The year is dying part dos

So my computer with all my pictures seems to have died, so for now I'm just going to finish this with just the written description, and who knows, maybe I'll go add pictures later. But for now, here's the rest of my year....

May- Quite the amazing Spring term with my peeps from the Spanish house. I got SOO bonded to those people and I'm pretty sure I've got life long friendships with most of them. I feel SO blessed to have made that decision. I'm not sure, but that might win for my highlight of 2011. We went to midnight showings of movies, did P90X, wrote songs, cooked, ate, rode bikes, watched movies, played frisbee, and spoke Spanish while doing it! hello dream come true! :)

June- Spring term ended and I packed up all my stuff then headed home for my asian birthday (aka 22nd birthday)

July- I took an emergency trip to Baltimore to be with Kristen and road trip down to South Carolina. Good sister bonding! I spent a couple weeks with Emily, Mike, Clara, and Paisley in Hershey, which was awesome. We went to Hershey park, and pretty much all things Hershey. I loved it! Then we (including Kristen) drove to Missouri for our family reunion. ALways a good time at the Erekson house. :)

August- Greg, Lisa, Mom, Dad, and Will got to go on a trip to Italy this summer and I got to stay home. hahaha. I babysat Julia, Rock, and Caroline for a couple of days, with some help from Lauren, and we all managed to survive! It was fun playing with them! I also got my wisdom teeth out which was not the most pleasant experience. Right before I went back to school, I was literally on my way to the airport, we had to go back to the doctor guy because it got infected. Blech. But alls well now. I got all moved into my new apartment and fell in LOVE with our view! Its awe inspiring! And I had a blast with my roommates! I love these girls!

September- School, school, and more school. I had pretty much all of my classes with the same group of people, and they became like a family. I love those people! We have a good time! Its fun to have a tight knit group to have classes together! I hung out a lot with my FLSR people a lot in September. We also had a few creative sleepovers in our apartment, such as sleeping out on our deck in a tent and on the lovesac :)

October- I went to the BYU homecoming parade but Chelsea came down during the game and we talked instead of watching the game. WAY more fun. I went to Cornbellies this year with Lily and Bryan from the Spanish house and Chelsea to do the corn maze and they had so many other fun things! I also went to my Great Uncle Alex's 100th birthday party! My council threw our ward Halloween party and we decided to have a dance. I was sick, so I didn't have that great of a time but I dressed up as "your mom!" :)

November- This was the big climax of the semester- we got to go INTO real schools and work with real kids! I loved it!!! It was so fun and I absolutely loved my class! My partner Daniel and I got to do a Spanish immersion program, so it was interesting, but so great! We finally started bonding with some people in our ward and went to some parties and such.

Clarissa reading her textbook and me reading mine :)

December- I finished up my semester and headed home for Christmas! This year was kind of an off year, and Greg's family and I were the only kids home this year, along with our family friend Sandy. But it was still a party! I miss my little nieces and nephews to pieces when I'm gone so it was fun to play with them! They're getting SO grown up!!! I got to go to our ward Christmas party, hang out with friends from High school, play with the fam, and sleep. It was lovely and went by far too fast!

Dear friends from the Frontenac ward

Well folks, that's a wrap. 2011 was a good year, but I'm planning on 2012 being extra-ordinary! I feel like there's a lot in store for me and I'm looking forward to go on living it! Life is oh, so good!

Happy New Year!!!

The year is dying

I was just looking at some pictures from the last year, and I thought it would fun to do a little recap. I didn't think all that much happened in 2011, but looking back it was a pretty great year! So this is more for me than for anyone else, so if you find it amusing to read, read on dedicated blog stalker! :)

January- The year started off well with celebrations of my sister's wedding. Even though it was FREEZING, I was glad she got hitched :) Then school started again (and I decided I really did want to be an El Ed major) and the MTC stole away 2 of my best friends. Michael and Brittany. Rude. But I was introduced to some of my dearest bestest friends, Alice and Heidi, so I managed. Oh, and I got to finally room with my dear Carmen (aka Chelsea). So January was a success.
















February- I went skiing for the first time in my life with Kaitlin and AnnaLeah. It was a grand time, and now I've done it and I may not ever do it again. And judging from my collection of pictures from that month, the only time I left my apartment was to go to class and my skiing trip. Really, its just a testament to how fun my roommates were. Seriously. Alice starting coming out of her shell and boy did we have a good time! Oh! And at a Relief society activity Heidi Harris, Lisa McGhie and I decided to start working out together in the mornings. Like, legit morning. Like 6 AM morning. I mostly hated every day. But I loved being with those girls, so I went. hahahaah, but we didn't take many pictures for many reasons.

(Heidi and I-not at 6AM but you get the idea)

March- I finally saw one of the best movies ever in creation-Tangled. I bless the day it came into my life! :) I also went to 5 minutes of my first BYU rugby game, and we won sooo I'm pretty much their good luck charm. Chelsea, Alice, and I continued to be crazy and cook deliciousness like chocolate chip cookie covered oreos. Talk about diabetes in a cookie. YUM! :) I also starting hanging out with a girl from a lot of my classes, Mariah. We had some good laughs together! Crazy fun girl!(at the rugby game)

April- Alice's friend from Florida, Jamie, drove down from BYU-I to come visit us for a few days! We went and hiked at Bridal Veil Falls and hiked the Y. It was fun to have her with us and go on some excursions out of our apartment! Then the end of the semester was upon us and we had to part ways. It was quite sad to leave my dear Chelsea and Alice and Sarah left for her mission to Peru so I was SUPER jealous!! Little did I know what awaited me at the Spanish house....(Girls from the best math class evah!)

Continue reading in part 2. This is getting too long...

Find what you love

The past month I had the chance to do what I'm going to school for- I got to TEACH!!! I was in a
second grade class up in Heber, UT. I absolutely LOVED it!!!!! Not only did I learn a TON about teaching, but I fell in love* with 52 second graders!!! (*there was varying degrees of love :) ) I worked in a dual-immersion program, so we switched between teaching in English and in Spanish, which was a whole different challenge, but really great! Today was our last day and it was so hard to leave!! I am going to miss those crazy kids and doing what I really love! It feels so good to know what I want to do with my life! I had a rough period where I wasn't sure about teaching, which took me to Peru so I'm grateful that it happened, but I couldn't be happier to be back in teaching and doing what I love with the people....er, kids, that I love!!!!!!!!

I wanted to write down some funny things they've said so I don't forget them! Enjoy!


In a conversation talking about states, "I've been to Arizona!" "I've been to Idaho!" "I've been to Las Vegas!" Me-"ok, that's in Nevada!" Marianne solemnly looks at me and says "one time we had a dog and it got shot in the forehead and died." Me- "Oh my goodness! that's so sad!!" *serious / understanding head nod*

Me- "Ok, today I'm going to do an experiment, can anyone tell me what an experiment is?" Leilany-" OH ME! Its like when you have a fish and you catch it and its dead and you put the stuff on it and it comes back to life!" Me- "ummmmmmm..........not exactly what I was going for...."

Me- "El gatito es un callejero. Alguin puede decirme que es un callejero?" Cynthia- "Si! Es alguin que vive en los calles!" "Si, y como sabes esto?" "Porque mi mama siempre dice esto a mi papa!"
(Translation: The cat is "someone who lives in the streets", can anyone tell me what that is? Yes, someone who lives in the streets! How do you know that? Because my mom always says that to my dad!" )

"UH! That boy makes me so mad I just want to kill him!" Me and Daniel "Uh, that wouldn't be very nice! How about you kill him with kindness?" Zippy (TINY quiet little girl) "Yeah, take him DOWN!" ..... the next day.... "Miss Kate, I thought about what you said and I decided the next time he bugs me I won't kill him. I'll just walk away" "that sounds like a fabulous idea!"
One day we taught a virtual field trip and we thought it would be funny to have them walk around in the halls and come back for the field trip, but they were less than enthused when they found out we weren't actually leaving. The next day a little boy comes up to us "Do you remember that one time we went on the field trip but we didn't go anywhere?" "um, yesterday? Yeah I remember" :)

"Are we going to watch a long video? Like 12 minutes??"

Leilany "I might go to Mexico when I go home today." "Really? For how long??" "Like 20 days. I don't want to though. I hope we leave at the end of Christmas, no at the end of the school year. No! At the end of when I graduate!!" (she didn't leave, but a lot of the kids from our school just go to Mexico for weeks at a time!)

In the Library we got to listen to the Librarian's record player and she played a song about Christopher Columbus. "Who sailed across the sea in a boat called the Santa Maria?" the whole class- " CAPTAIN HOOK!!!" Apparently they haven't covered that period in history quite yet....

There was this book in their library about 10 snails that got picked off until they were two left and they had a picture of them like making out and then there were 10 more snails! Needless to say, we did NOT use that book to teach. That is a can of worms we did not want to open....

"AY! No puedo hablar!" Maestra Zelaya....We heard that A LOT :)

"I have 6 kids in my family" "My mom has 10 kids in her family!" "I have 8 people in my family counting my mom and my dad!" Weston- "I have 10 people in my family.......but I'm counting my fish and my dog." Poor kid trying to fit in in Utah ;)

From our friend's class whose teacher is pregnant: The teacher came in and said it kind of looks like I swallowed a basketball, huh? "my grandpa sometimes looks like he swallowed a basketball!" :)
AND
A kid lost her tooth and the whole class was looking for it and the teacher said last year they lost a tooth too and a little boy very seriously said "Like the evil tooth stealer from South England??!"

"what's that ring Mr. Daniel?" "its my wedding ring" "Miss Kate, is that your wedding ring?" "No, its on the wrong hand, I'm not married" *gasp!!* .....I'm not that old! Come on!!

"Mr. Daniel, Miss Kate, are you guys married?" "nooooooooo" next day "Mr. Daniel, Miss Kate, are you brother and sister?" "nooooo" do we have to be related to teach together? hahahaha

After Maestra Zelaya asked a question in Spanish, one of the boys responded in Spanish and everyone laughed, and stella tapped me on the shoulder and asked what he said, so I told her in Spanish, and she just looked at me with this blank stare and said "I don't speak Spanish."

Emmanuel "Mr. Daniel, you look good!" Me- "hey! what about me??" "You look ok." hahahahaha....someone's got a little man crush ;)

They threw us a surprise party our last day but our second graders are terrible at keeping secrets. Kensington- "are you coming to our party monday??" Colter- "Kensington!!" Kensington- "oops. it was supposed to be a secret" :)

Gracy- "open the gate, pick some flowers, how many did you pick?" "7" "you will miss us for 7 billion years!" -- You have no idea Gracy :)

These are all I can remember right now, but I might have to go back and add some later.

I feel so lucky to get to work with these cute and funny kiddos!!

I've changed my ways

So I've never been one of those people that listened to Christmas music in September or October.

I've seen the error of my ways folks. We started listening to Christmas music in my apartment the first week of October and I have loved every minute of it!! Even though it doesn't feel quite the same as listening to it in December, it just fills me with warm fuzzies!! I just love the Christmas season so much so its fun to get a taste for it in October!

So if you've always said you would never listen to Christmas music so early, you might want to reconsider your ultimatum.

Just sayin.

Oh yeah, I love life.

I can't get over this.....

VIEW!!!

Brimming

In order to accurately describe this period in my life, I really need a post dedicated to how incredibly blessed I feel. Because it's oh so true!

My semester thus far has been so utterly fabulous. I LOVE my classes. Its so fun to get into classes that apply to my profession, and feel good about being in my profession! This has just been such a testament to me of God's timing. I'm a believer you might say. Its so fun to me to be taught about teaching! Not to mention when that teaching includes watching Matilda, eating candy, drawing pictures, and acting on a regular basis. Its all so interesting and all feels very applicable, which is kind of intimidating, because there's no way I'm going to remember it all, but I want to! I cannot WAIT to get into the classrooms!! That's my absolute favoritest part!

My roommates are also quite fabulous, as usual. I am so grateful that I have been blessed every year with roommates who are so great, and balance me out with what I need, and just support me in everything. Its also very fun that 3 of the 4 girls are from St. Louis. (Kaitlin, Clarissa, and Kate) You know that's a winning team! And then you through in our Wyoming girl, (Kelsey) and we're pretty much unstoppable, not to mention a mouthful!

our first and only entire roommate picture thus far, so it'll have to do :)

I haven't super connected with my ward yet, but that's ok. I have some great friends from years past that have kept me busy, including my beloved past roommate Chelsea Campbell and Alice Rumney, my old peeps from the Spanish house, and some random get togethers with roommates from Freshman year.
And to be honest, I don't mind staying home all the time. Especially since this is the view from our living room:

breath taking.

I was just brimming with gratitude this evening and felt like writing it down. Never a bad thing to be grateful, now is it? I dare say not. :)

Is this awesome or what??

We read this scripture in Relief Society and I loved it!!! (D&C 138)

30 But behold, from among the RIGHTEOUS, he ^aorganized his FORCES and appointed ^bmessengers, ^cclothed with POWER and AUTHORITY, and ^dcommissioned them to go forth and carry the LIGHT of the gospel to them that were in DARKNESS , even to ^fall the spirits of men."

Doesn't that just sound like the climax to a really epic movie, where it seems like all is lost and then this elite force comes and saves the day and brings light into all the darkness and everyone ends up better off????

Sound familiar?

Oh yeah. Its life. Go winning team!!!
I love the gospel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!