The Worst Part Of Changing Wards

Chris and I are getting ready to move again. We decided to buy a home and we close very soon, so this Sunday will be our last Sunday in our ward. There are many many things that make moving from our ward a harrowing experience, having to meet new people, not having the sweet seats by the clock in sacrament meeting behind the cute babies, knowing that we're going to be asked to speak in our new ward etc. For me, though, the worst part about changing wards would have to be getting released from my calling as primary teacher (although that whole speaking thing is really bad. I'm more afraid of death than speaking in public. I hate when groups of people look at me.). I bawled the last time we moved and I had to leave my sunbeams. I doubt this time will be any different. I've been teaching the 5 and 6 year olds and they have been wonderful. The seven of them have kept me on my toes, even more so than the sunbeams from the Virgina ward. Believe it or not, but I've had more trouble keeping them in their seats and reverent than my sunbeams, and while that's usually a bad thing, I've loved every minute of it. They are the funniest things and we've had a really good time. For example, last week, my co teacher brought treats for the kids to enjoy at the end of class. One of the kids was chewing gum and he took it out of his mouth and put it on his nose, presumably to continue chewing it when he was done with his treat. It turned out that this was the really really sticky, messy kind of gum that isn't going to let go without a fight. The kid couldn't get it off his nose and the more he tried, the more it went everywhere. It was all over his face, on his hands, little bits of it ended up in his hair. We sent him to the bathroom to wash himself off before singing time, but apparently it didn't do as much good as we had hoped. While you couldn't see the gum by the time we went down to singing time, there was still some gum residue on his face and he kept pushing his lip up to touch his nose, where the gum residue would grab hold and hold his lip to his nose for a few seconds before the kid would push it up again. Neither I nor my co teacher were sitting next to him, so we couldn't stop him from doing this without attracting everyone's attention (which the kid would have loved. He's always trying to make the other kids laugh). I could hardly keep myself from laughing out loud. They are such a fun group of kids and I'm going to miss my calling horribly, especailly when I get a new calling in our new ward that is not going to be nearly as fun and may even be tortuous, like sunday school teacher.

Waffle Run 2009

My sweet little mother in-law loves running and she loves her family. This is what inspired her to create an annual 4th of July race called the Waffle Run. She started it last year. The Waffle Run is a 5K race followed by some delicious waffles with a lot of friends and family. Chris and I ran in it last year and had a good time even though it was quite hard. We hadn't been running for very long and the elevation difference from DC to Utah was hard to get over. This year, we've been running the course 3 or 4 times a week and we beat last years time by a minute and a half! It was great.

Eternal Marraige Again

This weekned, I was able to attend the wedding of one of my favorite people. Megan and I were friends at college and she is one of the most fabulous people I've ever met! Even though I was away for three years and we still live rather far apart, whenever we get together it's like we were just talking yesterday. Of course I was thrilled to be invited to the Temple ceremony. And after all that has been happening over the last month or so, it was very touching to see the beginning of a marriage, to reaffirm all that I had been feeling in regards to eternal marriage. Congrats Meg!

Eternal Families

On Sunday, my appreciation for eternal families grew more deeply than I ever imagined possible.

Law Day 5K

Today Chris and I ran the Law Day 5K. We've been running together for some time and ran together in the 1st annual Waffle Run, which my darling mother in law put together, but this was the first race that we have run with people other than family and friends. It was very official. There were a ton of people there, including Chris' uncle and cousins, members of Chris' firm, and a good friend who moved back to Salt Lake from DC about the same time as we did. They gave us numbers to wear, and some official looking timing chips to strap to our ankles to keep track of how fast we were able to finish the race. I would love to say that we destroyed the competition, but I'm not going to lie, we were pretty slow. I don't mind that we were slow, though. I didn't really start running until about a year and a half ago, so I was just glad that we didn't come in last. It was a little hard running the race, it started early in the morning, it rained on us the whole time, and there were quite a few hills. However, I feel good that we were able to do it without embarrassing ourselves. Below is a picture of us after the race. The hat I was wearing was one of Chris'. It was a little big, which I didn't think would be a problem, but as it rained on us, the heavier the hat got and it started to slip down over my eyes while we were running. I almost had to hold on to it as we were running the last stretch.

What Chris And I Do In Our Free Time

Silence has been golden in regards to the Caps for the last few months. My hockey team has been playing play-off hockey and my superstitions have kept me from writing about the team until they had won a series. Not that I really believe that any thing that I can do is going to have the least effect on how my team plays, but better safe than sorry, right? Anyway, the Caps have been facing off against the New York Rangers and had an eerily similar series against them as they had last year against the Flyers. They were down three games to one, and came back to force a game seven on home ice. Chris and I have been watching on the edge of our seats through the series, hoping that this season would end better than last season, wishing that we were there in the Verizon Center. Last night we watched a nail-biting game seven. As the game progressed from the first goal (the Rangers! Despair!) to a tied game (Hope!) and into the third period, Chris and I were on edge. The game remained tied until 4:59 left in the game when Sergei Fedorov scored. It was amazing. If it had been an 80’s movie, some cheesy song would have been playing, like “I Need a Hero” from Footloose (you know you love it). But instead, in manly hockey fashion, the team rushed Fedorov and fell on him dog-pile style while the crowd rose to their feet in unison, cheering the goal that would take the team to the second round. Chris and I cheered too, though from our couch, watching the game an hour later from our DVR. Alas, watching the game on a couch is not the same as watching from the arena, but we were happy to see the win and are looking forward to watching the Caps crush the Penguins to dust and humiliate their star Mr. X, especially on their home ice (fingers crossed).

Will Work For...

I am a firm believer in the saying, “work to live, not live to work”. I would never have believed that there would be aspects of my job that would make me more happy to be at work than to be sitting on my couch reading a good book. Last week, though, something happened that opened my eyes to the possibility that, no work is not always fun and there are definitely things that I would rather be doing, but there are times when there’s nowhere I’d rather been than at my job. That something was getting free chocolate! I was sitting at my desk when my coworker came in and told me that our bookstore was trying to give away some Godiva Chocolate! They had overstocked during the holidays and now they wanted to get it out of the store to make room for other things. So the other girl in the office and I took off to the book store to behold that miracle of free chocolate. There were two huge boxes filled with hot chocolate, chocolate covered raspberries and strawberries, truffles, chocolate drops, fancy gold wrapped chocolate boxes, chocolate domes, chocolate biscuits, and many other delectables that make the mouth water. The bookstore manager told us to take as much as we could carry because if they were not able to get rid of it, they would be throwing it away! I couldn’t bring myself to think of the monumental waste that would be, so I grabbed a bag and filled it to overflowing and hightailed it out of there before they changed their minds. So, for the last week or so, I have been sitting at my desk at work, snacking on some of the best chocolate ever, thanking my lucky stars that I have job that I enjoy going to.