Ice Skating at the Library Fountain

 I love ice skating!!! Most people know this about me, and friends will go with me all through the winter months. Last year I realized that there is a giant water fountain outside of the town library and in the winter they somehow freeze it over and rent out ice skates for people. It is really not that big but it has always looked like a lot of fun and I never made it last year. This year it was on the top of my winter bucketlist! Luckily I have some great friends who also really wanted to go so Katie Lee and Ashley Perry came with me!

 After ice skating we made a trip to the Waffle Love truck. It is just a truck that drives around the valley and parks somewhere to sell waffles. You can follow them on facebook to see if they are near you to get some waffles! I have heard great things about these waffles and they definitely didn't disappoint. They have little sugar chunks on the inside and then a wonderful bsicoff spread on the top with some cream and strawberries!! SO GOOD

The people you meet on a plane...

 Someday I may be caught up on my blog, but for now things are just kinda out of order and all over the place depending on the pictures I fond on my phone.

On my plane ride back to Utah from Christmas break I met a 9 year old girl named Mia. She was on my flight from Pittsburgh to Denver. At first I was standing in the line to get on the plane and this man behind me started talking to me. Someone accidently hit him with their bag and he kind of mumbled..."this is why I work with dead people." He said it loud enough to make sure I heard it and I immediately without thinking turned around and just kind of stared at him. That was enough to get him talking for the next 10 minutes about how he fixes cremation devices all over the world. He travels to New Zealand, Australia, Morocco, and somewhere in Africa. He said Africa is the worst because the police there are just killin people in the streets. I was horrified listening to him but there was no where else for me to go.

He stared asking about me and I wanted to tell him very little and luckily it was while we were walking to the plane so I ran out of time. I also knew that I had a very short connection in Denver to get to Salt lake so I wanted to sit close to the front of the plane so I could get off fast. Luckily as I boarded the plane there was a middle seat open between a nice looking lady and a little girl. I immediately told the man goodbye and sat down quickly so he couldn't sit near me.

It turned out to be one of the best plane rides ever sitting next to sweet Mia. As soon as I sat down she started talking to me and was very bubbly. I found out that her parents are divorced and her mom lives in Pittsburgh and her dad in Denver. She got to spend Christmas with her and she loved it! She doesn't get to see her mom much and her mom told her to keep being good so she can come back again. She hates having her parents divorced but she has accepted it and will live on. She is so strong for just being 9 years old! She talked to me about being in 3rd grade and I told her I was a first grade teacher. The lady on the other side of me said I was probably the best person on the plane for her to sit by!

We ended getting stuck on the tarmax for an extra hour and a half before taking off. This girl was getting antsy so I got out my phone and put on some of my first grade music I had. She loved listening to these songs! There was one on particular called the Peanut Butter song. When I teach it to my students I teach them sign language to go along with it. So I taught her the words to the song and the signs to go with it. I think people around me were either excited I was keeping her entertained or hated me for teaching her this song because she ended up singing it a lot on that plane ride :) At one point she fell asleep on my lap and so i felt like I could sleep a little bit. She woke up before me and shook me a little bit and asked if she could listen to the song again. Not really being awake yet I just said yes and fell back asleep. Later when I woke up she was still listening to it and the Bear Hunt song. The nice lady beside me started talking to me and she laughed and said it was very nice of you to let her use your phone and give her your password for it. When I was sleeping I hadn't realized she was going to need my password but apparently she had been watching close enough that she knew the 4-digit password to unlock my phone. We just laughed about it though and let her do her thing. 

When we finally landed Mia asked again if I was going to stay in Denver with her and I had to sadly tell her no. She said no one has ever been so nice to her on an airplane before and asked me if I would walk out with her. Unfortunately the airline people would not allow it, because you never know who you can trust these days. I had to say good bye, but I was very grateful to meet such a strong little girl who made me have the most enjoyable flight to date.

Ill see you again someday Mia, thanks for being a part of my life for a few hours!

Therapy

 So if you aren't in the loop, well then you might not know that I do therapy 3x a week every week for the 3 months and counting. I am trying to mold my spine to put some more curve in it. I guess you could say that sometimes I get bored, because I randomly send pictures to people and find these on my phone....

 There are weights in my shoulder and head to strengthen my neck!

 This band I use to stretch 6 different ways and it actually feels awesome!

 Apparently my neck doesn't turn very far to the side so I have to work on that...

 When I am actually at the chiropractor doing therapy they put me on this thing called traction. The black band has 14 lbs of weight and is pulling the base of my neck forward, while the white strap attached around my head is pulling the opposite way with 15 lbs of weight. It is not the most comfortable but I guess it is helping!

Learn about me before you judge me...

I found this article from someone who is not a member of my church but decides to learn more about us before jumping to conclusions or harsh judgements. If you want to know about what I believe then maybe this will help you out...It is called Smart Mormons by Mike Jensen.

Mormons have intrigued me ever since Mike Huckabee back in 2007 claimed that Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers. With the recent election over, I decided to check out Mormons a bit more.

My hope in doing this was to explain to readers who Mormons are and whether or not 22 percent of the people were justified in opposing having a Mormon president.

But instead I’m going to share an intriguing bit of Mormon theology I learned that I think makes them perhaps the most politically wise human beings on the planet. Ironically, this story stems from that Huckabee quote about the relationship between Jesus and the devil, but the lesson to be learned is one that, regardless of our political or religious views, we would all be wise to consider.

So here’s what I learned:

 Mormons, unlike most other Christian sects, believe that all humans lived a life before mortality. They call this the pre-existence or pre-earth life. At birth a veil is placed over our minds so that we don’t remember it (you’ll see why in a minute).

In this pre-earth life, we were all in the presence of God as His spirit children. Jesus was there—the first-born of God’s spirit children, and a leader in the councils in Heaven. Lucifer was also there, and was another leader among the children of God. He was called a “son of the morning.”

At some point in this existence, the Father called all of His children together to explain how things worked. All of His children would have to leave His presence and come to earth for a period of testing. The goal was to see if we would live a righteous life even when we had to live by faith, as we would no longer be able to remember God or heaven (that’s the reason for the veil).

If we would live a righteous life, we would be given the opportunity to return and live with God forever. Otherwise we would forfeit that chance, because no unclean thing can live in God’s presence. However, God knew that we would all make mistakes, so he would provide a Savior for the world. This Savior would live a sinless life, and because of that, he would qualify to pay for the sins of the world through what would be called the “Atonement.” If people would sincerely repent of their sins, then the Atonement would essentially erase their sins, and they could still return and live with God. The Father called for volunteers to be this savior, and two stepped forward: Jesus and Lucifer.

Lucifer said that he would be the savior and he would force everybody to live righteously, thus guaranteeing that all of God’s spirit children would return to Him in heaven [and he, Lucifer would receive all the credit/glory]. Jesus said that He would follow the Father’s plan and allow God’s children their free agency [and all the glory would go to God]. They could choose for themselves whether to live righteously and take advantage of the Atonement or whether to live in sin and forfeit the opportunity to return and live with God.

God rejected Lucifer’s plan, causing Lucifer to rebel and declare war on God. One-third of God’s spirit children joined Lucifer in this rebellion. In the end, the rebellion failed and Lucifer and his followers were cast out of heaven. They came to earth without bodies and now, continuing the war they started in heaven, they tempt men to do evil to one another and lose out on the chance to return to God. [Luke 10:18; Revelation 12:9; Isaiah 14:12]

PAY ATTENTION HERE; THIS IS THE GOOD PART

Now, any traditional Christians reading this will see similarities to their own belief system. Most traditional Christians believe that Lucifer lived in heaven as an angel, but then declared war on God and was cast out. However, the causes for that war are not necessarily clear in traditional Christian theology.

That is where Mormon theology is so intriguing. For Mormons, the greatest of all battles, the war in heaven, was fought over LIBERTY—or as they call it, “free agency.”Lucifer wanted to take it away, while God demanded that humans have it.

Although a Mormon might balk at my making comparisons between their religious beliefs and modern politics (and as I said earlier, every Mormon I’ve ever known was a very good person, so I apologize to any I offend), I see a direct correlation here. For a Mormon, the battle for liberty is not unique to this life; it is the core battle of the ages. Lucifer lost the war in heaven (he really thought he could beat God?), but the war continues on earth. So seeing the government become more and more tyrannical is not just a political concern; it’s a fundamental, eternal concern.

I’m inspired by this Mormon theological idea: God intended for humans to be free to make our own choices and live with the consequences of those choices. The Founding Fathers of this country said essentially the same thing in the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evidence, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

My study of Mormonism has not only given me newfound respect for this people and their religion; it has also made me evaluate my own attitude towards the liberty that seems to be slipping through all of our fingers. Is this just something that is nice to have, and for which I thank the Founding Fathers? Or is it really something that is endowed by God, and that He expects me to fight for. According to Mormon theology, I already fought for this once. The fact that I’m here says that I was on God’s side in the war in heaven, and fought for liberty.

A Mormon might ask, why should any of us be less willing to fight for it here than we were there?

Sub for Santa

I have a friend Rob who is an amazing person. Every year he likes to do a sub for Santa for a family. He is from Utah and has a lot of family, friends, and a great singles ward that are all willing to help out and that is exactly what happened this Christmas. Rob knows that I teach in a more difficult part of town with families that could always use a little bit of help. He asked if I would find a family for him to help this year. The hard part for me would to pick which one. So I talked to my school social worker about who she thought was in greatest need in the whole school. It does so happen that one of the children are in my class. We decided on the BIG family. We talked to mom and got as much information as we could on what they needed and hoe we could best help. I have never had so much fun serving others. In about 5 or 6 weeks we collected as much stuff as we could and got together for 2 nights in a row and wrapped SO many presents. Rob is like my dad and a perfectionist wrapper. That may have slowed down the process but I am pretty sure total we wrapped presents for 8 hours! It was insane! While we were wrapping we had more people bringing last minute stuff and then of course there was  the last minute runs to Walmart.

After finishing we stood back for a minute just amazed at the sight of the basement. Then we completely filled up my car for me to take to school the next day. When mom of the BIG family came to get the gifts she started crying when I opened up my car. We had a couple of us there transferring the everything from my car to hers, and its a good thing she drove an expedition! My heart was so full of gratitude that we were able to help out this wonderful family at Christmas time. Mom told me that she was so worried how she was going to get 7 kids presents for Christmas. Well she didn't have to worry because this year we took care of them!

Thank you so much Rob for letting me be apart of this and for helping one of my students and their family. It is something that I will never forget and I hope that I can help in the future as well.

Mom came to visit Utah

My mom had surgery and had a while to sit around at home while being off work for 6 weeks, so she came to visit me. She came at the perfect time for our Halloween festivities. She came to school with me for a couple days and helped me gets a lot of stuff done in my classroom. We ate out at everyone of my favorite Utah originals like Zupas, Cafe Rio, In and Out, Kneaders, and of course Buffalo Wild Wings! We spent Saturday in Park City touring around and shopping and Friday after school we checked out Gardner's Village. I also talked her into going trick or treating with me!  It was so fun to have my mom here and show her pretty much every aspect of my life now. It kind of turned into a joke but it didn't matter who we met the first thing everyone said was just how much they me and what a great person I am. It was definitely a self confidence booster for me:)

Blinking

Have you ever had so much fun blinking?! Yes you read that right...blinking! Because I never thought it could be amusing until now. Although with my brothers anything can be made into an adventure. 

It all started when I told Nick about us having a planking competition and Jeff St. Mars sitting across from us thought he heard a blinking competition.  Immediately Kevin and I faced each other and started blinking as fast as we could. Which then resulted in much laughter for the ridiculousness of the situation. Nick joined in and his blinking was very fast but we attribute that to his little squinty Asian eyes. The faces we made in the process were priceless!

So as we sat at the end of the table laughing, and ferociously blinking away, the rest of the table looks on in awe as to what could possibly be so funny. If only we could explain and have them not think we are crazy. 

That is what I love about family. We laugh a lot about ridiculous things that shouldn't really be funny, and aren't to anyone else.