Day 56 #1

Today’s thing was “every kids should do something to make the world a better place”. This was one that we realized would definitely take some creative thinking. As I sit in the living room at 3:30 in the morning surround by lesson plans, portfolio junk, art projects, and bulletin boards. And my best friend Shan sits near by staying up WAY past her bedtime just to simply offer me support as I try to trudge forward and try to finish up my portfolio that is due in less than 24 hours, I realize that we have definitely achieved this one.
Teachers are continually striving to teach students not only the content knowledge and state standards that are required of them, but they are also trying to instill in their students manners and life skills that will help them to become decent human beings and achieve something amazing with their lives. Everyday that I get up and go to school I am trying to make the world a better place one frustrating student at a time. I someday hope to achieve that.
On the same token, Shan is wanting to be a high school counselor and a coach and I feel as if there is nothing more extraordinary than that. Counselors are the ones who give students their first vote of confidence that they will be able to reach their goals and they are there to help them figure out how to achieve them. However, Shan doesn’t quit there! She also wants to be a coach, and I believe that all you have to do is stop for just half a second realize the effect that they have on students. Coaches are often the one adult that some kids have to look up to and respect, and it is from them that they learn true values that will help them succeed and become better then what they themselves believe they can be.
Here we thought that it would be difficult to try and make the world a better place, but all I had to do to figure this one out was to stop for half a second and realize that the answer was in our life goals. The career paths we have chosen are definitely going to help make this world a better place. . . . .someday.

Day 55 #69

Today's thing is "every kid should make a pizza". So we both have made a pizza before so we decided to put a little twist on it. We made fruit pizza. We got a variety of fruits including strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, mango, and kiwi. We made this great frosting from real butter which sounds gross but it seriously tastes so good!!!!!!

Day 54 #80

Today's thing was "every kid should make caramel apples". In short went and bought the stuff and made caramel apples.

Day 53 #27

Today's thing is "every kid should take music lessons". We were at my parents house when we did this which worked out great because my mom happens to be a piano teacher. So I taught Kelli a few things on the piano not a whole lot just the basics. My mom being a piano teacher I grew up taking music lessons, however I am not a very good piano player because as a kid I wanted to be outside playing sports instead of learning how to play the piano. Anyways I could always use a few more lessons because of my lack of skill so I had my mom give me a lesson like the good old days. Anyways it was fun to teach Kelli and helpful to have my mom give me a lesson.

Kelli getting her piano lesson.

Day 52 #46

Today's thing is "every kid should explore other cultures". This was one of my favorite experiences because Kelli and I went to the festival of colors. It is this event put on by an Indian temple in Spanish Fork. Basically you throw chalk dust on people and then they have big massive throwing were everyone throws chalk all at once and it makes this huge dust cloud. They have a lot of bright colors to represent the colors of spring. The idea is that it brings in the spring season getting rid of the dark colors of winter and bringing the bright colors of spring. It was pretty awesome and I could not get all of the chalk dust out of my hair so I have a pink streak in my hair. It just had to be my least favorite color. . .oh well it was still totally worth it.

Kelli covered in chalk!!

Me covered in chalk!!!

Day 51 #31

Today's thing is "every kid should experience a family car trip". So Kelli and I went to my hometown two hours away to experience the family car trip. In my family car trips we each got a turn to pick the CD of our choice for our turn. I usually picked NSYNC or something like that, that I knew all the words to. Anyways so Kelli and I implimented this tradition on our 'family' car trip. I chose a mixed CD that I just made that has a variety of songs and Kelli chose the soundtrack from Doing That Thing You do. We had the music playing in the back ground, but we pretty much spent the whole trip down talking. It was fun as usual.

Day 50 #60

Today's thing is "every kid should have a hobby". Well we both have some unexpected or at least surprising hobbies. For example I knit. If you know me at all this would not be something most people would imagine me doing, but my mom is amazing at crochetting and knitting so she taught me how to knit. I am not that great at it but I can knit scarves and those headband things with flowers on them. I have several now though so I think it it is time I learn how to make something else. Kelli's hobby is scrapbooking and needless to say she is amazing at it. We don't really have pictures of this one, but use your imagination.

Day 49 #53

Today's thing is "every kid should go to a fair,carnival, or amusement park.". So today Kelli and I went to the Grad Fair were we bought our cap, gown, and tassel for graduation. Obviously this was a different type of fair, but we are counting it all the same. Anyways our tassels are light blue which represent our college (college of education and human services) which means that we graduate at the same time in the same ceremony. We are both way excited!!!! p.s. We left our gown out of the picture for this so you can look forward to the complete outfit on May 7th.

Day 48 #29

Today's thing was "every kid should grow a vegetable garden." Well, seeing how we live in Logan and we essentially have NO Spring around here we headed on down to the local Wal-Mart and bought an indoor greenhouse and some seeds and planted our garden. Lucky for us the plants said that we are supposed to grow them inside for a few weeks, so with any luck we will succeed. I wanted peas and Shan wanted beets (yuck!) so we each got what we wanted and then agreed on peppers as well. I am quite excited to try out my green thumb!


Our "Garden" Kit.


Let the growing begin!

Day 47 #11

So today's thing was "every kid should turn off the television for a weekend". So starting Friday night we decided to turn off the tv. This worked out okay because I was in Vegas coaching the men's volleyball club team so I was in a gym all day and out all night cruising the strip. Kelli was in Logan working the nights and sleeping the days. In the end though we did it which proves that it can be done in this electronic day and age:)

Day 46 #83

Today's thing was "every kid should experience the feelings of love, safety, and security". You could call this one a stretch, but I say that it is just part of our everyday life. One person who truly makes me feel extremely loved, and have a sense of security and safety would most definitely be Shan! I can most definitely count on her and turn to her for any of my problems and I will know that my secret is safe with her and that she will never judge me or hate me for what I have done. She will be there to help and encourage me. I hope that Shan can in some way feel the same way about me. (Even if not, we both agreed that we at least love ourselves) haha! =o)

To celebrate our amazing friendship and love for each other and ourselves, Shan and I pampered ourselves a little. We went out and bought us some new shoes, then went to dinner, and a dance show. I must say that the show was a complete FAIL but other than that we definitely had an amazing time together!

Day 43,44, 45 #54, 51, and 32

So this past weekend I had the pleasure of visiting Kelli's hometown Oakley, Idaho. We planned this trip because of #54 which is "every kid should visit the place where mom and dad grew up" as well as #51 "every kid should spend some time on a farm, even for a short visit". Oakley is basically a farm out in the middle of no where, so it fit in perfectly. We had a lot of fun we went up on Friday and came back on Sunday. Luckily Kelli has the hookups in town so we got to see the volunteer firestation, the high school, the local store Clark's, town hall, the jail, and the local Cafe Smith's. We also went to the playhouse to see Singin In the Rain. It was really fun and the lead in the play had an amazing voice. Which brings me to #32 which is "every kid should see a classic movie on the big screeen." This thing was kind of a impromptu to thing because we went to the play and they used a projector for part of the play, and we had been trying to figure out how we were going to do this one so when we saw it we knew this was our chance. So we went to the playhouse late on Saturday night and watched Grease on the projector and screen. In the end I totally loved my trip to historic Oakley!!!!!!!

Day 42 #79

Today's thing is "every kid should see mom or dad laugh". I went home this week for spring break so that is why this weeks stuff deals with family. My family is very sarcastic so we laugh a lot but I have one experience that happened this week that I will tell you about. My mom was teaching a family history class for the first time in Sunday school which lasts an hour. So I asked my mom how long she was teaching the class and she says "for the whole hour" and I am like no freakin' way mom I thought you were only going to teach it for fifteen minutes. My dad and I laughed pretty hard. Writing it out like this does not make it seem that funny, but if you were there you would have laughed.

Day 41 #74

Today's thing is "every kid should spend time alone with a parent". This one is pretty easy for me to do because whenever I go home I am alone with my parents. I am the youngest and all of my other siblings are married so ya. Anyways so today I spent some alone time with my mom. My mom and I both love movies, unfortunately my dad does not. Whenever I go home my mom always takes me with her to see the movies she wants to see. So I went with my mom to see The Adjustment Buraeu. It was a lot of fun we like to make it early to the show so we can see the previews. The ones that we like we plan on going to see together. I really like the movie, it was a glorified chick flick, but I still liked it. My mom thought it was okay, but not as good as Unknown. Either way we had a lot of fun!!!

Day 40 #98

Today's thing is "every kid should learn about their family history". My mother happens to be a family history guru so I took some time today to learn about my family. If you have not guessed it already, Kelli and I are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS for short); so it is not surprising that I learned that my great, great, great grandfather was a polygamist. The LDS church no longer practices polygamy but it is a part of our history. Anyways my grandfather had three wives and I come from his second wife. He was even put in jail because he was a polygamist. I also learned that my father's side is British and that we have some old royal blood in the family. My mother's side is from Denmark in fact my great grandfather moved here from Denmark in his early twenties where he met is wife who was also from Denmark. It was really interesting to learn about my family and I also got to spend some time with my mom. It was a great experience.

The British Flag

The Danish Flag

Day 39 #84

Today's thing is "every kid should participate in an extracurricular activity". Well as I have mentioned before I used to play volleyball for Utah State, so this weekend I actually went to a volleyball tournament in Jackson Hole Wyoming with some other alumni so I counted that as my extracurricular activity. It was a lot of fun and it felt good to play in a competitive atmosphere again. Some of the teams we played were not very good, because they let anyone come and so there where some older women there. There were a few good teams there that were a lot of fun to play against, but needless to say our team I was legit, and we won the whole tournament. It was actually a true double elimination, and we lost in the second round and then fought back to win the whole thing!!! We decided that we just wanted to get our money's worth because if you were in the losers bracket you had to play more games to make it back into the championship match:) It was a lot of fun and we won some cool bags (that is how we do it in Jackson (inside joke))!!!!!!!

Day 38 #58

Today's thing is "every kid should write a letter to their favorite athlete, actor, or actress". So for my letter I wrote to Karch Kiraly (Kr-eye). He is an amazing volleyball player, he most known for his beach play, but he also played indoor. In fact, he was the first person to win an Olympic gold medal in both indoor and beach volleyball. He is amazing!!! Anyways I just wrote to him about how awesome I think he is and how much he has done for the sport of volleyball especially here in the United States. Oh and you better believe we are sending these to them.

Day 37 #89

Today's things was "every kid should be given a camera to take pictures and the freedom to take whatever pictures she wants to take." Seeing how we take pictures daily to document our crazy adventures we wanted to go above and beyond the daily norms with this one. We went out to the local Wal-Mart and bought disposable cameras. We are going to carry these with us on whatever adventures we have and document it through a good old point and click. We have BIG plans for the future with these pictures, but you are just going to have to wait and see! =o)

Day 36 #48

Today's thing was "every kid should eat green eggs". So in honor of Dr. Suess's birthday we thought it would be fitting to do this one today. So we put green food coloring (a lot of green food coloring) into our beaten eggs and they we scrambled them. It was a little hard to eat the green eggs, for obvious reasons, but they still tasted excellent!

The uncooked eggs........

The finished product!!!!!