It's a New Year!

Wow! I am so horrible about this blogging stuff! (I think I say this at the beginning at each post...) I am hoping to someday be a better blogger. Maybe after school is over...ha ha, yeah right!!

It's a new year and not much has changed! I cannot believe it is the year 2011! This is the year I have been waiting for. I am looking forward to a lot of changes to happen this year.

The first change will be, graduating! I will officially have my Bachelor's degree in Special Education, with an endorsement in severe. I have worked very hard to earn it, and I even got all A's last semester (I get to brag every once in a while, right?) I am hoping to do just as well this semester, but we will see what happens. I will be doing my student teaching at the Vista Center. I am very lucky because I was able to get hired on a few months ago, therefore...I get paid to go to school! I am very fortunate to have been able to be hired on. I have already done a screening interview with Davis School District, because I want to live in Davis County when I do move out. I found out a few weeks ago that I passed the screening interview and am now on the list that principals will see for hiring. My advisor, Kathy Hill, is amazing and wants to get me hired before I graduate. I am very lucky to have such a great advisor.

I am still working at the Vista Center. I LOVE what I do. I am so glad to be reinforced daily with the love of job, although it is not the easiest job somedays (bite marks, bruises, getting kicked, changing diapers, etc.) I love it! I always go home with a smile on my face. I cannot wait to be a teacher, being in charge of my own classroom. Because I have worked in the special education field for 4 years now, I have learned a lot of what I want to do, as well as what I do not want to do.

Andrew and I both will not be returning to Lagoon this upcoming summer. We are both nervous about what we will be doing without Lagoon being a part of our summer, but are excited to move forward with our lives. Both of us have been there since we were 14 years old. It will definitely be an adjustment. We have made lots of friends and learned many life lessons through our years there, and are greatful for all those who helped us along the way. I am so glad we were able to work for Lagoon, in the Group Foods Service for all the years we did.

Andrew is still at Stephens Hot Chocolate. We are very fortunate to have him there still. The job keeps getting extended, we are very blessed for this. He is also still at the DATC, hopefully he will graduate from there with a certificate in IT. If anyone has any jobs for him, no matter what it is, please let us know. One day his currently job will end, and he will again be jobless.

Andrew is serving in the Young Men's program. He is a teacher for the Teacher group. He loves being with all the young men each week. I just recently got released from my calling as a Relief Society activity committee member. I am now a Sunbeam teacher! Today was my first day, and I was very nervous! One of the kids ran out of Sharing Time. Being used to working with students with major behaviors, I ran after him (thinking he was running away). It turns out he just went to the restroom. Ha ha, hopefully I will get used to working with the Sunbeams and separate work from church...It will take a while, I think.

That's all for now, and we're looking forward to what 2011 brings us!

Update

Oh wow, so much happens in such short amounts of time! Since the last time I updated, we have become an eternal family. I can't even begin to tell anyone how wonderful it feels to be sealed together forever! We love going to the temple.

Our goal is once a week. We haven't been too awesome at following it, but we do our best! So far we have been to the Manti temple, Salt Lake Temple, Ogden temple, and Bountiful (but not yet for a session). We will go to the Bountiful temple soon though! We try to go every Friday, so if anyone wants to join us, let us know and we'll make the time work for both of us. We make our 'weekly' temple day our date day. It works out well, especially since we live with my parents and our alone time is limited.

I am still working at Clearfield High School. I have been trying to get a new job so that I won't have to quit when I start my student teaching during Spring Semester. So far, I've been to quite a few interviews, but have only been offered a part-time position. Since my job is how we receive great insurance, I can't bring myself to accept a part-time position. However, if I don't get one soon I will most likely have to quit my job and just do my student teaching. That thought scares me, and I have faith that the Lord will help us get through it so I can graduate and be done with school..for the time being. I really want to go back to school after I graduate this Spring and pursue my Masters degree. I am thinking I either want to get my Masters in Special Education, with an endorsement in Mild/Moderate this time, or get a Leadership endorsement. I am unsure if I will continue school once I finish with my Bachelors or take a year off then return. We will see what happens...

Andrew got a job at Stephens Hot Chocolate. Sadly, it's only a temporary job, but we're secretly hoping it lasts longer. He is working at Stephens full time and is somewhat enjoying it. He has also started schooling at DATC. He is getting a license in Infomation Technology. We hope that this will help him get a decent job sooner so that I won't have to work more than the three years I have to for my scholarship.

For our summer vacation we went on a massive road trip. We drove up through Idaho into Seattle, WA. We then went down the coast, stayed at a cute little beach house in Washington State. After a three day stay there, we continued down the coast to San Francisco then headed home. It was a lot of fun! I have decided that I need to get into taking more pictures. I hardly have any of anything that we do. :(

Well, that's our life update. I know that I missed many, many things that happened as well, maybe I'll blog more often so I can remember things.

Increasing Spirituality

Andrew and I have been taking temple prep classes for the past month and we finished them yesterday evening. It was such a great blessing to listen to what we will soon be doing. We had our first interview with our new Bishop (poor guy, had to deal with us first :]) for the first part of our recommend interviews. We passed!! Ha ha, I'm so excited! We have his signature, now we just need to get an appointment with the stake president. He is such a neat man, I remember having my interview with him when I was sealed to my parents in 2007. I am SO excited to be sealed to my husband and future children. We are one step closer to our goal and I cannot wait!
My friend who is on a mission in Boston, Massachusetts wrote an inspiring e-mail I thought I would share. He is a great man and is doing great serving the Lord.
"I learned that every single person is of great worth. All people are important. We should treat others like they are God's favorite kid, even though we might not understand with our mortal minds how that is possible, each of us is of huge importance to God. I beleive that daily scripture study and prayer, principles we teach every single day, are critically important because of their effects on us. It allows us to feel the Spirit stronger and learn to recognize it's soft, powerful promptings, and allows us to foster our personal relationship with our Father. When we do that, our true identity and purpose come into clearer focus and we begin to allow ourselves to be enabled and empowered by the truth. True strength and power comes into our lives. Our problems and worries begin to lose their power as we learn that in reality, they have no power that we don't give them. Happiness is not dependent on situation or circumstance, but what we choose to think, feel, and focus our will upon. Our self-esteem and value rise as we see that and recognize that God loves each of us. Learning to love God, and others is the most important pursuit a person can have in life. If you ask me, Love and Forgiveness are inseprerably connected. We must learn to forgive others, and we can do that by learning to love God, as just described. This process will heal us, as it leads to obedience and peace of mind and spirit. True healing, that can only come by the Atonement, and happens when following in obedience to the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

Any Book suggestions? Plus giveaway link

The Mom Blog, site is linked to my blog, is giving away a book! "The Five Love Languages Book" it sounds very interesting and I hope to read it! http://www.the-mom-blog.com/2010/05/giveaway-five-love-languages-book.html

Any one have any other good books I should read? Now that school's out, I would love to read more. Please give me ideas!!

Update

Wow, life passes so quickly! It's crazy, I can't beleive that it is already the tenth of May!! Andrew and I have been doing very well these past few months. We both just finished up our second year of schooling and are looking forward to the craziness of this summer. Another winterguard season has come and gone now. It's crazy how quickly time goes! This season was a lot of fun, and extremely different that last season was! This season we had seven people, yay! Ha ha, wish we had more, but we're slowly getting there. We a variety of styles and years done guard. There was a fourteen year old girl, who had never spun before. A guy that was aging out this year, so he had been spinning for quite a while. We had a girl who was in high school, her junior year I believe. We had a girl who was attending WSU. Then we had three girls, including myself, that had spun at Davis for a few years. We had a lot of fun this season. Our song was titled "They" by Gem. It's a pretty cool song, I enjoyed spinning to it.

We both plan to return to Lagoon, yet again. We both enjoy working there, plus...if one of us quit, we would never see the other . :) Andrew will start doing school days in a bit which will give him a lot of hours, yay! He is also going to be working at McDonald's this summer, mainly just for job security. In the fall, he will return to Weber State as a full-time student taking evening classes, hopefully it will work out better for him. I am going to be finishing up my job at Clearfield High School, then I am thinking of transfering to become a functional skills teacher's assistant. This will help me get to know my future career, as well as it will make my 7 hour credit class be better since I will already be where I need to be. I do not want to leave, I love my job here at CHS, but I am thinking it will be best for me... I plan to work at Lagoon this coming up summer as well as take a full-time summer semester. (Yeah, I'm crazy! But oh well...) Assuming things continue to go well, I will be graduating in one year!! YAY!!! I'm so excited, but super nervous. This means that I will be a teacher at some school starting the year 2011-2012.

Andrew and I are looking forward to the month of June. We will be receiving our endowments on June 16th in the Manti temple. We will then be sealed for time and eternity in the Salt Lake temple on June 23rd, our first anniversary. I am so excited! I am very proud of who we have become together! Andrew received the Melchizedek priesthood just over one week ago, on May 2nd. His Dad was able to ordain him, and his brothers stood in on it, minus Robert who is in the military. It was a very special day for him. I can't even begin to express how proud I am of Andrew.

We both have received our first callings in the church. Andrew is the Teacher's quorum advisor, as well as a scout leader for the boys. He is very nervous about his calling, but we both feel that the Lord chose him to be a leader for these boys and that Andrew will be blessed for accepting it, even if our lives turn super crazy. I am a member of the Relief Socity Committee. We get together once a month and plan for the upcoming activites. So far, I am enjoying it!

We are both going to be going to the Jazz game tonight. Hopefully the Jazz can pull of a win tonight against the Lakers. We went to a game a few weeks ago with my family when the Jazz were playing Denver. They won that game. When tickets went on sale for this game, I got on ebay and bid. I did not think I would win, and actually completely forgot about it. I got on one night to check my e-mail and surprise...I had won the tickets. Hopefully we will be able to enjoy ourselves and make it a date night since we rarely get to have them.

Valentines Day

This Valentines Day was by far the best one I've ever had. In the morning, my parents made potatoes, bacon, sausage, and eggs for breakfast. Andrew and I made cute pink and purple pancakes. We made them, then used cookie cutters to make the pancakes even more valentiney! It was a lot of fun, and man oh man, did they taste yummy!

Andrew and I are slightly short on money, so we both decided to just have a night at the house, along with my sister, Holly, and her boyfriend, Chad. Of course, Andrew had to violate the rule, and he bought me some beautiful roses Friday.

Holly and I chose to make a cheese fondue, using the fondue set I got for my wedding. We dipped it with French Bread, apples, summer sausage, and lil' smokies. Yum! It was so delicious!

For our main course, we fixed Chicken and Fettuccine with Raspberry Cream Sauce. Now, of course we weren't smart enough to take pictures at the time, so ours didn't look quite as good as it was supposed to. It was a different taste, but very yummy!

For dessert, we had another fondue, only this time we had chocolate! We sliced bananas, strawberries, left over raspberries, and pretzels. The first batch we made, Holly burned the chocolate. It must be a tradition in my house...when melting chocolate, it must burn the first time tried! The second time, the chocolate turned out perfect!

While we were cooking and eating, we watched the movie "Love Happens." This was a pretty cute show, and I would recommend it. Although, I didn't actually get to sit down and watch much of it because I was busy making dinner.

When we were finished eating, Andrew and I went on a Scooter ride! We love the Scooters, and can't wait until the day that we can afford to get our own!

Time Flies...

Christmas was a lot of fun! Although, I can't wait to move out and actually experience a Christmas morning with just my husband and I, we had fun. Andrew bought me a nice Excalibur sabre, flag bag, coat, and a robe. I was so excited! He spoiled me way too much :) I bought him a digital camera. It is a very pretty blue color and he loves it!

Our nephew, Hyrum, had to have heart surgery just before Christmas, so we spent a few days up at the hospital. Everything went well, and he is recovering great. Sad to say, he still has to have another surgery to fix the whole in his heart. We're all hoping and praying that he'll do great!

Andrew and I have both started another semester of school! I'm very grateful that we have the funding to keep us in school. Man oh man, I can't even imagine having to pay for it on our own. Thanks to scholarships and Pell grants, we're making it through. Andrew is doing his generals at Weber State University, still trying to figure out what he wants to do. As grateful I am to know what I want to do and pursuing it, I am quite envious of his billiards class. I am taking all Special Education classes this semester. I only have 12 credits, which is nice. They are all evening classes, so I go to school Mon-Thur 4:35-7:05. I do get Friday with no school...but I have to do winterguard practice, which is another story. I enjoy having all education classes. Most of my peers are in all of my classes, which is very nice.

I am still doing winterguard. This year LPE changed to Weber State Fusion. We are doing the song "They" by Gem. It's a pretty cool mix. There are eight people, I think, on our team. Four rifles, four flags. I really enjoy doing something I like to do.

I'm still enjoying my job. The kids make me laugh, and it can be quite stressful. I can't wait to graduate and actually be 'in charge'.