Hair n Lash with Ash

She did it! 

This hardworking girl completed hair school at Evans Hairstyling College in Cedar City.

Half of her schooling was done in high school so she had 1000 hours to complete instead of the 2000. Took her 8 months while at the same time she was doing classes through SUU and holding down a part-time job.

It wasn't easy but she was diligent and kept at it. I'm so incredibly proud of her.

Her interests are coloring hair and eyelashes.

She's got a job lined up working in a salon in Cedar.

She loves living in Cedar where she can hike, fish, go to the lake, hang with friends, shop or play tennis.

Her family, especially her siblings and nephews, is her support system whom she LOVES. She even surprised us last weekend and came home for our Super Bowl party.

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After celebrating with Ash, Tyler and I continued to Vegas to see Ty's favorite band U2 in concert. We had gone to Ireland years ago and got to watch a cover band there but never dreamed we might get the opportunity to see the band in real life.

Hiatus

The title says hiatus but I'm not sure you can call the last two weeks a hiatus. Just a hiatus from the overwhelmingly crazy stuff. That science principle of entropy has reared its ugly head: When you don't put any work into your yard, it is naturally going to go to weeks. And I don't care. So I guess you could say I'm on hiatus from my yard duties. I may take that up again some day.

Two weeks ago we were hosting an open house.

Annette and I sighed a huge breath of relief when the night was over. We did it!

That following Monday I dropped Ash off at Beehive camp while we hosted family for a family reunion that week.

It was a week of skating, eating, playing at the park, hiking.

My friend and former sister-in-law even snuck away one night for a concert in the mountains under the stars. Just what my soul needed. A little ABBA with the Utah Symphony. (We even snuck away again this last week with our daughters to the opening night of Mamma Mia 2. My little joke was I got to see Mia [my niece] with her Mamma.)

Our family flew home the same day I sent my boys to scout camp for the week giving me my first real chance to take a breather. I must make a disclaimer here. Our family that comes to stay are the easiest house guests ever. They don't require much entertaining. They bring their own food since they are vegan. And they leave us with gifts! We were sad to see them go but I know after 10 days of being here they were ready for their own beds.

I FINALLY found myself in my classroom surveying the work I had a head of me. I won't lie. I was very overwhelmed and spent several hours just looking through stuff and wondering where to start. I finally told Ash I needed to leave there feeling like I had accomplished something. I noticed many plastic drawers labeled stickers and thought "I certainly don't need all these stickers in so many bins." I commissioned Ash and Alex to combine them all into one large tub.

And some of them didn't quite make it there.

I also found a surprise guest.

Hallelujah for a good janitor who cleaned him up for me. After three days of being there I'm feeling a little more on top of things. I even spent a good chunk of this weekend making me a yearlong curriculum guide to keep me on pace with everything. Doesn't that look so pretty!

There is still so much to do but I know the more I accomplish now, the more my year will run more smoothly.

December, so far

Here's a peak into our December so far:

Countdown chains. I spiced it up a little this year and put the names of Christ on each ring with a scripture to look up. Part of our scripture morning routine consisted of scripture reading, opening our advent stocking and the taking down a loop.

Snow, cold, more snow, even colder, some more snow. Can I bribe whomever is in charge of the snow machine to turn it off after the first of the year? I think I've had my fill.

Thankfully we took advantage of Temple Square and the beautiful lights before all the yucky weather settled in.

Twelve Days of Christmas. Our family has done this for quite a few years now and every year I ask if the kids still want to do it, and every year it's a resounding YES even though they always get the jitters when it's their night to deliver. This year was kind of fun because we decided to do a family who happens to live in our ward boundaries and has several girls Kiersten's age. She has come home from Young Women's with stories to tell about what these girls have been saying and how desperately they want to know who it is. We've never had these particular circumstances where we've been able to hear how it's gone from the receiving end. That part of it has made it especially fun this year.

Orchestra Concerts. Tyler travels about twice a year and one of those weeks is always the middle of December. There are some years I'd love to call his executives and give them a piece of my mind. It always seems to be the week of performances and parties. Kiersten had an orchestra concert; Nate had one too. Erik had a basketball game. ALL ON THE SAME NIGHT! Thankfully Grandma was here to help chauffeur kids to different places.

Tabernacle Christmas Concert. My brother-in-law scored some tickets and since Tyler was out of town, my sister Natalie got to be my date. I loved every minute of it, but especially the organ solo. The organist worked magic with his feet and literally danced over the pedals.

Commencement of potty-training. Don't ask why I decided to pick the week of all the craziness and Tyler not home for the week . . . but I did. We are not quite 100% there but he's working on it and loves washing his hands by himself.

A combined act of giving. At my sister's wedding in November, us siblings decided to forgo exchanging gifts for Christmas and instead put our money to better use.

Our brother Matt is trying to start a business, has got some debt he's working on paying off from a former business, is moving home to Ferron, and his sweet wife Angelene is expecting a second baby in April. Unbeknownst to them, the rest of decided to gift them some money. I collected it and then became the delivery man (or woman). A few Saturdays ago I woke up and realized we had the entire day with nothing on the agenda and rare beautiful weather. So we headed to Logan to deliver our gift.

Thankfully we had a good excuse that we were actually in Logan to help celebrate Jordan's birthday (Angelene couldn't believe we would come all that way to give them a gift; I also just left the gift with instructions to open after we had left.) Matt has rigged up a fun swing that my kids loved to play on. It was reminiscent of my grandma's old swing she used to have at her house in Hyde Park.

A birthday celebration. We did in fact celebrate with a yummy dinner which Jo was kind enough to make for us. Jordan even made the comment that he hadn't ever had anyone over from his family for his birthday (probably because it's in December and close to Christmas). So I was glad we had made the trip to Logan that day.

Community Christmas concert. Erik is still not really intrigued with the piano, so I told him he could join the ward choir to fulfill his music obligation to me. That pretty much meant I was joining too so he could get to practices. I don't sing. My Primary congregation knows that even though I'm not afraid to sing out anyway. I started as a tenor to help Erik who technically should be an alto [or possibly a soprano :)]. Some day that voice is going to drop. Then I moved to alto to help our two altos and really so Kiersten could keep me on tune. So with that long introduction, the reason we were at the First Annual Community Christmas Concert was that our ward was asked to sing a number and at the last minute Nate was asked to be a narrator . . . in front of at least 800 people. I was bummed I didn't even think to bring my camera.

Preschool Christmas party. Alex was so excited to have everyone over for our party, and I was a little nervous no one may come due to all the snow that fell during the night and continued to fall during the day. But they came and enjoyed a craft, story, a game of Don't Eat Pete, presents, and a short Christmas movie.

An adult neighborhood dinner and white elephant exchange. This is a tradition that's been going for several years now and we love it, especially the exchange of crazy gifts. It gives us all a good excuse to leave the children behind and enjoy some laughs and camaraderie. Kiersten and Erik were kind enough to donate (or their mom asked them to donate) their time to babysit my new neighbor's four children, three who are 15-month-old triplets, and whose husband is pretty much gone a lot working in Colorado. I wanted to give her an evening out to meet some others in our neighborhood.

I think December sure makes some of us a little tired.

The Killers concert

I dare say that one of Tyler's favorite bands is The Killers, whose lead singer also happens to be a Mormon. One day I happened to see on Facebook that they were coming in concert to Orem and a thought popped into my head that Tyler might like to go.

So I decided to surprise him.

I got the tickets,

pinned them to his cork board in his office,

and the waiting began.

How long would they sit there before he noticed them?

Day one . . .

Day two . . .

Day three . . .

It's not like they are exactly hiding.
Day four . . . 

Day five . . .

Day six . . .

He finally discovered them.

Funny thing is that he looks directly at that board when he answers the phone.

He was pretty stoked about going. This was only his fourth concert ever and all four have been with me. Hmmmm, it must be me that likes concerts.

First: Counting Crows with his old college roommates
Second: Neil Diamond. Yes, I dragged him. He may not have enjoyed it so much, but I LOVED it! I am a Neil fan through and through.
Third: Jon Schmidt at Thanksgiving Point.
Fourth: The Killers

I guess it was payback time for me and the Neil Diamond concert. The Killers concert was fun and we had a great time, but I honestly didn't know many songs and part of going to a concert is being able to sing along. Tyler hinted that he would like to go to another one, so between now and then I guess I better brush up on my Killers music.


Brandon Flowers I Am a Mormon video