Celebrating 26 years of Brandon

So, Brandon's birthday was celebrated in 2 parts- the surprise party and the birthday itself. Part 1- the party.

So I like doing surprise parties for some reason... Maybe because I feel like he'd like everything more if he doesn't know about it beforehand. But anyway, we had to do it pretty early because a lot of our friends were leaving for the summer (or for good) at the end of the week. So I planned it for April 7. Then we both got sick the weekend beforehand. Luckily I have great friends, because I texted my friend Janelle to see if we could do it at their apartment. I figured we didn't want to have people at the germ factory.

The only time I almost blew it was when I was texting Janelle about the cake. I told her the cake was orange fun fetti with a black gel, to look like a basketball. Then, I got a text from Brandon asking what I was talking about orange fun fetti and black icing. SHOOT! Luckily I dodged a bullet and told him a story about talking to someone at work about it.

After work, I had to go grab 26 balloons for each year of Brandon's life, for the party guests to write notes and attach to the strings. Balloons are EXPENSIVE. But, ultimately it worked out. I dragged Brandon over to Trevik and Janelle's apartment for FHE, and he was very surprised. And he loved the cake.

All in all, a good night.

And then yesterday was Brandon's actual birthday. I gave Brandon a White Sox hat and a birthday coupon book, with coupon such as winning an argument, getting to watch a sports game without any complaints, and getting to veto a restaurant that I choose for the night.

Brandon made sure to make a nice Easter dinner today, it was way nice. Pork chops, asparagus, deviled eggs, and stuffed potatoes. 

After that we went to the nature park and fed the ducks. Not a bad weekend. We were grateful for the chance to celebrate Easter, and to remember the reason for the season. Happy Easter!

(The cavalry of ducks)

Because of Him.

It's the Easter season, and I've been running around like a crazy person this week so I haven't even been able to sit down and think about it. One of the things that has been going around on social media are the pictures with the hashtag #becauseofhim, along with things that happen because of Easter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_S3TI4bYerU#t=149

Need I go on? Ok one more, this is my favorite.

I haven't had much time in a while to think of Easter, but I'm so grateful for Christ's Atonement and resurrection. Because of it, so many of my questions about life are answered. In the wake of so much heartache and sadness that has happened in our family over the last few months, it's so wonderful to know that all hearts will be healed and tears dried.

And it is just a bonus perk that it comes the day after Brandon's birthday... much to be grateful for this weekend.

Silly String 5k

Yes, another race. We don't have one for at least 2 weeks... and I am now motivated to really dig in and train my behind off. Half marathon in t-minus 7 weeks!

So this one was a fun run put on by a company in Rexburg. It's a running/bike store that just opened up. We went to pick up our shirts yesterday, and were totally disgusted by the customer service. The worker there didn't even say hi to us, and while I stood next to him for 15 minutes he didn't ask me what I needed. We finally left, and I think he heard me tell Brandon that I didn't want to go back. Which is too bad, because we both want to get new shoes this summer so that's a couple hundred dollars they just lost.

But getting off my soapbox... The run was HARD. More than half of it was uphill. But when I finished I felt so great! And, as was in the name, everyone sprayed us with Silly String. Brandon tried to give me a crown of silly string, but it didn't work.

And-surprise of all surprises!!- Brandon was the one to suggest our next race. There's one in a few weeks in Rigby, which he said he wanted to do.

Ok back on my soapbox... I'm so proud of Brandon. He's been training so hard, and is doing way better than I have with running. He ran 7 miles the other day... who does that?! So he will do great (if) he does the half marathon with me in Boise.

Run 4 Ruby

I ran another race today. It's a good motivator when I don't want to get my rear end out there and have a half marathon in 2 months (!!!!!).

There's a family in Southern California who lost their little girl to liver failure a few years ago, so now they have a foundation to raise awareness about organ donation. Now, I'm a sucker for things like this so I begged Brandon to let me sign up. They had an "out of state" option, where they would send you everything and let you run it by yourself. So I did that, and Rachel signed up to do it with me.

So the race day came up and it was 19 degrees outside... FREEZING! So I made sure to put on a jacket and pants.

Super cute shirts... That's not why I did it though.

So my iPod was about to die, so I asked Brandon for his phone. Well, about half a mile in my music cut out and I pulled out his phone in time to see the little circle of death that meant the battery had run out. Dang it. I still had 2.6 miles left to run! So I did it even without music, and let me tell you I was so proud of myself that day.

I love these runs for causes... I hope it never comes to it but I'm definitely doing one if I need to raise awareness about a member of my family.

Green.

I thought I'd share this separate from a post about my dad's birthday... but I digress.

So, I love St. Patrick's Day. Mainly because it's my dad's birthday, but also because my favorite color to wear is green. So, when I heard there was a free 5k and costume contest for St. Patrick's Day on Saturday, I had to sign up. Anything to dress up!

So, I got a can of green hairspray and went to town. It didn't turn out as green as I wanted, but it turned out fine:

Oh yeah, and it was 27 degrees. Chilly.

We also did a "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" picture, which turned out fine on the second try.

We started running, and it wasn't too bad except we had to run the hill to the temple. Which is hard when you have been running on a treadmill since Christmas.

But I ran it in 33:08, which met my goal of running it in less than 11 minutes/mile. When I was sitting down stretching, one of the event coordinators came up to me and said, "Hey so we are doing a costume contest and we think you should win with your green hair." So she got my name and told me to come pick up my prize next week. So, sweet!

I've got other races to do in the next few weeks... Counting down to the half!

Julie.

Well, I feel like life just punched me in the heart again. I'll start at the beginning though.

I had a big ward breakfast to put on yesterday and I wasn't having a very good attitude about it. So I decided to call my mom and vent to her about how the plates were not St. Patrick's Day-y. Make me sound super mature right?

Well, she listened but was a little bit quiet. I chalked that up to it being 7:15 her time, but then she said, "Well, I have some very sad news." She then proceeded to tell me my beautiful Aunt Julie, her cousin, had a massive brain aneurysm and passed away at the age of 34. But there's more. She passed away on the 13th anniversary of her brother Joel succumbing to melanoma, which also is ther dad's birthday. I fell to the floor and my mom said, "No Camille you can't fall apart now!" So I stood back up and went outside to scrape the ice off my car to bring things to my helpers. I still had tears running down my face but held it in until I saw Brandon pulling up from the gym. And you know how that always goes. I ran over to him, threw the door open, and proceeded to squeak my tale. I was not following my mom's orders and was COMPLETELY falling apart. Brandon, to his credit, got me in the car and away from other people's gazes, and got the things I needed at the store for me. I then went to the church, put a smile on, and had a successful ward breakfast. But, from the moment my mom told me on, I didn't care about plates. The stupid theme was just thy- meaningless. I was brought to my knees so fast, physically and spiritually, that nothing else mattered. I'm continually reminded of what's important, and I plan on trying to remember that.

Our family has a special reminder of Julie, and his name is:

We got Murphy from Julie when he was a little puppy, and we will treasure him (more) now that he's our special reminder. 

Julie was such a wonderful part of our family. She came to all our events, and supported EVERYONE. Not easy when there's 55 on our side, and then her own nieces and nephews. But she did, and she showed us how much she loved us. She was married to a wonderful man Jason, and the light of her life was her almost 2 year old Gavin. He was a hoot and a half, and he loved his mom so.

So, we will always love you Julie. Gavin was so lucky to have you for the 2 years he did, and you're his guardian angel. Enjoy your time with Joel, and we miss you already.

Pet Peeve.

So, whenever something happens to me that annoys me, I try to think of what I can do with this info in the future.

That said, there's been a trend with the things people say to me that REALLY bothers me. In the course of a lot of conversations, people will tell me, "Oh, just wait until you're pregnant." Like my job is SO easy without kids. I had someone tell me "You just can't push yourself when you're pregnant, you'll crash", and I was left thinking.... well, what are you going to do when you have more than one child?

I know it's silly, but seriously. You chose to have kids earlier, and I got a degree first. Not one is better than the other, but I don't say, "Oh, you'll be so much more tired when you actually get a job."

But, the reason why it really bothers me is that people have no idea why I'm not pregnant and haven't had kids. What if it was a fertility issue? That can offend people big time. 

Ugh. It just bugs me. So what's my lesson to myself and other people? DON'T TELL PEOPLE YOUR LIFE IS SO MUCH HARDER! We all have reasons that our lot in life is harder than everyone else's. I may be "just a teacher", and one without kids, but my job is still plenty hard. Rant done.

Job Hunt- Florida Edition

Am I seriously doing this again? Yes, yes I am.

Luckily, there are more than 300 elementary schools in the two districts nearest where we will live in Miami. We are looking at a town named Aventura (or "adventure" in Spanish... how exotic!), because that's where a lot of grad school students live and it's safe, which is my biggest concern.

So, I've started to look at places to apply. Since the Miami-Dade school district has 195 elementary schools and the Broward County school district has 135 elementary schools (not counting charter schools and private schools), I can't apply to all of them. Nor do I want to. So I'm coming up with a system to determine where I'll live.

Step 1) I've been looking up the schools and how far away they are from Aventura. I'm only writing down the schools within half an hour, because I don't want to commute an hour if I can commute 5 minutes. Don't worry about a shortage of schools, I've found about 150. I'm also looking at the school's populations, because if I'm going to teach Special Ed I'm not going to do it at a school of 1100 students.

2) Once I'm done with that, I'm going to look at the "Crime Map" app for which schools are in safe areas. Again, I am not going to apply to a school that is in a dangerous area.

3) After that, I'm going to start sending out resumes! I'm excited about this, because I actually feel confident about the experience I have this time. I can handle anything after this year... phew!

Happy Birthday Coley!

Wow, is Cole really 13?

Geez... I still remember him like this.

Little tiny Coley. Now he's going to be a teenager, albeit a much better mannered one than I was.

Cole is such a great example of a little brother... he's the only one of us who didn't have to be forced to practice piano, or help Mom with cooking dinner, or with obeying Mom in general. (Sorry Mom). Not to mention he's hilarious! And he actually talks to me... yes that's a jab at Bethany.
Well, happy birthday Cole. Hope year of the 13 is even better than the last!

My poor, tender, breaking heart.

Today we are dealing with something very difficult. My sweet Young Women's leader, Sister Bollard, is preparing to go into the next life after a long battle with cancer. I'm still struggling with this. I told my mom that I think everyone should live a healthy life until at LEAST they have great-grandchildren. So the fact that I have a friend who is only as old as my parents about to be taken away has made me have to catch myself many times over the last few days to avoid public displays of emotion.

When my friend told me that people were starting to write letters to her, I wrote one too. How do you write a letter to a friend, knowing it's the last mortal contact you'll have with her? It took me a LONG time to get through it, and I figured the best thing to tell her was my testimony. As one of the leaders when I was a Laurel, it was through her example that I helped make the decisions that have brought me to this point.

I'm so grateful for the knowledge I have of the Plan of Salvation. I wish SO much that I didn't have to learn about it through these hard times. I went to the temple on Saturday, and found that peace will come from staying close to the Lord. I also know for a fact that the Bollards will be together again. They have lived their ways the right way, and what could be a bigger comfort than that. Sometimes the Lord just has a different plan for us that is not for us to know, but to trust in Him.

So I will keep praying. Praying for Sister Bollard, that she will be able to be released from her pain. We've prayed for a miracle, and now it's time for her to receive her reward. I'm praying for her husband, who was my seminary teacher for my senior year and Austin's seminary teacher for two years in high school. He helped Austin get so motivated for a mission, and how can you repay that? I'm also praying for their family, especially Charlie. Charlie is the sweetest, and he has really grown up as a result of this trial. How is it fair to call it a "trial"? People call hard classes trials! This is so much more. Charlie is going to be such a great man as a result of enduring this, especially as he is in France away from the family during this awful time.

So, my heart has been very tender lately and I've caught myself trying to clear the lump in my throat. Many prayers going to lots of people I love.