Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.

What have we been up to in the last few months? After not posting for a while, I figured it would be a lot easier to catch up in pictures, rather than words. Here we go...

Mark had knee surgery in the beginning of November. Even though they shaved half his leg for the surgery, he took it like a man! We got to hang out all day and watch movies when the surgery was over. It was great, for me.
After that, it was time for Thanksgiving. We went to see the 3D Imax movie, "A Christmas Carol" at the science museum then went to have dinner with friends. Here we are at the museum...


Mark also worked hard, as always, on becoming a dentist. Here is his December project, gold crowns. He made them so shiny that if you look carefully, you can see his smile in the reflection. :)

While Mark was working hard in school, I was getting ready for the Christmas Recital at one of one of the schools I teach at.

After school ended we went to the beach with some friends, played "beach scrabble"...

and also went to Hollywood studios.

This picture was taken in honor of me since the movie "Splash" was made the year I was born.

Here is Mark in line for the Toy Story ride--Our new favorite!

Me enjoying patriotism--Muppet style

Our favorite thing we did this trip was see the dancing light show they had going at night. Notice how magical it was...bubbles and everything! :)


Hmm...which of these is not like the other?


We also went to Blizzard Beach waterpark...

Seaworld...



Epcot...


and to Utah. Brrr was it cold!

While there we went to see the lights at Temple square with some Florida friends, Brock and Tara.

It was beautiful the night we went because of the fog that was surrounding the temple. We got some great shots of the temple...

plus a romantic one too! :)



We stayed at my parents for Christmas. It was really fun but for some reason I only have a couple random pictures that we took. One of which is the following sock shot we took Christmas morning. I thought it was hilarious what everyone was wearing. All the girls had their cute Christmas socks on and the boys of course had their "regulars" on. Mark in his Brazilian flip flops and my Dad in his black work/church socks.

This is the other random picture we took on Christmas. Too cute! Katie and Addie in their matching aprons.

We also got together with my Utah friends for dinner and games and Mark got together with his friends.

We spent New Year's at Katie's house. She and Judd made it extra fun by taking us sledding on their four wheelers. Mark had fun driving...

I had fun riding with Hallie...

And the kids had fun riding around in a blow up rubber raft...until it popped in 3 different places.

We also got to meet Emilee's new fiance Matt. We love him already and are so excited that he is joining the family!

All in all, we've had a great past couple of months.

Halloween Party

Mark and I went to a Halloween party last night. While I was trying to decide what to dress up as, Mark and I were at the dollar store and came upon the most perfect looking "Where's Waldo" glasses you have ever seen! Of course I couldn't resist and decided to be Waldo. All I had to do to complete the costume was wear a red shirt with masking tape stripes and a Santa hat--simple. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I have made because I won first prize in the costume contest! Unfortunately, I couldn't walk very far wearing the glasses so I couldn't wear them too long but apparently it was long enough for people to vote for my costume. Mark also had a great costume idea. We have this huge rubber spider Mark saves to scare me with every now and then. He taped it to his shirt along with a couple other little spiders and went as Spiderman.

Here is me and my friend Mel as Waldo and a mechanic.

This one is of Mark, Pumpkin head, and me.

Here is Mark eating the candy apples I made. I must have cooked the caramel too long because they came out like superglue instead of caramel. It took Mark forty five minutes to chew the whole thing and he vows he will never eat another one again!

Friend Visit

I was lucky enough to get a visit from my friends in Utah. We have been friends since elementary school and when we got together, it was like nothing had ever changed. It was great! We did some fun things while they were here but I have to admit that my two favorite things we did were eating a ton of muddy buddies and talking until early hours in the morning. I can't wait until we are together again!

Getting a pedicure

Beach time

Key Largo

Cheesecake Factory

The Everglades

The Joys of Teaching

I started teaching violin at a private school this fall. It has worked out great except for one group class I teach. This class is with seven three year olds and one 4 year old all holding violins. I thought it couldn't get any harder as I've struggled to keep their attention every second, keep them from destroying their violins, or from telling me they need to use the potty all at the same time. Unfortunately, last Friday topped it all. I was just getting the kids to sit in a circle on the floor at the beginning of class when one little girl (who happened to still be sitting in the middle of the circle) threw-up all over herself and another kid's violin. Luckily, the janitor had just left the room so he was close by to clean it up while I walked the little girl, who was still covered in throw up, down to the bathroom where she threw up a second time. I just hope she didn't spread too many germs around because I don't think I can handle that again.

Miami Dolphins Game

Mark and I went to the Miami Dolphins game last Monday. A friend in our ward works for the Miami Dolphins so we were able to get great seats to the game. We spotted Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony, Tiger Woods, Serena Williams, and Dwane Wade from our seats. The Dolphins lost on their last play but it was so much fun!

Me and some friends from our ward

Mark, the bald guy, and our friend Jeff. Whoever took this picture sure had some artistic talent!

Mark Took His First Step!

Mark took his first step! . . . towards finishing dental school! I bet you didn't expect that ending. Since almost everyone's blog posts are about kids nowadays, I thought that title would fit in great.

A lot of Mark's summer was spent studying for the first part of the dental boards. He took it about a month ago and did great! Mark won't have to take the last part of the boards until he graduates. Since we had a couple of days before Mark started school again after the exam, we took a celebration trip. Some friends gave us a sweet military hook up for the Disney theme and water parks so we headed up to Orlando again.

We went to Hollywood Studios with our friends' Amy and Sean. The Tower of Terror ride was our favorite since we have been watching the Twilight Zone series a ton. (You've gotta love the library)

This is at American Idol in Hollywood Studios. I know, my face looks like it came out of the bowling ball shiner. It must have been that wonderful humidity.

Mark and me with the magic hat. :)

The next day we went to Blizzard Beach water park with Amy and Sean and also with our friends' Brandon and Allison.We didn't bring our camera to Blizzard Beach but I still wanted to post a picture to show how creative it was. They had fake snow and dripping icicles everywhere since it was supposed to be a melting ski resort. Somehow after you look at all the fake snow around you, it actually makes you feel like it's not that hot.

On our last day we went to Animal Kingdom with Brandon and Allison. We loved seeing the gorillas there! Allison and I were talking about how we wanted to see the big gorilla bang on it's chest like in the movies. Right after we finished talking, it did it! Either gorillas have been taking English classes or there must have been a person inside a gorilla suit like the other characters in Disney World! The timing was too perfect! When they tell you to have a magical day at the entrance, they really mean it!

These last pictures aren't of the same trip but since this post was Disney themed, I threw them in anyway. We went to Magic Kingdom and Typhoon Lagoon water park last weekend to get our fun in since I will be working Saturday mornings from now on. These pictures are in front of the castle and the steamboat river in Magic Kingdom. I didn't get pictures at Typhoon Lagoon but it was also really creative and had the greatest wave pool. We had a lot of fun there too!

Happy 1st Year!!

On July 11th last year, Mark and I started our new adventure in Florida. We have loved this past year and are happy we have at least three more to go!!

These are some of the top things we accomplished throughout the year:

-Mark finished his first year of dental school. He is now 1/4 dentist!!
-I worked as a violin teacher, twin baby nanny, and an airplane cleaning lady.
-We worked on fixing up our condo and are now 99% done. Once again, Hallelujah!
-We used our flight benefits to fly to the Sugarbowl, Charleston, Kansas, Boston, and home twice
-We took trips to Disney World, Sea World, the Kennedy Space Center, Key Largo, Key Biscayne, Miami, and of course many trips to the beach.
-And for our finale...we learned how to shop at Publix, the only real grocery store here, without getting grossed out by the name

On July 11th this year, our friends Landon and Melanie took us waterskiing on the back of their jet ski through the canals in Fort Lauderdale. We not only got to try waterskiing on a surf board for the first time but got to see the mansions lining the canal. After the jetskiing, we had our first BBQ on the patio Mark just finished tiling.