It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Not that I don't absolutely LOVE christmas, snow, gifts & family but the MAIN reason of why I'm lovin' life right now has to do with a little thing called the end of the semester!!! I had my last final today and I am SOOOOO ready to enjoy the Christmas break! I can't wait to sleep in, go to sleep late, do laundry, dust, vacuum everyday and most importantly SNOWBOARD!!! I seriously can't wait to do things that I choose to do:) woot!

"All Apologies..."

As I walked out of my test today; happy as a clam that it was finally over, I realized that I have so much to be grateful for and that I am a big time complainer. Complaining is such a waste of time. Everytime I have a huge test, project, paper to do on top of all of my wife-ly duties I complain and have everyone walking on pins and needles around me until it's done. Which is such a shame because I ALWAYS survive and conquer whatever obstacle I feel is so overwhelming at the time. And all of that complaining and being stressed ends up being all for nothing. I also know that I have used my blogging as a platform for my whining many a time and I will NO LONGER do so. So here I am declaring that I am grateful for all I have and for the experiences I have come across and will come across in the future. I know that my life wouldn't be the same without them, so why go through life dreading them? Once again sorry for whining and here's to the end(or a decrease anyway) in complaining!

95%

I got a 95% on my articulation and phonology exam woohoo!!!! I think I'm starting to get used to this school thing...

update

So it's 3:30 in the a.m.! Matt's schedule has been changing quite a bit the past few months and now he works mon-thursday 6pm-2am and Saturday 3am-9am. Today was his first 3-9 shift and now I can't go back to sleep. I should be looking up research studies for two research papers I have due in the next couple weeks.....but blogging just seems to hold priority to graduate school at the moment haha:)

Can you believe October is over!?!? crazy I know. We had a fabulous Halloween. We dressed up in our "Where's Waldo?" attire and took lilly and my nephews to do some trick-or-treating. They were so cute! I'll post pictures soon(matt used my camera and now i can't find it...)Afterwards we watched scary movies and went to a midinght performance of "Frankenstein" at the Provo Stage Theatre. I had already seen it before with some co-wokers because one of the teachers I work with was a cast member and after all of the praises I had sung Matt had to see it. He loved it. It was SO GOOD. The acting was AMAZING. The music was perfect. Over all the show was "deliciously scary"(as my good friend anne of green gables would say:) ) There were murders, gun shots and ear piercing screams(way to go Nancy) it was fabulous and the perfect way to top off our Halloween night.

As far as school is concerned things are great. I've gotten 3 of my 4 tests back and am begining to feel more confident in myself. I did great on two tests and not so hot on the other. In my program you have to get an 80% on an exam or you have to remediate it. And even if you retake the test you keep the grade from the first test. terrible tight? AND THEN if you get below a B, you have to retake the class or drop from the program. Do you see the kind of stress I'm dealing with here?! So you can see how I was freaking out when two questions kept me away from passing with the required percent on one of my tests. So I had to retake it to prove to my professor that I'm REALLY not that incompetent lol. I took the test on thursday and I feel really good about it. there's no way I'm getting below a 95%-90% on that sucker(even though it won't change my grade)! Now I'm just waiting to get my Articulation and Phonolgy test back on tuesday:)

Clinic is AMAZING. I have a fun client and a fabulous mentoring clinician. I don't know what I would do if I wasn't working with such a great 2nd year student! Even though I've been working with kids for two years now it's still seems so new to me. It's just such a different experience working in a clinic and a little scary to be doing therapy in a room knowing that your supervisor and the parentals are listening and watching throught the 2-way mirror, but I really love it, it is a wonderful experience. I just can't believe that I've survived this long. Everytime I walk out of a clinic session or finish taking a test I think. I did it? I really did it! And I feel so blessed because I know that my success is not due to just me. I have such a great support system in my husband, family and even in other students that help me a great deal. AND I am so grateful for an eternal perspective to keep me sane and focused on those things which are truly important.

Okay this has turned into a REALLY long post and there were so many other things I wanted to document: Lilly/ER, pics, regina, snow, gutiars for sell etc ....I'll save them for next time!


Cheers!

Long time no blog.

October has been somewhat of a bitter sweet month for me. Bitter because I've had 4 eaxams and numerous extremely involved assignments that have left me with absolutley no time or freedom to do the things I want to do, or to even BE myself. I feel so terrible because I feel like I've been so ornery and stressed this month, but too many things;that are better left unmentioned, have gone awry. I'm so grateful for matt though because I'm absolutely certain that it is becuase of him and ONLY him that I have survived this month. On the other hand some wonderful things have happened this month. I will share in picures...



My best friend Bizzie married her beau on the 15th

My family got a new puppy. Meet Gypsy:)

Killer learned to LOVE his kennel and stopped biting as much!










and okay, okay. I guess I found time to carve some pumpkins with matt and my little brother...

AND BEST OF ALL TODAY I HAD MY LAST TEST BEFORE FINALS! WAHOOOO!!!

Now I can focus on our Halloween costumes. We decided we wanted to do choose a them that Killer could be a part of so we decided on...

Matt=Waldo
I= Wenda

Brother Eldy=Odlaw

Killer=Woof

And so far all I've made is Matt's shirt...so I'm gonna get to it. Happy Halloween everyone and I better see lots of pics posted from the special night!

Seriously?!?!

Sometimes I honestly feel like matt and I should have our own sitcom. The most ridiculous things happen to us ALL the time. Like the time we drove all the way to vegas and realized we forgot our concert tickets and had to drive back to sugarhouse and than back to vegas AGAIN all in one day. The time Matt backed out of his parking spot and into a car at our old apartment complex and it turned out to be OUR car(I guess better it our car than someone else's right?). The time we had to sleep in the san fransisco airport because we ran out of money(I miscalculated our trip money by like $300. Now Matt takes car of all finances.I'm bad at math.) and our flight home wasn't until the next day(he'll never let me live that one down.). And that one time with the tow dolly. Let me tell you about it.





Yesterday morning I was so excited. we had a great plan for the day. 1.Go pick up the Cavalier from our old place in sugarhouse. 2. Got to London's Baptism party. 3. Get a haircut. 4. Go on our usual saturday night date(pretty much the ONLY day of the week we get to spend more than three hrs. together). We got up early, went to pick up a tow dolly at u-haul and headed for sugarhouse. Once we get there we have some issues getting the car on the dolly. By the way for those of you who don't know(I didn't) a tow dolly looks like this:



So the long metal thing is where the dolly attacthes to the truck. the silver things are the little ramps for the car to get on to the dolly. and right next to the dolly tires are these like pockets where the front tires of the car you're towing are supposed to go. So we have some issues because right before the part where the front tires of the car are supposed to go there's like a little lip. I'm not sure if you know this, but cars are heavy. and with matt pretty much being the only mucsle behind the car we weren't getting enough speed to get it over the little bump and into the stupid tire hole thing(yes I called it a stupid tire hole thing. I'm car illiterate and a little frustrated at this point.) My brother was in the car just sterring to make sure it was aligned with the ramps of the dolly, matt was pushing and I was between the truck and the dolly directing my brother which way to steer, but everytime same thing, we couldn't get it over the stupid lip! So we keep at this for like 45 minutes trying over and over again, poor matt's exhausted from pushing by himself & bare foot by the way(who wears flip flops to got tow a car? I <3 my honey) so he's like "we need more speed." I get a little worried because I'm paranoid about everything and always think the worst will happen. Well this time I was right. Matt starts pushing and I'm directing my brother and as they're getting closer I'm thinking whoa they're going pretty fast. as they get to the ramp I signal to my brother to hit the brakes, which of course he doesn't do and the car seriously jumps the lip and lands perfectly centered on top of the hitch part where the dolly attacthes to the truck. yeah. This is bad. If you don't realize how bad this is, look at the picture and imageine the back wheels almost in the slots where the FRONT tires are supposed to go and me in the little 3 foot space betweed the car and truck, I stood between the truck and the car(almost crushed by the way), matt behind the car and my brother in the driver's seat with our jaws dropped and stood there in awe and silence for a few moments while we realized the deep crap we were in. Are you freaking kidding me?!?! it was a mess. I won't go throught the whole mess of how we got the stupid car off of the dolly but let's just say we would have never done it without Dave(a neighbor we unfortunately never got the chance to meet while we were actually living in sugarhouse) and his super awesome, powerful jeep and Paul (a mechanic and family friend) and his creativity, smarts and guts. apparently what they ended up doing was really dangerous and risky. it involved two high lift jacks, a rope and lots of muscle. THANK YOU GUYS(and joe for calling paul in the first place)!!!!We finally finshed everything by like 6pm. what a day. I missed my friend's baby's baptism which was sad, but at least I still got a haircut and we had a few hours for a date. man oh man. Well now you know who to come to if you ever have a crazy car issue. I won't be able to technically help but I know who to call to come save you:)

Ramble on...

what can I say, Life is good. Work is great and interesting. I love my supervisor and all of the opportunities she takes to teach me and really help me understand the logic behind why she chooses certain interventions and not others. She is truly amazing at what she does and I feel so blessed yet again to be working with some one of the best. School is awesome! I only say that today because I did amazing on my Autism Spectrum Disorders test this morning. My friend and I were studying lastnight and we were under the impression that our exam was all short answer and essay. So I studied like crazy making sure I was thoroughly versed in each concept, disorder, diagnostic criteria etc. and was able to explain my self clearly in an essay. Well when I showed up to class I was relieved when I found out it was multiple choice, T/F, matching and short essay. HA! I was totally prepared:) I honestly was shocked(and grateful) for how fair the test was. Hopefully I get more of those.

Matt's been doing good besides the fact that he is currently feeling a little under the weather(thanks to his lovely wife). He's been thinking about possibly taking a class or two starting spring semester, so that he can get a little more done while I'm finishing up school and then he'll be a little more ahead than originally planned when he goes back full time. He's been recording a lot of music as usual, and having fun searching for his next dream guitar. We have a song we've been working on recently off and on since we've been so busy, but I'm excited to record it(whenever we get the chance). Matt wrote some lyrics so I was singing them and was able to put them to this kind of bluesy melody on the piano and he plays a pretty sweet guitar lead throughout. We've really been wanting to write something more bluesy because we Love blues so we're pretty stoked to actually do it.

I've got some pics. that I need to post: Killer and his tubby self, my brother going to homecoming and my new glasses! yes I finally got them:) and they have made SUCH a HUGE difference. I don't get headaches after my 3 hr. classes, or reading/studying anymore. I can't believe I thought the doctor was going to tell me there was nothing wrong and that my vision was fine, because it's NOT. Any who that's all for now, hopefully I can get those pic up soon. Time to go study for the wonderful world of Developmental Language Disorders...

happy.

Usually I try to think of a blog title that is funny or witty (although i'm not really all that funny or witty. yes I am aware of it:) but tonight I just had to express my happiness. I have to admit upon waking up this morning I was still feeling sick and was not excited for the day ahead of me(going to work, getting the car fixed, going to my 3 hr. class, cleaning..), but it turned out to be a pretty great day! I didn't end up going to work because i didn't feel good but we went to my brother & sister in law's to fix our car and it was so fun to just hangout with them because they are so fun. I think the biggest reason I had such a great day was because of how helpful my in law's were today:) they totally flipped my day around! Joe helped Matt with the car pretty much all day & natalie drove me back up to our place when I forgot one of my assignments and even took me up to the U so that I could get to my class on time. It's so amazing to me how giving people can be. I'm sure that Joe and Natalie had a million other things they had to (or would have LIKED) to do today, but they were nice enough to help us out. Thanks Joe and Natalie we LOVE you guys! and griffith:)

Joe and Natalie with their little one:) (and another one on the way!)

I'm not sure if it's just school or work or what , but I have been EXHAUSTED lately. Today I slept for 7 hrs. when I got home from school ah! I NEVER take naps, I despise them actually, because I always feel groggy when I wake up from them, but after my nap today I feel absolutely splendid besides the fact that I'm feeling a bug coming on...Any way overall a pretty fabulous day! Hope you had a good one too:)

I've got to admit it's getting better....(except for my eye sight.)

Well Life has been pretty good lately, busy but good. I think I'm falling into the rhythm of school and work now and I finally got my clinic schedule so I've been able to get a steady routine going. School has been great. a couple of classes are a little difficult but for the most part all of the material is of interest to me so that softens the blow of the whole experience. I'm super excited to start clinic. twice a week I get to work with a student clinician and the client and then next semester that client is assigned to me and only me! a little nerve wracking but super exciting. Work has been awesome! I get to work with some wonderful teachers and my SLP mentour is AMAZING! she is so much fun and I know I'm going to learn tons of great stuff from her. Matt is putting in a ton of hours for us which is fantastic. I love him so much he works so hard! and Killer is doing really well. not biting as much and I've been watching Cesar Milan (the dog whisperer lol) and along with a little help from matt; who is the alpha male of our "pack"(that's dog whisperer lingo...) I've been able to establish some superiority and Killer is starting to obey me just as much as he obeys matt:) We've been having a good time. Other than that we've had some fun family stuff goin on. My cousin got married a couple weeks ago and we had such a fun time dancing like dorks at her wedding. My niece adeline was baptized on saturday and it was a wonderful experience. I'm so glad I got to go:) oh AND I'm going blind! this has been happening for about the last year or so. I have been getting the worst headaches from squinting all the time and everything is just super blurry. I NEED to get it taken care of especially since I'm back in school. I'm going this week.

Lazy sunday....

This was me by Friday afternoon...

This is me now...

yeah. It was one of those weeks. I can't say that I'm not grateful to have the opportunity to be in school and blessed to have a job but my goodness this is difficult. I have worked and gone to school at the same time before, but now we're talking graduate school and my job with the school district in which NEITHER CAN BE TAKEN LIGHTLY. Luckily I have an amazing husband who is the best support any girl could EVER ask for. I don't know what I would do without him. Oh wait I do know, I would cry, crawl into a whole and die. I've worked everyday this week and gone to school everyday except for monday and by next week they are going to throw clinic into my schedule somewhere. I'd like to see how I'm going to pull off this lovely task. eh. it'll have to work. I have to admit though, I am taking some pretty rockin' classes. I'm taking Advanced research design(ok, this one not so rockin'. Who doesn't shudder at the very thought of the word research?), Developmental language delays in infants & adolescence, Articulation & Phonology and Autism Spectrum disorders(the cream of the crop!). So I am pretty psyched about all of the cool stuff I'm going to be learning it's just finding that balance between work and school that's going to be a little interesting.

lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer...

HAPPY AUGUST!!!!

I have a lot of stuff to post. We've had quite a busy august, but it's been really fun! The festivities began on the very first day of August with my dear mother's birthday:) Here are a couple pictures or my mom and her girls! don't ask me why we're hugging eachother like that...it just happened. We had a BBQ with our whole family and my mom loved it. Happy Birthday mom!!!

We also got to celebrate my little brother Eldy's birthday. I can't believe he is already 16 and ready to be behind the wheel of a car! That truly scares me!

Lilly helping Eldy blowout his candles


Happy Birthday Little Bro!

I also got to go to my BFF's Bridal shower this weekend. It was in Ogden and although I couldn't stay the whole time, it was so much fun:) Her sisters did a fabulous job planning the party and made sure that she was decked out in all of her bridal gear.

and Finally to top off our summer we went camping to the Uintas! it was so much fun! We met up with Dave and Lucy's family, Paul and my little brothers and we had a blast!

Eldy, Jordan & Edward

The Princess Camilla Rose

Lucy cheesing it up for the camera

Paul....being Paul.

Matt being a "Man's Man" and crossing the freezing cold river to find wood for our fire!

Mill Mill and Kill Kill

Killer in his element

(Actually he just shivered the whole time and kept crawling back to the tent to snuggle in the sleeping bags lol!)

Killer and his BFF Mercedes(paul's dog)

Pic. from our hike

View from our campsite

phew what a long post! oh well I think I would really hate it if I didn't some how document all of our adventures!

-Peace

what a week(and it's only Tuesday)...

Yesterdsay my mom, brother, sister and matt and I went to Lagoon! It was quite fun however we spent much more time at Laguna Beach than on the rides which is really strange for us. The lines were super long though and I wasn't feeling too hot so I really didn't want to wait in any lines. We ended up riding the colussus(a must), the hydro luge and rattle snake rapids. Matt and I have made it a tradition to go on the sky coaster(and by the sky coaster I do mean the ride that pulls you up in a full body harness 143 ft. above the air and then sends you racing toward the ground at 80 mph), but unfortunately we weren't able to go this time, so the trip was kind of a bust. Oh well at least all we paid was half price thanks to my mom's discount passes:) we came home had FHE and that's when I started to feel miserable. My head and body started aching, my throat was killing me and I passed out on the couch. Today hasn't been much better the best thing is though, I was not looking forward to being with the puppy tonight while matt was gone at work because he gets really hyper and I have to take him out to the bathroom like every 45 minutes because he gets so much excercise, but he was great. I like to think he could sense I was not feeling well because for like 4 hours I was sick as a dog (throwing up, shivering) and he stayed right beside me the entire time and would just cuddle up right next to me everytime I came back form the bathroom. never moved. what a pal. I love our little killer. I'm just hoping I get over this soon because I have orientation at the U on friday, Saturday is my BFF's bridal shower and then after the shower we are going to meet up with matt's fam to go camping in the Uinta's which I'm super excited for. And that's not to menti0n all the things I have to do between now and friday, yikes.

update...

Lots to update about! As you know we got our little pupster killer and he is doing just dandy:) He is such a sweet and gentle little pup however he LOVES to chew things like crazy, mostly my fingers. We've been trying to break this habit but it's been a little hard, if anyone has any ideas let us know:) we've just been telling him NO! everytime he starts to mouth or bite our clothes, hair, fingers etc. and then give him a chew toy and he'll stop, but then he'll do it again later, so we'll see how that goes. Potty training has been fun! not. We thought we were doing good until an incident ocurred a couple nights ago that ended up with my right foot/ankle covered in dog crap. yeah don't ask. So we've decided to start the whole crate training idea. It's been two days and he has been doing awesome! one accident today but that was my fault, I wasn't paying attention like I should have. We also finished moving! We were looking for apartments for a while and were wanting to find something dirt cheap because Matt is going to start working extra hours and I'm going to be going back to school full time for my masters and we really want to save some money. Let's just state the obvious, everything that we were looking for in our "price range" was super ghetto. I'm not saying I want to have kids tomorrow but, if we were to get pregnant I wouldn't feel safe having a baby in the ghetto, especially when my husband works from 6pm-2am! So my parents offered for us to move into their basement. I was hesitant at first but after praying and talking to my parents about it Matt and I feel really good about it. My parents need help with tending my sister and it will be an awesome opportunity for us to save money for a down payment of a house. I juse finsished unpacking and decorating the living room and it is so cute! Much nicer than our old place and no bugs wahoo! My next venture is our bedroom, which I'm obviously putting off, but I suppose I should get to it. Hope everyone is having a great summer and enjoying the last little bit we have before life gets busy again:)

Introducing Killeeeeeerrrrrr!

our new pal Mr. "Lady killer" Crow is an 8 week old beagle! He is such a sweetheart and loves napping, it's pretty much all he does right now since he's just a puppy. He hates dog food and only wants to eat whatever Matt's eating. We won't give it to him of course so he's on a hunger strike right now jk. He's so cute and LOVES to snuggle all the time! We've had fun adding him to our familia:)






<3 you Killer!

Grateful...

I just have to take a second to say how grateful I am for the people around me. I'm grateful for the people who are kind, generous, optimistic and an overall a good example in their everyday lives. We never know when someone might be watching, listening & waiting for words or actions that they need to see or hear. I know I was one of those people today.

is it only wednesday?....

well this week has been good and then it's also been kind of blah. Monday was a really good day, we decided for FHE to have kind of a "Super Monday"! so we went miniature golfing(which i'm terrible at in case you were wondering), went to lunch and then we tried to go to zanzibar, it's a club that has live blues but they were closed(hopefully not for good, we love that place!). so we rented some movies instead. I feel like this week is going by so slow! I think it's just because I really have to find things to keep me busy. I dread when matt leaves for work because I get so bored:( yesterday and today have been kind of blah days. I've been a little moody but thankfully matt is so understanding and always tries to make me feel better. He does whatever he can to make me laugh. I love him and am so blessed to have him in my life. so we're thinking about moving. yeah, not too excited about it but were looking around at some apartments and condos. We love the space in the place we're in now but since it's an older house there is always something wrong that we have to worry about and I'm sick of it. Matt's so funny cause he's the one trying to persuade me to move because I keep saying but we have sooo much space for so cheap and his response today was "Carolyn, would you rather live in a nice little box or a big pile of crap?" lol. I guess he's right. I just so badly want to get into a house but with me going back to school full time and matt pretty much being the only one working we can't afford it right now money would be really tight and I don't think I can handle the stress of that. I just have to keep reminding myself just another year and a half and we'll get into a house....it just seems so far away. we're going to look at some places tomorrow and friday but if anyone knows of any good places in salt lake or the surrounding area let us know. Hope everyone else is having a good week:)

Saturday night's alright...

Friday night my little brothers spent the night at my place after all of the 24th festivities and Saturday we spent the day just having fun and making music! We went to the Oquirrh park rec. center and swam in the outdoor pools, when down the huge slide in the indoor part like a million times:) and jumped off the platforms outside! I have to just say that I didn't jump off the 32 ft. platform but I did jump off the 16 and the 24 ft it was scary but after seeing all these little 10 year olds jump off I wasn't going to let them show me up:) maybe one day I will work up the courage to jump off the 32 footer, but it would probably just be easier if matt knocked me over the head and rolled me off the edge. After swimming we came home and recorded on a new little program that matt and I recently purchased. we hope to one day have a recording studio in our home but until then this will have to do. It's actually a really cool program and matt's been able to figure out a bunch of really awesome things it can do. So it was Eldy on drums, matt on guitar and me on vocals/piano. we did a little cover of "A day in the life" and it sounds pretty dang good. we were all really surprised with ourselves lol. Here's to more music making in the future cheers:)!

4th of July and Pioneer Day

Pics from the 4th and 24th of this month! fun parties and lots of swimming:) we went to two really fun BBQs both days and on the 24th we got to take our nieces and nephew Addie, Laurel and Charlie along with us. The kids had a great time and Lilly was super excited to have some friends to play with, she and Laurel were two quirky little peas in a pod! Lala kept saying maybe one day mil mil(our other niece Camilla) can come play so by the end of the night Lilly kept asking if mil mil could come play even though she's never even met her before lol.






Lilly being silly

My little brother Eldy trying to be cool...

Lilly posing on the big blow up slide they had at the party.

Matt trying to look tough and me with no makeup....not so good of a look for us LOL!

Lala and Lilly jumping on the tramp



Adeline

Lilly and Charchie

Charchie

The girls "excercising" at my parents lol:)


Lala and Lilly

ignore how not cute I look in this pic. it was really hot and I'd been running around ALL day.

Lala looking surprised lol!



after the kids did sparklers and poppers there was a firework show! But for some reason it couldn't keep Lilly and Lala's attention. This is what they did the whole time....

They were looking for bugs.

hope everyone had a wonderful July!