A Week to be Thankful!

This morning I get to work and what do I find? A window in my gym has been busted out! Glass all over the stairs and even on the floor below. Sad that people have to break windows like that. I wonder if someone was trying to get into the gym for some reason and thought, "hey, let me break a window that is about 20-30 feet off the ground. That will definitely make it easier to get in." Whatever, stupid people do stupid things.

This past week was a great one. I went home for Thanksgiving and had a blast. I was able to show Leland around the EP. The silence after the question "What do you think about EP?" said a thousand words. Not that impressed with the whole thing. It was fun going to the shoppes at the outlet and seeing friends. Ke'Flauta was great as usual and all my old soccer friends are still amazing. I love seeing those girls and catching up on life and everything in between. We always have good time when we are together, and the time flies by! We met for breakfast at 8:30am and didn't leave VI until 11:30am. What a great time we had!

Thanksgiving day was busy, but very fun. I woke up early to run in the Turkey Trot and found out that I have cut two minutes from my 5K time since July, sweetness! Then I went home to relax for a little but then it was on to the parade fro clean-up. Every year that I am in EP I go help with the clean-up afterwards. It's become a little tradition for my fam. Mom stays home and cooks while Dad and I go clean-up. This year Leland was there to help so it was a little easier. After the clean-up we went back to my parents, I made the mashed potatoes and masked sweet potatoes and it was time to eat the yumminess that is the Thanksgiving Feast! The only problem this year was the turkey. Poor turkey, my mom took it out of the freezer Tuesday night and it was still frozen Thursday morning. Mom waited as long as possible before cooking it but it was still a little frozen when she had to put it in the oven so she left it in for and extra 30 minutes. She didn't have to do that because the turkey would have been just fine with normal timing. Lots of gravy and good stuff mixed with the turkey and you couldn't even tell. Afterwards it was the traditional falling asleep during the football games. Later in the evening Mom wanted to go to the outlet shoppes for the 10pm openings and deals. That was a major bust. All the stores that I normally go to had lines around the buildings and I wasn't waiting for those lines to save an extra 10%. We left pretty quickly. All in all it was a great Thanksgiving day.

Friday was Great Grandma Aurea's 102nd birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY G-G MA! LOVE YOU!

Saturday we went to White Sands, NM to take my bridal portraits. It was a cloudy evening, but it made fro great lighting and beautiful contrast. We were so lucky too. After the pics were finished we went into Alamogordo, NM for dinner and as we were getting ready to leave to go back home the heavens opened and it was pouring rain! We left the sands just in time because with the timing of everything if we had stayed for even five minutes more my dress would have been ruined from the rain and sand. Perfect timing! Saturday was also Daddio's birthday so a "Happy Birthday Shoutout is in order", HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

It turned out to be a wonderful week full of fun activities and Leland getting to know my family a little better. He must really love me because in order to meet my brother and spend a week with my family and still want to marry me, it would have to be love.

Today in Sacrament meeting the topic was "gratitude". What else would it be the Sunday before Thanksgiving? One of the speakers really got me thinking. He said, "Everyday we pray and say that we are thankful for the day, but what about the day are we thankful for?" That got me to thinking, what about today am I thankful for? Today I am thankful for friends who love and support me and want me to be happy. I thankful for a loving family that is going to drive me crazy over the next five weeks, but then will be okay after that. I am thankful for the gospel and the restoration. I am thankful for inspired leaders. I am thankful for personal revelation. I am thankful for the Savior and the sacrifice that he made for me. I am thankful for a loving fiance that will support me in whatever decisions I make and my goals in life. I am thankful for Temples and the opportunity to be sealed to my family for eternity. I am thankful for technology because I don't think I could do math without it. I am thankful for a roof over my head and food in my cupboards. I am thankful for so many things today there is not enough time to write them all down. I guess, most importantly, I am thankful for a loving Heavenly Father who has blessed me so much recently. I am thankful!

I am also in the Christmas mood now. The past couple of years I have not been all that into Christmas. It just hasn't felt like Christmas but after going to the mall yesterday and walking around a Christmas store looking for my mom's Christmas gift and seeing all the nativities, I am in the mood. I needed the reminder of the nativities about what the season is all about. It's not about the gifts or the sales, or the materialism. It's about the birth of Christ and I hope I will be able to remember that as the stress of the season comes upon me. It is my goal to remember what the time is really about and not worry about the other stuff that the world thinks the season about. This year is really turning out to be a great one! One more month and the year will end. Another year down, another year of experience and wisdom.

I have never been so happy for it to be a school break! I am only hours away from Thanksgiving break. I think I am looking forward to this break more than even the kids. I don't even care that I have to go to some meetings on Monday. I am just happy to not worry about anything for a week, especially crazy, disresepctful kiddos. All I have to worry about is dying trying to run in altitude again, making some yummylicious desserts and potatoes for Thanksgiving, and not eating too much so I can fit into my dress. I soooo need this break right now. This semester has been the highest of high stress for me. I am grateful I have someone that is helping comfort me and take away the stress if only for a couple of hours a day. When I get back I know there will be no rest but at least I can prepare a little better for it instead of being thrown straight into it.
I am so happy to be able to spend some time with my family doing the traditional things. Me waking up early on Thanksgiving morning to run in the Turkey Trot. Mom cooking in the kitchen starting Wednesday and going all the way through meal time. Dad and me going to do the parade clean-up. Going back home and cooking frantically until te potatoes and desserts are done. Trying to find spaces on the table for all the food that Mom and I have made. Getting a plate full of everything and sitting on the couch to eat. Oh, and how can I forget the traditional "I am thankful for..." This year two things will be added to the mix. One, midnight shopping at the outlet mall and two, Leland trying to keep up with it all. It's not really going to be a restful week, but it will be fun! And i will get to see all my friends from college that I miss dearly. We have all started lives of our own all over the world and it's nice that we are able to still get together every now and then to update our going ons and enjoy in one another's friendship.
My thoughts of gratitude are starting. Thanksgiving has become the overlooked holiday between Halloween and Christmas, but I will write about that another time. Only seven more hours until freedom from crazy!

The fundraiser, like predicted, was a bust. The "pie the teacher" was a huge success. The homeroom that was running the event made almost $300! Congrats to that homeroom on all of their hard work and dedication to getting this thing done. I had a great time getting pied then having cool whip and chocolate syrup literally all over me for the rest of the night. I have heard there are tons of videos out there right now of me and my collegues getting pied. Good times, good times. Cool whip and chocoate syrup are not, repeat, not good for the eyes. Boy does it sting when that stuff hits the eye!

My dress should be arriving sometime today!! Exactly six more weeks! Still a little scary, a lot crazy, and majorly (sp?) exciting!

Tonight is the big fundraiser I have been stressing about for the past couple of months. I am a tad worried about everything though. It's the middle of the month, parents haven't been paid yet, and we are charging outrageous prices for everything. I think the only thing that will be successful will be the "Pie the Teacher" fundraiser. I have already had kids tell me they have bought ten tickets for the chance to throw a pie at me. That will be fun, but I think they should do it at the very end of the night to keep people there for the entire night. After the pie in the face people are leaving. Some kids have said they are only staying for the pie and they really don't care about anything else. At least they will be participating in a school event that hopefully they will be able to see what that participation brings about. I am not a fan of fundraisers, but I will support them if I can. If it's for a good cause or something noble then I have no problem with giving a bit of money. I always feel bad asking others for money so I am not a good fundraiser. I would rather do the planning then hide behind the scenes. I think I am like that for alot of stuff. I enjoy planning stuff and doing all the behind-the-scenes work. I don't need the limelight. I don't need to be out in front of everyone taking alll the attention. I hate extra attention. I like the background. I like to watch as people have fun at whatever event is planned. We shall see how everything works out tonight. Just keep thinking, "It's going to be okay. All will be fine."

OKC April 19, 1995

In my last post I referred to the Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. I was in seventh grade when the bombing happened on April 19, 1995. Early that morning a man parked a moving van full of explosives outside the building and walked away. A few minutes later, BOOM! The explosives had detonated and the entire front of the building was gone. Paper was flying everywhere, people were panicking looking for friends and loved ones, others were suffering from major injuries while others were dying. The toughest part to handle was that there was a daycare in the building and children, little children, were killed and seriously injured. The most gripping picture is a fireman carrying a little child in his arms. The child lay lifeless in the fireman's arms, socks on his little feet and it looked as though the child did not have any clothes on. I can't even imagine what it must have been like for the fireman to have to carry a little body like that away from a smoldering building.

I remember going to the state soccer tournament a few months later and going to the site of the blast. The building was still in it's blown-up glory. The surrounding buildings had shrapnel all over them and the whole area was fenced off. People had started writing on the other buildings inspiring messages, teddy bears were placed up against the fences for the lil ones that were killed and people were leaving notes in the fence holes. it was a sombering experience. No matter what was going on in your life at that time you stopped to think about those who were still having to deal with the fact that there was no longer a child, wife, husband, brother, sister, mom, dad etc. in their life when they had been there so long. Now OKC has rebuilt. A few years later they were able to unveil the memorial at a park across the street from the original building with little school-type chairs for all the victims. It is a beautiful memorial that I would like to go back and see sometime in the future.

I don't think I will ever forget where I was that day when it happened. I was sitting in Mrs. Limes PE class. Since we did not have TVs in the gym none of us knew what happened. As my friends and I walked back into the main part of the building we noticed that something was different with everyone. As we walked the hallways to class we noticed that the TVs were on. We couldn't really get a good glimpse until we walked into our classes where we found pictures of the building, almost gone, and people going all over the place. The blast was so huge that people an hour away could feel the ground shake. Classes the rest of the day were spent talking about the whole ordeal. School was not happening. It became a lesson that even in Oklahoma, the place we thought was so boring, is a target for anything. I still remember sitting in Mr. Lane's World Geography class talking about what should be done to the person/persons responsible for this heinous act. He said the guy should be made to hang upside down from the building by his toes on a string then little sticks of dynamite should be placed between his fingers and toes and lit. I thought that was a little extreme, but now that I know what it was all about I would have to agree with him. It's been almost 15 years and I can still remember the events of that day. It's amazing what one even in time can bring to your remembrance. I hadn't thought about the OKC bombing since the attacks in 9-11 and this one shooting at Ft. Hood brought it all back.

I debated about writing this, but figured it would be something that my posterity can learn about. I have been remembering some of the weirdest things recently and they are all great things to remember. I really should write more of them down because I never know when these memories will stop. New goal: WRITE IT DOWN WHEN I REMEMBER IT!

Really Ft. Hood Psyco Gunman? Really?!

This just boggles my mind. A psychotic gunman pulls out two hand guns at a processing center at Ft. Hood yesterday and begins shooting up the place. Why? Because the idiot didn't want to go to Afghanistan. Killing his own people, his own soldiers because he doesn't want to do what he signed up to do. The gunman is a psychiatrist. According to his cousin he joined the military out of high school, so about 20 yrs ago, and has been in ever since. The psycho's last post was Walter Reed Army Hospital where he counseled soldiers who were returning from Iraq. Something happened there and he received failing scores on his evals and was transferred to Ft Hood about six months ago. According to many news outlets this guy had recently converted to Islam and didn't want to go to over there and kill his brother. This guy was so indoctrinated with radical Islam that he equated a soldier jumping on a grenade to save his fellow men to a suicide bomber. What?! You have got to be kidding me! Equating a person trying to save lives to a person who is trying to kill everyone around him (innocent women and children and other men) and get some type of eternal gain is rediculous! I am so outraged by this guy. I have never had such harsh feeling towards anyone in my life before. Sure there were times when I wanted my brother to be taken off the face of the earth, but what loving sister wouldn't want that for her older, psycho brother? What's really not fair (and I felt the same way after the Oklahoma City bombing) is that this chicken is still alive. He is in stable condition at a hospital when thirteen families have just lost a loved one at his expense and twenty nine other families are having to deal with loved ones in the hospital from gun shot wounds. I just hope there aren't anymore families that have to go through the grieving process any time soon. All because this guy didn't want to go to Afghanistan. I think this guy really wanted to die so he could be a martyr for his cause. What logical person would walk into a military processing center thinking he/she would come out unscathed. I think he wanted to go in there and start shooting up the place so he would get shot and die. The hardest thing to wrap around is that we have been in these wars for almost nine years now, the guy has been in the military for about 20 years, at some point in time within the last nine years he had to have had the opportunity to re-up his contract or just get out. If he was so opposed to what was going on why did he not get out? Why did he decide to stay in the military? In a time of war any soldier, no matter what position is held, can be deployed to a war area. You cannot tell me he did not understand this. If he didn't then I am worried about the rest of the mental health care professionals and if they know that they can be deployed at any time. We are still waiting for the whole story to be pieced together so we know exactly what happened, but what's out there is making this guy look like a terrorist. I am labeling this ordeal as a terrorist attack, I am. If he was really a "good American" as his cousin described him then he would have understood his duty as a soldier and not gone completely postal. If he was a Muslim his whole life and he truly understood what those teaching entail then he would never have done this. I worl with people that are Muslim. I have had deep discussions with them about religion and what they believe. The person who follows the teachings of Islam are not vengeful people, they are loving and service oriented thinking about others before themselves. Some of the teachings are a little off-kiltered, but that's because they don't have the full truth. I hope this crazy, psycho, chicken of a human being gets the justice he deserves. I hope he has to face every single member of every single family that he harmed. I also hope those families show him forgiveness. It's going to be hard, but it can be done. It's mind boggling that a place you lived and socialized and drove around when you were younger has gone through this terrible act. I still have friends whose families work and live on Ft. Hood. It's scary not knowing what is happening and it's scary to think that someone I know could have been harmed. So far all of my friends and their families are okay, no one was harmed. One of the safest places in the world was atacked viciously. You go to a military installation and there is a feeling of safety that you really can't describe. Now, I will always have a suspisious thought that at any moment someone might come through the doors and go on a rampage. Wickedness in the world is growing. Safety is hard to come by these days. My heart and prayers go out to all those affected by this senseless act of violence. May you be comforted and know that your loved ones did not die in vain. May you be blessed.

FOOD FIGHT!!!!!

Last night was the last of the very first volleyball season at SST for the middle school girls. We went out losing, but having a blast! I am so proud of my girls for all of their hard wrok this season. I look forward to what we will have next year. I was reminded of a great story when I got back to school with a couple of my girls last night. I don't remember what brought it up, but it is such a funny story I had to share it with my two girls that were left waiting for their parents. Here it is:

My freshman year of college we went to Massachusetts and New Hampshire to play UMASS and Univ of New Hampshire. We were on the road to New Hamp the morning following our loss to UMASS. We had three vans and the first van was being driven by our head coach and the other two by one of our assistant coaches and our graduate assistant. Let the games begin! All of a sudden, out of nowhere, this peach comes flying at our windshield. BTW we were in the middle of the highway, going 60 mph with traffic around us. Then the van in front of us starts slowing down and moving over to the other lane. We had no idea what was going on so our driver sped up a little to take the second van spot. As we were passing the side door of the other van flies open and we are attacked with smashed bananas and grapes. The fight was on! We pulled ahead and had a couple of people eating some fruit so we could have ammunition. Banana peels, peaches and grapes were flying all over the highway. At one point in a time a truck that was following us got a banana peel to the windshield. It was quite funny, dangerous, but funny. In the lead van, the poor girls in there were looking back and giggling then getting in trouble for doing so. The coach was in a bad mood so everyone else had to be in a bad mood. One of the lead van girls calls another player in one of our vans and tells her what is happening in their van and wants to know what is going on with us. Once the word was out, the game was on. Too bad the lead van didn't get to enjoy in the ride of a lifetime. We get into New Hamp and are on our way to the hotel in whatever little city we were in and the middle van decides to get the lead van involved. We see someone hang out of the passenger window of the van with a bag of grapes in her hand. Before we know it the grapes are on top of the lead van. The van takes off and the bag starts to fall but it was caught by the luggage rack, whew! At the next stop we see the bag slide forward. We didn't know until we got out of the van that the grapes were falling out of the bag over the windshield. As the grapes roll, the girls in the van laugh the driver is confused and has no idea what is going on. We get to our destination and the girls get out of the lead van half smiling and laughing and half with scared looks on their faces. Did we get into any trouble? No, no trouble, just dirty looks from the coach and applause from our teammates. Oooooh, what a memory! I look back on that and think about how dangerous it was, but so glad I have a food fight story to tell. Awesomeness!
I should finish grading the tests that have taken me a week to grade so I can get all my grades in by noon today. Hope this brought a smile to your face and have a wonderful day!