Kids, you've got to love 'em

One of the perks about being a violin teacher is that you get little random gifts from your students. I love seeing the excitement in their little faces when they give them to me. Sometimes I have no idea what the gifts are but I still think they are so cute!

These are two things I got a couple of weeks ago. One student brought me a miniature pineapple from a plant in her garden. I told her I was going to take it home for my husband to see and the whole week after she kept asking if I had brought it home yet. It was pretty cute. The other is the red feather my 5 year old student made for me. She is a little Korean girl who doesn't know much English but laughs at everything I say even if I am not trying to be funny. For example, one of the pieces I taught her started with the note c and was played 3x in row. She thought it was the funniest thing. Since then she always goes back to that song during the lesson and points to the notes saying "C,C,C" and then laughs really hard. She is my favorite because she is always so happy and funny.
This past Wednesday she brought me another present. This time it was a note folded up into a distorted square with a picture of me and her with a little message she had written. It was the cutest thing!



On the back she told me this picture was of me. Isn't there a striking resemblance?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Since Thanksgiving is coming up and we will be spending it with friends this year I thought we should keep a family tradition going on the blog.
Each Thanksgiving my Mom likes to make things cheezy by going around the table and saying one thing that we are thankful for before we can eat. Since we won't be there this year I thought we would write down one thing that we are thankful for. Mark (who didn't want to post this) says he is thankful that he lives close enough to the school that he can ride his bike. I am thankful that my life has been enriched by the diverse people I have met.
In honor of Thanksgiving I will post my collection of Pilgrims and Indians I got for 80% off/$1 at Michaels! Whoo-hoo!! Mom-I know you're excited! :)


Aren't they cute? My personal favorites are the middle ones (seashell men). Those are actually ones we got in the Bahamas on our Honeymoon. :)

Job Switch for the Better

This past week I got fed up with the music studio I work for so I quit my job. There were so many problems with this job like "mistakes" in my paycheck (which I still haven't gotten paid for), late paychecks, last minute scheduling issues, driving an hour each day to teach, never having enough time to work on our place, not understanding what the parents and owners would laugh about in Korean, not being able to teach with the right books, and not getting the salary I am worth as a music teacher. After all those reasons, I was way over due with the quitting process.

The good news is that I got an awesome new job!!!! The guy who hires for Delta Airlines is in our ward and he definitely has the hookups with travel. If you work for him you, your husband, parents, and kids can all fly for free. I still have no clue why he has been so nice to me. I seriously LOVE that guy because I just gave him my application a couple of weeks ago and there was a huge waiting list and still is for the Delta jobs. I also have the best shift of anyone I know. All I have to do is clean airplanes from 4-9 p.m. every Tuesday. Everyone else is working until 3 a.m. I was hearing that there is a ton of down time too while you are waiting for planes to come in. You may be thinking...who wants to clean airplanes? I do!!! As long as I have gloves I can do anything. From the places we have lived in, I have cleaned a lot of disgusting things and let me tell ya-gloves are magic. Starting on December 17 Mark and I, and my parents can fly anywhere (including international flights) for FREE!!! I am so excited!!

Here I am in my dorky-way-too-big-for-me airport outfit/dress. If anyone needs a quick Halloween costume, I've got it. It's even bright orange. :)

Yay! I've been tagged!!

I am so excited that Julie tagged me. Now I can update our blog without coming up with an idea to write about. Thanks Julie!

8 TV shows I watch
1. The Office 2. Lost 3. Monk 4. I Love Lucy 5. Family Matters (It's all about those great TGIF shows) 6. American Idol 7. educational shows about space 8. Cities of the Underworld on the History Channel
8 Favorite Restaurants
1. Cafe Rio 2.The Blue Iguana 3. Souper Salad 4. Cheesecake Factory 5. The Lion House (I'm with you Julie ) 6. Subway 7. Papa Johns Pizza 8. Anything Mexican
8 Things that Happened Yesterday
1. painted the ceiling in the hallway 2. cleaned my house 3. exchanged frozen meals with friends 4. went to home depot-and walked home after 5. did laundry-saw a live cockroach while at it 6. ripped up the moldy floor in our closet-saw a dead cockroach while at it 7. talked to Mom, Mark, Emilee, Emily, Chelsea, and Allison on the phone 8. bought Mark a pink back massager for $2 at the Linens n' Things closing sale
8 Things I’m looking forward to
1. being able to fly anywhere I want for free! 2. finishing our condo 3. flying home at Christmas4. Emily's wedding 5. Mark done with finals 6. getting a new calling 7. going to the beach 8.eating the cake that is cooling
8 Things on my Wish List
1. Hiring someone to finish our condo for me 2. To never hear Mark say this again: "Beth, I've got to do this." (meaning stop talking to me, I have to study) 3. More time 4. Have my family come visit 5. Going to Disney World or the Keys 6. A date with Mark 7. new necklaces 8. world peace-who doesn't want that one :)
8 Things I Love
1. Mark 2. my family 3. playing my violin 4. the satisfaction I get when I create something I really like 5. the smell of new shoes 6. hot chocolate with candy canes in them 7. the sun on my skin 8. learning how to do something new (that I choose of course)
8 things I hate
1. Flaky people 2. a messy house 3. sticky kids-you know the kind I am talking about 4. dogs-to make it worse, they always love me 5. video games 6. doing the dishes 7. thinking of ideas for dinner 8. being cold

Baby Shower

One of the dental wives is pregnant so we threw her a baby shower last week. Instead of doing a normal baby game type shower, we decided to surprise her and take her to get a pedicure. I was super excited because I had never had a pedicure before. It was so much fun to hang out and do girl stuff. The only thing I am worried about now is getting addicted to pedicures. I want to do it again soon!

The Fat Iguana

I know what you're thinking, "Enough with the huge lizards!" Since we don't have kids, we have to keep our blog interesting somehow. Also, if you are like me then you will want to keep looking at things you don't see in Utah everyday. You can consider it like another episode on the Discovery channel. I'll even share something new I learned about iguanas. I learned that iguanas climb trees. Mark was chasing one and it hid up in a tree. Every time we see these lizards and iguanas it reminds me of how much our nephew Conrad would love all this stuff. This post is for you Conrad!

"Ketchup"

You are probably wondering why I have a picture of Mark in a ketchup suit. The reason is that I didn't have a picture for this posting. Lets be honest, a posting without a picture is boring... you should thank me. :) I thought since I haven't posted in a couple of weeks that I should "catch-up" on what we have been up to.
Here is the rundown since the last post:
A couple of weeks ago, I got a new calling to be Sister L's missionary companion. I was overwhelmed when they gave me this calling considering the fact I had never served a mission and sometimes cannot understand what Sister L is saying. I feel a little inadequate but am glad to have the opportunity to do missionary work. Before I met Mark, I had a difficult time deciding whether or not to hand in my mission papers. I can't complain about this calling since Heavenly Father is probably giving me another opportunity.
I also just got another part-time job this past week. A girl in our ward just had premature twins about a month ago. Her husband is also in dental school so life is pretty busy for her. She asked me to come watch her twins in the mornings three days a week so she can get a little sleep. It is the easiest job I have ever had. The babies just sleep until they are hungry and then I feed one of them. They are so cute and it is fun to be around newborns.
The other job I have is teaching violin at a music studio. The students are mostly Korean kids who actually practice! It is such a nice change. I also like it because I don't have to worry about parents being irresponsible with payments since the owners take care of all of that.
What else....I joined a community orchestra so I can play my violin again. It has been really good for me especially since I have gotten a little rusty from not playing in a while. We have our first concert in a week and we sound really bad. :) It is not the most prestigious orchestra but I enjoy playing again.
Other than doing those things, I spend any extra time fixing up our condo and hanging out with Mark whenever he has time.
What has Mark been up to???? Studying. What more can I say? October is a hard month he tells me so I better get used to it. He also started switching out our bathroom vanity. Yay!! I have been waiting for that moment ever since we moved in. One of our bathrooms has been off limits since it smelled like...I won't even tell you. I don't want to gross you out. I finally got up the courage to go clean the toilet a couple weeks ago. It took me 3 hours.
Mark also helped me substitute teach the the sunbeams last Sunday. After that I was really grateful for my calling. We even had one little girl pee in her chair during singing time. Luckily her mom was in the room so we didn't have to clean it up.