Kim's Birthday Lunch

I am off-track again and that means I am back in Seattle for about a week and a half. I arrived here on Sunday. Chad was here from Tuesday of last week until last night. Since we both missed our friend Kim's 30th birthday on March 15th we took her out to a birthday lunch yesterday. My cousin Blake also came. We all decided to go to The Cheesecake Factory in Bellevue. If you haven't been there, you don't know that the menu is the length of a short novel...so many choices! It was very yummy! It was also good to visit and spend time with wonderful company! Kim...thanks for making time to go out with us and happy belated birthday! (oh...and we forgot to take pics...oops!)

Temple Square Lights

One of my favorite things to do during the holiday season is to go around looking at all the Christmas lights. One of my favorite places for Christmas lights is downtown at Temple Square. I was able to go with some friends last night and had a great time admiring the wonderful job the workers did to make it beautiful. The pictures aren't that clear because it was dark, but you can kind of tell that each branch on each tree is wrapped with little tiny lights. They are everywhere...so beautiful!

Jazz Won!

My friend Israel has season tickets for the Utah Jazz games. He was nice enough to take me to the game last night. They played the Memphis Grizzlies and won by quite a bit. The final score was 117-100. It was a good game and I enjoyed hanging out with Israel! Thanks, Israel, for inviting me!

Israel wanted to make a funny face in the picture we took of us. Fortunately, he agreed to do a "normal" picture. I let him do a funny face one for being so cooperative about the "normal" one. Looks hot, huh?

Thanksgiving Presents

We received our Thanksgiving package from my mom the other day. I was so excited to see what she had sent! I know...you are probably wondering who gives Thanksgiving presents. I was told yesterday that it wasn't "normal" to give or receive Thanksgiving presents. I have a wonderful mom who always thinks of us and sends us stuff for most major holidays. Thanks, MOM! Anyway, I was so thrilled to see that my mom had sent me a nativity set. I love nativity sets and love collecting different ones. The one she sent me (pictured below) is a Jim Shore set. I love the detail each figurine has on it. She also sent an angel to go with my Willow Tree nativity (I don't have it out yet, so I didn't take a picture of that). Thanks again, Mom...I love it!

Weekend Visit to Vernal

I was able to go visit Rick, Kristen, Gracie, and Pepe in Vernal this last weekend. On Saturday we did some shopping at some of Vernal's cute stores and, of course, Walmart. Kristen had the wonderful idea of making chocolate cookies with candy cane kisses in the middle. We made them on Sunday before I left and they turned out very cute.

The candy kisses melted so you can't tell that's what they are, but the colors are still cute and they were very yummy!

While we were making the cookies, Rick was in watching the 49ers game (they ended up losing...sorry Rick). We tried having Gracie chill with him in the living room so it was easier to make the cookies. She didn't like that idea and just wanted to hang out with the girls in the kitchen. She loves sitting in her highchair playing with toys. The only problem...she likes to try to share her toys with Pepe. This means Kristen ends up picking up toys the whole time. Oh well!

(Isn't she so cute? I wish they lived closer!)

Some Late Halloween Pictures

So Halloween has come and gone, but here are some almost month old pictures.

This is Marianna, our school's wonderful speech pathologist, and me on Halloween. The members of our Special Ed. team were all M&M's. I was a bumble bee...again!

Here are some of the spiders that my students made as one of the centers in the Halloween party. They have York patties in the middle. They all turned out very cute!

I'm Still Alive!

Jen, Paige, and Carter politely reminded me that I needed to post something new...thanks guys! I have done a lot since my last post when I was in Seattle. I flew back to Salt Lake with my mom and then drove out to Vernal to visit Kristen, Rick, and Gracie. Unfortunately, I had to come back to start school. I mean...I love school and all, but Gracie is so dang cute and fun to be around. Kristen and her family brought my mom back to Salt Lake on Friday. My mom watched Gracie that night so that Kristen, Rick, Chad, and I could make a trip to Lagoon for Frightmares...it was a lot of fun! We went to get Gracie's pictures taken the next day (that is a whole other crazy story!). This picture is my favorite (it doesn't have very good resolution but it's still cute).

Mom flew out on Saturday and Kristen and her family headed back to Vernal. The first week back on-track was good and busy. I was definitely looking forward to a good weekend, too. The weekend started out great, but I ended up getting the flu on Saturday night. I spent Sunday and Monday resting and went back to school today. Fortunately for you, that is the shortened version. Goodbye for now!