Miss Smith

I have had a few job interviews and gotten turned down each time. Each time the principal would tell me that I was a great interview and one of the finalists but there were just soo many people applying for teaching positions. It was down to a week and a half before school started. I knew I wasn't getting a job this year. I had talked about the driving schedule for my nanny kids and had planned on staying with them through the year. I was sad but ok with it. Well on Wednesday August 10th I got a call from Davis school district asking if I had gotten a job yet. I said no. She told me that the district might be getting some last minute emergency funding and they were having an abnormal interview at the district office where I would be interviewing with at panel of principals. I told her I would be there early Friday morning. I told my friends that I would have to be late to Bear Lake and was sad because I was missing some of my vacation and didn't even know if it would be worth it. I went to the interview and it was very nerve wracking. There were 7 or 8 principals if I remember correctly and the guy that was running the interview. In a way it was less pressure than one on one because the principals are all friends and they talked and laughed amongst each other. The principals just took turns and each one asked me a question and they just went around the table. They told me that they would know if the funding went through on Tuesday evening and then the principals would start making calls. I didn't really know what to expect and went straight to Bear Lake and tried not to stress about it. That was basically impossible. On Monday morning I got a phone call from the principal of Sand Springs elementary asking if I could come and meet with her to get to know her better. She gave me a tour of the school and told me that if the money came through then she would offer me a job. I was freaking out! I went boating and prayed that the money came through. Tuesday was one of the longest days ever. I nannied and then went home and sat in the front room with my home phone and cell phone on my lap. The meeting was supposed to get over at 6. Hollie was with her mom, who is a principal, and called at like 6:10 telling me that the district got the money. At about 6:15 my phone rang and it was my principal telling me that it was a go and that I needed to be to faculty meeting the next morning at 9:00 am. I was the new 2nd grade teacher at Sand Springs Elementary. I started bawling and called my nanny family first to give them a 14 hour notice. I felt horrible that it was this late of notice for them but there was nothing I could do. Then I called both grandmas and text friends and put it one facebook. Ha. That made it official. I sat there for about 30 minutes and then my mom and I went shopping! It was 7:oo on Tuesday night and school started the next Monday and I had a whole entire classroom to furnish and lessons to prepare. We had to get going! We went wardrobe shopping first and to Zurcher's to pick a theme for my room. Priorities! Wednesday morning I went to my faculty meeting, it got over at 12 and I went and saw my completely empty classroom, then I went and picked up my mom who took the rest of the week off to help me, and we went shopping again. We were both feeling very overwhelmed. My mom called Letia and Ann for emergency help. Good thing we have connections with women who know their way around an elementary! Letia, Ann, Kallee, Whitney, Abbey, and Jordan came at the drop of a hat and helped get my room done. I literally could not have done it without them. They worked so hard. They spent hours in my room on Wednesday and Thursday. Alyssa, Holly, my sisters, my dad, and Jeff also came and helped me a ton as well. My coworkers were amazed at how many people came to help me. They were all jealous! :) I had a couple of breakdowns but did pretty well for the most part. It was probably the longest 5 days of my life. I spent $1,200 very quickly and worked really hard but we did it. I was (kinda) ready for school to start on Monday morning. The district hired 35 teachers with that last minute funding they received. Not the most ideal way to start out the year and I hope that I never have to have that last minute stress again but I am so thankful that I got a job!

Part of my crew. I was too stressed to think about taking many pictures.

These are just some of pictures of my classroom. I chose to go with a Hollywood/stars theme. It turned out really cute and my kids like it.


Annie made this really adorable cake for me the night before school started. I'm sure that I teared up. I loved it.

I am so happy to have a class that I love at an amazing school that is pretty close to my house. It is literally my dream job. I have always wanted to teach 2nd grade. I love my kids so much! They are adorable and funny and I have awesome parents in my class. My kids say the funnies things sometimes. I get asked at least weekly why I am 25 and not married. Ha. They keep me humble. This job is seriously a dream come true and such a blessing. Definitely worth the stress and wait. I am so grateful that to everyone that helped me with everything that week, especially my parents, and especially my mom. There is absolutely no way that I could ever have done it without her. I hope that I can stay a Sand Springs Stallion forever!

Boating!

I love going boating with the Smiths. I can not go nearly as often as I want. The summer always just flies by. We went the very last week of the summer. Better late than never! It was the perfect day. Get home Sunday from Bear Lake and go boating the next day, perfect summer week. I wish life could always be like that!

Steph and I on the boat. We look lovely.

Steph is basically a professional wakeboarder. We didn't get any pictures of me wakeboarding because I couldn't get up. I was very frustrated.

Wind blown hair. Too bad that my hair couldn't stay like this the whole day! Ha.

Normally I don't love tubing. It totally freaks me out. But I actually had fun this time. Also, I could actually pull myself up on the tube. Normally it takes quite a few people to help me get up on there. I was so proud of myself for getting on it alone. I still got really scared but I enjoyed it. Our faces show it all.

Colton at the beginning of our boating day. His shirt describes him perfectly. He sure is a "Chick Magnet."

Colton loved when we would drive fast on the boat. He would yell, "wahoo!" the entire time that the boat would be going. It is pretty funny to watch him. He loves it. That is why the next picture is so funny...

He fell asleep on the last ride around the bay. I don't really know how that happened because it was fast and bumpy. It was hilarious. I loved our boating adventure and can't wait to be invited again next summer!

Bear Lake

At the end of August I went with Hollie's family to a cabin in Bear Lake. I loved it! I couldn't leave when the rest of them left because I had a job interview early Friday morning. My dad offered to drive me all the way up there so that I didn't have to drive alone. :) It was really sweet of him.

Here are my dad and I sitting at the gas station in Bear Lake waiting for my friends to come pick me up. This picture was the last of about 10 tries to get him to look at the camera.

When I got to the cabin I was given my perfect adorable cup that Hollie and her sisters had made for everyone to use during the weekend. I couldn't have been more thrilled.


I love shakes!

We love Le Beaus. The raspberry shakes are divine! We went there a few times during the weekend.


I always love bon fires. This one was one of the best. We played iPod idol, I had an adorable baby to hold the entire time, and a 5 year old that loved me and wanted to sit right next to me. Also, we didn't wear makeup or get ready at all the entire time. I LOVED it.


These two pictures summed up our weekend. We played in the sun all day, came home and ate dinner, then retired to our bedroom that was basically an ice cube and we had to wear sweatshirts and cuddle in bed while we all read. It was absolute perfection. I love vacations where all I have to do is play in the sun and read. That is my kind of life! I love Bear Lake and decided that someday when I am rich I will have a cabin there. I hope that I get invited next year! Thanks Marshall's for letting me come!

Tim!

Time for another concert! Tim McGraw! It is so hard for me to decide which concert I love the most. It is usually whatever concert that I am at right then. Because I sure love Tim McGraw!

The entire time leading up to the concert, Lynsie kept saying that she wished she could just go and watch The band Perry and Luke Bryan and then leave. She said that Tim McGraw was old news. She knows how bad that infuriates me. On the way to the concert we were listening to The Band Perry and Luke Bryan to get in the concert spirit and to learn the words. I already know every word to Tim so I didn't think it necessary to listen to him. I finally put Tim McGraw in so that Lynsie could get "familiar" with some of his songs. The very first song that played she said, "Oh my heck! I didn't know this was Time McGraw. This is my favorite song!" She preceded to know every single song that we played by Tim. While I was happy that she admitted to liking Tim, I was very frustrated that she is so stubborn that she wouldn't even listen to him until now.

Whitney and I waiting for Tim!

The band Perry was pretty much adorable and amazing. They did not disappoint.

I can't wait for Luke Bryan to come for his own concert! I love him! I really feel like he is the most entertaining singer I have ever watched. He dances the entire time that he is on the stage. I don't know how he can sing and dance like he does at the same time. He is so cute. And when he turns his hat backwards... Mmmm!

Look how adorable he is!

Justin, Chelsie, Whitney, and I

The concert up to this point was so amazing that we were so happy that we could have just went home right then and be totally happy. But then we remembered that we still had the main event! I could not have been happier.

OMG! I love this man so so much!

There are no words.

The girls.

The concert is over. We are on a concert high but also sad that it is over.
I can't even wait until next time Tim. Concerts make me broke but they bring me so much happiness. I hope that I can always go to every concert!

Lynsie, Kaylyn, and I continued the party after the concert. I was house sitting at Kiele's and they came with me. I am not going to post all of the pictures that they took. They were a little scandalous.

We love taking pictures of ourselves.

We finally ended the party at Jeremiah's the next morning. I can't wait until the next concert!

Happy Birthday Lucy!

The greatest actress ever born was Lucille Ball. She was the best comedian and I don't think that anyone will ever top her. She was also a very successful business woman. She was so successful. Today would have been her 100th birthday. She was born August 6, 1911.

For some reason I fell in love with Lucy. Starting at a very young age I Love Lucy was my favorite show. I loved Nick at Night's Block Party Summer because Tuesday nights were I Love Lucy. I loved how the show was so innocent and funny and people of every age still love it. Every time that I had to do a report on a famous person or about a biography I would ALWAYS choose to do it about Lucy. I love how her and Ricky/Desi really loved each other. It wasn't just an onscreen romance. Even though they ended up with a very bitter divorce and both remarried, they still loved each other until the day that Desi died. When he was dying it was Lucy that he asked for and she was there. So so touching to me.

This is a picture of the second to last episode of the show. Lucy's face was painted completely white because she was obviously dressed as a geisha girl. This is when everything was happening for their divorce. They had to keep redoing her makeup because she just kept crying the whole entire time. It is a very sad episode to me now. Their lives were falling apart.

I love every single episode of I Love Lucy but my favorite is definitely the Ballet episode. I have probably seen it 1,000 times and I still laugh just as hard as I did the first time. She is so fetching funny. Watching try to dance has got to be the funniest clip of a show ever on T.V. Please go watch it if you've never seen it.

I'm not really sure when my obsession with Lucy first started. It was somewhere before 8th grade though. I know this because of a very traumatic thing that happened to me. I went to California on a family vacation. While we were there we went to Universal Studio. You may or may not know that there use to be an I Love Lucy museum at Universal. I knew. You could go and see some of her more popular dresses that she wore on the show and awards and pictures I'm sure. My mom told me that in the olden days you would be able to actually go into her dressing room. Well my family knew that I loved Lucy and this museum is somewhere that I needed to go to while we were there. Well of course there were lots of rides that we wanted to go on and I was the oldest child and then there were 6 younger kids than me on the vacation and the museum would be boring to them. So while the museum was still definitely a priority, we had other things to do first. It started getting later and we kept riding the Jurassic Park ride over and over. We loved it. Then we went to go to the museum and the Backdraft ride was right next to the museum. It was the last run of the ride before the park closed. So we decided to do that and then do the museum. Well I am very sad to say that when we came out of the ride... the museum was closed. I was very sad. I remember just staring through the glass with my dad trying to see everything. My obsession with Lucy grew from there. My mom said that she really regrets not taking me to that first. Stupid Backdraft.

Well I figured I'd get to the museum eventually. I go to California quite frequently but most Disneyland. One trip to California Alyssa, Bryson, and I decided that we'd go to Universal. Mostly for me to get to the museum but also to just go. We ended up not going. We wanted more time at Disneyland. I still thought I would be able to go.

A few months later I went to Universal with my family. The first stop was going to be the museum. My life long goal of going to this place was finally going to happen. I get to the building and it is closed.

For good. The day before I went there was the last day that it was open. Her family wanted all of the stuff back.

Don't really know what face I'm pulling but obviously I'm heartbroken here.

I still had to get some pictures in front of the museum.

The tire marks were still on the road from the moving trucks. I was literally one day late. I just looked through the window again at the empty building. I still can't believe that happened. I was so sad. I of all people should have went to that museum and it definitely wasn't from lack of trying. I will someday go to all of the museum that they have in Jamestown, New York, where she was born. I am going to somehow talk my husband into going there for our honeymoon.

Lucy has obviously touched a special place in my heart. I collect all of her paraphernalia. I have almost every Lucy doll, all of the 50th anniversary stuff they came out with, every book that I've seen, postcards, magnets, stamps, calendars, planners, etc. I had it all out in my room at one point and cried the day that I bundled it all up and put it in a bin. I still have my barbies and random stuff out but there is too much to have it all out. Tyler use to hate when I would get something Lucy for Christmas because it would take 10 minutes to look at it because I would cry over every gift.

A few examples of the many different Lucy Christmas presents that I have gotten.

Every Christmas I have gotten at least one Lucy item.

A couple of years ago I made my mom and Letia drive down to the Festival of Trees because I had heard there was and I Love Lucy tree.

It did not disappoint. If I was rich it would have been mine.

Some things that you might not know about I Love Lucy:

-Lucille Ball was the first woman ever pregnant on T.V.

-The T.V. station said that being pregnant was considered dirty and so this was a big deal. The episode was called "Enciente" which is pregnant in Spanish. They were not allowed to say the word pregnant. They were only allowed to say expecting.

-More people watched the episode of the birth of the baby than watched the presidential inauguration.

-Lucy and Desi were having marriage issues before I Love Lucy even started and Lucy said that she would only take the part as Lucy Ricardo if Desi could play her husband. It was her idea to save her marriage. It worked for a few years.

-I Love Lucy invented the concept of reruns. It was after Lucy had her baby on T.V. and in real life. She needed time off and so she came up with the idea of showing past episodes again. Everyone thought it was an awful idea. Obviously it wasn't. Imagine if there weren't reruns on T.V.

On a website they are trying to crown the "Lucy of our generation." Some women that they are considering are Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Kristen Wiig, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Debra Messing. While I do love Amy Poehler I do not think that it is ok for them to say that there could be a Lucy of our generation. Lucy was a once in a lifetime actress and person. I'm a little bit bitter about it.

Obviously I love Lucy. She was the greatest woman ever on television. She touched my life in so many ways. I wish more than anything that I could have met her in real life before she died. She will be one of the first people that I meet when I go to Heaven. I am going to give my first baby girl the middle name Lucy. Yes my husband will love that idea. I'm so glad that I fell in love with Lucy. I have watched every episode more times than I can count. It is always able to cheer me up whenever I have had a bad day. Every person that I have talked to about the show has a favorite episode and they usually say that they remember watching with a grandparent or something cute. It reminds people of better times when everything wasn't trash on television. I am so grateful for Lucy and hope that my children will like watching it with me.