miley

i got a dog about a week ago. i rescued her. her name is miley. i am absolutely in love with her. she is so mellow and a really good apartment dog. she is house trained and just likes to cuddle. 

this is her watching my computer screen as i check my email. she is laying on her spot in the bed. (yes i have become that person who lets their dogs sleep with them) isnt she so cute? (she has a cut on her ear from before i got her. it bleeds a lot. so i use some good old  neosporin and bandaids) 

and now she is ready for bed...goodnight!!!!

tomorrow is the day...

that josh comes home. i am so excited. words cant describe it. and honestly i didnt think i would miss him THIS much. but i have learned a lot and become very thankful for the friendship and relationship that i have with him. i am so blessed. it is a constant growing process 

but God is so good and has really blessed me. 

while he was gone, i wrote him a love note each night before bed. i plan on placing them around his room tomorrow before i pick him up for the airport. some of the notes are just sweet love notes ;-) holla and some of them are remembering special moments and times of our

 relationship....there are also little gifts that go along with some of them... ( i know what you are thinking... and yes i am that amazing)

i am also planning a special surprise. before josh left, he really wanted to spend time with ty-his nephew. and due to sickness and the craziness of leaving the country for three weeks, he was not able to see little ty. it made josh really sad. and when ty would come visit me he would always ask if we were going to josh's house. when i said we were going to nina's church, he said NO...Josh's church. so....

i am havin ty spend the night and we are making a "welcome home uncle josh" poster tomorrow and he is going with me to surprise uncle josh. :-) josh will be so excited...i cant wait to see his face...

maddy

i invited my sister and her daughter madison on a date tonight. it was a glorious way to spend my saturday. we used our traditional gift cards from our great grandparents to in-n-out for dinner :-) and then watched a movie at my apartment since taking a 10 month old baby to a movie theater is not on my list of favorite things to do. we watched a movie with the roommate and just spend time enjoying my little niece. she is growing up so fast. i am very blessed to be a part of her life. she has brought so much joy to our family. i love my little maddy

amber is here

amber is one of megans friends from the mountains...she moved to portland this last year so we dont see her very much. she is pretty awesome..she is spending the night with us to celebrate megans birthday tomorrow...megan and i had to go up to the mountains to pick her up...and being "flatlanders" technically...we saw snow and felt the need to play in it...not really we just wanted to bring some home for or little friend jorgito....

joy

megan and i put the finishing touches on our ghetto christmas tree (thanks kayla)...now it is complete...dont be jealous (p.s. i got to talk to josh tonight..it was so nice to hear his voice....i miss him very much and only 9 more sleeps until he gets home)

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM OUR GHETTO APARTMENT

i love him. and miss him. he is amazing and today as i prayed for him i was reminded of all of the many reasons i love him. the past 2  1/2 years have gone by so fast and have been filled with so many wonderful memories. and i look forward to many more... i am truly blessed to have him as a part of my life (and he is pretty lucky as well...i am quite a catch...hahahha) 

i love being off track

Being off track has been amazing. Teaching is such an incredible job and even though there are parts that I don't like very much it is a very rewarding career and it definitely has it's perks. The idea of "off track" is one of them. I work for three months and then get one month off. It's incredible. So this time off track has been nice. The first half was spent in training-since I am a new teacher I get to go to lots of training...not very fun. The second half has started out so nicely. I have been able to do so many things that I WANT to do.

I have been able to read. Like really read. Read books for fun-that I WANT to read. I got absolutely obsessed wit the twilight series. You may think I am  over exaggerating but I am not. Ask my roommate. I have read all four of the books in a little over a week. I couldn't put it down and read every opportunity I got. I may or may not have been swept off my feet by a vampire named Edward. I also may or may not have tickets to see the movie at midnight tomorrow. :-)

I was able to spend some much needed QUALITY time with my babies. I was just going to go up and spend the day with Erin and the kids but then I realized that she could use a little time to herself...so I offered to watch the kids for the weekend..you would think this was a selfless idea but on the contrary it was completely selfish :-) i just wanted all the quality time i could get with Ty, Keirra, and Kaydin. We had so much fun together and they are growing so so so fast!!!

On Monday, Josh and I took Ty to Disneyland. It was so much fun and Ty really enjoys the special time he gets with Uncle Josh (and Nina too) Basically he is the most spoiled kid ever...when he is with us he gets everything his little heart desires. 

I have been  able to spend some much needed time with good friends. Without feeling worried and stressed out about all the work I have to do. I am truly blessed with good friends.

Josh and I have been able to spend some good quality time together. Which is hard to get sometimes with our equally busy schedules. So it has been nice to be able to spend more time together...and makes me a little sad to go back to my busy schedule. :-)

So I must say that I have really enjoyed being on vacation. It feels nice to spend a whole day doing nothing and not feel bad about it ;-)

halloween costumes

meg and i had decided early on that we wanted to do something that went together. bein roommates and all we thought it would be fitting to do some type of dynamic duo.

our first idea was dinosaurs. not that dinos are a type of dynamic duo. i just have a big fascination with dinosaurs. and realized that i would really like to own a dinosaur costume. (sadly i was not able to find one...someday)

since we couldnt find dinosaur costumes...we had to brainstorm and come up with a new plan.

and we are pretty confident that we have come up with a very funny costume idea...

 

yes thats right. we have decided to be hannah montana and miley cyrus. (i am hannah..with my singing talent and all) and meg is miley. basically we are the best of both worlds.

so my little ones are going to be here any moment to spend some much needed quality time with "nina". it has been over a month i think since i have seen them and i miss them so very much. i am looking forward to seein how much they have grown :-) and get lots of hugs and kisses from ty, keirra, and kaydin...

roommates

i have had several roommates in my life. and for the most part all have been a pleasant experience. 

     my sister and i were roommates til i moved to college. she is 10 years younger than me and so that was fun to be able to spend that time sharing a room. i moved to college and had some pretty interesting roommates my first year. amy was my roommate sophomore year. we had so much fun that year! i would even go on to say that we were notoriously known to live on the "naked wing" 2B holla!!! my summers were spent at camp with many roommates... i have so many memories with canifax and bri and ally that first summer...and cooper and amanda.. there are not even words to describe that craziness!! love those girls. after college spent some time livin on the parents couch then moved into my grandparents house...kate was my first official post-college roommate...she is pretty awesome...we were soon joined by megan...and our home became the gypsy den. this is a picture of the gypsy den...

we moved out of the gypsy den and our dear kate got married (lucky her) and so know it is just megan and i (with our flamingo Duff-after ace of cakes) livin in our apartment. its ghetto and messy and filled with toys. but we love it. we have two bedrooms but prefer to sleep in the same one.. we dont shower on saturdays (its a rule in our house) or do laundry that often. we eat lots of hamburger helper/pasta (with our free hamburger meat from my mom) we share clothes and like to take naps on our couch with our comfy blankets. its pretty awesome. you should be jealous.

i have been blessed with so many wonderful roommates who have played such an important role in my life...and one day i will get to have another roommate and i know that it will be as much of a blessing as all the others. ;-)

its 2:30 in the morning

and megan and i finished movin our new  furniture in and gettin it all situated... yay for free things from generous aunts and uncles ;-)

oh and yes. that is our festive flamingo in her pretty halloween costume hanging from the ceiling (she has a different outfit for each month in case you were wondering) she is actually a lawn flamingo but we dont have a lawn and i cant seem to find her legs. so now she hangs in our sitting room.

i know the room would look nicer without the flamingo. very put together and adult. but what would my apartment be without a touch of ghetto?

exactly. it wouldnt be my apartment. i love living here.

its the little things...

...that make megan smile

we were driving home from rite aid tonight aft

er small group and as we pulled in to the complex, megan got REALLY excited all of the sudden. i am driving and i just hear her saying things like 

"oh oh!" 

"look quick!" 

"wow!"

as she is pointing out my window.

at this point i am trying to drive without hitting the pa

rked cars while not wearing my glasses. and also look at whatever megan could possibly be so excited about. i expected it to be something fantastic and was very eager to see what all the fuss is about. i was a little sad that i was seeing nothing. i asked 

"what is it?" (and i asked this several times because i couldnt quite get a verbal response from her) she just kept repeating her little excited phrases. 

so as you can imagine my anxiety is kickin in and i REALLY want to know what all the fuss is about.

finally i get a glimpse of what she has seen....

yes. you are seeing correctly. megan has just seen a skunk scamper from the dumpster underneath a few cars. she finally was able to put some words together "he is a fast little bugger" i believe is the phrase i heard.

i know she is from the mountains. and probably a little sheltered. but seriously. she acted as if she has never seen an animal before and that this skunk was the first and by far the most awesome creature she has ever seen. 

hahaha i love megan. and there is never a dull moment with us.

a perfect end...

my week has been a little rough at work. and it has nothing to do my actual class. i LOVE my students. i have so much fun with them (well most of the time) and enjoy spending six hours a day with them. i am looking forward to watching them grow as individuals and learn all that they need to be successful in middle school. my school is going through lots of changes right now in hopes of upping our test scores (cuz that is what it is ALL about) so it has been a very difficult transition to make from teaching last year to this year. it has been rough. in just an administration aspect. i had to hold back tears twice at the last staff meeting...anyways, it has just been a rough and exhausting week....

which leads to this picture. my very wonderful and thoughtful man showed up for dinner at my house tonight with these flowers. which just so happen to be m very favorite flowers. so it was the perfect end to a rough week. i am so thankful for josh. it has been an amazing 2 years and i look forward to many, many more. he is my best friend. and i love him very much

family. 

is often more than just your God-given biological family. 

this picture happened as part of a joke...but just seemed to stick....

awhile back the jokes about megan and conway being josh and my kids began. we were the parents. they were the kids. we would call times the four of us would go places "family outings" megan drew this picture one night representing our little "family". (note a few things: how much shorter i am than everyone, the weirdness of josh's pants?? megans voluptuous lips?-i love it megan!)

over time our family has grown so much closer. we now have weekly family dinners. (that often dont happen until 10 at night...its how we roll)  where either the boys cook or the girls cook. it works out nicely since megan and i are roommates and josh and conway are roommates. our family dinners are the highlight of the week. with all of our busy schedules it is so nice to be able to sit down and just catch up on life with each other. 

it has even happened where josh and i have gone somewhere together and feel the need to buy our "kids" presents for the next time we see them. like they need a treat after mom and dad have been away...its so funny. we went to victoria gardens and felt the need to buy megan and conway their favorite candies from see's candy before we went home. and we brought back megan a prize from sacramento.... its silly i know but we actually do it... 

i just am feeling incredibly thankful for these three. josh. i dont even know where to begin on what i am thankful for about him ;-) he is amazing and a complete answer to prayer...i love him... megan. she is an incredible roommate and a beyond amazing friend. she is funny too!!! she makes me laugh and i can just be myself and feel comfortable. i love her. conway...or conwizzle :-) he is such a good friend. incredibly encouraging and supportive. and such an example to me...i love him too...

where my girls at?

So I have had the opportunity to lead the women's college/career community group for a couple of years now and tonight was the first night of this next "cycle" as I like to call it (like how top model has cycles...hahaha). I am very social and I love to be around people and to have people over to hang out, so this opportunity is just the kind of thing I love to do. anyways, I find myself overwhelmed with joy and filled with love as I sit and reflect on tonight' time. The group is a good mix-on many levels. 

There are girls who are fresh out of high school and beginning their journey on the road of college, girls that are ending their journey on the road of college, girls who are going back to the college after taking some time off, girls who are married or will be married soon, and girls who have begun or will be beginning their careers. Their are some of us who have been in the same community group for several "cycles" (hahaha) and have seen many come and go, and then there are the new girls. I love the mix that we have. The dynamics of the group just seem that they will be great. 

I struggle with being a leader. I know that I have the ability to do it. But I fear not doing a good job or letting people down-that I might fail at it. Fear is a huge hinderance in my life and I am really trying to work on this. But this fear makes me worried about my responsibility as the leader of the group. My heart is in this. I want to really live life alongside these girls as well as be the leader that they may be looking for. My prayer is that I won't let my fear keep me from giving my all in being the leader. 

Some of my closest friendships have developed from being in a community group. Others have been made stronger. I look forward to building those type of relationships with the ladies in the new group. On several occasions I have found peace and comfort in my community group. Knowing that there is a core group of people who are living life alongside you-loving you, encouraging you, challenging you. They keep you accountable. They pray for you. It is such a blessing.

We have chosen to read a book together for this "cycle". We chose Captivating by John and Stasi Eldridge. (which i must say is one of my favorite books). I read it for the first time when I was in Costa Rica. And began reading it a second time a few months ago. I am excited to read this book with my small group. I cant wait to see what the Lord has in store for us!!!

hhhmmm.......

i am in one of those ruts i guess in life. feeling down for no real reason. when asked how i am i answer with "eh". which is saying fine. not good not bad just "eh". i just feel distant and unattached. it came out of nowhere and its not as if things have happened that have made me feel so meloncholy about life. i cant figure it out....and i think that bothers me most....

for the first time (probably ever) i have the desire to be an introvert. anyone who knows me knows how i am completely opposite of that. an extrovert to the extreme. a social butterfly some may say. i enjoy being social and being around people. i find comfort in it. but as of late the introvert tendencies have become quite strong. i find this shift intriguing and am curious as to what will become of it...

my mind has been on overload lately just consumed with so many thoughts. i think that contributes to wanting to be an introvert. i want to process through it all. (as i write this i am remembering why i kept a journal...and thinking i may very well start again) i am not too good with expressing my feelings out loud. but feellike i can express myself so well with written words.

i have been going to hdc (high desert church) for the last several weeks while they were going through a sermon serious called holy sex (holla---j/k) it was really good. over the five weeks he talked about marriage, singleness, mascalinity, femininity, and brokeness. this last week was brokeness and i heard some lyrics to a worship song this last week that have stuck with me. i dont know the name of the song, who sings it, or all of the words...but this is what stuck out to me
I will live to love You
I will live to bring You praise
I will live a child in awe of You
You aone are God of all
You alone are worthy Lord
And with all I am
My soul will bless Your name.
Til I see You face to face
And grace amazing calls me home

i pray that this will be my prayer. and that the desire of my heart will be to live in such a way to love Him, praise Him, be awestruck by Him. with EVERYTHING that I am.

being an auntie...

...might be my favorite thing ever. it is such a fun and blessed season of life. i didn't know i could love little ones as much as i love my nieces and nephew. it is so fun to be able to love on and spoil them just because i can. i get to see some of them fairly often but it never seems often enough. i find it amazing how much they grow in the few days or a week or so that i don't see them. i am blessed to be an auntie to four precious little ones. 

this is madison. she is my sister ashley's first baby. she is five months old now. i don't get 

to see her very often which makes me really sad. she looks just like my sister did when she was this age. (at least thats what i can tell from pictures...hahaha) madison is the first grandchild for my parents. which has been such a blessing for them. she is such a calm and happy baby. i miss being able to spend days with her. hopefully it will all change.

    then theres ty. he is jer and erin's oldest (josh's brother and sister in law) he is 3. and the cutest little boy ever. so full of life and energy. it has been such an incredible blessing to watch as he has grown the last few years. his vocabulary gets bigger each and every time i see 

him. he always has new words to tell me. i love seeing the world through his eyes. he notices things and

 appreciates things i would often overlook. his laughter is contagious.

      he calls me nina. it was his attempt at auntie naya. i cant say how much joy it brings my soul hear him say "nina!" i love him so much. and wish he lived next door so i could see him every day. one of my favorite things is when he spends the night on the weekends. there is nothing like having his sleepy head come out of the bedroom and say "good morning nina" as he snuggles up to give me a big squeeze. i also like spoiling

 him :-) he may or may not get everything he wants at nina's house.

and then there is keirra and kaydin. they are 17 months old.  keirra is the one on the tray making the funny face. she is so known for her facial expressions. it amazes me how she has such a personality at this age. she is the ham of the two and is always ready to cheese it up for the camera. kaydin is the sitting on the floor lookin all cute for the camera. definitely ready to pose for the picture. 

these two girls are such a blessing and so much fun to spend time with. they are at that age where they walk and are beginning to talk. (they almost can say nina) my favorite thing that they do is say "eyes", "nose", and "mouth" as they point to their facial features (or anyones for that matter) they say so many other things too. uh-oh, mommy, daddy, josh, thank you, and almost nina are a few...

  i do hope to one day have children of my own but thats a whole other season of life...right now i love being an aunt. it is a blessing like i couldnt have imagined. i love each of them more than i could express and pray for each of them daily. 

the beginning

So it is the middle of my first week of school. Which means I have made it halfway through. It has been rough. I feel so scatterbrained and often inadequate. This may be due to the newness of the beginning of school. I officially became a contracted teacher in January which meant I took over a class that was already in the groove. I didn't have to start one myself. The lesson plans were already done . The procedures and expectations were already in place and made clear. So the beginning of the school year had made me quite nervous. (and anyone who knows me knows how well I can function when I get nervous) I have a fairly large fear of failure. To the point where I won't attempt things or take risks because I fear that I might fail at it. I want to be good at what I do and if I feel that I won't succeed I often won't do it. I know this is not very healthy. Nevertheless, it is the way I work. 

This is how I have approached the school year. Which makes me f

eel like I am drowning. I know realistically that everything will work out. I know that I am an adequate teacher and that I did a good job with my class last year. But my fear can get the best of me. I know my first year will be fille

d with trials and errors. I will make mistakes and I will be successful. I just am afraid of failing. 

My class (so far...3 days in) seems to be fairly mellow. I have a good mix of students academically and socially. Getting to know 25 new kids is fun. It's exciting to learn personalities and also anticipate watching them grow through their journey of the 5th grade. And I am not gonna lie that having an audience of 25 people that HAVE to 

listen to me all day is kinda nice.

:-)

Here is a picture of 

my classroom during the preparation stage last week. It currently looks like a 

tornado has h

it due to the paperwork/new curriculum/25 people who now call it home. 

what a pig

so as a prize josh bought megan and i a piggy bank to help us learn to save our money. we fell in love with the pig. we have named the pig (with a little help from hailee) pajama pancake pig. it is like a pet for us. well long story short josh and i made a bet. the rules were simple. the pig would have to be in the same room as me at all times for 48 hours. whoever lost would have to take the winner out to their favorite restaurant for dinner. (i eagerly took this bet for the following reasons: 1. i am very competitive 2. i want to beat josh at things 3. i recently lost a bet and had to take him to dinner) here are some of the things that pajama and i did...

we went to the dentist, watched some tv until megan got home, pajama went to the beach for the first time and touched the water, watched the sunset, and played lifeguard. we also went to claim jumper and she wanted to ride conways bike (but she didnt have a helmet)