Sheet Music

I've been in STG the past couple of days and since I haven't had much school stuff that I've needed to work on, I've been spending alot of time on the piano. My friend Kayla, who I talked about in my previous post, asked me if I would write down the sheet music for a cover version of the Titanic song I made up several years ago. I found a cool program on the internet that lets you create yoru own sheet music so I've been spending the last two days writing the sheet music for the Titanc song and also writing down the sheet music for the song I played in that video. I'm pretty happy to get it written down. Not that I think anybody even cares to have it, but I'll post the sheet music on my post as proof of my skills! :)

Here is my Titanic Remix, had it not taken me forever to get the sheet music program thingy figured out I would have recorded a video of me playing it so you could hear it, but I didn't want to take the time, just trust me when I say it sounds pretty good :)

I called the song Endless. . . don't really remember why, but I did :)

Piano

This will sound kind of funny but a friend of mine reminded me the other day that I used to write my own songs on the piano back in the day. I took piano lessons for about a year or so when I was 8 or 9, somethin like that, but it didn't last very long because I hated practicing (shocker ha). In high school I picked it up again after I heard this same friend, Kayla, play the Titanic theme song on the piano. I don't know why, but I thought the song was so dang beautiful on the piano and I was determined to learn how. Haha, I was terrible at reading sheet music so she just showed me what to do with my hands and I memorized it by ear. It took me about 3 months to finally get it down but I was really proud of myself when I did! My poor family, that's the only song I knew how to play so they probably wanted to break my hands after hearing it a million times! I learned a couple of others songs that Kayla showed me how to play and then I started just messing around and coming up with my own stuff. I made really crappy recordings of those songs, and it made me laugh going back and listening to them again today because they aren't all that great, when at the time I thought the were awesome :)

I took lessons again for 5 months or so and got better at reading music. I eventually bought my own piano which is currently sitting in my parents basement.  I still can't play a ton of songs, and I'm even worse now because the only time I ever play is when I'm in STG, but I seriously love playing the piano. I'm pretty sure God knew I would need some outlet for my emotions so he led me to Kayla, who got me back into playing. I love how when I'm mad I can just slam it and get everything out, and I love how when I am sad I can play it slow and sad. I love how I can play it happy and upbeat, or I can play a hymn and show reverence. Whoever created the instrument is a genius and I'm grateful that I'm able to play, even if I'm not the best and there is no way on this planet I would ever play for a lot of people (I tried that a couple times and it was pretty traumatizing).

The last time I wrote a song was way back in 2008. I've actually got a video of it, which I'm grateful for and part of the reason I'm blogging about it because I don't want to loose it. I've never written any of my songs down on paper, so I've forgotten how to play most of them, but at least I have this video if I ever want to go back and figure it out again.

PS- If you are one of my students and reading this post for some reason, I'll have you know that I had to use proportions to shrink this video down so it would fit in the post, take that!!




In 20 years when we can afford it, I want this piano. . . I'll just keep dreaming until then!

The Past Week

Well this semester is pretty much over for me. I finished up teaching my class this past week, and now I just have to grade the final. I have to say that this semester has probably been the best semester I've ever had in either my undergraduate or graduate program. I really enjoyed student teaching, but this semester was even better because I only taught two days a week compared to teaching every single day. Plus, it's a heck of alot easier teaching a class full of college girls as compared to teaching a class of hormonal teens!! :)  I really did love my students this semester and I am sad to see them move on, but I am excited about my class next semester and to get to know more students. Some things I learned from teaching this semester

- Just because you are teaching at BYU doesn't mean you can't have any fun in class!

- Some lessons seriously suck, but your students forgive you and you do a better job with the next lesson

- Never give candy to your students, especially in an 8 am class. . . they start acting a little crazy by the end of class!

- Be careful when asking about what is happening in the lives of your students, it may turn into an hour conversation about their love lives haha!

- Don't be afraid to make a mistake or laugh at yourself in class, it puts everybody else at ease

- Being genuinely interested in getting to know your students goes a long way in creating a comfortable environment in class

- My drawing skills are freakin terrible and will always be the source of entertainment to my students

- My students are alot smarter than I am, I was constantly blown away by some of the stuff they came up with throughout the semester, it made me proud!

- Alot of other things specifically related to math but nobody wants a to continue reading a boring list like that!

We went to a Christmas party for Jared's work on Thursday and it was actually pretty fun. . . minus the live band, not that they weren't good, but the party was inside of a green house and the band was so loud that you literally had to scream at the person next to you if you wanted to try and talk to them. Next time they should provide an acoustic band or something! We hung out with Jared's friend Kristopher and his wife Chelsey at the party. Jared and Kristopher went to school together and Jared was able to help Kristopher get a job up at Axis 41 a few weeks ago. Kristopher and Chelsey are a really cool couple and I can see Jared and I hanging out with them in the future quite a bit. They live in Lehi, which is where we are looking to move to after this school year so it would be nice to have some friends up there already when we make the move. Everybody at the party got a Blueray player as a gift from the company which we were pretty stoked about, thank you Axis!!

Lets see other random tidbits. . . Jared is still loving his job (although I swear our families don't believe us when we tell them that, I don't think either of us has had a conversation with our parents where they didn't ask us if Jared is still liking his job haha!)  He's definitely not loving the commute, but he carpools with Kristopher from Lehi to SLC so I think that is helping. We've paid off $3,000 in student loans. . . only 10K more to go, ugh! I am supposed to write a final paper for this dang 1 credit seminar class that I am taking this semester (last class I ever have to take!) but I can still get a B in the class if I don't write it, so I'm seriously thinking about bagging the paper and taking the B instead! Yesterday Jared decided he was going to replace one of the blinker bulbs in the Subi, turned into quite the project. He had to take off the entire bumper, pull out the headlight and then replace the bulb and put everything back together. I went out and helped him for a while and I was pretty impressed with his handyman skills, nothin more attractive than seeing your man do manly things like fixing the car, ha!

I've still been spending alot of time over at my friend Dana's helping her with her twins. They are getting so big, 2 months old now! She probably thinks I'm crazy for wanting to help her so much, but I have the time and I love hanging out over there. I used to be scared of even holding tiny little babies before helping with the boys, and now I am pretty much pro at feeding, burping, changing diapers, swaddling, holding, and putting them to sleep. Thanks to the twins and Dana I'm gonna be super mom when we have a kid! :)

We are heading up to Washington to Christmas this year. We are excited for the break and to be able to hang out with Jared's family! Only down side is the drive, but well get some books on tape which will help the time pass. During the past couple of weeks my favorite part of the day is right after dinner when we turn on the Christmas tree lights and the side lamp in our living room. It makes our apartment feel so cozy and homey. Most of our nights are really low key around here, but its just how I like it!

Coins for Kids

I honestly have no idea who even reads my blog, so I'm not exactly sure how far this will reach, but I wanted to spread the word about a non-profit organization called Coins for Kids. The goal of the organization is to provide Christmas for kids in St. George whose families can't afford any gifts. My family has been involved for over 10 years ago, just shopping for kids and helping to wrap and deliver presents. Some of my most favorite Christmas memories are from volunteering with Coins for Kids. A couple years ago Jared and I volunteered to deliver gifts to the families. He dressed up as Santa and I was his Elf, we had to stuff pillows up his shirt to plump him up haha. You can't even imagine the looks of joy on the kids faces when "Santa" knocked on the front door!

My dad is one of the main organizers of Coins for Kids now and he told me this morning that they are about $75,000 short of their goal of $125,000. All of the money that's donated to Coins for Kids goes directly toward providing Christmas for over 2000 kids down in STG. You can donate online at the link below. Please help out if there is any way that you are able to do so, even $5 will go a long way!

http://www.coinsforkids.net/

Just Dance

I decided that there needed to be an entire post to the amazingness of this game and to the picture and video footage we have from playing it over the break! My dad definitely wins the award for best dance moves. . . too funny!!

My dad and brother shakin it with my 

extremely coordinated husband ;)

The video quality is terrible, but my dad was 

crackin us all up with his facial expressions

and killer moves!

The girls. . . we all look like fools but oh well!

Haha Drake definitely didn't want anything 

to do with the dance party

Thanksgiving. . . STG Style

This year we spent Thanksgiving with my family down in STG. It was a much needed break and we had a blast down there! It was Jared's birthday on Thanksgiving so he opened presents in the morning. He got a pretty sweet watch that was a group gift from me, his parents and my parents, as well as a few different shirts and sweaters so he made out pretty well! After stuffing ourselves later that afternoon, most of the crew went out shooting guns while my mom and I stayed home with the nephew while he took a nap. All of us girls did some door-busting late Thursday night and early Friday morning and later on Friday we had cake for Jared's b-day. Luckily Jared's sister Mikell was in STG with her roommate's family so she came over that night too. His parents had gotten him that "Just Dance" game for the Wii so we played it for a while, probably the most hilarious thing I've seen in a long time! On Saturday, I was able to catch up with some of my best friends from high school which was awesome because we haven't gotten together in a long time! Now we are back to the grind, sadly. . . oh well at least there are only two more weeks till the end of the semester. We put up our Christmas tree tonight so we are officially in Christmas mode around here, I love it!

The cool watch he wanted. It looks like the kind of 

watch that a graphic designer would want

Trying to be a gangster. . . and failing. . . haha

Always making a weird face!

My family is the epitome of white trash!!

(Don't worry, the guns weren't loaded for this pic)

A fairly successful family pic, I'm impressed!

This crazy family in our neighborhood always

goes all out with their Christmas lights

I like this blue sweater, a good find huh?!

Adopted Nephews

Some of our best friends here in Provo, Chase and Dana, just had twin baby boys about six weeks ago. I've spent the past couple of days hanging out over at their apartment helping Dana with the boys and it's been so awesome! Their names are Tate and Porter, and they are the cutest little babies in the world! Dana amazes me, I would definitely not be able to handle having twins, but she is a rockstar mom and every time I go over there I leave even more impressed by her mom skills! I've loved spending time with these boys and appreciate Dana letting me come and help her, it makes me excited for when Jared and I have our own babies. Chase and Dana are moving up to SLC soon, and luckily we will be moving up there eventually too, so we're happy that we will all get to live by each other for now. Can't wait to see Tate and Porter grow up in the next few years, they are going to be little studs!!

Tate (left) and Porter (right)

Seriously, how cute are these boys?!? 

I can't tell them apart in this pic, 

it looks like Porter on the left and Tate on the right

You might have to correct me Dana! :)

STG Adventures

Last week I spent a few days down in STG to help watch my nephew. My sister is in the nursing program at Dixie State and her clinicals were a little funky that week so since I only teach my class on Mon. and Wed. I headed down after my class on Wed. and spent the rest of the week there helping out! It was really fun to be able to hang with the little dude, he's a pretty funny kid! On Thursday we went out shopping for Jared's (Bah) birthday. I wanted to try and find him a couple of new shirts. Since Drake doesn't like shopping, I convinced him to go with me by telling him that we were trying to find a "cool guy shirt" for Bah . . . we lasted all of 2 stores haha! We ended up going home and played on his swing set in the backyard, had some intense sword fights with his foam swords and hid from the "bad guys" in the backyard. See, I'm kind of a genius because in order to get away from the bad guys, we had to hide on his bed, so when it was time for a nap, I coerced him into bed by saying we had to hide from the bad guys. . . smart I know, I'll be the best manipulating mom someday haha!

On Friday we went to Costco to eat lunch. The kid can legitimately pound an entire Costco hotdog, it is amazing! He's the pickiest eater on the planet, but for whatever reason he will scarf down the whole hotdog. As we were walking into Costco we had to pass the TV section which happened to have Cars 2 playing on them, so of course we had to stop and watch for a few minutes. . . talk about manipulation, I bet they make a killing off of parents whose kids refuse to take another step unless the parents agree to buy the dang movie! Well I contemplated it, got manipulated and decided to be the cool aunt so I told him that B and Bah had a surprise for him and I got the movie for him. He was pretty excited about it and proceeded to watch it 3 times that day, 4 times the next day and has probably watched it another 12 times since we left on Sunday afternoon!

Here's a couple of videos from our car ride to and from Costco (sorry they are kind of long but my grandma and aunt hardly ever get to see Drake because they live across the country so they like to see pics and videos of the kid!), the things he says are pretty hilarious, he picks up on everything you say now and will repeat everything that comes out of your mouth. One thing he likes to ask all the time is "why??" seriously every other word is "why" so Whit started telling him "Because those are the rules" which he isn't a huge fan of hearing :)

The surprise from B and Bah

 This is what you get when you ask for a smile :)

So excited for Cars 2

Drake has a swing set in the back of my parents backyard and later that night they brought home some soft playground chip thingys that you put on the ground to make it softer. Anyway, we all pitched in to help spread them across the swing set area back there. It's seriously a child's fantasy, my parents are saints. . . they'd do anything for that little guy! While we were breaking our backs spreading those things out, Jared was on his way down from Provo on the shuttle so I went and picked him up later that night.

Pops doin his thing. . . You should see

this man when he gets working on a project,

it's a bit intense! ha :)

Classy attire there Whitter Poots

although I'm not one to talk either! haha

On Saturday, I went running errands with my mom while Jared and my Dad took Drake "Bammin" over at Lowes. I guess Lowes and Home Depot do this craft thing for kids every other week where they can get a project and put it together. That's right up Jared's ally so they went and picked up a monster car set and Bah helped Big put it together at home, pretty stinkin cute. Later that night Jared and I took Drake to see Puss in Boots, it was a really good movie! It was kind of fun to play parents for the evening, happy to report there were no major melt downs or potty accidents (he's only been potty trained for about a month now, so I was a little nervous considering some random kid peed on my sister and her husband in a movie theater a couple years ago, true story!!)

Bammin with Bah

Watch your fingers there babe, can't

imagine that a 2 year old has very great aim!

On Sunday we went to church, had family dinner, watched the Patriots play some freakin crappy football, and then drove home. We should have left earlier than we did because we ended up driving through a dang blizzard! The most annoying part was that the roads were totally clear, but it was snowing so hard that we literally couldn't see more than 5 feet in front of our car. Supposedly we need to get fog lights for the Subi, yet another upgrade that Jared wants for the car. . . Let's just add another $400 dollars onto the $900 dollars it will cost us to put a bike rack on the top of the car, no thanks baby!

We tried to get some pics before 

church but the kid wasn't havin it!

This is the best face we got

We had slightly more success when it

was just him with Bah and his sword haha

All in all it was a great weekend and it was fun to get away from Provo for a little while! And now we're back to the grind this week. Scary story from today, I almost died this morning as I was driving up to school. Some idiot ran a red light while I was turning left and was about 1 second away from t-boning me. He didn't even slow down, he was probably texting the fool! Seriously scared the daylights out of me! It only strengthens Jared's argument that Provo drivers are the worst drivers out there, and I now I have to agree with him! 

Weird Dreams

I would characterize my blogging as sporadic and little crazy. I try to keep it light because I like remembering the funny things that happen and I like to keep family posted on what's going on in our lives (the other day my mom told me that our blog is like our family history haha). This post is for me though. I guess it's what you would call a "journal" post, which I figure everyone who blogs is entitled to do whenever they want. I don't really care if you read it, and I don't really care if you think it's too much personal stuff to share because I just need to get it out and be done with it. And if this really is my family history, I want my future kids/grandkids to know me, a real part of me. So now you've been warned  :)

I have some seriously weird dreams. I've always had really vivid dreams and for the most part they are just random, like the other night I dreamt that I was trying to find the supplies I needed to take to my class the next morning but I couldn't find them, so I had to run around the math building looking for them. Other nights they are more crazy, like me running away from bad guys or other dangerous things. Last night was a depressing one. I dreamt that I was in a doctors office and they told me I had cancer, it was a crappy dream. Sometimes I don't like having such vivid dreams because the emotions and everything seem so real. In the dream last night I felt like I'd gotten punched in the stomach and round-house kicked in the face, Chuck Norris style. Too bad it's a feeling that I'm somewhat familiar with concerning this particular six letter word. I hate cancer, I hate it more than anything else in this world, I freaking hate it so bad. It's something my family has dealt with for the past 10 years and it sucks.

Extremely long story short, we found out my sister had cancer (Desmoid tumors to be exact, if you really care to look it up) when she was 16 or something like that. Even after several surgeries the stupid thing the doctors said was benign kept growing back and spreading. The summer after I graduated high school (2005) we found out she needed to do chemo and all of that nasty stuff. It was a really hard 6 months and even after it was all said and done the cancer is still in there, but luckily it's not growing anymore. It was difficult for everyone in my family, and it messed me up pretty bad. There were times when I straight up thought my sister was going to die, and it was just hard for an 18 year old kid to handle. It honestly took me several years after all the chemo and everything to get to a spot where I was able to deal with all of the emotional baggage. Even now, I can't get the images out of my mind, they are burned in my memory and pop up whenever I hear that stupid word or see movies based on it. There were so many times when it was happening that I wished it was me and not her who was sick. I would have done anything to switch places with her because I didn't want her to hurt. Which is ironic given my dream last night. In it, I remember telling her first before anyone else, but I can't remember what she said.

But what could anybody say to something like this or any other trial you have no control over?? Trials suck, they all suck really bad. I feel like some people almost try to glamorize trials and build them up like it's a privilege to go through crap. Yes, I am grateful for some of the things I learned from that trial, things that took me years to learn. . . but would I ever want my family to do it again?? Hell no. I understand the fact that we grow through our experiences, that we become better and more refined, because of the hard things we go through. I understand that, and I believe it, but I also think it's okay if we struggle through things, if sometimes we get upset about those crappy things we can't control in life, if we have an emotional breakdown every once in a while (which used to happen weekly for me back in the day), or even if we aren't grateful for our dang trials.

We all have unique challenges we have to face; we are tougher than we think and we can get through hard things. But please don't beat yourself up if you feel like you aren't "dealing" with stuff well enough. I spent alot of years hurting because I felt like I needed to "deal" with cancer better and that I should have just been able to get over it. Well guess what. . . it happened to take me years to "get over" cancer and considering this post and some of the feelings I still have towards everything, I may never "get over it" in this lifetime. But just because I may still struggle with it at times does not make me a weak person. Gaining perspective about what's really important in life has helped make me strong. Learning to develop my faith and trusting that God is aware of the hard things I go through has helped make me strong. Continuing to rely on the perspective and faith I have developed while facing other challenges, even if they aren't as huge, has helped make me strong.

I have a favorite scripture that has always helped me through hard things it's Doctrine & Covenants 121:7-8  ". . . peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment. And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high. . ."  Endure means to persevere, to do the best that you can. I've been doing the best I can with this trial and that is enough.


I love you Whit, you are the best person I know, and I will always look up to you.

Some professional photographers wanted to take pics of Whit, my mom, and I when she was doing chemo. Whit wore a wig in most of the pictures.

 They told us to think about everything

we were going through before they took this pic,

I call it our "screw the world" photo

Jared's Got Real Skills

Sorry about writing so many posts right in a row, but I wanted to let our family members (who don't have facebook) know about a cool accomplishment of Jared's. We just found out that a couple of his projects have been submitted to get recognized in the "new talent annual" of the best graphic design magazine in the country called Graphis. It's also one of the top design magazines in the world, so the fact that some of his projects have been submitted is a pretty big deal. I'm not sure when we will find out if they actually get accepted into the magazine, but if they do get accepted, it will be a HUGE deal! Here are a couple of links so you can see the projects that got submitted.

http://www.graphis.com/cfe/online/newtalentannual2012/?id=6948

http://www.graphis.com/cfe/online/newtalentannual2012/?id=6931

A few of Jared's classmates also had their projects submitted as well and it just goes to show how prestigious BYU's graphic design program is, literally one of the best in the country. I'm really proud of Jared for all the hard work that he put into his schooling and that he was able to progress so much in his program. I think it's been paying off pretty well with his new job too. Right now he's basically in charge of a whole entire rebrand project for a company, which is pretty cool considering he's only been working there for 6 weeks or so. Good job babe!  

I've Got Skills!

I've tried to make dinner rolls several times the past few months and none of the attempts have turn out all that great. I blame it on the fact that our apartment is too freezing cold and prevents the dough from rising properly (our thermostat read a whopping 60 degrees when I woke up this morning and when I came home from campus!). . . but tonight, yeast has never been so nice to me, and I made the most perfect batch of delicious, mouth watering rolls in the whole world, quite possibly the best I've ever eaten! (besides Jared's mom or his Grandma's rolls, nobody can touch those babies, sorry people) I don't usually scream with pleasure after eating stuff that I've made myself, but after tasting these I yelled, "Holy crap these are GOOD!!" Jared thinks I'm crazy, but I am dang proud of myself, I even took a picture! Mom and Carolyn, you'd better be impressed, because who knows if I'll ever be so lucky again :)

Here's the link to the roll recipe if you want it. . . seriously, Mel's Kitchen Cafe is the bomb.com, her recipes have never failed me. I made this awesome clam chowder from the blog as well to go along with the rolls and it was pretty freakin delicious too!

http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2007/12/french-bread-rolls.html

http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2009/10/my-favorite-boston-clam-chowder.html

The Copy Machine Hates Me

I got in a fight with the department copy machine today, and I lost. . . failed miserably. So I got to school early this morning because I needed to print some things off for my class. Five minutes before class started I realized that I had forgotten to print off a transparency with a couple of definitions on it. I ran down to the copy room and spent a couple minutes trying to find a dang transparency to make the copy on and I couldn't find one! Finally I found a box of more flimsy transparencies  (compared to what we usually have) so I grabbed one, shoved it in a tray and ran the copy. Two seconds later the stupid thing jams and I start smelling burnt plastic. . . crap! I opened the thing up but I couldn't see the transparency in there, and not because it's transparent people, I really just couldn't find it! Well I didn't have time to hang around to fix the problem, so I let the department secretary know there was a jam in that part of the copy machine, searched furiously for a regular transparency until I found one, made the copy using a different tray and ran off to class. After my class ended (two hours later mind you) I went back down to the copy room to assess the damage and it still smelled like burnt plastic, bad news. The secretary had tried to pull out the jammed transparency but wasn't able to find it either, so they had to call in some pros to fix the dang thing. I went back to my office to work on my thesis and a couple hours later the secretary swung by to show me the bill. . .  500 dollars later and the thing was fixed!!! Oh my gosh I totally freaked out! The secretary actually thought it was pretty funny because somehow the department has a deal with the service company where the department doesn't have to pay for the service so she was just giving me a hard time because it was really kind of funny, who seriously burns up the copy machine?! Moral of the story? I'm never using a flimsy transparency ever again, piece of junk!

After that drama, I spent the rest of the day in class and then grading exams. I always appreciated it when teachers got my tests graded and handed back quickly so I've been trying to get my students' tests graded fast this semester so I busted them out all in one sitting. But now I'm exhausted and am going to bed. . . peace out

Hair Cut

Tonight is a milestone in our marriage. . . I successfully cut Jared's hair for the first time ever, and it actually looks pretty good! We were both a little nervous that he might have to buzz it all off if I butched it bad, but luckily it turned out okay!

I think he's pretty cute . . . just sayin :)

Chili, Date Night and other Randomness

A couple of weeks ago I was at church and they sent around a sign up sheet to bring food to a relief society activity. Well I, being the unsuspecting and naive young girl that I am, had no idea that in family wards, they are hardcore about their relief society food.  I was totally willing to make a dish and take it, ya know, like rolls, beans or some other easy side dish, so when the sign up sheet came around I put my name on it. Then I watch as the girl next to me lift up the sheet I had just put my name as she signed her name on the "Side Dish" list. How am I supposed to know that family ward relief societies are much more organized than student ward relief societies, not only do they pass out sign up sheets. . . but they pass out individual sign up sheets for A) Main Dish B) Salads C) Side Dishes and D) Desserts and that I am supposed to lift up the front sheet marked "Main Dish" in order to sign up for something less important?! I swear they do this on purpose, put the main dish list on the front page to catch unsuspecting people like me off guard. I probably could have grabbed it back from the girl and erased my name from the main dish list, but then I would have looked like an idiot for not having read the dang sheet more closely! So I was stuck with the task of having to make a main dish. Now this had to be good people, this was my first family ward RS activity and being new in the ward, if I made something crappy, all the old ladies would probably label me as "that sweet thing who attempted to make a main dish. . . " This is a little traumatizing!

So I decided to make some Chili. When we first got married my sister gave me this really good recipe for Chili that I've made quite a bit the past couple of years, so I thought it would be the easiest, fool proof thing to do in this situation. I figured I'd make quite a bit because other people were smart enough to figure out that they needed to sign up on the "side dish" sheet if they wanted to actually make a side dish, so there weren't too many of us who had signed up for the main dish. The night before the activity I made 1.5 batches of the stuff, which is quite a bit for this recipe. The next day rolls around and this lady calls me up to remind me to bring a main dish. I made the mistake of asking her how many people to plan for, she says "Well, there were only a few people who signed up for the main dish and you were the only one who didn't have a question mark by their name. . . so plan for 24." Oh boy, it took all my power to restrain from yelling, "What the crap woman, you make a main dish to serve 24!!" I held my tongue and then proceeded to text Jared about the crazy RS lady who wants me to make chili for 24 people! So I ran home, got more ingredients for the chili and made another whole batch of the stuff. The whole time I was thinking, "First of all, we'll be lucky enough to get 24 people to this activity and second of all, these ladies probably eat like birds so we're probably going to have chili coming out of our ears after this!!" but I was faithful in my sign up and I made more chili. Haha it would have been pure comedy for you to watch me try and lug all that chili into the church building, but I did it. I was right on all counts though. Less than 24 people showed up and the ladies ate like birds. . . so I came home with a butt-load of chili. I'm never signing up to take food to a RS activity ever again!  But this randomly brings us to the awesome date night we had with our friends Maddi and Alex.

Maddi let me know that her and Alex got tickets to go see the play Sleepy Hollow and they wanted us to go with them. We decided that sounded like fun, so we got tickets as well. A few days later I had the chili fiasco, so I called Maddi up and asked her if they wanted to come over before the show to have chili with us because we had A TON leftover. They agreed so we made a pretty good dent in the leftovers before going over to the show. It was cool because the play was at an outdoor amphitheater in Provo. I had no idea that this amphitheater existed but it's pretty sweet, it's a replica of a castle, so it worked out well for the play. I had never seen Sleepy Hollow before, I was somewhat familiar with the story, at least the Headless Horseman part, but this particular version seemed more like a love story to me than the scary story I was expecting. It was still good though. . . other than the part where I we sat on hard rocks (this is a "castle" amphitheater mind you) and I couldn't feel my butt by the end of it. . . that wasn't too fun :)  After the play we went back to Maddi and Alex's apartment for hot chocolate and to watch the new X-Men. That movie is really good, we highly recommend seeing it! I stole this picture of all four of us from Maddi's blog.

Check out the kid in the skeleton 

shirt behind us. . . baha

I found some random pictures and videos on my camera when I went to pull some pics off of it. We'll start with the pics. Jared and I watched our nephew Drake every once in a while when my sister and her husband were living in Orem this past year. One night he decided that he wanted to play hide and seek. So he made Jared "hide" with him while I tried to "find" them. His favorite places of choice 1. On the other side of the bed, 2. Underneath the coffee table (totally hilarious to watch Jared try to "hide" underneath the coffee table haha!) and 3. Underneath the pillows on our bed. Here was the usual dialouge as I went to "find" them.

Stacie: Walking around the kitchen "I wonder where Biggie went. . ."

Drake: "I'm right here!!"

Stacie: Looking underneath over by the bed "Is he under the bed??"

Drake: "NO!"

Stacie: Walking around to the far side of the bed "Is he on this side of the bed??"

Drake: "NO!"

Stacie: Swinging the bedroom door "Is he behind the door??"

Drake: "NO!"

Stacie: Jumping on the bed and smashing him with the pillows "He's under the pillows!!"

Drake: Screaming at the top of his lungs, then "Do it again!"

And the process would repeat several times until Jared and I told him we were too tired to play hide and seek anymore (ha hoping this excuse will work with our own kids, likely it won't, but we can always hope right?!). One day when my parents were in town we were all over at our apt. and Drake wanted to play hide and seek, so him and Jared went and hid under the pillows in our room. Haha, we snapped a few pictures and Whit recorded Grammy (my mom) finding him, so funny!

His little feet sticking out, too priceless!

Hiding with Bah

Drake keeps telling Grammy to "get away!" in this video :) maybe it's the cackle that scares him?? Haha love you mom!

The other videos I found on my camera were from a few months ago when our niece Halle and little nephew Cole came and had a sleep over at our apartment when Jared's parents were in town. Only two main reasons why Halle and Cole wanted to sleep over, first because Grandma and Grandpa were staying at our apartment too and second. . . they wanted to play our Wii  (Jared and I probably came in at a close third haha) The kids love playing Mario Kart and it's pretty entertaining to watch them! They would start out on either side of the TV and by the end of the race Cole was usually on the other side of the TV and/or two inches away from the screen, pretty hilarious!

Jared and I have some pretty dang cute nieces and nephews, we love hanging out with them!