Thanksgiving

I had a most wonderful Thanksgiving with my sisters in Utah this year. It was fun to do something different, and as much as I like to go home for Thanksgiving, it was actually still nice to spend it with some different family. I spent two weeks with my sister Angela and then Amber and her family came down for the actual Thanksgiving weekend. I love being around my niece and my nephews, even if they are a little crazy:)
We went to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights. I have never seen them before, or I have seen them but I was too young to remember;) It was so cold, especially coming from sunny Vegas...They were absolutely beautiful and I loved everything about it!

My amazingly cute niece! I love seeing her. I lived in Rexburg with them for her first year, so I got used to seeing her, and she got used to seeing me.... Anyways, I was so worried that she would not recognize me and that she would not remember that I was her favorite Aunt:) But, I think she did recognize me. On her first night there she wanted to come to me and after that she warmed up to me really quick!
I also got my hair cut and although it wasn't too much shorter than it was, many people haven't seen my hair this short.....I really like it short, although some people like it a little longer!
Overall, I had a wonderful thanksgiving and I am happy that I was able to spend it with my wonderful family, even if it wasn't the entire family.

Student Teaching....OVER!!!

So I am now officially completely done with college. 100 percent college graduate, 100 percent no more tests, quizes, classrooms....well, that's not entirely true, but I am SO excited:) I finished my student teaching last Friday and I am going to miss my class so much! Here is the present that they gave to me, along with a few other very cool presents presented on my last day.
So they basically took this class picture and then my teacher got this mat and they each wrote a little note to me and signed their name. I love it! I keep looking at it and rereading it. Some of the things that they said were so good and I keep getting sad every time I read it. I really enjoyed my student teaching experience and I really liked my class and cooperating teacher. I learned so many things from this experience, and I think that I am finally one step closer to being a great teacher. I think that it is so interesting what I learned in the classroom seemed to go out the window and I was just in survival mode, trying to get through everything I needed to teach. Which, in all reality, didn't surprise me because we were warned that it might take a year to really get into doing things differently. My teacher that I was with was so supportive and taught me a lot and answered all of my questions. My students were so much fun. I really enjoy the fifth grade, I just felt like there were some things that I was teaching them that weren't necessarily solidified in my own mind (It reminded me of the show Are you Smarter Than a Fifth Grader)
All in all, I found that I love the school district and system in Vegas and I really enjoy the area. I decided to stay in the area for at least a little longer and so I moved into a house with three other girls that are in my singles ward. I will have my own bedroom and share a bathroom. I have applied to be a sub, and interviewed and everything, and I will be seeing in the next week or two whether or not that will work out. I am excited to go into different classrooms and to teach all different students. I will be happy to learn and grow even more by being a substitute teacher. Hopefully I will be able to get a teaching job by next school year. There are a few new elementary schools opening in the district, so I will be seeing if I can find a job at one or something....we'll just have to see:)
I feel like Vegas is the place for me right now, and I am happy to be staying there. I am thankful everyday for the Lord's guidance because I don't know if I ever could have made the decision to stay without His help.

Oh Las Vegas

A little trip to the strip on one of the last weeks of Students Teaching. We went to M&M World, where I bought a cute magnet and key chain, and a walk down the strip in the morning, when you don't have drunk people staggering around:) We also went to the newly opened hard rock cafe. That place was a lot of fun, and their food was pretty good too, if not a little expensive:)

Halloween

The day before Halloween, it was actually the day before Nevada day, we had a Halloween party at school. They have this huge Halloween parade, and with about 900 kids that were not on track break, this was a huge massive caos in lines....The kids costumes were adorable, my favorite was the little kindergartners, they were so cute! There was a little buz lightyear that made me smile! After that, we had a halloween party. I decided that since it was Halloween, I was going to dress up, as a student:) I had my students guessing all day as to what I was dressed up as! I was wearing my Pyro shirt, so they were guessing things like "fireworks salesperson" and such. It was fun....still no one guessed who I actually was:) It was a lot of fun, and I loved my students costumes as well.
Nevada day creates a wonderful day off before Halloween, so I decided to go to Utah! I had so much fun hanging out with my sister Angela and her family. I must admit, though, that the wonderful warmness of Las Vegas was missed:)
Anyways, we went to my nephews school Halloween carnival. That was a lot of fun, I was reminded of my own elementary school days when I had those amazing carnivals:)
We also carved Pumpkins. Angela and I shared this pumpkin and made a super cute face on it.
The next day, we went trick or treating at Macy's, and then we went to visit my grandma. My sister and I decided that we needed to go to the mall, and it was complete madness because of the trick or treating in the mall, although Bath and Body Works is quite nice. We went back home and I helped make some jack-o-lantern grilled cheese sandwiches. We also had potato soup, french bread, and ghost pie:) It was so delicious.
I went out trick-or-treating with the nephews, they looked adorable in their fireman outfits:) They were cute running around and knocking on doors.
I had a lot of fun, I don't think that I have ever done Halloween with little kids before. They are so cute with how excited they get, and even though they don't get a lot of candy, they are fun to be with on such an exciting holiday!

Mr. Magorium/Don't Be Shy

Hoover Dam

The Hoover Dam is this enormous thing built seemingly in the middle of nowhere and very amazing. Just outside of the city of Boulder and along the border of Arizona, it truly is amazing. I had a lot of fun just walking on top and looking out on the rocks. I didn't actually go on any tours or go into the visitors center because it cost a lot of money, and we really didn't want to spend our money on it.... Monica had a little too much fun making dam jokes such as, "This dam escalator is small" or "This dam wind is going to blow me over" and such....

If you make these pictures bigger, I am on the Nevada-Arizona state line, two different states at once :)
They are building this massive bridge so that you can cross the border between the two states without having to go over the dam, and this is what it looks like now. You can click on the picture to make it bigger, and believe me, it is huge! I don't remember when it is supposed to be done, but they have been working on it for a while.
And nothing like some glasses from the gift shop to have some fun....

Yogurtland

The most amazing thing for me in this life has been ice cream...ok not exactly, but it really has been a love :) I have discovered a new love, and that is for frozen yogurt from yogurtland. Here's the deal, you go through, as you can kind of see in the picture, and choose what flavors you want and actually fill your cup yourself. Then there are all of these toppings that you can put on top of the ice cream, including different types of cereal, which you can also see from the picture... Then you take it up and you pay for it by the ounce. So, it's 33 cents an ounce. Whoever thought of this was a genius and obviously needs to open one wherever I may live.... I have definitely gone back there a few times....

Vegas

I figured that it is about time for a blog update, and what better way to spend my birthday but to listen to some new music I just bought and write some blog entries?
So, after Shawn and Marci's wedding, Monica and I headed out for Vegas. We flew into SLC and took a shuttle down to Angela's house in Provo, where we met up with my car. Our first randomness of the car ride was seeing this on the freeway......

We laughed pretty hard at this one :)
After this little adventure, we got into my car, had to take it through a car wash because it was so nasty, and then headed out on our ride to Vegas! We were in four states in one day. Oregon, Utah, Arizona, and Nevada.

We were quite excited to be in Nevada when it finally rolled around. The drive was pretty boring, especially though Utah. When we hit Arizona, it was fun to be driving through the canyons instead of mountanious green that I usually drive through in Oregon. It was way pretty, a little boring, but still a little different scenery. When we first saw Vegas we were very excited. I must admit that it wasn't as impressive as when me and my roommates were coming back from Utah and saw it at night. Holy cow does Vegas look much bigger at night than during the day, especially from afar. So, anyways, once we found our way to my apartment, with some help from the handy dandy GPS, I was so happy to be in there finally. It was probably at least 110 outside, although I would guess that it was even more than that. I checked in and we unloaded my car while poring sweat in the heat.... My roommates were way nice when I first met them, and I was genuinely excited to get to know them better and to be here in Vegas for a new adventure.
After spending a few days moving in, we decided it was time for a little fun in going to the strip. We went to the M&M factory and the coke store, which is basically just like walking into a store. Oh, and the coolest part is the fact that in the M&M store, they totally spray the smell of chocolate, so it smells like chocolate in there all the time...
At the M&M world, we saw a 3D movie, not as exciting as the ones at Disneyland, but not too bad either...



Here we are showing off our purchases....Monica took some pretty amazing pictures, and we had a lot of fun. We walked up and down pretty much the entire strip, half in one day and the other half in another. Here are some more pictures of what we saw....Lastly, we saw the Bellagio fountain show. So amazing! It comes on every 15 minutes after 8, so we were able to see it three times. It was way amazing.