Getting Excited

I spent every day this week in my classroom (excepting Saturdays and Sundays of course!) and I am really truly getting so excited for the next school year to start! It's a good thing that the week after next they are waxing the floors at my school. That will force me to NOT go in to my classroom and to actually have a true vacation! And then the week after that I will be home...that will also make me truly vacation! As for now, I plan to spend every day next week in there except Thursday, which is the day my friend Pyper gets married. I have her luncheon at 11:30, making centerpieces while they are sealed at 3, and then the reception from 6-8, so there will be no time to go in to my class on that day. Next week I will have two pictures of newly married couples-Pyper and her fiancee, Kyle, and also a picture of my cousin Katy and her fiancee Jason. They are being married tonight and I'll be attending their ceremony and reception. Such is life right now, weddings and classrooms. I can't complain!

Quite a Week

So usually I have to force myself to take a picture during the week so that I have one to post here. This week I have 7 and none of them were forced. First big news...I cut my hair! I kind of wanted to keep it a secret until I saw everyone in person but then I figured the news would spill out somehow anyway, so, there you go. There's a picture of what they cut off, next to a 12 inch ruler. There was no regret, no sorrow, no crying, just one initial heart-wrenching shock when I first saw what they chopped off. It didn't last long and I am very excited to have short hair again. I'm donating that braid to Locks of Love.
Yesterday and today I did a lot of volunteering with the Provo Freedom Festival. Jackie and I helped at a children's craft booth yesterday morning, and then yesterday afternoon and this afternoon we helped at the Colonial Days Fair. We got to dress up in Colonial Era costumes and help direct foot traffic and answer questions and today we were in a museum with a lot of really neat documents. There was a letter written by the Marquis de Lafayette, a letter written and signed by George Washington, a few lines written by Abigail Adams, a rare signature of Paul Revere, a signature of John Hancock, a couple documents signed by Abraham Lincoln and one of the original copies of the Declaration of Independence (there are only 35 of these existing today). They also had a Confederate sword, a book from the personal library of King George III and a book belonging to King James I, plus a letter written and signed by Benjamin Franklin. I could go on and on. Wow, it was cool! One more thing. There was a man there who looks almost exactly like President Lincoln. Jackie and I felt like his aids all afternoon, we directed museum traffic into the room where he was sitting and out of it. The whole Colonial Days Fair had a lot of neat exhibits, they had a full-size reproduction of the aft section of the Mayflower, a military encampment with a cannon that they set off every couple of hours, and spinning wheels which woman were actually spinning wool on (I watched the process and it's very fascinating, though if I had to do it all day it would definitely become very tedious!). I had a lot of fun and Jackie and I definitely plan on helping out next year.
The final thing we did this weekend was participate in the parade this morning. We were "balloon wranglers". There was a giant balloon of Paddington Bear that we helped "wrangle" through the parade by holding his ropes. Jackie, Laura, Scott and I all helped with that, and the pictures of all of us in the lime green volunteer shirts are from this morning at about 8am before all the "wrangling" happened (I just love that our title was "wrangler"!).
Happy Fourth of July!

Quite a Week 2

Praise to the Man

I was reading the Church News this morning and it mentioned that, today, it has been 165 years since the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith. So I listened to the "Joseph Smith the Prophet" CD and renewed my testimony of this great man and the work he did. I have known for years that he truly received the First Vision, in which he prayed in a grove of trees to know which church was right and saw and spoke with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Last summer when I had the blessing to walk through that very grove where Joseph Smith once knelt, I felt such peace and calm and knew, again, that he really saw God the Father and His Son. And then again today I am reassured and know that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet and that the First Vision is a reality. Truly, as John Taylor wrote, "Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it." He restored the church to the earth. He gave his life for his Savior and his Savior's gospel 165 years ago. I hope that I can do all I can to live for my Savior and my Savior's gospel. If called upon I would die for it too.

2 Cute Nieces and 1 Cute Car-1 day late

I am posting on Sunday because I spent the weekend in Kennewick at my friend Liz's wedding. Yesterday was full of pictures, a wedding luncheon, making centerpieces, dipping strawberries and helping at the reception so I did not have time to post these pictures. And I don't even have any pictures of the wedding because I forgot my camera! Maybe one of my friends will post some on Facebook. And speaking of Facebook, Alex posted those videos of her, Jackie and I going down the water slides at Seven Peaks. You should be able to access them from my profile page :)
The pictures I have today are of the cutest nieces in the whole world (I got to see them both this last week) and of my new car. A station wagon. Who would have thought?

A New Favorite Place

In the last month, my friends and I have eaten at Red Robin 5 times. It is kind of ridiculous but if you ever have the Bleu Ribbon burger (which I order every time) you would understand why we go so much. It is so good! My friend Jackie always gets the bacon cheeseburger and Alex always gets the Chili Chili cheeseburger (though she tends to regret it every time!) and our other friends will soon have their favorites, I'm sure! These pictures are from this last Thursday when we went there for my birthday. Don't worry, we are not going to go nearly as frequently as we did in the last month! But we are going to be at-least-once-every-two-month-regulars. Mmmmm. Just writing this made me want a Bleu Ribbon burger. Yum!

Historic Day

Last Sunday was an historic day-I had my very first limo ride! Joe Baxter in our ward has a brother-in-law who owns it and rents it out but lets Joe use it pretty much whenever he wants for free. So he went and got it Sunday evening and took about 12 girls out for a ride (lucky guy, huh?!) It was so much fun, we all crammed in the back and sometimes we poked our heads out of the sunroof and we took lots of pictures and listened to music and had a blast. There are more pictures of the ride on Facebook.
My friend Alex (the one I'm with in the pictures) took some video of her, Jackie and I going down the slides in tubes at Seven Peaks with her underwater video camera and she's supposed to post those on Facebook, too, so watch for those, too! In one we all completely fall OUT of the tube at the end of the slide, when we land in the pool at the bottom!