Freaking Out

I discovered tonight that I am a worrier. I got an email from my bank saying that there had been some fraudulent charges on my account. Over the past 9 days someone managed to spend almost $700 and the worst part is that I didn't even notice. I was freaking out, reading all of these articles online about people who got their debit cards stolen and never got reimbursed. I was a wreck. So the moral of the story is... be a recluse so no one will ever steal your monies and then you won't freak out.

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

Sympathy Pains

My little sister is having a baby. Right now. Her water broke at 3 o'clock this morning and she's at the hospital having contractions right this moment. I'm stuck at school absolutely going crazy from worry. I couldn't sleep very well last night and I woke up really tense and stressed because I'm so scared and nervous and excited for her. The big sister overprotective thing is really kicking in right now. I wish so badly that I could be there with her. I think I'm having sympathy contractions. I've been cramping uncomfortably all morning and there's no reason why I should be. I can't wait to go see her and this new baby. Yikes!

Labor Pains

Yesterday at 5:21pm our little family of two welcomed into this world a new addition to our family. At 115 pounds 12 ounces, our little baby came home. After a lot of planning (checking KSL classifieds every 5 minutes) and a LOT of pushing (through the front door) our beautiful new dishwasher arrived!

Dillon is the best husband for buying it for me. Finally we will no longer have to wade through the dirty dishes and filth in the kitchen to get out the front door. I will no longer be unable to get a drink of water because the sink is so full of dishes I can't reach the faucet. I'll finally be able to get to know my kitchen counter better. . . it's been months since I've even seen it (possible exaggeration).

We decided that we're going to stay in our apartment again next year even though it's cramped and slightly awful. It's the fact that we're terrible at keeping it clean that makes it so miserable for us. The rare moments when the house is actually clean are the best. So, since I'm a bad house cleaner and I no longer have amazing roommates that clean up after me we realized we had to find a solution. . . a portable dishwasher. I've been watching ksl.com like a hawk. There were some good ones, but yesterday someone put one up for only $75. We jumped on it and when we went to see it it looked great. The family that we bought it from was so nice too. They offered to bring it to our house for us since we didn't have room in our car. we were planning on renting a truck from Home Depot so that saved us some money.

So after sleeping in this morning we got up, filled our baby with a thousand dirty dishes, and it's running right now. I'm anxious to see if it does the job. The people we bought it from said that it runs great, but the dishwasher we had in our old apartment was crap (jessica vandermark knows what I'm talking about) so I'm really hoping that this one is much better.

Junior High Nicknames

While working with junior high students it was only a matter of time before I endured the fate of receiving my very own "junior high nicknames." And there have already been a lot. The truth is that I love them though. It's fun to hear the creative things that students can do to your name. Here's the comprehensive list so far.

Ms. Fu - lonn (like "flan" with an extra syllable.)


Ms. Falcon


which of course led to

Ms. Falcon Punch

Coach
This one was born because I had a class that discovered my first name and would not stop calling me "Bethany." I let them choose a nickname for me and this was the one that they decided on. This secretly is my favorite because it makes me feel athletic even though I'm not, I never will be, and I'm sure the kids don't think that I am at all.

After I traded the last name of "Carr" I thought that there was no way that the kids would be able to come up with as creative nicknames as they had for me last year (Ms. Motorcycle, Ms. BMW, Ms. Vroom Vroom, . . .) but they're well on their way. I'm excited to see what else they come up with.

I don't know why, but sometimes I just love junior high.

Arrangements

the reason why i'm writing this is to let everyone know that we are going to rearrange our apartment. Bethany generally hates our apartment. Obviously its mostly because we both hate doing the dishes and we don't have a dishwasher. Its rough. So in order to help our lives out i decided that we are going to rearrange and purchase a dishwasher! i know. pro. i'm a pro. pro pro pro. (i love that word) so if you come over after this weekend you will see a new roomy apartment. that is organized and clean and roomy and full of love and funnnnnnnn.

k, bye

ps this is an open invitation to come and visit us

Still a Nerd

Today was a rough day. Definitely one of the three worst days of teaching ever. My seventh graders just trampled my spirits and I had zero patience by the end of the day. I felt bad because by fourth period I kept snapping at kids who had done nothing wrong. I owe them treats or something. It doesn't help that I've been super hormonal the last few days. Thank you PMS...

Ironically, it was a bunch of students that ended up turning my day around. This year I'm taking students from our school to the State Math Contest at UVU. We had our first practice after school. After such a horrible day I walked into a room full of the smartest "math nerds" our school has to offer and I felt at home. I am such a nerd through and through. My best part of the day was doing math problems with these brilliant junior high students. Oh, the healing power of math...sigh.

Let them eat cake!

I have forgotten how delicious and easy cakes can be! The other night I made Dillon my mom's famous "Better Than Sex" cake (also known as "Better than Seminary" cake if you are my baby sister). It was so amazing. It is the most deliciously fatty recipe I've ever used...even worse than my cinnamon rolls. But it sure is worth it. Here's the recipe. It's one of the easiest recipes I've ever used so you've got to give it a try.

Ingredients

1 package yellow cake mix (unprepared)
1 large (5 oz.) pkg. instant chocolate pudding mix (unprepared)
2/3 c. oil
2/3 c. sugar
1/3 c. water
4 eggs
½ pint sour cream
6 oz. chocolate morsels

Combine cake mix, pudding mix, oil, sugar, and water. Add eggs, one at a time, using electric mixer. Stir in by hand the sour cream and chocolate morsels. Pour into well greased Bundt or tube pan. Bake 350° for 50-60 minutes. Let cool before removing from pan. Serve with whipped cream on top. This is one cake that is amazing right away, but is even more amazing the day after.

You can even try mixing different flavors of pudding and cake mixes for more variety. I'm still addicted to the original so if you branch out let me know how it goes.




Today I've been at a workshop all day in Salt Lake, leaving Dillon home by himself. He took on the role of house husband beautifully. At the workshop I opened my email and lo and behold, he baked another cake and sent me a picture of it. We are definitely cake crazy. It looks amazing. I can't wait to try it. It's lemon.

Trying new things

Sweet pictures that I learned how to edit in Picasa