Phys Ed

I am fit. On Saturday Dillon and I went on a 5 mile hike up on Mt Nebo and I actually loved it. (Dillon is going to blog about how awesome it was). Just know that i was intensely active. I hiked through snow and I crossed a raging river. Then today I biked home from school since Dillon has the car at his internship. It was the farthest I've ever ridden. It was 8.2 miles and I only stopped at red lights. I made it in 50 minutes. It would have taken me longer to ride the bus home, and this way I saved $2.50. Now I can buy school lunch tomorrow. The best part is that I rewarded my hard work with homemade chocolate chip cookies that Dillon made last night. They were delicious! I'm going to be so sore tomorrow, but I sure am proud of my newfound change of heart.

Obsession

I know I'm behind the times, but I finally started reading the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. I didn't want to read the books at first because everyone was hyping them up to be the best books ever written. And well, everyone went crazy about the Twilight books and when I finally gave in and read the first one that ended up being the biggest waste of 3 days. But for once the over the top excitement about the Hunger Games was right on target.

I started reading the series on Tuesday. This turned out to be a mistake because about 14 pages in I got completely sucked into the story. I could not put it down for anything. Admittedly I hardly planned at all for my classes from Wednesday on because I couldn't focus on anything other than the book. At one point I even told Dillon that I like this series better than Harry Potter. Anyone who knows me at all knows how big of a statement that is for me.

Anyway, I've been reading, dreaming, talking about the Hunger Games nonstop since then. I finished the series yesterday. I was sitting in the bedroom balling my eyes out because the books had me so emotionally involved. Dillon had to come in and give me a hug to calm me down. It really is a fantastic series. so...

READ IT!!

Easter Festvities

Today Dillon and I dyed eggs for Easter. It's been a few years since I've done this so it was really fun. Here are the eggs pre-dye phase.

We had a sweet set up.

Here are the masterpieces.

I am mega excited for the following:

1) Egg salad sandwiches

2) Deviled eggs

3) Creamed Eggs on Toast

I don't know if 12 eggs will be enough to satiate my egg desire.

Dillon was sad that we didn't have a crayon.

Next time I'll be more prepared.

This one was my favorite.

It looked like an egg made out of polished wood or marble.

I must be getting good at my transfiguration because I somehow manage to turn one of the eggs into a potato (at least it looks just like a potato):

The potato egg: perfect for potato salad

The Easter bunny left us some amazing Easter baskets. We each got a movie an an easter basket filled with plastic Easter eggs. All of those were filled with swirly gummy bears. Freshmen year we stumbled across a bag of these amazing gummy bears and we've been trying to find an excuse to buy another bag of them. It was basically the only Easter candy that we bought, but it was so worth it. 4.5 pounds of gummy goodness should last us a while.

988 grams of sugar!

A gummy bear pyramid

In an effort to save some dough, we've made a pact with ourselves that we aren't going to go out to eat (on our own dime) for the entire month of april. It's going to be super hard. I don't think we've ever even gone a whole month without eating at red robin, let alone at any restaurant. we've had a week of success, but today came the first real challenge. Friday night. we wanted to go out to eat so badly. dillon wanted golden corral. i wanted red robin. even though the temptation was terrible, we overcame our gluttonous nature and we decided to make dinner at home. It was delicious. Proof that even we can enjoy staying in as much as going out. We made homemade steak fries with Red Robin campfire sauce and delicious grilled chicken sandwiches. So good.

Also, today is the start of my week long spring break. who would have thought that I would look forward to spring break a thousand times more as a teacher than I did as a student.

Karma

The night before April Fool's Day we were lying in bed and I said to Dillon, "wouldn't it be terrible if I got in a car accident tomorrow and I called you and told you about it and you thought it was just an April Fool's joke and refused to come visit me in the hospital?" Funny joke, right? Well on April 1 karma came around to bite me in the butt because my april fools musing actually came true. I actually did get in a car accident and Dillon thought that it was just an april fools joke when I called him. It took me a while to convince him that I was actually being serious. Luckily it wasn't very serious. I almost rear-ended the car in front of me. Luckily I had enough sense to swerve to the side and in the end the front corner of my car barely tapped the back corner of his. There was a little scratch in the paint, but he was so nice about it all. I told him that I would pay for whatever it cost to get it touched up. In the end I felt like a complete idiot. After years of denial I can finally admit that I am a terrible driver...or maybe I should just blame this one on karma...nope I suck.

Chips and Dips

I love conference weekend. I always enter the weekend dreading how busy I'll be and wondering how I'm going to be able to work in 8 extra hours of conference, but then I remember that it's the best because it gives me a semi-valid excuse to neglect my endless to-do list for one more weekend. The weekend always starts out great because we get to go to Dillon's mission president's house for mission reunion. I love going to the Newman's. They're like family to me. Plus, Sister Newman is one of the best cooks I know. And this is where my weekend chip addiction started. She had the most amazing spinach artichoke dip at the party. I ate way too much. Even after I started getting a stomach ache I couldn't stop munching. I just needed that ooey, gooey, savory goodness.

Saturday morning I slept long and hard. I woke up from a deep sleep when my alarm went off at 9:45 (15 minutes before conference started). I got out of bed to find my wonderful husband cooking bacon and french toast in the kitchen. He had woken up early and gone to the store to buy things to make a surprise breakfast for me. And the best part...he brought me flowers too. It was the best thing to wake up to, and super delicious.

Conference was great. I'm not ashamed to admit that I didn't even get dressed until after the first session was over. It was super relaxing to be able to watch conference in bed. Miraculously I didn't even fall asleep (during that session...). I especially loved Elder Oaks' talk about "desire." After the morning session we took our weekly trip to Costco (it's not a saturday if we haven't gone to costco for samples). This is where my greatest downfall began. We bought one of the giant bags of tortilla chips, a big bottle of Mango Salsa, and a 2 pound container of roasted red pepper hummus. So delicious! These are the things that I've learned over the past two days about chips and dip.

1. They are delicious, too delicious; mysteriously so.

2. I can eat chips at an alarming rate. Like 20 chips per minute. Once I get a taste, I can't inhale them quickly enough.

3. When mindlessly eating chips and dips it is extremely easy to reach (and surpass) your daily allotment of calories. I calculated it and in the past 3 days, I've consumed at least 7,000 calories. No joke. This is not an exaggeration. I may or may not be extremely chubby next time you see me.

I wish they had chip rehab. Even as I'm writing this I'm looking at the bag of chips out of the corner of my eye and I'm itching to rip it open and douse the entire thing with at least a pound of hummus. Oh man, I'm salivating.

Ok. back to blogging. Last night during Priesthood session I went up to Murray to hang out with Emily (my sister) and the baby. It was really fun. I fed the baby and burped him and then he fell asleep on my chest. It was the cutest thing ever. I miss him today. I want to go see him again. I love being an aunt.

Auntie Bethany

I love being an aunt. So far it's been less than 24 hours, but so far it's been awesome. Yesterday after school I left early to drive up to the hospital in Murray so I could see Emily. The roads were terrible because it was raining like crazy. I could barely see the cars in front of us and I thought for a minute that maybe we'd end up riding to the hospital in an ambulance.

When we got there Emily looked pretty good. Her hair was even really nice. She got an epidural earlier that morning which made things a lot better. She went 9 hours without one and then finally decided to do the sane thing...drug herself.:) The doctors were worried because every time Emily had a contraction the baby's heart rate went dangerously low. They were trying to figure out what to do when I got there. Eventually they decided that the best course of action was a C-Section. It scared me so much when they said that. This is my little sister and the thought that she was going to go through major surgery really made me nervous.

During the procedure we were waiting in the waiting room. We heard them announce a code blue on the first floor which is where Emily was. My mom started freaking out, but it turns out everything was all right. After the C-section Emily looked so worn out. She hadn't slept hardly at all and she hadn't eaten anything either. She was still sedated a little and she just looked totally wiped out. The baby had to spend some time in the NICU because he had a little bit of trouble breathing at first. So while we waited for them to get him cleaned up, my dad, Dillon, and I went to celebrate at Red Robin. It was amazing! I love that place.

When we got back the baby was out of NICU and with Emily. I got to hold him. It's was the first time I've ever held a super newborn baby. He is so cute. Since she had a C-section he didn't have a cone head so he actually looked like a normal, cute baby. Completely adorable. Granted, I haven't seen dirty diapers or spit up yet. I already love him. I'm so excited to be the fun aunt that gets to play with the baby all the time. I keep looking at pictures of him and thinking how adorable he is. I made my classes today look at pictures of the baby. Emily is staying in the hospital for probably 4 more days to recover from the surgery. I didn't think that I would want to make the drive back up there to see her, but now I just want to go hold that little baby.
Name: John ? McCleve (Middle name unknown: Emily wants Tanner. David wants Curtis or Mark. I'm crossing my fingers for Tanner.)
Weight: 7 pounds 13 ounces
Length: 23 inches
Time of Birth: 3/7/11 at 5:30ish pm
Level of Cuteness: five hundred