Happy Halloween

This is my least favorite holiday of the entire year. There are a number of reasons I dislike it.

1. Who came up with this Holiday???

2. Why do we have to give all the neighboor kids candy, as a physical educator this is difficult for me?

3. I absolutely hate dressing up.

4. On Halloween all of a sudden it becomes legal to dress like a skank and act really crazy.

5. I hate pumpkin carving, although I may be turning over a new leaf here because thanks to Ben and Jana I had a good pumpkin carving experience this year.

6. Is it really safe? There are so many horror stories.

7. I hate how people try to decorate their house and yard all creepy. I like the nice, cute decorations but the freaky stuff is a little overboard.

8. It always starts the time when I slowly gain weight until the spring, hoping to change that this winter.

9. Kids trick or treat way past the appropriate age, I believe junior high school is even stretching it,

10. The reason I most despise Halloween is that I hear all day long why do we have to dress down on a holiday, it is not fair and every other complaint you can imagine.

I almost took the day off this year just because I hate dealing with it. But then I though that would be mean to stick it to a substitute like that. For all of you that love the holiday have a great day. I will go to Michelle's party which I am sure will be amazing so that will be FUN!!

The Evolution of the School Picture

Some things in life are meant to be learned the hard way and that is what happened with me and school pictures. My first year teaching I did not even know when school pictures were and all of a sudden over the loud intercom I hear Ms. Brown please report to the auditorium immediately to have your picture taken. I am sorry WHAT? So to the auditorium I go and have this disgusting picture taken of me in an old Las Plumas t-shirt and a whistle around my neck. I knew it would go in the year book but I decided that I could deal with that. Well the picture was NASTY!!! Not only does it go in the year book but they also give you the biggest picture package for free because you are a teacher, unfortunately I threw those away the same day I got them. OOPs, that was before blogging it would be fun to post it on here now.

Anyways it turns out that your school picture is used for everything: yearbook, web page, slide shows, and teacher ID cards we are supposed to wear around our necks at all times. Needless to say that first year I never wore my ID card, threw that thing away. But I made a goal to take a better picture next year as to avoid the pain of seeing a sick picture of myself every time I turned around.

2006- my picture was much better. My hair was down, I wore mascara, and I was in normal clothes. Well when I got the picture package I thought what can I do with all of these pictures and so I decided to have a little fun. These pictures were not nearly as bad as the first year and so the fun began with my dinner group. I gave everyone in the dinner group a bottle of hand soup from bath and body works with a picture of myself on the hand wash. Even better than that was when I used the 5x7 and a cheap frame at my ward white elephant gift exchange. I am not good at picking out white elephant gifts but that one was the best one I have ever done. I also gave the 8x10 picture to my parents realizing they are the only ones on the face of the planet that would appreciate it.

2007- Normal pictures but I did not do anything crazy with it. I did give a copy to my parents.

2008- My 2008 picture turned out nice as well. I gave a copy to my Aunt Nancy with instructions to hang the picture in her office at the U in hopes of setting me up with some of the medical students. That seemed like a good idea and she wondered how she would know if they were married or not and I informed her to look at their hands or to ask.

So I still have an entire package of pictures left to get rid of. I could send you all one in a Christmas card but that is so boring so I am open to any ideas you might have of ways in which I could use this years school picture. The funnier the ideas the better!!

A Lesson On Gambling

I am very anti to betting or gambling of any sort. I really do not like the idea of it and so I choose not to participate in these activities. Recently, well after the relief society broadcast to be exact, Mikila in a moment of wishful thinking bet me that she could hike to the Y. Not only did she bet me but she put Cafio Rio on the line. How could I turn that down? So I went against all logic and reasoning and agreed to the bet. Anyone who has hiked the Y knows that it is quite intense and very steep. I need not remind you of the last hiking experience I had with Mikila, she posted that story on her blog, we will just say that it did not end well for her. So below is a video of Mikila smiling before the hiking began. My cousin Katie, who is also our roomate, came along as well. She made sure Mikila did not push me off the trail in a moment of anger.

I won't tell you who won the bet, but remember I hate losing. Mikila can write her own version of how the hike went down. I will say that she almost bet me Cafe Rio again about a comment I left on Dan's blog, turns out she backed out just in time because I was right about that one too. So moral of the story is don't bet or gamble because most likely you are going to lose, especially if it is with me!!!! The good news is that I got some pretty pictures of the beautiful fall leaves. The very last picture is Mikila all tuckered out and again whishfully thinking that I would give up my bed to her because she exercised, I think not. All in all it was a fun evening and we all got a little exercise.

Tagged

I was tagged, not a huge fan of these things but here we go anyways......

Answer all the following two-word leads.

I am: hot, I wore to many layers for inside but just enough to stay warm outside

I think: about my mission at least once a day still. Is that weird?

I know: I am a child of God

I want: to get married

I have: a cute house

I dislike: dirty feet on clean things like my bed or couch

I fear: losing my job

I feel: lame because I have not done my stats homework yet this week

I hear: my fridge in my office at school

I smell: the outside because I have been out teaching all day

I crave: nothing I am still full from lunch

I cry: a lot actually but usually in my room and no one sees me and when I feel the spirit

I usually: exercise 5 days a week

I search: for ways to make people laugh

I wonder: if I really need to go get my brakes checked and how much new ones will cost

I regret: sometimes getting frustrated with my students, I always feel bad after I have to get on them, I hate that

I love: biking and hiking with friends

I care: about doing well in school (I care to much and it causes stress)

I always: chew gum

I worry: that the world is going to the crapper

I am not: good at showing empathy to my students

I remember: to many things I wish I could not remember

I believe: in the gospel of Jesus Christ and know that it brings true happiness

I dance: never, I stink and know that I stink

I sing: loud in my car to the radio

I don't always: tell people I love and care about them even though I do, it is hard for me to say

I argue: only when I really feel it is necessary because I really hate confrontation and those yucky feelings that go along with it

I write: in my journal more because of Elder Eyerings talk in conference a while ago

I win: whenever I can I hate losing

I lose: rarely (just kidding but I hate losing).

I wish: I lived closer to my parents

I listen: to country music and I love it

I don't understand: People outside of junior high girls who are mean to others on purpose

I can usually be found: at work, during the school year it feels like I am always here, especially when I am coaching sports

I am scared: not passing this stats class and having to take it over again

I need: to get off the internet and do my stats homework

I forget: To call people back if I don't do it right when I listen to the message

I am happy: most of the time except during the first hour I wake up in the morning, I always wake up GROUCHY

I don't feel like tagging anyone so take that

Not just one but two!!

I found a sweet bike ride in Vegas today. Whenever I come to visit Katie I am always on the look out for good rides. The one I found today was 20 miles long with only two stop signs and not a lot of traffic. The great thing was I chose to turn around but the road had no end in sight. That is awesome because I can do the ride again sometime when I am here and go longer if I choose to.

While biking I almot ran over the biggest spider I have ever seen. I, being slightly crazy, decided to chase it and get a picture because it was gigantic. However, my camera phone is lame and I could not get close enough to get a good shot. Bummer, I know. I will say that spider could move quickly and I was extremely nervous trying to get close but not too close.

Realization set in that I was not meant to get a picture and so I hopped on my bike and rode away, 10 minutes later I saw another huge spider crossing the road. These things were huge. I probably would have crashed my road bike if I ran them over. I decided I would look them up on the internet when I got back to Katie's. After all my research I determined that it was a male desert tarantula, not poisonous. And below is a picture of what they both looked like, but thwe ones I saw were bigger than this little guy. CREEPY!!

2000

Well this will be a boring post but for documentation purposes I reached my goal of biking 2000 miles this year on Saturday. It was a downer of a weekend because I was supposed to do a 60 mile ride in Yellowstone but due to inclement weather it was canceled. I was bummed. But I only needed 4 miles to get my 2000 so I woke up Saturday and biked 14. It was freezing and it snowed on me. GOAL ACCOMPLISHED! I can now put the bike away for the winter, except it is supposed to be good weather this week!?!. HHMMMMM? We shall see.

Called to Serve

Anthony finally got his mission call. He will be serving in Winnipeg, Canada!! Yea we are so excited for Him. He enters the MTC on January 28th. I hear it is small towns and really cold. We are just so excited he knows where he is going and that he will be serving the Lord.

Halloween!?

Halloween has never been one of my favorite holidays. I am not quite sure why but I think it has something to do with dressing up I never really liked it that much and I still hate when I have to try to think of something to dess as. So I m just sort of dreading all the things that happen with halloween, mainly cold weather. The only thing I am excited about is doing jack-o-lanterns with Ben and Jana. I invited myself to join them because their jack-o-lanterns are always very. I am hoping that they can inspire me ( no pressure)!!

I loved conference this past weekend. It was so awesome and inspiring. I really got a lot out of all of the sessions and I am grateful that we have prophets, seers, and revelators to guide us. I don't know how people with out this guidance don't get depressed. There were a couple of specific talks that I really enjoyed and I am now going to try to do the hard part and actually apply those principles taught in my daily life. After conference I realized I have so much to work on but I also have hope that I can become what the Lord wants me to become.

Impatient Peeps and Stoplights

So one of my pet peeves about Utah is stoplights. The main reason is because yellow means speed up and red means at a minimum two more cars can go through the intersection. It drives me crazy and probably more so because I am a biker and if a car hits me I could die, might not die as I have been hit by a car before but it is a long recovery and an expensive one when the driver has no insurance (that's a post for another day).

My story is that yesterday while I was biking home from work I was waiting at a stoplight. Well all of a sudden I hear this loud honk and a car runs through the red light. I put two together and here is what happened. An impatient driver saw cars moving in the turn lane, the turn light had turned green, but the straight light was still red. He lays on his horn and the guy in front of him runs the red light without even looking because he was worried about the road rage of the guy behind him. He barely missed getting hit and I don't think he ever realized he ran a red light. Patience people. I hope the driver that was honking realizes he is an IDIOT! I don't like to call people names but we all have places to go and if you are in that big of a hurry you need to plan your time better. I wonder what he was thinking when he realized the light was red because he did not run the red light. Weird.

Since I am on my driving soap box I also absolutely hate how fast people drive in Utah. If you are going five over the speed limit on the freeway you have to be in the slow lane and you will not pass a single car. I think it is crazy. Anyways I really do love Utah minus the cold but I was really frustrated yesterday with these crazy drivers.