Let the Holiday Season begin!!

On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving I put up all our Christmas decorations and later that day we went up to Estes Park in the mountains to watch the Estes Park Christmas Parade with our friend Faye. Estes Park is a cute little mountain town about an hour away from where we live in Greeley. We drove up and went out to eat at this delicious BBQ place and then walked down the street to watch the parade. We stopped at a cute little chocolate shop and got some delicious peppermint hot chocolate and walked down to the parade route. As we were waiting for the parade to start it began to snow!!! It was beautiful!! I was so excited. I have been hoping it would snow in Greeley but it hasn't. I think that snow is magical and I love it! I know that I have not lived it in that much so I do not really understand the annoying parts of it but you have to admit that even if you do not like winter falling snow is one of the most beautiful things ever! Our favorite "exhibit" in the parade was actually by the US post office. They made little green elf shirts and carried the white letter boxes. They had a "drum major" (the person who leads a band for all you non-marching band folk) and they did this little routine with their boxes. It was so cute. I think we liked it so much because they seemed so proud of themselves. It was so cute and I do love getting mail so I am partial to the US postal services. Here are some pictures from the parade. We have such a hard time getting good pictures in the dark. Oh well.

Here we are with our peppermint hot chocolate! Delicious!

This float reminded me of the White Witch from Narnia, I wonder if that was their inspiration?

A creative twist on Goldilocks and the 3 bears



T' was the Night Before Christmas float. I am not sure if you can tell but I thought this float was so cute because they hung big pieces of candy above the bed like they were dreaming of it. Cute!



And of course here is Santa and his Sleigh! Merry Christmas!

Is the turkey upside down?

We had a nice Thanksgiving here in Colorado. This was only the second Thanksgiving that I did not go home to California for. (minus the 2 in Egypt, so I guess I should say since I have been living in the United States but that sounds weird) Our friends the Lyman's (Brett and Lori) were kind enough to invite us over. We had all the traditional foods and then played lots of games. I made tons of rolls and a huge green salad, unfortunately with all the other good food to eat the salad was over looked so it looks like we are going to be having a lot of taco salad this week. Mark and Brett were in charge of carving up the turkey. Which leads into the title of this post.

Mark and I got to the Lyman's and walked into the kitchen to drop of our stuff and Lori asked Mark if he knew how to carve a turkey. Mark was more than willing to help out and went over to Brett who looked really confused. He said that the last time he carved a turkey there was a lot more meat on it so he asked Lori if the turkey was upside down. She said that she didn't think so so they kept trying to find some meat with little success. After a few fruitless minutes Mark suggested that they turn the turkey over just in case it was upside down. Low and behold, there was the meat!! Brett looked much more confident and he and Mark finished carving the turkey and it was delicious. So my purpose in posting this was to give you the hint that if your turkey seems to have very little meat try flipping it over there is no meat on a turkey's back!

Ta-Da!

We are THANKFUL for:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

We decided to make a list of what we are thankful for it might not be all inclusive but we will try to get close. Some are a little on the silly sounding side. We started on Monday for FHE and this is what we came up with in no particular order:

Our eternal marriage
Testimonies
Family
Freedom
Good Health
Education
Egypt
Jobs
Food and shelter
Rain Storms
Seasons
Thumbs
Nature: flowers, trees, waterfalls and mountains
Pork Chops
Holidays
Books
Libraries
Scriptures
Internet
Pictures
Organization
Mail
Ice cream
Friends
Music
Parks
Jesus Christ
Camping trips
Traditions
Mark's chocolate chip cookies
Each Other
April's Cinnamon Rolls
Limes
Safety
The feeling of being at peace
Opportunities to serve/help others
Dishwasher
Ziploc Bags
Gatorade
Agency
Temple
Compliments
Memories
Travel
Airplanes
Revelation/Inspiration
Forgiveness
Toothbrushes
Chap-stick
A good nights sleep
Laughter
Cleanliness
Lotion
BYU-Idaho
Tennis
Frisbee

We realize that this list could go on forever! We have been given so much. Life is so good! Hope you all enjoy your Thanksgiving. Don't forget to give thanks!

Birthdays!

I had a great birthday yesterday. I loved getting so many emails and cards in the mail. Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. Getting mail is one of my very most favorite things! I love to send it now that I am home. I am not sure what the deal was but I was just really excited about my birthday this year. Maybe it was just because I was home and not in a foreign country. We opened presents in the morning and Mark made me breakfast; my most favorite orange rolls that we only got to eat on Christmas day growing up. Since I have not been at home I have them on my birthday now too. Sometimes it is so hard to not buy them when I am at the grocery store but traditions are worth it! We went to the store Saturday night to pick out my ice cream cake and we found one and grabbed it without realizing that it was actually an ice cream pie so that was pretty silly but it still tasted great.

The preschool class I work with made me this crown and poster sized birthday card. I walked to the door and it was taped up in the door frame. It was cute. One of the teachers made me cupcakes too. It was really nice and a great surprise. The teacher who made the crown wanted to put 16 but the other teachers said it was too young so she settled for 21. I was such a good sport that I wore my crown all throughout the school so everyone looked really surprised that it said 21 (or maybe it was because I was wearing a silly crown...?) I did my best to correct them first: that I was actually 26 and second that I was not going out to party that night since they originally thought I was 21.

Cute pajamas Mark bought me and off to the side (right) you can see the way cute Christmas wall hanging that my oh so talented sister Susanna made for me.

Birthday Pie, next year we will check the box closer but it was still delicious.

NOVEMBER 23 2007
Last year for my birthday Mark took me over to Dahab on the Sinai Peninsula and we went snorkeling and climbed Mount Sinai. It was a great way to celebrate my 25th birthday. So here are a few pictures from last year.

Dahab is an incredible place to go snorkeling. We went to a place called the Blue Hole and you walk down a little ramp and put your head in the water, start swimming and there were the fish! We saw so many amazing kinds and so many of them. It may sound funny but if you ever plan a snorkeling trip go to Dahab in Egypt! It was truly incredible! I am not sure if you can tell but the water was such a pretty blue and so clear.

This is when we started hiking back down. We hiked up at 2:30 in the morning so we could get to the top by sunrise. It was so so so cold!! And dark too so we waited to take a picture. It was a cool hike. At the top there were all kinds of Christian groups from all over the world having little sermons. Well they were actually singing and praying really loud and were very distracting but, I hope that it was a nice spiritual experience for them. To each their own. We just enjoyed the view and thinking of what "might" have happened there. It was well worth it.



After the hike. Mount Sinai is out in the middle of nowhere so we stayed at this little Beduoin camp. These are the headdresses the locals wear.

AUGUST 09 2008
And finally I decided to go ahead and put up pictures from Mark's birthday in August we had just moved to Colorado and our friend Bethany took us to Casa Bonita a Mexcian (duh, huh) restaurant in Denver. We didn't really go for the food, honestly its not that good but for the atmosphere. They have a live Mariachi band, cliff divers, and old arcade games. It was a fun trip.
We did actually get Mark a ice cream birthday cake!

Bethany, Aprillee, and Mark outside Casa Bonita



The Birthday boy! (handsome man that he is)



Mark stomping the spiders! (hard worker that he is!)



Look at the form!
(Mark is such a good sport and so fun to be around, everyone feels comfortable around him)



Bethany and Aprillee racing. As a side note, I stink at these racing games! I spend most of my time running into the walls or going the wrong way!

Mark wouldn't really approve of those side comments but I just appreciate him so much! He is a wonderful husband and friend.

BYU at Air Force

We got to go to another BYU game this weekend. Mark's dad came to visit for the weekend so we got tickets to the BYU/Air Force. It was a lot more fun than the CSU game. We were by BYU and Air Force fans and they were all just good sports. BYU won 38 to 24. It was a beautiful day, a bit chilly but great for a football game. BYU scored 3 touchdowns in the 3rd quarter so that was exciting.

Air Force's mascot a falcon challenged Cosmo the Cougar to a handstand challenge and Cosmo kicked his trash. It was fun. They stayed in the handstand for a really long time. I was impressed. I wish I would have got a picture of it but here are the cheerleaders anyway. They were doing some crazy stunts!

A beautiful day for a football game!

We took Mark's dad up to Estes Park Friday night. We went out to dinner at this really good BBQ place we really like, Smokin' Dave's. Estes Park is a lot like Jackson Hole, WY if you have been there. It was too cold to stay outside and take pictures though. Maybe next summer... mid twenties and windy is not so fun. I also had a personal triumph this weekend. We have this game that is the LDS version of Settlers of Katan and I won! I have never won this game. We played it every now and then in Egypt with some friends and I always lost. I am not a competitive person at all but I really wanted to win last night. I wont' let it go to my head though. So we had a great weekend.

CTA California Teacher's Association

As most of you know Mark and I both got our degrees in History Education. Each state and each school district has a union to support teachers. As most of you are aware public education in the Untied States is really struggling for various reasons one large reason being the lack of funding. During this election season, (I am so glad its over!) CTA donated 1.25 million dollars to Proposition 8. (Which if you aren't aware was an amendment to California's Constitution that would effectively ban all marriages that were not between a man and a woman) Putting aside all feelings about Prop. 8 (whether you were for or against) I am so irritated that CTA donated this money to this cause! I have been trying really hard to just forget about it but I am clearly not there yet so I thought maybe writing about it would help me vent my frustration and move on. I mean really, I do not teach in California nor plan on teaching there anytime soon so its crazy that this is bothering me so much. That said here we go:
My mom has been teaching in California the last 20 years so since I have been trying to learn all I can about CTA's donation I asked her where on Earth they got that money. Most articles I had read (and I have read A LOT) talked about the money being used from teachers dues but I wanted to make sure I knew what the story was. So I talked to my mom and she said that the money donated came from CTA's political fund. When a teacher joins the union part of their dues gets put into a political fund. Okay fine, my problem is that they would dare use this money on something that according to everyone against Prop 8, has nothing to do with education. Again and again those voting NO on Prop 8 claimed that this ballot would not effect education in any way so why the heck is the state teachers union donating money toward defeating Prop 8?? In my opinoin there are a hundred worthier causes to put this money toward.
As I have been reading articles on the donation and people's reactions it appears that CTA has completely shot themselves in the foot. CTA put the money towards defeating Prop. 8 and because of that lessened their chances of getting support for future ballots that actually have to do with education. Many people wrote that the next time CTA tried to gain financial support for an educational ballot they were not going to support them because they put this money towards something that didn't have anything to do with improving education in this instance. They also hurt their own position against Prop. 8 because many teachers who were undecided about which way to vote decided to vote yes on Prop 8 because they were so angry that CTA used the money for this while they have no funds for their schools. They further hurt themselves because many teachers have decided to pull out their membership in CTA and only be a part of the local school district union. Now I am fully aware that there are thousands of teachers in California and plenty of them will remain in CTA and are glad that they donated the money to defeating Prop. 8 but I don't blame the other teachers for pulling out their membership or as some did, asking that their money be taken out of the political fund.
Now while people taking out money or discontinuing their membership shows their anger that CTA did this (which I totally agree with) it also hurts education in the future. Now they will have less money and support for true causes that will help education. Stupid CTA!!! It is so irritating that they took so many teachers money on such a controversial and emotional cause that supposedly "will in no way affect education". Many people have talked about how this measure will effect education and so forth, but there are just so many things that the money could be put toward. Here are a few ideas that the money could be used for: these were "hot topics" on the CTA website:

No child Left Behind, charter schools, class size reduction, health care, school funding, schools of greatest needs, school and student safety, special education, teacher shortage, testing and accountability, vouchers.

These are only a few of the topics they could have put money towards or even better worked to put to a ballot to use money from the political fund for! Like I said, I read a lot of articles from a lot of sources and could have of course found only that ones that people were angry in but I find this not that likely. We can only hope that President-Elect Obama holds true to his promises to help education we sure need them!

BYU vs. CSU!

Hughes Stadium in Fort Collins, Colorado
We had heard that BYU was playing CSU here so we decided to stop by the stadium today and see if there were tickets left. There were so we went ahead and went to the game. And BYU won! People keep telling me that CSU had a really bad team but they did a good job. It helped them that BYU made several errors as well. We were right in the student section in the beginning and it was a little to intense for me so we moved over and enjoyed the game much more.

In the calmer section, great for a picture.

The final score was 45 to 42. The funny thing is that we left during the 4th quarter when it was 31 to 28 and we got into the car and all of a sudden both teams started playing really well! BYU had two really fast touchdowns and CSU scored another touchdown or two. So we missed all the best action. Oh well. We are glad that BYU won! I was wearing green, CSU colors but had luckily brought by BYU-Idaho sweatshirt. It was fun to go. We certainly didn't expect to go to a BYU game here in Colorado! Go Cougars!