March Madness

We celebrated Karli's birthday on March 7th, she is 21 now!!! We made her breakfast in the morning and then I got a babysitter after school so she could have the afternoon off. We went to pirate island for dinner later and had fun eating pizza and watching her open her treasure chest of presents. ASIDE: Savanna is cute in this picture, I haven't given a Savanna update for a while. She is trying to overcome a bad habit of biting her nails lately. She has a tendency to forget homework assignments on the day they are due, and without mom to remind her she has learned to come home, grab the homework, and take it right back to school. She is a good girl, she has a fun sense of humor, and she loves to listen to music. She even takes the MP3 player to bed to help her fall asleep. She has to have noise coming out of her mouth at all times and seems to like noise to cope with things. Interesting! She has a playlist with 100 songs. She likes to sit in the hot tub more than the other kids, even by herself, and responsibly showers after. She is getting tall too! We love our Savanna.


Weston has been showing a strong interest in basketball lately. I've never thought to put him in basketball but he goes out and dribbles every day and because we have no hoop he throws it at the tree. He wants a basketball for his birthday.


Jared took the kids down to Gunnison to visit Grandpa Neil this weekend while I went up to Salt Lake for a two day ASWB exam prep course. Jared took this picture of him and I think its a pretty good one! The kids had fun swimming, feeding the chickens, and watching movies.

I on the other hand was having fun in downtown Salt Lake studying. My friends Shannon Young and Kim Brimhall went with me. We had 3 hours of class Friday and then we had a nice dinner in an Italian Restaurant and stayed the night in the Marriot. We didn't just play we studied until 10 and woke up at 5 and studied again. Kim and I took advantage of the work out room though. Before class we found a great local bakery and had quiche and crescent rolls with ham and hot chocolate. It was a lot of fun despite the 7 hours of class we had all day Saturday. I am so ready to graduate but I will miss my association with my classmates.

Shannon and Kim



March madness includes:
- Preparing for the national ASWB exam I have to pass in order to be a certified social worker, which is taking many more hours than I have in my week. I am sceduled to take it April 7th.
- 12 credits of classes I study for and attend, 3 credits of which is a group class where I am experiencing being a client and trying to face many of my flaws and receive feedback in attempt to be more self aware.
- 20 draining hours of internship at the prison.
- Alumni liaison for the committee of "March is Social Work month" lecture series which takes place March 17th, arranging speakers and preparing for a large scale service project.
- Making sure reading and homework gets done, kids are fed, and childcare is provided which did get tricky on Monday when the kids were out of school all day for "snow make up day."
- Debriefing with Jared whenever I can and finding time for dates
- Sunday callings, musical number prep, choir practice leading, and Sunday dinner guests
- Soccer practices for Wes and Sav that have already begun
- Trying to rest enough so I don't retain any permanent mental damage

37 days til Graduation