Baylan's Birthday and Night with Aunt Lacey

So, occasionally I'll have one of my nieces or nephews come have a sleepover at my house. It's a lot of fun and I think it helps them feel special. :) This time it was Baylan's turn, it also happened to be his birthday! We went to Tucanos to celebrate. I think he liked it, although he did say that it was the only time in his 9 years of living that he ate so much he almost threw up. Ha Ha Ha!

Brave kid ate some chicken hearts. YUM!

They may have done something to him...

The people at Tucanos sang Happy birthday to him in Portuguese (I helped of course) and he danced with the Tambourine. :)

 Such a cute kid! We had a lot of fun!!

HALLOWEEN!

This year's Halloween was awesome! My family had a totally awesome costume party, and everyone dressed up! My favorite costumes were probably Kade's and Tyson's. Those brothers of mine can always make me laugh!

On Halloween night I carved pumpkins with Kate and Ian. Kelly also came over for some of the fun. We had so much fun!

Peach Shakes

This post is WAY overdue! My brother Cody makes the BEST peach shakes ever! I had been begging him to make me one for a few weeks, even before the peaches were ready ha ha! Finally, the peaches were ready and he made me one. It was DELISH!

Squirrel houses and Playing Up a Sweat

Thank you Ryan for showing me the totally awesome squirrel house at the park! Thank you for making me run all over the park chasing you, laughing with you, yelling at the ducks with you, and playing up a sweat. You totally made my weekend! Thank you to Ryan's parents for letting me spend a few precious hours with your son.

Happiness

I've been thinking a lot about this little word lately. What it means to me, what it might mean to the people I care about, and what it means to complete strangers. Being LDS does of course give me a slightly different perspective on the word than it might to those that are not of my faith, but not completely. If I were to ask almost anyone on the street what TRUE happiness meant to them, it would probably sound something like this, "True happiness is when you are surrounded by people you love that love you back." Or something along those lines.

Now, I have been taught and I feel that there is a more than a grain of truth to the mantra that we decide whether or not we're going to put a smile on our face each day and whether or not we're going to be happy. However, as I have been thinking about it over the past few days/weeks I also believe that we have a large dependency on one another for our happiness. We DEPEND on each other to be truly happy. We NEED connections to one another. Mental, physical, spiritual, etc. Without these connections we can never be completely happy.

Of course, I've always known this on some level. It's just become something that has taken a more prominent position in my brain than I've ever let it before. When you really think about having to depend on others for some of your happiness, it can be a little scary. This is especially true for someone who likes her independence.

So, from what I've stated so far, the happiness formula could look something like this:

Our decisions + connections to others = happiness

Two songs below, and then I'll be done with my ranting for the night. (I'll probably post again on this subject, I still haven't completely wrapped my head around it, because when you start to dig deeper, you can actually go really far.) The two songs go along with this topic very well I think. I'll let them speak for themselves. :)

(By the way, thank you TeachinFourth for inspiring me to write a somewhat longer, and more personal, post than I usually do. Oh, and for introducing me to the first song on this list. LOVE IT!)



Okay, I actually don't really listen to Josh Groban much, but this song touched my heart the very first time I heard it, and the music video just makes it so much better! My favorite part has got to be when the little girl sees her daddy and runs to meet him. :)

Celebrity Status!!

I am a CELEBRITY! At least at Mount Mahogany Elementary. After only three days of teaching music to these great students, I have discovered that I can not walk down the hall without several kids giving me high-fives, saying hi to me, and of course the side-hug. LOVE the side-hug. I have also discovered that being a celebrity means being exhausted! I get done with my teaching for the day and all I want to do is sleep. And sleep. And sleeeeeep. But, I can't. YAY! (That yay is just like the yay from Tangled, just so you know. And if you don't know what I mean, then you're just missing out.) I have gained a serious appreciation for all you celebrities out there!



Ok...I found the yay for you all. :)

It's Finally Here!

Well...here it is! The end of an era! Yes, as many of you already know, I am a huge Harry Potter fan! And the last movie will be showing Friday. I already have my tickets to the midnight showing. (Thanks Kate for coming with your crazy roommate!) There's so much that I love about HP that it would take a really long time to write it all and since it's already pretty late I'm not going to. The books were/are genius and the movies do a pretty good job of not messing things up too terribly. ;)

Now, since I'm not above laughing at myself sometimes, I realize that liking HP can mean letting my inner nerd come out. I don't care! Bwa ha ha ha! And just to show that I don't, I have the video below. I definitely laughed out loud while watching it. :) Hope you enjoy as well.

A Godly Woman

"A Godly woman is one who possesses inner peace and tranquility:

she doesn’t have to prove herself to anyone.

Neither does she depend on recognition from others.

Hers is an inner contentment and satisfaction

based not on accomplishments, position, or authority;

but on a deep awareness of God’s eternal

and personal love for her”

I found this beautiful quote while I was working today.  It describes almost perfectly what I want to become, with one difference: I want to work hard to earn that incredible love that He has for me. I know that there is no possible way to ever do that, but if I work toward it, I will be able to have that inner peace and tranquility. I also have to accept that while I can't ever completely earn that love, it's still there and it's available for me to take into my life, cherish, and share with others.

Dusk

Dusk is one of my favorite times of the day. I was driving home from my softball game today at about 9:00 PM and the sun had gone down but it wasn't quite dark yet. In fact there was a gorgeous sunset at my softball game and now dusk was trying to hold onto the last few threads of light. Its such a peaceful time of the day. It almost has a mystical quality to it. I've never seen a painting or photograph that was able to really catch what dusk looks like to me. I don't know if I'm just weird but occasionally dusk looks like the edge of the sky has almost a greenish tint to it and its just so beautiful to me. I love it. Today was one of those times.

(Sorry for the weird post but those were my thoughts.)

Ramblings at 11:13 PM

Yes, it is 11:13 PM and I am about to post on my blog after a short period of silence. This really is going to be a rambling post. There's just so much...life is swirling around me. It's fabulous!

I am finishing a school year for a teacher. So basically that means I AM the teacher for this class. Today was my first day and it went really well. I had to create sub plans for tomorrow though because I'm doing the whole graduation walk thing tomorrow. It was surreal to create those plans and also to realize that this is it. I am the teacher. It's up to me to prepare these students for their tests and for life. Crazy!

I am moving again. It feels like that's all I've done for the past year is find a place, enjoy it for awhile, and then move out again. I'm excited for this move because I'll be moving back in with my good friend Kate but I'm sad too. Oh well....it's a little like a mission transfer I suppose.

My sister Cherish and her family are moving to Fairview before the end of May. No more hanging out, no more lunches, no more Sunday dinners, no more FHE, no more just sitting at the bar and talking to my sister. I'm really going to miss that.

My two brothers are gone for the summer. One is in Alabama and the other in Hawaii. It was hard not having them around last summer, for some reason I think this summer will be harder just because I know what to expect now. Strange I know, usually that means it will be easier. I am going to miss them and their wives, they're more like sisters for me.

Oh! Before I forget! I wanted to write about my little miracle from this week. I was called to sub at Sage Hills Elementary which is way out in Saratoga Springs. I've been to Eagle Mountain before but not Saratoga, so I knew the general direction to go but I didn't know exactly how to get to the elementary school. So I checked out a map online and left my house in just enough time that I would make it to the school right on time. (Yeah, I know I should have left earlier but I didn't.) So I'm driving along and I get to Saratoga. I start looking for the name of the street that I'm supposed to turn on. I knew that it was right off the main road so I continued to drive. I kept driving. And driving. And driving. I started to get worried. Did I miss the street? Was I not supposed to be on the main road? What was going on? Time was passing quickly and I needed to get to the school because I was subbing for a Kindergarten teacher, which meant that I needed to be on time or these kids would FREAK! ha ha So I continued to drive. I had been praying for several minutes and I just felt that I needed to keep going. Soon I came to a spot that I could either go right or left. I felt that I needed to go right and if I didn't see the road then I would turn around. Well, AS SOON as I turned right there was a nice, beautiful, elementary school hidden behind a small hill. I couldn't see the sign but I just knew that THIS was the school I was supposed to sub at. Of course it was. Thank you Heavenly Father for answering even the smallest prayer. :)

Let's see what else? Oh I am training for a triathlon. Yep, that's right. The girl that never liked to run has been running for the past few weeks. Today I ran 3 miles in about 34 minutes. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. ;) Camie, my sister, is supposed to do it with me, but we'll see. She broke her foot a couple weeks ago so I don't know if she'll be ready by our triathlon. It's on May 21st down in St. George. It will be so nice to go down there for a short visit!

Have I ever posted about how amazing my parents are? They're just the sweetest, most awesome people ever! I love them both so much! They're always willing to sacrifice for me. They are incredible! I hope that one day I can be half as fantastic as they are!!

OK...I think that's enough for tonight. There are, of course, many other thoughts bouncing around in my head but I'm not going to blog about them. HA! ;)

Adventures & Misadventures of Daily Living: The Email Chain

So...I haven't blogged for a LONG time. But here's what's going on in my life. I graduated from school, got my teaching degree, I'm subbing for several classes and I just found this post that I thought was hilarious! It's kind of long so if you don't have much time then don't read it, but I got a kick out of it. :)

Adventures & Misadventures of Daily Living: The Email Chain: "It was about eight or nine months ago that I was introduced to this savvy little bit of comedic genius from David Thorne. It is told via em..."