The Boyfriend: Part 2 Family Interactions

So, I should be doing homework right now, but decided to do a blog post instead... yay for early semester procrastination! 

So Curtis is absolutely wonderful with my family and my nieces and nephews, and they all love him.

Poor Curtis playing along with my niece's possessiveness. 

Curtis willingly snuggling with me AND my brother, David.

... And then willingly snuggling with a bunch of my family :)

On a double-date with my parents.

We went on a double-date with my brother, Joseph and his wife, Tara.

Here is us! It was a David Archuleta concert.

Playing with some a niece and some of my nephews, the first time he met them.

Playing with one of my nephews before Sunday dinner.

A picture of how happy my nephew is :)

Poor Curtis getting destroyed by my niece. I'm sorry, babe.

Anyways, I feel so blessed that Curtis gets along well with my family. My family is huge and crazy and snuggly. Curtis, thank you for spending so much time with my family :)

A Friend to All

I guess I was on a blog famine and now I am back! Well, at least for tonight.

I just want to say that I am so blessed for a great family.

One story I forgot to mention on my Thanksgiving post...

My brother invited a homeless guy to Thanksgiving dinner. I guess he had made friends with him, talked to him several times, and brought him lunch every once in a while. He hangs out near my brother's work.

I am so grateful that my brother thought to invite him to Thanksgiving dinner. It was so much fun to get to know him and a great reminder to me about how blessed I really am.

Thank you so much, bro, for your loving kindness. I really appreciate your example.

The Boyfriend: Part 1 October

I have been dating a wonderful man for a couple months now and decided it was finally time to get around to blogging about him. I have always been so blessed to be surrounded by great men, and Curtis is definitely one of them. 

Let's start at the beginning. Curtis and I are in the same church ward (congregation) and in the same apartment complex, so we were bound to meet each other at some point.

Curtis first talked to me. He complimented me at a party on a dessert I brought. Sadly, I didn't notice him because I was flirting with another guy at the time.

A couple weeks later we played ultimate frisbee together. We were on opposite teams. He noticed my running (haha ;) and I finally took notice as well and learned his name.

He asked me out on a date and I had to say no because I was busy.

He asked me out on a second date and I had to say no because I was busy.

According to him, he probably wouldn't have asked me out again because I already said no twice. Luckily, I decided to ask him on a date. We went to a murder mystery dinner theater and had a great time.

Then, I went to Nevada for work. Honestly, I was still crushing on another guy at this point (I mean, we had only been on one date together).

I came back to find this on my dresser:

Men, the quick way to a women's heart (at least mine) is through flowers. Yeah, he won major points that day.

We went on another date. Don't worry, he asked me this time. We actually went to another murder mystery dinner. Murder, dressing up, dinner... life couldn't get much better ;) Oh, and that night he also found out I had my LDS mission papers almost completed.

The date was great. Although, I had a date with his roommate the next morning for breakfast ;)

A few days later he met one of my besties and wooed the heart of her and her husband.

The next day we went to an awesome Halloween party.

After the Halloween party we watched the Boogeyman with Cara and Andrew. What a great opportunity to hold hands for the first time ;)

That Tuesday we went on a date again... this time to Nickel City. Curtis became my "30 Ticket Prince."

We bought rubber frogs with the tickets we won. I said in the car that I wondered if the frog would turn into a prince if I kissed it. So I did. Curtis (who was driving) grabbed the frog out of my hand and threw it in the back of the car, and said "ta-da!" I guess I got my prince ;)

That Wednesday, Curtis made dinner for me and then we danced. That night we had our first kiss while dancing. 

On Friday we officially became boyfriend and girlfriend.

The next weekend we had another murder mystery dinner :)

Well, the dates of the dates during October may have gotten a bit mixed up in my mind, but hopefully I got them pretty close to accurate.

Regardless, it was a wonderful month and a great start to an awesome relationship.

I will tell a little more about him and us in Part 2.

Thanksgiving Pictures

I had a great Thanksgiving week. I am so grateful for my family and friends :)

When you don't have plastic wrap, just use plastic bags :)

A bunch of the yummy food!

More of the yummy food.

The best Thanksgiving dinners are those with plastic ware... less time cleaning up, more time playing!

The devastation I left.

My food baby following the big Thanksgiving meal :)

My friend Ed who joined us for the meal. Thanks for coming, Ed  !

Daryl and his sly self helping me decorate Curtis's bedroom.

We put about 3000 tickets all over his room.

Snuggling with my mom and brother :) The best!

Our apartment Christmas tree!

More Christmas decorations.

Yay! For pictures up almost two months late... haha. I hope you enjoyed them :)

Progess?

Well, I have learned much about me the past couple days and about these goals.

1. Getting 8 hours of sleep is hard. Nevertheless, it is still my goal.
2. Making eating an event is even harder, especially with working full-time and going to school full-time, but I have had some success.
3. The more I talk about this to others, the more support I have :) Turns out I have a brother and sister-in-law who are training for a triathlon. My brother keeps on following up. Its awesome.
4. I feel really guilty if someone bakes me something and I don't try it because of the sugar content. I will be a little more relaxed with that so I don't hurt anyone's feelings... I will take a small bite :)

Also, I have had some fun being healthy!

I am working out a new gym and enjoyed it today. Yay!

We'll see how this week goes.

Lifestyle Turn-Around

I had an epic summer... I worked out 45 - 120 minutes everyday, ate extremely healthy, got 8 hours of a sleep a night... I was on top of it all.

Since school has started I feel like this has entirely swapped and I want to go back.

So I have a goal currently called "lifestyle turn-around." Basically, I want to turn-around and go back to how I was during the summer time, and maybe even approve on that.

I know that I am much more likely to do something if I become accountable to someone. Well, I guess I am now accountable to the blogging world :)

September 21-24 will be my prep days for this turn-around. I will get my life in order enough (homework and such) in order to make these changes. Here are the goals for September 25 - October 16. At that point I will reevaluate my progress and goals and move on to the next couple weeks. (Also at that point I go on a work trip... I will need to make goals for that as well).


Anyways, so there is argument about how long a habit takes to form... 18 to 256 days. This psych blog states about 66 days on average. Well, we'll see about that. I was able to make me summer practices habits during the summer time when I was only working, let's try to create a habit for my school schedule.

My start-up goals go as following:

Exercise at least 30 minutes per day (excluding Sunday).
Get at least 8 hours of sleep per night.
No white sugars.
Eating must be an event in itself (no eating while working or doing homework).

So there you have it. This isn't up to the same level yet as my summer routine, but for the first couple weeks this will help me start preparing for the next steps.

I also must post at least once a week on my progress.

Wish me luck! :)

"The child-driven education"

I am absolutely loving my classes this semester!

In my Top of Utah Deaf Education class today we watched this video (very worth the length the video):

Theme: "If children want to learn, education happens"

Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education | Video on TED.com