What’s REALLY on my mind…

I’m just barely staying above water with this whole school business! I am SO ready for a much needed Spring Break. I feel like I eat, sleep, and breathe school/kindergarteners/ambassadors lately. I’m trying to get everything in order so I have absolutely no worries or obligations during my spring break. However, my mind seems to wander to a few things lately.

These jeans from The Buckle:



I tried them on the other day, came back two hours later to buy them and they were gone!! I’ve had two dreams about them since then. Pathetic, I know. But I do love my jeans!


The next recipe I need to try out:

Peanutty- Caramel Bars!! Looks yummy, no?

Spring Break:


I keep fantasizing about MY end of the state, family, the warm weather, hiking, possibly Vegas, but mostly….the SUN!!

Mission??????



Who, me??? Don't get too excited, I still have NO IDEA! But we shall see!

And of course....
In about 42 days I’ll have to say goodbye to this:


Not looking forward to that one. :(

Overdose, Cake, & Special Visitors

Last week was an interesting one! On Wednesday I woke up at 4:30 am to travel down to Snow College for a recruiting trip with the ambassadors. I had an absolute blast, but I have concluded that waking up that early inhibits my ability to make good food choices... We brought six different flavors of Aggie ice cream…and I may or may not have had a small sample of each flavor…and a larger sample of the ones I really liked. How could I resist such deliciousness? Don’t worry though, I went to the gym that night and couldn’t walk for a good two days after!

On Friday Savy and Dustin came to visit!! Two of my most favorite people in the world, I hardly knew what to do with myself! Friday night we saw a movie, (surprise, surprise) and Saturday we went to the Logan City Zoo!! I didn’t know Logan had a zoo until a couple days ago, and you better believe I was STOKED to check it out. Here is my favorite picture of the day: Congratulations to Darla the Duck for winning best picture of the day!

It was a pretty small zoo, and the poor animals must’ve been cold because I was FREEZING by the end of our little excursion.

Saturday night we witness the USU basketball team win yet another WAC championship! That’s three in a row for us! Aggie basketball games are the best, probably because our fans are ruthless. Seriously. I love it :)

After the game we came back to my apartment and Dustin and I made a cake that I had been dying to try out. Here is what I learned:
Raspberry Lemonade Cake= Heaven.

Sadly I forgot to take a picture of my cake, but this is the same one! And mine actually looked BETTER because I made the frosting look like pink marble!!
I found the recipe in a magazine and Dustin actually told me that he loved me even more because the cake was so good. :) I thought it was pretty good, but I didn't know it was THAT good! If you want the recipe, let me know and I'll do another post. That's all for now folks. Thanks for reading!

Proud To Call This Man My Cousin

Don't worry MJ, after this performance you will always be Mr. Dixie in my heart! :)

It's That Time Again!

Oh hey!!

It’s about time I do an update on what’s been happening in my life lately…I’ll try and keep this short. :)

Aggie basketball games:



Mardi Gras:


So fun! They turned the TSC into a Vegas casino complete with TONS of gambling tables, a hypnotist, air brush tattoos, photo booth, dance party, free give-a-ways, and a fortune teller!
Valentine’s Day:
Was perfect! I got spend the WHOLE weekend with my valentine! What else could be better? We ate at the fabulous Teppanyaki , witnessed a couple get engaged about 1 foot away from us, got tickets to comedy sports, got a huge teddy bear that I can cuddle with for the next two years, accidentally went to a Spanish speaking ward, and attended my roommate’s Valentine party!

Movies, movies, movies!


We love them! One of mine and Dustin’s favorite things to do is go see movies. I'd like to give a shout out to the $2 theatre for helping us see so many movies! Here’s a list of movies we’ve recently seen:

Valentine’s Day
Avatar (twice)
The Book of Eli
Shutter Island
Dear John
Sherlock Holmes
Leap Year
Law Abiding Citizen
The Box
2012
New Moon
Old Dogs
It's Complicated
Did You Hear About the Mogans?
The Blind Side
300 (I had never seen it until last week!)

I'm sure there are more....but you get the idea! Do we sometimes do the "pay for one but sneak into another" thing? Us?...NEVER! ;)


Trip down to sunny St. George:
It was so nice down there! I was able to travel down with the ambassadors and stay the whole weekend. It was so great to see family, friends, some good basketball, the home show, and the SUN!!

Dustin’s mission call!!
Did I really forget to post about this?...oops.
He’s going to DAEJEON, KOREA!!

He leaves on April 21st, I’m super excited that he’s going, but not so super excited about spending two years away from him. I just keep telling myself I’m lucky, I get to be selfish and spend the next two years focusing on me! Bleh. The cool part is that I guessed he’d go to Korea! I had been saying that for about a month before he got his actual call. Savy tries to take credit, but we all know the truth!

3rd Graders=Brutal Honesty

Today in my practicum a very sweet little 3rd grader was analyzing my photo ID. He finally looked up at me and said, “Miss Cooper? You look a lot better in your picture than you do right now.”



He then proceeded to tell me that I was currently trying to look, “Too fancy with your earrings and your necklace.”

I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment to the picture, or an insult to my face?!

I mean come on kid, cut me a break! I have to wake up at 6:30 am to get here each day, and the picture was taken at the beginning of the year when I was still tan and not sleep deprived!

Either way, I love my little third graders and I am SO SAD to be leaving them, but it’s off to the 1st grade for the rest of the semester! I’m sure I’ll eventually fall in love with them just as I have with my 3rd grade bunch, but as for now…I don’t want to leave!

Who would want to leave kids who make me a valentine pouch that looks like this?


Just some of the perks and funny moments of being a teacher :)

Be My Valentine?

Normally I don’t like Valentine’s day. However, this year might be different!

Dustin came to visit me this weekend. (We spent two whole weeks apart which is a new record for us….it was hell!) After a weekend filled with 3 movies, 5 tubs of popcorn, good Mexican food, burnt muffins, sleeping in, church, and trying to take care of school while still spending time with the boyfriend, we had to get back to the real world. I woke up this morning a little sad because he had to leave, but when got in my car to head home from school, I found a mug filled with all my favorite candies in it! And when I got home…

Rose petals, chocolates, candy, teddy bears, a pillow, blanket, and a beautiful card was waiting for me. Why? Because he wanted to be my valentine of course! Yes, he did this just because he was asking me to be his valentine, and No, I don’t deserve him.
As for my real life...

This semester is WONDERFUL. I’m doing my level II for special education and I get to spend three days a week in a third grade classroom. The kids are so dang cute, and I am really getting involved and passionate about what I’m doing. It’s a really good feeling knowing that I am doing (and will be doing) something that I truly love.

The only down side is that I have to get up every morning at 6:30 to get to school by 7:30. After elementary school gets out, I have to go to MY school, so I don’t get home till 6 or 7 pm everyday! (When I don’t work) I am tired and in bed by 10, and with roommates who stay up super late every night, it makes this whole thing called “sleep” a distant memory.

At least I’m enjoying all my classes; I actually get excited to go to school sometimes. I know I know, I am a total nerd, but I’m proud of it!

ALl in all, life is pretty dang good. :)

My Welcome Back

After spending a nice month long break in sunny St. George, what better way to be welcomed back to Logan than to have to walk across this so-called "sidewalk" in order to get to school.



If you are wondering, the answer is yes. I slipped and fell HARD on my tush while attempting to walk across this ice sheet.

The funny thing is, I took this picture before I walked across. I just wanted to show the world what I had to go through to get to school each day. Little did I know, the sidewalk was generous enough to give me something better to blog about.

Thank you, sidewalk.


This first thing I did was look around to see if anyone saw me.



Just my luck, OF COURSE people saw.



One guy said, "Oh man that sucks! You gotta get some shoes with better traction! haha Don't worry it happens a lot around here."



I just laughed, agreed, and thought to myself, "If it happens a lot around here, and this is the first day back to school....I'm screwed."



Apparently I never learned how to walk properly on ice while living in St. George... Go figure!



P.S. My Christmas break was FANTASTIC!! More on that next post :)