Leprachauns

I hope everyone had a magically delicious St. Paddy's Day. I don't know why, but I really love this holiday. It all started back in high school when Anne called the green shirt I was wearing a leprachaun shirt and we decided to have a party. Now I just have to celebrate every year. I even get a special new green shirt. This year I decided to make my own. This is sorta what I started making...

...but then I decided I wanted to change it and I haven't finished yet, so no new shirt this year. :( I'll have to get a move on and finish it for next year.

We did have a great time celebrating last night with some friends from our old singles ward. Unfortunately, I forgot the camera so I have no pictures of the festivities. But, Garrett & Hayley, Tyler & Almarie, and Josh & Rachael came to dinner with us at The Pub. Then we all came back to our place and had some lucky ice cream and leprachaun cookies. Anne, Allen, and Caron joined us for treats. We never did get around to doing our traditional drinking games though. Darn! We'll have to save that one for next year too. Kinda hard when the celebration falls on a week night.

Hope you had a great one too, and did some heel clicks in celebration!

Fun in the snow

This weekend we went up to my family's cabin. It was really fun and nice to get away for a bit. Here we are just lounging around...which is the best part of going to the cabin. In fact, on Saturday morning when people were itching to go for a snowmobile ride and I was still laying on the couch with my blankie, someone was telling me to get a move-on and I said, "Do you know how long it's been since I've just lounged about?" And Matt said, "It's because you never let us!" Ha ha! That's probably true...I am always running around doing something.

We drank lots of hot chocolate and ate lots of donuts. And lots of other stuff too. Oops! Matt seems to find joy in taking pictures of me playing with babies.

Matt came in second in the pull up contest. My uncle has this strange obsession with making all the boys see how many pull ups they can do on the cabin's ceiling beam. Nathan beat him by only one pull up. Way to go Matt!

We went for a lovely snowmobile ride. Luckily we did not die even though I thought we might after we halfway rolled the snowmobile going up a hill. And when we were going down through a scary gully.

I know we look just lovely in this picture, but it was the only one I got of us.

It was a beautiful day, and I have the raccoon sunburn to prove it. Don't you just love it when your whole face gets chapped?!

We also went sledding, which I did not get any pictures of. It was a blast! Allison almost fell in the river. It was a great day for sledding...we were going so fast and far. And the best part...snowmobiles to pick you up at the bottom of the hill and take you back to the top. It was a great time.

So last night one of our Primary kids came over with her dad to bring us some cookies. I was just telling Matt how when we have children I am going to make them write thank-you notes to their Primary teachers and bring them treats. So it was nice that one of them really did that. She is the best one out of them all though. She is not the one who makes us hate Primary. But it was nice to get a little thank you for all our hard labors. And now we get a break...we don't have to teach for 3 whole weeks!!! Oh what a glorious day!

One more week til our Moab half marathon. Ya'll are invited to come cheer us along this Saturday!

Date Night

This weekend for our date night I decided that I was in the mood to create something. So we went to Target to find one of those art kits where you make or build something. We found 0ne where you get to paint your own mugs. So we purchased it and went home to unleash our artistic whims.

It was very fun. Now we have two really tacky mugs in the cupboard that we will probably never use. But at least we had fun. Plus, when we were at Target Matt found a new bike...

He rode it all down the aisle carrying a piece of chocolate cake. It was hilarious! Then on Sunday we decided that we needed to dye some Easter eggs. I know it's early, but it sounded fun. And besides, we can always dye more than one batch!

Matt made a triathlon egg, an orange egg, and a West Jordan/Utah football egg. I made a starry night egg, a flower garden egg, and a two-toned egg.

I love dyeing Easter eggs...it's one of my favorite traditions! Here are our lovely creations.

Help!

I’m in need of some advice. My life has gotten way too busy. Take a look at my schedule….

Monday-Friday
5 a.m.: Wake up, go to the gym, get ready for the day
7:30: Leave for the bus station
7:45-8:45: Bus to Provo; read scriptures & do homework
8:45-5 or 6 p.m.: Work
5 or 6 to 6 or 7: Bus back home; do homework
6 or 7: Make dinner; clean it up; talk to Matt for 30 minutes
9 or so: Go to bed

Plus, on Wednesdays, I leave work early at 3:15 to make it to class at the U by 4:30. Then I have class from 4:30-9:30, and get home around 10.

Saturday
Sleep in
Exercise
Clean the house
Do laundry
Go grocery shopping

Sunday
Sleep in
Read the Primary lesson
Go to ward choir
Go to church
Come home, de-stress from the Primary experience
Make dinner or invite ourselves to dinner at the family’s
Go to bed

So basically I have like 30 minutes on the weeknights free, plus Friday and Saturday nights. We usually do something fun on the weekend nights, but the weekdays are killing me. And I’m often so tired from the week that I am too worn out to enjoy the fun things on the weekends. It’s not just physical tiredness. I feel mentally exhausted.

I love my life. I really do. I have everything I ever wanted. A fantastic husband. A good job. Opportunities. An education. Knowledge. My health. Good family and friends. But I am just too busy to have the time and energy to be me.

So I need to simplify. I’ve thought about dropping out of school. I really just want to be a mom anyway once we have kids. But I know that if I do need to work, this is what I want to do and I need the masters degree for it. Plus having a masters degree opens up a lot of possibilities of working from home, like teaching online classes or something like that if the need ever arose. Plus, I have just been feeling like I shouldn’t drop out. I’ve thought about trying to get a job closer to Matt’s work so we can move and eliminate the commute. But I’ve checked and no one is hiring right now because of all the budget cuts at all the schools. So pretty much I don’t know what to do. But I know I need to do something. Any suggestions?

Someday his prince will come

So Matt has been eyeing this new bike--A Pinarello Prince. He has been vigorously trying for the past few weeks to figure out how he can be the proud owner of one. He's been looking at them online because he was under the impression that they don't sell them in Utah. Well, I encouraged him to look harder because I thought he needed to test ride one before he spent all that money.

Well, Saturday at approximately 5:19 p.m. he found a bike shop that said they had them!!! The shop closed at 6, so we hightailed it up to SLC so he could test ride his dream bike. Matt was so giddy all the way there that I couldn't help but laugh. Anyway, we made it to the bike shop in time and he was in heaven. He could hardly wait for them to put the pedals on the bike so he could take it for a ride. They require you to leave a driver's license or credit card or something as collateral (you'd think his wife standing there would be collateral enough!), and since he was so excited to ride this bike, he just left his whole wallet.

He went for his test ride and loved it. He's now even more in love than before...and even more determined to figure out how he can buy it. He was so excited about it that we walked out of the bike shop with smiles on our faces...and no wallet. Oops! Hopefully they still have it! I love him so much!

I promise I still love you!

I just wanted to apologize for being a terrible friend lately. I feel like I have been so busy with work and school and marathon training that I haven't really had much of a social life. And I miss it! And I miss you! And I need it! Anyway, I really would like to make an effort to be a better friend and actually talk to people and see people more. So just know that I love you and miss you!

May 16

I just wanted to let you know that Saturday, May 16 is the day of our marathon, so we're inviting you to clear your calendars for that day (at least in the morning) and join our marathon fan club. That means you come and cheer for us at the race because we're gonna need all the help we can get! Making signs is optional, but highly encouraged! :)

Just a small update on our training. We did 13.5 miles on Saturday. The last 1.5 miles or so we were shuffling along the road like old grannies, but we made it. We collapsed on the floor immediately afterwards, but after about 45 minutes or so and some peanut butter sandwiches we were completely fine. And we're not even sore. Yay for us!