When Jumping Spiders Attack

Roomate Ash: YUUUUCCCKKK! There is a huge spider on the wall! I do fine with other insects, but not spiders. Will you get it?

Me: Sure! (thinking in my head, I am an adult, I deal with bugs in my classroom all the time and have learned to not make a big deal of it)

Me: WHOA! That is a huge spider. Gross!

We grab a plastic cup to cover it with. As I move the cup toward the eight-legged-monster, it jumps (YES JUMPS!) off the wall and towards us.

*Insert totally girly shrieks and squeals here*

Me: (Throws cup on carpet, sincerely hoping that the spider has been captured)

Ash: Now what?

Me: How long will we have to leave it there before it dies on it's own? Can we call our home teachers to come get rid of it? The thing JUMPS!!! YIKES!

Ash: We are NOT calling anyone, we can do this!

Me: We need something hard to slide under the cup to keep it inside.

Ash grabs a parking pass

I scoop up the the spider, grateful that it is indeed under the cup

Ash flushes the toilet while I throw the spider into it's swirling, watery grave.

We shut the toilet

and avoid that bathroom the rest of the night

We are such girls

Is it any wonder that I love this girl?

A true best friend is one who will spend 10 minutes on a Saturday night helping you get rid of a spider :-)

Too Funny!

One darling baby,
picking another darling baby's nose,
even if the picture is blurry,
will always make me smile!

Shoe Shopping with Madison

I take my nieces shoe shopping on their birthday each year. It is one of my favorite traditions. While I ask my sister's what kind of shoe's their child really needs, when it comes to the final decision, my niece gets to choose.

A few weeks ago I took Maddie shopping for her 4th birthday. It was quite the event.

She tried on EVERY SHOE that was in her size range. Seriously

And took pictures of them all.

Then modeled each pair for me.

After an hour, do you know what pair she picked? The light up princess tennis shoes. The FIRST PAIR she tried on. The one's she knew she wanted all along.

It's a good thing she is so stinkin' cute! Happy birthday Miss Madison!

I'm Back!!!!

Yes, I know it has been forever since I actually blogged. I have been too busy gallivanting around the world, meeting with royalty, and being involved in some life changing events to get on and blog. I wish ;-) I really have no good reason for not blogging. Life has not been super interesting to write about, and I have been lazy. Here are some of the things that I have been doing:

• TEACHING - The third year of teaching is SO MUCH EASIER!!! I finally feel like I know what I am doing (for the most part). I have figured out how to be planned three weeks ahead at all times. This makes it possible for me to leave school on time every day. It has also helped to relieve great amounts of stress from my life. My class this year is cute (though rambunctious!) and I am enjoying my time with them. It has been fantastic!
• Reading - This one doesn't really need a lot of explanation. I have been reading many, many books. I am quite enjoying it.
  
• Playing - Spending time with friends. Friends and books are really to blame for the lack of blog posts over the past month :-)
  
• Running - My goal for this year was to run a half marathon. I found one that sounded fun, found a friend to run it with me, and we started training. Running a half marathon is something that I have always wanted to do. I am not a great runner, but I have found that if I just keep going, I can run for quite a while. I was finally to a point where I was close to being trained for the race, I was even enjoying running for several hours. Then this happened:
  

UG! Remember this boot from a few years ago? It's back! My left foot is having some major issues. After two weeks in the boot I am seeing little improvement. I am praying for a miracle that will allow my foot to heal and me to run in three weeks. Having lost a few weeks of training I won't be able to run the whole thing like I was hoping, but I would like to participate in it regardless! Plus, I already registered, so if I don't run it will just be the most expensive t-shirt I will every buy in my life!

Nothing super exciting, but life is good, and I am enjoying the fall weather. Hope you are too!

Summertime Wrap Up

Can you believe that summer is already over? I neglected my blog for quite some time, and now have a bunch of things I should have blogged about but never did. So I am going to squeeze them all into a long post filled with pictures! Here are some of the things I did through the last part of summer:

Going to this little lady's blessing:

As well as this angel's:

They are seriously the most darling babies ever!

No worries! I did not have a baby over the summer (though I have considered stealing Aubrey or Violet ;-) but I still think this picture is funny. No, Lacey and I are not twins.

I spent two days in Provo at a conference on children's and young adult literature. It was AWESOME! On my way home I stopped and visited Karl and Liz. On Saturday Lacey and Steve came too, and we all went to the zoo. I haven't been to the zoo since I was a kid, and it was quite fun!

When we were at a life size replica of a dinosaur I looked down and saw this:

I laughed really hard!

Riding the train:

The babies were angels the whole time!

I visited Mari (the former Sister Da Silva) and played with her "son" - named Toothless

It made me seriously consider getting a pet lizard of my own

So basically I spent my summer vacation playing with lots of cute little girls, family, and friends.

It was a spectacular way to spend the summer!

Mud Madness

This weekend I did the Cache Valley Mud Run with five of my friends. It was a 5K with all sorts of muddy obstacle courses, loads of water guns, and lots of fun! Our team name was the Disheveled Damsels, and we had a great time together! You run the whole thing as a team, which is really what made it as fun as it was!

Back when we were just damsels, but not yet disheveled

Resurrecting the "My date thinks I'm hot" t-shirt from high school

Starting the race on the first of four giant slip-n-slides

halfway through the race
already disheveled

Lacey getting artsy with the camera

trying to run across the river.
As you can see, I didn't make it very far!

Getting squirted by the fire hose while waiting to go down the final slide

It was super cold

The last slide was incredibly fast and shot you into a pool of knee deep mud. Somehow I ended up speeding down it at an alarming rate and being thrown headfirst into the mud. I was completely saturated, and couldn't see (contacts). Emily was kind enough to drag me out! (if you click on the picture above there is an arrow that shows you which one I am)

WE MADE IT!

YIPPEE!

The worst part - rinsing off in the icy water

clean! (well, sort of)

It was such a fun race! I hope they do it again next year! I think everyone deserves the chance to play in the mud and just have fun!

*A special thanks to Lacey, Steve, and Ivy who gave up their Saturday morning to play photographer!

The Five Outfits of the Day Before School

Outfit One: Blue lace shirt, white undershirt, nice jeans

This one was for school pictures (one of my least favorite parts of the school year!) It took almost five minutes to get a picture that worked. They would position me, tell me to tip my head, and then my hair would fall in my face, causing me to have one eye in the picture! They did get one with both my eyes showing, too bad it was terrible! The photographer actually offered me her bobby pins (which I GLADLY accepted) pulled the hair back on the sides, tipped my head with no hair falling in the face, and FINALLY got a good shot. Actually, I really don’t know if it was a good shot, but my hair wasn’t in my face so at that point I didn’t care! Then I gave the sweet photographer her bobby pins back. I really don’t like school pictures!

Outfit Two: School shirt, jeans

Changed quickly into my school shirt to be ready for the faculty picture. Then changed out of it 15 minutes later when they decided to postpone the photo shoot for another day.

Outfit Three: Grungy t-shirt, capri’s, flip flops

I spent most of the day putting the finishing touches on my room, then cleaning it so it would be ready for the first day of school. So I wore cleaning clothes.

Outfit Four: Blue summer dress with flats

The outfit for Back to School night. Did you know that Back to School night slightly terrifies me? The first day of school is exhausting, but not really scary. Dealing with lots of students AND their parents at once – YIKES! But I survived! And I shouldn’t have worried, all the parents were very nice.

Outfit Five: Extra large and extra comfy pajamas

The best outfit of the day!