Goal #1 Revised

After I typed up my last post and read it over I decided that my goal of wanting to exercise more needs to be more specific. For the last week I have been using the treadmill in my basement, it has hardly been touched since Elder and Sister James left for Florida. I know that using a treadmill and running outside are two very different things, but my new revised goal is . . .

To go on a run with my sisters and keep up at least part of the time when we visit here:



This trip is not very far away but I feel okay about starting on the treadmill. For one the temperature has been insanely cold outside and for another while I am just starting out the treadmill helps me keep track of myself a little more.

Now that I have shared my new goal maybe it will be a little more motivation to accomplish it. We'll see.

A New Year

Well it's only been a new year for a month and only about 8 months since I blogged so I am going to try again, here we go:

New Years Resolutions:
1. Exercise (not to lose wait, I am very comfortable with my weight but to have more energy and tone up).
2. Blog (specifically on my gluten free cooking blog).
3. Enjoy my bit of time I have right now to myself.
4. Read the books I have been wanting to read.

So lets do a little catching up of the last eight months or so:
I was pretty busy last spring so there are a few things I forgot to mention like ...
Libby and Colby's Beautiful wedding!

For the fourth of July we helped my brother and his family move to Denver. We were able to go to a Rockies game and we found a stand with gluten free hotdog buns!

Over the 24th of July we stayed the night in Park City with our friends Joel and Val. It was really fun, but after waiting in line for the zipline for what felt like forever it was not as fun as the cheaper and faster line for the Alpine slide.

My last post was about Natalie's Benefit concert. It turned out amazing! It was pretty windy and Brooke was only able to perform a few songs before the rain started. It was still a great time. We had so much support and Nat was able to hang on to attend the concert. Though she did not last much longer We were all glad to help here with this special day.

The day after the concert me and a few friends from school went to Denver for the wedding of one of my friends and classmates. It was a crazy few days but so much fun!
Sorry, I didn't take my camera so no photo.
A few weeks after that post I started my semester of student teaching. I was so busy and stressed out all the time. I learned a lot about myself and I gained confidence in myself as a teacher. I saw and tried a lot of things that worked great and I cannot wait to try again and some things I hope will never happen in my classroom.
But I was able to find time for a few fun things during this semester such as an impromptu Labor day camp-out in my backyard with Libby and Colby, it was so freezing! We ended up coming inside and sleeping.

and I am sure there were more fun things but I seem to have forgotten a lot.
December was a very busy month for us.
The semester finally came to an end and on December 10, 2010 I graduated from college!
"A lot of people go to school for seven years" "Yeah they're called doctors" or in my case a teacher:

A few days later Jon and I, along with David, Amanda, Luke, and Sam headed to Orlando to see Jon's parents who are serving a mission in Florida. It was a little colder than we were hoping but we had a really great time.

While we were in Florida we celebrated our 5 year Wedding Anniversary with a couples massage and dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. I cannot believe it has been five years, I guess time flies when you're having fun.

We also celebrated Sam's first birthday on our trip. We had a very small party for him after a long day in Disney World.

We came home just in time for Christmas. We had a very low key holiday spending time with family. We decided for a our gifts to each other we would only fill the other's stockings. So we each got some of our favorite candy and a few small things. We are saving up for a trip with my family that we have been planning for a while. The only picture I have from Christmas is this one of Logan, he fell asleep on the couch with a few too many people around so the boys started putting things on his face until he woke up:


Then it was my Birthday! (poor Jon was all out of ideas, seriously he bought me a graduation gift, anniversary gift, Christmas, and now my birthday, all while trying to stay on a budget) So for my birthday he took me shopping and I purchased a few new clothes and some new makeup. We had a dinner with my family at the Spaghetti Factory, a family favorite, and a few days later he took my to Tucano's Brazilian grill. It was so delicious. I had a great birthday.

We also sold our Xterra the day before we left for Florida and spend the rest of the month hunting for a new car. A week or so into January we found a great car. It is a Nissan Altima and we love the great gas mileage and the lower car payment. But I can tell that Jon still misses his Xterra too bad it was so expensive to keep around.

I guess I kinda miss it too, but I love our new car.

Since the holidays I have been substitute teaching all around Weber School District. It would be nice if my schedule were more consistent particularly after a semester of not getting paid at all to teach full time. Subbing is a new adventure every day I get called in. You never know what kind of day you are going to have.

On a more exciting note I do have a teaching job that starts in August!
I am really excited though it seems really far away. I will be teaching at a charter school in West Haven in the upper grades (not sure exactly what grade yet).
It came as a big surprise because I wasn't trying very hard yet to get a teaching job. I was called in for an interview and they called me about 20 minutes later to offer me the the job. I am really excited and I have a lot of ideas that I have been working on for my classroom.

That is about all that is going on. Hopefully I will have some things to post in the near future.

Benefit Concert

My mom is helping put together a benefit concert for a very sweet girl. Here name is Natalie and our families have been friends for a long time. Natalie is also one of my mom's hospice patients. Her story is posted here: Nat's Blog The concert will be on August 6th and we are really excited. Brooke White will be performing and it will be at a park in North Ogden. The tickets are ten dollars and will hopefully go on sale soon. Please spread the word. This is a picture of Brooke with some of my family at a concert she put on in SLC last fall:

The concert will be a lot of fun and I hope we will be able to raise enough to help out Natalie and her family.
Thanks
Abby

Quick Trip Quick Post

A few weekends ago we decided to drive down to see the Peterson's in LA for fun-filled weekend. It was really fun and we have lots of pictures and hopefully I will get up some motivation to post some on here but this one is from my phone so I have it with me:

Jon and I with two of our favorite kids (we have a lot of favorite kids).
That is all for now.

Hawaii!!!

Our trip to Hawaii was super amazing! We spent a week on Kauai it was so beautiful. We then spent one day in Honolulu it was so different than Kauai. Honolulu was like LA and New York smashed together on an island. Kauai is so laid back and most of the island is a natural reserve so it is a lot quieter than Oahu. I am glad we spent most of our time on the quiet island but it was still really fun to spend a day in Honolulu. We didn't take pictures everyday because we spent most of our time snorkeling or in the pool and our camera does not mix well with water but here is a few from the different places we went to:
Us at the sea glass beach where the sand is full of little, rounded pellets of glass (not a good place to swim)

Us at a waterfall

This rope swing was one of my favorite parts of the trip, even though I may have freaked out a bit before my turn I still went and I was so proud of myself!
Me:

Jon:

My brother Taft:

My nephew Lincoln was the only little one with us on this trip. He is so cute and we had so much fun with him. This is my favorite picture of him:

I had Lesha take some family photos of Jon and I at the hotel these are my favorites:


thanks to Kady for letting my borrow the dress in the above pictures
Last are a few pics of us at Pearl Harbor
Me and my Mom:

Jon and I at the Memorial of the Arizona:

I really love the hat I bought at the flea market at aloha stadium. I plan on wearing this as my gardening hat, LOVE it!!!
We had a really great trip and I hope we get to go again with more of our family. Thanks for a great trip Mom and Taft.

Currently

Wow so much has happened since my last post. I don't know where to start, but I guess I will begin with what is currently in my head. LDS General Conference was as wonderful as usual. As a nursery leader I rarely feel edified after attending church and conference is a great time to make up for this. My favorite talk was during the Saturday afternoon session (which Jon and I were able to attend this time) It is such an amazing experience to be in the conference center so close to the leaders of our church. Anyway, I have a short attention span and the only speaker that really held my attention for his entire talk was this guy:

His name is Jeffrey R. Holland and he is a member of the twelve apostles. Look for his talk in transcript starting on Thursday or watch the video of it by clicking on the video of the Saturday afternoon session at LDS.org

I can link you to another favorite talk that was given at the Young Women's Broadcast last week. Though I am not part of the Young Women's organization right now my older sister is and she encouraged me to check it out. Now I want to encourage all women to read it. It is a really uplifting talk read it by clicking: Your Happily Ever After

I need to get back to my homework but I would love to share one more thing I am really excited about: We decided on the location on of our trip and the final decision is:
Marriott's Waiohai Beach Club in Kauai, Hawaii
We are going soon and we are so excited. Thanks to my mom for letting us come with here to use her timeshare. It is going to be so fun. Has anyone been to this island? Any suggestions on places we should visit?
that's all for now. School will be out soon and I hope I can find the time to share some more fun things that have been happening.

Where to go?

We've decided to go on a vacation.

The problem is

"WHERE?"

Do any of you have a suggestion or two? We've got a few ideas but haven't been able to settle on anything and new ideas keep adding spice to the mix. We'd like to go somewhere warm, maybe with a beach, maybe not. do you have an idea? Please leave a comment. I'd love some input.

Little Things

So things are not very exciting, I think January is one of the hardest parts of the year. It is way too cold to spend time outside, the air quality here in Utah is terrible, the semester begins way too soon after Christmas, and it feels like forever! I want to share a few little things that brought me joy:

We are trying to save a few dollars at our house. Most of our money goes to food so I decided on a semi-flexible rule: We only go to the store once every two weeks, unless we need milk. Anyway, my office decided on Tuesday that they wanted to have a potluck lunch on Wednesday (crap I can't go to the store till Friday, and we have a basically empty fridge) I searched the food storage and ended up putting together a fruit salad of mostly canned fruit and some grapes but it was really good and I didn't have to break my rule! I was pretty excited
I woke up late today, as usual, and I forgot to grab my lunch. So I stopped at the Subway by my work (free cookie Friday). I discovered something amazing. I am trying to drink more water but so many places water tastes like a swimming pool to me so I really struggle. But they had these awesome little packets of lemon juice, and lemons make water so much more refreshing! and I don't have to think about how many people have stuck their hands all over the fresh lemons. So Good! I took a handful and have been drinking lemon water all day!

I was able to assist in the conversion of my sweet sister to the apple family. She has been talking about getting a new computer for years and it took her ancient computer throwing sparks out of the cord for her to finally get one but she did! I went to the bookstore yesterday and bought her a new macbook pro. This was my first time opening a brand new computer (Jon usually gets this honor). It was really fun formatting it a little bit and adding on office and a few other things to make it easier for her to use. I like figuring things out, even though I had to call Jon at work a few times.
And of course, This Guy! Jon makes everyday better. I love it when he gets home from work, I love it when he answers all my silly questions, and I really just love almost everything about him (come on, nobody's perfect)
There, I feel a lot better about my January.

December 2009

We had a great holiday season but I did not take very many pictures. We have this great camera but it is so bulky that I don't carry it with me everywhere and therefore don't have very many pictures.
Starting early in December Jon graduated from Weber State! It hasn't really set in yet, hopefully he will find a better job soon now that he is done with school. If you hear of any openings in the computer networking area let us know

Jon's parents were set apart as full-time missionaries, twice, they were originally set apart for the Kinsasha, Democratic Republic of the Congo mission but while they were in the MTC the doctor told them the malaria medication would interact with some of Bob's other medication so they received a new call to the Orlando, Florida Mission. They left the day after Christmas and drove down, it took them about six days. We have only talked to them a little bit, (different rules for senior missionaries they can skype us whenever they have time and still have their cellphones). From what we have heard they are doing great and working really hard.
Here is a picture of the family at the second setting apart, only missing Mark (he was on his way to the Vegas Bowl) and David, Amanda, Luke, and Sam (Sam was only a week old at this time)

I went to see my favorite cosmetologist and chopped off my hair
before:

after:

It took me a little bit but I am figuring out some fun ways to style my new do, I totally love how much easier it is to dry and style. Though looking at the before pictures I do miss my longer locks. I always want what I don't have.
Some of my girlfriends came over for a chocolate fondue, quilt tying party. Here is a pic of the girls that made it, we missed everyone that were not able to come:

I just picked up the quilt a few days ago from a sweet lady that finished the edge for me, here is the finished product:

This is a humanitarian quilt, I picked up the pieces from Deseret Industries and I will taking it back to be put in a humanitarian kit
These are all the pictures that I have but we had a lot of fun with my sister Kady's family coming to town and spending lots of time with all of our family. I am back in school now, though my schedule is incredibly light compared to last fall, Jon told me just the other day that the only way he knows that I am in school is that I get up early. I guess he is right I am able to do all of my homework while he is at work and nothing has been terribly difficult yet. I guess there is a plus to taking my time to finish school, while all my classmates are loaded up to get ready for student teaching I have taken everything already and I am just coasting to the finish. I guess that is about all.

Watch this

I thought it was funny, hope you like it. Merry Christmas.
It is a group of high school students showing how silent monks would sing Halleluia