Girl's best friend....

My buddy has...

Lazy days: He purposely knocked the pillow and the throw off the couch to make a bed.

Silly days: His new thing is the "head-in-boot" maneuver. What we really need to document is the "snake"...

Naughty days: notice the blue ink is also around his mouth...

And we're Bff's.

Diving back in

It's been a while people! The sad thing is that I had a whole two weeks of nothing to do and of course I choose to do my blogging after a very hectic week. Can you believe I am officially done with my first year of graduate school and already started summer semester??? I never thought this day would come haha. I can't even start to think about graduation day(which is only 349 days away by the way) without getting emotional. This is by far THE most intense experience I have ever been through in my entire life. I'm getting a little choked up now, thinking about the day that I will have survived all of this and have that little degree in my hand. I am truly grateful for this experience though. I have met some wonderful people and am learning an incredible amount. Most importantly it's becoming more and more apparent to me that this career is really meant for me.

I can't explain how much I love working with my clients at the clinic and my little articulation class with the district. Last semester I was priveleged to work with some AMAZING clients. My buddy H.(I will use initials for confidentiality purposes of course) an 8 year old with Down's Syndrome aka my little "enigma". My other buddy H. a 13 year old with severe Autism who required an AAC device(assitive technology) to communicate(so cool!). And then my two adults D. and D.(haha! I really had a hard time with names sometimes because my kids had similar names as did my adults). D. #1 was my 44 year old with Asperger's. Probably the cutest of my clients. I have never met someone more christ like than this guy. Every week, he had some type of association to make between the gospel and our therapy tasks:) He was one of those special people that radiate with a testimony of the gospel without verbally expressing it, but did through his kindness and actions. And D.#2 who I BEGGED to work with again this semester(because I got him more than half way through last semester). He is a 58 year old client with Aphasia and only 4 months post stroke! VERY COOL! I actually started working with him when he was about 1 1/2 to 2 months post stroke. He is such a funny guy and we have a blast working together. I honestly feel that I could go on and on about each of these clients but it's just one of those "you have to know them" kind of things, in order to really appreciate how great they are. Just take my word for it:)

This semester I've got D.#2 again, my litte S.(5 year old little girl-artic and phonology) and D. #3(6 year old boy artic and phonology). Although my clients are not as involved as they were last semester I'm actually pretty excited to just have a REALLY fun semester with my two little artics. I only have two classes this semester AAC(Augmentative and Alternative Communication) and Motor Speech Disorders, but it's still going to be a pretty busy semester. Wish me luck!

Oh! before I forget. For those of you who don't know yet, I was chosen by Intermountain Medical Center(IMC)for an externship starting in December!!! SO excited. My second Externship will be with Early Intervention, so I get to work with cute little 0-3 babies doing not only speech but also learning some of the ropes of OT and PT(Occupational and physical therapy) with these little ones! After this whole experience so far I'm still not 100% sure whether I want to work with strictly adults or kids I absolutely LOVE them both. One of my supervisors said that I'm most likely one of those people that will do both. lets hope I have it in me:) So, I'm grateful that I get to do externships with both populations. So much to look forward to! life is very good:)

Southern Comfort....

So, spring break came and went and I'm pretty sure it is one of the best spring breaks I have ever experienced! Alabama was absolutely beautiful, the people were so nice and it was really great to spend time with my in-laws. My mother-in-law comes out to Utah every once in while, but I had never met matt's step dad Billy. I was extremely nervous to meet him, but he is honestly one of the sweetest, kindest, and funniest people I've ever met! We had such a good time. It was amazing to not have to think about clinic, school or work for a whole week! It was soooooo relaxing and all I can constantly think of is how absolutely beautiful it was. In no particular order here are a FEW pics. of our trip:

Beach+M+C= Bliss

Delicious sausages being cooked at the

**Elberta Sausage Festival**

Band and Oldies at the Sausage fest.

One of the many tiny for sale signs on huge pieces of property.

For some reason I found this funny. Well at least Matt laughed

with me:)

These people live DEEP in the woods.

I wish I lived here:(

They've got these and we've got....snow. in march.

Sweet houses right by the water. *note: said water is right

down the "street"(dirt road) from matthew's house.

The following are of some people's back yards.

.Another cool home.

Momma and Billy's. One of the cutest and most

charming places I have ever visited.

Joey.Dillon.Mathias

I like to call this one "humidity blows".

Alice in wonderland in 3D

Southern gentleman

One of the 20 Jellyfish we saw washed up on the beach.

I couldn't stop touching them...

Boys night out

Cool little wind chime spinner thing we got for

momma at an arts festival in Lillian

Pretty flowers in momma's front yard

Momma and Billy<3

In a VERY small nutshell, there is Alabama. If I had more time/patience/motivation I would post all of our pictures, but let's face it...it's going to be a long time before I regain any of those things. I will say the ONE and only thing that was not my most favorite thing about AL would have to be....FRIED FOOD. I'm pretty sure that after day three my body was rejecting the stuff. Oh Alabama, I hope we meet again...soon.

What we do...

We...*Snowboard*Dress up as "Where's Waldo" characters*Celebrate birthdays*Eat sushi*Loves our Killer*Try to get sleep*Fail miserably at trying to get sleep*Go to school*Work graveyard shifts*Make silly faces*plan future business endeavors*give eachother thoughtful gifts*Plan trips to Alabama*Interview for externships*Play guitar*record funky tunes*work with adorable kids*work with awesome adults*Pray*Hope for the best*Live

How's that for a quick update?

S.O.A.P Notes...

Why is it such a miserable experience to produce one?

THE most exciting/scary/exhausting week ever...

This last week was the first week of the semester. Along with the some of the really cool classes we get to take it was the first week of being in clinic as the actual clinicians, needless to say everyone;including myself, was a nervous wreck! I lucked out a little bit because I only had to see one of my three clients due to cancellations, but I'm sure I'm in for a big surprise this week. I was absolutely exhausted last week with all of my classes and only seeing one client two days, but this week I'm going to start seeing all three clients twice a week, so I'm pretty sure I'm going to be passing out from exhaustion earlier than usual. Luckily Matt has been awesome and extremely supportive, and lucky for me we were able to have a three day weekend together! We had our usual saturday night date and just stayed in the other days and vegged out with our seinfeld pals:) what a life huh? I'm so happy! I feel like although grad school is ridiculously difficult and stressful I'm thoroughly enjoying the experience. By that I mean that when I'm in clinic or at work I LOVE what I'm doing and am so grateful that I picked this career. I can't wait to be done with school I know it will go by so much faster than I'm expecting it to. Other than that nothing else is really going on, Matt and I have been working at my dad's business whenever we get a chance so it's been nice getting involved and watching my dad do what he loves! By the way for those of you who don't know my dad owns his own cabinet shop in Draper so if anyone is interested in any type of cabinets or wood work let me know! Sorry I had to add a little shamless plug there:) I feel like every day is just so jam packed with things to do (and if you don't believe me take a look at my planner lol!), but I really like it...weird. Well i'm off to cross more things off my to do list, wish me luck for the crazy week ahead chao!

Merry New Year!

Well from reading all of your blogs and receiveing all of the awesome christmas cards this year we're glad to hear that you all had a great holdiay season and an awesome 2009! I honestly cannot believe how fast this year has gone by! Matt and I have had a great year and can't wait for 2010. I don't know why but for some reason I feel like alot of great things are going to happen this year, and I guess I just like to be optimistic:) We had a great holiday season and were lucky to have my brother-in-law spencer who is in the army now,stay with us for a couple weeks. We had a lot of fun snowboarding, playing games, watching movies and seeing family. I'm so grateful for family and the time we were able to spend together this christmas and new year:) Thanks for reading all of our silly stuff that happened in 2009 and I hope to have some great stuff to post about this new year! We wish you all a happy and healthy 2010:)

Love,

The Crows.