It's Us!

What??!!

Melanie actually posting something on her blog???!!! Amazing! I used to wonder how people could go so long without posting something. Well, now I wonder how people have time to post. Our lives have been in major fast forward. It's been crazy wild, but we love our lives!

So here's some quick updates on us. Sorry no pics, I actually left my camera in Boise last weekend.

1-Our Freezer Jam made it into Reams. It's been doing pretty good. We're looking to hire someone to sample it for us every Saturday, so if you want an easy side job - let me know! We're also looking into getting it into Macey's - if we can do that, it gets into 20 associated food stores along the Wasatch Front. Cool! We can't wait for that to happen - we just need some more time to make it happen.

2- My brother Mike, married the most beautiful, fun, nice, sweet woman - Miriam. I got to help put their reception together and had a great time doing that for them. It was such a beautiful day. I love having her and her two girls; Shelby and Chanel in our family.

3-We took a quick camping trip up at Crater Lake. We went swimming in it - the deepest lake in the US. It was so blue and so beautiful. We got to me my brother-in-law's girlfriend, Suz. We had a great time with them. Suz was a lot of fun and is a good match for Michael.

4-I took a little trip up to Boise to help babysit my cute nieces and nephew. We had a fun day on the lake - slolam skiing, wakeboarding, wakesurfing. So much fun!!!

5-I started working full time at Freedom Academy. I love my job! I teach PE to all the K-6 grades. I'm still working on learning everyone's names. It's about 20 classes of about 25 students per class for a total of about 525 students!!! On top of that I am also teaching 4 classes of CTE. CTE stands for Career and Technical Education. AKA everything! It's a 7th grade class. So add another 75 students for a total of 600 students! It's a lot! I get to influence a lot of lives. I love that! So the purpose of CTE is to expose the students to all different kinds of careers that are available to them, and help them to prepare for their careers of their choice. So it includes sewing, cooking, marketing, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, child development, technology, engineering, economics, business. It's a fun class to teach. It's challenging because the curriculum is so wide. We are changing subjects every week to two weeks. It's hard to set expectations and routines. Plus I'm teaching 7th graders - enough said. There are a lot of great kids. There are a few who drive me absolutely bonkers! It's been good.

6-I took a cooking class from BYU over the summer to get my teaching endorsement for CTE. Getting my CTE endorsement will be great job security. A definite plus. I'm currently taking a sewing class at SLCC also to get my endorsement. I should be endorsed by December! Yipee!!! I need 16 credits to get endorsed and I already had 11. I just needed those two classes, so that made things really easy. I've decided sewing is just not for me. I wish I was a lot better at it. At the same time, I'm amazed at how long it takes!!!! We are making a men's dress shirt, and I think by the time we're done with it, I'll have put in over 20 hours on it. And then it might not even fit or look good! I think I'll stick to buying things - it's cheaper, less stress, less work, less time...Although, I do love homemade things. I love the things my mom makes - they are always so beautiful! I love the thought of things being homemade. It makes them sentimental. I love being able to customize things and make them how you want. Maybe I'll stick with it and see if I can improve. I do like sewing better than I used to, so that's an improvement. Honestly though, I'll be glad when I'm done with it. It's been taking a least 8 hours a week. It makes for busy weeks! Hence, my no blogging.

7- Superior Design is coming along nicely. You'll have to check it out - superiordesign.com.
They are bringing in some great clients. They have greatly improved their back end system to make making websites a lot easier, faster, and more efficient. They now have 2 employees, which is really exciting! It's so exciting! We're excited to see it continue to grow. So if you know someone who needs a website or internet marketing - send them our way!

8-Our car broke down in Boise, so we had to leave it there and go up 2 weeks later to pick it up. That wasn't so fun. What a mess! We are so grateful for our cars - especially when they function properly

9- Speaking of cars - I can now roll down my driver's side window (couldn't for 2 years), it's a lot quieter, I can use my windshield wiper fluid, I don't have a perdital. I have a love/hate relationship with car repairs. They are so nice when they are done!

Matthew has been so great since I started working full time. He is so thoughtful and considerate of me. He makes the bed every day now. A small thing that means so much to me. For some reason, my life feels put together if the bed is made. He often does the dishes. One really busy week, all our large plates, small plates, small cups, tall cups were dirty. (We were SUPER busy that week - parent teacher conference week) While I was gone to a RS retreate, Matthew spent 2 hours doing all our dishes!!!! What a huge surprise and relief it was to come home to a clean kitchen!!! Wow!!! That meant the world to me! He gives me many little back rubs. He listens to me vent on hard days. He praises and encourages me. He cleans the bathroom and other things willingly without me even asking. He is the best! When I was working part-time I was happy to do all those things around the house - that was my job. But now I'm working full time he is sharing in the load. I so appreciate that!!!

Well, that's all for now. It's time to do a little relaxing - time to watch some Glee with my honey! we'll catch you up on more Henage happenings soon - hopefully sooner than later.