Turkey Trot

The best way to start off Thanksgiving Day is with a Turkey Trot! Sam and I dressed alike, it was funny.

We ran the Utah Human Race 2011! The race offered a 10k and a 5k and all the proceeds benefited Utah's food bank. All a good thing. My only complaint was that the 10k did the same run as the 5k only you had to do the loop twice. I really wanted to just stop when I passed the finish line with all the 5k folks. I didn't but I wanted to.

Super fun to spend the morning running with family. Thanks Muriel for organizing the event.

Thanksgiving was nice, Loralie provided a most excellent meal. I have so many blessing in my life, so many things to be thankful for.

Couldn't have come sooner

Thanksgiving break...finally. I love, love, love the Holidays. Not so much for the holiday but for the break from school. Can you believe it is Thanksgiving? Time just flies and I am EXHAUSTED! I am most excited about sleeping the next few days. It is that tired time of year. Too many three hour basketball practices; but the games started today so we won't practice quite as much. We lost, so maybe we should practice a lot but we won't.

Anthony was here visiting last week. He is so funny. Funny with his beard, funny outlook on life. He is fun to be around but also kind of hard to take serious.

Anthony loves to give hugs. This is him comforting Dan while Dan is driving. I believe Dan said "get off of me" so funny.

We hung out together a few nights. Dan commented today that it was nice because Anthony actually hung out with us while he was here. It was fun to see him more. I guess that is what happens when all your friends work and go to school, you get stuck with your siblings.

So Anthony was out here last year shortly after returning home from his mission and I came home from a hard day of work wearing this:

Cute and comfy, right. Professional as far as a PE teacher is concerned. The problem is is that now it is associated with this:

Glee and stupid Sue Sylvester, meanest teacher ever! Anthony made so much fun of me. I didn't wear my three Adidas outfits for a long time but the problem is I have owned them since my first year of teaching, yes all three of them. They are comfortable, professional, in good condition and most importantly I like them. And so now I am just wearing them. I have been rock'n' them longer than Glee has been around and so now I must embrace them. GO ADIDAS!

I was so excited when my general conference Ensign came in the mail. I love reading conference talks. I especially loved Elder Uchtdorf's talk in the Relief Society broadcast as well as his talk in the Saturday morning session. He said, "Never stop striving for the best that is within you. Never stop hoping for all the righteous desires of your heart. But don't close your eyes and hearts to the simple elegant beauties of each day's ordinary moments that make up a rich, well-lived life." I love that quote. I loved his Forget Me Not Talk. It reminded me of all the good I can do everyday even though it is a different good than what I anticipated when I was 8 or 12 or 16 or 20 or even 25.

And then in the Saturday morning session he said this really long quote:

Third, no matter where you live, no matter how humble your circumstances, how meager your employment, how limited your abilities, how ordinary your appearance, or how little your calling in the Church may appear to you, you are not invisible to your Heavenly Father. He loves you. He knows your humble heart and your acts of love and kindness. Together, they form a lasting testimony of your fidelity and faith. Fourth and finally, please understand that what you see and experience now is not what forever will be. You will not feel loneliness, sorrow, pain, or discouragement forever. We have the faithful promise of God that He will neither forget nor forsake those who incline their hearts to Him. Have hope and faith in that promise. Learn to love your Heavenly Father and become His disciple in word and in deed.
Be assured that if you but hold on, believe in Him, and remain faithful in keeping the commandments, one day you will experience for yourselves the promises revealed to the Apostle Paul: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” Brothers and sisters, the most powerful Being in the universe is the Father of your spirit. He knows you. He loves you with a perfect love. God sees you not only as a mortal being on a small planet who lives for a brief season—He sees you as His child. He sees you as the being you are capable and designed to become. He wants you to know that you matter to Him.

I love General Conference and am so glad that we have living prophets and apostles to guide us everyday! It is something that I am truly grateful for. I have also been grateful for the protection Heavenly Father offers. Four members of my family were in an automobile accident last weekend and it was just a reminder to me of how fragile life is. No one was really injured but it could have been so much worse. I am so grateful for my family. I love them. That evening I went to bed so grateful for the Lord's protecting hand and the feelings are still so strong. I know they will fade with time but for now I just feel so much gratitude. This special season truly is magical as we reflect on all the blessings in our lives.

It is all a blur

Last week was a blur. Basketball started so I was super busy with that and then there were parent teacher conferences, which meant we practiced at 5:30am two mornings....LAME! It was just a long week. I was so excited for the weekend. Hung out with my cousins Melissa and Katie on Friday. Melissa was doing a book signing at Costco in Orem. Here first book just came out. Check it out here. We went to dinner and just visited, great way to end a crazy week. Slept in late both mornings. Hung out with Caleb. Enjoyed some beautiful snow while shopping in Park City. Watched BYU dominate with Jana and Ben. Did church on Sunday. Had dinner at my Aunt Loralie's. Overall a great weekend after an exhausting week.

I had to start this week with a 5:30 am practice yesterday because we had teacher meetings until 4:30. Hopefully I am not tired all week as a result. I did 200 air squats at the teacher meeting. My legs are SUPER sore. That is not an exaggeration. I am in pain. Here is to another week hopefully not quite as tiring as last week.

Busy

The pictures represent a lit of what I did this week. Burnt yummy candles, got my clothes in the mail, got my hair done, rotated the tires on my car, got the recall taken care of, did a little baking, did the dentist, and busted out the best hot chocolate ever. Jana and I also continued our tradition of hanging out on Halloween and handing out candy while Ben takes the kids trick-or-treating. Good tradition and really fun. I like that neither of us really feel the need to dress up. It works out great.

I added some pictures of my fun Halloween decorations. I leave them up until Thanksgiving because they represent fall. I still love the jack-o-lantern wall hanging I made a few years ago. It makes me laugh when I walk in the door. The weather has turned cool. I was actually a little disappointed that there was no snow on the ground this morning I thought maybe I could snowshoe today but it was a no go.

I am always super excited when the General Conference Ensign comes in the mail. Love to re-read the talks given by our church leaders. I was really excited to see the QR codes in the Ensign. QR codes are big in my house because Dan just did a really cool commercial at work about them. Check out his blog to see.

I also made dinner for a family in our ward. They are having twin boys soon and the Mom is on bed rest. My cousin just had twin boys and I know their little family has been super busy. It was really nice to do something for someone else. I don't feel like I have lots of opportunities like that right now in my life. I am hoping that being in the family ward will give me more chances to serve.

We celebrated my Aunt Nancy's birthday. It is always super fun to go to dinner with family. Wish I had taken some pictures.

So this last week I started looking into a new masters program. I mean really can you have too many masters degrees? I have just been so exhausted this year and I think teaching PE is awesome but really how long could I do it. I really don't think I could do it for thirty years if I had to. I mean I could but not the way it is supposed to be taught and that just is not fair to the kids. So I am looking into a school counseling program through Utah State University. It is set-up for teachers. It is a three year program with all night classes. I think I am going to apply. It seems crazy but I also think it would really be fun and interesting. And if I never end up being a counselor that is ok I think the things I would learn could help me with whatever I am supposed to do in life. Right now I feel really good about it we will see if I continue to feel that way. It was completely out of the blue that I started thinking about it but sometimes that is how life works.

I just want to add that I really love my Patriarchal Blessing. It is amazing. So many promises and so much hope. I was reading it last week in church and one paragraph really stood out. I had not ever really focused on this paragraph before but it offered so much comfort. I am by nature a worrier and this answered something I have been worrying about off and on. And nothing like marriage so don't start thinking that (although don't throw it out either there are some promises about that and raising a family). It just brought so much comfort and reminded me that Heavenly Father knows me and he is in charge. I forget that all the time. I am very impatient about a lot of things and I just need to TRUST more.

I was supposed to run in a 5k race this morning for a little girl at our school. I picked up my shirt and didn't run. That is totally ghetto, but it was so cold. I was so tired. My body just does not function well in the cold or in the morning. I can work-out in the morning but running in the morning seems to be a different story. So I am going to run a 5k on my treadmill at some point today. The race was for the Make-A-Wish foundation. She does not have cancer but some other life threatening disease. It is a great cause so I am glad I paid to do it and I didn't complain when I came home and slept for 2 and 1/2 more hours either. I really was tired.

I am really excited about the wreath I bought for my door. How cute is it? I love it. It was on super sale and I love how it looks. It just makes my house so much more inviting.

Basketball starts next week. I have really been struggling this year. I love coaching but man it is so much time and energy. I really have to mentally gear up for it. How lame does that sound and I think I really say this every single year? I still love to play and love to coach but it is so much time and effects my life so much. It really helps me appreciate my Dad and all the time he spent coaching. He coached for 15 of my first 18 years at home and a few more years after that. That is SERVICE! I can't even call mine service because I get paid. I am really excited that one of my former players is going to be my assistant coach (well cross your fingers her boss still has to approve her leaving a little early from work). I know the girls will love her and I think it will make the season really fun. Well I have stake conference this evening so I think it is time to prepare for that.