Brain? what's that?!

Just a couple things that prove i have lost my brain and the semester needs to end.

when we came home at one point today someone asked us to jump his car. Joe got back in the car to do so and i asked if he was going over there or if the guy whose car we were jumping was going to come over to our car.... ummmm.. yeah.... only when i got up to our apartment did it click that that didn't make any sense....

we went to the grocery store and as i was getting into the car and Joe was returning the cart i thought to myself " i should have just returned the cart while he was loading the groceries into the car.... wait a minute that doesn't work!

my brain has left me... i still have 4 finals left.... this will be interesting!!!!

just to because i think it's funny

so last week joe lost his work keys and couldn't find them like all week, i think it was saturday where we finally tore the apartment apart looking for them... then what happens? he finally finds them in his pocket... are you kidding me?! i am positive i told him to check his pockets... silly boy! in a week we will be done with classes and just have two days of testing left then we're done for the semester! yeah!!!!! thankfully things are coming to an end... otherwise bad things might happen. just finished my necessary homework for tomorrow so it's time for some sleep =) sleep is a good thing... i love sleep.... actually this will make my family laugh- joe is starting to wonder if there is something wrong with me because i need so much sleep (even though i really don't get very much). i told him that i have always been one to want/ need to sleep alot. i remember when i was sick one time going to bed the night before and waking up the next day when the family was eating dinner... anyways sleep time.... now =)

oh hey guess what fam you remember how the eye drops that the optomitrists give you to dialate your eyes make me sick? we all remember a few years ago... yuck! anyways i went to the optomotrist (reluctantly) and not only did my perscription not change (woo hoo!) BUT guess what exciting thing this doctors office had? a wonderful machine that takes a picture of your retina so they don't have to dialate your eyes!!!! hooray!!!!!! it was a very happy day when i found that out =)
oh and papa i got my hair trimmed again, prepare yourself for me to have very short hair.... i still love you!!!!

CAN'T WAIT TO BE IN ALBUQUERQUE WITH MY FAMILY FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!
......so close yet so far and so much to get done before then.... i would crawl under the covers and hide but that doesn't get me any closer to Christmas in Albuquerque.
p.s. in the last two days it has suddenly gotten extremely cold here and to make it worse i know it is still headed downhill from here.... atleast i can still see patches of the ground between the ice, that is pretty good for this time of year in the winter fortress known as Rexburg....
somehow i will survive.... HOT CHOCOLATE HERE I COME!!!!

sleep?

sleep has become a foreign concept yet a much longed for thing for us the last couple weeks. joe is a full time student and basically working two jobs because he got roped into doing sound for a show and his normal job is master electrician. all of my teachers are suddenly realizing what little time we have left in the semester and trying to catch up by throwing everything on our plates... needless to say we are a couple of very busy sleep deprived people! we will survive.... somehow... right now i am just going to enjoy the lasagna i made (that's right, homemade with mom's spaghetti sauce!)

People of the World

People of the world. Stress for me = weight gain and retention. I am stressed. Not pregnant just stressed and always an emotional person. Not really sure why strangers and even some acquantences feel the need to ask me if I am expecting but no I am stressed and that is the cause of my pudge. I am stressed and being stressed only makes me more stressed. And what may you ask do these questions and implications do for me? Make me more stressed. Consequently no matter what I can manage to do (while keeping in mind that both my husband and I are full time students and do have to eat even when I can't create a 100% healthy meal) the weight stays and creates a pudge that apparently looks to some people like a baby bump. No thank you very much that is not and even if it were (which let me make clear it is not) what do you think gives you the right to ask?! IF i were and wanted to let people know i would! But since I am not pregnant there is nothing to tell other than I am stressed!!!! (which if you know me is nothing new!)
Dear Blog, thank you for letting me rant =) as i sit here writing this i can't help but laughing at it all yet still wondering what goes through some peoples minds to say the things they do...
Have a wonderful day all!

life

So both of us being full time students keeps us pretty busy but add in add in Joe being master electrician for the theatre department and now also doing sound for the upcoming show we have a pretty crazy life! As of this week we are back to eating our dinners out of tuperware- i make it then bring it to joe at the snow so we can eat dinner together. it's an interesting wat to do things but it works for us right now. School is pretty crazy but still going well it's crazy to think that we only have 6 weeks left of school including thanksgiving break! yeah!!!! yet somehow at the same time it feels like an eternity. We registered for classes this last week for next semester and i am going to take english 101 online so that i don't go crazy and bored out of my mind sitting through a class on the basics of how to write.... ummm yeah i know how to do that. but because i haven't taken it yet and they won't waive it i couldn't register for the other english class i need to take since 101 is a prerequisite for it- dumb- anyways i'm pleading with the teacher to just let me take them concurrently, lets cross our fingers that they will let me! If i can get into that class and a cultural diversity class i have to take but is full ( no joke the girl who grew up overseas, went to an international school in thailand and whose graduating class had 38 different nationalities in it has to take a cultural diversity class...) then i will only have two classes left to take after winter semester and then student teaching (one of those two classes is a 6 credit class and the other which is supposed to be taken concurrently is 3 credits so it's not exactly nothing.) I'll still have to work in taking my praxis tests probably end of next semester is what i'm thinking but i don't know. ok so it sounds like alot when i write it all out but it feels like there is finally going to be an end to all this school at some point! We still don't know what we will be doing next summer but we'll let you all know when we have an actual plan. if nothing else pans out i think i will do school. we do know that for thanksgiving we're going to west yellowstone to be with joe's parents and for christmas we're caravaning down to alb. to spend it with my family in our old house- it will be fun to show joe another place that i grew up.
WE love our new ward and have now been called as assistant pack leaders which basically means we help with pack night. We got called two sundays ago and then that wednesday they had us lead all the cheers at pack night which we found out about the night before, it was well interesting. If you know me you know how i like to plan.... i survived. We have also been asked to help the activities committee with the ward Christmas party- we're not actually on the committee but kinda are for this one. Today in our meeting for that we were put in charge of the entertainment for the party. they want it to be fun and funny yet they also want a nativity..... uh... ok yeah sure no problem. well when we got home from church joe and i worked on ideas and i think we have something they might like but we'll have to see, it's a delicate balance. Anyways we'll see!

ib english

oh why oh why can things not go right? so my petition got approved and then the signature got voided because the office that was supposed to substitute it said that i didn't have any ib records at byu-i so i got the registrars office to find my records and then i got the academic advising office to reverse the void and then i went back to the registrar with my petition to get them to do the substitution and what happens? they say that they can't accept the ib credit... uh yeah i know the english department doesn't like ib, wasn't that the point of the petition? so basically the dean who signed my petition approved the decision to substitute ib english for english 250 which is an intro to lit course and give me credit but because the english dept chair has said that their policy is not to accept it all they can do is waive the course for me but i don't get the credit.... dumb. so after discussing it with the manager of the registrar (and everyone else under the sun) i helped him understand the current situation since he has tried to get the english dept to change their decision several times. but this is a course that hasn't really been appealed or presented to them before so he was going to go before the dean and the chair and present the case to them. so we'll see if i can get credit for it or just stick with it being waived and then having to take fluff courses just to get to my credit requirement.... soooo silly.

week in review

Well it's the end of another busy stressful and interesting week. Monday i took a test on law for my sped class and passed the first time! hooray for me! that was a major load off for the rest of the week since it was a proficiency test so i would have had to keep taking it until i got a score the instructor was happy with. tuesday i did some more battle with the english department trying to get my ib english to count for something- any of you who knew me when i went through ib english in high school understand how much work and how hard it was for me, and i'm a good student! needless to say i should get some credit for it but it's been a two year battle with the school so we'll see if this new way of presenting it i came up with will work- we somehow figured out a way to bipass the english department head and go to the dean- we'll see. tuesday was also devo by Elder Oaks, it's always fun for me to hear him speak since i have spoken in the same meeting as him i am also intrigued to see what he is going to talk about. he talked about religous freedom and our constitution and the need to protect it. it was very powerful. wednesday... honestly i can't remember wednesday.... that's probably not a good thing.... ummmm...... nope. still not coming to me. oh wait wednesday joe went down to IF to the social security office and officially made me a bidwell, i sent him with every document they could need since they made such a tizzy last time. i also tried to get my flu shot wednesday since the health center wouldn't give me one when i went before since they were saving them for the health fair. i went right when i got done with class and they were out! i was so mad because they were the ones that had made me wait and they were out! they only ordered 400- for a campus of like 15,000.... i don't see the logic.... but anyways they're not going to order anymore in and apparently pretty much the entire state is out.... slight problem for someone that inevitably catches everything.... we'll see if i survive the semester without missing too much school (which in a 12 week semester missing any time will hurt you big time). thursday... i had just started to warm up to science thanks to my physical science class a while ago and now my science methods class.. thursday changed that.... she had us disect an owl pellet.... goodbye any hope of me liking science again... i got one glove on and determined that i couldn't do it so i took it back off and just tried to look at the ones at my table doing it as little as possible. i managed to not throw up or even have to leave the room- major improvement on 6th grade and the worm... class could not end soon enough, consequently i was quezy the rest of the day. friday was a very interesting day, i became orthopedically impaired for four hours and was wheelchair bound- ok not really but i had to pretend to be for a class. let me just tell you, i have very little upper body strength. it was funny to see how people reacted to me being in a wheel chair and how some people would see me struggling and try not to look at me like that solved the problem. i now have a much greater appreciation for people in wheelchairs... especially on the hill of the byu-idaho campus... i literally could not push myself up the hill joe had to do it, i kept trying and it would take me like 10 minutes to get 5 feet. also the bathrooms... so dumb! so do you know how public restrooms often have a little lip at the door in case of flooding? well in the hinckley building they have that lip and there is no little ramp part to it, just an inch tall obsticle for me to get the wheelchair completely stuck on- bless that girl who got over being scared of helping a complete stranger get into the bathroom because i was stuck and by the end of the four hours had very little upper body strength left, my left arm still feels kinda weird. and then there's saturday.... grocery shopping... you wouldn't think that it would be a painful thing now would you, well it was for me this week. so i know i have gained alot of weight in the last year and i have been working on changing that, joe and i were grocery shopping and had the cart full of veggies i was feeling good about trying to stick to my healthy list of grocery items when we run into someone joe knows and what do they ask looking straight at me and my table muscle? "are you expecting?" i think it was a mixture of not being sure if i had heard her and wondering if someone would actually ask that that made joe and i ask at the same time "what?" and it must have been my shocked face that made her say nevermind and walk away..... ouch.... big time ouch.... no i am not expecting but apparently i look that way, thanks. i know she didn't mean to be rude but, ouch. needless to say i will not be wearing that shirt unless i am expecting and i have a stronger desire to lose weight, yet part of me just wants to crawl into bed and stay there. I now remember something that was said many times in our household growing up... if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all... saturday night joe and i went to the temple which helped make saturday not a complete disaster. today was the primary program in church which was absolutely wonderful, the shy kids as always stole the show. joe and i have also been asked to help out with the ward Christmas party so although it's not a calling we are kinda part of the activity committee for this one- they found out that we are theatre people. so that was my week, joe has had school and work and nothing terribly exciting that i can think of other than having to push me around campus on friday when i just couldn't do it anymore. we love our ward and everyone is so wonderful and inviting- major contrast to last year! we love our apartment and having the extra space, a washer and dryer and not a hallway kitchen! and school is going pretty well as crazy as it is. we went into the academic advising office last week to check that we really are on schedule and figure out where we were out. we explored the option of going to school next summer and student teaching next fall but soon discovered that joe has classes that wouldn't be offered and even when they are they conflict so long story short it would be pointless for joe to go to school next summer. i could still go and then student teach next fall but a local placement is between ashton and pocatello so that would be no fun. so we'll see what we do. i think right now we are thinking to take the summer off and work- we know where we would like to work and have expressed our desire but it isn't up to us so we'll see what happens! sorry no pictures to entertain you all of me struggling in the wheelchair- i wish i had taken some.. oh well!!!

some more summer pics

we are alive... so i've been told =)

well folks it has been a very insane ride these last couple months. our last show of the summer season at the pinecone playhouse was sept. 5th but oh no that was not the end of our adventures there, joe and i played the leads in their september extension show of barefoot in the park. so for the next three weekends of thrusday, friday and saturdays we traveled back and forth from rexburg to perfrom up in west yellowstone at night while going to school during the day. what made us think that we would be just fine opening a show in west yellowstone with limited rehearsals on our first day of school in rexburg i don't know but none the less we did it. opening night was... well we'll just call it a final dress but then we bounced back figured out technical difficulties and spent tons more time on lines and then the show got to be kinda fun. it really is a funny script and it was funny because the roles that joe and i played were so opposite to us in real life. it was a very very crazy and stressful time but we survived! once the shows were over we of course had to buckle down on school which is good that the show ended when it did because it was about time that school got some more attention. school is pretty wild and crazy for me this semester, i am in four methods classes, new testament and a sped class where currently i am studying law... not so much fun and very confusing, oh and next friday i get to spend the day in a wheelchair.... it should be interesting. joe is pretty busy with school too but he doesn't have as much in class time as i do because he is taking one less class and one of his classes is an online class but it still keeps him busy, oh and did i mention that since the beginning of the semester he has been the master electrician on campus for the theatre department? yeah we are just full of free time ;) -full of sarcasm. Joe's birthday was on sept. 8th and so i threw him a birthday party with our friends in rexburg and thanks to the dollar store it was lots of fun... i love the dollar store, it's my friend. i also made him a snickers cake this year instead of just buying one from albertsons because well, i like to bake =) so pretty much that is what we have been up to lately, here's some pictures for your viewing pleasure! ( i can never get pictures to cooperate so here they are in random order)

Primary Teachers

So this summer Joe and I have been called as primary teachers and we teach the 9-11 yr olds. it is quite an adventure and we do our best to keep them entertained and interested in what we are teaching. We only have about 5 local kids but because west yellowstone is such a tourist town our numbers fluctuate alot and we also have some kids that are here for the summer, On july 5th we had 31 kids! Sometimes it's hard to know if the kids are enjoying class or if we are getting through to them at all but one thing i know i learned from my mother is to be an animated teacher and i never even realized it until one week we got a less active girl and her sister to come back for the second week in a row- the sister wasn't even supposed to be in our class but her sister had told her that we were the cool and funny teachers =) that was fun to hear. Last week we also had a mother of one of our students tell us that our lessons were really spiritual which is just so fun to hear. i love to know that these children are able to recognize the spirit and truth that are present when we discuss this gospel and it's been fun to see them grow more and more interested and have more of a desire to know for themselves as the summer has gone on. when we started the summer one of our students asked us if we were christian and now i have seen there testimonies and interest grow and they have such different questions now. It was so fun on SUnday during sharing time when our students raised their hands and knew the answers because they were things that we had taken the time to discuss and answer questions about. i could remember teaching the lesson that had to do with what we were discussing in sharing time and that it was stuff that the kids didn't really know but then to see them on sunday offering such perfect answers was so much fun Joe and I were totally doing the proud and happy primary teacher dance in the back of the room =)
I'm so thankful that we have been given this calling and entrusted with such a great responsibility, it has been wonderful =)

Anniversary :)

Well Saturday the 8th was Joe and my one year anniversary it is pretty crazy to think that we have been married for a year! Saturday we had the melodrama so i spent the day in curls and we had planned to atleast go out to an early dinner before call at one of the nicer restaurants in town but when we got there they weren't even open so we ended up going to the outpost where joe's friend works so most of our meal we spent joking with him, not quite what we had pictured for our anniversary dinner but hey he comped our meal for us =) besides we were together and happy =)
most days it doesn't feel nearly as long as a year that we have been married until i think about everything that we have done in that year:
- a month at playmill
- two semesters of school where we both worked very hard and got ourselves some scholarships
- Joe working as a techy for the theatre department
- Joe being Jimmy in The Rainmaker
- Lesley bringing many meals to Joe in tupperware as a result of the previous two bullets
- Going to Singapore and Thailand (warm happy place :) )
- Auditions for Playmill
- Helping build the PineCone Playhouse
- Rehearsals for the melodrama and chaps
- A summer with us playing the hero and heroine in a melodrama Dirty Work at the Crossroads, and Joe playing Miles Shadwell (who we have decided would be a much funnier character if Joe played him as IRish) and me being the techy for CHAPS!

anyways that is a very abreviated list of some of the things we have done in this past year. I love being married to Joe and i love him very very very very very.... much! He's a really great guy and a wonderful husband and very patient with me and my insanity, thank goodness! It's been an interesting adventure that we've been on this past year but I'm glad that we're going through it together. we still have 19 more shows before our summer is over but it is feeling close to the end then we will go back to rexburg and back to school again. We have already started moving into our apartment in rexburg, we are on the third floor- which i like just not during the moving in process. WE still have our real furniture pieces to move in since we haven't had access to a truck but we will get them done on monday and hopefully we will be able to get sears to move the washer and dryer then too.
I'm working at the box office of the theatre right now so sorry no pics in this update but just know that we are doing pretty good, several pounds heavier than last year and i feel the desperate need for a haircut (which i can't have until after the season is over).
Love you forever and for always Joe =)

pics

well i have recieved some requests for pictures (from robyn) and i know that chris and joyelle will appreciate any update on the blog so this is what y'all are getting for now. our life pretty much consists of work and sleep (not in equal amounts... yeah for sleep!) and this weekend we are going down to utah for gabe's baby blessing and then lagoon with the bidwells on monday. as well as hopefully reclaiming more of my stuff from allison's basement. anyways if you guys want to see pictures of us in costume or of the theatre click on the link below. love y'all lots!
http://www.pineconeplayhouse.com/photos.html
actually i just realized joe and i are only in one of those pictures even though he took the most pictures of me since i'm the heroin but he is partial to his family big surprise! oh well. i will post more pics some day

well we have certainly been a couple of busy bees but thankfully we opened our second show this week so now we have more free time! this summer joe and i are working in west yellowstone at the pincone playhouse. yes we auditioned for playmill but decisions were made by others that left us needing to find other employment and we figured that helping start a theatre from the ground would look alot better on joe's resume (he's going into theatre education) than just being a waiter plus it is more fun and now we finally get to perform together! so this summer we are doing a melodrama in which i play the heroin and joe is the hero and we also have a musical called chaps which joe is in (singing tenor very well i might add and he's a bass!) and i run tech for that... which has been a bit of an adventure for me given the fact that anything i know i have only learned because i ask questions... luckily i haven't had any major catastrophes yet! it's great to be able to perform again, i didn't realize how much i missed it until i got back into it it's fun. i still really miss singing because i don't get to sing like i used to and i really love to sing... alot! the idea of singing any of the italian pieces i used to do is a little crazy to me right now since i know i have let my training slip but i still love to sing pretty much everything! anyways! helping our friends start this theatre has been very interesting but a great experience for us. joe and i helped build the stage, demolish a wall, paint, paint, paint and paint some more as well as lots of other random things but overall it has been a pretty good experience! the role i play in the melodrama is lots of fun but definatly bigger than i have played before and very different! it's fun though and last night we even had an audience member that got a hold of the villian's squirt gun! it was hysterical!!! i'm glad that things seem to be going well and i keep hearing comments like "i'm so glad she's good" from people that didn't know me or really what i have done in my life but trusted me to do what i am just because i am joe's wife. i guess people might have been more calm if they had ever bothered to ask what i have done my whole life... hmmmm sing and act! hee hee =) i just never got paid for it! so this summer that is what we are up to! it's always an adventure in the theatre especially when we are just starting yesterday we were even in a parade for the fourth of july! it was crazy and by the end i was very out of breath from yelling so much and having to run to keep up with the truck while still passing out flyers but it was definatly good advertising! i think my favorite moment from yesterday was when we came across the playmill cast in the parade and joe started singing "oh the pinecone and the playmill can be friends" (to the tune of the farmer and the cowman can be friends from oklahoma which they did at playmill last year)! it was so funny and great! and true! we love the playmill and always will and most of the people working over there this year we know and are friends with (actually mattie smith is working there this summer too!!!) and we just hope that no one harbors any ill feelings towards us for doing what we felt we had to do in the end. tomorrow is a day off so joe and i are going to bozeman to have fun and go shopping!!! yeah!!!! i want a pair or more of jeans that actually fit me and haven't been so worn from walking that they have holes between the legs!!!! hopefully i am victorious! wish me luck!!!

The PineCone Playhouse

Hey all! if you are wondering what we have been up to check out www.pineconeplayhouse.com
we have been really busy with starting up this theatre with friends and now we have opened our first show! check it out!

a brief update

well it's been forever since i updated the blog but here it goes. we are done with the semester which is great. we both did really well but are very glad to be done for the summer. after the semester was over we went to wisconsin and saw my sister robyn and her husband mike and their adorable daughter esther who we hadn't seen yet since she was born while we were in school. it was lots of fun just hanging out together and playing with esther. when we got back we spent a few days in utah with my mom and papa helping get things ready for donald and faith's wedding. now we are up in west yellowstone for the summer. our friends jeff and lisa carter are opening a theatre this summer and we are helping get things started and then we will get to work there this summer. it is going to be called the pinecone playhouse and this summer we will be doing the two musicals chaps and once upon a mattress. it should be lots of fun. it's just an intimate little theatre but it should be a great experience. so pretty much that is what we are up to these days. it's nice that we get to work together and with great people =)

blaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

i am so incredibly ready for school to be over. i am going crazy and everyone, including me is at the end of their ropes... school. need. to. be. done....NOW!
one more week....
one happy note, we finally got our wedding album =)

ode to my brothers and robyn too actually...

so i was in math today and our teacher passed around uncooked spaghetti noodles and told us each to take three. we were then supposed use the spaghetti to explore different options of information to make a triangle sss, sas, etc. and i did.. for a little while then what do i do? why i put the spaghetti between my fingers and make a fist and pretend to be wolverine OF COURSE!!! hee hee hee i guess all of those episodes of x-men that i have seen have sunk in hee hee

we have our closet back!!!

so a few weeks ago our coat closet accidently got locked and we don't have the key for it so we filed out a maintanence form for them to come unlock our closet and they never came so a little while ago we were sitting on the couch wishing we could get something out of the closet and we were so sick of it that we decided to figure out a way to... so then i started thinking about the movie ever after... and if any of you have ever seen that movie you may know where i'm going with this... hee hee (and if you haven't you totally should go rent it!) so we went and got the hammer and we took the pins out of the door hinges and managed to pull the door off! hee hee hee! so we took the door completely off unlocked it and put it back on =) hee hee hee we were very proud of our ingenuity =) so if any of you were wondering, yes it actually does work =)

we shall forever be known as the people who opened a door =) hee hee hee

hooray! we figured out employment for the summer!!!

Roller Coaster

Well well well. what an interesting life we live! Life has been a very uncomfortable roller coaster these last few weeks... anyone that knows me knows that generally i hate rollercoasters that go upside down and the one we have been riding won't stop doing that!!! It turns out that our plans for the summer have drastically changed. We will not be working for Playmill theatre afterall (not our choice.. we've decided to blame the economy) but we are planning on living in West Yellowstone this summer anyways. John and Trudy have been generous enough to let us live in their cabin this summer which means that we will be saving alot of money on rent so it just makes more sense than anything else. We're not entirely sure what we're going to be doing but we do atleast have one significant prospect that we are going to further explore. We're going to go up tonight and then walk around and talk to people and fill out some work applications tomorrow so that we can try to beat people in getting a job so that we can get Sunday's and Donald's wedding off.
We're both staying ridiculously busy with school... i really have no clue how we manage to do what we do but we are definatly being blessed because if it was just left to us we would be failing right now. School has been and continues to be really intense. We had midterms a couple weeks ago and now we are at the point where we have about a month of school left so teachers are freaking out realizing how much we still have to get done and just pilling it all on us. One thing that has really started to bug me is teachers not being clear and blaiming it on us! Like for one of my classes today no one could figure out where we were supposed to find half of our homework because on the syllabus the teacher had put the wrong textbook so we all spent forever trying to find it in that textbook and never succeded and then she said in class that we should have just known...uh HOW? seriously... very frustrating. And we usually try and clarify the assignment the class before because teachers aren't clear but we didn't have class on wednesday because she was sick... does anyone else think that it's unfair that when a teacher is sick they can just cancel class but if we are sick then we end up in major trouble and half of your teachers won't let you make stuff up so you just have to go to class anyways?... and teachers really should remember that when they tell you that you can meet with them on friday if you're teaching on monday then they can't get after you for not meeting with them on thursday.... BLAH!!!!!!! goodness me life is crazy and stressful..
Well we are pretty much just always super busy, the theatre building on campus has become our dinning room most nights but we are grateful that Joe has a job working for the theatre department and the play is coming along really well, it's crazy to think they open in a couple weeks but he'll be wonderful =)

wowsa life is crazy!!!

alot has happened in our little world since i last posted and i don't even know where to start. Last sunday was Joe and my 6 month anniversary and it was fun to think about the time that we have been married. it has been a crazy rollercoaster but wonderful and we look foreward to many many more together =) eternity in fact =) Joe's been keeping busy with school, work and the play he's in. As for me i've been keeping plenty busy with school and trying to keep our heads at least partially attached. We've started into the midterm world and it seems to cause insanity... I'm starting to enjoy my early field class more (i go to a 1st grade class twice a week) and on monday i team taught a lesson on poetry- i felt kinda bad after the lesson was over because i realized i kinda took over more of the lesson because the other college student i was teaching with wasn't really that with it and when a classroom of first graders are staring at you you can't just stand there not doing anything. Saturday was valentines day and my wonderful husband got me dove dark chocolate promises (the heart shaped ones) and 6 roses for the 6 months we've been married and 123 daisies (my favorite flower)... isn't he so sweet?! =) Saturday was mostly an interesting day for us. We had Playmill auditions and call backs and so most of the day was spent with that. It was an interesting day and i can't really think of any other way to decribe it right now. We're not entirely sure what our plans are but when we do make any decisions we'll let people know. Life has been pretty crazy for us and we feel like it's all a bit of a whirlwind but we'll make it through it all somehow!

Here are some pics from our way super awesome ablsolutly we're the coolest chinese new year party we had at the end of Jan. and the flowers Joe got me for Valentines day

first date

A year ago today was Joe and my first date together... wow.. it is really crazy for me to think about because it seems like so long ago because of everything that we have been through in that time =) I'm so blessed to have Joe in my life and it's interesting to think back to before we were dating and it really is like night and day of how much better things seem to be for me. I remember going back to dreary miserable rexburg after Christmas break last year and just being miserable and not understanding why on earth i was there and being extremly frustrated because i had had confirmation that i was supposed to be but i just couldn't figure it out. on top of all of that i ended up being really sick for about the first three weeks i was back.

Joe and i actually met at a ward FHE activity for those of you who don't know the story, he and his friend Jake had a tradition of going to a movie after FHE every week and they saw my roommates and I and invited us to join them so a couple of us did- it wasn't a date i paid for myself and actually thought Joe was kind weird... which he is but now i know him and love him for it =) Not surprisingly nothing happened between us then but Jake started dating one of my roommates. A couple weeks later Joe had a solo in ward choir and they happened to be singing my favorite hymn "O My Father". He has an amazing voice which i wasn't really expecting out of him and being a music lover i tend to take notice of such things so i leaned over to my roommate and said he had a good voice- she immediately jumped on that and decided that she and Jake were going to set up Joe and I. so they all planned throughout sunday school and then i suppose during priesthood Jake convinced Joe to ask me out. After church Jake brought my roommate home and then Joe came over and asked me what was doing the next night (he was so cute and shy... it definatly worked in his favor) and i said FHE... imagine that... FHE at a mormon school!!! hee hee then he asked if i was doing anything after FHE and i said no so he invited me to join him and becca and jake to play some wii and watch a movie. and thus came about our first date and then mommy and papa's fears hee hee... i'm sure when i have kids going on dates and in relationships my parents will just remind them of what i did to them but they just need to remember that i will always be their little princess (#1!).
I'm so grateful to have Joe in my life... =)

random pics from christmas break

Life is Crazy

Hello all!
So i am sitting here going crazy from doing all my homework and still not being done and we don't have tv and Joe is at rehearsal so what do i do? remember that quite a while ago i started a blog so why not actually start using it?! here is the general update on our lives
Joe and I are both going to school full time right now. Alot of you seem to be confused about what Joe is doing in school so let me clarify- Joe is a theatre education major with a math education minor which means when he graduates he should be qualified to teach both theatre (which encompases speech as well) and math. I am going into elementary education. Right now we are both on schedule to student teach winter 2011 but since student teaching is a very fulltime thing and it would be hard to get placement together that is likely to change. Joe loves theatre and he is pretty much the theatre department's slave (or so i think anyways!). He was fortunate to get his job with the theatre department again this semester where he does lighting for shows (it's more complicated than i just made it sound- just know that he is awesome =) ). He also is in a play this semester (tonight is actually their first rehearsal). Auditions were last week and Joe was cast as the part of Jimmy in "The Rainmaker" which i think should be a really fun character for him to get to play. It is also a wonderful opportunity for Joe to get to work with his Dad who is the director (and this is his last play at BYU-I). It's a fairly small cast so that should be nice for him too- you actually get to know people better that way which tends to improve performance.
I'm going crazy even though it doesn't seem like i should be as busy as Joe it still feels like I am most days. School is just really crazy for me- apparently sophmore year is supposed to be the hardest for elementary education majors so hopefully once i get past this things will get better. Some of my teachers i am struggling with figuring out what they want or expect of me but i am doing my best. One of my classes this semester I go out to a first grade class in St. Anthony twice a week which has been rather interesting so far. I've only been a couple times so I'm hoping things get better, right now I will stick with describing it as interesting...
Feb. 14th is a saturday this year in case any of you are wondering and it will be our first valentines day together as an actual couple- last year we weren't exactly sure what we were... although Joe did give me fudge =) And it is also President's Day weekend. Great how that worked out isn't it?! Well we hope that all of you guys have a wonderful Valentines day because we will be auditioning for the Playmill Theatre that day. For some absurd reason that is the day they chose to hold auditions.... still don't see why. We are really hoping that we both are put in the cast (and hopefully Joe on staff as well). It would be a great opportunity, alot of work but also hopefully alot of fun. I think joe doesn't even really think about auditioning anymore because he is pretty much a sure in but I am still as terrified of auditions as ever so wish me luck! well i suppose that is a general update on us right now and i should get back to trying to figure our what in the world my math methods teacher wanted me to do...