Spring Break 2009!

We went on a long road trip for spring break this year. We started off for Utah on Friday afternoon only to get stopped just outside of Evanston, WY in a crazy snowstorm. All the cars were stopped on Interstate 80 waiting for the snowplows to get there. We waited for about 40 minutes and then when the snow plows came through we tried to start our car and our battery had died! So that was really unfortunate did I mention that it was 11:30 at night? So we asked this lady in front of us if she could jumpstart our car and she very kindly agreed. The only problem was that we had never actually used jumper cables before and we did not feel like blowing up our car or the very nice lady's so Mark went and asked the people in the car behind us if they could help us with the cables and a very nice man came out into the freezing snowstorm and helped us. So we finally get going and we get to my sister's temporary home in Ogden at 2:30 in the morning. Ogden is supposed to be about 55 minutes from Evanston and we didn't get there until much later! So we got off to a rough start but the rest of our trip was great!
We spent Saturday and Sunday in Utah with Mark's family in Orem and got to go to the Sunday afternoon session of conference. While there we saw Mark's nephew who is serving his mission in the Salt Lake Mission and his niece Kierstin. We also saw some good friends from my hometown and some friends from our BYU-Idaho days. I love conference weekend and am so glad that we got to go to Conference. We also had a really nice time visiting with Mark's brother Steve and his wife Molly. They are really great people!

After the Sunday afternoon session with the conference center behind us.

Salt Lake Temple

Kierstin, Elder Clayton (Mark's niece and nephew) Aprillee and Mark. Do you notice the height difference here? Yes I am still the shortest and am standing on like a 8 inch ledge!

Monday we left Utah and headed over to Boise, Idaho. Mark had two job interviews there and we wanted to sort of check out the area and see what it was like. The interviews went pretty well and he will now be entered into the list of applicants if jobs come up in the area. He interviewed with the Boise and Meridian School districts. The Boise interview was just really strange and Mark is not so sure if he would even like working for them but the interview with the Meridian school district went really well and Mark seemed to like their district policies more. We actually really liked the Boise area and wouldn't mind moving there at all. Mark was super excited because there is a Tucano's there which is his all time favorite restaurant. It is Brazilian and really good. So we went and ate a ton! I was really excited because it rained while we there!

After boise we took off for good old Rexburg. We got there Wednesday afternoon and had fun visting with Susanna and Ryan. We always enjoy visiting Rexburg. It seems that BYU Idaho is changing so much! Each time we go there something has changed on campus. While there we hoped to meet with the Idaho Falls School Districts and then go to my brother in law Ryan's graduation. We got there and it turned out that BYU-Idaho was having a job fair so Mark and Ryan went together and Mark got to interview with the Idaho Falls districts, lots of school districts in Utah and Evanston Wyoming. We were so lucky that the job fair was while we were there so Mark got to meet with lots of schools. We really hope that some good comes from it. The most interesting interview was with Evanston, WY. I have never once thought in my life that I would want to live in Wyoming but am not so against the idea now. A teachers starting salary is $41,500! That is at least $10,000 more than Idaho and Colorado. We were aware that Wyoming paid its teachers more (they pretty much have to to get people to come there) and at this point that is really appealing to us. If Mark got a job there (there is a Middle School and High School Social Studies opening) we could save a lot of money and get some good experience in a strong school district. Evanston is not at all pretty, we took a quick tour of the town on our drive back to Colorado but after checking it out we could totally live there for awhile and who knows maybe we would end up really liking it. We ended up just fine in Egypt so we are totally open to new places. It is just an hour away from bigger cities like Salt Lake and Ogden Utah, 4 hours from Yellowstone and right outside a canyon so you know I can get my fall fix there! I am not saying we are moving there but it is totally in the running and we would seriously consider it should they offer Mark a job. The 2 men interviewing showed some interest in Mark so we will see.
Going to Ryan's graduation brought back a lot of good memories. I loved loved loved my time at BYU Idaho! It will always be a special place to me. This April was the 5 year mark of my graduation and it was fun to go and see teachers and the campus. We are really excited for Sus and Ryan and hope that they get a teaching job near us!

I asked Ryan if he was excited about graduating and he said he was more excited about getting his diploma in 6 weeks when they mail them out so I made him take a picture looking sad holding the empty diploma cover they give out. He was a good sport.



April 2009! This April was the 5 year mark of when I graduated from BYU-Idaho and 4 years for Mark. This is not the same sign we took our graduation picture at but we wanted the Rexburg Temple so we opted for this sign.
As a side note I wore that same skirt when I graduated 5 years ago! I was looking at pictures before we left and decided I would wear it this past weekend. Yes, I am that silly as if you didn't already know that though.



Here we are in April 2005 when Mark graduated.



April 2005, The Spencer's and the Terry's. Mark and Susanna graduated the same day.



April 2004! April's graduation! We just love this sign! Mark proposed to me like 3 days later. It was like the best April ever! I am sure I will post that story soon like around the 26th of this month.

My least favorite day of the year

I am so glad that today is almost over. I can not stand the first of April. I don't even like the name for it and prefer to refer to it as April 01 or as above. I have never really had a bad joke played on me I just think it is a stupid day. Maybe I just have a boring sense of humor but why is it fun to try to trick people? I personally do not like being lied to or tricked and am not sure why people set aside a whole day to do that to people. I generally really like my name but today not at all.
The last 2 years were probably the worst first of Aprils I have ever had. At the school I worked at in Egypt the students called a majority of the teachers by their first names for some reason I never fully understood. So the last 2 years on this pointless day I was called Miss April Fool all day by obnoxious kids! Did they really think that was funny or even creative? I was incredibly annoyed and as I recall spent most of the day last year in my office doing mindless jobs and was so grateful for them. I remember asking my parents last year if they thought about what effect this name would have on me this day and my Dad just sort of chuckled and informed me that they just thought it was a good name. I agree for the most part but always look forward to April 02.
The "celebrations" for this day began when it was decided that countries should switch to the Gregorian calendar instead of the Julian calendar. (The late 16th century as the first time it was widely suggested) The old Julian calendar had the new year celebrated between March 25th-April 01. As we all know now, the Gregorian calendar that we use has the New Year being celebrated on January 01. Supposedly all the people who did not want to switch calendars and kept the old New Year were then made fun of and called fools. Thus this (insert sarcasm here) "wonderful" tradition began. These people were then mocked and had jokes played on them. Maybe people were just really bored then and needed something to do. (Just type where did April 01 come from on Google and you will get a number of websites)
I for one am not a fan and am so glad that today is almost over.

A blizzard and Free Internet!

The blizzard.
Yesterday Greeley was put under a Winter Storm Warning. Based on past expereinces with winter in Greeley I was not convinced. So many times snow was forecasted and nothing came. So when I went to bed last night I did not expect to see anything when I woke up. Every time there has been snow in the forecast I always get really excited and find myself looking out the window whenever I wake up through out the night, (which by the way has been way too often lately, anyone else not sleeping well this month?) Well, I woke up a lot last night and there was never any snow. Then when I got up at 6:30 it was snowing and it hasn't stopped since! There is at least 8 inches of snow on the ground. Its so pretty! I love it!
So since it had just started snowing we figured we still had school today and got ready. As I was driving to school I heard on the radio that pretty much all school districts from South of Denver up were closed except our district. But it gets better it turns out that our district was the only district with school in all of Weld County which is the biggest county in Colorado, and ours! By the time I got to school it was really coming down. So I get ready for my classes and then the dreaded happens. My name is called over the intercom. I end up having to sub in a 4th grade class. So I get to class and get the day started. Then at 10:50 its announced that school will be closing early, at 1:30. Hooray! I was so glad that I did not have to stay there all day. It seemed really silly to me that we even had school because the winter warning was in effect from last night until 6:00 am Friday. I personally think we will have school tomorrow but would love to be wrong.
Once I got home from school I decided to take some pictures of the snow and go play in it. It is so deep around our apartment! I love it! I had on my boots and snow pants and was off. I do not remember the last time I really played in snow. It was great!

The door to our apartment.



Aprillee in the very deep snow.



Making my snow angel, the snow is really deep and it was really hard to push the snow around.



It was so so so fun!



The tree out front. The branches were really sagging a lot because of the weight of the snow.



Mark loves it when the snow stays on the trees like this. He didn't come out and play because he didn't have boots. I had a lot of fun though. Having boots and snow pants makes all the difference.

The other fun news is that our free wireless Internet is back!! Since we got home from school early today I called the library to see if they were open so I could pick up some movies to watch. The library was already closed because of the blizzard so I was wondering what I was going to do with all this free time. I decided I would just call our managers to check to see if the Free Internet was really gone. So I called and she informed me that it was still available here and it was working in her apartment so it should be working in mine. This was such great news. She said to check our computer and if it wasn't working then call her back and her husband would go check. So I did and I called back because it was not available and he pushed a button and now our free Internet is back! YES!! She said that if it stops working again to please call so they can fix it. I am so happy. Its silly that we didn't call earlier this month when it first went out. Mark stopped by the office once but they were at lunch. I guess we were just lazy. Too bad for us. I love having free Internet. Its so hard to not have Internet in your house when you are so used to it. Hopefully it sticks around.

No longer

One of our favorite things about our apartment when we moved in was that we got free wireless Internet. Well, much to our dismay we no longer have the free wireless Internet so I do not think I will be posting very much. We never got a phone line when we moved in because we knew we were getting cell phones and with the free wireless we just didn't see the need. Now, we could easily call a company and get something set up but we are not sure we want to because we are not entirely sure we will be here after this school year. Should a school offer Mark a job then great we are here and then we will get Internet I think...until then its the library for us! I do love libraries but I do not want to go every day. Unfortunately for us our schools Internet blocks blogger and facebook so don't expect to hear too much news from us unless we decide to revert back to the old days of just emailing or we suddenly find out that Mark got a job and we get Internet. That would be the ideal solution... Until then...

Who knew?

At the entrance to the zoo, admittance was free!

Mark and I did not have school today so we called up some friends to see if they wanted to go out and have some fun. They were available and they suggested that we go to the Swetsville Zoo out in Timnath, Colorado. Mark is not a big fan of zoo's so I didn't think he would go for it but it turns out that that Swetsville Zoo is actually a sculpture park! We had no idea that there was so much scrap metal in Northern Colorado or that so many people were interested in such sculptures. The man who set up the "zoo", Bill Swet used to be a farmer and in 1985 he began making the sculptures from car parts, farm machinery and scrap metal. There are over 160 exhibits. It all began as a hobby. He made a few creatures and set them out in the yard and people starting stopping to look at them. He built most of the creatures from 1985-1995. Here are some of our favorites.

Bill Swet added this castle facade to their house. What an understandng wife!

He made a huge bug out of an old slug-bug! Clever!

Gone Fishing!

Mark golfing!

Snoopy and Woodstock!

This one was dragonflies and bluebirds chasing mosquitoes

Ants marching to the cooler

This last one was labeled #101, "So long Saddam Hussein". He made it during the Gulf War and described it as the secret weaopn to take down Saddam. Too bad it didn't work or we can't use it now somewhere.