthday! But I wanted to do something with friends and something else with the two of us on his actual birthday. We played games and watched some of Hocus Pocus. We stayed up past midnight...that was a first in a long time. I was exhausted! I love being married and going to bed at 10 every night. I love bed.

Thursday we played a semi-final rec frisbee game. These guys were somewhat tough, but for the most part they were all a real pain to play. I have a hard time playing with people who don't know the rules but act like they do. One of the guys slammed into me when we both went for the disc in the end zone. He hit my knee so hard! It was dumb because right before that he was yelling at me about a rule, and then as soon as he hurt me he was being all nice... Oh well. We sent them home defeated so I'm fine taking a bruise to have that satisfaction.

Friday Chase got engaged! I was really excited to get to see it and be a part of his friends who held that sign. I'm so excited to have Rachel in our family! Trisha and I are throwing her a bridal shower this Wednesday so that will be fun. Hooray and congratulations!

stupid pole...right in the way of where Rachel was!

Rachel's ring is to die for! I'm so excited for these two =]

the EMT stuff was such a good idea.

For Justin's birthday (today) I made his favorite breakfast, French toast, complete with my buttermilk syrup. So good! I scheduled an hour deep tissue massage for him after his work, so while he was at that I finished my geology lab (more like finished "starting" the lab...) and hurried home to make his favorite food...."Mediterranean."

Really?

When I asked him what his favorite food was and he said Mediterranean I thought "what the heck is Mediterranean food?" Thank goodness for Pinterest! I found a couple recipes I thought looked good and then did my own thing with it. I made chicken stuffed with kale, spinach, feta cheese, red pepper, oregano, and garlic. I also made pizza using Peeta bread (don't try pinterest-ing peeta bread...the only things that comes up are Hunger Games shenanigans), white sauce, spinach, feta cheese, and tomato. Mitzi has the best apple crisp recipe ever so I got that from her for dessert complete with the caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream. We were in heaven! He opened his gifts (a bunch of clothes-ha I buy him things for his birthday I want-- go figure) and then we played racquetball in the Hart. He dominates at racquetball but he went easy on me so I didn't get too frustrated.

Happy birthday sweetheart!

This week we have ultimate playoffs. We are both so ready to be done coordinating! I have my second geology test while that's going on as well, and I need to find time to practice the organ because I play for the first time next Sunday. Busy busy but we love it, and we are so grateful for all our blessings! Heavenly Father is so good to us. Peace and Blessings!