The thing is.

This year I became one of those people, you know the ones that don't update their blog constantly or don't have pretty pictures of things on Instagram, and the ones that definitely don't update Facebook on even a weekly basis (Pinterest on the other hand....). And you know what? I'm ok it. I used to be so consumed with this idea of things that I needed to do to show that I was living the married dream. Post pictures on Instagram of all my fabulous recipes and have the wittiest Facebook statuses, but not anymore. I would rather send a photo to my mom or my sister-in-laws and have real genuine interaction rather than hoping for a few likes on social media. I do, however, feel the need to reflect on the wonderful year 2013 was. I loved being twenty-two and all the fabulous things that came with that. I student taught and discovered that teaching was really what I wanted to do. Despite choosing a career path with certainty right out of high school teaching made me really nervous, but I loved it and I'm still loving it. I graduated and had a job right out of college.  Not many people can say that, and I feel extremely blessed. Being a first year teacher is like building an airplane while trying to fly it. It's not easy and it's busy, but it is so gratifyingly perfect. I come home exhausted, but it is the best kind of exhausted. There were losses this year too, both in death and diseases stripping away what our loved ones used to be. I don't know how I can ever get over the mystery of our bodies, their ability to heal or to not heal. It truly astounds me. With everything that this year was and wasn't I'm grateful. As we get older we begin to understand more about why people make decisions they do and I hope in many ways that helps us to better understand and love them. We understand our parents did their best and our conversations turn from "I'm never going to be like them" to "I hope I can do half as well as them". We are all navigating this life as best we can, we make mistakes, but mistakes are all about the learning. With each passing year I hope to become better, to understand more, and to judge less. Here's to twenty three. Let's make it a good one.

Mid-July what?

I'll skip past all the boring things I was supposed to have done for my classroom and curriculum by now and just tell you that I have not been very productive this summer. I blame my motivation sucking job and this awesome July cold that I can't seem to kick. It's fun. Onwards....
So about a month ago when we first moved into our new apartment Mark was doing dishes while I was doing something unproductive I'm sure and I hear the most awful noise. Turns out he let the disposal eat up one of my spoons. I was quite unhappy. We vowed to never let it happen again and threw the mangled spoon away. Well a few weeks went by without incident and then it happened again. So I was down two spoons. I was extremely unhappy and told husband he owed me a new silverware set. Today the hubs came home from an interview and had me come out to the kitchen (I was still in bed because of the cold) and guess what? I came out to flowers and a silverware set, boy sure knows how to make my heart swoon.

Today was also a really great day because I did my first load of laundry post-marriage without leaving my house. Oh man, I have been missing out on life. Amy and Jake decided to up and move to NC without us and so they gave us their washer and dryer. I may have promised Mark if he went through all of the work to move the washer and dryer into our house I would do all the laundry for the rest of forever. I woke up this morning with the mindset that if I accomplished nothing else a load of laundry would be done. And it was! This is going to last about two weeks folks. Oh motivation where art thou?
In other news this girl came home and I'm really happy, because I missed her loads and loads. Well this is a random posting....here's to hopefully feeling better soon.

Oh...hey.

Thanks for still checking back at my neglected corner of the internet. This summer has been kind of hard. The craziness of May made June a breath of fresh air, but it quickly turned stagnant as I fell into a routine of working my 40 hours at a job I greatly dislike and being frustrated that I can't just be teaching already. If nothing else this summer will teach me patience. I just hate this weird inbetween time where I am working at being a teacher, but not really being paid to be one. I just put in my two weeks notice and I've never been so excited to be done with a job in my life. Yippee!
Now for the exciting stuff!
Last week my sister-in-law Cheryl (or Cherelle as the fitting room attendant decided. How complicated can you make her name?) came in from Chicago and so my mother-in-law took all the girls to Park City for an overnight shopping trip. It was a blast and I was able to add to my "teacher" wardrobe. We got Cafe Rio and went swimming and I got girl time! When does that happen?
We also went climbing up Rock Canyon in Provo on Friday. Amy and Jake described it aptly as a "ball tingler". We did a multipitch up two walls to get to Ed and Terry wall which is what we really came up there to climb. Getting down was the rough part. We had to climb down and around the second pitch to a pair of chains in order to repel down. Have I mentioned that I HATE repelling? As I was clutching my slings (which were clipped into the chains) and standing on a 3 inch ledge I began to freak out. Jake noticed, and decided to belay me down in order to save my sanity. The next ledge was about 25-30 feet and I felt much better. I even repelled down that one. Boo-ya!
Even though my hands are actually falling apart...peeling skin EVERYWHERE. I'm dying to go climbing again. Mark and I have been going up Logan Canyon and it has been great. Oh, and pictures!

First....check out this handsome man of mine! He looks pretty legit does he not? 

 Second, the view from our little perch below Ed and Terry Wall. If you look closely you can see Amy's helmet....sometimes when you're really high up you whip out your iPhone for just as long as it takes to get a quick shot off, and then you put it away and realize later that you didn't aim well.