graduated shmraduated

It's official.....I am now a college graduate. BYU was foolish enough to give me a degree, and as soon as the deed was done I high-tailed it out of there and drove back to Oregon. Now I am home all summer (is summer over yet?), and then onto bigger and better (cross your fingers) things this fall. Hopefully these "bigger and better" things will include me, Paige, and Washington DC. 

student teaching

Favorite quotes from second graders:

"She should be married already--she needs to find herself a man!"

One boy's nice note to another boy on his birthday: You are priity. Your eyes are priity.

"My brain doesn't work that way, it's at home sleeping."

"You'd be lucky to find a diamond inside a rock. You'd be rich--like you'd have $1000."

Girl: Cleaning my desk is really quite comforting.

Boy: Well, girls like house cleaning. Your desk is like your house.

All time favorite thing said by student: Hobos drink from puddles.

I'm in a sixth grade classroom now, and I'm going to be honest. They're not as funny as the eight year olds. I love them, but they're in that awkward stage and don't just blurt out everything on their minds. And they don't type "whore" instead of "were." Too bad. It cracks me up. Gotta love teaching.....right?

2 1/2 more weeks until V-Day (graduation).

all I want for christmas is you

Me and my roommates love Christmas. Period. So we decided that we would get hot chocolate (a very wintery thing to do) and go see this house that is completely lit up--and the lights are synced to music on the radio. Very high-tech. So we got the hot chocolate with no problem.

We got a little excited to be doing something with a Christmas theme....this song gets me everytime. Who can listen to this and not sing/dance? I have yet to find such a person. Oh Mariah Carey.

                                             

The problem came when we tried to find the house with lights. It's in Lindon. We traveled all over the street that it was supposed to be on. We drove in circles. We got frustrated. There's only so many times you can hear the Amy Grant Christmas CD.  And then we found this sign:

The lights were okay. Entertaining. But I'm glad we didn't have to pay to see it. Good thing we found it. That would have been sad. And the best way to finish any day: guitar hero. Having it in the apartment is both amazing and extremely distracting. 

home for the weekend

Last week on September 23, my grandma passed away. And while this was and is still very sad to me, she was in a lot of pain at the end, and so her passing is a blessing as well. She was an amazing woman, and I'll miss her. My parents flew me home for the funeral, and I was in Gresham for nearly a week. It was a good weekend, I got to see my family, watch old home movies from when my mom was a kid, play card/domino games, and share memories of my grandma. While I was home, Kelsey and I decided to take Lucy to the zoo, and grandpa decided to go with us. It was a nice activity to get us out of the house and to get us thinking about something other than grandma. Lucy looooved it. She just turned 1 a few weeks ago, and so she was pointing at everything. (above: Lu and grandpa. It could not get cuter than that.)

You can't tell in this picture, but Lu was bouncing on that log thing, I had to hold on for dear life so she wouldn't fall into the pit.

Being underground was both fun and terrifying for Lu. She would switch between crying and laughing at regular intervals.

Kels and Lu. We couldn't get Lu to look at the camera, she was too preoccupied with the baboons. Probably because she is a baboon. Little monkey.

Kelsey was happy we got to see the baby elephant. I forget what its name is (Samudra? Sumudra?), but I do know its mom stepped on it.

In the bird sanctuary. Lu got pooped on.

a bunch of stuff in one post

Sooooo I haven't posted anything in quite some time. This is because I was home...and I was lazy...and I just didn't get around to it. But in the time that I wasn't blogging, I was out doing other things with my life. Worthwhile things, like watching TV. Or babysitting Rafe and Lulu. Or pretending to not hear my parents when they asked me to empty the dishwasher. Or moving. Etc etc etc. 

Rafe sporting a raspberry jam mustache. My nephew is the greatest. My mission for the three weeks I spent at home: make sure Rafe loves me, that he knows my name, and that he acknowledges I'm his favorite aunt. Mission accomplished. 

After I got back, me and some friends went to see a free show in Salt Lake. Broken Social Scene played. Even better than BSS: singing Backstreet Boys on the way home. They're so in right now. BSB>BSS

Amelia became Sister Largey, she's going to the Baltic Mission. We had a last girls night together and said goodbye. Very sad, but I'm really excited for her. She's the only one of my close friends that has decided to go on a mission. I miss her already.

the first video is of Rafe and Lucy playing.  This is the tail end of it, and you can't really tell how much fun they were having. Basically, they were screaming at each other, laughing about it, and then doing it again. They are so cute together.

Caitlin insisted I put the second video up. I had a hard time putting my comforter back in the cover. Enough said. I had no idea she was taping me, by the way. I thought she was taking a picture. 

life of the party

Caitlin and I babysat our nieces again yesterday (at the last minute I had to watch Lu while Kels and Tyler went out to dinner), and this time they loved each other. Lulu was extremely happy, and after the initial shock, Bella loved her and Lu loved Bella. Not as much poking this time. We blew some bubbles at them for a long time, and this is how much Lu loved it. Prepare to be in love with my niece; basically she's the cutest thing ever to have been born.

concerts, cars, and fireworks, oh my!

This weekend was awesome for many reasons. On Thursday night, Caitlin and I went to the Maria Taylor show in Salt Lake--she bought my ticket for my birthday. One of the best birthday presents ever. Maria Taylor rocks my world. The show was amazing, even though it started an hour and a half late, and she didn't come on until ten when she was supposed to start closer to nine. But it was worth it. She played my two favorite songs. 

On the 4th of July, Caitlin and I rode our bikes down to Sonic for a quick Coke run before we headed down to the Freedom Festival on Center Street. While we were at Sonic, two guys in an Audi asked us if they could ride our bikes, and being the nice girls we are, we let them. After they left, we saw that the windows in their car were down, so we got in. They had also left the keys in the ignition (smart one, guys), so we turned it on and blared some music. I can't believe that someone would leave their car unattended, completely unlocked, with the keys inside. How stupid can you get? So we took some pictures. We wanted to drive around to look for them, but they came back before we got the chance.

Caitlin showing off in their sweet ride.

I have no desire to go to the actual Stadium of Fire because I've heard that it gets so smokey that you can't see a thing. But I like the firework show that they put on, so me and a bunch of people from the ward went on the roof of the Riviera apartments, which gave us a perfect view of the stadium fireworks (that's the stadium right behind us).

I got a dope video of a particularly intense part of the show. It was practically right above us. Happy Freedom!