The light at the end of a tunnel...

...for my little brother Kyle and his wife Stacy!  They both graduated Friday.  It's such an exciting time for them.  Congratulations you guys!!

My parents flew in to town.  Here is a recap of some of things that we did this week.

We went to Tempanyaki's the night before their graduation because we knew everything would be booked the night of.  It's a chinese grill where they make the food right in front of you on a live grill.  It's so fun.  Here's my whole family minus my youngest bro Eric.

Two of my 3 brothers.

This is the only shot I got of Mason and I.  I promise I'm not about to flip off the camera...  Maybe... 

I love Chinese food!

The next day was their graduation.  Kyle graduated in Porteguese and Stacy graduated in Recreational Management.  This is right after he got his diploma in the Joseph Smith Field House.

Here is Stacy looking intense being she's a graduate now.

Kyle doing what he does best.

He love me.

Congratulations you guys!  I'm proud of you both!

PS: I took the blasted Praxis II test on Saturday.  Thank goodness thats over.  So between graduation, studying for the Praxis, and entertaining my parents the weekend was well spent.

Highly Qualified

I have been studying like crazy to take second Praxis test. It's a test that teachers have to take before their 4th year of teaching that officially makes them 'highly qualified.' I haven't studied for anything since the day I graduated and I have to admit it's not my favorite thing to do. It's actually probably good that I had to take this test right now so that I would lighten up on Mason for the days that he doesn't study for the LSAT.

So... I have been studying all the ghosts from my past; namely: Piaget, Vygotsky, Bruner, Dewey, Maslow - just to name a few.

So this time next week I will officially be highly qualified to teach your child. Not quite sure what that means exactly. Maybe it's some right of passage that will grant me more patience in the classroom and more energy so that I won't go home so tired at night. I hope so. Maybe I'll 'glow' a little more when I walk out of that testing center. Whatever it is. It sure sounds nice to be HIGHLY QUALIFIED.

SPRING BREAK!

This is how I am spending my spring break:

I came here:

To get away from this:

This is what I did yesterday:

(What the heck is this picture?!)

While reading this:

This what I was plan on doing today:

While not thinking about:

Spending time with:

Missing:

Coming back on:

Happy Easter!

This is how Mason celebrated Easter.  His gift to me:

Happy Easter everyone!

Chinese Zodiac knows all...

I guess this explains it all...

Now i know why our first year was so hard.  Atleast Mason isn't a boar too...

Rihanna

Recently I have been told that I look like the singer Rihanna.  It hasn't just come from one person... otherwise I probably wouldn't have thought to much about it, but being I have heard it from so many different sources I had to get your opinion.

Sighting #1: Last spring break we went out to Hawaii to visit some friends.  This was the first time I heard that I looked like her.  At that time I didn't even know who she was.  When I got home and did some research I had to laugh, not because I'm racist, but because she's black... and the only thing black about me is my backside - ahem.

Sighting #2:  Last summer when I went to Africa one of the girls had brought a People Magazine with them to read.  There was a whole article on Rihanna.  Everyone in our group decided that I look exactly (in their words) like her and so they proceeded to call me that from time to time on the trip.

Other random sightings have come and gone but the final one that had to make me laugh was one of my fellow first grade teachers, Britta (we miss you!!) from last year told me that I looked like her.

So what do you think guys?  

I always wondered what I would look like if I was black.  :)  

Dear Mother Nature,

I do not naturally complain, but I really don't like waking up and having to scrape this. Perhaps there can be no more snow in April?

It would be deeply appreciated,

Allison