Simple Pleasures

Scott volunteered to write the blog post this week.  You will not be reading that post.  Sorry.

Today, I will relate the random things we enjoyed throughout the week:

1. Dining with the Dean.  BYU TV's latest reality TV show.  This is basically The Iron Chef meets The Real World.  Genius.

2. The sconces are up in our bedroom!  We ordered these about 2 months ago and finally took ten minutes to put them up.  They look best when the candles are lit.  Ignore the random stuff barely hanging onto Scott's nightstand. :P

3. Scott is investigating law school these days, so we watched The Rainmaker.  The movie was good but not too motivational for those considering the law profession.
4. We've officially ruled out "Justice" as one of our future children's names.  (I had to make some serious compromises in order to establish this.)
5. The other children (which are not on the way, by the way) have names...and better be fraternal twins, or this is not going to work out the way I would like.
6. I discovered malts.  And how to prepare English muffins.  Now we eat malts weekly and English muffins every morning.  After years without these items, I have a lot of catch up to do.

7. We went to the temple, and it was closed.  So, we enjoyed a long walk around the temple grounds.
8. We studied together.  Here's how that went:

     Scott, listening to Kelly Clarkson: "I could study listening to this."
     *begins dancing with excessive head and shoulder movements*

     Christie: "I can't study to you listening to this."

9. Our nightly scripture study and bedtime rituals have evolved nicely.  We "popcorn" read and try to catch each other when we least expect it.  This usually leads to one of us pretending not to pay attention, only to triumph in the end.  Then after prayers, Scott usually throws/rolls/boosts me 3 feet into our bed in the most cumbersome way possible.  I hope he can keep that up when he's 60 because I enjoy it.

Holy War

After an embarrassing BYU football loss, I was afraid to get on Facebook.  Mainly because people are jerks when it comes to football, and I didn't want to read about it.  But guess what?  I made a genius move last year and hid all of the outspoken Utes on my home feed.  I feel smart.  And kind of stupid.  Stupid because I forgot about it, smart because Facebook was a safe mourning zone.  (No, I did not block every Ute. Just the ones that would rile me up.)

Anyway, Scott & I did watch the game together and I made it fun with homemade pizza and breadsticks.  And rootbeer floats.  I know how to make the best of a bad situation. :)  Here are my favorite parts of the game:

(1)  I saw Jimmer cheering on the sidelines and told Scott, "Look there's Jimmer!"  Scott immediately started shouting "Go Jimmer!!!!"  You've got to cheer for someone good in games like that.  Also, we saw a cardboard cutout of Jimmer in the stands.  Yes.

(2) I sometimes have a hard time following where the ball goes when we watch the games.  So if there's a trick play, I will fall for it--guaranteed.  After a fumble, Scott said, "Did you see THAT?"  I had to respond, "No, I was looking at the wrong guy."  We laughed a lot about that.

So the football game was sort of fun at times.  We did, however, stop watching during the 3rd quarter, because it was getting bad and I was falling asleep.  A wise choice on our behalf.

Side Note: Several sunbeam parents have told me that I'm the only teacher that their kid will go to.  So, essentially that means that I get a huge class every week because everyone comes.  This is a blessing, but also a curse.  Large classes are hard to control.  Especially when the lesson suggests that you have the kids act like animals and guess what animals they are.  Mass chaos.

Ultimate Documentation

After much eager anticipation, we got our wedding photos back!  Unfortunately I made the mistake of looking at them for the first time while I was at school.  My eyes were welling up and I kind of had the “super happy” form of an emotional breakdown.  (This might have been normal in the HFAC, but it’s kind of unacceptable in the TNRB.)  Oh well—only the kid next to me took any notice, and he was working on the Warren Case and therefore had plenty of his own reasons to be in tears.  It is weird yet awesome to have the best day of your life documented so beautifully.  Here are some of my favorites:

Blue Pancakes & 9-11

The weekends go way too fast.  We had a good one though.  And a good week as well.  This may be more of a travel-log post, but keep reading through the end and you will be entertained.

Over the past week, I was very busy with school.  It seems like I have a lot of meetings, and I send a lot of emails these days, but that’s what business is all about right?  My club had a lot going on this week, which involved me dressing up every day and sitting at a booth trying to recruit more members.  It’s always fun to force people to take your fliers.  So, that was pretty great.  (Oh, and a huge thank you to those who came and visited me--it made the booth-sitting way better.)

Scott had a big bid due, so his days were very busy this week as well.  He also just got a new calling, which is not official, so I cannot inform the world yet.  It is not as fun as mine, but I think he will like it. 

Our weekend was the best ever, despite the fact that I probably say that every weekend.  On Friday, we went out to Texas Roadhouse.  I get a little obsessive about this place because they have the best rolls in the world, and it’s easy to get caught up in that.  I won’t even tell you how many baskets they brought us.  It was a good night out.  Back at home, we tried to watch Just Like Heaven, but we both fell asleep almost instantly.  It is not the most riveting movie.  And it was probably like 10:05, which is past our bedtime.

Saturday was filled with football watching, eating blue pancakes, trying to win guitars, going to the temple, trying to do homework, brandishing the crockpot, and dancing in the kitchen.  (I think it’s high time we invest in some blinds in the dining room…)

I should elaborate on the guitar-winning: I got some tickets from Best in Music the other day and found out they were giving away ten guitars (during the football game).  Scott and I were convinced that we would be 2 of 4 people there and therefore win a few guitars each.  As it turns out, there were a lot of people there, and we didn’t want to wait for them to give away all the prizes.  So, we gave our tickets to some random girl, who probably went on to win all of the guitars.

Sunday included some quality time with my sunbeams (see quotes below), a visit to Grandma’s house, and a memorial production of 9-11 put on by the little cousins including Lego representations of the WTC towers and a reenactment of the attacks.  I’m not sure how I feel about that either, but they meant well.

Not theirs, but someone else had the same idea...

This Week’s Sunbeam Quotes:

Nathan, referring to my veiny/bony feet: “You have snakes in your feet like my dad.”

Me: “Isaac, that’s a great window you’re drawing.” 

Isaac: “Or a great fox.”

Me: “Did you do anything fun this week William?” 

William: “Do you know about Harry Potter?” 

Me: “Yeah, did you watch the movie?” 

William: “No, I just looked at the cover.”

Last First Week

I am writing this post as a Sunbeam Survivor yet again. Yes, teaching the 4-year-olds is my official new calling. Scott is off the hook with some other calling on the way; but he was sweet enough to sign up as a substitute, so we may get to do it together again sometime. How do I feel about this calling, you may ask? I am doing my best to have a good attitude about it. There's good and bad in any calling. I've made a list of some pros and cons:  

Cons:

• It is hard to keep McKay from turning out the lights in the Primary Room. 
• I will have to listen to McKay talk about "poop" and watch him take his socks off each week. 
• Our class is in an old nursery room, so I must keep the kids from playing with the toys directly in front of them. (Poor planning on behalf of someone else.)

Pros:

• This could be the most effective form of birth control. No baby-hungriness for me.
• Candice & William (two of the sunbeams) claim they "love each other." It is hilarious and adorable. 
• The rewards of teaching about being able to "taste" and "smell." ...Maybe this is a con, I'm not sure. 
• A million awesome quotes. Like this: "Who knows what this song is about?" "Football!" "Umm...nope, Praise to the Man is about Joseph Smith."

I'm sure there will be more to come about these kids next week. In other news, I survived the first week of school (it's the last year for me!). So far, the content has been easy; but I'm not used to doing anything due to my awesome summer, so it's an adjustment. Also, I don't know if I've mentioned that I'm the President of the Women in Business Club at BYU. Anyway, that has been keeping me quite busy also. I'm putting together club displays for recruiting events and holding a lot of meetings to get things moving. If you want to check out the club, you can visit the blog: MUWIB Blog Shameless advertising, yes.

Enough about me--Scott needs an update. He's had a lot of work to do lately. New bids to finish with strict deadlines. And required Rodizio Grill lunch meetings. (Ha.) Also, he was in heaven with the football game yesterday. BYU won, thank goodness. He's also working on his new website idea and spending a whole lot of time with me.

Here goes another week!