Cruise to Mexico!

Look at my little ice-cream swan!

Having dinner on the ship

The famous arch in Cabo

On our way to go snorkle. The rock formations behind us were so cool and tall!

The amazing midnight buffet!

Pelicans with our cruise ship in the background!

Standing on the deck with Cabo San Lucas behind us

Shopping in Ensanada!

School is out and summer is here! To start off the summer right, Matthew and I went on a cruise for our 2nd wedding anniversary. It was so nice and relaxing. We spent most of the time laying out, reading or just enjoying time together. We stopped at Cabo San Lucas and Ensanada. We went snorkling, swimming in the ocean, shopping and had awesome real Mexican food! The boat was huge and really nice. At first we paid for the cheapest room we could without a window but come to find out we had been upgraded to a room with a window which was really nice. The dinners on boat were all so fabulous! Our waiters were so friendly and helpful. I think I had seafood or steak just about every day! It was fun to get to know the people sitting at our table. There were four other couples sitting with us. However, one of the couples missed the boat and got left at the port of Ensanada! I remember them telling us they go there often and it isn't very far from San Dieg0 (where our cuise took off from) so i'm not sure if they did that on purpose or if they just had a little too much to drink in Ensanada! But the boat also had some really good shows in the evening. One night a hypnotist came and called people up from the audience to hypnotise them. It was halarious! He had them doing all sorts of dances and crazy things! We also perticipated in a dance off and our team won! Ok- funny story. So Matthew and I both put our names in a raffle the spa was having for a free massage, free haircuts, and other stuff. So while they were drawing names they called me! I had won!! However, I had won a free shave! So I had to give it to Matthew! But since I have a wonderful husband he got me a pedicure while he was having his shave! Matthew did great at some karoke in the evening while I cheered him on. There were some really interesting song choices and performances from people who decided to drink a lot before coming up to sing! Anyway it was a really good getaway and I am so glad we were able to go! Also I decided to chop off seven inches of my hair right before I left so here are some picture of me with a new summer do!

I'm Hooked

I started reading the Twilight series and I am officially addicted! I read the first book in two days! Now I am in the middle of the second one. I never thought I would get sucked into a sappy, dark romance novel but I did. But Stephanie Meyer has a way of writing that hooks you into it the story. I love her style of writing. It's an intense love story but its also tastefully sensual. If you haven't read it, read the series before the movie comes out in December!

Modbe Swimwear Party

One thing about summer coming around that I really do NOT look forward to is swimsuit shopping. I usually get so frusterated in trying to find the right one. Everything is either not modest, or very modest and hideous. So this summer I actually tried looking on line. I found ajmodbe.com and fell in love with thier swimsuits! Then I found a consultant near me and she told me to come by and I could try on their suits to find my size. That really made me excited because I reallly don't like buying anything without trying it on. I love Modbe's swimsuits because they are very modest and very stylish! So I bought one and wanted to spread my exciting find! So to celebrate I am hosting a Modbe party. If you are in the area you can come see and try on all the differnet styles and sizes available. I am having the party Thursday, May 22 from 7-8:30. If you are not in the area at least check out the website to see thier selection!

Spring Break

Today brings to a close the wonderful week of Spring Break! It was a very much needed break. However the only down side was this week was Matthew's most crazy week out of the whole school year! He had end of semester projects, finals and he took the MCAT on Friday! He is also going down to Galveston, TX to present some of his research he has been doing in his lab on campus so he has spend lots of extra time working. So I took the week to do many productive things and many relaxing things. Here are some of the highlights:
-Breakfast with old roommates
-Scrapbooking
-Reading
-Hanging out with Jenna and Cade
-Going on an afternoon date with Matthew
-Sleeping in
-Going to aerobics classes
-Playing games with our new neighbors
- Going to my school and grading papers with no students there
-Shopping
-Got two cavities filled (I guess that's not really a highlight)
-Bringing lunch to Matthew on campus
-Surprise visit from a friend (that was fun Emily!)
-Organizing my house
-Enjoying the spring weather!
It was a great week. Now real life starts up again tomorrow. (5 weeks of school left!)

We Moved!

I know I haven't posted in a while. We have had a lot going on and now finally have a plan of what we are going to be doing for the next couple of years. Matthew thought he was going to medical school but has now changed his mind. Very last minute he took the GRE with a week to prepare and applied for a BioChemistry Masters program at BYU. He did amazing on the test and got in! So he is very excited and I am very proud of him for making this decision. He feels really good about it even though he is not quite sure what he will be doing for a career yet. He now has a couple of years to decide. Another big change is that the family who lived above us has asked us to leave so their son can move into the basement. We told them we would move sometime this summer and they were fine with that. Well, we were looking and found a cute little duplex in Spanish Fork for a really good renting price and location and took it! It is right off the highway which is nice for me to go to work and it cuts my drive time in half!! Also there is a bus stop near by for Matthew to get to BYU. The only down side is it is about a third the size of the basement we were in. We have just collected a ton of stuff over the past year and were worried it wouldn't fit! Fortuntely we fit but it's just a little snug. We are planning on selling some stuff and almost have enough for our own garage sale. Hopefully we can find someone else having a garage sale and hook up with them! Here are some pictues of our cute, LITTLE place!

Here is our little bedroom that has a sliver of a closet! That really is the only thing that I'm not sure what to do about yet. We do have a second bedroom that is kind of an office. So Matthew gets the second room's closet while I get the master's closet and about 1/3 of the second bedroom's closet!

Tiny bathroom!

kitchen dining area.

Kitchen. Notice no dishwasher!

Front room!

The outside of our duplex. I love that is has a porch!

Only Students in Utah!

Being in Utah I know a lot of my students are LDS. So its really funny to see how it comes up in class. Here are a few examples

I gave my students a homeork assignement to find a newspaper, magazine, or book and read about a paragraph to find prepositions. Then they were to list out as many prepositional phrases as they could and to underline the preposition. (For ex. through the house, under the bed, into the garbage, around the tree, etc.) I had one girl come up to me the next day and tell me "Umm I couldn't find anything in my house to find prepositions so I used the scriptures." I kinda laughed and said that was ok. Then later as I was grading the homework I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I read her paper. Here is some of what she found:
1. Always abounding
2. In good works
3. May seal you
4. May have everlasting salvation
5. through Christ the Lord
I never would have thought I would see that in a classroom homework assignement!

The day after parent-teacher conference night I was telling the class how glad I was to see so many parents there and one boy raised his hand and said, "Sorry my parents couldn't come last night, they had to go to the temple!" I assured him that it was ok and we could reschedule.

Once every week I hand out an envelope of cut out letters to every student. Then I ask, "What 3 letter words can we make with these letters?" Then I list out the words they come up with. Then I ask for 4 letter words, 5 letter words and so on. When students can't find any other words I tell them to try and find the big word using all letters. Some of them are easy but others are hard. One time we were on 6 letter words and a boy raises his hand and said "We can spell 'mormon!'" I checked the letters and sure enough it worked so I added the word to our list.

Without fail, every party we have in our class the differnet moms who volenteer to help will say "Hi, I am Sister So-and-so, I mean Mrs. So-and-so!" I'm not kidding, without fail.

Also once a week, I give the class a topic such as tools, scientific words, outside jobs, etc and let the students have one minute to write down all the things that come to mind. Then we go around the room as list them. But if one students has something that another students has written down they have to cross it off. We are looking for words that are original and creative and students get rewarded if they come up with something that no one else has. So one week the category was jewelry. I told them to be as specific as possible. We got to one girl who said "CTR ring." It was definitly original and she was able to use it!

Just some of the funny LDS lingo that comes into the classroom!

Fun Winter Projects

I really enjoy having my student do art projects. So January's project was snowflakes. My class really had fun doing them. I had them all fold the paper a certain way and then let them cut it any way they wanted. Most of them turned out nice. We also made giant snowflakes! They really thought that was cool. I hung them all out in the hallway for everyone to see!

Funny Now But Not at the Time

So my car does not do very well in the wintertime. It just really doesn't like the cold, especially because we do not have covered parking. So many days require scraping the car from ice and snow. Sometimes the doors will get frozen and will not open. (We have been late for church a few times because of this. One time we just decided that we were going to have to walk to church, luckily someone gave us a ride about half way there.) Sometimes, but not often, the driver side door will open just fine but then when you close it, it will just bounce back open. It won't latch together. Tuesday morning was one of those days. Usually when that happens I can just slam it a couple of times and it will close. But this time it didn't. I wasn't worried at first, cause eventually it always closes. So I just blasted the heat and waited for the car to heat up a little bit while I keep slamming this door..........20 minutes later the car door still will not close! By now I am getting very frusterated. I called Matthew realizing that he can't really do anything about it because he was already on the bus going to BYU campus. But I didn't know who else to call. He suggested to try and wiggle the latch in the door and was trying to describe to me what it should look like in order for the door to close. All this did was get my white gloves dirty. Then I saw my neighbor leaving his house so I asked him to take a look and his suggestion was that my car door was broken. Not helping!! By this time I had spend a half hour in my driveway and was on the verge of being late for work. I came to the conclusion that my only choice was to drive to my school holding my door closed. For the whole 30 minutes down the freeway, I had one hand on the steering wheel and one holding my door closed. Not a very fun drive. I was so scared the whole time my door would swing open. Once I got to school, I told my 6th graders the story and they thought it was halarious. By then I agreed with them and thought it was funny. But it certainly was very frusterating at the time. (Now when I leave in the mornings I choose to climb though the passengar door!)

I'm an Aunt!

It was so nice that Matthew and I both had a long break from school and work. We had a really nice Christmas holiday. Here is a picture of our little Christmas tree. We spend Christmas morning sleeping in and enjoying time together. Later we went to my grandparents and spend the afternoon with cousins who were in town. The day after Christmas, my best friend from Texas came up and visited for a few days. I'm so glad she finally made it up to Utah! We had tons of fun talking, catching up and skiing! It also just so happens that she camethe day Jenna had her baby!! Perfect timing! So we spend a lot of time visiting Jenna and seeing Cade. He is so cute!! I'm an aunt! He is soo tiny I just want to squeeze him! Its fun seeing Jenna and Cole with a baby. For the next couple of weeks my mom is in town to help Jenna and to mainly see her first grandchild. Now I am back at school but I am at the half-way point of the school year, so its only down hill from here!

Star Struck!

So on Saturday Matthew and Cole got together to watch the BYU bowl game and Jenna and I took on the holiday shoppers and went to the mall to get a couple of scrapbooking things. While we were checking out at the scrapbook store guess who walks in....Donny Osmond! Not kidding!! I had to give a double take at first! I leaned over to Jenna and whispered "Thats Donny Osmond!" She didn't believe until some lady kinda made a fool of herself trying to talk to him! Anyway who would have thought he would ever need to go into a scrapbooking store!

Our holiday so far has been wonderful and very relaxing! Matthew had a tough semester and finished all his classes doing pretty well. We are just enjoying the time we get to spend together now and waiting for Jenna to have her baby! Today for Christmas Eve we are having an all- fingerfood-dinner and building a fort in the middle of our living room to sleep in while Santa comes (Matthew's childhood tradition!) Then we will wake up and enjoy Christmas morning! Hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday!

Christmas Projects!

I have had so much fun doing Christmas projects with my class! Grandma Black was so kind to give me both of these ideas and the templates for both. So I have to give all the credit to her! I was so surpirised at some of the boys in my class who were so particular and had to have everything just perfect! I have the poinsettias up on a bullitan board in the hallway of the school since I don't have any space outside my classroom becuase I am in a portable. The stockings are hung in my classroom just above the reading corner. About a week ago, a scrapbooking store in Provo donated all of there year end surplus to schools. So every teacher could go and collect 20 lbs of paper or supplies! So I tried to grab a bunch of Christmas stuff for my students to use for the stockings! It was kinbd of chaos with all these teachers just grabbing everything and anything! Anyway I think both projects turned out great and I am proud of my students!

Thanksgiving!

This year for Thanksgiving I went home to Texas. I haven't had Thanksgiving dinner with my family for about 4 years so it was nice to go home! Matthew and I helped my parents make pies and the best rolls in the world. We went over to my Aunt and Uncle's in Arlintgton, Texas for dinner. It was so fun to see cousins and be with family. We had an amazing dinner and it snowed on Thanksgiving Day!! This was the highlight for my little sisters and cousins! Of course the flakes were far wand inbetween, but still it was snowing in Texas. We all piled onto one chair after playing in the snow cause we were all so cold! We played games, had amazing pie and enjoyed each other's company. Here is a picture of Matthew and his BYU apple pie that me made.

The following day, we went Christmas tree hunting as we do every year the day after Thanksgiving. We sat on the hayride and loved picking out trees. My little sisters and I probably enjoyed picking out the cutest, littlest tree we could find! But it was a blast and my family got a really pretty, tall tree for the family room. Too bad we had to leave before we could decorate it with them. Fun trip! Fun people!

Grandpa Black

Last week, my Grandpa Black passed away. Out of my four grandparents, I thought he would have been the last to go and not the first. He had such an active life in running, serving and always working on a project. My family gathered in American Fork, Utah for the services. This was really tough on my Grandma Black but we had most of our famiy there to help and support her. I couldn't believe how many people came to the viewing and funeral. We had prabably 200+ people who stood in line over an hour to pay thier respects to the Blacks. It was very touching to see how many people Grandpa Black had influenced. It was really nice to have so much family around. We really had a good experience being there. The funeral service was so inspirining and helped bring closure to the situation. Though this was a sad event, I am peaceful about it and know I will see him again.

I've Been Tagged

I have been tagged by Julia and Marissa to tell 6 things about myself. But, as usual I have procrastinated long enough!
A. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
B. Each player lists 6 facts/habits about themselves.
C. At the end of the post, the player then tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. Matthew and I are really into Heros and Lost. We really are not TV people, but we have gotten into both of these shows and are obsessed! We are in Texas right now for the Thanksgiving holidays and pretty sure we brought season 2 of Lost with us on the plane. but hey the time passed by so fast! So these are the two shows we watch when we both get home at night.

2. So I have a fetish with really cute pillows. I love to have lots of fun pillows on my couches and bed. I am pretty sure I got this obsession from my mom but now I can't help it. I love going into stores like Burlington and Ross because they usually have really cute [pillows for less expensive prices. Matthew really doesn't appreicate them nearly as much as I do but they just add so much to a room!

3. I love to scrapbook. I think this is an awesome way to preserve pictures and memories. However when I am scrapbooking, I hate having one picture in the middle of a page while it is surrounded by all this cute-sy stuff. I like to cram (tastefully) as many pictures on as I can but still have enough room to decorate and make it look nice. I try to scrapbook in my spare time, which usually come to Sunday afternoons.

4.I love my job. Its really fun to have a real job and to enjoy it too! My 6th graders are great and I never have a dull moment during the day. I love to plan fun projects for them and to have creative lessons that the students are engaged in. Even though it takes about 50-60 hours a week to really be prepared and ready every week, I can't think of anything else I would rather do as a career. And the best thing is, no matter where we end up I can always get a job in what I love to do!

5.I like to cook new recipes. I definitely have my favorites that I made a lot but I like to try new dishes. The other day I made a homemade cheesecake was so rich but smooth and creamy. Some of the recipes i have found have been turned down by Matthew, but most of the time they turn out great. The only thing I really don't like is dealing with raw meat, so Matthew takes good care of that and then I can do everything else! So if you have any fun, new recipes, don't hesitate to share!

6. I really do love to dance and miss it so much!! I miss jazz dancing like I did in drill team and I miss being on the Ballroom Dance Company at BYU and competing in ballroom events! Matthew always catches me dancing around the house! So far this year I have taught the beehives in my ward how to line dance, a family in my ward had a family reunion with about 100 or so people that asked me to come teach how to line dance, I have been invited to a singles stake dance to teach line dancing, and now a co-worker asked me to teach salsa dancing to a group in January. I am loving all these oppertunities to dance and I would love any more! I am seriously considering taking dance this summer at a studio but feel kinda weird being an adult and wanting to take dance classes!

So thats me! I now tag Aria, Taryn, Debbie, Emily, Andrea Trowbridge, and Melissa Mann.

Yummy muffins!

My cousin asked for this recipe, so I thought I would post it for everyone to enjoy!

Coffee Cake Muffins
-1 ½ c flour
-1/2 c sugar
-2 t baking powder
- ½ t salt
- ½ c butter, melted
- 1 egg
- 1/3 c milk
-Topping (Below)
-Icing(Below)

Topping:
In a small bowl, combine ¼ c brown sugar, ¼ chopped walnuts (optional), 3 T sugar and 1 t cinnamon. Add 1 T melted butter stirring until mixture resembles moist crumbs.

Icing:
In small bowl combine ½ c powered sugar, 1 T milk and 1 t vanilla, stirring until smooth.

Directions:
1. Prepare topping, set aside
2. In large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Pour in butter, egg and milk. Stir (will be soft).
3. Spoon 2 T of batter in each cup. Sprinkle ¼ of topping over batter. Spoon batter over topping filling cups ½ full. Sprinkle ¼ topping over batter pressing into batter. Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes. Cool 5 minutes. Remove from pan.
4. Prepare icing and drizzle over warm muffins.
(Doesn’t make good mini muffins—I tried it)

Halloween!

We had a lot of fun on Halloween in my classroom. In my school district all teachers and students are encouraged to wear costumes all day! So it was almost pointless to do anything productive cause students were so distracted and eager for that night! But we did a fun Halloween writing activity and some other fun Halloween stuff! I was impressed with the costumes my students wore. I had a motercross guy, a couple of devils, a few rocker chicks, a hobo, Legolas from Lord of the Rings, a dead soccor player, and much more. I am really not a costume person but I didn't want to let my kids down so I came to school as a pirate. The whole school had a parade so everyone could see everyone's costumes and even parents were invited. I got several teachers tell me "Oh I almost didn't recognize you as a teacher, I thought you were a student!" Oh well. I had a couple of parents come in to do a Halloween party and they did a great job. We played games (like a mummy making race by wrapping up students in toilet paper!) and made popcorn hands with candy corn as fingernails. It was a great day. I didn't get any trick-or-treaters cause we are in a basement and our door doesn't face the street! But that was ok by me. I was all Halloweened out just from the school day! Here is Jenna and I right before we left for school. I would show a picture of my class doing the mummy race but I probably shouldn't put up student's pictures without parents knowing about it. But they did such a good job!

Pray for Grandpa

This week has been very hard for the Black side of my family. My grandpa Black hasn't been feeling well that last couple of weeks and was finally brought in to the hospital. At first they thought it was his lukemia coming back but not quite sure. Grandpa has been taking some blood thinning medicine but the doctors found that he was bleeding inside his brain, and the blood thinning medicine was not allowing the blot to clot and stop the bleeding. There have also been some other complications, some of which I don't even know. Also his sodium level was very low, almost to a comatose state. We have gone to visit him and he isn't very responsive or talking very much. We are praying that he can recover! My dad came out here for a few days to be with his father. Grandpa was a talking a lot more the last time I saw him, but his health was not improving. I know the doctors have been debating surgery but think he might be too weak. So keep him in your prayers!

The Weekend

I love productive weekends and this was a very productive weekend! Since I get up at 6am everyday I guess my body is used to that so even on the weekends I wake up that early. I try to sleep in but oh well. I got so much done on Saturday! I had a ton of grading to catch up on especially since the term is coming to an end this week and I have parent-teacher conferences on Thursday (scary!) I did a lot of school stuff as well as laundry and Matthew put up some stuff on the walls that I have been wanting to rearrange. Also I have kind of been stressing about what to be for Halloween since I guess all the teachers at my school go all out for Halloween. And I just really don't get into it that much. So Matthew and I went to the costume store to get some ideas. I couldn't believe how scandelous everything was! Definitly not appropiate for the elementary classroom. But right as they were closing I found a Princess Fiona costume. It came with a very modest purple princess dress and Shrek ears! So I think I might go with that plus it would be a good costume for an elementary school. To add to the weekend we went to the BYU game with my old roommates on Saturday. At first it was cold but slightly sunny, then it kept getting darker and darker until we watched from across the field the rain just come sweeping in! It was pouring! So good thing we were kind of prepared with hoods and gloves. But then all that rain turned to snow! It quickly became blizzard conditions and our Cougars still won by a long shot! It was fun to be in the first snow storm of the season, however we all were numb, wet and parked a long ways away. We decided to walk to Jan's house and have hot chocolate until all the game traffic died down. But it was quite the experience. Late that night while the boys were watching a baseball game Jenna and I got together with our roommates and played games (which took forever cause we would talk and laugh a lot and forget whose turn it was !) On Sunday I finally had time to do some scrapbooking which has been long put off, but right as I was glueing down my first picture, my glue ran out! Out of all times to run out!! But luckily I called Jenna and she had some I could borrow, so I finished one of my roommate pages (shows how far behind I am!) To top of the weekend, I get to sleep in tomorrow (if I can) because I have a substitute in my class while I go to a training not too far away from Orem!

Baby Shower

This weekend I hosted a baby shower for Jenna. It was a lot of fun and ended really showering pretty hard that morning. I couldn't really take a lot of pictures but my cousin took a lot of pictures that she is going to give me so there will be more coming! A lot of Cole's family came that I had never met before so it was fun to meet all of them. We played baby games, had fruit and coffee cake muffins and of course opened gifts!! Jenna got a lot of good loot for "Jole" (The combined name of Jenna and Cole--not the real name for the baby, just a nickname!) It was all so tiny!! I had fun picking out outfits and little shoes! Anyway the baby shower was a lot of fun and thanks to everyone who came! There is a picture of the invitations I made and a pic of Jenna and I right after the shower.

Classroom Pictures!

First is my reading corner. Students love to sit here and read and I always make sure that they are being used to read in and not just sleeping or playing! One of my classroom jobs is to fix up the reading corner and they do such a good job. I never have to go back and fix it up! All arond the reading corner are little posters from each student where I gave them three sticky letters and they had to come up with a word that describes themselves using each of the letters. Its hard to see but it they were so creative in some of the words they picked!Next, as I was leaving my class last night the sunset was so pretty I had to take a picture. This was right outside my classroom door. Next are a couple of student computers withd some bullitan boards of what we have been studying. Last here is my reading library and birthday calendar! Teaching is hard work but so fun. I am excited to start teaching about ancient Egypt next week!

Two Weeks Down!

I have survived my first two weeks of teaching 6th grade! It has been a new fun experience as well as a very time consuming job! I have 27 students and they are a great class! I think I have a really good combination of students. I had no idea how much this job would take out of me. I have been so exhausted these past couple of weeks but I'm sure I'll get used to that. Everyday we do Work Work, Writing, DEAR time (Drop Everthing And Read), Math, Science and World History. The subjects that are the hardest to plan for me are History and Science because I find myself trying to brush up on the information myself! This past week my students seemed to be seeing how far they can get away with things so I have had to really work on discipline and have the class redo things until they do it right!! But on Friday we ended the week well by having a class auction where students can "buy" things with thier "class cash" that they earn. ( I told them we would have a big auction on the last day of every month). They loved this idea and really got into it. Now I thing they will really try to do thier best to earn "dollars." I have a great coworker who teaches 6th grade right next door to me. She is a second year teacher and we get along great! We do a lot of planning together and she has a lot of good ideas for science which is good for me! I keep forgetting to take my camera to school to take pictures of my class but will soon! Anyway I am loving teaching and learning a lot in the process!

Cedar City

I know I am a little behind but things have been so busy now since school has started for me but I will post about that later. The weekend before I started working Matthew and I drove down to Cedar City with a couple, Kevin and Brooke, who are in Matthew's chemistry class. They are so fun and we have enjoyed getting to know them this past semester. We stayed at Brooke's parents house which is probably the most amazing house I have ever seen! They live on the top of a mountain and the house is complete with an indoor lap pool, 2 sauna's, a home theatre room, and an amazing game room. The whole house is just very ornate especially all the woodword and crown molding. I loved the layout of the house but it was so big that I sometimes got lost! Anyway they had 4 wheelers and jet skis that we played with all weekend. It was such a nice getaway. We had so much fun. Matthew did awesome waterskiing! He got up every time and stayed up for a while. Me on the other hand had a little more trouble but still had tons of fun. I did the best on the tube. I held on for a long time and when I was finally thrown off, it was such a hard landing that I almost lost my swimsuit bottoms!! They fell down to my ankles and fortunatly I was able to retrieve them and pull them back up. Here are some pics of us 4 wheeling, playing at the lake and also they had a hummungbird feeder in the backyard and had literaly 30 hummingbirds all huddled around. But for some reason they must have known when I brought out my camera, cause they would all fly away!

Wonderful Weekend

Last weekend Kayla stayed with us after finishing a week at BYU for EFY. It was such a fun and packed weekend. We picked her up at 6:45am on Saturday at her dorms. Then we went out to breakfast while she told us all about EFY. Then we decided to go floating down the Provo River. We went all over town and apparently no one in Orem sells water shoes. So we decidied to chance it and wear flip flops. The river was so fun! Matthew was on a tube and Kayla and I shared one. Good thing we did that cause I don't think Kayla would have made it on her own. She didn't quite get the paddling thing to move away from rocks and trees! The water was cold but still bearable. Some parts were just so relaxing and calm and other parts had some good rapids. The only fatality we had was Kayla's flipflop that she lost in the water! We were able to save it once, but the second time the current was so strong we couldn't get to it. We took a lot of pictures on the river but once we got on the water we used a underwater camera to be safe and I don't have them developed yet. Later that night we went to a wedding reception for my friend Alisa (You have probably seen her in some of my other blog pics.) She looked so pretty and I'm glad I went. Since we were in Salt Lake City we walked around beautiful temple square and took pictures! Kayla is quite the photographer! Sunday, Kayla went to church with us and that was really fun since I am in the Young Womens. That afternoon Kayla made her famous cookies for us. Then we had dinner over at Matthew's grandparents and games later at my grandparents! It was so fun having Kayla with us and she is now exactly my height! I can't believe that. I have come to realize that I will probably be the shortest Black girl since 2 of my sisters have surpassed me and another one is very close!

Harry Potter!

So lets be honest, Matthew and I are really into Harry Potter! We were both so pumped for this last book to come out and we have already seen the 5th movie! Actually we watched the Harry Potter movies 1-4 during the week when Jenna was here and then on the weekend went and saw the 5th one! We didn't want to miss out on the excitment of the 7th booking coming out so on Friday we went at midnight to Borders to get our preordered copy! Matthew went early Friday morning to get a ticket to hold our place in line. We we arrived about 12:15am it was so packed!! I couldn't believe how many people were there! It was so fun though. Kids were all over the place dressed up as different characters. It was so funny when the first couple of peolple got their books they held it up really high and everyone in the store starting clapping and cheering! I saw a couple of people I knew like Chris Jones and his wife and a couple of other people from BYU. We stood in line for about an hour before we got our copy. On the way home, I drove while Matthew read the first chapter out loud. Then while I went to bed he proceeded to stay up until 3:30 reading! So neither of us are done with it but when I came home from work today I was going to read until I saw that Matthew had taken the book up to campus with him today!

Reunited!

For the first time in a long time all 4 of us roomies were in Utah at the same time (me, Melissa, Jenna, Laura.) So of course we had to go out to lunch. We went to this really cute place called Zupas. Its so yummy! You walk in there and it is filled with groups of girls! Its the perfect little girls-out-to-lunch place. It was so nice to catch up with everyone. I think we sat there for about 2 1/2 hours just talking! Jenna was in town that week because we both had new teacher induction. I am getting really excited to teach but nervous as well. All summer I have been thinking that I still have a while before school starts but really now I only have 3 weeks to get everything ready! Jenna stayed with me and it was so fun to be together again. Matthew said he could never understand anything we were saying to each other cause we never really have to finish our thoughts to get what we are saying in our conversations! It was fun to see her growing belly! She's going to be a mommy! Well starting inAugust all four of us will be in Utah again so we will have to have more lunch outings to Zupas!