An afternoon out

The other day my sister and brother-in-law had the FABULOUS idea to head up a canyon and cook our tinfoil dinners (My family always called them hobo dinners. Anyone else?). It was one of the few nice days we've had up here, so it was great to get away and enjoy the weather. Oh, I LOVE summer!


Delicious dinner! I added some cheese to the mixture and it turned out quite tasty :)

The cutest little guy and his awesome mother :)

World Cup

I've never understood why the U.S. doesn't get as crazy about soccer as the rest of the world does. I actually didn't find the passion until I lived in Spain (Adam played soccer when he was younger and in High School, so he's been in LOVE with it his whole life :) After living in Europe and having a soccer loving husband, my eyes were finally opened. The skill required to negotiate the field, have non-stop play and running for 90 min straight, to be able to have the ball change directions in mid-air, and then to do this all without using your hands (Eat your heart out Princess Kobe Bryant :) is amazing! Needless to say, we are a soccer house hold. Which brings us to the Mecca of soccer, The World Cup.

THE WORLD CUP only comes every 4 years and is a solid month of pure soccer bliss. This round places the tournament in South Africa which obviously puts everything in a different time zone. Do you think this is going to stop us? Nope. We just stay up later and wake up earlier :)

The U.S. vs England match last Saturday was highly anticipated and lived up to expectations. Controversy and excitement over a tie? You definitely don't find that in just any sport :) We're only a week into this treat and you better believe we will enjoy the other 3.

I know.....

I know we're boring and haven't posted for awhile, but we haven't had anything "post worthy" happening around here. Don't get me wrong, we've been so busy I've wanted to pull my hair out, but who wants to blog about that? :)

I've been finishing up this school year (tomorrow is the last day!!!! :), and I just shake my head and wonder where the year went? It seriously feels like March, so I haven't been getting too excited about the last day of school. It didn't hit me until today when we were taking things off the walls and packing everything up. We also don't have any crazy plans this summer, so it's weird to feel so relaxed about the coming months (I might be able to go to Ireland/England in September, so there is that to look forward to :) I always hate ending a school year, though. Some teachers might disagree with me, but it's hard to start over with a new class. I swear, I just get them trained and I just figure out all their little personalities, and they move on to 4th grade, ripping your heart out. Go figure.

Adam has been madly studying for his Clinical Exam that he has tomorrow, which pretty much determines when he can start his job. I have loads of confidence in him, but we're still praying like crazy that he'll do well (you have to cover all bases, right?) It's wicked hard and expensive, so we'll be glad to have that behind us.

Besides work, studying, church activities, family time, friend time, and doctor's appointments, it's pretty calm around here :) Anybody else think May is ridiculously busy?

Hallelujah!!!!

GRADUATION!!!! When we were married 4 1/2 years ago, this day seemed like it would never happen. Getting through our Bachelor's degrees and then a subsequent Master's degree was not within reach. I don't think I have an imagination large enough to think of our lives without semesters or all-nighters finishing homework... BUT I don't have to try and imagine now! It will be our lives, so now I can find out day-by-day :) The day was beautiful and I couldn't stop watching Adam during the ceremony.... It just seemed surreal and I was SO proud. I am incredibly grateful for all his hard work and patience. Oh, I love him....







AND we recently found out that Adam was able to get a fantastic job!!!!!!!!! Yup, he will enter the work force within his field of study. Pretty excited about that! It's with a company that has offices all over northern Utah, so we will be here for a couple more years. We want to settle down further south, but the economy needs to even out a bit.....

Let There be Fish

There's been an inside joke between Adam and I about our ability to keep things alive. We always have good intentions, but every plant that has entered this house alive, has left in a trash can. We've often laughed that maybe THAT'S why we don't have kids yet; They wouldn't make it a week :) But we decided we needed to 'dig a little deeper' and see if we could keep an animal alive. So, we got fish. Easy, right? The experts at Petsmart gave us a HUGE list of things that needed to be done before we could even get our hands on a scaly little friend. We followed everything to the letter. And the first night we had a casualty.... We relied on their 2 week guarantee and had to exchange one little body. I felt like such a criminal when I went into the store for the exchange! But since this little hiccup, we've been able keep all our little ones alive (We had a little scare yesterday involving too much sunlight, but everyone made it through the night :) Phew!


We bought this side table for the tank, and I LOVE it!

Moments

Do you ever have those moments where everything just feels wonderful? You feel so content and life just feels great.... NOTHING in life is perfect and I think we would get spoiled if everything did fall into place. But every once in awhile, there are those moments where I sit back and I think to myself "This is happiness. This moment right here." You might be surprised to find that NONE of it involves money or extravagance, but it always involves my sweetheart and our family and friends.... Those sweet moments make everything worthwhile. Even when work is crazy or I have 10 meetings in a week, I think to those simple moments when the world was "okay" and I realize I might survive :)

Learning

Our topic this month is "Learning" and it was my turn to do the Newsletter. I thought I might as well put my thoughts on the blog too :)

I remember as a little girl, watching my mom read. I still remember being amazed at the fact that she could stare at those squiggly lines in the book, and have a story unfold for her. Books were such a miracle to me that opened a whole new world of possibilities. Using these books for my continual learning, and consequentially my Education, has always been an important part of my life. My parents put such an emphasis on our schooling, that there never was a question about its importance. For this, I will forever be grateful. To learn new things and be open to new possibilities is a gift without value.

“Reduced to its simplest definition, education is the training of the mind and the body. Education is the great conversion process under which abstract knowledge becomes useful and productive activity. It is the something that need never stop. No matter how old we become, we can acquire knowledge and use it. We can gather wisdom and profit from it. We can grow and progress and improve,” President Gordon B Hinckley.

Our education is a progression and can be improved throughout our lives. The resources we have available now are incredible. Almost any questions our brains come up with can be answered with a short search on the internet. Using these tools appropriately, we would be able to understand more than any other previous generation. This is a great gift from our Heavenly Father, which is another example of His endless love. “There is only one Source whence men obtain wisdom, and that is God, the Fountain of all wisdom,” Brigham Young.


May we all keep learning :)