A Goodbye

My Great Grandma passed away on February 2, 2009 from health complications due to a broken hip. On February 21, 2009 the whole family gathered together to say goodbye and celebrate her life. Although it was a sad occasion we had so many happy memories to share and we celebrated the fact that she had lived a full life of 92 years. It was so nice to be able to spend time together as a family since we are such a large one and aren't often able to get everyone together. My Great Grandma had two daughters, 6 grandchildren, and 17 great-grandchildren! Pictured above are all of the great-children, my Great Aunt Joan's side of the family, and my Grandma Judy's side of the family.

Hilarious!

Rachel Foulger had this absolutely hilarious list posted on her blog and I thought it was too funny not to pass on!

1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.
2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice !
3. Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.
4. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks... Once everyone has gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
5. In the memo field of all your checks, write 'for marijuana'.
6. Finish all your sentences with '...in accordance with the prophecy.'
7. Skip down the hall rather than walk and see how many looks you get.
8. Order a diet water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.
9. Specify that your drive-through order is 'to go.'
10. Sing along at the opera.
11. Put mosquito netting around your work area and play tropical sounds all day.
12. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you have a headache.
13. When the money comes out the ATM, scream 'I won! I won!'
14. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot, yelling 'Run for your lives! They're loose!'
15. Tell your children over dinner, 'Due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go.'

Go Cards!!

While I must admit I am quite the "fair weather" fan, I too was extremely proud to see the Arizona Cardinals make it to the Superbowl this year. I have a huge soft spot for Kurt Warner and I adore the fact that he openly talks about his faith to everyone who will listen. I even made t-shirts for Ryan and I, which you can see in the above picture. We have such a dynamic team and they absolutely deserved to go all the way. We are SO proud of how far they got and the absolute sportsmanship they showed in the game!

A New Addiction

Anytime I am not taking classes I feel the need to take up a new hobby. My new addiction is making cute little onesies for our new nephew Justin. I took plain white Gerber onesies and dyed them using Tangerine RIT dye. Then I ironed on a cute picture ("Chick Magnet") by Plaid. Easy and cute! I'm also going to make some girly ones for one of my friends at work with ribbon.

Landen's First Protest

On Sunday, January 25th we took a trip down to the Arizona Capitol Building to protest proposed budget cuts to K-12 education. As teachers we are on the front lines of education and firmly believe that the budget cuts (that have now become reality) will have a devastating effect on education as we know it. According to recent polls Arizona ranks 51st in per-student spending, and now with a $300 million dollar "trim" to our 08-09 school budgets we face third-world status. As parents we felt it was important for Landen to witness firsthand people coming together to fight for a cause they believe in. We made an adventure out of it by taking the new light rail (Arizona's first mass transit system!) to downtown and then hiking a mile and a half to the Capitol building. Over 1,500 people showed up for the protest led by Dr. Nines, the superintendent of the Florence school district. Although the budget cuts were still made, we made the effort to make our voices heard and we hope Landen took away a good lesson from it.