The Savage Family

New Hair (again)

2012-02-08T22:48:00.000-07:00

I always post about my haircuts for some reason.
Here you go.

We're really boring.

2012-02-07T17:03:00.001-07:00

I'm sorry about that.

Umm wow

2012-02-05T17:59:00.002-07:00

I just looked back at my posts and realized that I said I was going to post more about Delaware. But as you can see, I never did. Whoops.

It was an excellent Christmas. I enjoyed being with ALL of the Savages, and it was fun taking family pictures together. I really appreciate everything Mom and Dad did for us over the holidays.

Here are a few pictures to make up for my lameness at blogging.

We ate falafels in NYC.

Matt and Dann at the DC temple.

P.S. I'm even wearing heels in this picture.

Callie

2012-01-12T22:55:00.000-07:00

Last week we adopted a three-month-old kitten from the Utah Humane Society. We kept the name she received at the shelter--Callie--because it's perfect for a tabby/calico mix. :)

Quick Callie Facts:

She LOVES to play. She plays vigorously for hours and hours and never seems to get tired. Her favorite toys are homemade ones, from the simplicity of a crumpled piece of paper to the carefully constructed ribbon tied around a crepe paper ball and then tied to a chair...
She is very vocal when she has missed us (whether it's when we get home in the afternoon or when we've just woken up in the morning).
She likes to play with Rachel and sleep on Matt. haha
She likes meeting new people.
She loves to hang out in the [dry] bathtub.
She is no longer afraid of our toilet flushing. :)

Also

2011-12-31T15:55:00.001-07:00

I love this silly Delaware cat. His name is Whiskers, and he quacks instead of meowing. He and I became friends.

Delaware

2011-12-31T15:52:00.001-07:00

We had a lot of fun in Delaware (more posts coming soon), but now we're waiting at JFK to board a plane back to SLC.

Hooray!

2011-12-10T14:19:00.001-07:00

Matt's research got accepted into a linguistics conference at UC Berkeley in February!

Favorite

2011-11-27T00:06:00.001-07:00

GRE and Stuff

2011-11-23T11:37:00.001-07:00

Matt took the GRE last week before he starts applying to grad school. He studied a lot and was very stressed, but he did really well! And I have to give a special thanks to Casey for driving Matt everywhere he needed to be that day (since I had the car in Spanish Fork). Now the grad school applications begin... First choice is BYU, but he'll probably apply to a school in Michigan as well, and maybe at another school or two.

It's totally weird that the end is in sight for us. I think it'll be even more of a reality check when we have to start ordering caps and gowns for graduation. Holy smokes.

I've been insanely busy with school. Just when I thought I was getting the swing of things, I relapsed into "survival mode" again as far as teaching goes! Thanksgiving break is a much-needed time to rest, but it came up so quickly. Next week we have to start learning our Christmas program (which I have yet to solidify--yikes), and we have parent teacher conferences and tons of stuff to do. I have a feeling December will fly by. One of my students commented yesterday: "This year is going by really fast!" Yes, yes it is. And it terrifies me. The first half of third grade is almost over, and I can only ask myself: Have I taught these kids anything?! Ahh!

I Will Survive

2011-11-20T21:02:00.001-07:00

With Matt by my side. :)

Thanksgiving Blurb '11

2011-11-13T17:48:00.000-07:00

Like last year, we are still grateful for cheap books from DI, pizzas that are half Hawaiian-half jalapeno, and Walmart. This year we are also grateful for Rachel's opportunity to teach third grade before graduating from BYU; the experience, half salary, and insurance benefits have been nice. We're thankful that Matt has been part of an ongoing linguistics research study and that his professor is co-authoring a paper with him. We're grateful for the blessings we have received from our Heavenly Father and for the miracles of the world around us.

LOL

2011-10-27T20:29:00.000-06:00

My first one EVAR. You should vote for it so it can be on the homepage because it's awesome. Also, I'm awesome.

Love, Rachel

Boo Jokes

2011-10-23T13:40:00.000-06:00

As a fun little writing assignment before Halloween, all of the third graders at my school write "boo jokes" and hang them in the hallway for everyone to enjoy. They're super corny most of the time, but I found myself having a blast coming up with them for a few days. (I'm not sure what that says about me.)

During class, I was sharing a lot of boo jokes with my students to help them get the hang of the whole concept: "Where does a ghost go to watch all of the latest viral videos on the internet? BOOTube!" "What is a ghost's favorite Mexican food? A BOOrito!" You know, that kind of thing.

We had already done jokes involving the words boo-tiful (beautiful) and boo-fet (buffet), and I was asking the kids where a ghost might take his boo-tiful girlfriend on a date. One boy got really, really excited--I'm talking practically jumping out of his chair. When I called on him, he yelled out, "A BOO-FET!!" I cracked up. I had been fishing for "the boo-vies" (movies), but it was so funny to me that a third grade boy's idea of a romantic date is to go to an all-you-can-eat boo-fet! :)

The Much-Anticipated Post About Teaching 3rd Grade

2011-10-23T13:30:00.001-06:00

My blogging habits seems to have become non-existent. I apologize. Life has been a bit crazy for the Savages lately.

I've been teaching 3rd grade since the end of August, and I love it. Granted, there was a period where pure survival instincts got me through each day and week, and I still come in to school waaaaay too early and stayed waaaaay too late, but I feel like I'm kind of getting the swing of things. I have 29 wonderful students, and they remind me every single day why I wanted to become a teacher.

Class photo from our Provo Canyon field trip

Here are some of the things I LOVE about my students:

I have a ton of readers! They actually enjoy silent reading and they LOVE read aloud. We've already finished Frindle and The Enormous Egg, and now we're halfway through Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
They like to write me letters and draw me pictures. We've had a lot of fun with the real mailbox I bought at Walmart for $10 (best spontaneous teacher buy EVER).
They try really hard to do the right thing. Sometimes it's hard for me to watch as they have to endure the consequences of their actions, but I know that they are learning, and that's what counts.
They think my silly accents and random singing are the best things ever. (In reality, my accents are absolutely terrible and my singing is passable, but it's nice to feel like a rock star everyday!)
They also like Phineas and Ferb. They earned a class party a couple of weeks ago, so we ate popcorn and watched the Summer Belongs to You episode.

The biggest challenge I'm facing right now in my classroom is figuring out how to differentiate my instruction. (For all of you non-educators out there, that simply means how to meet the needs of each individual student in the most appropriate way.) I have a few students who are really struggling with reading and math, and I am trying to complete some solid interventions so they can [hopefully] qualify for specialist help at the school. It's really hard to create different activities and assessments for all of my students, but I know that I really need to do a better job with it so that they can all learn better. I also have a ton of students who are star performers at everything, so it makes learning gaps even more apparent and hard to deal with.

The other big challenge is finding the balance between school and home. Calleen, my facilitator at Canyon, has been great about pushing the interns to get our planbooks set by Friday so we won't have anything to worry about over the weekend. I haven't always been the most successful with this, but I've definitely made a lot of progress in recent weeks. I'm getting to the point where I'm actually coming to terms with the fact that there will always be something left to do, no matter how early or how late I'm at school. It's really hard for me to just walk away and say, I'll get to that later...but I'm learning. :)

Today I...

2011-09-30T19:17:00.002-06:00

...raised a dog, went to Candyland, went to Las Vegas with a cow, married a vampire, played with a star hamster, was tracked by the FBI and Mr. Savage, ran away from T-rexes, went through a portal to Harry Potter Land, watched Phineas and Ferb because I had barf coming out of my ears, made a new friend, had my brain removed, went back in time and fought in WWII, swam across Utah Lake, broke my leg on a volcano, was forced to make a video for my students by evil bad guys who kidnapped me, surfed in Hawaii, killed a rattlesnake so I could use its rattle as a maraca for my fiesta in Texas, fought ninjas on the biggest boat in the world, skydived into the jungle, and ate a panda because I was hungry. I might have had some district training about teaching guided reading, too. :)

These are all of the adventures my students wrote about the day I didn't come to school!

Lame

2011-08-10T01:37:00.000-06:00

I really need to blog about something other than TV sometime in the very near future. It makes it seem like that's all we do. I promise we do meaningful things like working on linguistics studies, setting up third grade classrooms, and hanging out with family, too.

The lame blogging must end.

Lately

2011-08-10T01:13:00.001-06:00

We've been watching a lot of Doctor Who and Phineas and Ferb on Netflix. I think we both just needed to get it out of our systems before school gets serious again.

Seasons 5 and 6 are seriously amazing. The writing is just....WOW... and Matt Smith is definitely my favorite Doctor so far. Oh, and did I mention that River Song is freakin' insane?! :)

Isn't Phineas and Ferb a Disney Channel show? Yes. Yes, it is. But I'll be honest: I think it's way funnier for adults than for kids! The more you watch it, the more you can see the genius behind it.

Sociolinguistics Study

2011-07-20T20:38:00.000-06:00

Matt had been studying Utah speech with Dr. Eddington for the past year. Right now they're going over all of the data they've collected before writing a scholarly article. Recently, Dr. Eddington submitted the abstract for their research to a sociolinguistics conference in Washington, D.C. in October. One of the things Dr. Eddington mentioned in the conference application was that the research is intriguing to the general public and is sometimes highlighted in the media. Here's the proof!!

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

St. George

2011-07-19T01:33:00.001-06:00

Matt and I went to St. George back in June. We had a small break between spring and summer term, and we decided to get out of the Provo bubble and have an adventure! We went to "The Rock Place," Pine Valley, and Mountain Meadow; saw movies; ate at Chuck-A-Rama; went swimming; read books; and took naps. It was fantastic.

The Food Network

2011-06-13T00:30:00.000-06:00

Wymount doesn't have very good TV channels. It's a fact of life. Sometimes, the most entertaining thing on is the Food Network, and Matt and I have found ourselves watching it more and more frequently.

Well, Matt's already adventurous cooking skills (probably inherited from his dad) mixed with the unique and ingenious recipes of the Food Network have led to a sudden burst of creative cooking in our apartment. While I was struggling to survive classes and practicum during the month of May, Matt was thriving in the kitchen. Here's a little view of the fresh flavors he invented:

This particular meal, conceptualized after watching a Bobby Flay cooking show, consisted of a felafel-inspired pita stuffed with salsa fresca, potato wedges, citrus-marinated tilapia, and fresh spinach greens. The spinach salad was topped with pita chips, onion, bell pepper, and a homemade vinaigrette of lemon juice, crushed garlic, Dijon mustard, and red wine vinegar. The drink was a simple mix of orange juice, lemonade, and Sprite.

Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How

2011-06-04T16:40:00.001-06:00

Why questions are my favorite questions.

Unlike some parents, I want our kids to ask us why questions. Think about it. Why questions are so much more thought-provoking than the rest. (Granted, how questions can be pretty interesting, too.) But why questions, when applied to people--individuals, society, or mankind--can be really amazing.

I don't want my students or my children to simply do what I tell them to do. I want them to ask me why. I love to ask why: Why should I _______? Why is that the best way? Why do those people do that? Or maybe: Why don't people ask why more often?

Why gets people thinking about motives. It questions routines and beliefs that, just maybe, have no real justifications other than "that's just the way we've always done it." Well then, why not change things up?

Why is revolutionary. Maybe that's why I like it.

No Rest for the Busy

2011-05-09T21:52:00.000-06:00

Winter Semester ended and Spring Term immediately began. Life has been extremely busy, but I thought it was time to share some highlights with you:

Dave flew out from Delaware for Easter weekend and Joshua's baby blessing. It was a great weekend with family!
I was told that I'll be teaching 3rd grade next year for my internship/first year of teaching! I'm very excited because my collaboration team is fantastic, and some of my adorable 2nd graders from March practicum may end up in my class!
Matt is loving his editing class. His professor is great. :) He is also working on analyzing the recordings for the research project many of you helped with.
I am trying hard to stay afloat this month--my "fast track" spring/summer is definitely more insane than I ever imagined it would be. Trying to balance teaching and completing college assignments makes me feel like I have a double life or something.
Matt has taken on all of our housekeeping and domestic needs. That means I come home from a day at school and he has done laundry (even things like sheets and towels), cleaned the apartment, gone grocery shopping, washed the dishes, and started making dinner. I love him, and I'm glad he actually enjoys things like cooking (because I don't...at least, not when I'm tired and stressed).
We were able to spend this past Saturday up in Logan for my cousin's wedding. It was a beautiful day and a fun adventure outside of our Provo bubble. I'm so happy for Sean and Katie, and it was fun to reconnect with family.

Farewell, Finals

2011-04-21T13:52:00.001-06:00

Today Matt and I finished up our last finals for Winter 2011. For him it was a 7am German exam, for me it was a 5-minute presentation about my fractions math paper. Looking back on the semester, I realize that it was a wild ride. We made some big decisions about the future that I never would have foreseen a year ago. As I avoid getting lost in the crowds of Mormon families strolling through campus and as I chuckle at the people posing next to the BYU signs in their caps and gowns, I can't help but freak out a little bit. Next April, that'll be us. Yes, we will be posing in our blue graduation garb in front of the BYU sign across the street from Wendy's. Insane.

But, in the meantime, Matt and I will have plenty of tasks to keep us busy. I am privileged to start Spring term on Monday at 8am, a full day before everyone else. What can I say? I'm just that dedicated. Actually, they're requiring El Ed fast trackers to come back early so we can receive tons and tons of assignments from our new teachers before we go back into the elementary schools for spring practicum. *sigh* Fare the well, extended Easter weekend. On the bright side, I am very excited to go back to Canyon Elementary. We still haven't heard which grade levels we're going to be teaching next year, and I'm crossing my fingers that my facilitator will finally be able to tell me on Tuesday.

Matt is taking a few credits this Spring, but he doesn't have a job to occupy the rest of his time. So far nothing looks very promising on the BYU job board because they want people who will be able to stay for a while... Any other ideas, people?? Matt really needs something to do. If he can't find a job, we're hoping that Dr. Eddington will set him up with all of the info he needs to start writing that good ol' research paper. Yes, yes! The research that many of you participated in is complete! Now it just needs to be analyzed and coherently sculpted into an excellent research paper that will be accepted at a prestigious conference somewhere...

This is me being excited about finals being over. Also, I wanted an excuse to show you my new shirt with the cute little flowers. Matt's in the shower right now--you don't need a picture of that.

Late Night Madness

2011-04-17T16:04:00.001-06:00

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 came out on DVD on Friday. Because I know how Harry Potter-obsessed BYU students can be, I was worried that Matt and I would journey over to Walmart at some point to buy the movie, only to find it sold out. (This happened with The Blind Side...)

Since Thursday and Friday were reading days, I convinced Matt to be crazy and go to Walmart to buy the movie at midnight when it came out. A substantial line formed by 12:00, but we were near the beginning of it, so we got awesome Harry Potter and Dobby buttons! W00T, W00T!

Unfortunately, I spent pretty much all day Friday studying for finals and then spent a few hours on Saturday taking two finals before running tons of errands. Matt and I were finally able to watch Harry Potter late, late, late last night after eating dinner and hanging out with Adam and Kathryn (and, of course, little baby Joshua).

P.S. It's still weird to me that we are Aunt Rachel and Uncle Matt!

P.P.S. Does anyone else cry during Harry Potter movies? Maybe I'm just a big baby.

Shabbat Shalom

2011-04-12T17:55:00.001-06:00

Matt dressed as a golem for Purim back in March.

Last Friday, Matt and I drove up to Salt Lake with his cousin Sarah to attend a Shabbat service at the Kol Ami synagogue. I wanted to learn more about Judaism because Matt studies Modern Hebrew at BYU, and he constantly shares fascinating information about Jewish religion and culture with me. (Plus I had to have some cultural events for a class!) I have attended some BYU Hebrew Club activities in the past, but I wanted to encourage myself (and Matt) to step out of the comfort zone of BYU and see what actual Jews are like.

More visitors than Jews arrived at the synagogue that night, so the rabbi decided to change the service to be more informative about basic Jewish Shabbat services. My first thought about Rabbi Ilana was that she is such a cool person and I would love to hang out with her sometime and talk. She was incredibly friendly and loving, and her dynamic personality and storytelling helped me understand the concepts she was teaching. She told us that “kol ami” means “all my people” and welcomed all of us to participate fully. I decided to get over my shyness and go for it, and I’m glad I did, because I loved interacting with the people there.

The music was amazing. We used the prayer books to sing along in Hebrew (thank goodness for the transliteration!) and we could play rhythms on tambourines, too. One woman played beautiful guitar accompaniment throughout the entire service. I noticed that the Shabbat service, like the Catholic services we’ve been to, included music as an integral part of the worship. I remember one specific prayer that was so simple and beautiful, about God being everything. The melody was one of the most lovely and ancient-sounding things I’ve ever heard and it seemed like I could feel the souls reaching out and connecting with God. I wish music was that important in our Church, but usually I feel like it’s just hum-drum and super American-Great-Awakening-Era boring. I hope someday, when all truth is revealed on the earth, we will integrate the truths and music from the ancient church in our worship.

Some profound ideas I remember from Shabbat was that Shabbat is a time for shalom, peace. That includes peace for God! We do not ask God for things on Shabbat, but rather thank Him for everything He has done for us. I thought that was a really cool idea. Another beautiful part of Shabbat was when Rabbi Ilana taught us that an important part of the service was to remember those who have died. She read their names aloud and then we sang a simple song of remembrance. Rabbi Ilana was very sensitive to visitors, too; one girl began to cry, and the rabbi asked if she had a name to add. The girl spoke the name aloud, and we remembered her, too. I loved the depth of care for those who were gone. I should try harder to have a greater remembrance in my own life.

I feel a special connection to Judaism. I can’t really explain it. There are so many parts of our own religion that are so connected to it, and I know in my heart that the Jews are my brothers and sisters. We believe in the same God, and we believe many of the same things. Lately I’ve felt drawn to learn more about Jewish religion and culture, and I’m glad I persuaded Matt (and Sarah) to come to synagogue with me so I could share that experience with them. Hopefully we’ll go back again sometime. :)

Sound Familiar?

2011-04-12T16:36:00.000-06:00

I love setting this as my desktop background.

Life, 10 Years From Now...

2011-04-03T19:50:00.001-06:00

Off and Hopefully Back On

2011-04-03T17:40:00.000-06:00

Do you ever stop for a moment to assess your life and realize that things seem to be a little "off"? I'm glad we had General Conference this weekend because there were a few little promptings that I needed to hear. Life this semester has been so fast-paced, and so full of learning and growth in some ways. But I think I've been moving so fast that some of the important things have sometimes been left behind...

A few weeks ago in church, we talked about the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. We realized that even seeds that are planted in good soil can still be choked out by thorns if you don't tend to your garden regularly. It was pretty eye-opening for me; I realized that there are many thorny distractions that tend to creep into my life.

It was also comforting to remember that you cannot plant every good seed in your garden at the same time! Sometimes I feel uncertain about our decision to finish school before inviting our kids to join us, especially when I see so many women around me welcoming babies into the world. But in all honesty, Matt and I know that a baby flower is not something we can properly nurture in our life garden right now. We have other plants to tend to first, plants that will make the soil even better for those future baby flowers.

This summer is going to be a crazy time for us. I'll be doing my second practicum at Canyon and then finishing the rest of my college classes, including two independent study courses (yikes) before I start teaching in August. Matt is going to take a handful of classes, but he's actually looking forward to doing all the cooking and homemaking stuff in his spare time. I'm glad of that because I probably won't do it. Let's face it: I have a hard time doing it, anyway. Our married life has turned out to be less traditional than I probably would have guessed. (Note to self: I owe Matt a lot of car-driving time in the near future.)

I Looked Out the Window...

2011-03-31T23:30:00.001-06:00

Cougar Cubs

2011-03-31T10:21:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I had some interviews and accepted a job offer to be an intern at Canyon Elementary School in Spanish Fork!

That means I'll teach in my very own classroom with my very own class next fall! They still don't know which grade I'll be teaching because they have to wait on some district boundary changes and such before they can see where I'll be needed most. Hopefully they'll let me know soon.

I am so excited. This is the school I've been working at all month, and I absolutely love it. I think it'll be a great fit!

Today is the first day back to college life after working with second graders for a month. It's going to be a rough transition. Let's just say you're never bored when you're working with second graders. :)

I DID IT!

2011-03-13T20:49:00.000-06:00

Matt and I are enjoying our calling as nursery workers. We play with the 3-year-olds every other Sunday and have a lot of fun!

There is one adorable blonde-haired girl who is so goofy! She always wants to sing songs again, but faster, and she loves to sit on your lap and dance to music. But my favorite thing about her is that, in her excitement about the activities of life, she always proclaims, "I DID IT!" and claps her hands joyfully. This little girl is so incredibly excited about simply doing things... I love it!

Matt and I want our kids to be excited about life, to say "I DID IT!" with enthusiasm. "I did it" shows a feeling of accomplishment and sense of self-worth, and it's completely individual. The little girl in nursery doesn't need to hear "Good job!" from anyone else--she already knows that she did it! I think that's awesome.

Seven Years Ago

2011-03-06T22:01:00.001-07:00

My younger sisters were cool, and they're still rad-awesome today.

They are also both taller than me now...

New Blog

2011-03-03T18:32:00.003-07:00

I decided to create a new blog to chronicle my journey through this crazy world of teaching. I want to take the principle of reflection to heart and acknowledge my strengths and weaknesses so I can become the best teacher I can be.

Follow along, if you'd like. :)

>>Becoming<<

Laundry Day

2011-03-01T10:47:00.000-07:00

Our laundry is almost finished,

dinner is already cooking (thanks to amazing slow cookers and plastic liners!!),

and it feels a bit like spring today.

Some of the flowers and campus are starting to poke their little green shoots through the dirt... This makes me so happy!

I start practicum the day after tomorrow! This semester has gone by so fast! I'm full of complicated emotions, but I'm mostly just excited to go and be with kids again. I miss them.

Also, I'm in love with Matt. He knows so many things--he's brilliant. I learn something new from him everyday. :)

Hostess Cupcakes in All Their Varieties

2011-02-13T22:00:00.001-07:00

Our lazy weekends and bad eating habits have discovered something amazing:

I know, I know. They sound disgusting. But trust me on this: They are the best Hostess snacks my taste-buds have ever experienced.

It's February WHAT?

2011-02-13T21:53:00.000-07:00

The semester is screaming by. It's kind of freaking me out, actually. But I guess time flies when you're having fun. :)

I feel very much "in the present," if you know what I mean, which is ironic because I spend most of my day prepping to become an elementary teacher in the future. Dun dun dun! I don't understand how that works. I have less than three weeks until I join Ms. Nuzman's second grade class for a month! I'm very excited. I've been so busy reading and writing papers and doing projects that the cohort just seemed to creep up on me. What's even more freaky is the fact that we only have a few weeks of school AFTER the cohort before finals. This semester will be over before I know it!

I really need to be more productive on the weekends. Every Monday my friend Katrina asks how my weekend was, and every Monday I reply: "It was good, but I didn't do any homework." *sigh*

Matt and I had a fun date night on Friday--dinner at Chili's and then MegaMind at the dollar theater and Despicable Me via RedBox--but we were complete sloths on Saturday. We slept in, read Harry Potter 7 (Matt) and I Am Not a Serial Killer (me), ate leftovers, watched School of Rock, and stayed in our pajamas all day. This Saturday agenda is not so bad every once in a while, but it has become the Savage routine. And that'sssss bad. Well, it's bad when you have less than two months to finish an entire independent study course, complete a practicum assignment, and interview for an internship. Oh, and Matt is a research assistant/TA who has loads of stuff to do for Dr. Eddington! Riiiiight. Forgot about that...

Tonight I worked on my independent study class. I might even continue working on it after I post this. I feel better. There's still a lot to do...but I am, in fact, in control. Phew.

OH! Today Matt and I survived our first week in nursery! It wasn't nearly as chaotic as we expected. :) I've learned that young children need multiple short activities (as opposed to long chunks of activity), so we prepared a fast-paced agenda that included dancing to music and acting out the story of Daniel and the lions' den. There were no potty emergencies or bad smells (thank the Lord). Note: Do you know how long it's been since I've been around diapers on a regular basis? (Hint: Laura is 15.) Matt is definitely the family expert in that department.

The bishop says this was definitely an inspired calling. I don't know exactly what we're supposed to learn from it yet. My mom joked that maybe it'll keep baby hunger at bay. Or maybe we'll realize that we're supposed to have kids soon? Or maybe we just need to learn how to teach toddlers... I am, after all, much more comfortable with 4th-6th graders, and Matt always worries about terrifying little kids with his humongousness. (Inside joke. hehe.) I can say that it's pretty amazing to see how innocent and loving these children are. Today during sacrament meeting (after nursery), little Claire came to our bench and sat with us for half of the meeting! We were able to practice bowing our heads and folding our arms during the prayers, just like we talked about in our lesson. It was adorable. I also think some of the ward members were confused about why Matt and I suddenly had a child. haha.

P.S. Why is everyone around me pregnant?
P.P.S. Okay, that's a lie. But if I worked out the fraction of pregnant people out of total people I know, it would be abnormally large.
P.P.P.S. I love fractions. We're doing fractions for an entire semester in my math ed class. <3

FYI

2011-01-31T12:55:00.002-07:00

Chore charts don't work.

I should have known I couldn't use behaviorism on myself. :)

New Callings

2011-01-23T18:32:00.000-07:00

Last week, I was released from my calling of Gospel Doctrine teacher, and today Matt and the rest of the Elders' Quorum presidency were released. When I was released, Bishop Platt told us not to expect new callings for a while (since our ward is scrambling to find stuff for people to do now that the activities committee no longer exists...). So we were definitely surprised to be called, sustained, and set apart today as

NURSERY WORKERS!

Matt is a bit nervous because he's afraid the little children will be terrified of him. (He is pretty tall and scary-looking, after all. haha.) I'm just excited for this experience! We don't know many details yet...just the fact that we'll be with the "older" nursery (ages 2-3, I guess).

So Far, So Good

2011-01-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

I honestly don't know why I'm blogging right now because I have a million other things I have to get done tonight... Perhaps I just need a chance to do something that's not school-related for a little while. :)

Matt and I are finally getting into the swing of the new semester, and guess what? We're really busy. Surprise! Matt has already had tests in both German and Hebrew, which is amazing, considering we're just now finishing the third week of school. And it's a good thing I like to read because that's all I've been doing so far. My education classes are extremely reading-intensive, but the reading is actually interesting and applicable to my future as a teacher, so it's not too terrible. Reading just takes a lot of time...

With the new year and the new semester, I wanted to work on establishing some good habits that we've, umm, been struggling with. :) Number One is definitely planning meals and cooking at home. When you're spread thin and don't have much time, you inevitably eat fast food...because it's fast... Today marks Day 5 of being fast food free, and I'm hoping to keep it going for a while. And that brings us to Number Two, which is DISHES. I hate doing dishes. I'm pretty sure Matt hates doing dishes. We hate dishes. We have no dishwasher and only a tiny little kitchen with a tiny little sink, so dishes really are a pain. And when you cook at home, what does that create? Piles of dishes that must be done, otherwise you have no clean dishes and nothing to cook with. *sigh* It's a never-ending cycle. But we've been doing our dishes every day this week, and I am proud!

I even made a daily chore chart (which includes a whole column just for dishes) so we can give ourselves awesome star stickers when we do something clean. :) I want the stickers to add up to a reward or something, but Matt and I are not sure what that will be yet... Maybe we'll get to go see a new movie? Fast food should probably NOT be the reward. haha. Any ideas?

P.S. Is it totally sad that I've resorted to using a chore chart on myself? I just wanted a way to track our progress and set goals! Is that so bad? Plus, the stickers are cute and I wanted to use them for something...

1/11/11

2011-01-13T00:44:00.004-07:00

The day I changed my major.

It's a complicated story. I'll tell it to you if you ask me, but for now here's an excerpt from some thoughts I shared with someone tonight...

The reality of becoming a teacher seems a lot more real to me this semester. I am most definitely seeking an internship, and I am thrilled with the very thought that I might be able to teach in a real classroom this year... After years of music education classes and then elementary education classes, I'm beginning to feel that sense of restlessness that's telling me to get out there and do some good in the world already!

I'm gearing up to face the questions people will ask: "Are you crazy?! You gave up your music ed. degree for a chance to apply for an internship?" But what the rest of the world doesn't understand is that the internship idea was just the catalyst that finally gave me enough courage to reevaluate my life and goals and make some changes that needed to be made anyway. There were some burdens I had been dragging around with me, burdens I would frequently and painfully agonize over. I finally realized how unhappy I was with the whole situation and that I could make changes that would allow me to pursue things I truly wanted, not just what "made sense" or what everyone else said I was supposed to do. Of course, the decision was not made without prayer, fasting, and counsel with my husband. It really is wonderful that we are able to receive divine help and guidance if we ask.

And while it is unfortunate that three years of really hard work will go essentially unrecognized by the world's standards, I don't feel depressed or angry about it. My college career has been a truly miraculous journey of self-discovery and growth, and I don't need a piece of paper to remind me of that. I never imagined I'd be where I am today. Now I just have to figure out how to condense all of those important things I've learned about myself into a short autobiography... What a task!

*Just to clarify: I changed my major from a dual Music Education/Elementary Education degree to just Elementary Education.

Winter 2011!

2011-01-10T21:33:00.000-07:00

Winter semester is here already! Matt and I had a wonderful Christmas break. We were able to spend a lot of time with family and even had some lazy days to ourselves, too. I was a horrible blogger and didn't take ANY pictures all break... Sorry, guys. Dropped the ball on that one, for sure! (Maybe I'll steal some from my sister... She's the camera queen these days.)

Matt and I are loving our new phones. (I surprised Matt with a brand new Droid 2 as an early Christmas present. Valorie and Heather were key players in that conspiracy. hehe) It's pretty sweet to be able to check your email whenever you want and to surf the web... Oh, and the scriptures app is pretty much awesome, too! (Very handy at school so far!) I've also discovered the joys of tweeting...as you've probably noticed in the side bar... :D

Matt is hard at work with his Linguistics stuff. He got a lot of recordings done for Dr. Eddington's research over the break. (Many thanks to everyone who helped with that!) I am enjoying my El Ed classes so far, and I'm really excited about my Cohort. Nebo is going to be awesome. :)

Oh, and I'm currently obsessed with Harry Potter. Apparently it's contagious because Matt is reading Harry Potter on his phone now, too... He also got me an incredible wool Gryffindor scarf for my birthday! <3

Grandpa Smith

2010-12-03T09:30:00.001-07:00

Goodbye, Grandpa.

William Herbert Smith

1929-2010

Harry Potter, Harry Potter

2010-11-24T23:36:00.001-07:00

We saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows tonight and it was awesome!!!

Also, I've been craving a reread of the Harry Potter series all semester. I'm not a huge fan of rereading books right after I finish them (I usually wait until I've forgotten what happens), but now is the time to reread the entire series from start to finish. It'll be wonderful this time around--no anticipation of the next book, no waiting in line to buy it... I already have them all on my bookshelf. :) I've been telling myself that I should wait until next summer so I don't have to lug those huge volumes in my backpack, but I can't wait any longer! I see them on our shelf every single day, and they call to me! Harry Potter, I choose you!

Eh, Christmas break is coming up fast, right? I might be able to finish them all before winter semester starts... :)

P.S.

2010-11-22T09:49:00.002-07:00

Matt and I were also involved with the midterm elections in Utah.

Needless to say, none of our candidates won.

We love watching The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Also, the rally was EPIC.

We appreciate how Stewart and Colbert remind us not to take politics too seriously. I don't know what we'd do without them. Probably go crazy...

Long Time, No Post

2010-11-22T09:36:00.000-07:00

I need to start blogging again. We really are alive, I promise. We do stuff, too. I just never blog about it.

Here's a quick update:

September

School began. Don't be fooled by Matt's lack of books. He's just as busy as me. :)

For a brief time, we were the official Wymount feral cat trappers. They were adorable. Unfortunately, there were just too many of them meowing and fighting and mating and sneaking around.

I grew increasingly more frustrated with my elementary art class... We only do college-level art projects instead of learning how to teach elementary-age kids. *sigh*

October

Halloween!

We were pirates. :)

We also went to the Student Health Center many times, for various reasons. One of the main reasons was to check on Matt's blood pressure. As we expected, it was high, so the doctor prescribed an ACE inhibitor called Lisinopril. It's been working really well, and Matt hasn't had any really bad headaches like the ones he had occasionally earlier in the semester. We also need to change our diet/exercise, though. We were doing pretty well, but then Halloween and midterms happened... It's been a little rough getting back on track since then.

November

I read the entire Hunger Games trilogy in about 3-4 days... I'd been putting it off because I didn't want to read it just because of peer pressure. Turns out that was a stupid thing to do because those books are awesome.

We're really excited for Thanksgiving and then CHRISTMAS! We're waiting until Friday to put up Christmas decorations, but I changed our blog a bit early. :) We'll be spending Thanksgiving at Grandma and Grandpa Savage's house, and we'll be in Utah for Christmas this year.

Thanksgiving Blurb Version 2010

2010-11-21T19:28:00.001-07:00

It's tradition.

We are grateful for many things. We're grateful for cheap books from DI, spicy chicken sandwiches from Wendy's, the Mythbusters, Wal-mart (even though they're trying to take over the world--what?), the fact that you can order a pizza half Hawaiian and half with jalapenos, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and, of course, the Internet and its plethora of lulz and cute kittehs. In all seriousness, we're grateful to be here at BYU, where Matt is working as a teaching assistant/research assistant and Rachel is making lots of new friends in the El Ed major. We are ever-so-grateful for Pell Grants (thanks, Obama!) and the extra support of family members. Most of all, we are grateful for the gospel and the joy it brings.

Can We Move Yet?

2010-10-13T00:08:00.002-06:00

Matt's asleep right now, but I'm sure he'd agree with me when I say,

"I am not living in Utah for the rest of my life!"

Back to School

2010-09-08T13:54:00.000-06:00

Less than two weeks in, and we're just trying to survive.

Trying to do all of our homework in the library (resulting in most of our time spent...in the library).

Trying to get to bed earlier--between 10:00 and 11:00 pm.

TONS of classes, harder than expected.

It's gonna be a rough semester.

P.S. I should be doing homework. :(

Brunette

2010-08-22T19:47:00.000-06:00

In other news, Matt helped me dye my hair. Again. So this time it's actually darker.

(This was the big event of Day #2 of our anniversary celebration.)

Austin, Texas

2010-08-22T19:42:00.000-06:00

Matt and I were lucky enough to spend a week with my family earlier this month. It was a relaxing vacation for us, even though my family still had marching band, work, and lots of other stuff going on! We didn't take many pictures, but here are a few...

My friends and I visited Megan at Yogo Bowl.

I love how the cash register says: "Welcome to Yogo Bowl. Eat more yogurt!!"

The adults had quick stay at the Lost Pines Hyatt resort, which included incredible food, swimming, and lots and lots of card games!

We went to the McNeil marching band's Watermelon Social. Dad was LOVING Laura's colorguard flag.

My little sisters are so grown up!!

Thank you, Mom. :)

First Anniversary

2010-08-22T19:31:00.001-06:00

August 18, August 18! That's our anniversary! We both took two days off work to celebrate our first wonderful year of being old married folks.

The beginning of the day was my favorite part. On Tuesday night (our-anniversary-eve), Matt and I went to bed together (as usual). On Wednesday morning, I woke up before Matt (as usual). I went into the kitchen and found *GASP* a bouquet of flowers and a beautiful card! There was also a love note telling me that there were eggs, milk, and bacon in the fridge and bread in the pantry so we could have a big breakfast/brunch together. I was so surprised! Matt always laments the fact that I usually have the car because I have to drive to work. He never gets to surprise me with anything. So he decided to surprise me anyway by going to bed with me and then waking up later and sneaking to the grocery store at 2am. Now that's what I call love.

We pretty much just had a relaxing day after that. We lounged around and watched "Cats Don't Dance" online (totally random, I know). Then we had an early dinner at Carrabba's in Orem. Matt has wanted to take me there for a very long time, but we were never able to make it work until our anniversary. We went all out and ate calamari, salads, and bread as appetizers. Matt ordered lasagna and I decided to try lobster ravioli. We also had amazing Italian sodas... It was all soooo good.

After dinner, we killed some time at Deseret Book before going to Cinemark to see The Sorcerer's Apprentice. We had a wonderful time, especially because of the yummy candy that we snuck into the theater. hehe :)

Happy Birthday, Savage Family!

2010-08-18T14:42:00.000-06:00

One year already? Time flies. :)

Matt's New Job

2010-08-08T22:07:00.004-06:00

So, I quit my job on Friday.

Actually, that's misleading. But I say it like that to get a rise out of people. In reality, on Friday I notified my boss that at the beginning of Fall semester I wouldn't be able to work there any more. Reason: BYU only allows students to work 20 hours a week on on-campus jobs. My current job is 15 hours a week; the new job offer I just got is 10, so I had to pick between the two.

My new job will entail fewer hours and probably a drop in pay rate. Why am I doing this, then, you ask? Prestige. There isn't anything prestigious about answering phones in a closet-like room for three hours a day. There is however, prestige in co-authoring a research paper with one of your professors.

Dr. Eddington (from whom I took the Linguistics 427 - Phonology and Morphology class) has asked me to work for him this Fall as his TA/Research Assistant. So, for part of my job, I'll be reading people's papers and entering grades into the computer. Thrilling. But for the other part of the job, I'll actually be helping him to conduct his most recent research project.

He's going to be looking into some of the idiosyncrasies of Utahn speech (ever hear anyone make fun of how Utahns say the word "mountain"? We're studying that.) From what we've talked about so far, this will involve actually going out into the community and gathering data sets (read: record people talking) and then coding the results (read: deciding what they said).

That's all well and good, but here's the awesome part: when I told Dr. Eddington that I was interested in pursuing graduate studies in linguistics, and that I wanted to get a Ph.D in it, he offered to let me co-author the paper. For those of you who don't realize the significance of this, let me explain. When you're a professor, you basically do 2 things: teach classes and write research papers. So when I'm applying to grad schools, and they look at my resume and see that I've co-published an academic paper (i.e. grownup stuff) while still an undergrad (i.e. not an actual grownup)... well, it'll be awesome.

That's not the best part. He said that in the past, he co-authored a paper with a student. Said paper was accepted at linguistics conference. He let the student present the research. He said that if this project goes well, he'd be willing to let me do the same thing. So, in summation: sometime in the next year I might (not for sure, but possibly) be traveling to some city somewhere to some highfalutin linguistics conference and presenting on academic research in front of a bunch of crotchety old professors.

So, remember: /maun'ʔn/ is not the same thing as /maun'ʔən/, and we're going to prove it scientifically.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

2010-08-08T22:06:00.000-06:00

Our amazing neighbors, Brent and Lauren, are graduating and moving away this week...

The conclusion of our final "pie night" together.

Our first attempt at taking a timed picture from a kitchen cabinet... The door started closing!

I don't know who else will hunt Cat God with us...

or gripe about our neighbors' weird habits with us...

(yes, they are smoking fungus off of their feet)

or lower picnic food down in baskets tied with a jump rope with us...

We've conquered Seven Peaks, Zelda, the Manti Pageant, and many delicious pies... And we've even survived sacrament meeting with all of the screaming children. We've had so many adventures together this summer, and it will be sad to see you go. At the same time, HOORAY FOR YOU for getting out of Wymount and exploring the real world! :) We'll miss you!

FIREWORKS WARS

2010-08-04T18:24:00.002-06:00

The title says it all.

Or maybe not.

I'll add some pictures.

And also the fact that this happened on Pioneer Day.

Our "fortress," equipped with approved fireworks under the $20 family limit: El Diablo. I knew those numerous gift boxes from our wedding would come in handy!

It would soon become...the ring of fire.

Fire

Strategy

Excitement

Inferno

And, ultimately, death to Diablo.

What a great [Melville] family tradition!

Days of '47 Parade

2010-08-04T18:08:00.002-06:00

On July 23, after a fun night with Brent and Lauren, Matt and I drove up to Salt Lake to spend the night with my grandparents. I really wanted to see the Days of '47 Parade while we're still in Utah. Grandma and Grandpa Matheson were so wonderful--they checked out the parade route, let us sleep over the night before, and dropped us off downtown in the morning.

Here we are,

chillin' in the shade of the city courts building.

Oh my gosh! It's President Uchtdorf!

And lots of awesome old cars with cute old men in them.

Represent! I didn't see a University of Utah float... Hmmm?

I liked the idea for this float... Seagulls "turning trials into treats."

After the parade, we went out to lunch with Grandma and Grandpa. It was a lot of fun, and I'm glad we got to spend part of our Pioneer Day with them! After lunch, we took a nice nap at their house... haha. We were so tired! We must be getting old.

July 4th

2010-08-04T17:33:00.002-06:00

It's pathetic that I haven't posted in over a month, but I promise that we were doing lots of fun stuff!! I also changed our blog design. Do you like it??

Matt and I had a relatively laid back 4th of July weekend. We experimented with homemade pizza...

and were very proud of the end result! (Our crust still needs work, though.)

(Can you guess which side belongs to which spouse?)

We also watched INDEPENDENCE DAY! I absolutely love that movie, and it just makes sense to watch it on the 4th of July. The $5.00 bin at Walmart ROCKS!

Then we walked across the street to Matt's work and watched fireworks from the Stadium of Fire for free. Ahh, you gotta love living at BYU.

(P.S. I did not take this picture.)

Manti Weekend

2010-06-23T17:23:00.001-06:00

Last weekend, Matt and I went to the Manti Mormon Miracle Pageant with our friends Brent and Lauren. It was quite the adventure! I loved the pageant so much! The Spirit was definitely there. It was totally worth the hassle of parking on a random dead end street, waiting forever in a line of cars afterward, and then taking a detour south to Gunnison to avoid traffic heading north! :)

You can see the temple from far, far away!

It was really nice of the Manti wards to set up all those chairs for the pageant. We were also pleased to discover that our lack of bug spray wasn't such a huge deal--everyone around us had enough to keep most of those nasty buggers away from us!

We'll definitely come back and do some temple work here sometime!

ALSO: I'm sorry that I don't have any pictures of the actual pageant, but I figured it would be distracting and the pictures wouldn't turn out well anyway. BUT I just wanted y'all to know that it was really cool!! They even had pyrotechnics... I was NOT expecting that. :)

The next day, Matt and Brent fired up our new little Walmart grill, and we had a nice BBQ on our "lawn" at Wymount. Lauren made some fantastic burgers (she mixed some stuff into the ground beef), and we had a fun time! The guys felt very manly "cooking flesh over flames" (as my dad would say).

Before

During

YUM! I mean... After

You Know You're a Nerd When...

2010-06-19T23:11:00.000-06:00

...you flip through your very basic cable channels on a Saturday night, come across the French channel airing an Italian opera with French subtitles, and then proceed to watch the last half of it because you actually recognize and like it after studying it in your music history class.

Gran Dio! morir si giovane!

BABIES

2010-06-10T22:54:00.000-06:00

They're everywhere...

Whenever I log in to Blogger and check my little blog feed that shows what everyone's up to, I'm always drawn to click on the blogs featuring BABIES. I currently have five blogging cousins with babies under a year old--four little girls and one handsome boy. I mean, seriously? At that age, they're just so adorable...I can't help myself.

Also, it seems like everyone at church has a baby. What? Or they're pregnant and are therefore expecting a baby. Even SHAYCARL (funny Mormon YouTube celebrity) has a newborn baby. Soooo many babies!!

All I know is that babies are not yet on our personal radar, however cute and cuddly they may be. (Trust me, you'll know when our time comes.) For now, I guess I'll just live vicariously through my cousins' beautiful baby blog updates. And hey, it's never too early to start thinking about style, right? If we have little bald babies, I want to put big headbands on them (well, the girls, anyway). What do you think?

But...our kids are probably more likely to look something like this:

Don't Cry Over, Erm, Sour Milk?

2010-06-06T17:05:00.000-06:00

Last night, Matt and I had dinner with Kathryn and Adam at Pirate Island Pizza. (I'll post on that later.) Afterward, we went to Smith's to buy the essentials--bread and milk--so we won't die before we can actually go grocery shopping for real.

This afternoon, I was making some cheese sauce for our baked potatoes, and I asked Matt to get me a cup of milk. He went to the fridge, opened the door, and gasped. "I just thought of a really horrible, terrible thing."

I turned away from the stove to face my dear husband. "We left the milk in the car," I said.

CRAP!

So...two gallons of milk down the drain. Or, rather, into the dumpster. Thank goodness they were still sealed, so our trunk doesn't smell like sour milk!

P.S. I'd like to extend a special thanks to Brent and Lauren, who donated 1 cup of milk to the silly Savages. :)

Road Trip to Vernal!

2010-06-03T21:16:00.001-06:00

Last weekend, Matt and I went on a road trip to a pretty random place--Vernal, Utah. We have a goal to visit all of the temples in Utah while we're living here, and I had fond memories of a childhood Vernal trip... So why not, right?

Driving across Duchesne and Uintah counties isn't the most exciting thing in the world. There's a whole lot of flat land and desert involved. We were surprised when we saw an extremely blue, snaking reservoir in the middle of the dry land! We also had a laugh at its name--Starvation Reservoir. (Sorry about the cup reflection in the picture...my bad.)

Our first adventure in Vernal (after checking in at the KOA) was the Utah Field House of Natural History. There were a lot of interesting exhibits, and even some really impressive fossils preserved in rock slabs. We learned about the Allosaurus, which was plentiful in Utah, near Dinosaur National Monument. We also had lots of fun with the big dinosaur replicas outside in the garden...

Then we headed down Main Street, Vernal and went to the temple. The Church turned Vernal's old tabernacle into a temple in 1997, and I remember going through the open house with my family at that point. It was really cool to go back and actually do a session there as an adult! Matt and I both had a wonderful experience. The temple has a pioneer-y feel, which is always fun. Another thing I loved about it was the huge picture of Christ hanging in the Celestial room. It really struck me and made me think about a lot of meaningful things.

After our temple session, Matt and I wanted to do something fun--it was a Saturday night, after all. Our hopes were crushed at the movie theater when we saw this sign:

All of the movies had early show times! Seriously? Vernal doesn't even have movies on a Saturday night? What do people do for fun around here? We went inside to look at the times, and the marquee said all the same stuff. Finally, after a desperate phone call to my younger sister (thanks, Lu!) and a pretty awkward conversation with the teenage theater workers, we learned that all of the posted times were for the matinees. *Note: Nowhere was the word "matinee" displayed on any sign. Also, apparently Vernal residents have the nightly show times memorized. In the end, we saw Prince of Persia, and it was AWESOME.

Then we went back to the KOA (which was actually nicer than I expected, by the way) and went to bed. In the morning we took these pictures!

Our bed, with bedding composed of two sleeping bags and a blanket from Grandma Melville.

Matt, looking cold and sleepy on our bed. He's warming himself with the little KOA heater.

Cabin #5!

On Sunday we got up early and drove to Jensen, Utah to visit Dinosaur National Monument. Unfortunately, the visitors' center (with the awesome wall made completely out of rock and fossils!) is closed. We talked to a park ranger guy later who told us about how the sandy foundation it's built on has caused the building to shift a lot. Apparently the roof isn't even connected to the rest of the building anymore... Crazy.

I was sad about the visitors' center, but we still had fun on the Fossil Discovery Trail. We took a shuttle to the trail head and then got to explore! The ranger guy (from above) taught us how to find fossils in the rock, and he got really excited that we actually asked him intelligent questions about paleontology. (I guess it had been a slow day.) There were some really incredible (and large) fossils in the cliffs!

After our adventure in Dinosaurland, we decided to drive to Colorado, just to say we'd left the state. So we went to Dinosaur, CO and then turned around and took pictures at the brand new Welcome to Utah signs! They have different artwork depending on where you enter the state. Cool, huh?

Next we drove to Dry Fork Canyon to see the petroglyphs at McConkie Ranch. It was a really fun albeit steep hike. The petroglyphs were fascinating. Why were they carved? What do they mean? We had fun trying to guess. We also had fun goofing around...

And, of course, the grand finale of our Vernal vacation was a trip to the Dry Fork Cemetery. After years of living with a genealogist mother, it just didn't feel like a real Utah road trip without at least one stop in a cemetery. This cemetery had many interesting sights. A lot of the gravesites had rock decor, like this one. But the final photo takes the cake. I have never seen such a unique headstone in my entire life, and I've been to a lot of cemeteries in my day.

Car Accident

2010-05-26T22:33:00.002-06:00

Everyday at 5:30pm, I get in the car and go pick Matt up from work. This is the route I take:

I know, I know. It's only 0.4 miles. But it only takes a minute or two (as opposed to 10-15 minutes of walking for Matt after a long day).

This section of University Parkway (aka E 1700 N St on this map?) has two lanes, each direction, but no official turn lane. So, like always, I started signaling my left hand turn, slowed down, and ended up stopping and waiting in the left hand lane. A white mini-van stopped behind me. (Note: This occurred at Point B on the map! haha)

La la la, just waiting to turn. Oh, there's Matt in the parking lot.

*FRUMP* (Matt and I decided that this is the most accurate word to describe the noise that occurred.)

What the heck? I just got rear-ended by a car that wasn't even moving!?

Frantic, annoyed, and scared (it was my first accident, even fender-bender-wise), I pulled into the parking lot near the Harman Building/BYU Conference Center. Matt came over and I almost started bawling my eyes out... My tears dried up when I turned back to the road and realized that I was the LUCKY ONE.

So. Here's what happened. I was stopped. The mini-van was stopped. Then a guy in a black sedan smashed into the back of the mini-van and pushed it into my car (aka mini-van sandwich). The guy in the black sedan had just come from the health center and said he had dropped something in his car...he wasn't even aware that we were stopped in the left lane. Oops. Matt ended up being the only witness to the accident, since he was standing in the parking lot waiting for me. haha.

The front of the black sedan was completely crunched. The air bags even deployed. TOTALED.

The white mini-van, which was transporting a nice Chilean mother and her three little girls (all under age 7), had its bumper completely ripped off. In the front, the radiator smoked and hissed, and the van started oozing green "blood." It wasn't until the tow truck came that we realized the extent of the structural damage... Diagnosis? TOTALED. (Might I add: This poor family had just spent $3000 repairing their car before moving to Arizona for an internship. They were supposed to leave this Friday. How sad is that?)

Our car? A slightly concave bumper (which corrected itself on the drive home), a mildly dented trunk hatch (probably the worst of our problems), a broken license plate cover (it was the cheapo dealership one, anyway), and some scratched paint (we're not sure exactly how much of it was transferred from the mini-van and how much is scratched off from our car). YAY! OUR CAR SURVIVED. :)

(This picture is pretty crazy because you can totally see where the mini-van's license plate--the Utah arch kind--hit our bumper!)

Yep. So we had an evening full of two tow trucks, a fire truck, and cool Dodge Charger police cars! (I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures of the fire truck...)

In all seriousness, Matt and I are feeling extremely blessed. Our car is drivable, pretty much completely fine. I wasn't hurt. Nobody was hurt (thank goodness!). Life could be so much worse... We could have a totaled car and be panicking about an internship, etc. It's just a minor inconvenience that we'll have to deal with. Hey--it'll be a learning experience, that's for sure.

Also, it's kind of funny, the random people you meet at the scene of an accident. The Chilean woman and her family just happen to live in the building next to ours, and her husband is a graduate student in LINGUISTICS. (Really, what are the odds?) I also talked to a nice man from Pennsylvania who is just in Provo helping out with railings and stuff in the new broadcasting building on campus. (He stopped to see if he could help because he's a paramedic.) The police officers were nice, too. They helped us understand what the heck we're supposed to do next with this whole accident dealio. :)

May Flowers [and More Snow]

2010-05-26T16:36:00.001-06:00

I know it's been forever since I last blogged. It's pathetic, I know.

Matt has been really busy with work/Hebrew, and I started work this month, too. So every morning I drop Matt off at BYU, where he learns crazy hard Hebrew forms and talks to annoying high school parents who want their kids to complete AND pass an independent study class in like, three weeks so they can graduate from high school. (Good luck with that.) Then I go to my "office" and create rainbows and trees with my coworker Heather. (Literally. I'll post pictures sometime.) We also plan camp activities, each lunch, listen to Justin Bieber (so we'll be able to relate to the kids, I swear!), and spend money.

I could also write about my serious addiction to YouTube... Or perhaps about how my cooking/exercising/cleaning/budgeting/going to bed early plans completely failed this month...

But I'd rather not. :)

We were blessed to have some family time in the middle of May. Valorie flew in so she could drive back to Delaware with Heather, but she was also able to come to Cassi Savage's wedding and spend time with the Melvilles. It was a busy weekend for everyone, but it was wonderful to go to the Salt Lake Temple with family. :)

So I got a little camera-happy when I saw the gorgeous flowers at Temple Square. Can you really blame me? It was a spectacular spring day, and we were sooo happy to be heading toward summer.

And then this happened.

April [Snow] Showers

2010-05-02T14:36:00.000-06:00

Matt and I had a busy, fun weekend despite the random cold weather and gross snow. Hopefully it will warm up soon! I miss that beautiful weather we had during FINALS WEEK! haha

On Friday night we went to Fuddrucker's and rationalized that it was okay because we were celebrating the fact that we had just finished cleaning our entire apartment!

On Saturday, we babysat some cute girls from our ward while their parents cleaned/moved out of their apartment. We ended up chasing them around the Monte L. Bean museum, which was surprisingly exhausting for us... We also ran a bunch of random errands, including a trips to Wells Fargo, Kohl's, the DI, and Michael's, before we had a fun movie night with our friends Brent and Lauren. We watched The Blindside, which is an amazing movie (just FYI).

Someday...

2010-04-28T17:08:00.000-06:00

...we'll have one of these...

...and life will be so much better.

Families Can Be Together Forever

2010-04-28T00:37:00.000-06:00

I wrote an e-mail to my missionary brother today... I had a hard time thinking of what to write about because I didn't want to make him feel homesick or distract him from his mission. I decided to write about our experiences at the temple this past week and share my testimony about the work we do there.

It's so amazing and comforting to know that we have a loving Heavenly Father and a wonderful Savior who cherish us so much that they provided a way for us to live together as families, even after this mortal life. I am grateful to know that our little family unit is sealed together, bound on Earth and in Heaven. Right now it's just Matt and me. Sometimes we think about our children and wonder how their preparations for mortality are coming along. Do they ever get to look down at us as we prepare for them? And to think of all of the generations that have passed before us! The temple is where the veil is thin... You can really feel them there sometimes. It's glorious to think about our opportunities to be linked to so many people for eternity. I don't know all of the details of how it works (like, if parents are linked to children, and children are linked to their children and so on, how will we all fit into a house/dwelling??), but I know we won't be lonely. :)

Endings and Beginnings

2010-04-26T09:47:00.002-06:00

The semester ended, and it brought a lot of change with its departure...

I'm happy I won't have to spend the majority of my time in this building anymore. Hallelujah!

Matt is sad that he won't be a TA for Dr. Hallen anymore, but he WILL be in her class this fall. Working with Dr. Hallen has been a great experience for Matt, and we are so grateful for everything he's learned from her.

Our friends Amanda and Dave (and many other ward members!) will be away this summer. Amanda and Dave are in Washington, D.C. We'll miss them, but they'll have a great adventure! :)

Lauren and Brent are still around, so we're going to do some incredibly awesome, fun stuff with them this summer before Brent graduates!

My younger brother Kyle is now a MISSIONARY! We dropped him off at the MTC last Wednesday after having a bit of family time at P.F. Chang's, etc. We're excited for him and all of the things he'll learn, but it's still kind of weird that he's really gone.

I actually get TIME OFF before/after the craziness of Summer Day Camp begins. I'm really looking forward to working with the kids again. They make me cool stuff like this:

Matt will still be working the phones for CES Registration...

and he'll keep learning some more of this!

And with our newfound free time this week, we were able to go to the Mount Timpanogos Temple twice with family members.

OH!! And we saw How To Train Your Dragon in 3D with Heather, Kathryn, and Adam. It was a GREAT movie. I enjoyed every minute in 3D because my glasses fixed my eye problems! The optometrist said I should try 3D movies again--he's so smart!

(He was embarrassed because my flash was so bright...)

Visiting Teachers

2010-04-11T21:37:00.001-06:00

I am so grateful for such wonderful visiting teachers! Today they were going to feed Matt and me dinner, but we had to cancel kind of last minute because Matt's dad is in town. (Matt's uncle died and the family wanted to get together this afternoon.) So my visiting teachers came over later tonight and brought us some of the food they made, along with dessert and lemonade. Oh, I love lemonade. :)

Then we just sat and talked for over an hour about totally random stuff. It's so nice to be able to do that with your visiting teachers! We also realized that there seems to be a pattern... As soon as you get to know your sisters really well and feel like you're friends with them, you get reassigned or somebody moves or something. That actually makes a lot of sense because then you have friends and connections in the ward, but you move on to make more friends, too. I like that. :)

New Looks

2010-04-10T17:44:00.001-06:00

...Inspiration...

...End result...

...Sisters...

...Oh, and Matt's new glasses...

My Hair is Driving Me Crazy!

2010-04-08T12:02:00.000-06:00

So... My hair suddenly got really long.

I don't know how it happened, but it's waaaay long. Even my bangs are out of control. *sigh*

Summer is coming, and although I really like the long-hair look, I really, really hate having massive amounts of flowing mane making my neck all sweaty. That's just gross, and it drives me CRAZY.

This is going to sound totally lame, so brace yourselves:
I've never gotten a haircut without my mom before.
No, I'm being real. Yes, I know I'm 21 years old.
I just always happened to need a haircut when I was home from college or when my mom was in Utah, so she would go with me (and usually one of my sisters, too).

So I need some help. Where do you go to get your hair cut in Provo? How much does it cost here? Can I just walk in or do I need to call? (Wow, I'm soooo pathetic.)

Also: What kind of style should I go with to remedy this dangling forest of split ends? I definitely want to get my hair cut shorter, but I'll be working summer camp, so I need to have enough hair for ponytail, at least. Layers or no layers? I just don't know. I'm so boring.

New Blog!

2010-04-06T23:34:00.000-06:00

Hey y'all-

My Children's Literature class this semester has really helped me change my life. After a few years of reluctant reading (probably because of some bad experiences in school), I've rediscovered how amazing books are.

I like to think about this semester in terms of Alma's counsel in Alma 32 to "experiment upon my words and exercise a particle of faith." I didn't think it was possible to read all of the books my professor required of us, much less enjoy them. Back in January, I couldn't even imagine that I'd be a happy, avid reader by April. But I decided to use this semester as an experiment to see how reading could fit into my busy life.

It's been so much fun connecting with my sister Laura about books this semester--she has always been a consistent bookworm in our family! Matt also likes to read, and we've had some fun conversations and trips to the book section of DI. I've started to realize how good literature can connect people, sometimes people who seem to have nothing else in common.

So... I decided to start another blog: Books, Books, Books, Books, Books (aka Books x5). Matt came up with the title! :)

It's a casual book blog with three official contributors (Laura, Matt, and me), but I hope many more people will check it out and post their own comments and book suggestions. Note: It's just getting started, so there aren't many reviews up yet!

Glasses Update

2010-04-05T18:26:00.002-06:00

Just really quick:

I'm pretty much adjusted to my glasses now. The first thing to go was the crazy fish-bowl effect. I still have some issues with different lighting situations (i.e. in the Madsen Recital Hall during Women's Chorus because there are weird stage lights and stuff). If lighting isn't overheard or balanced in a room, I sometimes feel like I'm seeing in a funky dream land. HOWEVER, I noticed today in Women's Chorus rehearsal that my vision wasn't super weird, so maybe I'm over that, too! :)

Also, everyone keeps saying that the movie How to Train Your Dragon is really good. I think Matt and I may have to splurge and go see it...in 3D!!

This is a big deal because I have always hated 3D movies. They made my eyes/head hurt and were just generally unpleasant. But get this: the optometrist asked me about 3D movies and told me that I will probably like them much more now that my eyes see things at the same distance/focus. Hooray!

P.S. Matt just got his new glasses in the mail, and they look soooo good! We'll have to post a picture soon! :)

Easter and General Conference

2010-04-05T18:13:00.001-06:00

This weekend was wonderful. It was so fun to have General Conference on Easter (even though it snowed).

We spent the weekend at Grandma and Grandpa Savage's house, where we were fed well! We also had an Easter dinner with John and Kaylene's family, too. It was nice to see everyone.

General Conference was a good way to start this last stretch of school. I have a feeling Matt and I will both need to remember the counsel from this past weekend as we are trying not to die before and during finals... *sigh*

Grandma, Heather, Kathryn, and I dyed eggs while the men were at the Priesthood Session!

I used some rubber bands on this egg--I like how it turned out!

The Sunday conference set-up. :)

Happy Easter!

Not Cool

2010-04-04T07:59:00.001-06:00

So I woke up this wonderful Easter morning and looked out the window.

April 4, 2010. Easter. What?!

Inevitable

2010-04-02T21:18:00.007-06:00

Heeeyo! It's Matt. Doing a post huh what?

Yeah, Rachel finally got me to actually post something on here. Probably a fairly difficult task, seeing as I'm so lazy. But with finals week coming up and everything coming to a head in all of our classes, we thought that it would be good to take some time and discuss the inevitability of... wasting time on YouTube.

So, I find that the more I have to do, the less I do it. Also, I find that the more urgent my other tasks to perform are, the more interesting I find utterly unrelated things. Hence, as I've become so incredibly busy all the time, YouTube has become a indispensable part of my day.

What we've found is that we have a few favorites when it comes to the YouTubers. A couple of people who have actually started to form a kind of weird celebrity-community on the interwebs. A few of these people include:

The Gregory Brothers, a.k.a. Schmoyoho. These guys are three brothers (and the wife of the oldest brother) who like to sing, as well as make other people sing. They are very musically talented. They like to take videos of important people (mostly politicians) and popular ads on TV and auto-tune them to make it seem like the other people are singing along. It. Is. AMAZING. (For more information on what auto-tuning is, click here.) Some of our favorites include Auto-Tune the News #2, Auto-Tune the News #5, Auto-Tune the News #10. Also very impressive is their auto-tuned remix of the Sony ads with Justin Timberlake and Peyton Manning and all them. And my personal favorite (best video of all time... of ALL TIME!), when they took Obama from the State of the Union Address and made him sing it to the tune of Replay by Iyaz. So, go check them out, and if you have a YouTube account, subscribe.

Next up on the list, we have Shay Carl. Now, Shay has two different channels, Shaytards and Shaycarl. This guy is pretty funny. He started out making weird skit movies on YouTube with his Shaycarl channel. Later on, he decided that he was going to make one movie every day of his 29th year of life. So, for one whole year, he uploaded a video every single day on his Shaytards channel (Shaytards being his affectionate name for his family: Shaycarl, Mommytard, Sontard, Princesstard and Babytard, with the most recent addition of Fetustard.) Anyway, it's very entertaining to watch his weird antics and the fun/bizarre/crazy stuff he and his family do.

Here's something interesting, though: if you watch a lot of his videos (like we have), you'll notice a few things that stand out:

1. They go to church every Sunday.
2. Shay wears some funny white shirt underneath all his other shirts.
3. There's definitely a picture of the First Presidency on the wall in some of their videos.

Draw your own conclusions. I'm just sayin'.

Moving on, we have Dave Days. Dave is a friend of the Shaytards (some of his videos are shot at their house). He's a musician, and a talented one, too. Oh, and he's completely obsessed with Miley Cyrus. It gets kind of weird sometimes, but in a funny way.

Anyway, Dave makes a lot of videos and songs. He does spoofs of popular songs (like his spoof of Fireflies that's all about Ikea, or his spoof of Justin Bieber's song "Baby" that's all about Justin Bieber... being a baby) as well as some of his own work (like his song to Miley Cyrus... that Miley Cyrus was actually IN.) It seems pretty clear from stuff he writes on his profile page that he really wants a record deal, and let me tell you; if anyone deserves it, he does.

The last two here I'll probably deal with at the same time. Viral Video Film School and Equals Three, both of which are channels devoted to the critique of videos that go viral on the 'Tubes.

Now, VVFS is done much more professionally, and generally speaking is a lot cleaner. Equals Three is done by Ray William Johnson, by himself in his own home, and if you're offended by swears you might want to avoid it. They're bleeped out, but there's a whole lot of bleeps. However, Equals Three is much faster on the uptake, and if you want what's currently all the rage on YouTube, you can turn to that and get a very thorough update.

All in all, Equals Three is much more informative (if also much more swearful), but Viral Video Film School is a much more entertaining show (host = much more charismatic). Some of the best VVFS include his documentary about Baby Preachers or his one about home-made weapons. The only downside is that once you've started watching some, you really can't stop.

Now, these are just the main things that Rachel and I waste our time on. You know, just in case you were wondering, and maybe wanted to find a new way to waste time yourself. 'Cause let me tell you, it's something we're good at.

Katalina Maria Guacala

2010-03-31T18:28:00.003-06:00

One of my very best friends in the whole world entered the MTC today. She came by last night to visit before she devotes the next 18 months of her life to the Lord, serving the people of Fresno, California.

Last night we sat across from each other at our little retro table and just looked at each other, thinking about how weird it is that she's going on a mission. Reminiscing how weird it was when I got married. Or how weird it was when I went to the University of Houston and she went to BYU. When did we grow up? How did I miss that memo?

I remember spending time with her at Temple Square this past summer. We went through the visitors' center, including the exhibit about eternal families, and we cried as we talked to the sister missionaries there. We realized then that we were both on different life paths, both so wonderfully good and helpful for building the kingdom of God on the earth. We cried because it was all so weird. But we also cried because we were happy. Really happy.

I stood on the sidewalk outside my apartment building and waved through the dark at my curly-haired friend in the Honda CRV. Raising my arms goofily, I cried, "Hurrah for Israel!"

"Hurrah for Israel!" she yelled back.

Godspeed, Sister Bolliger.

Spring 2005

Summer 2005

(This picture is infamous.)

Summer 2005

Fall 2005

Summer 2007

Summer 2008

(2:00 am)

Summer 2008

(The "Summer of Uncertainty")

Summer 2008

Summer 2009

(We used to be gangsta, anyway...)

(But we've never really been normal.)

Raquel Ana Retarde y Katalina Maria Guacala

Wasatch Elementary

2010-03-30T14:38:00.001-06:00

Last semester I had the opportunity to teach a beginning clarinet class at Wasatch Elementary in Provo. It was an amazing experience, despite the fact that I continue to tell people that I'm "retired" from playing clarinet. (In reality, I just don't practice...ever...and I want to avoid any embarrassment that may occur when people assume that just because I'm a music major I spend all of my time mastering concertos and taking private lessons and whatnot.) But I digress. Teaching clarinet was a great learning experience for me. I was forced to think on my feet more than I expected, and I had to finally face the reality of classroom management/leadership. (Boy, is it a lot more real when you get to work with real kids! Who knew?)

This semester I'm in Women's Chorus and rehearsals conflict with the Wasatch clarinet class. Sad day. About halfway through the semester, Dr. Jaccard (my music education teacher) had me start observing the Wasatch choir rehearsals in the morning before school. I was supposed to be helping out, too, but I'm honestly not very savvy with choir stuff and I felt like a complete idiot most of the time. It really, really wasn't working out so well. One day, Dr. Jaccard told me that he had a feeling that I should go and help out/observe/whatever in Miss Dickson's classroom instead...

Miss Dickson is a 3rd grade teacher at Wasatch who also has a Masters in Music Education. She teaches her class music (I think instead of sending them to the school music teacher...?) and directs the 3rd grade choir. Dr. Jaccard thought it would be a good opportunity to see music within a regular classroom to "help me decide" what I want to do. (I don't think he realized that I was already pretty set on teaching in a regular classroom, anyway...but oh well.)

I've been going to Miss Dickson's class for 3-5 hours a week for a few weeks now, and I LOVE IT. LOVE LOVE LOVE. I am so happy to have the opportunity to get some experience teaching other subjects (especially math) before I even take those classes in the McKay School of Education. I've had many opportunities to work one-on-one with students to help them with math or spelling, and I've also been able to lead reading/discussion groups about science--hooray for gravity and friction! Once I was even privileged enough to check the cleanliness of each child's desk before they were allowed to go out to recess. Miss Dickson was glad that I was so picky. [Insert a comment from my mom here about how messy my room was growing up...] Music is fun with Miss Dickson's class because she does it her own way instead of following the "recipe book," as I like to call the music curriculum Provo uses. I would much rather use the curriculum materials as a useful resource instead of a Bible, and I'm glad I've been able to see how that can be done successfully.

The Wasatch kids will still be in school through May, so I might keep coming to their class, even though my semester ends in April. My job with Provo City only goes Monday-Thursday (when Summer Camp is not in session), so I'll be able to devote an entire day! Happiness. Also, my schedule this fall will have no classes on Friday (hopefully), so I'll be able to devote Fridays to Wasatch then, too.

Speaking of schedules for the fall... Matt and I are registering for classes tonight at midnight. I wish they'd open registration at 7am (when everyone else is asleep) instead... Really? Midnight? Oh well. We're going to do our laundry and have a homework party until we have to sign onto Route Y and wait while the server is being uber slow. Fun times. :)

Hare Krishna!

2010-03-29T19:29:00.002-06:00

Last night Matt and I went to the Sri Sri Radha Krishna temple in Spanish Fork with our good friends [and newlyweds] Ashley and Cory. I've wanted to go check this place out ever since I studied Indian music in my World Music class last semester, and we finally got to attend their Sunday night "Love Feast." It was interesting to listen to their music and watch their dancing and prayers. I was happy to smell incense again, which kind of weirded me out. I guess I got used to it when I was in Korea/Japan? It just smelled...familiar. haha. The little service/lesson thing was about time management, and I was struck by how many truths the man was teaching. Then he answered some questions at the end and ending up ranting about how Krishna (God) is youthful and not an old man like he is portrayed in the Sistine Chapel, etc... Hmmm. It was also interesting to hear his thoughts on Hinduism and how people think it is polytheistic. He said that Krishna is the all-powerful God and he manages his time by creating multiple versions of himself (Vishnua, Shiva, etc.) to do all the work for him so that he (Krishna) can just spend all of his time loving his "devotees." I'd never really heard that take on it before. Then again, this was a Hare Krishna sect of Hinduism, so I don't know how generally accepted some of these beliefs are. Before last night, I'd never really thought about different sections within Hinduism. I mean, Christianity has so many, and they are so different. Perhaps comparing "orthodox" Hinduism to the Hare Krishnas is like comparing Catholics to Pentecostals. I don't know. :)

We learned the words to all of their songs, though!
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare
(These were the words to ALL of the songs. ALL.)

View from the front

Elephant!

A Hindu temple with a Utah landscape in the background = awesome.

Ashley and Cory Mills!

We went to the temple the day AFTER the Festival of Colors. I'm actually glad we didn't go that day because apparently everyone and their mom went. Everything was covered in this super bright, super stain-y chalk dust. I feel bad for the clean-up crew. :(

Chalk dust...everywhere...

And no radically different religious temple is complete without a Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah's Witnesses right across the street!

Thursday Night Candy!

2010-03-25T21:38:00.000-06:00

I had a really long day. I won't elaborate, but I'll let you know that I was in desperate need of chocolate around 8:30 tonight.

So we went to Smith's. And then this stuff happened...

OH MY GOSH! WHAT HAPPENED?!

Oh yeah...

Mmmmm....

The EYE DOCTOR

2010-03-24T21:13:00.001-06:00

No one in my family wears glasses, and I'd never stepped foot into an optometrist's office until I was 21 years old.

I had been getting increasingly disturbed by the fact that my right eye is so much weaker than my left eye, a fact I noticed at some point near the end of high school. It seemed to get worse over time. One night last week, I decided to cover my left eye and attempt to read Matt's Edge shaving gel canister with just my right eye (again...). It was always blurry, even standing close or bringing it right up to my face. How annoying. And disturbing.

Matt suggested that we get my eyes checked if it was really troubling me so much, so on Friday we went to the Walmart Vision Center (like the poor college students we are) to see what they could tell me. Turns out there was a huge sale going on and it's a real blessing that we happened to go when we did because we saved a lot of money on exams and glasses in the end. But anyway. The entire experience was completely new and completely awesome. The optometrist was probably trying not to laugh at how weird I am... But all of the tests and stuff were just so fascinating to me!

First, the assistant had me look into this machine that had a picture of a farm house with a nice white fence and beautiful grass. She turned knobs and whatnot until it focused, and apparently this was all to test how my eyes focus...? Then there was the weird machine where you look into a red light dot and suddenly it blows air on your eye! It was strange. But the coolest part was the actual optometrist with his vast array of lenses and crazy wall mirrors. He kept flipping the lenses (testing each eye) to see which one improved my vision best. I felt so lame on my right eye--I couldn't even read like, line two! My left eye was pretty much perfect. Blah. Once he adjusted the lens for each eye, he had me look through both at the same time.

WHOA. SUPER TRIPPY.

I was seeing double mirrors and letters and numbers and blurriness... It was insane. He had to recalibrate a bit and tweak things until he finally came up with my prescription/diagnosis.

My left eye got a very, very slight prescription.
My right eye is farsighted (hyperopia, according to the Internet) and has a slight astigmatism. (+2.00)

And that makes for some really funky glasses!

They told me it would take about 10 days for my glasses to come in, but they gave me a free contact lens to wear while I waited. Okay, contacts suck. At least, the combination of me + contacts = suck. haha. It took me a full 20 minutes, with the help of my vision center cheerleader/coach person, to get the thing in my eye. And then she made me take it out again, to show her that I knew how! SO LAME. It took me another 10 minutes to get it in again.

Life with one contact lens was super weird. Luckily, they gave me one of those cool ones that lasts for a month and can be left on your eye for a week before you have to take it out. This saved my sanity. Almost... My whole world was soon full of spinning...lots of spinning...and headaches. Reading, my favorite thing to do, became a lot more challenging and made me a bit queasyI was just getting better at putting eye drops in my poor, dry eye (my aim is a bit off) when I got a voicemail from Walmart saying that my glasses were done! Five days early! Hallelujah!

So we rushed to Orem to pick up my glasses. Putting them on for the first time was seriously alarming. Because they are designed to correct my farsightedness, I felt like I was in a fish bowl, and the whole world was rippling around every time I moved my face. Siiiickk... After staggering out of the vision center, Matt and I went to find some Q-tips and then explored the book section before deciding to buy Fablehaven (because we keep hearing that it's awesome). By the time we were checking out, my eyes were already fairly adjusted to the glasses. Until we stepped outside into the parking lot...yikes!

This whole glasses thing is going to take a while to get used to. My world is all a little bit...bigger...than it used to be. However, I must say that I already know that I love these glasses sooo much more than that silly contact lens!

P.S. Matt says I look sexy with glasses. :)

Hooray for Spring, Boo for Allergies!

2010-03-22T10:25:00.000-06:00

I was soooo happy to invite Spring back into my life. However, I ran out of allergy pills at some point and haven't been able to get to Smith's to buy some more... And MAN, am I paying for it. I haven't been this congested and gross for a while, which makes me sad. Good news: Matt and I are going grocery shopping today!

Daylight Savings kicked me in the butt this year. It didn't hit me very hard on Sunday... Oh no, it was Monday and Tuesday that killed me. On Monday evening, I leaned on Matt's should while we were sitting on the couch and ended up falling asleep...for an hour. Then I had a hard time falling asleep that night because I'd taken such a long nap at like, 8pm. *sigh* And then I missed my 7:30am class on Tuesday because my body refused to wake up. Oh well. I think I've made a full recovery by now. I must say that Matt and I are thoroughly enjoying the extra hours of daylight!! It's nice to sit in our apartment with the front window open and the sun shining...all at 7pm. :)

Matt

2010-03-14T15:35:00.000-06:00

Matt is wonderful. Can I just brag about him for a minute?

This week has been incredibly busy for both of us. Matt had some really hard tests this week, as well as some projects/presentations. I was running around trying to plan/host a bridal shower for one of my best friends while learning some choir pieces in Italian and French (at the last minute, of course) for the big Women's Chorus concert on Saturday (last night). This is all in addition to our ecclesiastical endorsement interviews, carpet replacement, and all the other things we normally have to do for school.

I didn't get very much sleep this week, and that made me very emotional and hard to talk to at times. But Matt was very patient with me. (And I mean VERY patient.) He came with me to interview the groom for the bridal shower DVD, ran random errands for last-minute bridal shower details, and even cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen for me while I was in class. He put up with me practicing my choir pieces in the shower (and using up too much hot water in the process) and waited around in the lobby of the HFAC to give tickets to family members before my choir concert last night. He drives me to school and to Wasatch Elementary and listens to me complain about my music ed class, all while he's tired himself from lack of sleep and a hectic day of school and working two jobs.

I often take Matt for granted, which is awful. Without him, my entire world would fall apart. Yesterday we were able to go to the temple together, and last night we were able to sit on the couch and talk for awhile. It was a nice break from the craziness that's been invading our home this week, and I found myself realizing that I've missed his company. How weird is that? I live with him, after all! But we're been so "go, go go" this semester that I don't think we've been saving enough time for just us. Hopefully just recognizing this fact will help me work harder to MAKE time for Matt, and just Matt (no random-obligation-that-must-be-fulfilled + Matt).

Hmm. I don't know if this post makes any sense. Or maybe it just makes me look like a scumbag. *sigh* Well, that's okay. I'm just realizing another weakness that I need to work on...

New Carpet

2010-03-14T15:08:00.000-06:00

In the middle of this busy, busy week, our building at Wymount got new carpet. It was a bit stressful to move all of our furniture around, and the view of our apartment looked a lot like a tetris game, but I'm very happy with the end result!

Tetris Kitchen

Matt making our lunches...on top of our TV.

New carpet! It's more blue than gray now.

(And it doesn't even have gross stains on it!)

DI, Purim, and the Old Testament

2010-02-28T17:08:00.000-07:00

Matt and I have gone to DI a couple of times this semester. It's just so...FUN! I like to look through the children's books and find good ones. I usually find a Newbery Medal/Honor book in there--people are crazy to throw them away! I don't mind, though...it just helps me build my future classroom library. :)

Yesterday we went to DI to find some clothes that we could wear to the BYU Hebrew Club's celebration of Purim. (Matt is required to go to certain celebrations and events for his Hebrew class.) Matt's teacher told his class that Purim is kind of like "Jewish Halloween," and people dress up in silly things or as people from the Bible (like Esther or Mordecai). Matt went as a crazy, mismatched professor; I went as Esther. (I apologize that there is not picture to accompany that last statement. My bad.)

For those of you who don't know, Purim is the Jewish holiday that involves the story of Esther. Jews read the story of Esther (which is very hard to follow in Hebrew, by the way...) and are "festive." We didn't get quite as festive as the Jews are commanded to, though. That would require getting completely wasted, and everyone knows that wine just doesn't fly at BYU! Instead we learned some fun Jewish folk dances and, during the reading of the Book of Esther, we cheered for Mordecai and used ra'ashanim (noisemakers) whenever we heard Haman's name. We ate lentil soup and some other food, including cookies that are apparently called "Haman's ears." It was a pretty fun experience, and now I'm excited about Passover! :)

Also...
Earlier this semester, I was called to be a Gospel Doctrine teacher. Some of you may know that this is the ONE calling I've always been completely terrified of getting...which is why I probably got it. Well, it turns out that the Old Testament is pretty cool, and Gospel Doctrine teachers learn so much more than they would otherwise because part of their calling is to make sure they read over the lesson and scriptures every week, even if it's not their turn to teach. Today I was really, really excited to go to class and hear what Keith (one of my co-teachers) was going to say about Abraham, Lot, and Sodom and Gomorrah. (Really? Excited about Sodom and Gomorrah? The Old Testament just has so much to learn from, people!! It really does!)

Happy 2010...I'm Finally Updating This Thing!

2010-02-08T21:43:00.000-07:00

Hey y'all-
It's quite sad how long it's been since I've updated our blog. Part of the problem is that I'm kind of lazy sometimes, but mostly it's because this semester has been very busy so far...

Matt and I had a wonderful Christmas/New Years in Delaware with his family. It was a lot of fun to spend time with them, especially since I didn't get much of a chance to during our wedding week.

I'm not working with Provo City this semester (at least, not until April or so). I decided to focus on school and home life (aka learning how to cook and trying a little harder to clean and to do laundry without scrambling because we're going to have to go to school naked if we don't do it...). Unfortunately, my hopes and dreams of being more domestic have been squashed by an extremely (and I really do mean extremely) busy semester. I'm taking 16.5 credits (which is nine classes--joy). So yeah. A typical week for me includes things like: bear-crawling, hula-hooping, and volleyball skills; listening to and analyzing ten (or more) pieces of classical music; reading picture books or books like Frindle; singing Negro spirituals; conducting my peers in front of a video camera; and jumping around while waving my arms and singing "Shoo, Turkey!" I lead quite an exciting life. Sometimes I even cook dinner.

Matt is making quite the impression in the copy room as a Linguistics TA. All of his former professors talk and joke with him. (Awesome!) Hebrew is quite the workload, although I think he's very good at it. Then again, I'm not very knowledgeable about those kinds of things... Work at the Continuing Education Registration call center is really hectic lately because of EFY. PEOPLE, learn how to use computers so you don't have to call in! haha j/k

Our latest adventure was a weekend trip to St. George for a UMEA (Utah Music Educators Association) conference. It was a good conference--I learned a lot--and it was so much fun to have Matt with me! We were also able to go to the St. George temple for the first time, which was a fantastic experience. We'll definitely have to go back next time we go down there. :)

The Princess and the Frog

2009-12-11T22:48:00.001-07:00

GO SEE IT.

Almost Done...

2009-12-11T09:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the last day of classes for Fall 2009! Woot! How did we celebrate? We went to Applebee's, watched Aladdin, and ate chocolate covered cinnamon bears from the BYU Bookstore. We're just awesome like that. :)

Now we just have to study our brains out (or at least study a little bit...) for finals next week. Some of my teachers are being quite demanding when it comes to things to turn in/do during the final. Hmm...we'll see how this goes.

Also, I finally did a little Christmas shopping, so I'm not feeling so stressed out about that. :)

Recent Happenings

2009-12-07T18:03:00.001-07:00

Weather Update: IT WON'T STOP SNOWING!!!
We have about a foot of snow at Wymount. Insane.
Actually, I really like the snow, but it's inconvenient to be terrified of driving in it (as I am) when you have a job and stuff like that. Ugh.

Here are some pictures from Sunday morning--there's a LOT more snow on the car now. haha.

Matt and I have attended Catholic mass at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake twice this week. (Part of my world music project...hehe) It was really cool! We also ate at Crown Burger on Saturday night so we'd have somewhere to park while we went to see the lights at Temple Square. We're so sneaky. ;)

Matt and I are both really stressed out right now--projects, papers, tests, etc. this week and then finals next week. Add in the fact that we are in desperate need of dish-washing and laundrying, not to mention Christmas shopping, and you've got an anxious household. :)

We're really excited to go to Delaware for Christmas! I've never been there, but I'm up for an adventure on the East Coast. :)

LOL!

Wedding Photographer

2009-11-22T18:07:00.000-07:00

This is a totally random post, but last night my dad and I were talking about how incredibly AWESOME my wedding photographer was. I thought I'd give her a little shout-out on our blog because, seriously, she is incredible and so much fun to work with.

Sharon Johnson
Check her out!

Thanksgiving Blurb

2009-11-22T17:57:00.001-07:00

Momma Savage always combines everyone's Thanksgiving thoughts into a newsletter to send out. We totally forgot about it until we got a nice text message from Reid today while we were at church:

"Heyo Peoples! We need your Thanksgiving blerbs TODAY! I'z is gonna bug yous around six. Victoria loves you all so much too. -By Reid for Marmzy"

After writing it, I figured, why not put it on the blog, too? So here you go!

We are so grateful to be married! It's wonderful to come home to your best friend everyday. We are also very thankful for all of the love and support we've received this year and for the many thoughtful wedding gifts that have continued to arrive. We are grateful to be at BYU, where we are learning a lot and doing well in our classes. (It's funny how you suddenly start getting good grades when you get married...Hmmm.) We love living at Wymount, and we are so thankful to be in a big ward with lots of kids! We both had great jobs this semester that have helped us buy food (for which we are grateful!). We are grateful to have family close by (especially family that feeds us and plays games with us). But most of all, we are grateful for our Savior and His sacrifice for us. We are grateful for the love of a Heavenly Father and for His plan which allows us to be sealed together forever. We are blessed to have a temple so close to our home, where we can renew our covenants and feel the Spirit.

The Real Christmas List

2009-11-20T10:27:00.000-07:00

Rachel
University of Texas hoodie (orange)
Payless giftcard(s)
Kohl's giftcard(s)
Wal-mart giftcard(s)
Bop-It Extreme (not those lame new ones)
Let's Do It Again - Revised Edition 2002 (this is a music education book from richardsinstitute.org)

Matt
Hook DVD
Futurama (Season 1)
Indiana Jones collection
Wal-mart giftcard(s)

Both
Chili's giftcard(s)
P.F. Chang's giftcard(s)
Flip UltraHD Camcorder (white)
Taboo (game)
Apples to Apples
Book of Mormon (nice, family-size w/ pictures)
Doctrine and Covenants (nice, family-size w/ pictures)

We really like movies and going to restaurants. Rachel likes jewelry, shoes, clothes, etc. Matt likes books and movies. Rachel also really, really, really loves ice cream, but that's a little hard to wrap. :)

Christmas Wish List

2009-11-19T19:14:00.001-07:00

Okay y'all. Here's the wish list you've been bugging us about! Hope it helps! :)

1. Baby clothes ;)

2. Big screen TV

3. Grand piano

4. A Ferrari

5. A pony

Today...

2009-11-18T21:48:00.000-07:00

...Matt and I were at Wendy's, and we saw a couch on wheels!! These really clever guys decided to put their couch on some kind of electric scooter and drive around Provo with some girls. They even went through the drive-thru. That's pretty sweet, I'm not going to lie.

Whining About the Swine Flu

2009-11-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

Matt has been really sick since Wednesday night, and we're pretty sure it's the flu. It's probably even the swine flu, since that's been going around BYU this semester. I'm ready for it to be GONE! Leave my poor husband alone! He didn't sleep at all last night because of his fever and horrible cough/congestion. I feel so bad because I'm doing everything I can to help him, but there's only so much I can do. The rest is up to his immune system. :(

Things that are keeping Matt alive:

Other helpful items:

Guy Fawkes Night

2009-11-14T11:38:00.002-07:00

Okay, so this blog is a little late...but Matt and I just wanted you to know that we remembered the 5th of November!

I'm actually researching Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night for a project in my music education class, so celebrating this British holiday was a lot of fun for us. Basically, there were a group of Catholics who tried to assassinate King James in 1605 by blowing up Parliament with gunpowder. (They were unhappy with the king, etc.) The Gunpowder Treason failed, and Guy Fawkes was executed. King James declared November the 5th a day of deliverance and it was a mandatory celebration until 1859.

Today, most people don't really care about Guy Fawkes as much as they do about blowing up fireworks... Sadly, Matt and I couldn't do any fireworks of our own. :( But we did celebrate by making Bonfire Toffee! The first attempt failed miserably--it was way too sticky...basically molasses on a pan. haha. The next try was much better because we basically disregarded our lame-o candy thermometer and just let the mixture BURN before putting it on the pan. It was AWESOME. :) We also tried to make what the British call a flapjack. It's like a cake made of oats, really. That endeavor was an EPIC FAIL. It tasted gross, and we ended up just breaking it apart and baking it more so we could eat it as granola instead. :)

And, of course, we commemorated the blessed day by watching V for Vendetta. (I know, I know. It totally messes up the original purpose of the holiday, but it's a fabulous movie!!)

Bonfire Toffee

So excited!!

P.S. We also ate BAKED POTATOES! (How could I neglect to mention this delicious fact??)

Halloween Carnival

2009-11-03T13:14:00.000-07:00

Life is so much less crazy now that the Provo City Halloween Carnival is OVER. I had so much fun preparing for it, and the event itself was a blast, but I didn't realize how much stress it had caused until it was over. Everything went really well, and we got a lot of compliments about how creative and well-done everything was. I was happy that my games went over so well with the people who came! My first event as a rec leader for Provo Parks and Recreation was a huge success! Hooray!

Shoot a Werewolf

Lucky Key

Pumpkin Pong

Gigantic Operation

Candy Guessing and Where's Waldo

Snake Pit

It was full of nasty, cold water and a bunch of leaves, etc.

Now we're supposed to begin planning the next event--Dart the Turkey on November 24--but we're all taking some time off this week... haha. It's too bad school decided to be INSANE for both Matt and me for the next two weeks or so. Ugh.

Aren't we cute?

Matt was part of my Waldo game, so he got to give out tickets all night...

Carving Pumpkins

2009-10-26T22:43:00.001-06:00

Tonight Matt and I carved pumpkins for FHE! He was quite the expert, but I had some trouble... He ended up finishing mine for me. haha :) We had a lot of fun, especially once we put the fake candles in and put them on our balcony! Then we went outside and ate pumpkin seeds while we went on a walk and looked at our cool creations!

Mine is on the left, Matt's is on the right

Halloween

2009-10-25T21:11:00.000-06:00

I am so excited for Halloween!!!

For those of you who don't know, I work for Provo City as a recreation leader. Basically...I plan parties for the city. And it's AWESOME. It's the most creative/stressful/fun job I've ever had. I'm learning how to be very resourceful and think on my feet, and I'm excited to see how I can use these developing skills as a teacher someday. :)

For the past few months, my coworkers and I have been hard at work creating the Halloween Carnival, and I can't believe that it's actually happening this weekend! I've had so much fun going to work everyday. I got build a spook alley with fog, leaves, fake blood, black lights, etc. I also learned how to make crazy characters and scenery from the Nightmare Before Christmas (that's the theme of our craft room this year). My assigned "area" of the carnival is the games. I was challenged to come up with fun games that both kids AND their parents will want to play, and I came up with some really fun ideas.

This is the final week for preparation, and there's still a ton to do. I feel bad for Matt because he's probably not going to see a whole lot of me for the next five days... :( BUT he gets to come dress up as Waldo (as in, Where's Waldo?) for one of the carnival games, which will be so much fun! I hope everything goes well, and I'll do my best to remember my camera so I can take pictures for everyone to see!

Stake Conference

2009-10-25T19:12:00.000-06:00

Last week was stake conference. We were bad and skipped the Saturday session... I know some of y'all have done that before. ;)

On Sunday we woke up and started getting ready for church, and we arrived at the Provo Tabernacle at about 10:15--only fifteen minutes late! We weren't really surprised at how full the tabernacle was... We were late, after all. But there was simply no room for us on a pew! So...we went around the back of the building and sat in the little foyer area where parents take their screaming children. We sat and listened to the speaker and then the harp/flute/singing musical number before we looked at the program and realized..."Hey! This is the end of the program!"

The meeting was about to end, which made absolutely no sense! My Relief Society bulletin said that conference started at "10:00am," and the meeting we were hearing must have started at 9:00am... The really annoying thing was that we couldn't actually remember which BYU stake we were in (there are like, thousands of them haha) so we didn't want to leave...just in case it actually WAS our stake conference and we were just retarded or something. We decided that stake conference is good for you, even if it isn't your stake's, specifically...

As the last speaker began to wrap up his talk, familiar-looking people started showing up in the back foyer. They were people from our ward, filing in through the back doors! Go figure! Matt and I went up to sit on the second level of the tabernacle, climbing up the stairs after the ward members who probably didn't even know we were in their ward...haha...only to find that our stake conference started at NOON, not 10 or 11. Ugh.

Someone came and recruited me to sing in the stake choir (which was actually a lot of fun), and we rehearsed for an hour before our two-hour conference actually began. Poor Matt sat alone for three hours. :(

Moral of the Story: Go to stake conference. Even the SATURDAY SESSION. It will reduce the chance that you'll show up two hours early for the Sunday session. Trust me. :)