Happy Holidays

December 29^th, 2011

Hi All My Wonderful Friends and Family!

Wow another year has run away! For lots of reasons I didn’t get to mail out Holiday Cards this year. However, I am posting this on the blog in hopes that some get to read it. It has been a year of lots of ups and downs. Overall, I am pleased to announce we are alive and I think ending this year on a happy note.

Scott continues to work at his investing and at Wal-Mart. He is also doing lots of great drawing and I really enjoy the evenings that he invites me to take a look at the sketches he was working on that day. He is still such a blessing to me, I love living with my brother and we seem to have fun most of the time. This summer we took a driving trip with Erik, Matt, Kiaya, Mom & Dad to California and he got to attend Anime Expo. I think he really enjoyed the first break he has taken in a while and enjoyed the guy time he got with his brothers. (Though I know they missed Shawn in their mischief making J )

Some of the wonderful ups this year for me included traveling, one of my favorite things to do. The driving trip with the family was a fun one, as well as my amazing world adventure with Mom last spring. I could write a book on all the amazing things we saw and did on that trip. I have hundreds of pictures, videos, and other memorabilia. Hopefully this year I will actually get some updates from that trip posted on my blog. I also had the blessing of spending some really great time with both Mom and Dad and just talking and driving and seeing parts of the western US. I am so blessed to have such an amazing family and I hope they all know how much I love them.

This spring I ended my time as manager at East Bay RV Park. It was a great experience and part of me will really miss the people I had the chance to interact with, both my staff and the wonderful customers. The park was sold, and after a lot of soul searching I decided that I needed to take the chance to move on in my life. After some frustrating job hunting and life evaluations I am again a full-time student at UVU (as opposed to the ongoing never ending one-or-two classes a semesters while working) and fingers crossed will be able to actually graduate with my bachelors in the spring of 2012.

Life seems to keep me busy in one way or another. I am sure next year I will look back and once again be amazed at how the time seems to fly. I am making an actual 2012 resolution to post at least twice a month on here, so keep checking back! I hope everyone has a wonderful 2012 and I look forward to seeing what is in store.

Engaged Learning

Going back to school full time is a lot more work than I remembered! While some classes confuse me and at times frustrate me, overall I am enjoying the experience. One class I love going to is my Wednesday night Digital Marketing Class.

We’ve been discussing social medias, the marketing do’s and don’ts for those, and the changes in marketing trends in the last decade. Part the “homework” for this unit was creating profiles, if you didn’t already have them, on Facebook , Google, Twitter, YouTube and a few other things. So yes…I did what I swore I never would and opened a Twitter account. Another thing we had to do was create a YouTube video (3-5 minutes). The professor said to make it funny and “sell” a message, but not a product; this was not to be a sales pitch or formal advertising, but rather an exercise in simple YouTube videos.

This Wednesday she announced we would be watching the group YouTube video and voting on how original they were and how well they fulfilled our criteria. To our surprise our group won! Our prize: a Halloween bag full of candy. :D So I have lots of whoppers if anyone wants some! Just remember this movie is addressed to the too literally minded business students.

A Spoonful of Sugar and Swords

On Saturday, August 27, 2011, Laura Bedore was speaking to Talon Ackerman, the young man who plays Michael Banks in Broadway Across America’s Mary Poppins. She announced she had an extra ticket and told the listeners to write in if we wanted to go see the play with her, and why. I wrote her an email and on Monday she wrote me back to tell me I had been selected to come see the musical Mary Poppins at the Capitol Theater in SLC with her and a small group.

So, on Thursday, September 5, 2011 I had the wonderful evening out. First I met my “dates” at the Rodizio Grill at Trolley Square for a yummy meal. It is very similar to Tacano’s and the food was well prepared with lots of great variety.

We then proceeded to the Capitol Theater to meet the rest of the group (only five of us came to the dinner, we met up with the other 3 at the theater). I had brought my binoculars assuming that we would be seated in the top balcony, just excited I had a ticket. However, when we were handed the tickets I was blown away; we had those amazing seats that you never see for sale! In this case 5^th row (E) center, just far enough back to be able to see the whole stage without straining your neck, but close enough to see everything!

All of us were so excited to be there and our mutual adoration of musical theater made for great discussions while we waited for the curtain to rise. As soon as the play started I was transported to London and into the lives of the Banks Household. I love live theater there is really no experience like it. Everything from the set design to the staging to the costumes were top notch. One really fun thing is they did not try to retell the movie, they used the books and some of the music but retold the story so there was never the comparison problem. It was definitely an experience that made me remember that “anything can happen if you let it.”

I can’t say enough thanks to Laura Bedore from Showtunes Saturday Night and Elizabeth from Broadway Across America; I had the most magical time and I am so grateful for the opportunity of going to see the show and having such wonderful company.

AND THEN…

Adam Argyle emailed and asked if I wanted to come see The Three Musketeers at the Covey Center! So on September 16, 2011 I had the wonderful experience of enjoying the theatrical adaptation of Dumas’ satirical and witty drama.

Once again I had fabulous seat and with all the discounts, (thank you Zion’s Bank and Adam’s Comp tickets) I got to go with about ½ my family, amazing seats and less than $7 a ticket!

Naturally there was lots of flashy sword work, perfectly timed lines and one truly amazing set. I still am awed thinking about how they could move two separate set pieces and keep repositioning them to portray all different types of places. Adam was absolutely fabulous in the role of Aramis, very witty and our fathers I’m sure were proud of all his flashy sword work! Talk about an amazing month of theater! I am so grateful I was given the gift of enjoying the experience of live theater that is unlike any other activity out there.

I hope y’all take the chance to go support your local theater. It is truly an art form like no other. While I love television and film, there really is no business like the live theater’s show business.

PS. I want to say I also have the most amazing siblings! Thank you Alicia for helping me get my computer set up so I can do all the online stuff again. And thank you Shawn for fixing my stubborn computer and printer/scanner/other accessory devices so they will talk to each other and I can now blog with pictures!

Confectionary Art

I actually remember how to do this!!!! I still want to go back and catch-up on some travel and event posts, but I thought I would share my sweet fun from today.

Mom invited the girls over today to play cake decorators with her. Growing up she always made us the most amazing birthday cakes. We had Mom, Alicia, Alyse, Kiaya, Aryn, Sophia and me all playing with the rainbow colored frosting. It was lots of fun and tasted yummy too!

I first practiced a smiley face on a cupcake, but gave it to Dad to eat before I got a picture of it. I did get pictures of my Bumble Bee and Butterfly.

Alyse took off before I got pictures of the complete set, hers are great and we will need to look on her blog for those, but here are the rest! Thanks again to my family for a fun day (and making me forget about how mad I was at my computer with this great distraction).

Technical Difficulties!!!

Okay, so this is just getting silly! First there was a slow/non-existant internet, then we could not even access the blogger site because of regulations/censors, and now the picture wheel just keeps spinning in circles and not loading! Although if this actually posts we will be one step closer than we have been so far in weeks.

We spent about 3 hours this morning trying to get any one of our blogs to work. That was including (and after) having to sort through nearly 6,000 images; because when trying to import the photos off mom's camera for the last bit of the trip, we somehow took ALL the images on any open windows too at the time (this included all mom's facebook stuff, her account had been open in another tab, like albums and icons from the games, as well as just random stuff). So we finally threw up our hands and just went out.

Good news, we found the world's largest Apple store in Covent Garden today and they said if we still have problems in the morning we can take mom's laptop in and they will try help us. They actually seemed impressed we somehow figured how to mess the import process up so much. :D

So please be patient, we are really trying to keep our blogging promise. It has just been a comedy of errors, hopefully nearing to end of its' run.