How to Host A Murder

It's official, this year was by far the winner of the best costume award.  A shout out to all of my dear friends who came,  you looked amazing!  I must confess we forgot to open the solution envelope.  I can hear you ask "the what?"  That's right the solution envelope.  It actually tied up all of the loose end and explained everything. Imagine that. Maybe next year we'll remember that.  You heard right, there will be a next year, and with all of those amazing costumes I have no choice but to invite you all again.   Well I just had to post these pictures of all the amazing costumes.  I can't wait until next year!

I think Brian may have enjoyed the pipe a little to much. Doesn't he sport gray well?

Fall and Such

I can't believe it's already nearing the end of October.  I'm still in summer mode besides the fact that it's get quite cold outside and it's dark earlier and I wake up in the dark.  Well, I've made it an annual kick of to Fall to go run the Schutzenfest race in Midway. This  race is "special" to me because it was the first race I ever ran.  My goal this year was to beat my time from last year.  Well, I beat my time by 6 minutes and I got 1st place in my age group.  I was excited and a little disappointed because I didn't race as fast as I normally run.  However, I forgot how hard this race is.  The first mile is completely up hill.  It was absolutely beautiful and totally worth it. After the race we headed up to Park City to spend the day shopping, a great way to celebrate the win.

Last Sunday Brian, Bentley, and I headed up to Provo Canyon for a walk, it was gorgeous! The leaves were all changing color and the trail was covered in colored leaves.  It was so nice because there weren't very many people there.  We found a little trail and hiked up it a found an amazing place to take pictures.  Me being me though, I forgot my camera so we only had my phone.  Even though I don't like that it's getting cold outside I do love the Fall for the leaves.

Preschool

So this blog is way past due, but I've been running around with no time to breathe lately.  So here I sit, blogging, and going crazy because my house is not clean, I have a pile of papers to correct, and I have 50 pages in my scuba diving book to read before class, and also homework for my masters class.  However I decided I needed to blog this very important event in Bentley's life.
September 1st was Bentley's first day of preschool. He was so excited to go.  When we got to the classroom, he didn't even realize I was there, he was just so excited to be at school it didn't matter.
He comes with me to work every Tuesday and Thursday and waits in my class until it's time for him to go to his class.  My students from last year and this year play with him the whole time.  He loves all of the attention and someone to play games with.
He loves his teacher, Miss Mari.  His favorite thing about preschool is when he is the snack helper.  He learned that if you don't get your way you say "Oh shucks, maybe next time" he now says that all the time.  His favorite friend is Drew and they play Star Wars together.  Definitely a great friend if they'll play Star Wars with you.
Here are the pictures of the first day. The ones from the classroom are still on my phone.  I can't get them to send at the moment.

These are outside our house, just leaving to go.

If you can't tell, he's quite excited.

OverHeard

Yesterday while I was upstairs straightening my hair, Brian and Bentley were downstairs straightening up. I overheard Bentley talking to Brian, this is what he had to say...

Bentley: "Dad we better get this shiny and clean so mom's happy."

I started laughing hysterically. Boy he sure knows his mom well.

Bridal Veil Falls

On Sunday my dad came over and we hiked up to Bridal Veil Falls. Bentley quite enjoyed it. It was nice to get up close to the fall and feel the mist blow on us.

Dad and Bentley

Bentley on the bridge over the river.

Random Words From Bentley

Brian and I have been trying to get Bentley to stop sucking his thumb, well the other day we caught him sucking his thumb and told him to stop-his reply "My thumb needs a shower"

Where Has the Summer Gone?!

Wow, it's been awhile since I've blogged. It's now only a week and a half until I go back to work. It's kind of a bitter sweet feeling. I'm excited to have a new class and to try out new things, but I'm also very sad to be leaving Bentley and losing my freedom.
Even though summer has gone extremely fast, we've had lots of fun. Bentley and I have gone to the pool a few times, we've had Barbecues and game nights with friends, stayed up late about every night watching movies.
On June 30th, Bentley turned 4. I can't believe my little boy is 4!! He is growing up way to fast. He is still into Batman and Indiana Jones. He dresses up like them all of the time and truly thinks he's them. This is definitely a fun stage.
On the 24th of July, I ran in the Speedy Spaniard and Bentley ran his first race. He ran the 1 mile kids run and loved it. He's always talking about me racing/running, so we decided we'd enter him into a race. His race started right after I crossed the finish line of the Speedy Spaniard. Brian ran the race with him and said he did great.
We also went on a weekend trip to Park City with our friends. While the boys went mountain biking at Deer Valley resort, I enjoyed a day of shopping. I totally enjoyed every minute of it. The rest of the trip was, well, we'll say it was interesting, but very fun.
The last few days I've been trying to get my classroom together. I honestly can not believe the summer is almost over. I absolutely love the freedom that the summer brings and I am definitely going to miss it.
This fall Bentley will be going to the preschool at my school. I'm excited that he'll be right down the hall from me (2 days a week). I'll be able to see him at recess.
I'm going to enjoy this last week and a half. Brian and I are celebrating our 5 year anniversary next week. WOW, what a way to end the summer.

Vegas/St. George

Zions Park

This past weekend Brian and I went with our friends Zac and Shane to Vegas and St. George. We headed down to Vegas on Thursday after Brian took the much anticipated/dreaded MCAT. It was a great time to go and relax after all of the stress building up to the big test.
We got to Vegas late on Thursday night so we really didn't do much. Friday we walked around Vegas and went to a couple shows. The first show we saw was Nathan Burton. He is a magician/comedian. During the show Brian was called up on stage to be a participant. When he got up on stage he had to put a mask on so I didn't get to see his reaction of being up there. I would have died. The act he did was hilarious.
Later that night we went to see Carrot Top. I was a little nervous going into it because I was afraid that it would be really crude and I wouldn't like it. I was definitely wrong; yes it was a little crude, but it was hilarious. I was laughing the whole time. I would definitely go back.
After Carrot Top we headed to St. George. On Saturday morning our plan was to hike the Narrows in Zions Park. However it was cloudy so I chickened out. Instead of the Narrows we hiked Angel's Landing which is a million times worse than the Narrows. The Narrows you have to walk through a river which I am totally fine with water. Angel's landing, on the other hand, is the top of a mountain. It's a 2 1/2 mile trail and I made it up about 2 miles. It was way to scary for me and I started crying. Yet again I chickened out. So Brian, Zac, and Shane finished the hike while I waited at the top of a different plateau. It was absolutely beautiful!!! I love Zions Park.
We had a great trip!! Thanks to my sister and the two grandma's Bentley was well taken care of while we were gone.

*As I posted before, I'm not one for taking a bunch of pictures. The pics. are compliments of Zac. I must note Zac has a special talent of getting pictures of me at my best moments.

This was where we hiked. Yikes!! This is a little past the point I stopped.

The boys at the very top of Angel's Landing

This picture doesn't do the trail justice. This is me heading back down to flatter land.

All Good Things Must Come to an End

No More Pencils, No More Books...You Know the Rest

The end of the school year is always a bitter sweet feeling. I'm so excited to have a break from working and enjoy time with Bentley. However, I'm also very sad that I'm losing my students. Today we had "The Blast from the Third Grade Past" celebration. We had a slide show with pictures of all of our students and I had to choke back tears. I've had a great class this year and I'm really going to miss them. All of the sad feelings definitely don't outweigh the happy, excited feelings. I'm so excited for summer I honestly think I'm worse than my students. I had to blog to post this picture of my classroom, this is how it looks at the moment. Tomorrow is the last day of school, I only have 3 more hours of teaching these students. I hope that I have left some sort of positive thing with this group of kids.

The Count Down to SUMMER Break!!

I can't believe the weather!!! I am so excited that it is finally starting to feel like summer. I only have 7 days of school left!!! Although I still have a lot of grading and things to do in my classroom before I can "checkout" for the summer. I can't wait to have a little bit of freedom. This is the time of year all of the long hours at work and take home projects pay off. I get a 2 1/2 month break. I must say I am already planning "projects" for next school year.

This past Saturday we went up Provo Canyon and had dinner with Jake & Megan, Zac, and Shane. I love summer for things like that. I love having BBQ's, staying up late, baseball games, it's light until 9:00 pm, it's light in the morning, swimming, and most of all having more time to be with family and friends. Brian's already started coaching baseball again this year. So for the next month we'll be at the ball park alot. A few weeks ago he took his team to watch the UVU baseball team play. It got me really excited for summer!!Bentley at UVU

Ice Skating Part 2

Tonight we decided we'd taking Bentley ice skating for family night. They have these cool little things that little kids can use to ice skate so we thought that Bentley could surely do it. We got out on the ice and he struggled like crazy. After about 2 minutes we started thinking that we should just head home. We decided to just let him go on his own instead of holding on to him and he got it within minutes and LOVED IT!! We came home and signed him up for summer classes to ice skate. He's extremely excited. He called grandma Vicki and said "I'm going to be an ice skater." I'm excited to see how he does in the class.

Bentley pausing for a picture

Bentley getting up from a fall.

Bentley thought he needed to race all of the kids on the ice. Here's a video of him drag racing with a girl who was about 7.

*Note: The pictures and the video were taken with the cell phone.

Ice Skating

Last night Brian told me he was taking me on a date. All he would tell me about the date was to bring a jacket because it would be chilly. I asked can I wear heels, he said sure. His friends were going shooting so I thought for sure that was where we were going (FYI I hate shotgun shooting. Handguns on the other hand, well they're okay). When we got on the freeway headed north I decided that probably wasn't it. Well we ended up at the Seven Peaks Ice Skating Rink. At first I was a little hesitant to go, but we had a blast!! I love that Brian likes to plan surprises. He always has tricks like this up his sleeve. I love it!! He is so sweet and always plans things just perfect, always with me in mind and what I would like.

I must note that I was actually better than Brian. He usually kicks my trash at whatever we do, even cooking. So I was quite excited to find, that besides cleaning, there is something I'm better at than him.

Kids Say the Darnedest Things

This post goes quite well with the last one. Bentley always has so many things he wants to do he doesn't like when I say it's bedtime. The other night he decided he would try a few things to see if it would get him out of going to bed right then. This is how it went:
Mom: Bentley it's bedtime.
Bentley: I'm hungry.
Mom: No Bentley you are not hungry.
Bentley: I'm thirsty.
Mom: No Bentley you aren't thirsty.
Bentley: I've got to go potty.
Mom: RUN!
Finally I grabbed him and carried him upstairs. As we were passing by the upstairs bathroom where he saw the bathtub...
Bentley: But I smell like a fish.

I lost it right there. I thought it was hilarious that he would even say he smelled like a fish to get out of going to bed. Silly Boy!!

What Does Your Kid Do at Midnight?

This video shows what happens when Bentley takes at nap. He has a very hard time going to sleep. Unfortunately, Brian and I didn't get to much rest this night. The Parents of the Year Award would definitely go to Brian and Apryl!!

This is Bentley's rendition of throwing up. Personally, I hate to throw up and would never even pretend. Bentley on the other hand... obviously quiet enjoys it, he would prefer to stay up until Midnight and pretend to throw up.

ENJOY!!

If you can't tell from Brian's voice he wasn't the happiest dad on the block that night.

Easter

We had a fun Easter this year. On Saturday, we went out to the Goshen Easter Egg Hunt. It was freezing if you can't tell by the picture. Bentley got a basket of goodies and even got a prize egg. Sadly though, by the time we got to the prize table they had given the prize to someone else so he got $2 instead. I think he probably preferred the money. He loves money.
After the egg hunt, we had Kaulin come over and we made Easter cupcakes and dyed eggs. Later that night, we went to Grandma Vicki's for an Easter party. We had an Easter egg hunt and watched Bedtime Stories. If you haven't seen it, it's a very cute show.
On Easter morning, the Easter bunny led Bentley on an egg hunt to find his basket. When he found it he was quite excited. He got some new fishing supplies and games. We played Hi Ho Cherry-O all day long. That night we went to Grandma Vicki's for family night and had another Easter egg hunt.

Our New Kitchen

On Wednesday night I came home from work and decided I could not longer stand my kitchen cupboards being so unorganized. I organized everything in the summer and sure enough as the school years goes on, everything starts to get a little more cluttered. So I pulled everything out and dejunked my cupboards. Well we haven't had blind in our one kitchen window since we moved in and it drives me crazy. We decided we'd go do that. That lead to buying a curtain, the curtain led to paint, and the paint led to decorating. We finished all of the big stuff today, finally after a few days of my kitchen being torn apart and no oven so we've been eating out, we have our almost final result. There is still a few little touch ups, but for the most part it's done. We went from a white kitchen with no decorations to the pictures below. It's fun to not have plain white anymore.

Bentley loved helping. I just hope he doesn't think he can paint the walls whenever he wants to.

13.1 Miles DONE!!!!

Yesterday was the big day. It was the Moab Half Marathon. We left on Friday after I got out of work to go to Green River. That's where we were staying because all of the rooms in Moab have been sold out since November. We got to Green River and went to check into our hotel. Well, when we looked at the confimation email when we got there, it said that our room was confirmed at the Comfort Inn in Oskaloosa, Iowa. I book the room from Comfort Inn's main website, so I was hoping that was the place of their headquaters. We go into the Comfort Inn in Green River and they don't have a reservation for us, and to top it of they are booked for the night and the lady said she thought that everywhere was. We went out to the car and I just started crying. Luckly we found a pretty nice hotel in Green River.
On Saturday morning, we left Green River at 5:30am to get to Moab so I could check in at the race. We hung out for a little bit until it was time for me to go catch the bus that takes the runners up the canyon to the starting line.
When we headed up the canyon it was beautiful, I had to enjoy the scenery then because when I'm running I don't notice much. The course followed the Colorado River the whole way except the last two miles which was in town.
When we got where the bus dropped us off, there was loud music playing, water, gatorade, hot chocolate, and coffee. It was freezing! The sun hadn't come up over the mountains yet and it was definitely cold. We stood there as more and more buses brought runners up. There were 5,000 runners total. Finally after standing there for 2 hours, they finally announced that we could walk up to the actual starting line, which was a 1/2 mile away. By this time, I was starving, because I was to nervous that morning to eat breakfast. When we got to the starting line, it was more standing, streching, standing, waiting, streching. Finally after 45 minutes there, they called the runners who where climbing in the rocks down to come line up. At this point all the nervousness was gone, I was just ready to get going.
After 2 hours and 45 minutes of waiting, the race started. I was feeling great. At mile 3.5 my Ipod froze and I couldn't remember how to reset it, so the next ten miles I had no music and my Nike+ (tells me my pace and how far and long I've run) also wasn't working the greatest. Also at that time the ambulance came up the road to pick someone up behind me. That was a little scary.
A little over an hour into the race and I made it half way, 6.5 miles. I was actually feeling great at this time. After that however it got worse and worse with every mile. My legs were on fire and my hips were aching like mad. At mile 11, I was ready to just walk the rest of the way. Luckily, I had met a friend a little earlier and she caught up to me and we finished the race together. Hallelujah!!!! I did it. I was slower than I expected, but I'm just fine with that, I'm just glad I did it and I finished.
When I got to the finish, Brian lifted Bentley over the fence, and he ran the last little part of the race with me.
I was so tired and sore all I wanted to do was just sit down and never get up again. The park where the race finished was crowded. There really wasn't anywhere to sit down. So I didn't even wait to get my PR (personal record) pin. Brian went and got the car and we left.
It's the next day, and I'm sore, but the strange thing is after all of the pain and suffering, I'm ready to start training for the next. I'm thinking I will do the Mammoth 1/2 marathon at Bear Lake in June. If anyone would like to join me, I would love a running buddy. It's an amazing feeling to finish a 13.1 mile race!!!

I'll post pictures later. My camera was dead, so we borrowed Vicki's and I don't have the cord to download pictures and the pictures aren't up yet on the marathon's website.

Warm Weather

I haven't blogged in a while, so I thought I would blog about this wonderful weather. I have had spring fever terribly since we went to Mexico. I'm so excited that it is finally getting warm enough to be outside without a coat on. Today I was straightening up my house and I smelled the most wonderful smell, the smell of spring!! If you don't know what that is, take a big breath and you will smell a clean, crisp smell. I absolutely love it!!!
The warm weather has also been extremely nice as I've been doing my last final runs for the half marathon. This Saturday is the half marathon in Moab and it's supposed to in the high 70's. Now I'm a little worried it will be a little to warm. I'm so excited though.
Bentley is also getting very antsy with the warm weather. He asks Brian and I every day if we can go fishing. I'm hoping the warm weather stays around until next Saturday so we can take him fishing. He's been practicing casting his new Batman fishing pole in my house. I can't wait until we go fishing so he's not casting in the house anymore!

Cabo San Lucas and Mazatlan

Brian pulling quite the face, Lands End Arch behind him.

The second port we visited on our cruise was Mazatlan. I did not like it very well. First of all, we ended up with a taxi driver who kept trying to take us somewhere besides where we wanted to go for just "10 more dollars." Brian told he we wanted to go to the market, when we really wanted to go to the Golden Zone to shop. He wouldn't believe me. Anyway we ended up at the market. It was the real Mexican market. It was in this huge tent thing and there were lots of little stands inside. Alot of these stands were butchers. There was raw meat just sitting out on the counters and in the freezers. They weren't wrapped up or anything. Also there were whole pig heads just sitting there. There were flies everywhere and it stunk.
We were there for about 5 minutes and I had had enough! We went and got another taxi to the the Golden Zone. This was a much better shopping area. It was made for tourists. However, we went out on the beach and about 40 people came up to us with in 2 minutes trying to sell bracelets, hair braiding, para sailing, etc. After that I was done with Mazatlan. I was ready to be on the nice comfortable boat.

The last port we visited was Cabo. I LOVE Cabo!! It is absolutely gorgeous!! We didn't have very long to spend here, and we wanted to go to the beach. So that's what we did very early. We got off the boat and they had to ferry us on little boats to the land because there really isn't a big port to pull a massive boat into. Anyway we immediately got a water taxi that took us to see the sea lions and to "Lovers Beach." Since we got there so early we were about the only ones there. We went snorkeling. It was awesome. The sand here was also amazing it was so fine and soft. Like I said I LOVE CABO!!
I wish we would have had more time to spend here. We really didn't get to see the town very much. I wanted to go see Cabo Wabo, which is Sammy Haygar's (singer from Van Halen) bar. I saw it on the travel channel one day and it look fun. Anyway here are the pictures. Remember in the last post I said I wasn't the best picture taker, well I'm not and here are the photos to prove my point.

Me not looking the best to say the least, but look beyond at the amazing background.

Kyle and Bentley on the beach after Bentley tried out snorkeling.

Vicki, Randall, and I snorkeling. Look how clear and blue the water is.Randall lookin' hot in his snorkel gear. He seriously snorkeled for 3 hours!Kyle and Bentley on the water taxi, Lover's Beach in the background.

Puerto Vallarta

We just got back from our cruise on Monday. It was amazing!! I was so warm and beautiful. For the few of you who read my blog, I must apologize, this will be a long blog because this is my form of scrapbooking so I want to write down all of the stuff so we remember it. Also, I'm not that great of a picture taker, I forget or I just take a quick picture. I'm nothing like my sister, she always poses her family all cute and takes great pictures and scrapbooks them. She puts me to shame. I love her!!

This is our ship, the Carnival Pride, at Cabo San Lucas

Our first two days we spent at sea. These days were extremely relaxing. We hung out on deck laying out in the sun and of course eating.

Our first port was Puerto Vallarta. We hungout at the beach there for a little bit. We didn't really go swimming, because Brian and Kyle wanted to ride the canopies here. We also went shopping and ate lunch here. Some of the shops were very interesting, but they were fun to look around in. Everything is a "good price" or at least that's what the Mexicans say.
We ate at Pepe's. My sister-in-law has been there and said it was good so it was the only place that I trusted to eat at in Mexico.

My mother-in-law Vicki, Bentley, Me and Kyle behind me at the beach in Puerto Vallarta
Bentley's photography skills: Us eating at PePe's

Bentley and Vicki in the Jungle waiting for the guys to get off the canopies

A house in Puerto Vallarta- this was one of the nicer homes. Some were literally huts.

While the guys were on the canopies, Vicki, Bentley and I hungout at the waterfalls and restraunt there. The place was were the movie "Preditor" was filmed. There was a boy there that was dressed up as the Preditor and was hiding in the jungle and scaring people. He kept coming up and talking to Bentley. He called Bentley "Fervishio". I'm not sure how to spell it, because it was Spanish. Also, I'm not quite sure what it means. While we were waiting, we would sometimes hear Brian yell my name and we'd look way up in the sky and see him flying across the zip line. Crazy!Bentley and his new friendThe guys waiting for their canopy training course. They had to wear the bandanna's under their helmets.

We all really enjoyed Puerto Vallarta. It was really pretty and fun. The driving however was quite scary. They had only a few stop lights and no stop signs. Everyone just pulls up to a corner, slows and then goes. It's a big city too. Other than that it was wonderful.

Running Away

Brian, Bentley and I are running away. We'd been talking about going on a cruise and could never find a good time to go with Brian's school and my work, so on Monday, we just decided we'd book a cruise no matter what. We are leaving next Saturday, Jan. 24th. We're going to the Mexican Riviera for 7 days. Yeah!! Bentley can't wait to go on the "big boat". We'll post pictures when we come home. :)

Temple Square

A few weeks ago we decided to go up to Temple Square after church. We decided to take our niece Sara. We wanted to get there before they took down the Christmas lights. I absolutely love the Salt Lake temple. It is so beautiful with the Christmas lights it just makes it more beautiful.

Here are some of the pictures we took.