Also.

In addition to it being Elder Murphay's birthday, it's also officially 6 months until I am done with student teaching. 

Keep calm and pretend like it was on your lesson plan, right?

The Big 2.0.

I'm trying to catch up on my birthday posts... it's super annoying when all your pictures are somewhere in limbo.

But this is important, because it's elder MURPHY!!! And his birthday's on Tuesday, so I want him to see this before his email tomorrow

This picture is from our conversation that went until what, 5 AM? It was great for him to come over and hang out with me when I'm so boring.

Happy Birthday to the best "little biggest" brother ever. I'm glad that I can call him one of my best friends, because there are few people that will fight harder for his family and friends. We are so sad to not even be able to call him on his big day, and that he's so far away. But we are so glad that he's doing the right thing out there in Canada. So we'll share him with that country for a while.

Until then, au revoir Elder Murphy!

Sorry Alyse, I'll do one for you soon too. I just remembered I can post things from Facebook.

School #6

We found another decent program to apply to.

George Washington University in Washington, D.C.! I think it would be so cool to go to a city like that, for obvious reasons. Still willing to go wherever though!

Worth it.

I've been working on the baby blanket for Dane, and it finally got to him in North Carolina. This morning, I got this picture from Alyse...

Maybe it's because I love that boy so much, but it made all that time worth it. I love you Dane!

PS This totally put me as the front runner for favorite aunt. Just saying.

We have a list of schools!

Brandon and I have been talking for a while about PA School, and had many different ideas of how we wanted to get to that point. Luckily Brandon talked with someone who knew what they were talking about, who said that a Master's of Nursing program would not benefit him going to PA school much. As a result, we have narrowed it down to 5 schools:
Pacific University- Oregon
Salus University- Philadelphia
University of California, Davis- Sacramento, California
University of Charleston- West Virginia
Baylor- Houston


We thought of other schools as well (Arizona, UC Denver, University of Washington, U of U, Duke, etc.), but they have prerequisites that would keep up in school for a year longer. As it is, some of the programs would start in January of 2014, and some would start in September of 2014. So we're a ways off from getting started, but I'm still excited! I will keep the list updated. I have my favorites, but I'll keep those to myself before we know where we're going.

Couple of Frivolous Updates

I've had absolutely no desire to blog lately... probably because my computer crashed and I lost everything that wasn't uploaded to my external hard drive. As a result, I don't know what to do with the pictures on my camera. In addition, I am in a 4 credit class doing 6 credits of work; my student teaching is now a month longer than it was this semester; and I'm just a little bit overworked. But, I will indulge with a couple stories.

I love my Kindergarten class. I'm there two days a week, and they're just the greatest kids ever. I have a boyfriend there, who loves to talk to me all the time. He's super cute, and Brandon is only a little bit jealous.

The other day in Kindergarten, I was with some kids at recess and they told me to swing across the monkey bars. I got up (they were pretty high up, my feet were off the ground), and tried to swing to the next bar. I quickly realized that I couldn't do that, and pretended that I wanted to jump to the ground. The kid after me got up and swung across the bars with no difficulty. I was quite ashamed of my athletic prowess at that point.

 In other news? We went to a Halloween party last night. Brandon said we could dress up what I wanted to dress up as for Halloween this year, and we had a hard time coming up with a costume that was easy and cheap. I really wanted to do Pikachu and Ash from Pokemon, but this is what we ended up coming up with:

We were at a Halloween party... we're not that weird that we dress up 2 1/2 weeks early. This was great because I only had to buy the hat for my costume, and then we got some cheap sweats and covered them with fabric. By Halloween it will be a better costume, with an udder and horns.
Another story... poor Murphdog tore his ACL. I didn't even realize it could happen to dogs, but it did. And the poor guy had to have surgery... this is the picture my mom sent me.

 We're praying for a quick recovery, he's so sad!
We had a wonderful Conference weekend last weekend, which I will talk about soon. But that's all for now!

What a surprise!

My mom sent us a picture today, with a nice note from a certain Canadian mission president's wife. And guess who was in the picture??

We sure love this elder. Only 20 more months!

Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Last night, Brandon and I had the chance to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir perform live. For students, the tickets were $6 each. It was a pretty great experience.

 Our seats brought us this close to it.

Brandon dressed sharply for our date night out.

We had Lloyd Newell, the announcer for "Music and the Spoken Word", announce the songs to us. He said he had been with the choir for 22 years, and I thought, "That's a really long time!" Then I realized that was how old I was.... ouch.

The guy who sat behind us kept singing pretty loudly along with the music. I learned that if I turned my head a little bit then I couldn't hear him.

They sang a lot of songs, and it was great. Some highlights were "Welsh Hymns", "Music of the Masters", "American Folk Hymn and Spirituals", and some international songs of "rejoicing" from Russia, Spain, and Nigeria. The Nigerian song was crazy, not what you expected from the MoTab. They then sang some classic American showtunes. "Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep", "It's a Grand Night for Singing", "Sunrise, Sunset", THEN the surprise of the night was the organist breaking into this stunning rendition of "I got Rhythm". Seriously, he was all over the place. He played better with his feet than I did with my hands. The final song from that category was "Seventy-Six Trombones", which of course was great.

Their final category was signature hymns. They sang "Come, Come Ye Saints", which was so beautiful. I got a lump in my throat from listening to it. Then they sang their famous arrangement of "Battle Hymn of the Republic". It was so great to hear the songs live that I listen to on my iPod all the time. Then, they encored with "God be With You 'til We Meet Again". That was when the tears really started to flow. It was so powerful, and reminded me of Austin. I had a hard time getting myself back under control.

I think that if you ever have the chance to go see them live, do it! It was beautiful and I am so glad I got to go.

Yes, that's a leather jacket. TARGET!

Kids Say the Darndest Things

More quotes, this time from Toddler Lab:
Me: "Hey look I made a pirate Potato Head! Arrrrr!"
Girl: "Arrr! Me hearties!"

Me: "Look it's an owl! Hooo Hoooo!" (showing the owl swooping and diving)
Girl: Walks over to a boy who's crying and says: "HOOOO HOOOO! CRASH!" And throws the owl on the ground.

Me: "Do you want crackers"-- signed "cracker"-- or banana?" (signed banana)
Girl: "Now you're just being silly."
(the best way to get this is to see how banana is signed. You hold up one index finger, and use the other hand to "peel" the banana)

Girl: "Hi what's your name?"
Me: "Camille, what's your name?"
Girl: "No, your name is PinkPurple Lipstick! And I'm Mom, I'm in charge of you!"

I loved my little kids.

Dane

Alyse had her baby! I can NOW finally say I'm an aunt! He was born on September 15. Couldn't be more excited for the little family. He was 7 lb 12 oz (good sized baby) and 20 1/4 inches long. They decided to name him Dane (after Dana, and Tommy served his mission in Denmark) Gregory (after Tommy's dad) Leininger. I know everyone else is stealing pictures from Alyse and Tommy's emails too, but I just wanted to document this.

My mom says he's advanced for his age after opening his eyes so much... it's already begun.

We are all already obsessed with him. It's surreal to see that baby and know that it's a part of our family, as close as it is to being our child (without actually being our child). Grandma Murphy (Mom) is on her way now to see them and help Alyse out. We can't wait to meet him in December!