Next Step

This past week, I received exciting news: I was accepted into a master's program. It was quite a surprise as they told me the admissions decision would not be made until mid to late March. I was accepted into the program I wanted at University of Southern Mississippi. It is an online program in Family and Child Development. Because of Joe's schooling and everything, I won't live in the same state long enough to graduate with my master's unless I wait a few more years. I felt that if I waited too long, I would have no desire to get my master's. I am very excited about this opportunity and feel blessed to be accepted. With this degree, I feel it will allow me to serve more people in need, especially children with divorced parents. I want to focus my thesis/research on how to proactively lessen the effects of divorce in second and third generations. One interesting fact of University of Southern Mississippi is that Brett Favre went to school there! I start this fall and will graduate in August of 2014! I can't wait to begin the new adventure of getting a graduate degree!

Craters!

A few weeks ago, I started researching fun and unique things to do in Utah. Joe and I have lived in Utah for many years now but haven't really seen most of the state because we're busy with school or don't want to spend the money to go do something. Well, that all changed Monday night. I found an indoor hot springs place in Midway, about 45 minutes away from our home. It's called the Crater and here is the website with a video so you can learn more. It is literally a crater that has hot springs in it. It is about 65 feet deep and probably 20 feet in diameter. Supposedly, it is the only warm scuba diving place in the western hemisphere I think. We enjoyed swimming around and being in warm water in the middle of the winter. The only thing that wasn't so good was getting out because the front door was wide open and it was snowing outside so we almost froze in our swim suits. But overall, it was a cool adventure to go on with Joseph and we enjoyed a night off from school! Here are some pictures:


It was super duper steamy when you tried to take pictures so this is the only one that turned out somewhat okay.

Quilt

Here are the (almost) finished pictures of the quilt I've been working on this winter. I have to sew on a terry cloth duck to the front but aside from that, it is all ready to go...

Amazed at Vocal Point

I have been dying to see Vocal Point in concert ever since I transferred to BYU 2.5 years ago and heard about the group. Finally, they were performing in Salt Lake City last night and so I bought tickets in the fall to go. Little did we know that they are now performing in Provo next month but oh well. We made it a date by also going to Olive Garden before the concert. I could not have been happier with the concert. It was absolutely amazing and I was smiling the entire concert! It was about and hour and a half long so well worth the money for tickets. All 9 of the men are very talented and have used their talents for the good. They sang a wide variety of songs from Elvis to Rascal Flatts to God Bless the USA to some hymns even. For those who don't have the opportunity to know who Vocal Point is or what they sound like, here are some youtube links. All the noises you hear are from the guys, not a CD, which makes even more amazing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziOINDmzSxo
Here's their peercussionist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QViRtuivIQY

Desperate for Help

So I've realized that eventually my life will get busier with who knows what... but I am positive one day I will wake up and regret not taking advantage of these years where I don't have much to stress about other than making sure my socks match. With that, I want to create a list of things to do during the next few years or perhaps a Bucket List before Joseph starts working/graduate school in a few years. Joe and I've talked about a cruise for a while and we will hopefully go this summer. And then we're taking our trip to California next spring but I want more ideas. Here's my preliminary list. PLEASE help me think of more!!!

- Go Whitewater rafting in Utah
- Go to Bear Lake in Logan, UT
- Go on a cruise
- Hike Mt. Timp with Joseph
- Learn to knit
- Read some books (don't know which ones...)
- More sewing projects

Those of you who have lived in Utah a lot, what are fun excursions to do?

Thanks for your help!

Winter Wonderland

I've been lazy and haven't uploaded our Christmas pictures onto my computer. Go to Facebook to see the highlights.

It appears that Winter missed its debut as we have little snow on the grass and temperatures in the mid-40s continuously. As a recreational therapist intern, we had all these grand plans of taking the kids sledding, skiing (downhill and cross-country), and snow-shoeing; instead we are taking dogs on walks outside and enjoying not wearing a jacket most of the time. My internship is going great and I'm almost done with my second week! We've done a lot and I've learned a lot so far. We did get to go downhill skiing at Sundance yesterday, which was a blast. I haven't been on snow skis in quite a while so it was nice to be back.

Joseph started classes again and he is liking them. He's taking a reservoir engineering class as well a computer programming class (for fun!). His books, as usual, cost an arm and a leg but he keeps reminding me that a chemical engineer will make more money than what his books cost. I have a hard time believing him sometimes. He also started playing Church Ball this month and his team won last week I guess. He likes it and even scored some points!

That's our exciting lives in a nutshell! Sorry for the lame post!