25 Days to go

It's been a crazy week. Sam was in Utah for work until Tuesday night. He missed his flight but caught a later one. Then we sped (or tried) out of town for Thanksgiving. We hit horrendous traffic and drove to El Paso to spend the holiday with my brother's family and my mom and dad. We got back late Friday night and have been getting our house ready for Christmas. I really loved seeing my nephews and spending some time relaxing with family. I didn't take pictures - I forgot. Sounds terrible (but Tallin said I am his favorite aunt anyway). I think his exact words were "Heidi who?" I still have some work to do with little Colt, who called me Aunt Hilary behind my back. I have been called worse though. They are handsome little buggers, and I can't wait to see them again soon. I'm having a hard time gearing up for this week, but I am pleased at the thought that we have 15 days of school, 19 actual days, until Winter Break! I am more excited than my students. And in the meantime we can start Christmas shopping, baking (I got a new Kitchenaid!) and singing Christmas carols. I love this time of year.

Count Your Many Blessings...

We just had a lesson about adversity in Relief Society today, and I can't help but feel that I have been remiss in giving thanks for the blessings I enjoy. I'm always shocked and amazed to discover the trials that others experience. I felt like an ungrateful wretch today, and I realized that too often I am quick to gripe and complain about stupid, inconsequential things. So today, I am grateful to have:

1. a husband whom I really love and who treats me wonderfully
2. a wonderful family
3. a job that I enjoy most of the time
4. a coteacher to help me with 6th hour
5. a husband with a good job at a great company
6. a healthy body
7. the knowledge that I am a daughter of God
8. knowledge of the plan of salvation
9. long naps on Sunday afternoons (because we have EARLY church.)
10. warm, sunny days - in November
11. great friends and neighbors
12. opportunities to develop talents
13. nephews to visit on Thanksgiving!
14. more nephews and a niece to see at Christmas
15. parents who taught me how to work, cook, and clean
16. plenty of food to eat
17. a nice home (or two...)
18. renters
19. health insurance
20. an education

That just scratches the surface, but at this time in my life I have SO MUCH to be grateful for. I am going to try really hard this week not to complain about getting up early to go to work, making dinner, or even about my 6th hour class.

Postponed Until Further Notice...

We don't have much to report, except that we have postponed having children until we can agree on some names. You would think that after dating for uh...some time that we would have this all figured out. Sam would like to name our first boys Hose A and Hose B. I vetoed that. His other suggestions include Buzz, Golden, Titan, and Quartz Aaauuugghhh. He also likes October and November (the names - not the months). He also suggested Gordon. Yuck. Sunday or Monday? Avalon? Weird. I like Porter and Mason. He doesn't want our children's names to be professions. I also like Cole, Tate, Parker, and Carter. He is now suggesting Phillip. Phil? HUH? Who is this man I married? Hero? or would it be Hiro? I hate weird spellings! Bruce? Wayne? Both? NO WAY. There is a huge gulf between the names Sam likes and the names I like. We might actually be able to agree on girls' names. But here's the second problem. We both really like the name Bella, but I HATE Twilight. I cannot imagine myself naming a child after a vampire wanna-be. It's back to the drawing board, folks. We'll keep you updated. We have a huge gulf to cross.

A First for Everything

Slowly, but surely, Heather is helping me get immersed in social media. For years now she has tried to convince me to join Facebook and, more recently, to blog. For a few of those years I resisted the suggestion to join Facebook based on the misconception that Facebook was for meeting people to date. As Heather and I were dating, I could not understand why she thought it would be a good idea for me to sign up. As for blogging, I believe it was Heather's brother Justin that declared blogging is for girls.

After a few more nudges from Heather and Shawna and a brazillion requests from other long-lost friends (which I found out later were actually from Shawna), I gave in and recently joined Facebook. (Heather is concerned I am now a Facebook junkie. Not so. I am just making up for the amount of time she has had to find everyone she has ever known to become friends with. Now the race is on. First person to 250 friends wins. In fact, I had a heck of a time getting her to agree to be my Facebook wife. I think she still liked the idea of being able to still have a foot in the Facebook dating pool!)

That being said, it is with much fanfare that I present this, my first post ever to a blog. I am sure it will not meet the standards which the great bloggers of the past have set, and I am sure I will offend one or all of the people I have ever met as I venture into this strange new world of spilling my guts to family, friends, and total strangers. Yee haw.

So for those of you looking for thought provoking, deep, intellectual discussions about life, please read Heather's posts. If you are in the mood to change it up a bit, trying clicking the 'Next Blog' button above. Otherwise, feel free to pull up a monitor and read a few ramblings. Who knows. You might even want to expand your own footprint in the world of social media.

And Dear, you better keep at it; I have four friend requests waiting for my acceptance!

San Francisco

This post is late, but I have been waiting for my husband to post about it, and he hasn't yet. It feels like our courtship :) Two weeks ago was my Fall Break from school. Those of you who are jealous, just know that you would need many breaks also if you had to deal with 120+ of some people's children everyday. Anyway, Sam and I and our friends Tyler and Natalie road-tripped to sunny San Francisco. We had a great time, despite the long drive. We spent some time on the wharf eating clam chowder and yummy sourdough bread. We saw some great old ships. We toured Alcatraz (the highlight for me), ate yummy Asain food, went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and chilled on the beach. It was a nice, relaxing trip. Oh, we even got some shopping in on the way home (the highlight for Sam). Here are some belated pics of our trip. In other news, we have had family here for a week. My sister graduated from nursing school, so we have had family staying with us to be here for her ceremony. We will post more pics soon. It has been a busy couple of weeks, but it has been great!

Sweet Caroline!

Last week our friends Brian and Becky Smith invited us to a Neil Diamond concert as a wedding gift. While I would not consider myself a Diamond die-hard, I have grown up listening to music from the 70's, thanks to the influence of my parents. I found I was quite familiar with his music, and we all enjoyed hobnobbing with the blue-hairs immensely. The man can sing a tune, even at the ripe old age of 100. My personal favorite was "Sweet Caroline" which he sang three, yes THREE, times. Who can forget "Forever in Blue Jeans", and of course "Coming to America"? I was amazed at the emotion and passion he has. I think were he not a singer, Neil would have been a preacher man. He's nothing short of evangelical, and we had a blast listening, singing, and dancing along. After listening to him sing, I have come to the conclusion that one of the many things wrong with kids these days is that they listen to CRAP. You gotta love a man who sings about blue jeans, America, and God. We had a blast! Thank you, Brian and Becky!

my new sticker

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

Thank You Notes

Let me tell you a little about my first year teaching. It was the year 2001; I was 23 years old and a bit naive. I started teaching 9th and 10th grade English at the second largest high school in Arizona. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, and 3 weeks after school started, the tragedies of September 11th happened. I will never forget my 2nd hour class that year. I had 4 girls and 22 boys in that class. The boys were a handful, and that is putting it mildly. I had some rough and tough football players (a couple of them royal jerks), a couple of junior ROTC boys, a couple of computer geeks, and a few other interesting students. I thought they were going to go to blows on Sept. 11th, and they almost did. I also had Jeff in my class. I'm pretty sure that Jeff's sole purpose in life that year was to give me a hard time. He spent lots of time in lunch detention with me, and I spent lots of time emailing or phoning his dad. I remember one particular week, Jeff's dad called me to ask if he should let him go on a trip that weekend. I finally felt like I had the power. We spent lots of time getting Jeff to pass (barely) English. I got an email on Friday from Jeff. I almost fell out of my chair. It was short and to the point. Something like, "I'm sorry. You were always one of my favorite teachers, and I know I gave you a hard time." I've spent a lot of time regretting that I wasn't married earlier, but I realize that the alternative has been a great blessing in my life. I am so grateful for the years that I have been able to teach. I have learned some really valuable lessons, and I've been able to know some great students. I will never forget my first year of teaching, and most especially I will never forget those kids. I've run into a few of them. Some of them have been handed some tough blows, but it's nice to see how they handle life. It's nice to see them grow up into successful adults.

I Don't Accept...

So today was a half-day (for the students) at school. I teach piano lessons after school, and as I showed up to teach, I could tell the kids were not happy to see me. I started with the youngest, an 8-year old boy. He SUFFERED through a half-hour lesson, sulking and whining the entire time. I was brutal, as only teaching 16 year-olds for 7 years can make a person. I made him play one song about 15 times, until he could play it correctly. At the end I checked his theory. He had to correct several mistakes, and by this time he was boiling mad at me. He scribbled his answers, and I told him I didn't accept handwriting I couldn't read. He fired back, "I don't accept you ruining my day!" If it wouldn't have made me just a bit upset to be talked to like that by an 8-year-old, I would have burst out laughing. Apparently if he didn't have piano lessons, he could have gone ice-skating this afternoon. So today another kid had another ruined day because of a piano lesson. And maybe someday he will be grateful.

Irrigating and Canning

Irrigating and canning are two activities in which my parents are avid participators. I thought I would not do much of either one. Turns out I got two ear infections last week, and my ears have to be irrigated with vinegar and water twice a day. The good news is the irrigating coupled with antibiotics is actually working! The bad news is I smell like vinegar. As far as the canning...my friend Natalie talked me into buying Utah peaches from "The Fruit Sisters" (can it get any fruitier than that name?) and canning them. We set out Saturday morning to find jars, which you would think would not be that difficult in this mecca of LDS people. After a couple of hours and several grocery stores/Walmarts later, we found our jars. Yahoo! We set to work canning, and after several hours (and a nice lunch break thanks to Sam and Tyler), we had some beautiful jars of peaches to show for it. They are still on my counter because I think they look nice, and I want to be reminded of our accomplishment. I didn't remember much from canning sessions with Mom, but I am glad I could call her for advice. We only had one casualty - a jar I broke because I didn't follow instructions exactly.

P.S. This is really Heather posting even though it says Sam.

Here we go again.

This is the third blog I have started. My old one used my maiden name, and then Sam and I attempted to start one on another site. I am technologically illiterate, and I can't figure out how to make it work the way I would like. So...we are back to blogspot. Now I am ready to keep this up and running. We will have been married two months at the end of this week. That seems such a short time and yet such a long time all at once. Weird, I know. The last few months have been a whirlwind for us. We went to family reunions, got married, went on an awesome cruise to Alaska, moved me in with Sam, started school, and moved wards. During that time I had some training to attend for school, and some training of other teachers to implement. Sam has been insanely busy at work, and we have been working on getting settled into our house (which mostly consists of me hanging pictures and rearranging things a million times.) Despite the busy-ness, the last two months have been some of the happiest of my life. We have both really enjoyed being married, more even than we thought we would. We are hoping that starting this blog will help us stay in better contact with our family and friends, and also serve as a journal of sorts. Don't hold your breath for any "Dear Diary" soul-baring posts, but we hope it will help us to remember this time in our lives. This week has been busy, as usual. Sam worked a TON, and I spent some serious time with the red pen grading papers. We are halfway through the 1st quarter (time flies when you're having fun!) and we had grades due. We also had the chance to go to the temple for the first time since we were married. When we walked in they asked us to do sealings, and it was the best experience I have ever had doing sealings (besides my own, of course!). It was a sweet reminder of the promises we have made to each other and to the Lord, and hopefully is something we will be able to return and do often. We have spent some serious time playing games this weekend, during which time I have been soundly beaten and my humility restored. (It has been missing of late...mostly since I almost ALWAYS win.) And now we are ready to start out another crazy week. As I think about the last couple of months, I can't help but be immensely grateful for all I have been blessed with. I have a husband who loves me and treats me like a million bucks; I have a wonderful supportive family- on both sides; I have a job I mostly really enjoy; I have a beautiful home; and I have the knowledge of the gospel. What more could a girl want?

Welcome Friends!