Schoooool's......out.......for WINTER!

I figured that even though Alissa just wrote on here and today school got cancelled (LPS anyway), I've got time this morning so I can write a little something. Because of the bad ice storm last night I got a call at 6am this morning telling me that Lincoln public schools is closed so my last day as a mentor was officially yesterday. I don't know if I get paid for today but I hope so. The worse part about it was that I couldn't go back to sleep after the phone call. Poor Alissa, since it is the last day of finals week the university sent an email out that they weren't going to close so she had to go to work. So while Alissa continues to work until just before christmas, I'm beginning my three weeks off until I start my student teaching on January 12th. Then till May I'll be teaching the whole time without getting paid a cent for it. We'll be living off of sugar momma so in case I don't say it enough, Alissa I am very grateful for your working to support us! You do so much! Thank you! Hopefully it won't be too much longer and we can get to the point where you don't need to work.

So after Alissa found out I had the day off, I offered to make her waffles for breakfast but she said no, so while she was in the shower I decided I'd get to work scraping her car for her. It took me about a half an hour to get the inch thick ice off of the windows enough to see for driving. Then I drove her to work so that she didn't have to park and walk on the ice. Down below are pictures of my car still covered (on the right) and then Alissa's car Molly as a finished product from the scraping.

Last night was fun making cookies and decorating them. Doesn't everyone agree that the cookies on the left look better?! Come on, the blue buttons, green pants, and red hair?! Brilliant! I think the goatee provides more personality.

PS. I figured we better not leave out the picture I took of Alissa. Hope you love it.

Christmas Cookies

Victory and I are doing an advant calendar this year and hopefully the tradition will continue. Anyway, we didn't just put candy in the calendar but we occasionally put in activities. Yesterday's activity was to make cookies. So we made sugar cookies! After I saw Victory's first cookie that he made I was kinda of nervous for his taste in decorating cookies but he quickly improved and I think out did me. What do you think? Oh, by the way, his christmas tree has a go-tee. As well as his little man. Silly husband of mine. <3

It's beginning to look a lot like Christams....

I'm starting to feel like a slacker because I haven't posted for two weeks now. Victory and I are just hanging out and enjoying life. We hit the six month mark at the end of November. Yay for us! We appropriately celebrated by going to a friend's wedding reception where we remembered our special day.

I just have to make a special note, that last weekend we went roller skating. I love roller skating, I always have. There is nothing like gliding by with the wind in your hair. MMMmm I love it! And I love that I have a wonderful husband who is such a great sport about it. I had a past boyfriend who came with me but sat on the bench the whole time claiming to have weak ankles. Can we say "WHIMP"? (I guess that wasn't very nice...I'll give him credit of even coming with me.) However, that experience made truly appreciate having a husband who will enjoy this favorite pastime with me.

Here are some pictures of Victory and I's first Christmas Tree Shopping.

This is us in the car before we ventured out to the tree farm. I'm super excited. I love getting Christmas trees!

Me amongst all the lynched trees. We were to big of whimps to go out in the woods to cut down our own. So we bought a pre-cut tree.

Our tree fits in the trunk of my car! Oh Little tree, oh Little tree!

Note to self: Never string popcorn and cranberries ever again unless you've got plenty of helpers. We were stringing popocorn and craberries for what seemed like hours...oh wait it was hours and hours!

I'm excited for the Christmas season, I hope you are all enjoying the festivities of the season as well!

Wednesday's "I'm Thankful for..."

Well, since I can't guarantee that I'll be blogging tomorrow, I'm going to share with you one of things I have been and will always be most thankful for my family. (yes this may be sappy, but heartfelt.) :)

Can anyone ever adequately express what their family has done for them? Consider all of the love, time, energy and money that has been placed in just you. Think about their constant care for your well being and happiness and all of the time and energy that has been placed in your growth and development physically, emotionally, spiritually and intellectually. They have given you traditions, theologies and even ideologies. Families are amazing things-no other organization, institution, or group of people could give you more.

So I just want to say I'm thankful for my family. I've known since I was a little girl that I was blessed to be part of this unique, loud, sometimes obnoxious and chaotic family. My parents spent a lot of time and energy teaching us the gospel and providing us with rich traditions. My parents truly gave of themselves to our family. I don't know that there is one of us kids that isn't entirely thankful for the family we were raised in. They provided us a safe haven from the world where we felt safe and loved.

I'm especially thankful for my family as Victory and I start thinking about the future. We have both been blessed by wonderful families that provided a wonderuful foundation that we can build our own future family on. Even though the idea of having children scares me to death, I love thinking about building a home for them to come to.

Tuesday's "I'm thankful for..."

I'm thankful for my job.

I know I often complain about having to get up and go to work. Sometimes it hard to make it through the work day sane but it pays the bills and provides excellent benefits. The hardest part of my job is staying busy and actually feeling like I've accomplished something when I close the door to my office. But the best part of my job is having responsibility of organizing meetings and making things happen. I feel like I've grown a lot since I've been here. My boss isn't the micro-manager that I expected to have. He very much lets me do my own thing and use my mind to figure things out and that is very empowering. I look forward to this summer and making some changes to one of our training meetings and getting things organized for the person who takes over my position in the future. It sounds like I plan on quitting, huh? Well, that plan isn't there yet but there are possibilities of moving somewhere for Victory's pursuit of his graduate career or maybe someday we'll start a family....if I could only convince myself that I could survive kids. :)

Two more days until Thanksgiving!!! Horray!

Monday's "I'm Thankful For..."

I'm getting so excited! Thanksgiving week has finally come! That means I only have three days of work this week! WohOO!! In light of this wonderful week which marks the beginning of the wonderful, festive Holiday season, I'm going to post each day something that I am thankful for.

For today's post, I am thankful for internet! Yes the internet. Do you remember the days before the internet? Think about how it has revolutionized the world we live in. I can compare how I learned and completed projects from the elementry and middle school years of using an encyclopedia and having to hand write your information to college of doing your research online and handing in your project via email. We went from having only the resources available in our school and community library to having access to information all over the world! Amazing!

And let's not forget how the internet has changed the world of communication! Oh my goodness. The internet has created a whole new resource for staying connected. Email, online chatting, facebook and the wonderful world of blogging! I thought facebook was amazing but Blogging, WOW! Can one say enough about blogging? It's like a scrapbook and journal put together that can actually be shared with friends and family instead of sitting on your shelf collecting dust. Blogging helps me stay connected with friends near and far. And sometimes at work I lack the human interaction sitting in my lonely office all day long, so I appreciate the entertainment and the human interaction (or at least the feeling of human intereaction) that I receive through the world of blogging and facebook. So thank you to all of you fellow bloggers that help me make through a work day!

Stay tuned for Tuesday's "I'm thankful for..."

Obama, Socialism and Homosexuals

Did I just use three very naughty words?? Jk. There aren't naughty just very controversial. There are two videos I'd just like to put out there. I'm not against Obama- I did not vote for him-but as President Elect I will pray for him and this nation. There are some daunting trials ahead for the good ol' US of A. (I wish I knew how to post you tube videos on here but since I don't I will just add the links.)
OBAMA
When I first watched this first video, my response was, "oh my goodness..." I was in total disbelief that someone could be that ignorant but the sad part is she truly believes it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6ikOxi9yYk&NR=1

My biggest fear about Obama is that there will be a lot of ignorant people who voted for him thinking he was promising to solve all of their problems. However, they will soon find out Government can't and shouldn't solve all of our problems. Obama even said so in his speech the night he was elected. He said we would have calloused hands. (I commend him for saying so, just wish he would have said that prior to election night)
SOCIALISM
I just received this audio clip from Glen Beck's show. He plays a clip of Ezra Taft Benson's, Secretary of Agriculture in the Eisenhower administration, response to his meeting with Nikita Khrush. Have a listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTDmGt1Pafw

One has to wonder, where are we headed as a nation?

PROP 8

I've also been paying a lot of attention to this whole prop 8 thing- I might be crazy but I've been responding to you tube videos of the protesting. It's been interesting to get comments back from the gay community. I just don't understand why they are pushing so hard for marriage-they have civil union rights. They would never claim themselves traditional, so why would they want to fit into a traditional institution such as marriage? I've asked them why marriage is so important to them but so far they haven't explained their reasoning, I only feel like they are yelling "give us our marriage rights". Don't they see what that will do to the family? The nation? and what about freedom of religion?

Legalizing homosexual marriage rights could have a severe effect on religious organizations and practicing their beliefs because they would be seen as discriminating against homosexuals...such as the Catholic adoption agency that had to close because they wouldn't place children with homosexual couples in Massachutes. Even if they win the so called right to marriage, the battle will only have just begun. It will be a long battle for those who stand up for Marriage, Family and Religion.