School's Out?!?!

Yes, it is and this is a bittersweet feeling for me. I have some great plans for the summer- I'm going to discipline myself and get myself back into shape--(post on that to follow), learn to can, organize our garage and pantry, do some decorating, and READ! I am looking forward to summer but I was sad to say goodbye to this class. This year ended on such a positive note. My team this year was incredible (I work with a wonderful group of women) and my class was great...I had such a positive experience. With budget cuts and bigger classes, I am leery about next year but I think that I will hopefully fall in love with the class I have next year just like I always do. I cried as those kids walked out of my room yesterday and the first thing I thought this morning was, "I have to tell my kids about that..." and then realized that I couldn't. This class was very united and one of a kind. As I cleaned up my classroom I realized how much of an art teaching really is. It's not apparent to those on the outside. It's the way that I know each and every one of my students' handwriting. It's how I know that Alex will tell me if he has a question but Angel will not. It's the way I know Katie is like me--capable of an A but will settle with a C and so I know when to pick my battles with her. I can almost always tell when a lie is being told. I know each student and how s/he learns and who I can or cannot tease. Most all of my students could be teased this year, which made it so much fun! I know Reylene's laugh. I know Kyle's drawings. I know them and I love them--so very very much. There is an art to teaching not a science (ahem---research based programs!). And I'm grateful to be some sort artist in this capacity. I love my job. I love my students. I love life!

L.A.Z.Y.

I don't really think of myself as a lazy person. And if you ask my husband he will tell you that I am the least lazy person he knows. He is wrong on two accounts. 1. My mom is the least lazy person anyone knows. 2. I don't really think that I'm not lazy as much as I get annoyed with myself because I have tasks that I dislike or will complain about either out loud or just in my own mind. I don't imagine people like farmers, mechanics, landscapers (all professions that I stereotype as NOT LAZY) complain EVER! I just can't bring myself to believe that they ever do. Therefore, sometimes I have moments of self-loathing where I tell Zach that I'm lazy...and it's simply because I sometimes don't do things with a joyful heart...that's just what it comes down to.

So...here's a list of ten things (you're dying to know) that I absolutely hate, can't stand, avoid whenever possible, and would love to do without entirely!

1. Putting gas in the car. I don't know why but I can't stand it. I really do avoid getting gas and sometimes make Zach go fill up the car. If I had money, I would have someone else put gas in it for me...truth!

2. Meetings! Oh how I detest meetings. They overwhelm me. They usually make me feel worthless (especially if they're at school) and they seem pointless to the procrastinator in me :)

3. Blow drying my hair :)Seriously. Now, I don't avoid this whenever possible because I have to but I would HONESTLY rather do laundry for an hour than stand and blow my hair dry. It seems like a waste of time to me.

4. Hanging Clothes. I will fold clothes all day long. (Whites are my favorite for that very reason..I just fold fold fold. For some strange and odd reason, I hate putting clothes on hangers. So I save those for last, making the task all that much more daunting. And oh my goodness, if I have to go back into my closet to get my skirt hanger (my special hanger that I "love" that hangs five skirts at once)--well, that just about kills me.

5.Unloading the dishwasher. I will hand wash dishes with less complaint (this complaining is done only in my mind...like I give myself a pep talk :) I love doing dishes. I CANNOT have dishes in the sink but I have to take a deep breath when it comes time to unload the clean ones.

6.Unplanned or unwanted stops. This is probably the worst thing on my list. I hate coming home and then having to go back out to the store, if that wasn't a trip I was planning to take. If I'm planning on going grocery shopping after dinner, that's more okay. If I realize I need eggs and I have to go to the store, I will try to figure out what else I can make with whatever I've already got out until my much more laid back husband offers to go to the store for me :) (And sometimes brings me a treat back!) If I want to be home (and that's the case most days...especially if I stay late at school for some reason) then I will not go out of my way to go to the store. I will stop at Walgreens or Maverick and pay 10 times more...or sometimes I've stopped in the dreaded WalMart (I hate HATE HATE Walmart) but I just turn off our main road on the way home and I'm there so yes, I will occasionally stop there). If there is one lazy thing about myself it is this one...I absolutely don't like this about me and am working on reprogramming my brain so its not so put out by this kind of thing..:)

7. I don't have anymore! I am not QUITE as bad as I thought...:)

What's on your list?

6 Months of...

*Being this happy (most of the time this is VERY true. I will admit it's not always but honestly, that comes LARGELY for me being very hard to handle:) Zach is still handling it better than I would've ever thought someone would. Every time I comment on this his response is, "I love you!"

*Coming home to or greeting my HUSBAND every night. And I still can't quite wrap my head around why I absolutely LIVE for the end of the day. I love my job but I will admit that I just can't wait from the time I say goodbye to him in the morning to come home!

*Making dinner and sweets and goodies in our home. I love our house absolutely. I love being married in our house! I love baking treats for Zach on Saturdays. I think I have FINALLY mastered his mom's banana bread (his very favorite thing, EVER) He'd rather have banana bread than cake or cookies. Although, I've made his favorite no bake cookies and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, too. According to Zach, "They're the best cookie ever and I don't feel as guilty eating them because I'm getting my oats." As if he's in any way health aware :) We've also discovered a few favorite recipes. Zach loves the sweet/sour chicken I make in the crock pot (recipe from Cathy). I don't like it as much so I make it when I'm going to be at parent teacher conferences or something and I'll be fed by the PTO :) I love his mom's chicken tetrazzini. LOVE IT. Not healthy but delicious. And together we dicovered making pizza on a loaf of sourdough bread=DELICIOUS!

*Attending the temple together every month. I have a firm belief that this is a necessary habit and I love that I can share it with Zach.

*Settlers, SkipBo, games, game nights with friends, shopping, movies (We love Northern Lights Cinema), and doing it all as a married couple!

*It's the best 6 months of my life! I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father for blessing me so abundantly. I have more than I deserve and I am ridiculously happy with it!!!

*Sidenote-Thanks to my good friend Chris for capturing some of these pictures. I haven't been able to share them yet but he got some really good ones. Here are a few:


I love this picture. I love this moment, I love the girls, AVA, and I love Jonnie's Jessica (I secretly wanted her to catch the bouquet).
I love this picture of Zach with the boys :) They adore him. I'm not sure if Fenix adores him but I'm happy he's in it, too!
So happy that Chris got these pictures of the Larson family. Who made me so happy with all of the help and traveling they did. Especially since this is the ONLY picture of my boy cousins that I have from the wedding. At all. I was SO relieved to find this. I was so grateful to all of those boys (but especially Corey, who traveled from Rexburg with his pregnant wife) to come to his cousin's wedding. It meant a lot to me. This family did so much for the wedding (came, helped set up/decorate, take down/clean up, and deliver the gifts to our house.) Thanks again, Larson Fam! I love you guys!!
Six months and counting! I am looking forward to an eternity of experiences with my handsome husband! He's the best!!

OH Honeymoon!

We enjoyed our honeymoon a little late! I personally felt it was perfect. We had already sent out all of our thank you notes. I had already changed the name on all of my legal identification "things." We had already unwrapped and put away all of our gifts. Plus, we were on "hiatus" for the first month of marriage. Meaning-we made absolutely NO plans with anyone for the entire month. It was BLISS-FUL!!! I actually asked Zach if we could please go back on hiatus for a while :) We'd been (and I feel like we still are--honeymooning for 5 months!:)

A family from Zach's mission gave us a their time share as a wedding gift and we chose Lake Tahoe, Nevada. We were able to enjoy a WEEK LONG honeymoon thanks to them! Zach and I had yet to wake up for 7 straight days together and enjoy breakfast. We only have Sundays off together, so two days is a gift to us...7 was...AMAZING. I was sad to come home, but I thought I would jot down some events. We went over spring break. We left on a Saturday. Got there that night and just drove into town and ate not much else.
On Sunday we tried not to spend any money so we just took a drive around the lake TWICE. The above picture is from the morning drive...the picture below is from a little shopping mall that we found and went back around that night...Zach thought this was funny :)
This is us on the balcony from our room. Mom wanted a picture (she didnt' want to wait and I was trying to take this and Zach kept kissing me. Turns out, it's my favorite picture of our entire trip :) We loved our view...even after getting snowed in!
We took a hike down to Emerald Bay. Our favorite part of the lake. There is a castle down there that is open in the summer time but was closed. We still thought it was neat to look at!

Emerald Bay from the dock! Beautiful! It was probably the prettiest day there!

We went bowling one day! Zach beat me twice. We loved Tahoe Bowl, though! The people were really nice and I really wanted to do something local...at least once :)


We rode the Gondola up Heavenly Mountain. It was a spendy trip but we enjoyed it. It was COLD. It snowed, in fact we got snowed in (post on that to follow) one day. So we went up here the next day. It was COLD but really pretty up there.




As fancy as Tahoe is..there is literally a 7 Eleven on just about every corner. We went to this one (just down the road from our room) a few times. Yay for Slurpee's (coke ones :)
The Nestle Toll House Cafe. We substituted dinner for brownie sundaes. I was so proud, I actually didn't finish mine but let me tell you, it was worth every single calorie. It was delightful! Mine is the one on the right.
We enjoyed Carnival Cabaret at a local casino. It was the cheap night and we were FULLY entertained. Those men had better bodies than I will ever dream of which was a little depressing but we had fun!

If you go to Tahoe, you need to have breakfast at Heidi's.

We took the M.S. Dixie cruise out to Emerald Bay. It was really neat. We heard some cool stories about the history of Emerald Bay (and ghosts of old sailors :) But it was foggy and very cold!


We had a great time! Before we left we decided to "leave our mark" right outside our room on the two plus feet of fallen snow! :)

View from our room right before leaving.

I don't have pictures of our trip to Reno on that Friday but I MUST post about it : ) We drove to Reno to play in a poker tournament at the Atlantis Casino. It was Zach's first time playing anything in a casino and that was fun to share with him! It was a 30 person tournament--Zach took 6th place and I took 4th. Unfortunately we didn't make any money as they only paid out the top 3. I was definitely bummed and really caught up in it, I was really upset but I won't bore you with details...I got over it over a buffet lunch with a killer dessert bar. I finally got the baked potato I had been craving and dessert :) We then played 6 hours of blackjack at the same table. Meeting all kinds of people and dealers! We had so much fun that we stopped back in Reno on our way out of town on Saturday--after Saturday's playing, we were up just a TINY bit on all of the money we spent! :)

I loved traveling with Zach. We went to Georgia for two weeks last summer, but this time I got to wake up with him every day and make him breakfast. I love being married and I love vacationing. I think that even if it's only for a weekend--Zach and I will be having lots of "second honeymoons" it's just too much fun!