Friends and Good Games

It has been years since I have sat down to a good game of Balderdash, but Sunday was the perfect excuse. Celeste Maloy, one of my friends from high school, was in town this weekend and we were able to have quite the jolly 'ole time lying our butts off! Celeste brought a couple of friends, combine Adam and I and my sister Tasha and her husband, and you have a great recipe for gut rumbling laughter. It was a great Sunday dinner and was wonderful to reminisce about the "good 'ole days".
I don't think I realized until Sunday that we graduated 10 years ago!! Since Adam and I are the same age, we are both hitting that magical 10 year mark and I wonder to myself "Where has all the time gone?" In so many ways I feel like it was just yesterday that we all stepped into that great, big, crazy world. But then again I don't even feel like the same person that received that diploma. I truly feel like my Heavenly Father has been guiding me through so many life events that I have started to change and develop into a completely different Shari.
I am truly grateful for my Father in Heaven/God and the love I feel from him during all trials and high spots in my life. I will forever be grateful for the pure knowledge I have in Him and His son Jesus Christ. I love this time of year and the time we can take to reflect on the Life of Christ. What a special time it can be.

Good 'ole Thanksgiving

We started our Thanksgiving break off with a great basketball game in Salt Lake. The Utes were playing Lousiville who was ranked #8 in the nation. Being the ultimate Ute/Kalee Whipple fans, we had to go! The game was good and it was great to hang out with all millions of Whipples that showed up. The girls played a dang good game and we had a blast (For anyone who doesn't know, we LOVE watching Ms. Whipple play and we generally go to several of her games throughout the season ;)

We decided to stay that night with my parents in a hotel room, instead of traveling 7 hours after the game got over at 10:00pm ;) So we ended up in wonderful Nevada on Wednesday and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves over the Thanksgiving weekend. I was super excited to go home for Thanksgiving this year, because it had been 7 years since I had been able to go home or even relax for more than 12 hours on "Turkey Day". It was so relaxing and I was able to eat WAY too much great food!

The day after Thanksgiving is the honorary "Christmas Tree Hunting Day" in my family, so we packed up the cars and the coolers full of lunch fixin's and headed on out. Basically it's just an excuse to run around the mountains and play on the four wheelers, but isn't that why all good traditions are made? ;)

We spent a wonderful time this past weekend playing with family and catching up with those we haven't seen in WAY too long. I love my family dearly and I am so grateful for the time I had growing up with them (Isn't it funny how we never realize the good times when we are younger?). I love that we can still have good times together..... I am truly blessed.

My sweet hubby

I seriously love my husband. I'm sure most people love their spouses, but I have truly appreciated his love and support lately. I had a doosy of a time last week (report cards, monthly testing, blah, blah, blah) and felt like everything was coming down on me at once. Well, in walks my sweet husband with a bunch of red roses. (I know. I'm a romantic, but those are my favorite flowers!) He is incredible! I don't know what I've done in life to have him with me, but I am a lucky, lucky girl.

He also found a soccer league up here. He has loved the playing time, but I have hated the times of the games!!! His last one was at 9:30pm, but tomorrow his game will be at 10:30pm! Geesh.... that puts us at home and in bed at 1:00am!!! Oh well. He has loved getting back into playing and it has been a huge stress relief for him. His Master's Program has been really tough lately, so I'm glad he is having fun. He deserves it.

Twilight

In honor of the movie coming out, I decided to take this little quiz! I am excited to see how the movies turn out. I hope they do the books justice! I do like me some twilight...

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!

You are thoughtful and care very deeply for your family. A loving home is of great importance to you and you always try to make people feel welcome. Although you have a great capacity to love, you also have a great capacity to hurt, so at times you can be sensitive. You're firm when you need to be, but people trust your judgment and appreciate the kind way you always handle things.

Happy Halloween!!!!

Another wonderful holiday has passed with fun moments and a lot of laughter. Adam and I finally got our pumpkins carved on Wednesday (thanks to the help of Tasha and Justin!). We thought they turned out pretty well! Adam was really excited about his Frankenstein pumpkin, which I thought was really cute (Especially when I went to school the next day and one of my students was really excited to have carved his pumpkin as Frankenstein also. Well, my student was over the moon excited that he and Adam had done the same style of pumpkin! I'm not sure Adam was as excited. At least my husband is still young at heart! ;)


On Friday, there were several of us that went over to my sister Tasha's house and had a Halloween party. It was a ton of fun! I really enjoyed going around with Tasha and Mylah trick-or-treating (Adam and Justin stayed at home and handed out candy;), eating a ton of junk food, and having a good 'ole time laughing. What more can you ask for than good food and good people to share it with? (Plus I didn't feel too guilty with eating all that junk food, because our school is starting a Biggest Loser competition on Monday. So I can still have fun this weekend! ;) I love the holidays and the fun traditions that come with them. On to Thanskgiving!!! ;)

Fall Break

So I have been trying to post about this last weekend for awhile, but my turkey of a husband has been on the computer every night! ;) (For some reason, he has to do his homework;) (I'll probably get whacked for that comment!;)

But anyway, the state of Utah has a Fall Break about the middle of October every year (Nevada never had this one..... we did always get Halloween off though! Gotta love that Nevada was formed on October 31st!) I really wanted to do something during those couple of days, so we decided to hit up the good 'ole town of Salt Lake City. We recruited my sister Tasha and her little girl Mylah to come with us, called up one of my really good friends from my mission (Cally Ashton.... well her last name is now Johnson, but she will forever be known as Ashton!), and headed on down. We decided on IKEA and headed towards the wonderland of shopping. I'm not sure how many of you guys have been to this Mecca of all wonderfulness, but I ADORE this store! I had been to it before when I lived in Spain, but to have that here in the U.S. is a piece of heaven on earth! (There are a couple of stores, for those that know about the area.... Barrio 2,5,Alcobendas, etc) I seriously could just wander for hours (which we have done before ;) and not worry about anything but the hundreds of displays in front of me. Ahh.... heaven..... We even made it out of there with spending only $10! Yeah for staying on a budget! (Well, Cally had even more fun than us and bought a new bedroom set ;)

So after this adventure, we had a great lunch while Cally headed to her doctor's appointment (Congrats on having another little one on the way!). Another round of shopping and we were headed home to a dinner with Tasha, Justin and friends. The next morning we were even able to sleep in! (I NEVER get to sleep in! It has been ages!) THAT was definatly a highlight of our long weekend!

This past week has been crazy, but one of the fun events was a 3rd grade program we had on Wednesday. It was a musical program about the history of Cache Valley. So cute! The students did a great job and we all had a fun time with the program (OF COURSE I forgot my camera and didn't get any pictures.) Adam surprised me by showing up to watch the whole crazy production! (He was suppose to have classes until after the program, so I was really surprised to see him.) I am so grateful for his help in so many areas...... I sometimes feel so overwhelmed, but my wonderful husband supports me so much. I just stinking love that kid!

Football and Seasons

This weekend included a rousing BYU and USU game with my parents and sister making the long jaunt up from their homes. It was really great to hang out with all of them! We had a lot of fun enjoying the game and conference all in one weekend. It was wonderful to see the fam and doubling the fun were the great talks we were able to hear from our church leaders.


In our down time, we were able to escape up the canyon and enjoy the colors of the season. I love this time of year! It always makes me so excited and I feel like a little kid again! I think I have really started to enjoy every season again, because of my job. Being around kids all day that can't stop talking about their excitement is hard to ignore! It just seeps into everything (their stories they write, their spelling sentences, etc) I have also loved the intense colors that come with this season. Growing up in southern Nevada, we didn't always get the deep reds and oranges that appear up here.
What a wonderful time of the year! ;)





(What's so random is that I absolutely adore the Fall Plain M&M's. I know there is absolutely no difference between these M&M's and normal plain M&M's, but there is no reasoning with a girl that loves chocolate!!)