California Trip...again

Yes, we went to California, yet again. This time we went to visit Julia and Steve and take Becca to Disneyland! We love Disneyland and she hadn't been since she was really young, so we decided to take her with us and show her how great it is! While I was there I also managed to "work" for a day...which entailed going to lunch at Malibu beach with a school psychologist that I work with a lot over the telephone, but had never met in person. I won't bore you with a lot of details...but here were some of the higlights along with lots of pictures!

While Julia and I were in Malibu, we saw Dean Cain! For those of you too young or disinterested in TV to remember, he was Clark/Superman in the TV show Lois and Clark. My family was faithful watchers of this show when I was growing up, so we were pretty excited. He did have some paparazzi talking to him...and seemed a bit annoyed...so we didn't ask for a picture. But when he was pulling out of the parking lot, I gave him a wave and he smiled and waved back. We were pretty excited.

We also got some famous and fancy chocolate from Malibu. Supposedly they used to make truffles for Jackie Kennedy. We bought a little bit for my dad (too dark for our liking) and they ended up giving us lots of free samples (I think they could tell we were too poor to afford most things because we kept asking prices and then putting things back down because they were too expensive).

At Disneyland we won Dream Fastpasses again! Well, my mom and Julia did, but they scored some for us too. This is now the 5th time we have won either a Dream Fastpass or after hours party pass. We must have unbelievable luck when it comes to Disneyland and I definitely think we have taken more than our share of the million dreams they are giving away...but we won't complain.

The highlight of Disneyland was the new Toy Story Midway Mania ride. It was awesome! It's hard to explain, but it is is somewhat similar to the idea of Buzz Lightyear, but the carts move more, there are different shooting games along the way, and it is all in 3-D...which makes it extra cool.

Since getting our annual passes we have tried to ride all of the rides in Disneyland at least once. Even the less popular or well known rides. So, this time we got to ride the Canoes. These are only open in the summer and our passes are blocked out for much of the summer, so this is the first chance we've had to ride them. I've wondered why anyone would stand in line to paddle their own canoe...but we did it to cross it off our list.

And as always, I loved Fantasmic! We got a front row spot and finished off our Disney days with my favorite disney show.

On Friday we swam in the Ocean with the dolphins (really, we saw four real dolphins swim by really close to us). On Saturday we searched for good deals at the swap meet and ate lunch at one of our California favorites, Claim Jumper. They have the hugest most delicious desserts.

Those are the higlights. Another successful trip. And now it's back to work. Happy Independence Day on Friday!

Highlights

I've become a really boring blogger and some people have given me a hard time about my lack of blogging...so here it is...highlights from the last two months.

May

We visited Orderville for Mother's Day. We drove by the ranch for a few sad, sentimental moments. We reminisced about old times while watching #1 Northfork Road. And I drove 3 hours round trip to Hurricane where I had the best snowcone of my life! Seriously...it was amazingly good!

Happy Birthday Aaron! He got just what he wanted...MarioKart for the wii. He loves this game and we love having people over to play with us. (He shared his Sunday birthday dinner with Becca-our future sister-in-law).

Caleb and Becca got engaged! I am so excited for them and think they make a great pair! I took their engagement photos and we got some really good ones, but I don't want to spoil the invitation...so here is a more humorous one.

During Memorial Day weekend, My grandma and her friend Fred came to visit, as well as Julia and Stephen. We had a great weekend of family fun including family pics, Thanksgiving Point, the wii, good food, golfing, and Hogle Zoo.

June

We got cute new bikes that we can use on the Jordan River trail that runs through our neighborhood. They were great fun until it became too hot to actually enjoy being outside.

We had dinner with some of my old Regency roommies. These girls are the greatest! Every time we get together I am reminded of how much I love them and how lucky I was to live with such great friends for 4 years of college. Somehow Katie (living in Wisconsin) and Des (living in Washington D.C.) happened to be visiting at the same time so we managed to get together. I can't believe none of us took a picture that night...but here is an old one of us that I had on my computer.

We went to the Manti pageant with cousins. We ate good food and enjoyed the atmosphere of the temple grounds while trying to avoid mosquitos, endure the heat, and wait for the pageant. It was a great time.

Aaron bought wii fit with his stimulus check from the government. He feels pretty strongly about his patriotic duty to use this money to stimulate the economy, so he is trying to do just that. The game is pretty fun. We found out that I don't have good balance and the wii even asked me if I have a hard time walking without tripping, which Aaron thought that was pretty accurate. Aaron is working to master yoga and is becoming a pro at blocking soccer balls with his head. Isn't his mii cute?

And most recently we took a trip to California (again) to visit Julia & Stephen and re-introduce Becca to Disneyland. But more about that in a future post.

We are having a good, but hot summer. Aaron just finished teaching summer school and is busy planning his trips to St. George with student council and Ecuador with two mission buddies. I'm keeping busy with work teaching psychology and geography as well as the more boring administrative stuff I am responsible for. We enjoy evenings watching So You Think You Can Dance, reading, and playing the wii...all in front of the fan because our house is incredibly hot while we try to "Go Green, Live Rich" (our new motto adopted from Aaron's most recent book).

I've Been Tagged

I think I've been tagged a few times before...and I'm sorry that I have neglected to respond. Recently I was tagged by Julia, and decided it was about time I respond. I've seen a few different versions of this game...but the one from Julia is to write 10 random facts, habits, likes, dislikes, etc. about yourself that you don't think a lot of people know. So here it goes:

1. I love to sing in my car! I bet 90% of the time that I'm driving alone in my car, I'm singing. Since I have started commuting from Lehi...I've been doing a lot more singing and I get tired of my CD's a bit faster. I have also noticed that not everyone sings in their car. I used to think that it was perfectly normal and that everyone did it...but lately I have noticed that most people just sit there quietly staring ahead while they drive to work. I tried doing that one day when I was driving behind someone I work with and I thought they could see me in the rearview mirror...but it was really hard and I was happy to go back to singing on my drive home.

2. I'm a little bit OCD about how my desk/office is organized at work. I can't stand clutter and piles all over the place. I have lots of binders, stacking trays, hanging files, wall files, filing cabinets, and shelves that I have spent hours and hours organizing. Although it has taken me some time, I love that I can almost always find whatever I need when I need it.

3. I don't really like eating hamburgers. This makes visiting fast food joints interesting at times, and I'm not really sure why I don't like them. I just don't think they usually taste very good. The only expection to this rule is In-N-Out. For some reason I think their hamburgers are really good. I'm not sure if it is the toasted bun, special sauce or what...

4. I love Disneyland! This may not be news to anyone reading this...but I thought I would throw it in there. Last year we went to Disneyland 5 times and we love using our annual passes! Luckily, Aaron has accepted my love of Disneyland and we have become quite the experts. He has thought about hiring out his services as a fast pass collector. I even subscribe to weekly updates from http://www.mouseplanet.com/ , my favorite Disneyland website. Thank you to Julia for moving down there so that we could come and visit often and enjoy Disneyland.

5. I studied Arabic in college. At one time I could read and write some Arabic. Now my skills are pretty limited, because unfortunately I have forgotten most of what I learned. But I do like to impress my students every now and then by writing some words in Arabic on the board.

6. I've had two cool experiences with animals and captured both on film. I got to ride a camel while I was in Egypt in front of the pyramids. And I got to hold a chimpanzee at a sketchy zoo in Egypt. It was so cool! I have both the pics hanging in my office and they are the ones that I get the most comments and questions on.

7. I don't sleep well when it is completely silent. This used to drive my sister crazy...and still does sometimes when we end up sleeping in the same room. But I sleep so much better if I can have some type of fan on. It's not really the blowing air I care about...just the noise it makes. So, I did some research and found out that I'm not the only one! They actually make machines called "white noise" machines for people to use when they are sleeping or at work. I got one for Christmas and I love it! I use it every night and I even take it on trips. It is pretty great.

8. I love going out to eat, especially to places that you can't find in Utah Valley. Whenever we go on vacation a big part of the fun for me is going out to eat at my out-of-state favorites. These include Ruby's on Newport Pier for breakfast, Mama D's for pasta, Lazy Dog for grilled cheese, Claim Jumper for lots of desserts, Original Pancake house, San Francisco for Clam Chowder and Ghiradelli sundaes. Yum...this is making me hungry.

9. I don't really like calling people on the phone. If I would have had a cell phone in high school, I think I would have been huge into texting because it would allow me to avoid making phone calls. For some reason I grew up with this fear and dislike for making phone calls...especially to people that aren't close friends and family. Fortunately, through some jobs that involved making a lot of phone calls to strangers and work associates, I think I'm doing much better with this fear. But it still comes back at times...mostly when we have to find subs for our primary class and I end up calling strangers (our ward is really big with lots of people I've never met) and asking them to do me favors.

10. I love Easter candy! I don't buy a lot of candy, maybe because we have an endless supply of it at work and so I can get my sugar fix there. But when it is Easter season I just can't resist. There are some kinds of candy that can only be bought at this time of year...and they are some of the best. My favorites include Peeps, Cadbury Eggs, Hershey's Marshmallow eggs, and those Starburst Jelly Beans. I still remember the Easter season I spent in the dorms with dining plus. I bought a marshmallow egg everyday until Easter...and then my roommate, Maile, and I bought out the rest of the inventory at the after Easter sale so that we could continue to enjoy the goodness for weeks to come.

So, whoever feels the need or desire, please consider yourself tagged. It is sort of fun to try to think of random facts about yourself and I've had fun reading everyone elses. Have a great day!

Timpanogos Pride

Aaron started teaching at Timpanogos High School 3 years ago. He is really a great teacher (and I'm not just saying that because I'm his wife). After teaching for a few years I've noticed a lot of qualities that make good teachers and he really seems to have all of them. He really loves teaching and is happy to go to work each day. He requires a lot from his students and challenges them, but his class is also fun and his students love him. Since he started, he has slowly taken on more and more responsibilities including senior council adivisor, and boys and girls varsity soccer coach. Last year his senior council spent much of the year working with the city council to get it approved for them to be able to put up a temporary "T" on the mountain during certain weeks throughought the school year. (It is no longer legal to paint them on the mountain). He went to many city council meetings and was in the newspaper a few times...and finally got everything worked out. If you look carefully in the picture above, he is standing at his school and you can see the T in the back of him on the mountain.

His soccer teams have also done pretty well. His boys team had a rough start to the season, but they have been improving ever since then. He has high hopes for the rest of the season and next year. Then on Monday he was asked to be the advisor for student government. He will have one less prep period so he can teach the student goverment class, and will keep himself busy with many activities throughought the year. He is pretty excited because he enjoyed senior council and this will be similar with more responsibility and more benefits. He will continue to coach both varsity soccer teams next year too. Everyone at his school thinks he is crazy, but he is pretty organized and doesn't mind keeping himself busy...so wish him luck!

(Me and Courtney trying to brave the cold and be good fans)