Life Lately

This past weekend I played mom for 5 days for 2 little girls (3 and 18 months). New respect for working moms. And single moms. And moms in general. Go all of you. I need another couple years. And a husband. Maybe a boyfriend would be a good start. Guess I should start accepting applications.

Speaking of applications, I didn't get accepted with Teach For America. But I seem to have a very promising possibility with one of my MBA schools. And I am enrolled in a class to get my teaching certificate to just teach in the fall if I decide to hold off on grad school. Unfortunately that just adds choices to my future and choices are not my forte. Sometimes I secretly wish that our world was like The Giver and we were just assigned our job/family/life and told exactly what to do. But then I remember that I voted against that a long time ago and the whole reason I am here is to make choices. I just don't like making them.

One thing I do like doing is teaching dance. Especially my super awesome 6-7 year old class that is dancing to My Boyfriend's Back and they look freakin' adorable doing it. Oh my word. I love it. One of these days I may just have to record their dance and put it on here because I am slightly obsessed with how awesome they are.

The other day one of my dancers was driving me up a wall. Actually two of them were. And there were only two girls in the class. It was one of those days. Anywho. I was about two seconds from losing it - which has never happened before contrary to what my family may think - when she so sweetly looked up at me and told me that when she grows up she wants to be a dance teacher at Dance Element with me. I melted a little and never lost it that day. 

In case you couldn't tell, I am procrastinating right now. Rambling on about the little things in life so I can avoid writing my talk for church on Sunday. I have to speak on missionary work. And I have no clue what to say. Speaking of missions, Wyatt leaves in less than 2 months!! I'm gonna miss that kid. But when he leaves I get his room. My own room! For the first time EVER. His departure will be a bittersweet day.

New Additions

*This was written a couple weeks ago and I completely forgot to post it. Whoops.

As a final wrap up to 2012, there were a couple new additions to our family! The first was this cute little boy:

I have wanted a chocolate/black lab for awhile and two days after Christmas I found Jazz for a super good deal and so I bought him! My mom was with me when I got him, but my dad had no clue until I sent him this picture with the caption "Merry Christmas to me!" He responded by calling my mom asking what that was and who it belonged to. 

The second addition is my new cousin Madison Kay. She is Jolyn and Chris' little girl. She is so awesome. I have already decided I am going to be her favorite. And she is adorable. Last week I spent two afternoons just holding her. I need  a baby in my immediate family.

Farewell 2012

2012 had it's ups and downs as every year does. But I feel like overall, it was an up year. Here are the highlights (and lowlights) of 2012:

-Finger painted a mural on 3 bedroom walls
-First real broken heart
-Skiied in Utah
-Certified ZUMBA instructor
-Graduated BYU
-Said goodbye to living with my awesome roommates and friends
-Moved to Arizona
-Went to Disneyland/California Adventures
-Wyatt graduated high school
-Went to Magic Mountain
-Started teaching dance again (YAY!)
-Certified kids ZUMBA instructor
-Started watching the best 2 little munchkins
-Started looking for a grown up job
-Roadtripped to Cali with my dad
-Roadtripped to Cali with my dad (again) and Wyatt
-Visited 18 states in 15 days. Some of our highlights were:

Independence, Missouri. 

St Louis

Santa Claus, Indiana (and Holiday World)

Kirtland, Ohio 

Cedar Point Amusement Park

Sheetz (restaurant/gas station back east) 

Chicago

Wisconsin Dells

Mall of America

The Badlands

Scariest wind/thunder/rainstorm of life while sleeping in a tent. In the middle of nowhere South Dakota.

Mount Rushmore

The Cherry Cricket (best hamburger ever is found in Denver)

-Kept looking for a real job

-3 of my best friends got married within 3 weeks of each other

-Went skydiving (again!)

-Got a second and third job teaching dance

-Got a real job! (that made job #4)

-Began the process of putting 10,000 miles on my car in a matter of 4 months

-Saw Les Mis at Gammage

-Bought an iPad

-Got super stressed with my schedule. Result was shingles.

-Went to Provo!

-Applied for and got an internship with the Susan G. Komen Foundation

-Decided to take the GMAT and apply to MBA programs

-Started training for my first marathon

-Happy Thanksgiving!

-Kicked the GMAT's butt

-Became obsessed with the Walking Dead

-Got a much needed break from work

-Made an awesome Les Mis t-shirt

-Celebrated Christmas with family

-Saw Les Mis the movie (obsessed much?)

-Rang in the New Year babysitting my favorite 2 little munchkins!

As far as my goals for 2012 went (made back here) I did decently on them. While I didn't do all of them exactly, I did what was best for me and I feel accomplished.

Now I need to decide on my goals for 2013!

Les Mis [Christmas] Day

I'm not even going to try and act like I wasn't excited for Les Miserables the movie. I was over the moon. In the last week I may have talked more about that movie and my plans for seeing it than I did Christmas festivities. I made a shirt just for the movie. And a pretty awesome one at that.

Christmas day is always spent with the Hatch family. So I told all of them that I was going to the movie and whoever wanted to join me was more than welcome to. We ended up with a group of about 14 of us who went. We all got our tickets the day before and then went down to the movie about an hour before hand to wait in line. And the following picture was taken right as we told my grandma we would have to wait an hour in line. 

Funny story about my grandma. She has Alzheimer's (not the funny part of the story) and loves going to the movies. Well my grandpa didn't want to go to the movie and she normally doesn't do anything without him (and vice-versa) but like I said, she LOVES the movies. So I said she could come and be my movie buddy. She was so excited all day to get to go to the movies. She kept asking when it would be time to go. When we finally left to go I was freaking out and super excited. On the drive over she kept laughing at me and telling me I was wearing her out! And then we got to the theater and stayed in a line outside. That was when we told her we would be in that line for an hour. She was a little upset at that detail. And thus one of my new favorite pictures was taken.

The movie was AMAZING though. Lived up to all of my expectations. I laughed. I cried. I bawled. It was great. And I came home and bought the soundtrack (in addition to the Broadway soundtrack I already listen to on a near daily basis). After coming home I also told Wyatt (who had had to work) that I would be his date to go see it as soon as he has time. Any time this week works for me!

And I can't forget to include these two. Sometimes they let me be a third wheel with them and it's just great. Hope everyone else had a great Les Miserables Christmas Day too!

Take a Chance

Remember in October how I went up to Utah? Hung out with all my old friends? Caught up with everyone? It's ok if you don't remember.

While I was there, I had a couple of things happen to me that kind of gave me a little push. A much needed push. The first thing was that I went to a lecture with Kenzie. It was during an hour when like everyone was in class or working, so I went to this class with her. The second was a conversation that I had with a friend. We hadn't seen or talked to each other in six months and while catching up he laughs and says, "You're exactly the same...(blah, blah)...you still don't know what you want." A year ago that comment wouldn't have bothered me. Heck, six months ago it wouldn't have bothered me.

But when he said this it kind of stung.
Because it was true.
And that really bothered me.

So I decided I needed to take some steps in deciding what I want in life. I needed to start applying for different things that I had interests in and see what opportunities may come my way. So I have started doing that. And one of those applications led to a final interview with Teach For America. Now I just have to wait until the first week of January to see if that will be an option for me.

Now lets go back to that first thing that happened in Utah. That lecture. It was given by a lady who had her MBA. Now, I have considered getting a masters before, but I just had no clue what to get it in because there is no way I am getting one in Math. I have zero interest in mathematical research (although I will admit some of my professors had really cool projects, such as the double bubble theorem). But listening to the lady speak, an MBA became more and more attractive to me. So I started researching.

Long story short, six weeks later I took the GMAT and kicked its butt. Seriously. I could not have asked for a better score. I don't think there is a person in the world who would have been dissatisfied with the score I got. Maybe that's a slight exaggeration. 1 or 2 people would have been displeased with themselves. And now I am just finishing up my applications to a couple of schools (trying to decide whether or not to apply to a couple more as well) and then it will be a waiting game for that one as well.

So basically, my trip in Utah became a little life changing for me. Especially since these different opportunities have the potential to take me anywhere across the country. Pretty big deal.

Now I just have to see what happens and be open to anything that may change my plans. Because if there is one thing I learned in the last couple years, it is that life changes very fast and while goals are necessary, you need to be flexible too.

Date Night

Don't let that title fool you. My date night lately has been these two kids.

Being the one in my family who doesn't have a boyfriend and who doesn't have a job that typically requires me to work the weekend evenings, I usually end up spending Friday night with my favorite youngest brother and sister. But we usually just stay home, maybe go get some dinner (tacos for me and Noah and Mickey D's dollar menu for Taya), and watch some sort of movie [or two]. Well last night I needed to get out of the house. My stresses of the last several weeks were finally over [more on that later] and I wanted to do something. And so we went to the Temple Lights!

They humored me and went to the musical concert that started at 7. But we only lasted there for two or three songs because a) it was freezing and we weren't really prepared for that, b) we were standing, and c) we wanted to look at the lights while everyone else was watching the show! So we looked at half the lights then went into the visitors center to see all the nativities (we found 4 from Germany, and Noah was shocked that I could read the German Book of Mormon...haha, apparently I have a really good fake accent and he doesn't know that I have the first line of the BofM memorized), and then watched Luke 2, and finished off with the rest of the lights.

These 2 can drive me crazy sometimes [a lot of the time], but when we do things like this they are so sweet. Noah was the one who really pushed us to watch Luke 2 and I am so glad he did. And then driving home we didn't listen to the radio....we sang our own Christmas songs! Apparently we don't know many words to many different Christmas songs. We kept going back to Rudolph! But it was a fun night and I loved seeing the Temple Lights again!

Side Note: An older couple at the Temple asked us where Dillon High School was. Trying to explain that it is a fictional high school in Texas from a TV show helped me realize for the first time how weirdly obsessive my family can be with that show. But we don't care. "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose! Rogers Forever." It's become our family motto! And by the way, I have become a fan of Connie Britton's (Tammy Taylor's) new show, Nashville. 

Reminders

Sometimes you just need a reminder. One of my old roommates posted this talk on Facebook the other day. I love Elder Holland. Well all the general authorities. But he can be so powerful.

While I was reading the talk I kept thinking back to something one of my other old roommates has told me many times through the past year. Doctrine and Covenants 45:62:

"For verily I say unto you, that great things await you."

I am applying to several different things right now for next fall. While I am excited for each potential opportunity, I am also scared out of my mind. And I keep wanting to back out and just stay with what I am comfortable in. But I can't do that. I know that the things I am doing are good and that I should be doing them.

That talk was a great reminder. Fear not.