Larson Cabin 7/10

Just found these in our files and realized I never posted them!  We had such an awesome trip to the Larson cabin this year.  It was so gorgeous up there and it was the most relaxing trip we've had in a lonnng time.

Joel played Frisbee golf with Stu and Brianna and their kids and me and my mom hiked along with them for fun. 

See if you can spot Joel in the above left pic.

I was having fun checking out all the flora.  This is a wild pea!  How cute is that!  There were tons of gorgeous wild flowers.

It was so fun being able to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa and have them all to ourselves for a couple days!  Grandma even taught me some new crochet stiches.

We had fun fishing and enjoying the beautiful views

Joel's catch

Grandpa and I at the Ferrin Reservoir circa 1989

Grandpa and I at the Ferrin Resevoir 2010

Joel's Yearly Tradition

I have made it an official tradition to drive up the canyon alone early in the season and play in the snow/take winter pictures. I'm kind of thinking about making it a semi-annual tradition because it's so awesome!

Last year I went up about a month earlier and hiked up Brighton ski resort to get some good pictures. I thought it couldn't get any better because it was kind of snowing and foggy. But this year I think I did better. It was the perfect amount of snow (about a foot) and it was lightly snowing the whole time. I love how silent it is in the snow, especially up the canyon. I went on a walk on a pathway and didn't see anyone the whole time. I just enjoyed the pristine nature of Utah in the winter!

I'm sure this seems a little weird for some of you, but I seriously LOVE the snow! It's one of my favorite things ever. So anyway, here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip. I hope you enjoy them as much as me (I'm sure you won't!)

This one looked like Narnia to me, so I made it Narnia!

new{/old} music thursday, because I don't want to wait till monday

#1 pumps me up. gets my nose to the grindstone. photoshop theme song. it will be worth it.
#2 cause every girl needs some blues. good for getin' your swagger on. thanks sarah b :).
#3 sparkly. love and planets.
#4 dreamy. the good kind of sad song.

July 4th, and 5th

*I've had this post saved as a "draft" for a couple months now, it's probably about time I post it.

I turned 25 this year. I told someone I was going through a quarter life crisis and they replied with something like "well yeah, if you live to be 100, which you probably won't so you're already past that". Umm thanks......After the reality of that sunk in I was fine lol.

We went boating in the morning with Lindsay, Brian, Brayden, Camryn, and Madi. It was lots of fun!
It was nice and sunny. Look at those sweet cheeks!
Brayden had fun driving the boat.
I tried wakeboarding for the first time.... yep....didn't go so well. check out my face in the second one. I was trying reeeelly hard to get up haha. (ok, for the record, I got up on my 1st try water skiing and rocked it. I also stink at snowboarding but picked up skiing really fast. I think it's the whole being propelled sideways thing that throws me off.)
Joel on the other hand did awesome (of course, right? he's a Smith)
Aww the birthday girl and her honey.
After boating we got Cafe Rio to go and ate it at the park. Yum! We are trying to be thrifty, but since I was playing the birthday card we also got Frozen Yogurt.

Joel already posted about the 4th, but I wanted to add these two pics that he didn't post.

an un-laborus weekend

Oh man, I have been neglecting the blog for quite some time. I'm so glad Joel keeps it up for me when I slack. I haven't been in the mood to blog lately and haven't really had the time, but tonight I have the blogging bug so I thought I'd better hurry up and post something!
Last weekend was A-mazing. It was so relaxing, so fun, and so nice to be able to spend so much time with our families. It was exactly what we needed!
Saturday we went boating with Lindsay and Brian in the morning, Joel did awesome wakeboarding and is really picking it up quickly. The weather was perfect (except for some choppy water). After boating we went to the Heaps house and had a little bar-b-q/water fun.

Josie and Camryn had fun playing in the buckets of water.

and Hayden and Brayden liked playing with the hoses and kicking the squirting beach ball thing, and i was having so much fun snapping all these water shots. i've been wanting to take pictures in this exact same setting for quite some time (awesome back lit lighting, cute kids, water spraying, dark trees in the back) ...it was all just workin out so nicely

i love these two pics, can't figure out why its HUGE, i'll have to work on it tomorrow.
my dad and mark shot off the water rocket
my mom filled up water balloons and we all had fun playing with them, and...
launching them with the sling shot thing until Joel and Brian found out that we almost hit someones car that lived up the street....hehe.... whoops? (they were trying to launch them into the park across the walking path.)
we went in side after that haha.


On Sunday, Joel and I had a great day at church and then decided to just chill at home. i made lasagna and then we just hung out and watched a movie, it was great!


Monday we woke up and went to breakfast at McDonalds with the Heaps and Hansens then drove over to the Smiths to get ready for the annual Labor Day Hike. It's a Smith tradition that I've been able to participate in for a few years now, we love it!
we went to Mary's lake this year. There was only about half of the lake left, but it was still pretty and we enjoyed our lunch at the top.

{mad props to Joel for taking these next few pics. i like it when my man uses the camera :) }
look at Drew's juice box face :)
the kids had fun feeding their chips to grateful little animals
and the rest of us soaked in some rays. it was pretty "brisk" but the sun warmed us up.
the classic mary's lake pic. we missed Jon and Melissa and their two cute kids this year....hopefully they will be here next year (? :)

the rest of the day we hung out at the Smith's house. we napped and watched some football, then had a dinner out in the middle of the lawn. it totally reminded me of this picture from one of my favorite books growing up ("oh what a busy day"), all the food and people spread out along a big long table. It was awesome! but of course I didn't take any pictures......baahhh!
last weekend was so fun, but this weekend has been much different; work, editing, photoshoot, preparing a lesson, costco run....definitely not as fun as barbecues and hikes, but it's okay too.

PS!!! Joel had his first observation last week during student teaching and he totally rocked it! I'm so proud :) he is going to be an awesome teacher!
I totally wish I could be in one of his classes and watch him teach, I think it would be fun haha.
PPS bigger pics on our family page! about time!

High school teacher. Who knew?

Well I have another high school to add to my resume. First I went to Bingham, then I graduated from Riverton, now I am teaching at Alta!

As much as my family doesn't like the idea, I am a Hawk! Actually, not officially because I'm just student teaching, and who knows where I'll be teaching after that, but I do feel a small allegiance to the East side school already. After all, I live in the Alta boundaries, I will be going to the school for the next 4 months (with an Alta parking sticker on my car), I will be teaching over 100 Alta students, getting to know them pretty well I imagine, etc.

So yes, I have started my student teaching. I will be teaching 4 classes until December. Then I graduate!!! (from college not high school). I am really excited to teach and get to know the students in my classes. I haven't done much teaching yet because the teacher I'm working with is starting the classes and teaching the first week or so. But I have been helping out a little here and there. I'm teaching Finance, Entrepreneurship, and 2 Computer Tech classes.

It's awesome to talk to students and help them feel comfortable in class. I love that part of teaching. I want to help students enjoy school and be comfortable there. I'm confident that as I am honest and real with them and as I show that I care about them, they will be able to trust me and allow me to help them. I think it's awesome to think about helping a lot of young people in such a difficult time in life when they have a lot of important decisions.

One student that has been saying 'hi' to me in class and in the halls, came up to me at the end of class today and started asking me questions about a career he has been thinking about going into (He heard me mention that my brother, Jon, works for the government in DC and he had been thinking about doing that). We talked for 5 minutes or so. It made me really excited to be a good influence to students like him!

I'm sure I will have a lot of experiences to share soon. So this is the first post of many about my teaching experience. I hope I don't make our blog too lame by talking about school all the time!



I'll try to use pictures as much as I can. Like these pics that I made Kalli take of me yesterday. I just wanted a good picture that I could use for my profile pictures. I was kind of demanding of Kalli's artistic ability. I wanted a picture that was "cool, artistic, that makes me look mature, professional, and like a teacher." I think that's about what I said. I'm sure Kalli was a little bugged by me continually saying "that's not quite it", but she always does awesome. She's the best, I love you Kalli!!

Here are some good ones: