Wee Post

I was walking to switch my laundry earlier tonight in the dark across my parking lot. I love this 'cold' Fall weather, and I just thought it was beautiful outside. But for some reason the short jaunt made me wish I had someone to take a walk with.

This is all.

The Lord's hand IS in my life--& YOURS!

I really need to go to sleep. But I've just had such an amazing day. The Lord blesses me with so much everyday and today was especially great. I often wonder what I ever did to deserve it. But it just goes to show how much our Heavenly Father loves us all and wants to bless us! I just feel SO blessed and loved and would feel ungrateful if I didn't share.

Thankfully today started well because I remembered before going to sleep that I was teaching a professor's lecture for them at 10 this morning. Had I forgotten, it would have been disastrous! I even got all ready for the day (including makeup--shocking) before class.

It was SUPER windy here today, and I loved it as I walked into school. I got to wear my red pea coat, and I loved my outfit today, so that was a good start. But it wasn't an absolutely freezing wind, it was still only around 50 outside. So I just enjoyed the leaves blowing, and actually felt the wind had a calming effect for me. I was walking across some grass to my building, and the wind was so strong that the grass (which isn't very long) just blew in waves, and it looked like water to me. I thought it was so beautiful! I felt like I was walking on a sea of grass. Really I was. It had to be a good thing that I was finding beauty in such a simple thing--the Lord was making sure I was a little extra sensitive to His Spirit today.

I ended up getting to play the piano for a while at the Institute, and that is always relaxing/soothing/fun. Our last Choir piece got copied today, and I feel much more prepared for our big Fireside on the 14th of November!

There's a girl in my ward who I was assigned as her visiting teacher last year when she was a freshman. Almost no one knew who she was, and I just did 'what I was supposed' to, called/texted her, visited her, brought her cookies, and invited her to everything. She never really started coming, but I was fairly persistent through the summer, and the missionaries and I have worked to get to to come to things (she's come to a few lessons, and church once). Her phone was broken for a while which complicated things, but I did what I could.

This afternoon, I got a text from her asking if we could get together sometime this week! I was thrilled because she hadn't really done that yet. So I responded that we could today, and invited her to come to meet with the missionaries with my already scheduled lesson. She said that that was just what she needed.

It was one of the sweetest, and most sacred experiences that I have had. I was able to help this girl decide to make some needed changes in her life, and she's ready. (I don't think she'd mind me sharing this much.) I'm just so happy, humble, and grateful to be able to have been an instrument in the Lord's hand in her life. I really did hardly anything! And even she said that I was just there. And that's what she needed.

That's all that someone needs sometimes, and how incredible is that?! It was so easy, but it helped her see the need for the Lord's love she had and she had the courage to do something about getting it back in her life.

I was in tears with her earlier, and I'm definitely crying just writing about it and feeling SO overwhelmed with gratitude and love that it's hard to express what I'm feeling. I'm so pleased to have this opportunity to grow and help another of our Father's children to grow. Today was just such a sacred experience for me, and I have already grown today in my testimony, which was already strong, of our Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ. They love ALL of us so much! I got to feel that again today, and it was absolutely beautiful. They are SO in the details of our lives! We ought to recognize it more.

There are so many times that other people have been the hand of the Lord in my life, and I'm genuinely humbled to have the opportunity to be the hand of the Lord in someone else's life!

I wanted to share a little of this experience I had the privilege to have today with those of you who read. It was SO powerful to me, and I hope that it helps you to realize the Lord's love in your life a little more as well!

Have you ever?

So, have you ever had something coming up that you were nervous about, & then it turned out so awesome after that you couldn't stop smiling & even maybe felt like crying because you were so happy?! Well that's how I feel today.

I don't even know if that description makes sense or not. But, okay, I'll explain. It does have to do with this combined Choir this weekend. Our Stake President asked me to conduct it about 6 weeks ago. I thought he was a little crazy because I'm not a 'real' Choir director. So I've had a while to worry about it. Yesterday we had our only rehearsal. I mighta had a bit of a spaz attack Saturday morning. I was just stressing about it. So I really hated myself and felt bad for my friends in my car with me. It luckily didn't last very long. I didn't get there as early as I planned.

Choir members filtered in for a while and Kati was able to get some presets ready on the organ, she ran them through a bunch of warmups (I definitely don't know my scales well enough, nor any exercises) we tuned Andy's viola, and got started. It was AWEsome! They followed well, and they sounded great.

I just had to tell them to watch a couple things and I had to remember my cut-offs. Really, once we got started practicing I was fine, I didn't even feel all that nervous anymore. And it became fun. So today when we met I knew what was going on, and they sounded even better. Sigh. I am SO blessed!!

We sang 3 songs, and I directed for the 2 congregational hymns, and it was just so much fun and awesome. Both yesterday and today when they were over though I felt such a huge relief. The Spirit was so strong in that meeting, especially for the music. It was so clear how people felt from it. During the last song (Let Us All Press On) Elder Hillier (the presiding G. A. from the 70 who chose all the songs & wanted tons of music as a stipulation) turned around to look at the choir! That's a huge compliment.

I don't know if I've stopped smiling. It turned out so well and I'm just so happy--I am so blessed. All those prayers asking for help sure were answered. President Packard shook my hand after and told me, "See, you did it. And you did great." And I was able to genuinely thank him for giving me the opportunity. A few other people stopped me to thank me, and I really just felt so good, and so loved. It truly was a wonderful experience for me, and I'm impressed, pleased, and relieved that I did it!

One woman was super cute, she grabbed me on my way out and gave me a huge hug (thankfully I don't have a bubble, lol) and thanked me profusely for a while, she even went so far to say we sounded exactly like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Hah, that's just too cute because we did sound awesome, but definitely not that good. But I'm sure to some people there may not seem to be as much of a difference between choirs as there really is. Haha. She was fun, Sister Lane.

I would write more, but I've been going for a while, who even knows how many people are still reading? And I've gotta go. The Conference was fun.


Ashley stayed with me since after Choir Thursday night, and we got up early Saturday to 3-barrel my hair for the Conference that day! I may have been (just) a tad vain about my hair yesterday...hah. But seriously, look at how awesome it looks!

Here it is from the back! ;) Oh, and Megan braided Ashley's Friday night, so hers was fun too.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures during the dance, but my hair stayed in pretty well, and the dance was a ton of fun! :) (I know that for many of you that's hard to imagine--me having fun at a dance.)


My friend Chanae graduated from Cosmotology School, and there was a surprise party for her Friday night, look at my friend the balloon that stuck to my hair from the static! It was funny.

Clearly I had a phenomenal weekend! What did you do?

58?!?

So this is the big weekend, I was asked to conduct a Multi-Stake YSA Choir for this YSA Conference that we're having in Fort Collins. Scary. I'm not entirely sure they realize I'm not a trained choir director. Hah.

I was only allowed to pick 19 singers (ideally even parts) from my own 35ish person choir here in Greeley! That was too bad. But there's supposed to be 39 other singers from the other stakes. Unfortunately (though maybe fortunately really, the other stakes were unable to get the numbers, and of course I found out late and couldn't fill in completely.

So 58 is misleading, but it's supposed to be a 58 voice Choir! I was given 3 hymns (that I wouldn't have necessarily picked myself) and I've gotta be ready to go. Gah!

Wish me luck. I just practiced a little with a couple people. I hope I don't have a heart attack!

Uh, only since April...

So it's a bit embarrassing that I've let my blog go SO long without updating it! I don't really have a great reason for not updating it. Though I could give a huge list of things I've been doing. I think part of my problem is that I want to put everything I've been doing up, so I feel like I can never get enough up to get caught up. But clearly I need to just get over that.

In no particular order (and perhaps not an exclusive list):

I had 11 wedding receptions to attend since April, I made it to 9!
I went to Utah for a weekend.
I went to California for a week and a half.
I saw lots of people.
I watched a few movies in the summer.
I went to the Drive-in for the first time, and then another time since.
I met my brother's girlfriend--not fiance!
I read Peter Pan out loud with Alessandra.
I moved apartments.
Joan came out to Colorado to help me move into my new place.
I cleaned the new place.
I moved my school stuff out of my office, back into my office, and then lastly into a new office.
I no longer get to teach Sunday School.
I am now a Ward Missionary--that's been a big change.
I helped a lot of people move.
I went tubing on a lake--got WAY burned on my legs.
Went to quite a few Bridal Showers.
I made a bunch of boutonnieres.
I went to a dance that I actually had a TON of fun at--much like my Stake dances of yore.
Best of EFY.
I did get a little cold for a few days and fairly lost my voice.
I said goodbye to quite a few people who left Greeley.
I welcomed people who moved to Greeley.
I gave rides to people.
I made sure to take care of a friend who had his car taken away.
I talked on the phone/skype to a number of different places!
California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Utah, Australia, China, Peru, Colorado.
Went four-wheeling for the first time.
Watched Little Dorrit again. :)
Cooked a lot of food.
Had a 'summer choir' for a week.
Started to get ready for Choir this year. Yikes.
Got rid of a lot of stuff.
Went hiking some.
Lol, had a few swim lessons.
Still enjoying my long hair!
Started and finished reading Preach My Gospel!
After much work, got a shelf up to help alleviate floor space, found a place for everything.
Went to the Temple, a few of them, and all ordinances!
Making a dent in my food storage.
Laughed.
Played.
Swinging on swings.
Swimming in a river.
Caught up with old friends.
Finished a lot of crocheting.
Made my first apron.
Mailed my first and likely last package to Australia!
Played the piano & sang a lot.

There are many more things I've done I'm sure. But I suppose that's a pretty good list. Lol. Now I've got a lot of things to get done. I need to clean the apartment--the kitchen, bathroom, my room. I need to do some laundry, & put away the laundry that I have still in a basket from earlier this week. I need to take a shower. Get ready for Stake Conference this evening. Give rides. Have a movie night with Sister Huffines. :) I anticipate a great rest of the day. But I've gotta get going. In my defense I did get to sleep in a little (which is good because I need the sleep), but I have already studied all my scriptures!

Maybe it won't be another 5 months before I post again. :/ I hope it won't be...

Retreatness

So I looked at my posts, and I had this one all typed up and ready to go from back in the end of February! I'm not sure whether I was gonna add something else to it. but I just looked through it and it looked pretty done to me! So here's an old post. Lol...



So we had our Institute Retreat up at the YMCA in Estes Park. Sam and his roommate, Rhett Garrett, came out from Orem to join us. It was a great time! We were a bit crazy, of course.

Megan french braided my hair friday and I was going to just take them out to leave my hair a little crimpy on Saturday so I didn't have to wash it. I forgot jaw clips to hold the braids up while I showered. So I improvised with crochet hooks! ;)

Andy's just so tall, and funny. Lol.
Pretty cute of Sam, Sanra and me as we were gathering for our huge group picture.
I tried to count, it was over 100! Crazy! (Looks like I accidentally uploaded one of the blurry ones instead of the clear, whoops.)
Look! Alessandra's taller than Sam!!
A little photo shoot with Sam, this one's pretty cute.
Hah, I'm threatening to lick his face here.
I'm clearly disgusted at the thought of Sam licking my face...hah!
One of the group games thingies was walking with these boards. Our team was WAY good, we smoked the other team. Amanda was awesome at leading and Josh was a good caller from the back.
I did get some grading done in the car.
Yay, it was great to have Sam here, it just was way too short! Poo. At least he lives much closer now. And the Retreat was good. We also played Family Feud and Human-sized Institute Clue but I didn't get any pictures of that. Oh, we also did a 'get-everyone-through-the-spider-web-through-a-different-hole' team building type thing. I thought I uploaded one of those pictures, but guess I missed it. Whoops. Oh well. We had a good time. As always.

Full Day(s?)

Today:
11:15 Friday Forum
Take Car into shop. Listen to Alessandra practice her English Horn piece for her Jury next week.
2:30 Undergraduate Poster Session
Phone with Maureen! ;)
4:00 Institute Field Day Activity
Start Laundry
Get car back
Start crocheting baby beanie
6:00 Vanessa (Yahosh's wife)'s Baby Shower
7:00 "Girl's" Dinner at Kathryn's! (YumMY!)
Finish Laundry
Should have bought gas

Tomorrow, Saturday 1st of May
Sometime really early: Wake up and get all ready for the whole day! (Blow dry hair and all that kind of stuff.)
7:00 Meet at the Institute for the Temple Trip
Buy Gas on the way down since I didn't get it Friday night
9:00 Endowment Session!
11:00ish Eat lunch at Temple
Drive down to Colorado Springs.
Practice Choir Stuff (honestly because the Sopranos want it, well the basses could probably use it too, lol)
3:00 Actual Tech Rehearsal stuff
5:15 Driving to different building for Dinner
Eat, Chat, Change
7:00 Combined Choir Fireside! (Greeley, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins Institute Choirs and Air Force Cadet Choir!)
Uh, maybe start my fast nowish...?
Drive back
11:00-12:00midnightish: Arrive back in Greeley and die of exhaustion! ;)

Sunday:
Up early to get ready and do more work on my lesson
9:30 Church
10:45ish: Teach Temple Prep Sunday School Class (as always)
12:30ish: Done with Church
Get things done.
Maybe nap.
Get some notes written. Sigh.
4:00 Pending baptism
Eat some dinner sometime to break the fast
6:00 CES Fireside with Bishop Burton
7:10ish: Institute Graduation at the Institute (yes, yet another Advanced Certificate...)
Cookies or something fun.
Maybe a Disney movie? Dunno...
More notes to write...

Be ready for the week...

Sound like much? Hah. It kinda is...

Sigh

Well. I don't really have any pictures. &/or I'm not feeling like going to find them. & I only have like 10 minutes. Agh!

So my Seminar is over! It was mildly a disaster. Now before some of you jump down my throat saying that you're sure it was fine, yadda, yadda, let me explain. Now I know that it could have been way worse. But I definitely was not prepared. Whoops. All my fault. And I'm aware of that. So the fact that I was not prepared did not help.

I was also exhAUSted! I'd gotten up at 4:00 and 4:30am Thursday and Friday, and had gotten up a little earlier than usual (haha) the other days. So I also kept saying things wrong. Really, it was kinda bad. One on of the slides I said something outright blatantly wrong and just kept going. By the time I went to the next slide I realized that I'd said it wrong, but didn't really know if I was allowed to go back and explain. So I didn't. One of my professors called me out on it after everyone was gone. Whoops.

My other professor called me out on one of my structures because I'd used the wrong form. Don't worry, I didn't have an explanation for why because I just honestly used the wrong one. It was pretty awful. Funny. Well a little. Eh, oh well.

So trust me when I say that it really wasn't very good. Hah.

But it still feels good to just have it out of the way. Now I have lots of research to get figured out. But it will be better.

K, I gotta get to dinner, and then a fireside in Fort Collins. Yikes. no rest for the weary. I will write again. ;)

A Day In My Life...

So Vanessa had a blog that I loved earlier this week: here
It inspired me to do one the same way. And I'm a bit out of ideas tonightish? At least I'm a bit out of energy. So I hope this can still be funny. At least a little bit to the few of you who read this. ;)

For sure a pretty typical day a month and a half ago:
Between 6:30 and 7:00 am - definitely sleeping. Probably didn't even consider setting an alarm nearly this early the night before!
7:15 to 8:40 am - And still sleeping! Well there may have been an alarm that went off in case I miraculously felt like actually getting out of bed to go to the gym. Well, I probably had one set for 8:00 anyhow, so I could "get up and do something"
8:40 am - By now I bet that my alarm was going off and I was doing the 5 minute snooze sleeping routine where I have crazy vivid dreams about all kinds of random stuff
9:15 am - Pretty close to dragging myself out of unconciousness to say morning prayers that will hopefully be meaningful. (Well I think they were more often than not.)
9:15 to 11:30 am - Oh yeah, at least 95% of the time I have definitely dragged myself out of bed by now and showered (which we know especially if I wash my hair is a long ordeal), I may be on my way up to campus by now.
11:30 am - This is often around the time I would be wandering through the Institute on my way to Ross Hall (Chem building) and that was inevitably a bad idea if I wanted to actually make it beyond the black hole that we fondly call the Institute building. I would start talking to Sister Huffines (Sec) or Brother Coleman (director) or whatever person happened to be sitting in the foyer, or the library, or the game room. Any person who would listen to my voice. Normally I was whining about having to go do Research (that I really ought to have been honest about the fact that it wasn't going to happen that day either). Or I'd talk about Choir stuff, or ya know, try to solve the problems of the world.
12:30 pm - It was usually around this time, or a bit before that I would most often make it into my office. I would be chatting with Erica, Kevin, and/or Dennis. I would grade. I would work on quizzes, look at labs. Somehow I was always busy. Just not as much with Researchy type things I should have been busy with.
2:00 to 2:30 pm - Still at school, quiz stuff probably.
2:40 pm - May have wandered over to chat with Tessa and Chelsea in the Stockroom (or teaching my lab on Wed's)
3:15 pm - Probably home by now. For something important. Reading the Bible--literally. I wouldn't let myself read my scriptures when I woke up so late because I didn't deserve to start my day with it when I didn't wake up when I should have. Perhaps not the best, but I was trying to motivate myself to wake up earlier. Maybe giving someone a ride somewhere. Or baking something for Choir. Or doing our dishes, or cooking. Or taking a nap. Or getting stuck at the Institute again. Or running errands to go get things.
3:15 to 4:00 pm - Same as above.
4:00 to 5:00 pm - Same
5:00 to 5:30 pm - Eating. Napping. Could be doing something to give someone a ride. Or talking with someone who needs it. Choir things.
5:30 pm - Gah, Vanessa's days are broken down way different than mine would have been. Gah, same as above.
5:45 pm (or so) - Definitely hadn't had enough change in these 15 min!
6:30 pm - Oh, by now I'm waking up from my nap or starting to wrap up whatever I'm working on because I'm on my way to go to an Institute class or some performance of sorts, or I'm runing errrands with people. Or we're on our way to watch a movie with someone, or there's some party I feel I need to go to support, or Alessandra's over while we're all working on important things mainly on our computer while we watch some movie. Maybe by now Alessandra and I have read El Libro De Mormon for the day.
7:30 pm - In the middle of all this stuff right above.
8:00 pm - And definitely still early in the night. Always had the goal to go to sleep by 11 or so--at least before midnight, and never making it before midnight! All kinds of important things. Like solving all problems of the universe with Kristin!


So what I should have been doing:
5:30am Wake up; pray, read scriptures.
6:00am Gym
by 7:00am Shower, eat a little somethin and make it out of the house before 8 for sure!
by 8:00am In the office! Doing reasearch.
A bit of a lunch in somewhere...
But maybe by 6:00pm Come home. Do other commitments stuff. Grading, Institute Class, Choir, Chatting/Being Social with people. Dinner.
10:00pm Start getting ready for bed, picking clothes and stuff
by 10:30-11:00pm-ish Praying, Journaling, and ASLEEP!


Hah. Well that's a little shot out to Vanessa. And it was fun to try using her blog. ;)

Hope you enjoyed laughing at my ridiculousness. I cracked myself up at least. Wish me luck this week (and pray for me of course), I'm gonna be giving my Seminar this Friday after all. But I think it's gonna be alright. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

Eh, not as bad as I thought it would be.

So, in case you didn't see on facebook, I ended up canceling my Seminar this week because I definitely couldn't get enough research done to be ready. Whoops. But I did get some work done, & a fairly decent start on what to do for this research stuff. Sigh. I still don't really like it. But I am almost always in the lab by myself so I just listen to my ipod and sing along which is kind of fun. & I suppose that overall it isn't too horrible.

I can do this! That's my new attitude. Last week I did get up to my office before 7:00 in the morning 2 days. It was crazy. I stayed there in the office/lab for 11 hours on Monday. I was pretty proud of myself! I haven't had those kind of hours since my first year here and I worked on homework tons, everything was new & Kelsey & I had fun working on classes.

It's still going to be tons of work, discussing all the details with Dr.'s Hyslop & Pringle helped tons but I also saw how much I have to do to make the whole thing legit. It may get interesting. I love that Dr. Pringle seems so excited to help me figure how to do everything, and that he's going to let me work on his lab bench! That really is a big deal because he's a super clean freak & doesn't want anyone to touch his stuff & definitely won't let anyone touch it who he doesn't like. So he doesn't hate me! Whew.

Well I was going to get to sleep much earlier, but I got my clean towels and socks folded and put away. I washed 33 pairs of socks yesterday--& that's not nearly all my socks! So I also organized my sock drawer for the first time since Omaha I think. Haha. It was funny. But then Alessandra & a couple other people were over. We watched a Vegietale, & we looked at some pictures. Ya know, the really important stuff.

Love to you all! I hope I can get a bunch of NMR stuff figured out in the next couple of days. Wish me luck!

Hmm. Hair

So I've been growing my hair out for a few years now, and I love it. I was sure that it was gonna drive me crazy! But, huh. Now I don't wanna cut it. See my intent is to donate it--and I know I will, but I'm loving having it long so much. I haven't had it nearly this long since high school/halfway through Freshman year.
Randomly my friend Bryn started telling me that I ought to cut it. Sigh. It seems everytime that I look at pictures when my hair was short I don't like it. So I looked through my pictures and I found a few of my short hair that I feel explain my dislike for the shortness. I don't think it's very flattering to my face, and I apparently was never very satisfied with how it was styled or something because it was never perfect. It's way more noticeable when it is short. I used to love getting it cut though.
Lemme know what you think.

You can totally see the highlights I had here too. These old classes were definitely not the best for me either...

Maybe I just have a weird expression in this picture, but see how it just doesn't do much for my face.
It just makes my hair look a lot thinner too. Weird. And highlights here!
Another weird expression, but I still don't like it really...
And I think I spent a fair amount of time on my hair this time because this is at a wedding reception, but I dunno, it just doesn't look so good, my hair...
Another wedding reception, and huh, I don't think it looks so good.
Weird expression before I blow out some birthday candles...I look like I'm about to sneeze!

Ahh, so whattaya think?

Oh Boy!

So it's April now. Crazy!! How'd that happen, and who thought that was okay?! But April did bring Conference (as usual) and Easter! I love Easter for a few reasons. First of all I love Easter because it is an extra reminder of what our Savior Jesus Christ has done for us. I love the account we have of His resurrection in the Book of Mormon. It is such a powerful 2nd witness to the Bible! It was glorious having Conference on Easter this year. The prophets and apostles bore powerful testimony of His Atonement. It's been great. I wish I didn't have to go "back to the real world."

Another reason I love Easter is: Jelly beans, Cadbury mini and creme eggs.

And Robin's eggs. Sigh. They're so great. Look at what you can do with the blue ones! :

This is what we did with them at Stake Dances growing up. I don't remember who did it with me but I remember going up to boys and asking them if they wanted a kiss. Lol. I look ridiculous! Love it. We decided today that I ought to have told them my lips were cold and would they like to warm them up. That would've been a little too out of control. I did kiss a post-it note with the blue to mail to Tanner. Haha.

Anyhow, I have not been very good about the whole school thing this semester (well or the last year and a half really, let's be honest)! Ugh. I have a Seminar this Friday. :( Poo. I have LOTS to do this week. I'm quarantining myself to school for everyday! Sigh. Wish me luck and pray for me, I'll need all the help I can get!

Where's Waldo?

We played Where's Waldo last Saturday at the tiny Greeley Mall. It worked out pretty well, there seemed to be way more people than usual--and some of them dressed mildly suspiciously. At least suspicious enough that it took effort to find out if it was one of our Waldos. We had 8. A member of our Bishopric and his whole family and a few others. Diane won hands down for the best costume, she wasn't even found by some who she was right next to because her costume was legit! Andy was close, it felt like it took us forever to find him.

It was Alessandra, Amanda, Kristin and me on our team. We found everyone, and we found them first. We had somewhere around half an hour to spare even! It's because we're awesome. ;)

I like Jamie's deal with making collages to make uploading pictures easier on this blasted thing. So here's a picture of them all.

After we won, Amanda wanted to see what she'd look like as a blonde--doesn't she look FABulous?!? Hehe. (Oh, she's my pianist, and she's also AMAZing!!!)

I just think this picture of my punching Andy's fat belly is hilarious! (Okay, it was a pillow, Andy's not fat.) I think I look pretty funny, but Andy's face is amazing!

Oh, it was fun as always, and we didn't even get kicked out of the mall! Go us! Ah, still one of my favorite activity to ever do!!! Sigh.

Baby Mikey!

It was so worth it making the 5 hour trek to Grand Junction to get to have this cuddle time:

Jamie & I loved this picture because he looks like a baby doll here. Hah.

Jamie handed him to be just before I left, and he just went right to sleep on me, SOOO cute!!

I'm SO happy!!
Look at the lines on his face from sleeping on my shirt. We decided we needed to get him awake for feeding...not too quickly
He face planted, and curled up all fetus like in my lap, it was great, Jamie & I laughed. SOOO adorable!
Jamie likes to let him sun bathe. He's yawning (clearly).
His big beautiful blue eyes!
He's smiling!
This is the hat I made for him before I ever met him. I'm so glad it fit!
He had the hiccups here, and he shortly did go to sleep, and we slept together after this picture.
This is the face he made when he found out I had to leave! I made a similar face--though maybe mine had more tears shed!

Oh I hope I can go again sometime soon. It was too fun. And I loved vacuuming, doing laundry, and putting dishes away for someone else! Now my own on the other hand...hah...

Free Museum Day

We like to catch the musuems and whatnot in Denver on their Free Days because we're cheap (I mean who has money anyway right?). The first Saturday of every month is Free for the Denver Art Museum. I had Alessandra and Ilyssa in my car (I looked up directions for the wrong city to pick up Ashley--yes I'm lame!). So we got there well before the other group. So I got to finally go to the Denver Public Library that everyone raves about. (It's been closed every other day I've been down there and tried.


We never made it out of the children's book section! I did read some libros en espanol. Well attempt to, it was fun. I could have spent another 4 hours in the children's section alone and been perfectly happy.

There was this giant checkerboard (okay, really just a bit oversized) that they played on. We found out that Alessandra's not so great at Checkers. Hah.Here I'm reading a book about Punctuation taking a day off to Alessandra, I thought it was going to be a cute book, but it was not quite as good as I'd hoped.

I only have a couple pictures from the musem. One is this one. They had a little part where you could dress up in cowboy so of course we had to take pictures (though I'm not so sure we were even supposed to, oh well?).

The little girl in the back just came running in and practically pushed Alessandra off the horse. The girl's dad didn't even try to tell her to wait her turn. It was kinda weird. Though he may have just thought we were too old to want to ride a horse. As you can see, the hats were even small for Sanra's head. Hah.

Those are basically all the pictures I took. I know, pretty disappointing. But it's partly due to my camera being a bit out of commission. Gol, I need to buy a new one. Oh yeah, Best Buy in Greeley has the worst selection ever! Someday...

Michelle, I'm not Josie Grossie anymore either!

We had a dance last night that was a Spring dance and we were told to wear bright colors. Hey, you tell me that I can dress up--and I'm gonna do it, and I probably won't do it halfway!

So of course I pulled out a bunch of the bright colored clothes I own, and tried to put on as many different colors as I could!

My friend Bryn (who I'm 'dancing' with in this picture) had these ridiculous glasses to complete his ensem, and I was wearing them right then. They make me look even more awful! Wow. But they made me think of Josie Grossie from Never Been Kissed. And I thought of an old blog post of Michelle's. Figured I'd give her a shot out.

This is most of of who dressed up, crazy, huh?
And then another one...we're crazy...hah.
It was pretty fun needless to expound upon... :)

Retreatness

So we had our Institute Retreat up at the YMCA in Estes Park. Sam and his roommate, Rhett Garrett, came out from Orem to join us. It was a great time! We were a bit crazy, of course.

Megan french braided my hair friday and I was going to just take them out to leave my hair a little crimpy on Saturday so I didn't have to wash it. I forgot jaw clips to hold the braids up while I showered. So I improvised with crochet hooks! ;)

Andy's just so tall, and funny. Lol.
Pretty cute of Sam, Sanra and me as we were gathering for our huge group picture.
I tried to count, it was over 100! Crazy! (Looks like I accidentally uploaded one of the blurry ones instead of the clear, whoops.)
Look! Alessandra's taller than Sam!!
A little photo shoot with Sam, this one's pretty cute.
Hah, I'm threatening to lick his face here.
I'm clearly disgusted at the thought of Sam licking my face...hah!
One of the group games thingies was walking with these boards. Our team was WAY good, we smoked the other team. Amanda was awesome at leading and Josh was a good caller from the back.
I did get some grading done in the car.
Yay, it was great to have Sam here, it just was way too short! Poo. At least he lives much closer now. And the Retreat was good. We also played Family Feud and Human-sized Institute Clue but I didn't get any pictures of that. Oh, we also did a 'get-everyone-through-the-spider-web-through-a-different-hole' team building type thing. I thought I uploaded one of those pictures, but guess I missed it. Whoops. Oh well. We had a good time. As always.