Thanksgiving wedding

Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving this year was one of the busiest I have ever had in my life!  We had 3 families we had to visit this year plus another surprise!  We started the day off with Grandma Kay.  As usual we love visiting her.   The food was delicious and the company wasn't bad either.  It's always great to be able to catch up with family members you don't see every day.   Grandma Kay makes the best mashed potatoes and gravy.  I've decided that every family makes something that is better than any other family and Grandma Kay makes the best mashed potatoes and gravy and pecan pie!

Next we were off to Grandma Beths.  Grandma Beth makes the best green bean casserole.  We had tons of fun chatting with them and had some incredible pumpkin pie.  I did miss the cheesecake this year.  My uncle fried a turkey this year.  It only takes 45 minutes to fry a turkey!  Amazing!

After that we headed over to Grandmother Ford's.  It was great catching up with all of the family that came in from out of town. We always go to grandmother's for green gunk and pie!  Lisa's rolls were pretty good too! Dana and Grandmother put together a beautiful presentation of Owen Ford that taught everyone a little something about who he was.

Here comes the kicker!  I got a text at around 2 pm.  My dad was getting married in Duncan.  After all of the other Thanksgiving celebrations we made our way to Duncan to watch this exciting ceremony.  First thing we noticed when we got there was the smell.   It was terrible!  We were on a dairy farm and cow poo took over our nostrils.  It was bad.  We got there and met all of the Lunts.  They are an awesome family.  The ceremony lasted all of 7 minutes including her 18 year old son pronouncing the happy couple married by the power vested in him by Universal Life Church online.  The wedding came complete with fireworks!  Over all a very busy but happy Thanksgiving.  We all have a lot to be thankful for this holiday season, and the most important one to remember are our families. 

Breaking Dawn trip

Every time a new twilight movie comes out my sister in laws and I take a trip to the valley to watch them together.  We added a couple more hours to our trip this year.  It is so good to be able to take time off whenever I need to now.  We left early Friday moring to do some shopping around town. We spent a lot of time at the mall and spent way too much money.  We ate a nice dinner at Cheesecake Factory (yum!) then went ice skating to burn off those calories!  Saturday morning finally came and it was time for the main event!  Breaking dawn was fantastic!  We absolutely loved it!  After the movie it was time for more and more shopping!  We bought way too much crap!  Then it was time for the girls to leave and head back to town.  I got to stay in Phoenix by myself for about an hour.  That was just enough time to make a quick trip to IKEA!  Then I got the opportunity to get lost on the fantastically amazing freeway system that Phoenix has to offer.  I have decided that I officially HATE HATE HATE the US60!  That is the stupidest highway known to man!  I don't even care that stupidist isn't even a word!  That stupid highway confuses me every single time!  Last time I was on the 60 by myself I took a detour to Tucson on my way home.  This time I spent a good 30 min in traffic for some sporting even at wild horse pass.    I ended up figuring my way out of that mess and made it over to meet Seth, Kieth, and Brittany for dinner before the ASU/ UofA game. 

We had dinner at Native New Yorker before the game.  Let me tell you that ASU fans are CRAZY!  Even just at dinner they were slinging insults and all of the people with me wearing UofA T-shirts.  (I refuse to get into the UofA/ASU fan base.  I didn't go to either school so I like them both).  It was worse once we got to the game!  I've never seen people behave as rudely as they did.  I'm sure it would be the same if we were in Tucson but I was really surprised.  People would sneak up behind you so you couldn't see them and yell "high five"  then when you would turn around they would flip you off.  We got boo'd everywhere we went.  There was even a fight in the stands.  Great fun to watch I'm just glad I wasn't down there.  After the game we headed home.  It was a long long long weekend.  I was sure glad to finish it up with a short week at school. 

New school New Job

I know it has been forever since I posted last.  We have been super busy lately.  Seth and I both got new jobs in August.  I started teaching sixth grade in August and I love love love everything about my job/students/school.  It has been an incredible adventure thus far.  I also have some hilarious "quotes" from students that I am dying to share!  They are hilarious.  It's amazing to me that the semester is almost over.  It seems like August was just yesterday.  I'm also coaching 7th grade girls basketball which has shown to be way more fun than I thought it could be.  7th grade girls are a breed all their own.  They are always funny but also so determined to do well.  I couldn't imagine working any where else.  

Seth has also started managing the Globe Napa Store.  The hours are tough on him sometimes but he really enjoys his job.  He is doing so well.  In the three short months that he has been there he has more than doubled the stores sales.  I have seen both the before and after product of that store and it's amazing what my husband can do.  He's a fantastic leader and is making measurable progress.  I'm so proud of everything he does.  He works so hard at everything and never settles.  What a terrific accomplishment Seth.   

Welcome to the Happiest Place on Earth!

 Disney World was a total blast.  We spent six days in sunny Orlando, Florida.  Every body makes Orlando seem like this premier vacation spot with perfect weather and tons to do.  For the most part they are absolutely right.  However they forget to mention the humidity.  Any Arizonan knows very little about high humidity.  I was damp for the full six days we were there.  Once our plane landed back in DRY Arizona I was one happy camper!  Other than the muggy, humid, scorching weather Disney World was an absolute BLAST!

We started the vacation at Animal Kingdom.  It is pretty much a zoo turned into a theme park.  We had a blast on Expedition Everest where we encountered the yetti.  It took a little convincing but I did get Seth on a roller coaster.  We also ventured through dino land.  We took an African Safari and rode the rapids of Asia.  There were native animals from several continents mostly featuring Africa and Asia.   We saw Flik and several interesting bugs in the tree of life and watched an acrobatic show of  The Lion King.  One of the best features of Animal kingdom was the short lines.  We walked on to every ride there.  No waiting for us.  This is one of the less popular parks in Disney World so we went on a Saturday when all of the other parks would have been crawling with people.

In the afternoon that day we ventured over to Epcot.  We didn't last long there.  We arrived in Orlando around 11:30 pm.  By the time we got out of baggage claim and to the hotel it was nearly 2 am which is 6am in Arizona.  We woke up around 6am (4 hours of sleep) and went to the parks.  Needless to say that in the early afternoon we were dragging our feet.  We made it back to the hotel around seven grabbed a quick shower and dinner and were sleeping pretty early. 

Epcot was one of our favorite parks.  This is the park where they have the world showcase.  In a short walking distance you meander through several countries including Morocco, Norway, Canada, China, Japan, Germany, England, as well as several others.  The park is set up as an exact replica of those countries.  The builidings look identical and some of the countries have rides that go with them.  Mexico had a boat ride that took us to Chitzen Itza, and Norway took us on a viking ship through the history of Norway.  All of it was very intersting.  While in Epcot we went to Future World.  Our favorite ride there was Spaceship Earth.  They made this awesome video of us and took us through the evolution of intelligence starting with early cavemen.  It went all the way through the rise and collapse of Rome, the first library, papyrus in Egypt and the first schools.  It was all pretty awesome.

 After Epcot we went to Hollywood Studios.  This was the park that was for teenagers and young adults.  Lots of fast fun rides.  This park focused on the special effects of movies. This park wasn't just for disney movies either.  They had  a really neat show for villans and the star wars ride was fantastic!  We wantched Fantasmic at their outdoor theater.  They had fountains of water that played videos like projection screens.  It followed Fantasia for the most part then they brought boats out over the water with the princesses and some other famous characters.  We rode Rockin Roller Coaster.  This ride stared Aerosmith.  Seth actually wanted to ride this one first.  He changed his mind about 15 minutes into our 30 minute wait but he toughed it out and wanted to ride it again the next day!  This was probably our favorite ride out of Disney World.  It was fast and tons of fun for the whole 90 seconds of it!  Hollywood Studios had a lot of rides and shows that were interesting for us.  We rode the toystory ride where we get to shoot little toy cannons, we watched Beauty and the Beast and The Little mermaid.  There was also an Action car show where they did car stunts and we even got to see Herbie. 

The last park we visited was Magic Kingdom.  This is the park that is most like Disney Land in California.  We first went to the park in the late afternoon.  We stayed to watch the fireworks and Castle light show.  They do this awesome show every night using lights projected on Cinderella's castle using photos that were taken throughout the day.  It's awesome how much a couple of lights change the appearance of the castle.  It looks like a cartoon at times.  We watched the light parade.  It was super cute and tons of fun.  We felt kind of bad for the kids who were sitting around us.  Some jerks thought it would be awesome to stand up right in front of a ton of kids who wanted to watch the parade.  As far as rides go we drove race cars, flew over London and Neverland with Peter Pan, we rode a runaway train, and went on Space Mountain.  One of our favorites was the Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor.  It's basically stand up comedy.   They used actual people from the audience to create their jokes.  It was hilarious.  

We had tons and tons of fun on our vacation this year.  Everything s

eemed to go smoothly.  We went to the Airport and had transfers to our hotel waiting for us, as well as our way back to the airport.  We definitely enjoyed our time in Florida but were ready to come back to dry Arizona.  We even got to see one of my best friends after she had her baby while we were away!   What a great vacation to get us through the summer.

It has been For-Ev-ur!

Where have the past five months gone?  It seems like I just updated this thing yesterday.  Maybe it's because there has been so much going on.  Student teaching came and went.  I did my student teaching in 8th grade with Michael Finch,  I taught pre-algebra and algebra one.  The experience was irreplaceable. I've never had more fun or struggled so much.  It was that learning experience that you are grateful for after you have gone through it.    It's all bittersweet now because all of my students are promoting to high school.  They were awesome and definitely a class I will never forget. 

Another exciting event was my graduation from NAU!  I now have my bachelors degree in elementary education.  It only took three years, three schedule changes, three semesters of night school, forty practicum hours, six online classes, four aepa tests, and sixteen weeks student teaching to get it.  I have enjoyed most of it.  My cohort and teachers were fantastic!  I must admit that I didn't always enjoy the classes that lasted until 10:30 pm, or the days that I was at work from 7am to 4:30 pm, then had to rush home and print a paper to turn in at 5 pm and stay in class until 10:30 pm.  I really didn't enjoy the summer I took 3 classes and had to write 24 essays a week. 
I did however enjoy working with students in my practicum and student teaching classes.  I did enjoy meeting 20+ amazing educators, and having the opportunity to learn and grow from their experiences.  It has been an uphill battle but definitely one that I am grateful for. 

 

To complete my school based post, I am thrilled to announce that I have a job in Pima for the 2011-2012 school year.  I'll be teaching sixth grade writing and science.  It's not exactly what I wanted but it will be a learning experience and I'm excited to have my own classroom and this learning experience. 

Adios 2010!

2010 has been very good to Seth and I.  We started the year off with a new niece.  Alexis Grace Larson came into the world in January.  Seth was in the circle for her blessing.  That was such a special day for him.  February, and March flew by all too quickly with juggling work and school.  April came along and on April 17, 2010  Seth and I were sealed for time and all eternity int he Mesa, Arizona temple.  That was such a special day and the highlight of our year. 

Soon after we were sealed our little Gila Valley completed construction on our own Gila Valley temple.  It has been a true blessing in our lives to have a temple nearby.  It is a place of peace and serenity where we can go to be closer to our heavenly father.  We always feel so much better after attending the temple.

My little Sister graduated from air force basic training in May.  We are so proud of her accomplishments.  She did a lot of growing up in those eight weeks.  She is now stationed at Hollomon Air force Base in Almagordo, New Mexico.  She really loves her job and where she's at.

I have been busy with my achievement day girls.  We have had several days to just go and have fun.  They are awesome young ladies and I have really enjoyed this calling with them.

Seth and I have taken a couple of trips out of town, to Tucson and Phoenix.  This is a picture of us at a cardinals game in Glendale.  We had tons of fun that day.  I'm so happy we can go and do things like this together.

I finished my  last semester with my NAU cohort.  I'm definitely going to miss seeing these amazing teachers three nights a week.  Sometimes I feel like I've spent more time with them than I have with Seth.  They are all amazing people and are going to be incredible teachers.  With the end of school that also meant the end of daycare.  I miss my kiddos every day.  It's just different to not see their bright little faces every morning. 

Seth and I also took our annual honey moon cruise.  We have been so blessed to be able to do this every year for the past three years.  We had an absolute blast traveling with friends and family down to Cozumel, Mexico. 

With 2010 coming to a close that means we have lots of new things happening in 2011.  I have started a new job working nights at Dollar General.  I'm not too crazy about it but it will work for now.  I start student teaching in just a few days.  That is going to be an exciting part of my education.  I will graduate in May and hopefully teach in August.  Both Seth and I are looking forward to furthering our careers and moving on in life.  We're so excited for 2011.

Goodbye Daycare

I have been missing my kids lately.  I had been looking forward to the day that I would be able to quit and move on to student teaching.  It's amazing how quickly I can forget about all of the negative parts of daycare when it's time for me to leave.  I miss my kids.  They were always so exciting and kept me laughing.  I miss getting frustrated with them and spending all of my time with them.  They were always so happy and easily entertained.  Now I'm bored and I miss all of their little surprises.  I was in tears the night before I quit because I knew this would happen.  I'm very lucky that I can still visit from time to time.  I'm excited to see where all of these kids go with their lives.  They are bright little lights that will influence the world in big ways.  I just miss them.  Hopefully teaching will bring me as much joy as working with my little ones did.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas came and went this year.  Seth and I have noticed that we're kind of scrooges when it comes to the holidays.  Again we didn't take any pictures.  I  definitely think that's going to have to be my new years resolution to take more pictures.  But we had a beautiful Christmas.  Thank you to everyone who got us gifts.  They were awesome and we love them.  I hope everyone had a great holiday season.  Our has definitely been a busy one.  They just keep getting better and better. Merry Christmas everyone!

Cruisin the Carribean

Our vacation started off great this year.  We made it to the airport on time.  Our flights went through without a hitch and before we knew it we were in beautiful Tampa, Florida.  It was a little chilly when when we got there.  It was sprinkling and cloudy.  I guess living in Arizona taught us not to be worried about weather like that.  Our hotel was close enough to the pier that we could walk.  We had dinner at a restaurant that wasn't very good at all then froze our hinys off walking back to the hotel.

We woke up the next day to lots of wind.  It was also freezing.  Well we woke up and called Tanner and Amy to find out when they would be arriving so that we could all go down to the boat together.  Well their planes got cancelled and delayed.  We decided we would go down to the boat and just meet them there later.  When we went down to the lobby to get our free transfer to the pier they informed us that the pier was closed and that our boat wouldn't begin boarding until three o'clock.  We took a ride down to the mall.  It was a very ritzy mall.  And the ride over only cost us twenty bucks.  We had lunch at the mall then figured it was about time for everyone to show up so we took a taxi to the airport. That was another Thirty dollars.  When we got to the airport they Carnival informed us that they would transfer us to the boat from the airport.  Well our bags were still at the hotel.  Thinking it would only cost ten bucks or so to just send our luggage to the airport it ended up costing us twenty five dollars and an argument with a taxi driver.  From now on we will rent a car.  I'm never dealing with American public transportation again.  Ugh!

After that whole incident everything was better.  We celebrated Cindi's birthday at  Carrabba's and cruised the airport all night. 

The next day we were on a bus then on the ship.  It was a hassle to get through all of the security and people but we were finally on the boat and things were looking up.  We had tons of fun on the ship. 

There were lots of us together and that made this lots of fun.  It was still a little chilly that's why we're all wearing jackets. Thank goodness we all had an extra day in the airport.  Some of us had to buy coats and wait on luggage. 

This is at dinner time.  We always had something fun to do.  The servers would sing and dance and so did all of us.  Dinner was definitely our favorite time on the ship.  The shows were great.  It was definitely fun having all of our friends together. 

Seth and I on formal night.  We were a little under dressed for the rest of our crowd but still had a great time.

When we pulled into Cozumel, Mexico this is who else was there.  The Elation is the boat that we took our first cruise on.  We didn't get to go inside again but it was still pretty neat seeing it there. 

We took a two hour trip to Tulum and saw all of the ancient ruins.  It was so neat to hear all of the history of the area.  These people were so advanced that they had an entire calender.  They had the concept of zero.  They could also tell to the minute when the solstices would appear.  Their architecture has lasted for thousands of years because they built it at a slope in a completely defensible walled city.  It would have been better to have an lds tour guide but our guy  did a pretty good job as well.  Did you know that they all sleep in hammocks over there. No beds just hammocks.

This was the most beautiful beach.  You can kind of see in the picture a line where the water turns from light to dark.  That's where the water goes from shallow to deep.  There's also a reef around the space.  There is about twenty feet of space where a small boat could come in.  That's why their space was completely defensible.  No way of a water attack. 

The last day on the boat we celebrated the girls birthdays.  The guys brought out an ice cream cake topped with little pieces of fruit.  It was delicious!

We were sad to have to leave and come back to regular life but it was tons of fun.  Our servers were awesome.  We played Marco Polo with Marco all week long.  And Andrej reminded us of Antonio Banderas and turned all of the guys onto "black stone".  Pretty interesting guys. 

After all was said and done we had a pretty good time.  We were ready to come home.  Definitely a trip to remember.

Happy Anniversary To Us!

Seth and I celebrated our second anniversary this year.  The past two years have incredible to say the least. It's weird for me to look back at our wedding photos and remember that day. 
I can definitely say that our love is still the same as it was then.  It seems like the past two years have flown by.  We get to know each other more and more every day. 
The biggest goal that we have achieved as a couple this year has been our sealing in the Mesa, Arizona temple.  That was such a magical day.  We are so relieved to know that we will be together forever.  I can't imagine a better feeling than knowing that I will be with my best friend through time and all eternity. 

I'm so positive that as long as we have each other all of the bad things in life don't seem so bad, and all of the good things are so much better.  We complete each other and we'll have each other forever.  That's what I'm truly thankful for. 

Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving came and went this year.  Seth and I are terrible when it comes to pictures so I have none for this holiday.  We made the usual rounds this year.  My grandma Beth had lunch with my great grandma this year.  Then we made it to Grandmother's and then to my Grandma Kay's. 
After all of the festivities in Safford we took a trip up to Phoenix to spend the weekend with my grandparents up there.  We stayed with my Aunt Wanda Thursday night.  We did a little shopping on Friday.  Stayed with my grandparents Friday night then came home Saturday.   It was a nice relaxing weekend.  Lots of fun and a great way to spend our anniversary.

Go Cards!

Seth got some tickets to the Cardinals game from work so we loaded up Scott and Amy's suburban (thank you) and drove to Phoenix to watch the game.  We had quite a crew with us, Scott, Hunter, Tanner, my Dad, Seth and I .    We all had a total blast.  The tickets also included the red zone tailgate party where Hunter met some cheer leaders.  We enjoyed hot dogs and drinks (for free) then headed up to watch the game.  It was Veterans day so for pregame ceremonies veterans from every branch of the military carried out an American flag that covered the entire football field.  It was incredible.  I think everyone takes for granted the service that those men and women perform for us daily.  There were so many people on the field and that's only a fraction of the people who sacrifice everything for us. 

The game started out ok.  then about two minutes in it got bad.  By the end of the first quarter it was worse and I think you know how the game turned out.  We did get to see a pretty good fight two sections over.  Two guys rooting for different teams got into it.   We watched the rest of the game then started the drive home.  It was a long day but so much fun!   Thanks guys!

We Love Due West!

Yes . . .  We have discovered Due West in our little valley.  While I wouldn't exactly call us groupies like some other people I know, we are definately fans!  They had a great concert at the Center for the Arts.  And it was great to be there with our family.  Thanks for inviting us and saving us great seats guys!

Halloween 2010

Halloween was done up a little more this year than previous years.  Seth and I both dressed up and went to our ward's Halloween Carnival.  I have been working with the achievement day girls and they put together a haunted house for the carnival.   It turned out much better than I ever thought it would.  I also learned that it is possible to burn spaghetti!  That's another story.  We also went to a Halloween party this year!  Overall we had a ton of fun. 

This is the only picture I got of us all night.  We were the Princess and the Pea!

What's That Wet Dog Smell?!?!

We gave the dogs a bath tonight.  Wow what an experience!  We started out with Einstein in the sink.  He did okay with a few shakes and only tried to escape once.

  Then we thought it would be a good idea to give Charlie one despite our past experience.  We tried to get her in and she didn't want anything to do with that.  Once we got her in and settled she was okay but it was a fight to get there.  Once we were finished with her my entire bathroom was covered with hair!  Oh it was disgusting.  We pulled a huge fur ball out of the drain and cleaned it off the walls and toilet!  I think it was more work cleaning the bathroom after her than it was actually giving her a bath. 

It's so fun owning dogs.  They are a lot of work sometimes but they are so much fun.  We love our little fur babies!