.the month of {love}.

i can't believe that february is over in just two more days. how is it already march 2012?! i'll just give a brief update on the months events.

on 2.4.12 i spent the evening in park city, more specifically at deer valley resort, watching the olympic moguls. i went up with alisa and ange, and a bunch of people from salt lake. after the moguls, us girls went to main street pizza for some yummy dinner. delicious. we ended the night hanging out at the montage hotel. it's this really ritzy place where their cheapest room goes for over $800/night, and we just hung out and drank water. i think they loved us. :)

this picture was mostly taken for our friend jackie. last year when we went with the girls we took a picture at this exact spot, but with her off to the side. she hates this moose, and all others.

hanging out with big mike at the montage.

last month i went to the wood connection with britt cook and bought this cute little craft for the month of february. don't worry, it took me until about february 9th to finish it. but it looks great in our living room now!

ahh, then came the best night of february to date. {valentines day}. you might be wondering why it was the best day for a single girl. one who has absolutely no prospects at the moment, and nobody to spoil her with love and chocolate on that special day. but don't be fooled. i was spoiled, and i loved every second of it. i went to the lady antebellum concert. ohhhhh man it was the best concert! i loved them before their concert. but i love them 100x more now! they are incredible live, and their music is just fantastic. it also helped having thompson square and darius rucker opening for them. if you haven't listened to lady a very much, i would definitely recommend to start! i love them!!

brittany and i at lady a!

yeah, we may have been at the tippy-top, but it was still a great show!

last, but not least i was able to see my old college roomies, catherine and britt. we spent our night doing something that was a first for all of us. a monster jam. if you don't know what monster jam is, well, it's a monster truck show. yep, that's right. we went with brittany's boyfriend and his buddies. it was actually pretty fun, and i might consider going again sometime!

it's amazing how big these cars/trucks are!

me, britt, and catherine.

(bad photo cause it's from my iPhone, but you get the idea)

i think i am done with february. it has been a good month, but i am ready for the next month.

bring on march!

.:back to normal:.

okay, so maybe not completely back to normal, but close. we were able to come back to our apartment one week after the incident happened. but it wasn't an easy transition back to our normal routines. i'll tell you why.

tuesday night was our last night in the hotel since we had to check out wednesday by 11:00. alisa and i stopped by our apartment after our weekly hot tub club, and NOTHING had been done with the carpet. let me remind you they were supposed to replace the carpet in three rooms. all of which were full of furniture. alisa and i knew it was not going to be an easy task since they would have to take everything out, do the carpet, put everything back in, and repeat two more times. we informed the owner about the lack of work and went on our way back to the hotel.

wednesday after work we were able to come home to our apartment, finally. but that sigh of relief when i said finally was not really a sigh of relief. we came home to a mess. alisa had a small bookshelf in her room that was completely destroyed, and i mean completely. our wall, which had just been fixed, was damaged, and my dresser was dropped and broken in several different places.

i was in shock that this all happened. i could not even imagine how someone could be so careless with another person's belongings. the next day we were on it to get things taken care of. ange called the carpet company and they apologized and said they've never had anything like this happen before. [yeah, that makes us feel better.] but he said he would replace alisa's bookshelf and my dresser. which, is good because my dresser that they destroyed costs $300. by friday they had brought and assembled my new dresser and things in the simpson house were pretty much back to normal.

enough about our crappy apartment though!

great news, karen had her baby! she came 15 days early, on january 19 at 12:47 am and weighed a whopping 9 lbs. 4 oz. they named her mckenna jane. i think she is absolutely beautiful and i love her so much already!

karen, mckenna, and aunt kami

me and baby girl, mckenna

me, mckenna, and kaleb. "say, monster trucks"

a {CRAPPY} situation

This week has been an interesting one. It all started on Tuesday evening, when I got a text from Alisa, saying, "Where are you? I'm freaking out!" I quickly responded when I saw the message and asked what was going on. She responded, "We had a sewage leak in our apartment." Umm, can you say GROSS?!? I was still in Farmington, so there was nothing I could do but think about the damage that had been done, on my drive home. When I got home, the door was open to air out the awful smell that filled the tiny apartment, and this is what I saw. Alisa had covered most of it with some towels, but the little that remained was disgusting. Just thinking about what it was on our floor makes me gag, along with the awful smell!

Alisa called our landlord right away and they sent their emergency maintenance people up. When they got to the apartment they checked out the damage and tried to figure out what was the cause of the leak. One of the guys thought something was probably flushed down the toilet that shouldn't have been. He said he wasn't able to get passed it with his equipment he had. I don't know what it could have been, but we do have a two year old living above us, who is in the process of being potty trained. We think he may well have been playing and flushed a toy down.

They started working right away, and our apartment became unlivable. Not fun. The owner said we would probably have to stay in a hotel while they were fixing it up, but they would have to figure things out in the morning when the office was open. So Tuesday night we got an apartment downtown through Ange's company. It was free, which was great. By Wednesday afternoon I got word from Alisa that the owner had got us a hotel for the next week and to plan on packing my bags when I got home. I got home and did just that.

We are now staying at an extended stay hotel, just a few miles away from our apartment. It has a kitchen in it, which is nice so we aren't having to eat out for every meal. It's not the nicest place I've ever stayed, but it does the job and doesn't have any leakage on the floor. And for that I am grateful.

We have been here since Wednesday night and have the room booked until this Wednesday. They are fixing the drywall and replacing the carpet. Let's hope it is done by Wednesday. If not we will have to find a new hotel, because this one is apparently booked. Oh the joys of life. :)

..december at a glance..

when i started my Christmas break i had great intentions of posting on my blog and updating it. yeah, that never happened. these last two weeks have flown by like a race car, a fast one. i decided that i will just post some photos and tell about some highlights from the month. :)

one of my best friends got married! jackie and justin were married on dec. 9, 2011 in the salt lake temple. i couldn't be happier for them. jackie was my roommate for a little over a month, before she moved home to save money before her big day. i met jackie almost two years ago. she and brittany are besties, and they went on the fun bus to wendover with the big group of people. alisa and i chatted with them at dinner and kind of got to know a little about them. but our friendship really evolved on our road trip to st. george/vegas in may 2010. i tell ya, road trips are the best way to get to know people! anyway, a year and a half later, jackie is a married woman! she looked absolutely gorgeous!

..jenny, britt, jackie, alisa, and me at the reception..

as you know, december comes with parties, lots of parties. and of course, what else is there to do on a weekend in salt lake city, except to attend these fine parties? my friends and i did just that. our friend jenny, (pictured above) and her roommates have a great house for having parties. they threw a great, black, silver, and gold party that was a blast! we got all dolled up in our black & gold and had a great time mingling and dancing.

..me, beth, britt, and alisa before the black, silver, & gold party..

and of course, you can't go through the month of december without attending at least one, or four in my case, ugly sweater parties. tis the season for ugly sweaters, right? yes, yes it is. thanks to alisa's mom for letting us borrow her sweaters. they were a hit. :)

..cheers! grinch punch at the party..

and last, but not least, decorating and getting in the christmas spirit. unfortunately, our apartment is far too small for a tree, but, our friends jake and shad have a great spot. we spent an evening decorating the tree and their living room with christmas lights. it looks amazing, i must say.

..brittany & i decorating the tree..

looking back at the month of december, i am happy to say that is was a great month filled with great friends and lots of laughter! i hope everyone else had a great december as well!

::Christmas Vacation::

Day 2:

Today has been a less productive day. But I am still getting my laundry done, so that's progress. I did, however, get sucked into a movie which I have never seen. So, you guessed it, I am watching it. The movie is Marley & Me, and so far I am really enjoying it.

Tonight Alisa and I are going out to dinner with our old roommate, Stephanie and her hubby, Aaron. We try to get together a few times a year. Usually in April, for mine and Alisa's birthdays. November, for Steph's birthday, and December, for Christmas. I think we got together once over the summer this year, too. These girls were my first roommates after moving to Salt Lake, and I'm happy that we were all roommates for a year. They are great girls and I love them.

Day 1:

First day of my vacation was a productive one. Of course I started off by sleeping in. I mean, who wouldn't, right? :) But then, I spent most of my day doing laundry and cleaning the bathroom. So much fun.

Before the break started I told myself that I would take full advantage of this two weeks and get my butt to the gym. Well, it may have taken me all day, but I got there before 5:00! So far, doing well.

I'm Back!

Okay, so I have not been the best blogger for many reasons. But, one of the biggest reasons was due to my previous lap top, which was slower than tar. I have now made an update and converted to a MacBook Pro. I am in heaven. :)

{Lately}

At the end of August Alisa and I moved out of our apartment by the Capitol and made the move to our new apartment in Sugarhouse. It is SO much better. We live in a basement apartment of an older house, so it's smaller, but rent is also cheaper. There are also some perks to it. We have a washer and dryer, which we didn't have at the last place. So this is great! At our last place I would take my laundry to Karen & Greg's usually and do it there. It took all night. I felt bad for taking their night away, but it was also really great to be able to spend time with them and the boys. I miss seeing them, but not having to load up my laundry in the car and take it to their house has been very nice. Like I said, the apartment is small, but has it's perks. Along with the washer and dryer the kitchen has been updated, and is really nice. So, even though the place is smaller it is much better. :)

School is going along well. I am in my second year of teaching and feel that my class is much better this year. It's amazing how much more confident I feel this year, having some experience now. I feel like I have much more control of the class and that I am able to teach the kids better. It's great.

Friday night Brittany, Bethany, and I decided last second to go to a Halloween party. We didn't have costumes, but within five minutes, we had come up with some. We went as Chinese girls. Beth and Britt have some robes from China Town and chop sticks. So, we wore robes and put chop sticks in our hair. And, viola, we were Chinese. It was a fun, random night, which end up being pretty great afterwards!

quick re-cap of my life

well, this post will be nothing fantastic. but i figure it is a good idea to update a bit about my life, rather than just updating about my recent order of the iphone 4... that i am extremely excited and anxious for its arrival.

the end of 2010 seemed to be a good one. finished out the year with a nice two week break from school. one of those weeks which i got to spend in AZ with some much loved familia. john, brittany and abby were in utah for the holidays. they came along with me, mom and dad down to AZ to visit Kevin, Jill and kids. it was so great to spend time with the bodily nieces and nephews for a few days. i wish it could happen more often, but unfortunately my brothers think they have to go out of state and make a living, weird. :)

2011 has been pretty great so far. the first four months flew by! i went on a quick weekend get away trip with my girls over president's day. which was awesome and awful all at once. i had been coughing before we left a little bit. first night down there and i am hacking up a lung. it was painful. we came home early and i spent my day off at the instacare rather than relaxing. turns out i probably pulled a muscle right around my rib too, so every time i would cough, sneeze, or move i was in pain. life was not fun for about 4-5 weeks. but all is well now. :)

i had a birthday last month and turned the big 2-4! weird. funny though, because i always thought i would be married by now. ha, that's not happening any time soon. i wouldn't change where i am now. there is so much i have learned in life and if i had got married at 20 like i had in mind, i would be a completely different person. and i like who i am. elder dallin h. oaks' wife, kristen oaks, came and spoke to our relief society back in april. she is an amazing woman. she didn't get married until her 50's. so, she is the perfect person to talk about being single because she actually understands and can relate. but she said several times, "if you are in this room right now, it's because that's where God wants you to be." and "if you are single right now, it's because that's what the Lord has in His plan..." it was just a very good, uplifting talk about making life the very best right now. :) life is good.

work has had its ups and downs. for about 2 months i was without a co-teacher in my class of 16 kids. substitutes would come in day to day and the change was taking a toll on the kids, and myself. but, after a long wait, they hired a teacher for my class. she has been amazing and i am soooo grateful for all she has contributed! the kids are doing so much better and have really come a long way. the year is coming to an end soon, and then summer will be starting. this week is a stressful one though because we have our spring programs at school. the children get to perform in front of their parents. we've been practicing and lets just say they don't always like to sing. i just hope when parents are there they will try to show off more, rather than become shy like the Christmas program. blah, Friday afternoon cannot come soon enough! i am excited for the summer, i think it will be a fun change.