If anyone still checks this blog I owe you an apology- I am really bad at updating this blog! It seems like Joe and I have been running non-stop since we got married and if you don't believe me then just consider the fact that we have been married less than three years and have moved 7 times since we got married. Crazy much?! We certainly keep on the go so you will have to forgive me for my lack of blogging. On April 1st we finished student teaching! YEAH!!!!!!! That means that we are officially graduated! That is such a weird thought! I can't believe that we are actually done with college, am I really old enough for that? I mean Joe is but he's four years older than me! I actually completed college in only 4 years unlike the average college student but I knew exactly what I wanted to do before I went to college and so I did it! I have known for years that I was supposed to get a degree in Elementary Education and I am glad that I have done it! I worked so hard but I made it! Not to say that Joe hasn't worked hard too but I'm the one that writes the blog so I write what I know. I just have to toot my own horn here for a minute- I graduated college with a cumulative GPA of 3.874. Some of you may be thinking but Lesley is smart and it comes easily to her- well then you have no clue what a hard worker I am. I had to work harder than you can know, unless you are Joe because he lived with me for three of the four years of college.

We are now at the Playmill Theatre for the summer and it is going to be quite the summer as always! Today was the first day of rehearsals and I always forget how fast paced we work here. Things are still fairly tame for me at the moment during rehearsals but once we start into run throughs and mics it will be pretty crazy for me. This year we get our own apartment so we are practically right next to theatre which will be very convenient but we because it is west yellowstone afterall we have spent quite a bit of time cleaning before we can move in- i think we should be able to move in for reals tomorrow.

Sorry for the scatterbrained not very exciting update but I guess it's better than nothing right?

WE'RE DONE!

Crazy right but it's true! Joe and I are both college graduates! Although we are still waiting on our diplomas! Let's just hope none of our teachers change their minds!!!!

Howdy Folks That Still Check This Blog =)

April 1st! so close! yes normally teachers dread that day because let's face it april fools day with a bunch of kids is not something a normal person would look foreward too but april 1st is our last day of student teaching! woot! woot! I know kind of silly because I haven't even updated this blog all the way and now we are at the end of another journey! We moved to Vegas at the beginnning of January to complete our student teaching and finish up our college career! Joe has been teaching a math class and a theatre class and i have been teaching a fifth grade class. it has been a crazy adventure for us both but we are near the end and grateful for the experience. We have definitely learned alot, things we would do and things we would do differently but mostly right now I am grateful that it is almost done! I know I know live in the moment but right now my moment is spent stressing and thinking about lots of other things and so I am anxious for this moment to be over! If I could get paid for stressing we would be billionaires.... alas tis not so and so we just keep trudging along.

And most of all... Today we had our Work Sample review.....

drum roll please..............

Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh! (thank you emperor's new groove!)

in case you didn't catch that we both passed with flying colors.... i will have to refrain from putting the video of how loopy Joe is tonight though. He was up really late last night finishing his...

We have a week and a half of student teaching left then we will head to the burg for the teacher job fair there and hopefully impress some people!!!

and just because.... here is a random picture of us to prove that we are still alive =)

This above picture proves that joe is still barely alive. Just kidding, although he did manage to break a ceramic plate by trying to make homemade potato chips in the microwave. (keep in mind that this plate survived all of my college roommates plus marriage for 2 1/2 yrs. ) Yeah, he's got skills =)

This picture was taken about a month and a half ago- hence the jacket, i don't need it anymore =)

Updates Part 2

So on Friday December 17th we had convocation and then Saturday morning we had commencement in the BYU-Idaho center. Well I've already written about that so why bring it up again well just to give the rest of this a little context (plus I didn't mention that that week was also finals and we packed up our entire apartment in boxes so that when we loaded up the Uhaul later it would be easier)- That same Saturday that we had convocation we drove down to Utah got on a plane and wound up in California. How did we just wind up in California you ask? A stinkin awesome summer job where we worked our butts off (although not literally unfortunately) that's how! This summer (as most of you probably know) we had the opportunity to work at the Playmill Theatre in West Yellowstone MT. Well Beauty and the Beast ended up being a huge hit and so they added a few extra shows of it (which ended up included one day where we did the show three times and it is entirely possible that I may have gone a little ..... well a lot loopy that day). Anyways the point is that it was a successful summer and because we had such amazing employers who loved us all so much they flew us to California and took us to Disneyland for a couple of days before Christmas. Don't believe, neither did we but they really truly did! So if you've ever heard good things about Roger and Heidi Merrill it's true they rock.

So I wrote too many words right there for an appropriate blog post and thus- here are some pictures..... Oh yeah, did I mention that while we were there Anaheim California got the most rain that it has had in 50 years? Oh that. That is why we look the way we do, no we didn't go on a wet ride, that we just how much it was raining but the catch phrase that the group developed (out of an "i'm here and we're going to have fun gosh darn it!" attitude) was "Magic doesn't get wet"

After Disneyland we went back to Utah for Christmas and had fun celebrating Christmas Eve with my extended family at Aunt Allison's house and then Christmas day at Grandma Cole's. I love my family so much and I love being with them, even if it does end up being a crazy time (how could it not be with the Sampson nut factory present?) I love my family!

ok.... now i just have to.......... "Hello, Crazy nut speaking how may I help you?" .... hey Chris, the banana is for you...... ok I combined two stories but if that didn't make you laugh there is either something wrong with you...... or you are not a Sampson kid and you have no clue what i just wrote about!

*I started writing this blog post a long time ago and am just now getting back to it because the fifth graders shared too many germs with me and I am spending my Saturday sick in bed but what I was going to say is that: I am especially grateful now for the opportunity that we had to spend Christmas time with my family. We stayed with my grandparents and parents and it was so much fun to spend time with them all. On February 13, 2011 My amazing Grandpa Cole passed away and I will be forever grateful for the memories that I have of him and his love.

The day after Christmas we had arranged to have a "Christmas" with the Bidwell family since we were down in SLC and Benny and Katie live there too, so John and Trudy came down. Well the night before we were texting figuring out when we were meeting, etc. and Benny joked about meeting at the hospital because Joe was going to be an uncle (p.s. Katie was 8 months pregnant). Well we thought no way! She's got almost another month to go! Well wouldn't you know it the next morning she had baby Samantha and we ended up meeting at the hospital! She's a cutie though so I'll forgive her for coming early (and Katie will celebrate! although a dec. 26th birthday does complicate things in the future...).

-4........ why should that be an important number to know? Well that's how cold it was the day that Joe and I moved out of our apartment in Rexburg, mind you it had warmed up from the night before when we had been cleaning. Our front door was a metal fire code door, and it was one of the things that we were supposed to clean for the white glove checkout before they release you (or any of your deposit). So the night before we left I was trying to clean the door. You would think that this would be a simple feat given the fact that I had a Mr. Clean magic eraser. Well in that crazy, absurd, ridiculous, painfully cold Rexburg weather that was not the case. The moment the cleaner hit the door it instantainiously froze and formed frozen droplets of cleaning solution on the door. After trying a few other things i finally decided that there was only one solution. Mission terminated. The next day during our checkout the manager wanted me to try cleaning it again. I showed her what happened and we both gave up. It should be noted that they were incredibly impressed with the super clean bathroom- Joe managed to completely get rid of the toilet ring that always manages to be present in a rental. Ta Da!

still not up to date but closer!

My Brain Says......

You know those books or children's toys that go:

The cow says mooo.

The dog says ruff.

The chicken says cluck cluck.

The duck says quack.

The cat says meow.

The giraffe doesn't really make a noise.

The camel spits. (ok i just added that one in there for laughs, but if anyone ever comes across a children's book with that in there buy it! because that is stinkin hilarious!)

Well right now my brain says a lot of different things. Most often this is how my book reads.

My stomach says feed me real food.

My fingers say stop using me as white board erasers.

My knees say "You have knee problems woman! You chose the wrong profession!" (They have an attitude)

My feet say cute shoes are not worth wearing on most teaching days.

My stress induced cravings say give me chocolate.

My brain says ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! (to the infinite power)

p.s. When did 5th graders become such tweenagers?!?!

Updates part 1

So I know that an update has been a long time coming and so here we go! ( I feel like I should say off to the races or something because it has been so long since I updated y'all it is going to be a race trying to remember everything)

Last semester was our last semester on BYU-Idaho campus. It was a wild wild ride and we stayed incredibly busy. Joe also decided that he wanted to be in one more show on

campus especially because one of his favorite people to work with (Roger Merrill) was directed Arsenic and Old Lace which is one of those plays that was on his list of wanting to be in. He was cast as Johnathon and had a blast doing it. (Even if washing out the hair color from his hair every night did make for a ruined (just for Robyn- it's ruint!) shower curtain and a perpetually dirty tub!)

I kept plenty busy taking 17 credits 6 of which were my senior practicum class where I taught in a third grade classroom in Rigby two days a week. I had a wonderful time at a great school with a great co-operating teacher and great kids (if I could have stayed I might have). It was such a blast and as I always suspected I love teaching third grade! It was very funny teaching in a predominantly mormon area though because once I taught a lesson about welcoming people to your community when they move there. I had the students create a list of things that they would do to welcome them. Among the things listed were "my bishop will welcome them into the ward" and "my mom will bring them bread"! Oh how kids make me laugh!

Because we knew that this semester would be bringing us to Las Vegas for student teaching and we were unsure what our lives had in store for us after that we decided to walk for graduation at the end of the fall semester. Basically we get to hold on to our diploma covers a little bit longer than everyone else. I know a lot of people that if they don't walk before they student teach end up never walking and I have worked too hard for that!!! So officially we graduate in April but we have done all of the commencement stuff already. We got to be the first group to have commencement in the new BYU-Idaho center (it is pretty impressive and is about like the conference center just with a few less rows).

p.s. Special thanks Mommy, Papa, Robyn, Esther, and the baby boy in Robyn's tummy for making the special trip to be with us!

I think esther may have been slightly tired at this point what do you think?

Expect more updates later because there is still plenty to tell you about but I have to teach in the morning so nighty night!

so close....

2 1/2 weeks. that's as much as i can think right now