One Year Today

There are lots of things that go unexplained in this world. Many mysteries that exist like Bigfoot, Lochness Monster, Britney Spears, and many more! (Just check the magazine isle at the grocery store!) But there is one thing that shouldn't be a mystery is how much I love my husband! I thought I would do a series of posts about Bryan and me. Ya know, the stories behind "us". :) I thought it would be interesting and I also know that I'll forget them if I don't document them somehow!!
Today, January 12, a year ago was the first day I met my husband face to face. We had already been talking and emailing for months, but we hadn't seen each other in person. I left school about a half an hour early so that I could get to the airport on time. I just dumped my kids with the other 5th grade teacher and plopped them infront of a movie. They didn't complain! They loved it!! I was so excited, but nervous cause it was starting to snow and I hate driving in the snow especially to Salt Lake! I got there in time though and had to wait about 15 minutes. They were the longest 15 minutes of my life, no joke! Then his plane started to come down and get their bags, no Bryan anywhere. There were people all around me hugging and talking and from the snippets of the conversations I knew it was his plane, but still no Bryan. I waited and waited, and STILL NO BRYAN!! ( I found out later that he waited to be the last one off the plane and then went to the bathroom and took his sweet time coming down.) I had been a bit worried that I wouldn't recognize him and now I was terrified that I hadn't recognized him. How was that going to look! Sorry hun, I guess I didn't see you, even thought I didn't take my eyes off those escalators for a second! Then I saw his legs....I know it sounds weird, but you can't see their heads at first as they come down the escalator, but I knew it was him. I can still remember him coming down that escalator with a searching look. I just had a big smile on my face and then he saw me. He walked through the crowd and gave me a big hug. (If he hadn't been such a chicken he should have kissed me! :) ) I did tell him that he had to at least hug me, but that if he tried to give me a hand shake after all we'd gone through I would dump him right then and there! :)
We went and got his bags and he was holding one in his hand that was between us so he kept hitting me with his bag, I gotta admit, it hurt! So I asked him if I could give him a hand, and he said, "Sure, I'll take this one." and he switched his bag to the other hand and grabbed my hand. (Smooth one Bry, smooth!) I'll have to tell you the rest of the day's events later when I write about our first date! For a teaser, lets just say at one point during the date I ended up on the flat of my back! :)
So now we have started a family tradition. Every January 12 we are going to drive to the airport, and if we don't live in Utah we'll drive to the nearest airport, and keep the tradition alive! Off we go! I hope it doesn't snow!

Temple Square Trip

Well everyone, this is the first time that I have actually blogged (by the way this is Bryan writing), everything else has been blogged by my beautiful and amazing wife. I figured I should do one every now and then, so I figured that I would take an easy one. Last night (Tuesday) Danielle and I went to Salt Lake City and went to the Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration at the Joseph Smith Memorial building. It is an amazing movie, it shows lots of stories from his life in a very powerful way, it is a very good movie. When we arrived there were lots of youth there (I guess that it is a popular mutual activity) and some of the boys were very rowdy and ready to move on to the next thing thinking that the it was too long, and after the movie as we were leaving they did not say anything until they left the theater. Then we had a very nice dinner at the Lion House Pantry. Then we walked around Temple Square and got to look at all of the lights and displays. It was a pretty amazing night, something that we are looking forward to continuing doing it, we were also able to get some pretty good pictures.

Picture of the Temple through some trees.

Well this is one of the nativity type scene that we saw, and together at the same time we both started singing the "Do your ears hang low?" song, it was quite a good laugh. I hope it does not give the donkey a complex.

Well this picture does not do this area of Temple Square justice, this area has so many yellow, red and orange lights it almost seems like it is on fire, quite amazing.

Happy Turkey Day!

Thanksgiving was a blast this year. We had quite the spread, and had a lot of fun. The three day feast is drawing to an end. (leftovers make yummy meals for the next two days after T-day) In Byran's family it is tradition to watch the Macey's Day Parade and eat bread. So we did it. We ate some good bread, and I got to for the first time in my life watch the parade. My family doesn't do that, but we figured out why......we eat Thanksgiving at 1pm, instead of like 5 pm! We are cooking all morning just trying to get done in time!! We were in charge of Potatoes. Then we learned that Alison wasn't coming this year and so we took her assignment of stuffing (not hard though since my family LOVES STOVETOP!!!! We grew up on homemade stuffing but when my mom learned that we liked stovetop better she stopped making it.) And you can't have a holiday without CHEX MIX!! Yum!! We made three different kinds of potatoes, the stuffing, and a homemade stuffing for my mom the anti-gluten eater, and then made the chex mix later for the movies. The best part was Bryan's Corn Cheese Log & Indian Cheese Log. The Corn shaped one was for my mom, and the Indian....well.....it was attacked!! The Indian had a wheat thin loin cloth, and that sparked curiosity in my younger nieces and nephews. They shoved wheat thins and pretzel spears into all parts of his body. He seriously looked like he had been attacked and tortured. We'll see what he comes up with for Christmas or maybe we'll just let his mom's Candy Cane one count.
We ate to our hearts content and then all spread out. The kids headed downstairs and we claimed the couches for naps. But it was short lived because the Gerbers made their PEANUT BUTTER BALLS!!! I was up and at 'em after that. I created a song to celebrate the joy and wonderfulnessosicity of those incredible peanut butter balls. It goes to the tune of "Here comes Santa Claus" Here are the lyrics: "I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers, I love peanut butter balls from the Gerbers.......(repeat to your heart's content, but beware of flying objects aimed at your head after verse 27. No worries, I am excellent at dodge ball and made it all the way to verse 32!) Peanut Butter Balls are worth all the dodging in the world!!!
Then the best part of the day happened...........Dr. Mario Tournament time! I don't play video games with this one exception! This is the best game out there PERIOD!!!

I am a champion Dr. Mario Player. My husband had no knowledge of this before Thanksgiving (luckily he married me before he found out!) I taught Alex everything he knows when it comes to Dr. Mario, and he even acknowledges it! So really when I was placing 2nd behind him pretty consistently I was really winning 1st and 2nd place every time!! I did beat him a couple times ......legitimately. I will always be the Dr. Mario champ! (at least in my mind!) But I think in the future, I won't let Bryan watch me, or my children for that matter! :)
Then we headed back to the Sun Room to watch movies on the projector. We watched Major Payne and had a good laugh before people needed to start heading home.


It was all in all a Fabulous Day!

Every Teacher's Nightmare....The Praxis!

Okay, so I have been severely reprimanded on my definite lack of blogging. I had no idea I had just dedicated followers! To you Mom, and Steph, and I am sorry. But you are the only ones that really read this so I won't beat myself up too much.
This past week has been a busy one. Grades were due as our school trimester was wrapping up. That is always a stressful time, but not as bad as last year. I didn't let myself get behind like last year. I was pretty current on their grades, it's just that late work is a killer!!
Then I had to take "thee" test. THE PRAXIS!! It is a required test for me to be able to recertify my license. But once it is done I can get my license changed from a 3 year to a 5 year. (meaning I only have to recertify every 5 years instead of 3, which will be very handy when I am a mom and need to keep my license!) It is a 2 hour long test with a mix of multiple choice and case study questions. I was writing so fast that I had to sit and massage my hand for like 5 minutes after the test to get any kind of feeling back! I barely finished in time, I had 5 minutes to spare. Then my amazing husband picked me up with flowers and chocolates and took me out for a "Congratulations! The test is finally over, and I can have my wife back!" night out on the town. He is so great, because I was so dead beat tired that we just got a movie, went home and curled up in bed to watch it, and I promptly fell asleep! Good times, good times.....
But now it is Thanksgiving Vacation, and I slept in this morning, ate breakfast, took a nap, watched some Food Network, hung out with the family and did some shopping and cleaning. In comparison, it has been a very VERY easy going day. I loved it!! I sure do love Vacations!!

HALLOWEEN SHOULD LAST ALL YEAR!!

Halloween was a BLAST!! It really is my favorite holiday, always has, always will. Bryan and I tried really hard to make it special this year by making some fun holiday food for my family's annual Halloween Orange Sunday Dinner, and our Halloween Night Chili & Costume party. Here are some pics of what we made and of our FABULOUS Costumes!!




Now you need to know that Bryan hasn't dressed up in almost ten years! Aw, what he does for his deranged wife! :)

These are the treats made into a graveyard scene (Bryan is very creative) plus, these are special made treats for the sprue victims in the family. Love ya Mom and Gma!

Here are the treats for all us normal wheat eating people. (I am going to be struck down with the sprue for that comment! My defense against the family allergy is complete denial and plenty of mocking. So far so good!) Please take note of the cute witches, draculas, and special made gravestones for Jon. :)

The Bones were a huge hit. I think the kids liked them best because when you bit into them there was red marrow (raspberry jam) that came oozing out! Aren't the eyeballs and strawberry ghosts cool!

The coffins were a breeze to make, and so good!

The Mummy Cheese Log (completely homemade by Bryan!) was such a hit! The adults as well as the kids enjoyed the yummy cheese. We made another one just for Mom and Gma and I think they are still enjoying it! :) All of you in need of the recipe talk to Bryan! He kind-a invented it!

These little mummy dogs where every mother's favorite because the kids actually ate them! The one night that you can hardly get your kids to eat anything other than candy, and they ate these! Even ROMAN!! The notorious non-eater ate a whole one!

We'd like to send out a special thank you to all of Danielle's students who donated fingers for this dish. They are still having fun trying to write in cursive with the limited amount of fingers they have left. Camryn was especially thankful as she ate most of them!! Camryn, I'll tell my class you said their fingers sure were tasty!

I couldn't pass up putting this one back up because it illustrates the kind of lengths us Raynes will go to have a Red Headed Child! :) Chance just pray your hair come in naturally red! he he (your a good sport Marsh)