Girls, Girls, Girls.

Today I am starting a diet.

Just putting it out there so I won't cheat (I hope), since I've started this same diet 3 or 4 times over the past two weeks. Then I cheat and tell myself I'll start tomorrow. 

Seriously, today is the day.

My goal is to lose 10 pounds in a month.

The same 10 pounds I've packed on in the past 6 months.

On to the real reason I'm posting: a catch up on the girls at our house.

Back in mid March, Mar had another choir concert.

A couple of notes: 1) After the concert Mar told me she had been standing near a girl who was singing with gusto out of tune, and she was having a hard time keeping in tune and hoping others were not thinking the loud, off-key voice was hers. 2) The girl standing to the right of Mar is the daughter of a girl Bill knew - and attended a girls choice dance with - in high school.
It's a small world, after all.

I know I've talked up Mar's teacher, Mrs. A, before. She reminds me of my Jr. High choir teacher, so I thought I'd share a quick clip of her. She is awesome.

Mar, Tori and Taylor

(Taylor has lived in our culdesac for the past 12 years, and just moved out this past weekend. She'll finish out 7th grade at Cimarron, then go to another school next year. We'll miss you, Taylor!)

Mar and Faith

This past week Shilo participated in LHS's Mr. Titan event.

For Family Home Evening we all helped her get the locker tags ready.

This is a fundraiser ($8 a ticket to attend!), where senior boys compete for the prestigious title
(and prom tickets - a whopping $100 - and a free tux rental).

The guys competed in formalwear, group dance, and talent before the first elimination, then Titan wear and answering a question before the second elimination, and the final 5 had to compete in a social graces-type relationship scenario (for lack of a better description).

The winner. We concurred that he rightly deserved the title.

He had some serious entertainment skills.

And while I'm on Shilo, I've been working like a mad-woman on her grad announcements. She had decided not to go with the traditional Jostens announcements, which I thought was a great idea at the time, however, my fingers are crossed that the announcements we created and ordered will turn out how we want them to. I'm super nervous.

Here are a couple of the rejects:

Two of the above pics made it to the final layout... just tweaked a bit.
If you happen to receive a hard copy announcement and it's messed up, you'll know it's all due to my computer/picture/pixels/layout/cropping incompetence. There is no time or money to reorder, so they will have to do.


Lex has been here the past week while on semester break.

Before locker-tagging Monday night, we went out to dinner. Lex had been to the oral surgeon that day and was excited to be told that her bone graft from Dec. had worked and she was ready for her implant. They had an opening Tuesday. We figured all aggressive chewing should be done prior.

Our chosen destination was Rumbi since Lex had been craving their teriyaki burger, but when we arrived we found that they close at 8 (who the heck closes at 8?? oh yeah, Rumbi). It was 7:45, so we decided to head over to The Rock (open 'til midnight every day of the week, btw).

Lex supported Shi at Mr. Titan, gauze from her implant clenched between her teeth and all.

Sister photo op.

Friend photo op.

Family... and friend... photo op.

And we can't leave out the who's your daddy? photo op.

This morning I had to snap a couple pictures as she and her friends got ready to make the long drive back to ID.

 And she's gone, baby, gone. That went too fast.

Appreciation.

Last week was our Stake's annual LHS Teacher Appreciation Dinner.

Senior youth (that's an oxymoron, isn't it?) are encouraged to participate by inviting an educator who has made a difference in their lives to a special dinner and tribute ceremony (I was in charge of the dinner for Lex's year - reminder here.)

This is only LHS's third graduating class (Lex was in the first), but our Stake has held this event for years, so Tay and Britt also participated in the past for CHS. (Taylor's guitar teacher, Mr. Moore, couldn't come back in 2007, so we didn't attend the dinner. Now the youth are encouraged to attend even if their teacher is unable to, and they still participate by reading their tribute. BTW, Mr. Moore now teaches at LHS and was in attendance at this dinner, nominated by 2 students. Clearly still a favorite.)

As we discussed over the past school year who Shilo might invite, she would say things like, "I've had some great teachers [in high school], but I don't necessarily feel like I was super connected to any in particular..." She figured she would probably just invite her Assistant Swim Coach, Coach Matherly. 

A month or two ago, we were on the topic of who-to-invite again, and I thought back to my high school days. I could maybe name 2 of my high school teachers without looking them up. I don't necessarily think any of them greatly influenced who I am today. (I most commonly tell my kids about my AP English teacher who suggested I NOT take the AP exam because it would probably be a "waste of time and money" for me to do so. I took the test anyway... and got a 5. I mostly remember her clear lack of confidence in me.)

I do, however, remember my jr. high choir teacher, Mrs. Schmidt (I've mentioned her before), and I can name each and every one of my elementary school teachers, and well remember how each of them made me feel.

Shilo had some really great elementary school teachers, but we both fondly recalled one in particular:
Miss Dodge.
She was Shilo's fresh-out-of-college-young-and-enthusiastic 3rd grade teacher. 

She has since been married (now Mrs. Valasquez), and is still teaching at FVE. We decided to check with the event organizers to make sure it would be okay to invite her, since only high school teachers have been invited in the past. Once the approval was given, Shilo took the invitation over on a Friday after school. Mrs. Valasquez had already left for the day, so she put the invite, along with a note, on her desk and anxiously awaited a response ("Maybe she won't remember me...").

Mrs. Valasquez responded Monday. Of course she remembered Shilo, she was honored to be invited and would definitely attend. YAY!

Shilo's tribute:

"Mrs. Valasquez has had a great impact on my life. Although it has been nine years since I had her as my teacher, her impression on me has been lasting. Even at my young age I could tell that she had a real interest in helping each of her students feel capable and confident in school. Even as a third grader, I knew that she had a personal interest in helping me grow and learn. She was very kind and sweet, and she always looked for praiseworthy things in each student and acknowledged those things. I've had a lot of great teachers through my twelve years in school at Frontier Valley, Cimarron, and Legend High School, but I appreciate the foundation she laid out for my future years in school. She helped me believe that I could accomplish anything if I put my heart into it. She strived to help each of her students see the potential they could achieve. I just want to thank you Mrs. Valasquez, a.k.a. Miss Dodge, for being a blessing in my life."

It was so fun chatting with Mrs. Valasquez and her husband during the dinner. She had been worried that Shilo wouldn't recognize her (of course Shilo recognized her!), but was so happy and honored to be there. I worried that the focus of most of the speakers was on LHS teachers specifically, but Carrie responded with, "I'm so glad to be able to represent elementary school teachers!"

It was an all-around feel-good evening.

Mrs. Valasquez asked Shilo to keep in touch

(we discovered that she lives only a couple streets over from us).

Shilo agreed.

Connected again.

Anniversary Overnighter.

I didn't do so great at keeping things in chronological order after all. I was just so darn excited to post about our Spring Break adventures that I neglected to first post about our anniversary.

Yes, we celebrated, if only briefly.

My initial hopes were to have a good three-day two-night getaway (with a phone ban on Bill), but since Spring Break was the following week, and Bill would already be missing TWO Sundays (oh my), we kept it to a 1.5 day/1 night event. But it was most excellent, and our time together was definitely magnified. Tender mercy.

Bill had given me roses on the 12th, and wrote a romantic Facebook post. It was a full day at the salon for me, so a client actually told me about the post.
Thanks, babe!

The totally AWESOME thing about Bill's roses is that they were a gift to him from an insurance company partner the day before. Boxed up and presented beautifully, he opted to give them to me. 

You may think that takes away from the sentiment and thoughtfulness of his gift.

NOPE.  It made me love them more. I viewed it as a perfectly timed tender mercy.
Beautiful roses for our anniversary... for free.


Friday afternoon we started our overnighter by trying out a new(er) sushi joint right here in town.

Then we took a leisurely drive to Colorado Springs and checked into our hotel in the heart of downtown.

We had gotten a pretty killer deal on it, and we weren't quite sure what we were going to get.
It was awesome.
Kind of makes up for the not-so-lovely place we spent our last anniversary at.

It was a really amazing old hotel that had been freshly renovated, but still had some fun original details - like this old safe (used as the housekeeping closet now). We had a view of the city from our window, and our room had one of the best bathrooms I've experienced in a hotel - they usually gross me out.

Then we checked out an antique mall Bill had run through back in December when we were madly hunting down a typewriter for Mar. I know he loves me... sacrificing our getaway time to peruse antiques (and some not-really-antiques) because he knows I love to do it.

He's definitely my knight in shining armor...

That night we stuffed ourselves with beef and bison here,

using a gift card Bill had received at Christmastime, which we had held in reserve for such a time as this. Perfect.

After catching some March Madness on TV (my tiny time sacrifice for Bill), and sleeping in on Saturday,

we decided to grab lunch at a place just around the block, The Ritz Grill.

 It was on the very street the St. Patrick's Day parade was on, so we passed the heavily green-clad (can't really tell from the pictures, but there was seriously a lot o' green going on) and good humored crowd on our way.

This was also perfectly timed, because Salt Lake City's 1988 St. Patrick's Day parade was held on our wedding day.

(Those brightly colored people behind us? Parade people. Not sure why there's not much green there either.)

From my seat in the restaurant I could see bits and pieces of the parade.

We elected not to stay for the whole parade, but still somehow got stuck in parade traffic by the time we got our car from the valet and headed out. Since we were already stuck (and driving in circles), we decided to stop at another antique store we found in our stuckness.

I found a new old hand-beater (love those).
Bill found some new specs.

Harry Potter-ish, we concurred.

We headed back to our neck of the woods to catch a movie at Southlands (with those new reclining seats). Honestly, I can't remember what we saw, so I will ask Bill and {insert here}. Obviously not the most memorable part of our getaway ;-)

We were home in enough time for Bill to prepare for his Sunday meetings.

A much needed break.
Perfect timing.
Tender mercies.
It couldn't have been better.
I love you, Bill!