Christmas Time

Our favorite holiday and time of year is Christmas time. We wait all year to set up our lights, tree, nativity, etc. and we usually do pretty early because we just can't wait. The past 2 years we have set up Christmas the weekend before Thanksgiving because we're always in Mesa the whole weekend of thanksgiving and we want to enjoy our decor as long as possible.

This year we did the same, except we started the week before thanksgiving, doing a couple things each night. We had a lot more this year than we did last year because of all the things we got last year either as gifts or after Christmas when everything was on sale. We forgot about all that stuff, and we were so excited because our house looks so good this year!

Here are a few pictures of our humble abode...










We are very excited to be able to give so many gifts this year! We will be going to Mesa on Christmas Eve to spend Christmas with my dad, and then spending Christmas Day with Dan's family, my mom and then at my step mom's family Christmas party!

We hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Christmas weekend and enjoys the time with their family & friends. If anyone would like to get together, we're planning as of now, on being in Mesa Wednesday night through Sunday. Give us a call if you would like to get together sometime over the weekend!

Happy Holidays!

Graduation!!

So, I am way behind in updating our blog for the past month or so. Everything has been so busy with finals and everything. I'm going to try and catch up a little bit, but I have to post about my graduation before anything else.


It's so weird, it doesn't feel like I am old enough to be graduated from college and have a bachelor's degree already. It's also weird because all growing up everyone who graduated college was like the rich, smart, overachievers; it almost has been like graduating college is only something rich people do. Not only am I no where close to rich, I just don't really feel like I did enough to be able to graduate college. I don't know, it's weird and hard to explain but it feels so good to be done!

We had a big party here at our house after the graduation and then more partying like all weekend long. Dan's brothers, aunt Rita, and Marie came down to stay the night with us Thursday night, which was a lot of fun. Then Friday morning, we all woke up early and cleaned/straightened up the house before the whole rest of my family started arriving around noon.

I had to be at the Convention Center (where the graduation was held) by 1. So I was rushing around just trying to get ready and keep the house clean. My grandparents, aunt and cousin flew in from Chicago a couple days before and came down with my dad and step mom. My mom's parents came from Surprise, AZ and Danny's family also came to celebrate with us. It was a house full but so much fun.

We had Chick Fil A catered for the main dish and then I had everyone bring something on the side for the potluck part of the party. It was so much fun and so nice to have my entire family together, since that doesn't ever happen hardly with my parents divorced, etc. So it was a lot of fun.

I got so many wonderful gifts. A lot of money, which I knew was part of graduating college, but I guess I just still wasn't really expecting it. I don't know what I want to get with it yet. We'll see...I'll probably find something in the next couple of days now that I'm DONE and can go shopping whenever I want.

Anyway, we went up to Mesa soon after everyone left our house Friday night. We stayed the night Friday and then had lunch with my dad's side of the family on Saturday and then went to the Martin family Christmas party in the afternoon/evening. It was definitely a VERY full weekend, and we are glad to be home. We have a house full of all the left over food, which is fun because we won't have to go grocery shopping until after we get home from Christmas in Mesa!

We have been sleeping like all day today, and just kind of hanging out trying to recover from hosting and attending parties all weekend. Here are some pictures that Marie took from the graduation...

Waiting for the Graduation to start
Not listening to whoever was speaking lol...
Me shaking the Dean's hand
Right After the Ceremony
Marie & Me!
In laws, me, Dan
Ana, me, Dad
I love him!
My best, my hubby, me
Daniel, Me, Mom
Dad, Me, Mom
Me and My Baby Sadie
This is a poem my mom wrote and framed for me

Home for Dogs?

For about 9 months now, we have had 3 sweet dogs. We love them all dearly, but it has come to the point now when the 2 older/smaller ones need a new home.

They are not as happy as they used to be before we got Sadie.
They about 5 years old, and are very mellow.

They love to just lay around and sleep all day, have their belly rubbed every so often, and Mika likes to play ball once a day for about 10 minutes. That's it. They are so low maintenance!



Mika and Quimby aren't living the life they deserve. Sadie loves to play, and wants to play with them but she is so much bigger than them and plays too rough for them. They have to be locked outside with Sadie all day so she doesn't chew up everything, but they don't chew anything and are more than potty trained. They can't really play on their own without Sadie wanting to play, but she plays too rough so they usually just give up.

They don't deserve to be locked outside all day, and need somewhere where they can play a little bit every so often like they like to. It just isn't really fair to them to be living the way they are.

It is also not really fair to Sadie either. She wants someone who can play with her the way she does. A puppy who has the same amount of energy as her, and who can be her buddy. Right now, she likes Mika & Quimby because they keep her company while we're at work/school, but we can tell she just wants a companion to play with her on the same level as her.


Mika and Quimby need a home where they can relax and play softly. They like to be in a quiet and peaceful place and to cuddle up next to you when you're sitting on the couch or laying in bed.

If you or someone you know would like to help us out and give these sweet dogs a home. We would be so grateful, and I know they would be too. We don't want to have to take them to the Humane Society. They don't necessarily have to go together, but we'd prefer they did. They are connected at the hip. They are so sweet and just want somewhere where they can be comfortable.

Road Trip!

This weekend, we were originally going to go to Mesa to pick up the Trailblazer from being fixed, and be with Dan's brother Jared when he opened his mission call on Friday night.  But Friday afternoon, we got a call saying Jared couldn't wait anymore and that he had already opened his call.  CONGRATS to him first of all!  He's been called to the Tampa, Florida Mission and reports on February 11.  We're very excited for him to get ready to go.

So we didn't really need to go to Mesa anymore, and the Trailblazer needed a little more time to be 100% fixed, so we decided to stay home this weekend.  Well, Friday night we were at Macaroni Grill for dinner, and out of no where we were like "well, we could go to El Paso tomorrow"...  We had been talking about going and trying to find a time that would be good to go, but we weren't ever planning on going this weekend.  But we decided it wouldn't be very expensive because we'd take my car, and not stay the night.  We'd get up early Saturday morning and leave by 8am, and then we'd leave to come home around 4 or 5.  It was a very random decision, but we were very excited.

That's kind of what happened...we did get up Saturday morning and left the house at 8am.  I wanted to get an oil change though before we went because I was already 2000 miles past due and my car was shifting pretty hard.  So we went to Wal Mart to get an oil change and had McDonalds breakfast while we waited.  We went back to pick up the car, and the guy said that he couldn't do my oil change because the dipstick was broken off inside (the handle is broken) so until that was fixed, they couldn't do it.  So by then in was around 9 am, and we almost decided to stay home.  But we ended up going anyway.  We left straight from Wal Mart and drove to the border.  We got there around 1 pm.  

When we got there, we had to find a place to park in El Paso because we were just going to walk across.  The line to drive into Mexico was like 3 miles long, and it cost $60 to drive over instead of .30 to walk.  So we parked and started walking.  We crossed the border and got into Juarez, Mexico which was in some ways a little bit of culture shock.  It was very run down, very dirty, and in some ways kind of scary.  We were the ONLY white Americans we could see, until we saw an old white guy get out of his car, but that was it.  We definitely stood out a lot.  We looked like the "rich white kids" walking through Juarez.  We walked probably close to 2 miles and we finally reached the temple.  It was absolutely amazing.  Most temples as you probably know are in a nice area of town, surrounded by large, upscale homes or something similar.  Not Juarez.  The grounds were very small compared to some, and it was in the middle of the run down area of Juarez.  It was however surrounded by homes, which made it a little more quiet and made it seem a little less "run down".  The temple was absolutely beautiful though.  While it is one of the "cookie cutter" temples that was dedicated in the early 2000s, it had it's own beauty to it, and the grounds had their own unique feeling to them also.  It is a fairly small temple too, but it serves the saints there in Juarez and El Paso just fine.  It was pretty busy actually while we were there.  A tour bus in the parking lot and the parking lot was almost full at one point.  It was so refreshing to walk through such a dirty, rough city and still be able to walk onto the temple grounds and feel the spirit the same as you would in Utah.  We took lots of pictures before heading back to the U.S.  We wanted to get back before it got dark,  and we still had about 2 miles to walk back.  So we did, we stopped at a mercado, but didn't stop to look at anything because once you do for one person, you have to for all of them.

When we got back to the border, we had to wait in a line of probably close to 50 or 60 people to get back into the U.S.  Again, we were the only white people in the entire line.  A border patrol officer came walking down the aisle, looking at everyone who was trying to get in, and we thought we were going to be in trouble, but then he looked at us like he was going to say something like "you guys? really? come on up here...just go" But he didn't say anything.  So we got to the customs office and the border patrol agent asks "what's your citizenship?"...I'm like "...ummm..."  I pulled out my drivers license and birth certificate.  Dan has his passport in hand, and were like "... ummm ... U.S.? American?"  Haha it makes me laugh now thinking about it.  It was very obvious that we'd never done that before and we had no idea what we were doing.  So that was good, and then he asks Dan "what are you declaring?" and Dan's like "nothing, I don't have anything".  He wasn't carrying anything or anything so it was kind of random.  But he kind of chuckled at us and we went on our way.  

We walked back to our car and went to eat dinner at a place Dan had found online that was supposed to be the "Best in El Paso".  It was called Avilas, and it was pretty good.  We were really hungry, so Dan took a whole chip full of salsa like he normally does, and just about burned his taste buds out of his mouth. lol  But we ate, and then got back on the road home around 5:45 pm.  We drove straight through, stopping only once in Lordsburg, NM at McDonalds for Dan to go potty.  We got home around 10:30 pm last night and were DEAD.

It was a very fun, very random road trip.  It was a great experience for both of us, as we talked last night while laying in bed, about the things that stood out to us about Mexico and how different it is just a few 100 feet from the U.S.  We have now seen 21 temples together since we've been married and have traveled through 8 states, actually visiting 7 of them.  We love traveling so much, and are glad we were able to take this last little road trip, because we don't plan on traveling again for the rest of the year; probably not until March when we hope to go to Las Vegas and St. George again!

Interesting Assignment

For my Psychology of Death & Loss class we had a project that we had to complete.  We weren't given a grade on the project, but we had to do a project to get a grade in the class.  There was no prompt or outline or anything for it.  We were told we could do anything we wanted and that we would have to give a short explanation/presentation to the class about it.  She did at least give us a list of things that students have done in the past.

So for my project, I decided to plan all of my own services.  As if I was going to die tomorrow.  I planned out the program for my funeral, priced out a casket for myself, priced a burial plot in Mesa in the cemetery I want to be buried in.  I priced headstones, and pretty much everything else you can think of that goes with planning the services after a death.  I also put together a short slideshow of something similar to what I would like played at my funeral.  This was my presentation to the class to show kind of what I did.

I originally chose this topic for my project because I thought it would be quick and easy.  While it didn't take too terribly long, it did take longer than expected because you don't really know what all goes into all of that until you start working on it.  Especially when it's for yourself.  When you really start thinking about what you would want if your life were to end tomorrow, it gets pretty in depth and extreme.  It was harder than I was expecting too.  I started talking to Dan about the funeral and what he would want to do and everything and at first he was just saying all these sarcastic things and wasn't really taking it seriously.  But after a little while, we finally started being serious, and it was difficult for both of us to think and talk about.  Which probably isn't surprising to anyone, but you just don't really think about how hard it would be to talk about that kind of thing, because usually you never do.  It was a great growing experience for both of us and for our marriage.  It put everything into perspective again.  It reminded us that even if we have no money, and have the same 7 meals every week over and over, and are both full time students and are stressed out all the time, it's ok because those things aren't what make life worth it.  

The whole thing just made me very grateful for everyday I have here and for the life I have been given.  I am so grateful for my wonderful husband and everything he does for me everyday.  Just the little things he does mean so much more than he knows.  He is such a blessing in my life, I don't know what I would ever do if something happened to him?  I have been so blessed and have been given so many wonderful gifts in my life and I am so grateful for it. 

Just thought I'd share my experience with you all.  Sorry if it's kind of a downer post, it was just an important thing to me. 

Here is a link to the slideshow if anyone wants to watch it. (I've been told it's a tearjerker...)

Slideshow  

(Click "Watch in High Quality" under the video for better picture)

Fundraiser!

Alright everyone, who's ready for Christmas?!

We are doing a fundraiser for school to help us buy toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, etc. for our community events that we go to; so all the money goes back to the community.

So, we're selling 2 different real live evergreen wreaths and a centerpiece. The prices are on the pictures for how much each one is. It is just a flat price, no tax or anything.

If anyone is interested in buying one, they will be delivered the first week in December and I will then deliver them out to you just in time for Christmas!

I can take cash or check. If you want to write a check, make it out to me.

We'll be up this weekend for homecoming and conference, so I'll be around in Mesa this weekend to collect money and orders if you want one.

Thanks so much for helping your community!

(Click on the picture to see it bigger)

Morphology Assignments

In my Morphology class, we are somewhat in an art class at the same time. Morphology is the study of the structures of the teeth. Where the natural divits and bumps are, what the root surfaces are like, etc. So for our assignments/class work we were told to buy a bunch of different substances at the beginning of the semester. Ivory Bar Soap, Modeling Clay, etc.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, she gave us all a piece of thick sidewalk chalk. We were told to pick any shape and carve it in 3D out of the piece of chalk with our instruments. (We have 2 sets, one to practice/carve with and one to actually clean each other's teeth with that we sterilize)

This was my final product that I brought back to class for a grade...
I did that with this...


Pretty Cool Huh? Good thing she didn't collect it or anything. I didn't even get a grade for it... Oh well


Then today, we started some more fun!

We started working with our clay. We were working on the canine today and learning all of the particular things about it. So we had to sculpt a canine out of clay... this is how mine came out...


Not as bad as I was expecting it to be...

Then right before class ended she tried to hurry through and get us working on our soap canine...

It isn't even close to being done, we were just cutting away the big chunks, and we're going to make it more detailed next week, but here's the start of mine...

This soap carving, we're not doing as much with our instruments, at least not now. We probably will when we go to put the detail into it, but for right now we're just using this...


I'll try to continue to post pictures as we go. I'm sure there will be many more interesting sculptures that will come from this class. We eventually will work with wax too...

Nursery!

As you all know, Dan and I were called into the nursery at the beginning of the month. We have been in there now 2 Sundays and we absolutely love it. I know a lot of people laugh and joke about being in the nursery, but it has been so good for us. Not only do we get to play with those sweet children who are so innocent and genuinely loving, but we have met a lot of people from our ward who we haven't really known very well until now.

We have always kind of felt like outcasts in our ward, which is interesting because many of the people in our ward are very much like us. Newly married, college couples. However because of that, everyone kind of does their own thing and we have only really had 1 couple who we've really made friends with.

Since being in the nursery, we have gotten to know a lot of the people who work down there; and while many of them have different situations than we do, they are all so down-to-earth like we are. We mesh with them so much better, and can actually sit and have conversations with them without feeling awkward. In our building, the primary is on the bottom of the 3 stories, and that's all that's down there. The chapel is on the middle floor along with most everything else, and then some of the primary classrooms are upstairs. So unless you have kids, or a reason to go downstairs, which we hadn't until a couple weeks ago.

We are so grateful for our callings and for the friendships we are making now after almost a year and a half of being in the ward!

Our Next Vacation

Yes, it's true. We have put planning into full swing for our next trip. For my 21st birthday, Danny wants to take me to see The Phantom of the Opera in Las Vegas. (I've never seen it, anywhere) Because my birthday is the Monday before thanksgiving, we're planning to go over Veteran's Day weekend.

We would leave Friday night and drive to Mesa to stay the night. Then Saturday morning we would get up and drive to Las Vegas. We will meet our favorite Wesley and Tiffany Webster in Las Vegas and see the Phantom of the Opera. We're still checking into a room at the Stratosphere for that night. Sunday we'd get up and drive to St. George, where we'd stay with the Websters in their new apartment until Tuesday morning. Then we'd get up early Tuesday morning (in an effort to avoid hitting another "Billy" and getting stranded in the middle of no-where at 3 am) and drive back home, all the way to Tucson.

We are very excited and are pushing through all of our school work and everything we have to do so that we can go and enjoy ourselves. We love the Websters so much, and it is definitely our turn to go see them. They have come to AZ to see us twice now since we were last in Utah. We take turns going to visit each other until they move to AZ when they're done with school. Then we'll all rendezvous back in the wonderful Mesa or thereabout after we all finish school.

A lot of the details still need to be worked out, but that is the rough plan as of now. I am very excited and I know Dan is too. He and Wes have so much fun together, and Tiff and I love watching them laugh and joke like only they can.

More to come as we get things lined out a little more...

Anyone due for a teeth cleaning?

So starting in the spring, I am responsible for bringing in my own patients to work on for my grade. It can get pretty stressful, especially since I'm in Tucson, and most of the people I know who could possibly help me...aren't. But, I am starting to make a list of people I might be able to call and use when the time comes if I need to. Obviously I'll be using my sweet husband first (hehe, he gets to be my guinea pig) and my parents will come down as well as my brothers most likely. But other than that, my lists are open.

I have 4 semesters that I'll need patients, so if one time of the year is better than another let me know. I'll have this coming spring, next summer, next fall, and spring of 2010. If anyone is interested in helping me out let me know and I'll get you some more information!

Some of the basic info.
Cost: $35

Time: 3 hrs./appointment
(only because we have to wait for check-offs periodically, don't worry your mouth won't be open for 3 hours)

Number of Appointments: At the most 2
(unless your teeth have some issues/haven't been cleaned in a while [2 years +])

Times Available:
Spring 2009
Tuesday nights (6-9:30 pm)
Wednesday afternoon (1-4:30 pm)
Thursday afternoon (1-4:30 pm)
Friday morning (8-11:30 am)

Thanks so much for all your help and support!

Life Update

I realized about a week or so ago that I haven't posted anything here in almost a month! Geez, I didn't realize it had been that long. Time has been flying by SO fast and we have so many things going on; this may take a couple posts to cover it all, we'll see.

Since the last post, pretty much all I have been doing is school work. I have so much homework, it's coming out my ears. I could do homework all day everyday, and still not be caught up. Such is the life though, and it really isn't as bad as it sounds. I love hygiene so much, I don't really mind doing my homework for it most of the time. My UA classes are pretty laid back, so I don't have much homework in them, which is good. Just so we're on the same page, I am taking 4 credits online through Rio Salado (Spanish 202), 9 credits at U of A (Psych of Death & Loss, Industrial & Organizational Psych, and Perceptual Learning), and then 15 credits for Hygiene. (Morphology, Histology/Embryology, Nutrition/Prevention, Radiology, and then Pre-Clinic.) Yes that is a total of 27 credits, and I have heard many times about how crazy I am for doing so. But it will all be worth it in December when I'm done at U of A and have a BA in Psychology with a minor in General Business.

Dan is in school full-time this semester as well at U of A. He is taking all Gen-Eds for right now so he can get them all out of the way and then finally focus on his Journalism classes in a couple semesters. He is taking an Economics class, an African-American Literature class, a spanish grammar class for his minor, as well as a "Money, Consumers and Family" class. He is very busy as he is also working full-time. It can be overwhelming at times, but he is doing very well with it and tries to think about other things to keep his mind off all of his stresses.

It gets a little stressful around our house sometimes. We are both tired a lot and therefore, get a little irritable sometimes, which is hard. But there are a lot of factors that play into that other than school that we are working on little by little.

Dan is just not happy at his job anymore. It has been that way for close to 3 months now. I'm talking like can't sleep because he dreads getting up to go to work every morning, etc. He feels a lot of pressure now that I'm not working anymore and it's only him who is bringing in the money. It's harder than I think we thought it was going to be for me to quit working. It is really hard because I know there is nothing I can do to help him other than just support him. But right now, with the way the economy is and with me not working, it would be very hard for him to change jobs. Finding another job is one thing, but then finding another one that pays him what he's making now or more, so we can continue to pay the bills is the difficult part. He's gotten to where he is now by working his way up the chain, and it isn't easy to just jump into somewhere where he is now. The other thing about where he is now is that they will not work with him going to school at all. They told him his schedule is 8-5 M-F, no questions asked. So because of that he's having to take half online courses and the other half at night, which is very hard for him to really focus on them that way.
We're working on it, and have thrown a bunch of ideas around. We thought about him getting 2 part time jobs instead of 1 full-time job. We thought maybe that way he'd be able to work in school a little easier and possibly even make more than he is now between the 2 jobs.
We also thought about the fact that maybe this just isn't the right time for him to be going to school. Maybe it would be best for him to just work full-time right now and not worry about anything else until I finish hygiene and then I'll take over and work full time. The only thing with that is by then he'll be 25 and have hardly any school done. I don't know how much motivation he's going to have the longer he puts it off...
Definitely one of the hard things in life is making these kinds of decisions and trying to figure out what is best for us and our family.

That brings me to the other thing that's been somewhat troubling me. I am aching to have a baby big time. It's gotten to be more than just a want; now it's to the point where by heart almost aches when I see almost all my friends from high school who are married getting pregnant and having babies. We have been married for almost a year and a half, and while I know I am still young (I'm not even 21 yet), I just can't help it. We are in no position right now though, which is the hard part. I have the most basic health insurance that covers next to nothing, only because I have to have it while I'm going to hygiene school. Not to mention all of the things I just talked about with school and Dan's job situation, etc. I really just wish I could fast forward 2 years when I'll be done with hygiene and I'll be able to support us and a baby on my own. Time is going by very quick, but with this it just seems like it could never be quick enough.

Ok wow, I just read through all of that and it sounds really depressing. I promise we're not just moping around all the time. I just needed to vent and get all that out. So thanks for reading it all and I'm going to finish this post and get on to another one with all of the positive HAPPY things that have been happening lately!

Cha Cha Cha Changes...

Yesterday at church, I was released from being a Relief Society teacher, which was good. I just wasn't going to have time anymore to prepare lessons, etc. So, it was good, plus I don't really enjoy Relief Society in our ward. As bad as that sounds, it's true. I've been meaning to post about our ward and the troubles we seem to have with it, which will explain a little more about why I don't like it very much.

Anyway! So, they released me, and then in turn called Danny and I to be nursery leaders! I am SO excited. I know most people don't enjoy the nursery with all the screaming kids, etc. But we're in the older nursery class first of all. So we have all the kids who are about to go into sunbeams. Plus, there aren't like a TON of kids in our ward either. Not to mention how much I have been wanting a baby lately, and I'm hoping this might tide me over for a little longer. Probably not, it'll probably just make me want one even more, but we'll see.
So there you go. We thought we escaped it at first because when we were first married and moved into the ward, they called me into the Relief Society and Danny was called as the Choir Director. He still is btw. But nope, here we are, back with the kids, and I am SO excited. I'm sure I'll have many fun stories to tell as we begin our duties there.

Just a quick side note, we had Danny's family down this weekend from Friday night until yesterday afternoon, and it was a lot of fun to spend time with them. Alan, my brother and his friend Colten came down Saturday and we went to the U of A vs. Idaho game...Final Score: Wildcats - 70, Vandals - 0...It was an excellent game, once it stopped pouring rain and lightning, which delayed the game for over an hour. It was a lot of fun though.
My mom, step dad and brother and sister came down also last night and stayed with us last night because my sister was sick and they didn't want to drive from Sahaurita all the way home with her possibly throwing up. It was nice to have them here too and to spend some time with them.

I hope everyone has a great Labor Day and enjoys being off of school and work. We sure are!

Dental Hygiene!!

Wednesday was my first day of Hygiene school! It was so exciting, and I went in being a little more nervous than I thought I would be. But it was all ok. Wednesday is usually my clinic days so we went in and got all of our supplies (2 big moving boxes full), and our instruments (a gallon ziploc bag full of about 75 different instruments). We put sets of instruments together, filled out all of our paper work and basically just got all set up with everything we need in order to start working and stuff next week. But I now have an entire set of around 75 of my own instruments...like these...
The teachers there seem very nice and helpful for the most part. There are a couple that I'm not sure about yet but I haven't seen much of them yet either, so we'll see how they turn out. My favorite teacher so far is there taking over for the lady who usually runs the thing because she is out this semester on sebatical. The fill in lady was one of the original teachers years ago who started the program at PCC and she is absolutely fantastic! She also teaches my lecture on Thursday morning that goes with my clinic. The other teacher, who teaches my nutrition/prevention, as well as my radiography class seems very neat also. We're already kinda friends because her name is Joy and she says everyone calls her Jill; and I let her use my planner yesterday when she messed up some dates on her syllabus and needed to figure out the right dates.

So far, everything has been amazing. It's hard to describe, but I am just so happy there. It is so much work, and I am going to be SO busy; but I am finally doing and learning what I love and am interested in. It's weird to think that the past 3 years that I have been in college (long enough for me to be getting a bachelor's degree in December) has all been for things that I don't even care about. Psychology is interesting, but not nearly as much as hygiene, and I won't ever be a psychologist. So all this time in my UA classes when they talk about "when you're practicing psychology in the field...", I have always thought to myself "I'm never going to practice psychology..." But now that I'm in hygiene, that is what I'm going to do, and because of that I love going to school and learning as much as I can about it; because I know in 2 years when I finish, that is what I'll be doing. I'll be in my own office, with my own patients, and I'll be licensed to work on them because of this schooling I'm in now.

It is weird to explain, but I can't tell you how fulfilling it is. Finally after waiting 2 and a half years, I'm finally doing what I've wanted to since I was a little girl. I love it!

Anyway, I have a ton of homework (3 chapters for 1 class, 6 articles for another class, 1 practice module for clinic, and 3 chapters out of a book for my UA class) all to do this weekend, while we have all of Danny's family down for Labor Day weekend. I still have a bunch of classes today, tomorrow, and next week that I haven't even been to yet. It's crazy, I'm taking a total of 24 credits this semester between hygiene and UA, and I'm so busy and have SO many things to do...but I love it still!

More to come later I'm sure...

Have a great holiday weekend!

Seattle

We got home from Seattle on Saturday night around 10. It was a great trip, and definitely what we needed right before school starts. Unfortunately we didn't end up going to Anchorage, because there was a volcano that erupted there a couple of weeks ago and because of the ash in the air from that almost all the flights were still cancelled in and out of Anchorage. We may have been able to get in, but we didn't know when we'd get home. So we decided to just stay the whole time in Seattle instead. It was actually better that we did too. Dan was trying to decide if he wanted to drive to either Spokane or Columbia River, Washington on Saturday instead of stay another day in Seattle, but we decided we wouldn't have enough time to really enjoy it.

Friday, we got in there around 10 am, picked up the rental car, checked into our hotel and then went to eat lunch at Red Robin. After we finished and rested a little bit, we went to see the Seattle temple. It was absolutely beautiful, except for the work that was being done on the spire. It was covered in the scaffolding so we couldn't really even see the spire. It was kinda sad, we were a little dissapointer, but we'll just have to go back again sometime, when it's done.


Then we took a trip downtown to the Starbucks Headquarters.

We passed Safeco Field, where the Seattle Mariners play, as well as Quest Field, where the Seattle Seahawks play and added those parks to our collection.

Then we went down to the Pike's Place Market and walked around.
We saw the flying fish and lots of interesting people. Danny and I saw a girl with literally neon orange hair. Very interesting.

From there we passed the Nordstrom headquarters, as we walked over to the Monorail, which we rode down to the Space Needle.

We went up the Space Needle and saw all the cool sites from way up there, as well as heard a lot of cool facts about the Space Needle from the tour guide up there.



From there we went to dinner at a place my dad had recommended from all the time he used to spend in Seattle on business. It was called Il Fornaio, italian and delicious.
That was about it from the first day, by that time we were all dead from being up since 3:30 am, sitting through a 2 and a half hour flight, and by the time we finished dinner it was almost 8 pm. So we went back to the hotel and crashed. Danny and I went out later to get a few things from Target, which was where I bought my new favorite addiction... :D
(For hating to read, I am already through 110 pages and 5 chapters, in just a short time of having the book and not having a ton of time to read it yet.)

Saturday morning we got up and had an amazing free breakfast at the hotel. We got ready and went to do a little exploring. We drove through the Microsoft headquarters which was across the street from our hotel.
Then we went to find Bill Gates' house. We found the garage of it, but we couldn't see the rest because the front is on a lake and the rest is covered in huge trees and bushes. There was an attendant at the garage though, which was funny. Then we went to a huge mall and went shopping for a couple of hours. We finished up, ate lunch and went back to return the car and then headed over to the airport.

It was overall a great weekend, with very smooth travel. We flew stand-by both on the way there and on the way back, and luckily we got on both flights we were trying for and were all able to sit together both times. So much fun, we'll definitely be going back sometime. We definitely recommend it to anyone thinking about heading over there!