Premature Celebration

My celebration of spring may have come too soon. I walked out of church today to find Rexburg transformed. Gale force winds, blur of snow, and white drifts carved into odd shapes...

The view outside our front window: I could hardly see the house across the street.


The camera doesn't capture the wind and snow. I wish you could see the neighbor's tree flailing violently. It looks so wild in the wind. I guess March does come in like a lamb and out like a lion!

A True Man

I walked into the kitchen to say goodbye to Andrew (I was headed to a bridal shower) and found him with a dish towel over his shoulder, mixing a cake batter, and listening to Kelly Pickler sing over the radio. It was an amusing and endearing image, and it made me smile as I walked out the door.

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Andrew is the kind of guy that would do all of this (and spend the evening watching High School Musical 3 with his wife) only to wake up the next morning to go weight lifting, change the oil in the car, and use a chop saw to finish the trim on the new kitchen floor.

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Talk about a real man! =)

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P.S. The cake turned out delish! Best frosting I've ever had actually.

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SIgns of Spring...

1. The last few days have been in the 60's and 70's. I got a phone call from Andrew before I left work asking if I wanted to go on a bike ride. Heck Yes I Did! It hasn't been warm enough to ride a bike since before I can remember. (Idaho tends to have long winters)

2. My kids were coming in from lunch recess, flushed, sweaty, and with that unmistakable smell of warm weather that teachers recognize after spending a bit of time in enclosed spaces with 20+ warm-bodied children.

3. Every time I pulled up in the driveway, I took note of the ever decreasing piles of snow in our front yard. Yesterday, I celebrated when I saw I could announce that we are now officially snow free. (Thank you, thank you very much)

4. And then, I saw this...

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My tulips are popping up!!!!!

Oh, Happy Day.

Pretty Amazing Piano Skills

This is my cousin Heather. She's insanely talented at the piano. It comes naturally to her. I lived with her for a over a year while I was going to school at Dixie College in St. George. Whenever she practiced at home, I was torn between my awe for her playing and my depression that my skills were embarassing in comparison. In the end, I was able to get a lot of enjoyment from her music as long as I avoided...at all costs...practicing my songs in her presence .
I stole this video from my uncle Paul's facebook page. Hope he doesn't mind. =) I just figured talent like his needs to be shared as much as possible. Heather...I think you're awesome. This video makes me want to jump and shout, "You go girl!" To the rest of you...Enjoy!

"So...what are you in here for?"

This is what I heard one of my third graders ask a classmate the other day. I had to laugh to myself, because they both sounded so serious and forlorn at the time. If they weren't 8 years old, I would have sworn I was overhearing a conversation between two jail mates behind bars. I suppose I can see how at that age, having to work on homework (you failed to do the night before) during the same 15 minute recess that your friends are using to run free in the sun...might seem just as dramatic as a real live prison sentence. =(

Kelly Canyon Round 2

I have to say that the second snowboarding experience is so much better than the first experience. I didn't even fall once on our first run down the mountain this time! Andrew is getting really good too. He speeds down that slope like a crazy man.

FUNNY STORY: Near the end of the evening, Andrew and I were boarding the lift when somehow, just as we were sitting in the chair, I managed to slip. The teenage operators were too busy flirting to notice me getting dragged by the chair until I was literally hanging from it by the tips of my fingers seven feet in the air. I was a little embarrassed (you know the entire line of people waiting to get on the lift are now pointing at me), but I was able to laugh it off (because it really was very hysterical). After I was helped down from the chair, they wanted me to come up to the front of the line of people and get back on the lift. Everyone was already watching me carefully as it was, but as I was trying to maneuver my way awkwardly through the line on a snowboard, I slipped into a kid... who then slipped into another kid...sending us all to the ground into a tangled (and painful) mess. At this point I just wanted to die.

Where was Andrew during all of this? He had been unable to pull me back up onto the chair after I fell, so after I was rescued by a couple of teenagers, Andrew calmly continued his ride up the mountain without me. When we finally met up at the top again, I was so tempted to shrug my shoulder at Andrew's questions as to why it had taken me so long to get back up there. I mean, he didn't really need to know the details of my human dominoes game right?? Oh well. It makes for a great story anyway.

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