First days

Monday was the first day of my fall semester and of my internship. I have three classes this semester, thanks to some summer school, and I am working at two elementary schools with the same school counselor. She splits her time between the two, so now do I. I like it so far. I went on my first home visit, chatted with a few kids, watched the counselor give a lesson in class... nothing like starting out running. Today I went to the other school, but as it was the first day of school for this school, we didn't do much with the kids. I still feel a little... ok A LOT nervous and completely unsure of what I am doing,but I know as the year progresses I will build self confidence and knowledge of how to be a great school counselor! But until then... wish me luck!

If at first you don't succeed...

For my birthday one of my presents was a fabulous cupcake cookbook! I love looking through it... but cookbooks are not just there for looking at pictures, so I looked through it in hopes of finding a recipe that not only looked yummy, but also that I had all the ingredients for in my pantry. Sure enough I found one. I was super excited and proud that we had everything I needed already stocked. I feel like I followed the recipe, but my cupcakes sadly did not turn out the way I was expecting. Not to say they didn't turn out the way they were supposed to... just that I was expecting something a bit different. I made some yummy cream cheese frosting and cut up strawberries for the top. A little variation from the finish the cookbook suggested but I didn't think that would matter. So I tried again... this time I adjusted the recipe in a way I thought might help. It didn't. Sad. The second batch turned out worse than the first. Oh well right. I will have to try it again sometime.

From St George to LA

After our first day of back roads we stopped in St. George for the night. We celebrated my sister's b-day with a yummy dinner and a barbie birthday cake! The next day Kristen and I had plans to take more side roads from St. George to Agoura (The good life). We decided we would take a trip by Hoover Dam. We left the I-15 at the Logandale/Overton exit and drove around Lake Mead on our way to Hoover Dam. I have one thing to say... it was HOT! 114 degrees, hot. We got out a couple times to take pictures and one time nearly lost our directions as the two open doors created a wind tunnel. We also encountered some road construction (what trip to or from Utah would be complete without it) where we had to drive on dirt roads for a while... good times. Why did we not think that Hoover Dam would be just as busy as any other state or national park on the weekend. The line of cars was pretty long to get in, and of course they had a security checkpoint to make sure there were no shinanagons. As we were walking around we heard a ruccos and we noticed there was a fight! We went to get a closer look. In the end Megatron was defeated! We were safe! After that we had figured we had enough of an adventure... so we headed back to California. We took more side roads till we met up with the 15 again outside of Vegas. Good times...

Summer Lovin'

Ok so not really, not in the sense of Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta or anything, but I am loving the summer. After I finished summer school I have had a great time. Timp cave with the family, My dad's birthday and little William's baby blessing, trips to California, and hanging out with friends and family.

I celebrated our nation's Independence Day for days actually. It was a great weekend. Kristen flew up for the 4th, and we had a great time. We started the festivities with the Oakley Rodeo in Oakley, Ut. on Thursday the 2nd. I loved that before the rodeo started instead of one person singing the Star Spangled Banner the whole crowd stood and paid tribute to our flag. I loved it! The rodeo was great too. Friday Kristen and I went to lunch at a sushi place downtown SLC for yummy sushi and then we went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house. We had to wait in a bit of a line to get in, but if you ask me, the church has it way more organized than in the past when I remember waiting for hours (hours!) to see San Diego, or Vegas. The temple is beautiful of course. It was worth the wait. Friday night we went to a BBQ at one of my sister's friends house, and then we went to see fireworks from a golf course. My sister's boyfriend kept telling us we needed to get going. I had no idea what kind of fireworks (or crowds) to expect. He was right we needed to get going! The place was packed, there were tons of people, but the fireworks were great, and worth the walk from where we had to park. Early Saturday we ran in the Centerville Freedom Run (5k). It was really fun... I am not too worried about how fast I run, so it was a fun time. Afterwards we sat and watched the parade. I love parades!Saturday afternoon Kristen and I went to a demolition derby in Ogdon. Let me tell you, it was a completely different crowd than the rodeo or the 5k... but it was still tons of fun. One of the cars had to be physically removed from on top of one of the the freeway barriers they use to keep all the cars in. I think it might be a goal of drivers, to get other drivers stuck on the wall!We left the demo derby to find yet more fireworks, so I called Jill and she recommended some great fireworks down the road from where we were. Kristen and I grabbed some KFC and found a spot to eat and watch fireworks. Kristen took some amazing pictures of the fireworks! We had a great time... I love Independence day. I love my country. I love the freedoms we enjoy, and I love the men and women who fight everyday for those freedoms. Bless my homeland forever!

Scottish Festival

So on Saturday Jill and I and a couple of friends went to the Scottish Festival. It was a lot of fun! On the way there we drove straight through the middle of a thunder storm. That was a little scary. We practically had to stop because we (or Jill rather) couldn't see where to go. Crazy. Good thing when we got there the rain had pretty much stopped. I think the rain had slowed things down there so at least there wasn't a lot of people there. We walked around checking out the different booths, the food (the kind you would see at the fair), the fun people all dressed up, the crazy highland games. We ate yummy grilled corn, There was a homemade ice cream stand where the ice cream was churned with a crazy john Deere contraption. It was cool. I could so be a part of this world. Jill and I might join the Utah Scottish Association! Oh yeah and the guy behind me on the bleachers is wearing the OFFICIAL tartan of Utah... Camo

Ginormous Dandelions!

Birthday and blessing weekend

This past weekend was my dad's birthday, and the baby blessing of my newest little nephew. We had a great time! The whole fam (except my little bro and my big sis, Missed you!) came for the weekend. Kristen came too, we had a busy, fun time! Friday we hiked mount timpanogos. It was a lot of fun. I remember hiking up to the caves when we were little, but it has been a long time. The caves were very cool. It was a lot of fun hiking with all the kids too. We also went to dinner for my dad's birthday up on the top floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial building. It was great. My brother Jed rounded up 70 (+/- a few) attributes/qualities that we love/admire about my dad, and a few funny stories too. =)

Sunday was the baby blessing, and we had a great time too. It was wonderful! We had a great weekend. Sorry no pictures of that, I know how fun pictures are...

Memorial Day 2009

For the Memorial day weekend this year my sister and her boyfriend and Kristen went to St George (where my parents live) and had a fun, long weekend. We had a great time, we went miniature golfing... Jill got a hole in one! I think Kristen had the lowest score. We went hiking, well on a nature walk anyways, in Snow Canyon. We went to church in Pine Valley. My mom said it is the oldest continually used church I don't know if that is in Utah or in the church. The chapel is little and there were over 600 people there, so as you could imagine they had chairs and closed circuit tvs up everywhere. We were in the kitchen/RS room. It was fun though. After church we took a sneak peak at the chapel and a classroom that is up these tiny little stairs. It was a lot of fun. We then walked around the Pine Valley Reservoir. It was a beautiful day and there were lots people out fishing and picnicking. My sister brought her dog (we were shocked that my dad said it was ok), and he had a fun time too... It was a great weekend!