Spring has finally sprung!

And I'm hoping it's here to stay!!!

We've been dying of constant cold all throughout April. [As seems to be the case with alot of people throughout the country...]

This week has been the first week of true warmth. It's been so exciting to not have to bring a jacket to school!!! Yes, we are going to school this summer. We are trying to plow through to the end! It's in sight.

Since the warmth of the new season is so delightful, I thought I would share some other things with you that I find absolutely delightful right now.

My favorite sandals.

Bright, painted toenails.

Dandelions.

I remember when I was younger and I thought that dandelions were the most beautiful flower. My friends and I would pick bouquets at recess and give them to each other. Then we'd pick out all the petals and write on each other's hands and arms with the yellow from it. It was some good times.

Now I just enjoy picking them and singing, "mama had a baby and her HEAD popped off!" and pop its top off! That's fun too.

I also enjoy these "popcorn" trees that seem to be all over Utah. I never truly noticed them until this year. They are so fun to see because it actually looks like popcorn when you drive by.

I love our beautiful WSU campus as well. I'm sure there are prettier campuses, but I sure think ours is pretty! I love the fountain and our bell tower. Despite the constant construction that seems to plague our campus lately, it's awesome.

I feel like you all ought to know that I ate some of an apple all by myself today. I was proud because it didn't take any coaxing from anyone else. Yay! I had to document it for all to see.
And now you can all see my beautiful pre-ready face & hair. :)

I hope you are all able to find the little things to enjoy about life right now. It can be hard sometimes, but there are always good things around us.

I am thinking about and praying for Steve's brother who is in the hospital right now. I hope he continues to improve. We love you guys!

OKLAHOMA!

As you all may have heard, I just finished a community production of Oklahoma at the Terrace Plaza Playhouse. I was trying to satisfy my hankering to perform, and the auditions were at the perfect time, and it all just worked out! :) I was so excited to be back on stage!!!

I was a little bit nervous because all the practices and all the shows would stretch through an entire semester of school. I was just worried I would not have time or energy to do all my homework. But I learned alot about time management and got everything done on time. And I actually did a lot less procrastinating! Awww, I'm growing up!

Anyway, I wanted to show a few pictures from backstage with my friends. I obviously couldn't post all the pictures I wanted to, so I tried to just get a few group pictures up.

This is Erik, my show husband.

Here are a bunch of the girls, and Erik [who is doing the SPLITS right there, you just can't see it!]. The girl right next to me is one of our Laurie's in the show [the lead girl]. They were double cast.

Here are actually, alot of the same girls, and a few boys.

And again!

I had such a blast and made so many new friends!!! I am so glad I made the decision to do this show! Steve and I sacrificed quite a few date nights for me to do this, but we just improvised with date days. :) This was truly the lift I needed to satisfy my fix. I may have to get into another show at some point. Maybe in a year ish when they do Joseph!

This cast was OK!!!

In the meantime...

While you have all been diligently working your blogs and documenting your fun times, we have been going INSAAAANE!!!!

But since we are on a week break from school, I thought I would catch you up on our lives -- even though I won't have any pictures up yet.

School started in January and we didn't waste any time getting busy with everything else in our lives. I auditioned for the musical Oklahoma right before Christmas break. I made the cast and I was suuuuper excited since I had not been in a show for a few years! And rehearsals started the same day as school started. However, that same day, my body decided it would get strep throat for the first time ever! I cannot convey how much I HATE missing school/rehearsals -- especially when it's the first week of them! But I had to miss any entire week of both. I guess it was pretty important so I didn't get everyone else sick around me.

But we immediately got a TON of homework and alot of stuff to get started on for school. Both of us were taking a Research Methods class, and we knew it was going to be a tough semester. Luckily I got to do my research project/paper with a group, but Steve had to do it all by his lonesome...with a teacher that did not explain anything to him. But we ended up being pretty successful in our projects and finishing up well.

Oklahoma rehearsals were Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays for almost 2 months. It was a little stressful with homework, tests, and papers. Not to mention our only having one car. Somehow we made it work and I always got to rehearsal and Steve always got home from work. Then when the shows started, it was from February 25th through April 9th, every Monday, Friday, and Saturday. A VERY long run for a community show, but it was enjoyable!!! I made so many new friends and loved dancing and singing all the time. I had almost forgotten how much I really enjoyed being on stage. We also got a TON of great reviews from people saying it was a really great show -- even though it was Oklahoma. So I'd say we did a great job.

Sadly, we did not play the Wii much -- even though we were so excited we had it! At most we'd play for an hour a month. But that's not to say it wasn't tempting. We used alot of self control in making ourselves do our homework instead of playing games.

As the semester wore on, our schedules and projects became more and more insane. We definitely learned alot about time management in the last few months. We had so many papers and projects to finish just within a few weeks. SOMEHOW we did it all. And I was lucky that my show ended the week before finals week. We're waiting for our final grades from a couple other classes, but so far we've seen that we pulled out some A-'s where we were expecting a little lower of a grade. We're satisfied so far! :)

We have been enjoying our week-long break before the summer semester starts. May 2nd -- here we come! Full force again! And we've been lucky in getting financial aid to pay for almost all of our semester's expenses.

Steve also celebrated his birthday this past March. We just had a couple friends over to play our Wii and break it in. I got him (us) a down pillow and an apple corer! The second one is an inside joke about our unhealthy eating. :) So hopefully now we'll eat more apples, right???

I hope you've had a good beginning of 2011!

Wii !!!!!!

We got home from our vacation on New Year's Eve. So I immediately made Steve open his Christmas present. I'd been keeping this secret for about a month and it was killing me! It was especially hard since we played the Wii alot while we were in Indiana. I kept having to say things like, "Well maybe we can get a Wii from our tax return" or "When we're rich we'll get a Wii."

But little did he know that I had a little extra saved up by a twist of fate. And I got him a Wii!!! For the first time since we've been married, I actually surprised him with a gift! It. was. AWESOME!!! And needless to say, he was really excited about it!

I also have a video of him opening the gift and being really surprised, but videos won't work. So, we'll see what happens.

Wiiiiiiiiiiii !!!!!!!!!

Treasures

One of the best parts about the holidays is getting to be with friends and family a whole lot!!!

We got to see aunts and cousins! (And now Jenny had her baby and I can't wait until we can meet HIM!)

Of course, we had a meeting of friends at Monical's! That was a heap of fun! The 3 Amigos!

And friend! [hehe]

Then when we were leaving Monical's another night, we randomly saw THESE GUYS!!! That was awesome!

The night before we left we played Just Dance and then decided to take some fun pictures!

(I LOVE that sweet little grin with the slightly Asian looking eyes! Wait... a blonde Asian??)

The boy that amazes me with how he's grown. I think it's just because he was the first nephew, and I remember back in the day when he was just born. And that's weird, like whoa.

The girl that gave me a FANTASTIC manicure with sparkly nail polish.

The boy that cracked us up with his jumping bean feet when we plays video games. Sooo silly!

Oh, family!

And this is the nerd brother. [teehee] I think he was trying out our new camera and the front screen thing where you can look at yourself.

JUST DANCE!

One of the presents that my nieces and nephews got for Christmas was Just Dance 2. So, of course, we had to try it out!!!

Look at those SKILLZZZ!!!

I was amazed by some of the scores these kids were getting on this game! It was nuts!

Even Grandpa got in on some of the fun of dancing. But he was cheating a little bit...


And then we did some boxing. That game tires you out after just one round!

So we had lots of fun playing the Wii!

I tried to put one of the videos of us dancing on here. But it just freezes the whole thing and won't even let me post it. So I'll have to try again another time.

Indy Christmas!

Well, we were lucky and able to get enough work off to go to Indiana for Christmas this year. I'll probably be the last trip for a while because we're planning on going to school during the summers until we are totally done!

So here we are on Christmas morning. We look so glamorous!

I got the family picture calendar! I was excited because last year mine got lost in the mail! I've enjoyed using it so far this year! :)

Steven and Dad got pillow ties from the family. Sooo funny!!! And Steve just wore it to church last week and was showing it off to all his friends.

Here is just me and mom being friends. Woo!!!

I couldn't decide which cute pictures to put up of all the kids, so I just chose none. But they are in lots of pictures later, so it'll all work out.

P.S. I got a new camera for Christmas! So now I can learn all the cool things it does and make better pictures!! YAY!