Where did all the snow go?

I was so excited because right around Thanksgiving we got a few big snow storms and I LOVED it.  Now it is almost all gone because of the dumb rain we keep getting.  It looks so ugly outside.  

Clark measured the snow on a bench in my Grandma's backyard.  Yep that's right, 16 inches!  

While it was snowing one day I went outside to take a picture of the old chair from a ski lift at Beaver Mountain that is in my Grandma's backyard.  I was trying to be "artsy" and get a picture of the chair with the snow.  This is what I took.....

Not bad.  I thought it was cool because you can also see the giant red wooden skis in the backyard.  

Well then my artsy/creative husband took the pictures I took and turned it into this....

Clark's looks way cooler!  He did a few other ones that are way cool.  I didn't really want to put them on my blog.  No one reads my blog except family and friends (and not even that many) but I didn't want some random person copying the picture.  I think it is way cool, and I don't want someone else to try and take credit for it.  Maybe I need to start getting copyrights for Clark's creations!  He has done a few other cool pictures and I want to turn them into a sweet calendar.  

We are finally going skiing tomorrow and I'm really excited!  Hopefully we will have a White Christmas down here in the valley.  

Logan's "Blizzard" 2010

I'm not sure if it was as bad as everyone anticipated but we got quite a bit of snow here in Logan.  I think it snowed for about 3 or 4 hours, but there was a lot of wind so who knows how much snow actually fell from the sky.  

somebody was out walking in the blizzard before we could snow blow

Clark was out of Vanilla Ice Cream so at 8pm we drove to Lee's in snowy roads that hadn't been plowed, just for his precious Farr's Vanilla Ice Cream bucket.  When we got back he decided to get out the old snow blower.  I bet there was about 6 or 7 inches in the driveway (don't quote me on that because my estimation on measurements is horrible!)  

Even though it wasn't a horrible blizzard storm like they thought, we got snow and that's all I care about.  The snow is making me think it's Christmas, but I will patiently wait until I properly celebrate Thanksgiving to go into Christmas mode.  Clark already put up the Christmas lights on my Grandma's house while the weather was still nice.  I can't wait to turn them on!  

Thankful

I have so much to be thankful for in my life right now.  As my previous post mentioned, I had been back and forth on applying for a new job position at my same place of employment.  Well I decided to follow everyones advice and at least apply for it.  After I applied the job position changed slightly.  It is still for a home visitor but it is with the Healthy Families program.  This program works with first time parents before the baby is born and up to 3 years old.  They test the development of the child and provide support and information for first time parents who may be at risk for abuse or other situations.  
So I had an interview on Thursday and I just got a call today from the girl over Healthy Families and she offered me the job!  I am so excited because we specifically work with young babies and children under 3 who I love the most!  I get to put a lot of things I learned in school to use, like testing a child's development.  I will get a lot of training with this position too, so I'm glad I will be prepared for this job.  I will get a pay raise and more hours.  It is going to be a little hard the first few weeks because I will still be in school and teaching GTBT, but it will work out.  Yes I am still teaching GTBT in the schools until it ends in about May or June.  The new home visitor position will be around 20 hours a week, and GTBT is generally 10-15 hours.  So two part time jobs = a full time job.  I'm really excited to branch out and learn new things and get experience.  Now I feel that eventually when we move out of Logan, I will have more experience to put on a resume and I look more like a professional.  I feel so blessed to have a job before I even graduate.  I know so many people who graduate and can't find jobs that are in their field of work.  This will help me with paying off my massive amounts of student loans.  Who knew just getting a Bachelor's degree would cost so much!  I'm also so glad I can continue to work where I've been working for over a year, I love it there!
Another reason I am thankful is that my wonderful Mother called me the other day to let me know that with some new Health Care system I can be insured on my Mom's insurance until I am 26 even if I am married.  How sweet is that.  So I have 1 year to be insured.  Clark on the other hand is uninsured.  BUT we do have Aflac and we have accident insurance specifically for Clark because of all his craziness on skis.  I'm grateful for whoever made it possible for me to be insured, even if it is for just 1 year.  That's long enough to have a baby, right!  FYI not announcing anything except for the fact that come January I'm insured.  


I didn't want to do another post without pictures so I'll add some random pictures that I found from my phone.  

One warm day in September I went for a bike ride and Clark rode his long board.  We rode to my old neighborhood just a few blocks from my Grandma's house where we are living.  It was fun to feel like a kid again riding my bike where I used to when I was growing up in Logan.  

My house I lived in from the age of 1-6.  It is funny because Clark's house is the exact layout as this one.  We grew up in the same house!  I miss my old neighborhood, it was the best.

I found these pictures on a blog called Alice Lane Home.  It is an Interior Design/Home Decor store in Orem I believe, but I love looking at their blog.  Christmas Decorations I would LOVE to have!  

I love those cute stockings.  Basically I just love the whole mantel

I also loved these glass trees.  Sometimes I need a break from the cutesy and crafty Christmas Decorations.  I love those too, but it would be fun to have a house with fancy Christmas Decorations.  

I decided I need multiple homes to decorate in different ways.  I like too many styles of decorating!  

  

This is getting long, but since the title of my post says Thankful, I feel like I should write a few more things I'm thankful for besides a job and insurance.

In no particular order....

1. Family.  Immediate and Extended.  I love them all!

2. My husband.  Clark really puts up with a lot from me, and he still loves me!

3. Living with my Grandma.  This has been such a blessing to Clark and I in so many ways.  Quality time with Grandma is always good!

4. Health.  Clark and I are fairly healthy people, with no major issues or concerns.  

5. Food.  I seriously love food, and knowing that I will always have something to eat is a blessing.  Not everyone knows where their next meal will come from.

6. The Gospel.  I don't know what I would do with the Gospel in my life.  I think I pray a million times a day, and it gives me peace knowing that someone is actually listening and answering my prayers.  I'm always worried about something or wondering how something is going to work out, and I love knowing it will all work out the way it needs too.  You just have to have Faith and be Patient.  

There are a lot of things I'm thankful for, but those are the major one's I can think of right now.  Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving.  We are going to Kaysville to eat a lot of food and do a little Black Friday Shopping!

We Are In College People

There are a few individuals in my class that act like High School students.  We are in a Junior/Senior only class in college, so it's not like these are 18 year old freshman.  One guy I swear is almost 30.  We had a test today (Monday) and during our last class on Friday they kept asking her if she would switch the test to Wednesday, and that having a test on Monday wasn't fair since it was right after a weekend.  I was getting annoyed.  Hello people we are in college, a professor is not going to change the test just because you are being annoying and asking her to change it.  They are always talking when she is talking and it seriously gets annoying.  I want to be the "teachers pet" and tell them to be quiet!  Then today when she was handing out the test the "30 year old man" said "will you give us the answers to all the odd questions"!  Who does that in college.  Seriously that is something you ask in Junior High to be funny and annoying.  You can tell she is totally annoyed but she is nice and just smiles and says something clever back to him.  The "30 year old" is one that I have had in a lot of my classes and we all know when "you know who" is in the class.  He says the most off topic, stupid things and we all get so bugged by him.  Luckily I am done this semester with classes, and I will be done seeing him.  

Also while I'm on the topic of being done with school, I've been thinking about jobs.  I know I always have a dilemma with school and /or work.  Right now I'm teaching Good Touch Bad Touch (GTBT) as my job and as my internship.  I go into elementary schools in Cache Valley and teach kids about Sexual Abuse, Bullies, and Stranger Danger.  It is fun and I really like it but it is basically part time and once June comes and school is out, I don't really have anything to do.  BUT there is a job opening at my current place of employment for a Home Visitor/Parent Advocate.  I would go into homes and give parents advice and information on parenting and all sorts of things.  It is a part time position and would start after Thanksgiving.  A few of the girls at work really want me to apply for it.  Here is my dilemma though....

1.  I'm not sure if I really want to go into someones home.  Sometimes people can have nasty/scary homes. 

2. I'm already obligated and have a responsibility to finish doing GTBT and giving my time to that, since I told them I would be around until June.  Both jobs are P/T so I could possibly do both.  I just don't want the GTBT supervisor to think I'm not dedicated to doing GTBT.  

3.  When June comes, it would be really nice to have a job.  GTBT will basically be done so it would be nice to have a job already at the center where I don't have to go searching for something else.  

If I want to do it, I have to turn my resume in by Nov. 15th.  That gives me one week to decide.  

  

Fall Hike

We sort of have a tradition to go on a hike each fall to look at the pretty fall colors.  This year we missed the most vibrant fall colors.  They seemed to change a lot faster this fall.  During Fall Break we took a hike up to Naomi Peak, which is the tallest peak in Cache Valley.  That must be why I was feeling light headed almost the whole way up!  Or maybe I'm out of shape.... 

It was a long hike 6.6 miles round trip!

Just starting out

We made it to the top!  Clark is pointing to the Wellsville Mountains that he hiked and skied this past Spring.  Now that is a hike I know I wouldn't survive!  

The View

You actually look down onto the town of Smithfield. Logan is behind the mountain

Tony Grove Lake where the hike starts or ends, whichever way you want to look at it!  

USU had their homecoming this past weekend.  It was cold but we decided to go to the parade to see my cute little sister dance/march.  My nephews Max and Jack enjoyed grabbing candy and seeing "Big Blue" and some other horses and bulls that were in the parade. 

She is the tall skinny one in the front smiling at the camera!

Clark was not around for the parade because he was busy hunting Deer!  Don't worry he grew the ugly mustache again and they found a small 3-point Buck.  I guess it was a successful trip.  

AND I sold my car on Saturday!  Clark's parent's so graciously gave us the Honda Accord that Angie used to drive.  So we definitely got an upgrade!  We sold my car to a young girl who is going to college.  I told her to be careful with that car since it used to belong to my Grandma Allred and it was her baby.  We still haven't told her of the sale.  I think it might break her heart.  But we were glad we found someone to buy it so we didn't have 3 cars to worry about.  I will miss her, she was a good car!  

I have to add this in... what color do you think my car is?  I say Blue and Clark says it's more Green.  He is crazy it is Blue or even Blue/Gray but not Green!  He must be color blind.   

Family Fun

Here are some cute pics of my family from the past few weeks.  

Me & Allison

The girls at my Grandpa's viewing

Adrienne, Allison, Me, Lorie, Melissa, Katie

The three nuggets together again!  It was the end of the day so they are looking a little shabby.  But still cute!  

Merrick loves his "gucks"

My sister in law Angie went through the temple on October 8, 2010.  We were able to go down to the Ogden Temple and be with her on that special day!  

Me, Clark, Angie, Natalie

Part of the Pierson Family

The past 3 weeks have included A LOT of family togetherness.  And I've loved every minute of it.  The weekend after my Grandpa's funeral my family had our Emmett Family Fun Ultra-5K-Run.  I know we are crazy.  Two years ago we had the Ultra Half Marathon Run for the Cure (still not sure what we were curing)  but only the craziest ones actually ran the 13+ miles.  

This time we made it an ultra 5K (5.3 ish miles) so more people could participate.  Because I am not a runner I chose to ride my Beach Cruiser along with my sister Adrienne and cousins Emily, Amanda, and Paige.  We started at my Grandma's house (also where Clark and I are living) and ran/biked/walked to my uncle's store Norda's and back.  I think the people of Logan were wondering what was going on.  We had bright yellow shirts made.  We are legit!  

Some people chose to dress up in hilarious outfits.  My uncle Tom won the award!

My family that participated

Dad, Katie, Me, Clark, Adrienne

We started and finished at my Grandma's house

For more sweet photos of my crazy family and our ultra 5K go here.