Friends

I just have to say that I don't know how, but I got blessed with the most amazing group of high school friends ever. We've managed to keep in decent contact thanks to blogs and Facebook over the years (now almost 8). Now many live out of state, in fact of six of us girls we live in five different states right now. But the track record is amazing. Everyone either has a college degree, or are in the last stages of finishing their degree. Everyone has gotten married in the temple.

So these said amazing friends have come up twice recently. The first was just over a week ago. I came home from a family Christmas party to a giant box on my doorstep. Unable to really get together, one of my friends still organized a baby shower. Here it is.

I had balloons, treats, a diaper cake, confetti, gifts, and cards all stuck in this box. They went in on the crib set I'd picked out for the room that matches the border. And this was my happy surprise. It was so much fun.

Also recently, the largest group of these friends got together for breakfast. Its sort of an annual tradition to get together for breakfast shortly after Christmas. This year more people came than have in a long time. We were only missed a couple. It was fun to see people's families and hear where everyone is right now. We forgot to take pictures before a couple of people left, but here's the picture when we did take it.

Just the girls (and kids) Everyone left and families

Pregnancy

Just so I get all my tummy pictures on here, a recap of pregnancy. I feel like I've been pregnant for a very long time. It was funny, because for so long I would get comments on how tiny I was. No longer. I'm not tiny. But its fun to see the growth. So here is my collection of me pregnant. Hopefully not too much longer.

Pretending to look pregnant at three months Four and a half months, not much better.

My Halloween costume and Anna's first costume as a basketball. 6 1/2 months along.

Not quite sure exactly when, but getting big. Something like 8 months.

And just before Christmas (Dec 23) almost 9 months.

So baby is big and I'm big and now its time for this belly to disappear :) I have to say, I've never put this many pictures of myself anywhere, its a little unnerving. One funny thing I find is ladies that I talk to who mention they miss being pregnant. Although there are some upsides to it, mostly I can't imagine ever missing my entire body being out of whack. Come on little Annalee, its time to come meet mommy :)

Anna's Room

I haven't been good at this but I did want to share our big project of recent weeks. We have turned Matt's old bedroom into our little Annalee's room. Last week we finally finished the floor and moved what stuff we have in. I have to say that it just makes me happy. I'm at about 30 weeks now and looking forward to these last 10 weeks being done. Luckily the holidays are upon us making this all a little more fun.

Here's my chair that we've had for a long time and a few of the big butterflies.
The corner with the bassinet that we have right now and the butterflies going up the wall. My husband did each and everyone of the stenciled butterflies and designed it. So amazing. Also, I have to draw attention to the items in the bassinet. The pillow was made by Matt's mom. The quilt was sent to me from Texas and is absolutely amazing!
Detail around the door and light switch.

And I realized none of the pictures showed the awesome floor. I'm too lazy to go take one right now, but here's an idea, although this is before we refinished it. It looks the same only clean and shiny and the trim is now pink.

So that's been our big project and its fun to see it done.

Millions of Peaches

Yes, its been over a month and yes I should write about other things, but I wanted to post something and I'm very proud. I recently bought a ton of peaches and I just finished putting the very last bag of peaches in the freezer. They look all beautiful! So now I have a freezer full of peaches.

(and sorry, somehow this picture insisted on being big even thought I told it to be small!)

P.S. pregnancy is going good. Little Anna is extremely active and according to the ultrasound technician has big feet.

Its official!

And we're very, very excited.

What's it going to be?

I plan on doing a really nice girl's camp post sometime. It was really fun and so awesome to see many of the girls grow a lot. Most seemed to have a good time. I loved all of them and had the added blessing that besides some sore, out-of-shape muscles, I felt really good the whole time! I can't begin to express how grateful I am for that.

So this post is for an official tally. Any and all who read it, I want predictions on what the gender of the baby is going to be. I have to give you the facts. My sister and two sister-in-laws with children all had a boy first. Out of my close friends in high school, the four who have already had children also had boys first. The fifth who is expecting has not been able to get a clear answer yet. Of ex-roomies that have children and I've kept track of, three had a boy first, one had a girl first, one is expecting a boy and one is expecting a girl. A clear majority of boys, but a few girls thrown in. My chinese zodiac predictor or whatever says its a boy and I'm carrying low. Matt, my mother and I all have had dreams it was a girl. I've had lots of morning sickness. Hopefully I will know on Monday and make the reveal. Let me know what you think it is.

Other News

While on our trip on the farm there was a goat. I don't know if you can tell, but we sure could in person. There is something unusual about this goat.

We didn't think the wide hips were just some extra weight. And so I use this goat expecting some kids to make an official cyberspace announcement of what many/most of anyone reading this already knows.

We are expecting a new baby. Baby is due January 13th, 2011, so I am just over 16 weeks along. We do not know gender yet, but we do want to find out and hope to in two weeks at my next doctor's appointment.

Now for me just a word about being pregnant. I believe it is the worst thing ever. I miss liking food, I'm tired of my body ruling my life. I can't ever ignore it, even just for a little while, because it will rebel and make me wish I hadn't. Pregnancy has not been kind to me in any sense. One of people's issues is the weight gain, and I will be very excited for that. Right now I feel like I'll be lucky to get to my pre-pregnancy weight before I have the baby. I've lost somewhere between 10-20 lbs, depending on how you measure it. I do not like that Sam-I-am. It gives you an idea of how I've felt. But I am grateful for drugs, which allow me to keep any food down at all. I'm also grateful that finally I think that second trimester promise is starting to kick in. Although just when things seemed to be getting better, I had to go and get the stomach flu. Luckily when the flu went away so did morning sickness. I've actually felt completely human for most of this week.

Alright - enough complaining. Things I sort of like. I have already felt baby move. Its sort of early on a first pregnancy, but I'm pretty darn sure. And its nice to have that reassurance that baby is healthy. Its a slightly uncomfortable feeling, but sort of fun.

Baby is cute. The following pictures are from my first appointment, so I was only about 10 weeks at the time, but they are pretty good.

This one causes my husband to call the baby "Wave." But it really does look like baby was waving :)

So there. I'm very excited to be a mom. I'm excited for this journey. And I'm already looking forward to January when this whole prego thing can be done with!

Our Trip

I know. Once again its been a long time. But I make up with a blog post and pictures and good stuff.

Last week Matt and I took our summer vacation. We were planning on going to Colorado, and then Matt couldn't get the time off work. Unluckily I had paid for a conference there and it was too late to get a refund, but luckily I procrastinated and had not made any reservations. Maybe I was inspired. So, we decided to still take a trip, but with only three days where to go? So we toured Salt Lake City and had a ton of fun.

So as to not go in to too much boring detail I will just list all the cool things we did in Salt Lake. We went to Liberty Park, Tracy Aviary, Wheeler Farm, Temple Square (including Relief Society building, Church Office Building (for the view), one of the organ concerts, Salt Lake Temple, Brigham Young Historical park and the church history museum), Welfare Square, the new aquarium, Wedding Singer at Hale Center Theatre, and Fort Douglas.

It was a lot to pack into three days. My biggest happy surprise was the Relief Society Building. I can't believe I've never been in there. It was way cool and I got some good stuff and inspiration for girl's camp. Poor Matt was a good sport while I looked at all the ideas. I also was proud, I took the initiative to talk to Richard Elliot after the organ recital, which I never do. I was glad I did, learned some interesting things. We had fun with a very trunky missionary at Welfare Square who was probably on her last transfer, because she said she's starting at BYU this fall. In general we had a really good time together.

Here's pictures in no particular order. Camera had died on the third day and we had no back up batteries :( But hopefully the videos of us milking a cow for the first time will work :)

Matt liked bigger fish. I'm pretty sure these guys were native.

Feeding ducks and tractor ride at Wheeler Farm

The penguins at the aquarium.

And I think its going to be tradition to find a frog on every trip. I have so far.

Me milking

Matt Milking

Keep reading the next post as well :) Its worth your time.

Past month in one sentence

Wow. Its been a long long time since I've written anything. A full month tomorrow. So here I am catching up in a not very good way. I'll do even better with pictures soon, since its been a while from that. Life was just crazy.

So in the past month we've had the Durrants all come and visit, family pictures taken (which are beautiful thanks Heather), school ended, I started a new job, I'm quitting said new job, I'm teaching a piano class at our local fine arts center, I turned 25, Matt just finally finished his class and will soon be getting a diploma, we've been busy cub scout leaders and we've planted a pretty nice garden and enjoyed a lot of yard work.

There now with more questions than answers that's what we've been up to and its now here.

Crime?

Is it a crime to sit and read allrecipes.com while eating a tv dinner? Just curious.

Lack of fictional mom models

I just attempted to enter a contest where it asked me to put in my top ten favorite fictional moms. I was sort of saddened by my inability to name very many moms from fiction. Many characters are orphans, have only one parent or we're unaware of their parents at all. Disney especially is guilty of this. Very few Disney characters begin and end a movie with both parents alive. We did come up with a few such as 101 dalmatians, Mulan, and Sleeping Beauty (although she does not grow up with her parents). Once of the few examples we could think of where a Disney movie had a family intact was The Incredibles.

Moving from Disney, two of my favorite book characters from childhood were Anne of Green Gables and Dorothy Gale. Both are orphans, although luckily both have good people that become their mothers (Marilla and Aunt Em). I also liked Boxcar children, who were orphans, and of course the Narnia children who do have a mom, but she's just barely mentioned. The famous Harry Potter is also an orphan, although his mom, Lily did make my list for her sacrifice.

In television it gets a little better, but even some of my favorite shows the families are either motherless or childless. There's always the example of Full House, although my husband did point out that Becky in it is a good mom. Another of my favorites Sabrina the Teenage Witch, her mom existed, but was absent. Then shows like Seinfeld and King of Queens, adults live their lives without children in the picture.

The world of fiction is not devoid of mothers who care. Malcolm in the Middle has one of my favorite moms, Reba on her show was a good mom, Marge Simpson cares a lot for her family, 7th Heaven's family was intact, Clair Huxtable from The Cosby Show and even digging back, Little House of the Prairie. There are good moms out there but so few and far between.

Its no wonder that in our day that motherhood has been slightly lost. On today's television our role models for mothers come from things like Desperate Housewives which I will admit I have never seen, but from what I read, not the mother I want to be. In fiction, where does one go for a modern mother role model.

I'm grateful for a wonderful role model in my mother. I also married into an incredible mother-in-law. Both great examples for me and thousands more around me in my world. But where would a person go who had not been so blessed.

I did want to share my list of my personal favorites from fiction that I came up with. Maybe you can add a few that I missed.

Mama Bear from the Berenstain Bears, Pacha's wife from Emperor's New Groove, Malcolm's mom from Malcolm in the Middle, Dennis the Menace's mother, Peter Rabbit's mother, and Lily Potter. Tell me what you think.

Losses and Gains

I dislike losing things. You'd never know it because I lose things a lot. Objects and such. But its also interesting when you lose friends. Not a permanent loss on these ones. But Matt's brother and family are going to leave us, and one of my best friends of all time is moving clear to Texas. I haven't seen her a lot as of late, but its horribly sad even still, because she's one of the few people I'm not related to that really get me. I'm definitely going to miss both of these people. But I have to remind myself its not really lost, just a greater distance away.

I also am happy to report a follow up on the last post. Today Matt and I did the same workout and much less pain and more strength. So my gain is not nearly as big as my loss, but I'm gaining muscle for the first time in my life! Its very very exciting.

So friends, I will miss not seeing you as often. But I do hope your next adventure is a good one.

Embarrassment and Pain

Luckily not from the same source. I'll start with the embarrassing story. I'm sorry I'm not a story-teller so its not as funny as if someone else told it. I was at school on Friday and I had decided to wear a skirt, not for any particular reason. Its sort a an old skirt, not really old, but I wore it on my mission. I have recess duty and I had two coats on. So I went outside and came back in and took off my coats. I was working with my student and stood up to do something and she told me that I had a hole in the back of my skirt and I looked and the zipper had broken and burst open and I did have a 3 inch gaping hole at the pack of my skirt. It took me forever to get the zipper fixed and now I think it's permanently broken. There was only the one student in the classroom at the time and I desperately hope she's the only one who saw it. Thank goodness for the coats.

Now pain. I remember once doing a leg workout with my middle brother and not being able to walk for several days. You would think I would have learned. Nope, just Thursday I did another crazy lunge workout and I'm just now gaining the ability to walk again. Which would be better if I could raise my arms today. But I can't. Yesterday was push-up/ pull-up day. More soreness. So yes, its definite pain. But good pain. Matt & I are getting in shape! We are doing P90X, which really is crazy intense luckily its a lot of fun. Its a little strange how the person on the videos reminds me a ton of one of my brother's friends. So, here's hoping that I get actual muscles for the first time in my life! Go pain!

One year

Dear Matt,

What a fun day it was to celebrate your birthday. I bet you would have never guessed on your last birthday that the next day you would meet your future wife. It was good to see you so happy and having fun today. I'm sad that once again I forgot to take pictures, but it happens. I don't think when either of us met, there could have been any clue of everything that we would see, do, and go through together. I have to be perfectly honest that this last year has been the most challenging of my entire life, but I know we have both grown so much and the best part is, we've grown together. You've heard this before, but my reaction of our first date was that I could be myself around you and that's still very true. The good, the bad, the wonderful and the ugly - you've seen it all and your still here and I know that no matter what you'll always love me. I love you so much and I'm very grateful for this past year and all I've grown to know. I know it will just get better.

Forever yours,

Emily

Emily actually gets a little creative!

I had a lot of fun making birthday presents for my brothers. I got some awesome books that give instructions on how to make cookie bouquets and fruit bouquets and candy things too. These ones were appropriate for the brothers. For my fishing brother there was this one.

Please excuse my iron in the background.

I'm very proud of this one. I had a blast making this. We went to Walmart to get some stuff including cookie cutters. I was surprised, Matt was very excited when we found this box of 100 cookie cutters for just $10. Only 10 cents a piece which is pretty good. Brother gave me a big hug when he saw it which made me really happy. So for my all-star brother:

And with my leftover cookie dough here are my attempts at decorating. And for the record, I had no patterns in my decorating! I think they actually look pretty good. Happy Easter everyone!

Kitchen Fun

I've been having a lot of fun in the kitchen lately and this post is badly overdue. So many weeks ago we decided to have a cooking around the world week. It was great fun.

The pictures went in reverse order, so I'll just do it in the order they came out. This was our last dish, paella. We had to include a Spanish dish in Matt's honor. Bad recipe and I didn't do it right either, so this was the closest to a failure. Next time we make paella, Matt's going to do it.

Next try was the tamales. Mmm pork tamales. We faked it and used aluminum foil instead of corn husks to wrap them in. They turned out very well and I'm not quite sure why they are rumored to be so difficult. It wasn't that hard and they tasted good. I don't even have this recipe and I altered it so much and don't remember what I did that I couldn't put it here now.

And the next one is not actually a world food. Its name is "alfredo egg bake" so we'll pretend in our tour that it is Italian. Really pretend. Matt loved this one, it had a little too much fat in it for my tastes, between the eggs, bacon, and alfredo sauce but it was good. Got the recipe from the bisquick website if anyone wants to try it.

This was by far my personal favorite. We made Pad Thai using a recipe from the Betty Crocker website that I love a whole bunch. It was really really good. We had to use ramen noodles because I couldn't find rice noodles that day and I would cut down on the amount of cayenne pepper unless you like it really spicy. I highly recommend this recipe.

Bleed on the Page

So as a teacher's assistant some of the students complained about the red pen of death. The red marks that covered the page and hacked their essays to pieces. They had spent all of two hours last night, between 2 and 4 in the morning, and I in 15 minutes had the audacity to pick it apart like I was paid to do. How dare I!

Anyway, I don't understand them. I've just done a little red pen work on my own work (actually it was pink highlighter of uncomfortable moments, not the red pen of death). The mistakes were horrible, I repeated words and couldn't get my years right. Somehow my character had spent 8, 10, and 9 years locked up in prison within two pages. That's not the next greatest superhero power, able to serve several prison sentences simultaneously.

But it wasn't just a pen cutting into my heart like the students whined about. The parts that I like get to stay (maybe changed) and the parts that I don't like are cut. More of me surfaces in the pages and I can actually read it and say, "Hey, I like that."

inspired by I seek to Delete

Cleaning out the email inbox

So, I had my sister and brother-in-law over this evening. Actually they invited me over to keep me company while Matt works. It makes for fairly long nights with him gone. Although I do have to say when you start texting things like "A parakeet with a machine gun!" or "I do not think that word means what you think it means" it gets more entertaining. Anyway, we looked at some random videos and funny stuff (if you haven't seen the sleepwalking dog on youtube you need to look it up. I almost died laughing. Its the short video with over 10 million views) which led to sharing emails I'd been forwarded which led to me decide (probably not a decision but just a default action technically) that rather than kill time on facebook this time I would clean out the email inbox. Which also leads me to an apology. I'm really bad at responding to things or forwarding things that I really actually should. So I'm sorry if I ruined recipe swaps or didn't respond to your email. That's why the email inbox is now getting cleaned out and I promise to repent and do better in the future. You do also find some gems when you clean out the email inbox, which I love. You feel very loved. So tonight I just want to say thanks for the email.

Three Things

So my sister did this a while ago, but I'm a little behind on my blog reading, so its now time to catch up. The question is what three things we would do all day if we could do three things and include all members of the household. Mine are:

1. Teach something. Most likely piano. But being with kids (almost any age) teaching something.

2. Play the piano

3. Organize stuff - rooms, shelves, files, you name it. And alphabetizing things. And putting things in rainbow order. And numerical order. Ok, I've got OCD.

Matt's are:

1. Play video games

2. Write

3. Shoot the breeze with people. Just have good nice conversation.

So I'd look forward to reading anyone else's.

4X4

So last Saturday I had work. During my Saturday shift I am supposed to do three things specifically besides the normal guard duties. I am supposed to patrol in a vehicle the perimeter/exterior of the construction site. I am supposed to patrol on foot the interior of the building. Then, last of all, I am supposed to drive out to the plant's power station and check to make sure it is secure. I like the two times I'm in the vehicle, I have the radio and I'm warm and none of the freakishly evil stray cats on site jump out at me. That night it wasn't too cold and the cats were fighting on the other side of the building (away from me) so foot patrol wasn't so bad. Then I checked the substation and got the work truck stuck.

Really, it was ridiculously stuck. One wheel wasn't getting grip on the road because of the mud and so two inches of mud was keeping a two-ton pick up truck from moving forward or backward. Naturally, I wanted to remove those two inches. That was rough because I didn't have a shovel and only found the tire iron in my last fifteen minutes of being stuck. But digging in the mud with your hands can have all sorts of bad side effects. Losing your wedding ring, covering anything touched with mud, and basically not working at all were the side effects I found. Don't think it was for lack of trying, an hour and a half of digging in the mud isn't as fun as it was when I was five. After that hour and a half I was convinced that I wasn't getting out on my own and since I couldn't get the other guard on site by way of the radio, I had to use the company cell phone to call my supervisor. He didn't pick up and so I called the guard who was going to relieve me on duty. I told him what was wrong and the first thing out of his mouth was "Is it in four-wheel?"

No, sadly it wasn't in four-wheel. But it could have been. The entire time the lever on the floor with 2W and 4W Hi had been staring at me wondering why I hadn't pulled it back two inches. Two inches. The entire time I was hoping my answer would be that other guard bringing a shovel or someone pulling me out. I was so focused on the answer I wanted, the real answer I needed was ignored. And just like the guard said, I put it in four-wheel and drove out of the mud in ten seconds. Tiny little answer that fixed everything.

p.s. I did find my ring before driving out which is why this story is not a police report ending with "Wife then killed husband with piano bench"

Enjoying the Basketball Season

I have discovered that I inherited a hobby. I just spent the last hour checking out high school basketball scores and players and anything else. I love following high school sports, almost as much as I like watching them. So, its started out as a good week in the world of basketball. Two brothers are in tournaments this week. Younger brother won his high school game over Box Elder by 25 points, older brother won the first game of their conference tournament by 23. Good day. I'm hoping that the good week just gets better. So many important games this week, starting tomorrow. BYU vs. Utah is always great and what a great year if we sweep them! Then it continues on Thursday with more action from the brothers. Hopefully it can keep up till Saturday and beyond. There's the beauty of a possible state championship, and a conference tournament championship. Wow, I'm excited. Go Cougars, Go Griffiths, and most importantly GO LEHI!

Other Website

The post below is much better, but I just had to post my link to my new blog/website for my piano studio. I'm so excited to start teaching again more. Watch also for the weekly practice tip.

pianofun.wordpress.com

Sweet Husband

So, I don't have pictures again, which makes this less interesting, but I do have to put a plug in for my husband lately. It will update you as best I can on life lately as well. My story begins two weeks ago. With the impending holiday (Valentine's) for family home evening I pulled out our little "FHE for newly-weds" and looked for a fun idea. We decided to do an activity where the goal was to hide little notes around the house and allow the spouse to find them during the week. Well, we decided to do it sometime when the other was actually gone. The next day was very eventful and difficult, but when I got home from work my sweet husband had still remembered to hide his notes. Things like "I love you because your mine" "I love you because you play slug bug" "I love you because we snuggle well" and similar sentiments. It was so nice on that particular day. The next day he left in the early morning, walked to the grocery store and bought me a rose, but even more than that was so supportive and helpful.

Then this weekend I went Friday evening down to visit my family and watch brothers' basketball and youngest brother's play. Matt couldn't go because he had to work both Friday and Saturday. I really enjoyed my trip. When I got home, the first thing I saw was one of the same-style little notes on the kitchen table that just said "I love you." Then continued finding them again, "I love you because you smell good" in the shower. "I love you because you have passion" on my piano. "I love you because you're a little nerdy too," which may sound funny, but with us is really sweet.

So there you go. Husband has definitely been earning points. Very sweet.

Weekend Adventures

So, it was a good weekend. Very good. It started off earlier in the week in that the husband has a job! I'm very happy for him. It's only part-time (28 hours) for the moment, but we have high hopes that he'll be able to pick up more hours and plus it gives him time to work on his class and write and stuff. But anyway Friday night we had an awesome date night. We used our Christmas present from Matt's cousin McKell (thanks) and went out to dinner at this cool little cafe in town. Yummy chicken fried steak that I actually enjoyed, which was really good. Then my husband finally took me swimming, which I've been wanting to do since we got married and we've never gone. Obviously no pictures of that, no one wants to see very white winter bodies in swimming suits. But it feels so good to be in the water and Matt taught me how to swim better and I was proud because I swam the whole length of the pool without touching down, possibly for the first time in my life.

So then Saturday we had fun. On Thursday we bought a little end table from DI. It looked like this:

The lighting is not great, but when we finished painting the table looks like this:

I'm still going to antique it by sanding the edges, but I wanted to share our project and I might not ever do it if i wait. I also thought the drop cloth we used looked very neat and artistic. Matt didn't agree with me, but I had to share it.

I

know that we're all moved in, but I actually took pictures of the move so it seemed like a waste to let them just sit there with nothing to do except watch the popular pictures get blogged and make new friends. Sorry, had an afterschool charlie brown special moment there.

Anyway, this was the result of our move. Yes, it is in deed a room full of our stuff. My old bedroom got packed (as you can see) with almost everything we owned while we waited for movers to make room in the house for us to take over. Luckily most of our furniture sat in a kind uncle's garage so we didn't have to worry about it.

So my wife didn't want me to show a picture of her on moving day, so here's a mildly entertaining popular picture of my old roommate Abe being attacked by three Werewolves. Anyway, the movers came and were just the happiest elves you'd ever meet in a truck stop. They were really cool and moved all my mom's stuff into their truck PDQ. I think that means Pretty Darn Quick, but I better google it and make sure it's not a viral plague somewhere. Ok, thanks for enduring the randomness!

Wow, its been too long!

So, I haven't blogged for a very long time. I've been a little preoccupied I guess. Or I just don't have an excuse. Its sort of like writing in my journal has been my whole life, I go through streaks. While Matt and I were dating I kept a journal all the time, we got married and I did ok, and it just gradually went downhill. The good news is, I think that soon I will be on the upswing and blog a whole bunch.

So the holiday's were good and they won't get more of a mention than that. Matt graduated (sort of almost, but I consider him graduated. Just got to finish that last class honey :) and it was a lot of fun for me as the wife. I'm really proud of him.

And then our big news is we've now moved from the frozen north, just a little farther south to Brigham City. Matt has pictures from the move, which he might feel inclined to share sometime. His parents got a job out in Sacramento and have made the big move out there, in the meantime we are living in their house. Its really nice to have a lot of space, we just have to be careful not to fill it. The house is nice and we're both really enjoying it. Its also been nice being closer to family again. Matt's brother lives just across town and my sisters are only a half hour away. So we're taking advantage of that.

I've started working at the local elementary school, and I love it. I'm a paraprofessional, which is a fancy word for an aid who teaches a lot, in a resource class. The kids are awesome and I'm having a blast. Big shoes to fill though. I actually am replacing my mother-in-law who is one of the nicest people ever, and then indirectly it was actually my aunt who had my exact job about a year and a half ago. I really like my job. Then I'm also starting to teach piano, and its been a long time since I've had very many students, and quite a while since I taught at all and I LOVE teaching piano. I'm sure to it will make good stories which I hope to post here.

So there, I caught up. Next post I won't be lazy and I'll add pictures of the new house. But I have to decorate it at least a little first. It feels good to have finally done this.