Murals :)

Well, I've been a busy lady painting these murals for the Johnson fam! A bunch of posts ago I put some pictures up of Nathaniel and me-- he's the little boy with autism that I work with. Well, his mom found out I could paint okay, and commissioned me to do a bunch of fun work in her kids rooms!!! So here's the result so far-- basketball sconces, a UT Jazz Scoreboard, and an almost finished BYU Cougars football field for Nathaniel's room (he's 10), and a white picket fence with some bright fun flowers for Julia's room (she's 7). Although Nathaniel's turned out alright, I have to admit that I enjoyed painting Julia's room much more. Probably the little girl in me coming out- those flowers were way too fun to come up with!!! Not to mention I've listened to about 3 Harry Potter books while working on these-- not a bad gig, right? Well, here's the goods:

Here's the basketball sconce I painted:

The UT Jazz scoreboard (over his bed)

Soon this will say "Brigham Young" and "Cougars" in the endzones, with a big "Y" in the middle! Go Cougs!

Here's Julia's room... the lighting is bad and it was pretty messy, but this is what you see as you walk in...

On the right side of her window:

On the left side of the window:

close up...

This is on the wall to the right of her bed and window, a whole long wall of fence and flowers!

There's some more, but I think you probably got the idea. Fun stuff! :)

Bridals Round 2!

Well hello! So last Friday one of my friends (she was an EFY counselor with me, and she recently started her own floral business) called me and promptly asked, "Do you still have your wedding dress by chance?" I said that I did (I just can't bring myself to sell it), and she asked me if I could help her out. She proceeded to tell me that she had made several beautiful bridal bouquets, but the brides weren't able to follow through with their bridal picture plans, and so she had these extra bouquets and no one to take pictures with them! So I agreed to meet her the next morning, all brided-up, and take bridal pictures with her flowers! I already have some really beautiful shots from when I already got married but... you never really can have enough good-looking pictures of yourself for free, now can you? ;) So here's the result, and I must say, her flowers are gorgeous! I especially loved the blue hydrangea bouquet. Check out her blog at http://aflowerfetish.blogspot.com/.

Starvation Reservoir with the Perry Fam

Here's some pics from our great 3-day escapade up at Strawberry Reservoir with Jordan's fam last week!

Sweet tent compliments of Doug and Jolynn

Nora Boo and Aunt Kelsey :

Nora with her aunts Kelsey and Danika trying to keep her happy on the boat... (not so much success)

The happy crew :)

Just before a sweet wipeout by Cory- check out the foot that's already on the loose!

Some sweet air by Jord :)

Do they look like two little boys or what!?

Playing the family fave "Citadels" (Tanilee slept through the whole thing and still managed to win...!)

Such a good helper...

I was just really cold right here!

I like this guy.

Ha, I like this guy too, if only cuz this picture is so hilarious!!! Just kidding Doug...

Does this look the father of 9 kids, 6 of which are all grown up? Looks a tad young-ish to me...

Jordan and Carson trying to kill each other... er I mean tubing...

Then it got real stormy and we had to hide in the boat cover

Nice.

Wet and pouty.

Wet and happy.

Back out in the calm before the BIG storm...

So gorgeous! And deceptive!!!

Everyone like 2 hours later after the tents all blew away and we did packed a mass exodus in under 45 minutes!

Hooray for a great trip!

The next day we all went up to Sundance and wandered around for a bit. It was gorgeous up there and we had some fun! But I think that Nora and Blake had the most fun:

It was a great week! :)

This is me. Grading tests.

WOW. That's all I have to say. Except not really, that's just all I'll really be able to say without stuttering over myself. So it started two weeks ago with the midterm for the Environmental Health class that I TA for. Each test has 6 essay questions, taking me about 15-20 for each test. I had 19 tests for that first midterm... just.... a lot of grading. I really am starting to sympathize with all my professors. Then I have all the finals from last week (same set up, SIX essay questions each), and I just made it through 8 of them. 10 to go!!! Can I just say that even though we are not grading on grammar, I am so tired of the to/too, affect/effect, lack of commas, and other minor spelling issues that should have been resolved in 3rd grade? I mean come on. *sigh* On the bright side, I know aaaaall about mold, Yucca Mountain, uranium mill tailings, the alar apple incident, radon gas and how to fix problems in your home, the fine dust exposures of 9/11, hantavirus and how to prevent it, municipal solid waste, electronic waste, flurosis and how to prevent it, BPA and its effects on developing fetuses, how to avoid BPA in your food containers etc., persistent organic pollutants, OSHA and NIOSH, occupational rights of the pregnant worker, wastewater and issues relating to sewage backflows... just to name a FEW :). haha. I know more about this class as the TA than I ever did when I was studying! Fewf. At least it will all be over soon. Until then, thanks for the miniature break and moment of sanity, now I'm back to the grindstone again... :).

What a hunky hubby...

So, as many of you have heard, last weekend Jordan ran his first marathon in 2 hours and 46 minutes! WOW. To give some perspective to how blinkin fast that is, that's an average of 6:20 miles, he got 2nd in his age group, 9th overall, and qualified for the Boston marathon. If he'd run this same marathon last year with the same time, he would've placed second!!! Amazing. I'm just amazed. He was pretty pleased too because he ran it 10 minutes faster than he trained for, which is pretty significant! Here's some documentation of the big event....

Here he was at about the halfway mark! hoorah!

This was at about 22 miles, with me giving him some wet sponges :)

Finish line!!!

He deserves to be tired...

His dedicated fans: wife, mom, and sisters Cassandra and Brionna :)

Me and my man!

Getting his plaque for placing second in his age group! (19-24)

Fewf! What a guy! :)