Tagged

Four Places I go over & over:
-Golson's
-Home
-Nicole's
-Walmart

Four Places I like to eat:
-Chipotle
-Taco Bell
-Friday's
-Portillos

Four Places I would like to be right now:
-at the pool
-on a beach
-home
-with my family

Four t.v shows:
-One Tree Hill
-America's Got Talent
-30 minute meals
-Army Wives

Three Joys:
-The Gospel
-My hubby
-Monster

Three Fears:
-something bad happening to Dennis
-Monster getting run over by a car
-losing a family member

Three Goals:
-get a teaching job
-adopt
-get a bigger house

Three obsessions:
-chocolate chip cookies
-Dr. pepper
-Twilight

Three surprising facts about me:
-I am a neat freak
-I hate folding laundry
-I want to write a book.

I tag Sarah, Michelle and anyone else who reads this post.

Denial

I almost fell over last night when I realized that in 3 months I will be 24. Last year when someone asked me how old I was I just said 23 without evening thinking or realizing the number but 24 just sticks out as an "oh my" number. Almost a century old. As I look back and reflect on my life, there were a few things I wanted to accomplish by this "scary" age that I am slagging behind on. I wanted to be secure in my profession and be working on having my second child by now. It looks like neither are going to happen and I am o.k with that. God laughs when we make plans, right? I am sure in 6 years I will look back on this post and laugh because the ripe 'ole age of 30 will be much scarier than a meesly 24. Hopefully by then I will have achieved some of my life goals. Here are a few:

• Have a teaching job
• Visit the Bahamas, Hawaii, Ireland and Paris
• Start a family
• Get my Master's Degree
• Become financially secure (we're getting there)
• Buy a big house with a huge yard

I think this is a good start to the next six years of my life.

Guess where I get to go?!?!

Next Thursday, I get to go see LeAnn Rimes in concert at Joe's Bar in Chicago. Shanna won 4 tickets this week and I get to go! I am so excited, this is the first concert I have been too in over 10 years. I have been a big fan of LeAnn for years but have never gotten to see her in concert. I am way excited!

Girls camp 2008

I am back from camp and I had the time of my life. I was on a spiritual high all week long and still am. The entire Presidency was able to go and all of our girls except for 3. We were able to bond and get so much closer. We had 2 girls reactivate themselves and bear their testimonies and 1 non member friend come bare her testimony and wants to be baptised. Our ward has a very special group on YW, very strong and anchored in Christ.
I have many stories to tell but am way to tired to complete my post tonight. My testimony has been stregthened through my young women and I am forever grateful for my opportunity to go to camp this year. I will update with stories and pics later this week as time permits.

Is it really almost August?

Wow, I really don't know where the summer has gone but we have done a good job at being busy. I know I have to catch up on posting pics because I have been really bad at it! So far this month amist all of our long hours at work we have managed to paint our bedroom and bathroom, build shelves for the garage to organize things, cleaned out our office that looked like the black hole, and enjoyed some time with friends. I am getting ready to head of to girls camp next week and I still have a long list of things I still need to do before I leave. I have really enjoyed serving with the leaders in YW, we make a great team. This past week a few of us and our girls were putting together our journals for camp when the girls decided to play some games. One of the games was so funny, I feel out of my chair to lay on the floor and laughed until I cried. Poor Taylor got up and ran into the bathroom just in time! I don't think I have laughed that hard ever!
I learned 2 weeks ago that my mother had a mild heartattack and is working on changing some habits to be more healthy. She has been in and out of the Dr.'s office for testing and such, they are keeping a close eye on her. She goes in for a stress test next Thursday and will find out if she needs to have surgery or not.
Monster turned 1 this month!!!! We added a few more toys to his collection. I want to make him a bday cake but can't find the time to make it yet, maybe after girls camp. He is getting so bug. He has finally learned how to walk down the street like a normal dog, no more pulling or acting stupid.
Dennis continues to be Guardian's #1 man. He has been putting in alot of hours but it's well worth it! That's what you get when you mix summer and pest control. I am still looking for that teaching job for the fall. I don't know what I am going to do if one doesn't come around. I feel like such a loser. I was getting some stuff laminated today and the teacher store and I was walking around looking at all the stuff. I really want to be in my own classroom! That's all for now. I will update after camp.

Cheescake Jello Poke Cake

You will need:
1 box white cake mix
large box of cherry jello
large box of cheesecake instant pudding
tub of cool whip

Bake the cake by directions on box. Let cool for 15 minutes or so, it really doesn't matter. Using the handle part of a wooden spoon, poke holes all over the cake.Set aside.
Boil 2 cups of water, add to jello, stir until dissolved. Pour jello slowly over the cake, making sure it goes into the holes and all over top of cake. I found it easer to pour out of a measurimg cup.

Refrigerate for 3 hours.
After three hours, combine pudding mix with 1 cup milk, gently fold in whip cream and put on top of cake.

Sunday Evening Thought....

Tonight at S.E.D I saw a quote plaque at the Westburg's home that I really liked.

My life is a gift from God....
What I become is my gift to Him.

Just a quick note that I absolutley LOVE my calling in YW. It has made me grow in the Gospel so much and has really strengthened my testimony. I love the families and youth of our ward. I love being a living example to each and every one of them, someone they can look up to and come to when they need something. It is such a tremendous feeling when one of the YW comes to you with a problem they have seeking out your advice. I am floating in calling bliss right now... I can't wait for Girl's Camp next week. It is going to be so much fun :)

Perspective

This past Sunday's lesson in YW was having an Eternal Perspective. We had a great talk with the girls and a wonderful object lesson that simply stated how different our lives are when we have that perspective. We know what we need to do in this life to get to the end. It's sort of like a map that is laid out for us to follow. Yesturday, I learned that my great Aunt had passed from a heart attack and that her husband, my great uncle had open heart surgery and had no idea that that very day he lost his soul mate. How in the world would you tell someone who has just come out of such a major surgery this horrible news?

I've lost many family members in the past few years. I have a large family on both sides but I've never been really close to them. Mainly because my mother never kept in touch with anyone when I was growing up and not having known my father for 14 years of my life their was a whole side of family I had never even met before. My great grandmother whom I was close to when I was younger but grew "to cool" for her when I got older passed away Dec. 2004. This is when I lost the first family member that I was "close" to. I still remember the day that I found out. It was a really bad snowy day and Dennis and I were at Nicoles house and my phone rang. It was my mother balling on the other end. My great gramma had a heart attack and the hospital couldn't do anything to save her. As I hung up the phone and sat on Nicoles bed completely covered in my tears I thought back to the last conversation I had with her just a few days before. I was rushing and I called to tell my grandma something and my great gramma had answered the phone. I said a quick hello to her and then asked to talk to my grandma, forgetting to day I love you to my great gramma. As I laid there crying I felt quilty. Quilty that I never took the time to tell my great gramma how much I loved her or called more than I should have to talk to her or take the time to listen to one of her stories. I vowed that from that day forward I would take the time for each one of my family members, to call more often, send letters more often and visit more than I had in the past. Since then, I have lost a few other family members. Not feeling any better about how distant our relationship was when they passed on. Although my life has been extremly busy that last few years, I still try to make those phone calls to aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins, even my own sisters and try to visit with them as much as I can because I don't want another time to come when I learn that one of them has passed on and I feel quilty because I didn't take the time to let them know how much I cared for and appreciated them.

That said, the following link is to a story that has developed in my area over the last 3 days. A young man who was taking the discussions and attending our youth activites was swimming in the Fox River on Sunday and is now missing. As I learned the news just this morning, my thoughts went back to our lesson on Sunday and to the thought of resentment I had for those family members that I had lost that I was not close to. My thoughts and prayers are with Robbie's family and I pray that he is o.k but I know that God has a plan and Robbie knows too.



http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/1021046,2_1_AU24_RIVER_S1.article

THURSDAY UPDATE:
Robbie's body was found Wednesday 6.5 miles from where he went under. He was found at the Yorkville Dam which is where my 8th grade math teacher and his brother drowned 3 years ago when they were trying to save a canoer that went over the dam and got caught in the current. Last night at Mutual, our Bishop got up and talked to everyone about what had happened. As he talked about it, everyone got teary eyed and he held it together very nicely. He had some very nice things to say, including the fact that we got to know him and introduce him to the gospel. We know the plan of Salvation and we know that one day we will see Robbie again.

Project Organization

Today is the day! We are finally going to clean out and organize our garage. Dennis is going to build us a wall of shelves so we can finally make our garage look decent. Pictures to come soon..

What? I'm ONLY a house wife?

So I have had three days off from any job responsibilites (except Monster) and I am loving it! I have gotten more accomplished in the last 2 days then I have in the last 6 months! My house is clean, kitchen included, I took Monster for a walk for more than 10 minutes,I am working on curtains for the bedroom and I even managed to go get a mani/pedi today with a girlfriend I haven't seen in months because our schedules never clicked! I could really get used to this staying at home thing. Unfortunetly I have to get back to nannydom on Monday but I still have 2 more days to pretend I am ONLY a house wife!

Oh yes... I know I'm brave...

On the crafty list for the summer so far...



making a purse

making curtains for our bedroom ( never dreamed I would ever do this!)

making 2 quilts (for myself.. I know selfish, huh?)

making a baby blanket/quilt for my sister



and more to come I'm sure...........



I can't believe I am doing all of this. I never thought I would be capable of doing such things with a sewing machine. I will post some pictures soon, promise!

Are you serious?

So this morning I took the kids on a bike ride and I received a phone call from my dad informing me that my grandparents house just burned to the ground in the middle of the night. My pregnant sister and her husband were staying the night and my grandma was at work. Needless to say, they are VERY lucky to be alive because they had taken the smoke alarm down when they were doing some stuff and NEVER put it back up! Fortunetly, my gma's dog woke my grandpa up just in time to get everyone out safely before the whole house went up in flames. I am very greatful that no one got hurt but I am sad that it had to happen to my grandparents because they really can't take a toll like this.
They have helped me throughout my life and when I got off the phone the spirit told me that I needed to help them as much as I could. So I called my Relief Society President to get some ideas from her because my problem is that they live 5 hours south and if I got donations of things for them, how would I get them the stuff and then I remembered there is a ward about 25 minutes from their house. How wonderful would it be to have members give such great service to my grandparents. I have constantly struggled with my grandparents accepting my faith and I feel that this tender time would be a great time to show them how loving and generous Latter-day Saints are. I also got some information from the dad of the kids I watch. He does disaster relief around the country and he gave me some contacts that could help with things like temp. housing and such. The thing that stinks if they had a second house about 30 minutes north of them but they sold it about 4 months ago.
If anyone has an ideas on how I could help them from up here or have an donations I could send to them, I would be greatful.

We could all use a little humor... right?

A Glimpse of Nanny-dom

So far this week has been awesome (minus yesturday when Luke threw up in my car!!). I have already had a comment from a friend that I seem much happier and I do have to say I am. I have spent the earlier part of this week at the pool and park with my friends!!! I am so excited at the fact that if my friends are getting together during the day to do stuff, I can actually go with and not have to miss out because I have to be stationed somewhere at work all day. I love being a nanny. It's like being a stay at home mom- atleast I know that when I get to that point, I won't mind being at home with my kids. The kids I watch are the best kids in the world, their parents have done a fine job. I wish I could just do this all the time... but I have to get back to reality in August!

End of May....

My Asiatic lilies bloomed this past week and they are gorgeous. Also, I went horse backing riding for the first time with the YW last Wednesday. It was a lot of fun and I will definitely do it again. One of the families in our ward owns a huge ranch/stable with lots of acreage. My friend Jenny is going to go twice a week to ride and I think I am going to join her a few times. I have 5 more days at Kensington and I am so excited that the end is in sight. I can't wait to start my nanny job and lay out by the pool and be outside all day!

Monster's first road trip / St. Louis / Memorial Day Weekend

This past weekend, we went to visit my family in Southern IL and attend a family reunion in St. Louis. This was Monsters first road trip and he did great. He was excited to meet the rest of the family and my grandma's dog Wesley. We had some crazy hot weather and now we are back home where I heard it is supposed to be like 55....ugh! When is summer going to come back.

Pictures to follow sometime this week when I have the time to download them off of the camera.

I did it!... sorry Jen I mean we did it!

My friend Jen and I ran Downers Grove's Groovin in the Grove this morning! It was a 5k run and I made it in 40 minutes ( I ran the first mile and then my ankle gave out so I jogged/walked the other 2 miles)! Not that bad considering I hardly practiced for it and my asthma was acting up this morning. Time to get training for the next one in a month or so.... maybe I will win??

Let down

So, I come home from work today to find a message on the house phone from the Principal of the school I interviewed at yesturday. My heart starts racing as I begin to listen to it, yes this is it finally. Only to learn that they decided to go with someone internally. He proceeded to tell me that I had an awesome interview and he was very impressed with me and would keep my name if something else popped up but unfortunetly it came down to a numbers thing. So pretty much they voted and I lost. I really don't get this. I have been on both sides before. Working for Batavia school district for 3 years and I don't get hired there and then I land an awesome interview with a year of teaching experience and I still get shot down. This sucks!

My kids

My pride & joy, the reason I get out of bed everyday and spend an hour driving with crazy people. My kids have come such a long way since August and I helped them accomplish so much.

They came to me not able to recognize their letters and now they can write their first and last name, address and many other things. Not being able to recognize numbers, to adding and subtracting. I step back and look at what they CAN do and I am proud to say that I helped them to do that, I took a part in their learning and I helped them succeed! This is the most rewarding part of teaching.

I nailed it!

I had one of the best interviews of my life today. I left with a very good feeling and I will find out the results by Friday. There were 6 other candidates, 5 of which were teaching assistants at the school and 1 outside person. I went into the interview with a lot of advantages over the other people. First, I have had a year of teaching experience already, I have worked with a lot of the curriculum and I came highly recommended by two of the teachers at the school. I have spent a week in prayer and fasting that this will be the school I need to be at.