The Bees

So an amazing thing happened to me by virtue of being on twitter.  I was sitting at home and my local radio station that I used to listen to tweeted, "RT this message for a chance to win Bees tickets this weekend!"  And I re-tweeted it (that's what RT means), and shortly thereafter I was awarded with two tickets to see the Bees that Friday night.

Let me just take this moment now to say, if you're reading this, and you don't already have a twitter account (which is likely since I have nearly zero friends on there), go to twitter.com right now and make yourself an account.  Someday you'll be glad you did (like me :D )

The night was cold, a lot colder than we planned on, so we nearly froze.  But it was a good game, some awesome hits, some good defense, and the Bees won.  Here are a few pictures we took.

Kids, racing like dogs..

Kids racing like food...?

The tallest player in major/minor league baseball (#55 P)

See, look!  the Bees won!

Our favorite player.  The switch hitting 3rd baseman
who had 2 hits (one a double) scored a run and stole a base.

Oh, and it was Firework night :-) so despite the cold, we sat back and enjoyed the show.

Ce-cil!

I noticed this was a draft from February that never got published.. so here it is!
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So first I just want to say that BYU sports are awesome. Seriously, if BYU is playing, I love it. Kacy, Michael's little sister,  got us some tickets to the last home basketball game this year--and we had an awesome night. We brought our camera and got some fun pictures of the game. The last few minutes of the game we went down super close and got some even better ones. Enjoy.

If you look closely, you can see Micah, Kacy, Erin and Alex in almost the center of this picture. (Kacy is in green.)

US!

Davies

Spirit fingers...spirit fingers... swoosh, Ce-cil!

First pic from the new seats. 

It was Senior Night, and both Abuo and Hartsock got huge standing ovations for their BYU careers. 

Again, it was an awesome night. After the game we met up with Kacy, Micah, Erin and Alex and went to eat dinner at Red Robin where our waiter (Abe) gave us a free appetizer and brought us tons of fries. Could life get any better?

Spring Break

Being a teacher is awesome. Have I mentioned that before? Not only do I love what I do, I get a spring break. Jealous? You should be. This spring break was particularly awesome for two reasons: one, my parents and two little sisters came to visit. And two, General Conference.
It was so fun to have my family come and visit. Michael was working all week, so before I knew that they were coming, I wasn't looking forward to sitting at home alone. When they told me they were coming, it made my week off that much brighter.
The weather was still quite cold, but my parents wanted to take the girls to Temple Square for General Conference. We didn't have tickets, but it is simply a whole new experience to be on Temple Square. We watched one session from the Tabernacle and one in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.
On Monday we went to the "This is the Place" Monument. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit this, seeing as how I am a Utah History teacher, but this was my first visit. I loved it! We took a train tour and I would tell my parents all these random  facts that I had learned that year about 30 seconds before the tour guide... I should have given the tour! Just kidding. I like my job.
The train didn't take us clear up the hill, but one of the objectives of our visit was to see the Ashby Dugout. It was neat, and crazy to think that people lived happily in those conditions.
We were a little sad to see a whole bunch of signs and advertisements for the baby animal week that was starting on that Wednesday--but were pleasantly surprised to have accidentally walked into the exhibit which was getting set up early. The animals were adorable and I might have even called Michael to ask if I could buy a baby duck. (I was kidding--mostly.)
On Tuesday we had the crazy experience to go to the new City Creek Mall in Salt Lake. It was crowded but awesome. My little sisters (12 and 17) were in love. They spent about 2 hours in the Forever 21 store. I was bored, but it was fun to watch them have so much fun and help them try on clothes that I wish I was buying.
They then left to California to visit my brother's family, and Michael got a surprise day off so I was well taken care of and busy for the first half of my break--and then was able to recover before I had to go back to work.
Here are some pictures for your perusal...

The Creek at City Creek Mall

Sky Bridge on Sunday

My cute family (Michael is playing photographer)

Ashbys in front of the Ashby Dugout

Baby Quail. They are about the size of the tip of your thumb. So cute.

Hannah's favorite. It would wag it's tail like a pig. 

Chicks!

Turkeys!

Ducklings!

Emma with the ducklings.

Emo cow

I'm a desendant of both Lewis Barney and Thomas Bingham. This is the plaque for the members of the Mormon Battalion. 

St. Patrick's Day

I have the best mom. Seriously. She could turn anything into something fun and exciting. St. Patrick's Day must have been one of her favorite holidays, because although to the rest of the country it's a day of drinking and racial slurs, in our house, it was a day where if I dared to come downstairs without any green on I was sure to be pinched and was sure to find a bag from Walmart full of shamrock stickers and green buttons. 

Just to be clear, I have the habit of remembering things as being "the best ever" so I may be exaggerating, but I know that I got my love of St. Patrick's Day from my mother.  

In honor of my childhood and upbringing, I created a Day of Green that I planned for at least two weeks before the actual day. Here are some pictures. Enjoy!

Making green eggs and ham

Looks gross, huh?

Yum!

This year I attempted corned beef and cabbage. I have actually never had it before, but Michael said he liked it so I thought I would try it. I, sadly, did not like it. But I did like the cabbage, potatoes and carrots. 

Dessert? Green milk shakes. 

Oh yeah! We also babysat for our friends the Coombs, who thanked us with a delicious box of Lucky Charms. 

BYU!

Today I had the awesome opportunity to take my 7th graders on a field trip to BYU. We spent the day visiting the Paleontology Museum, the Bean Museum, and the Museum of Art. It was so fun to walk around the campus that I love and enjoy the beautiful spring weather.
One of the highlights of the trip was seeing Charles Abuo in front of the Marriott Center. I saw him from some distance and told the kids I was walking by who he was and swoosh! they were jumping around him begging for autographs. I was slightly embarrassed at having to keep telling them to leave him alone and apologizing to him--but he definitely seemed to enjoy it. He seriously must have signed thirty autographs--and all with a smile. After all the kids had gotten their autographs, I snuck in and took a picture with him on my phone--I know!

I thought to take pictures a little late so only got the last one. 

Me and Charles

Some students being statues by the sculpture pond.

Sew Busy

If you can remember my post about Christmas, you'll remember that I got a sewing machine from my parents.

While we were with Michael's family the week after Christmas, I was able to use it and learn to love it.  Since then however, it has been in the corner of my front room, in its box, makin gme feel guilty. So today I went on to pinterest and found the directions to a skirt I pinned long ago and pulled out my sewing machine.
This was the first time that I had ever attempted anything like a skirt. Square blankets, pillows and bean bags were the extent of my sewing répertoire--until this afternoon!
Luckily my mom thought to give me all the basic sewing essentials. I got out my measuring tape, pins, scissors and a handy dandy seam ripper, cut my material and sat down at my sewing machine ready to begin.
I had to re-thread the bobbin to navy, directions to do such I had to look up in the manual. Then I had to thread the lower and upper mechanisms (again, thank goodness for the manual).  When that was all done I lined up my fabric and pressed down on the pedal only to hear a CHUNK-CHUNK-CHUNK-CHUNK-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. "E6" was flashing on the monitor, so I quickly turned to my manual again and found that "E6" meant that there was a tangle somewhere. 20 minutes later--after I took apart everything that could be taken apart--I found there was no tangle.
What was I to do? I called my mom, of course! She told me to take some things apart and clean different areas, which I did, but the dreaded E6 remained flashing on my screen as well as the horrible noise.
To make an already too long story short, I ended up doing what my mom told me to do, only a little more carefully and the machine worked! Thank you, Mom!
Two hours later, this is what I got. It's a little big (I was afraid of making it too small) and I can see two mistakes just looking at the picture, but I'm still proud--and I'm still wearing it to church tomorrow.

It looks long in this pic, but it is actually only about an inch or two below the knee. 

VACATION!

Ok, so usually the word vacation evokes thoughts of week long beach visits and relaxation, but this last week Stephanie and I both had Friday off of work, so we took a vacation!  Of course with just one extra day off we could really take a trip to Cabo San Lucas, so we opted for the best resort within 35 miles, Brighton!

Brighton Ski Resort had a special deal for the month with two free day passes if you stayed a night at the Brighton Lodge.  Since we love weekend getaways, and we love skiing even more, we were all about this great deal and made reservations for our weekend off.

(It's funny to think that such a simple vacation could have been taken on any weekend- just one night away, and one day skiing, could have been done without a friday off.  However waiting for this extended weekend to take such a quick trip made the weekend so much more relaxing overall.)

We went up Thursday night, grabbed some Café Rio and checked into the lodge.  It is a very simple, low key lodge but it does have it where it counts.  No TVs in each room (just one in the main lobby), but there's a hot tub... a HUGE hot tub, also a continental breakfast, a great place to eat lunch when skiing (fireplace, comfy chairs, hot chocolate!), and perhaps the most important, it's right next to the main lift at Brighton (Crest Express).  

Taken just outside our room.  You can see the lift in the background (and reflection)

She's pretty much a pro.

Lunch!

Warm boots after lunch... ^_^

Crest at night

The Snake Creek Heber Valley Overlook Point

It was an amazing day of skiing.  A little cold, but sunny with some great snow.  That day the reopened Milly's Bowl (after several snowstorms) so I had one movie-like powder run there, but the snow everywhere was awesome.