Half Birthday!

I know what you're thinking. Why would anyone celebrate their half birthday? Well, it's because of the half cake of course!

I heard this idea from somebody in my life, a few weeks ago, but I just don't remember who. Whoever it is, you know who you are. Thanks for the idea! I just made a regular cake and then cut it in half, and stacked it on top of itself. But I DID have to cut the top off first (so it was flat instead of rounded) and I was so very proud of my amazing flat cake top that I took this picture.

I left a little piece so you could see how perfectly I cut it.

The only catch about this cake was that I don't own a circle cake pan. And you can't make a half SQUARE cake because then it just looks like a regular RECTANGLE cake. But luckily we have this circular springform pan which I stole from my dad. I put shortening all around the bottom of the pan in the crack, and the batter didn't leak out. I'm not really sure if it would have leaked even if I hadn't done that. Better safe than sorry though!

So we had half a party to celebrate half of James' 25th year of life. Of course he thought he was so very funny to greet me with half a kiss when I came home. Then I told him he could do half the laundry. Just wait until his real birthday!

Fourth of July

The Fourth of July! It was so long ago. (A month and a half ago? Ugh.) But, I still must write about it because James took these awesome pictures, and last Fourth of July he forgot his memory card, and we didn't have any pictures, so this year we must remember!

But first the hike. We went up to Stewart Falls with our friends Dave and Tia and Candace (Dave's sister).

SQUIRREL!!!!

James needs to take more selfies.....

Stewart Falls

I don't know why, but it was a really hard hike. And it wasn't very steep. I was glad to get to the waterfall though!!! James, Dave, and Candace climbed up closer to the top of the waterfall, and Dave even went underneath it. It was funny to watch.

After the hike it was a pretty laid back day. Sadly I had worn my patriotic outfit on the hike, and after the hike, it was too gross to wear. So we just hung out until it was fireworks time and then we walked down to the Marriott Center and sat on the steps.

We had a pretty good view, other than the lamp post. The fireworks were really great! James is really great too. It was fun and relaxing to be able to hang out together all day.

I think this one was a heart-shaped one.

Sister Missionary

Emily was Called!!!!!!!!!!!!

She opened her mission call on June 18 with our family in West Jordan, so I was just on the phone. She opened it and read it word for word until she got to the country. Then she said "OH MY GOSH!!!" and then everyone began to shout excitedly and I couldn't hear where she was going. It took like five minutes to finally find out!!!

The whole time that she was waiting for her mission call my mom had been joking that she would be called to Boise Idaho. So Emily was SUPER excited when it turns out she's going to Frankfurt, Germany!!!!!!

Here she is with her best friend Amanda, when it first arrived in the mail. (I stole these pictures from her Facebook page, which she just barely created a month ago.)

 You can just see the excitement in her eyes!

Her report date was July 31. We said goodbye and took pictures by the Provo temple. 

Then my family went to drop her off at the MTC. I stole this picture from my mom's Facebook. It is the sweetest!!! I just love how happy she looks. 

"I'm going on an adventure!"

We've gotten 2 emails from her so far. I am thinking of making a blog and putting her letters and pictures in there. Right now she's having a really great time at the MTC learning lots of German and making friends. She's still doing artwork, portraits of her companions that they really like, and she seems to be getting used to the sleep and food schedules. She's also writing loads in her journal, already. She sounds really happy and loves learning and teaching the gospel!

Can't wait to hear more from her.

Goodbye School and Work

Some pretty awesome things have happened but sadly I've been so busy with school for the past few weeks. And when I say I've been busy with school, what I mean is that whenever I think about writing in the Blog, I have a guilty feeling that I COULD be doing homework or studying instead. Plus, there's the fact that James had a lot of pictures to sort through and edit, and that was taking a long time. And how could I post a blog with no pictures? :P

Anyway, the good news is that I AM DONE WITH SCHOOL FOREVER!!!! And when I say I'm done with school forever, I mean that in 4 days I am going to start right back over with Junior High and do it all again.

But I feel great because I turned in my last final exam ever this morning. I felt pretty good about it too. Number Theory. It wasn't nearly as bad as I feared at the beginning of summer. All the exams were take-home, week-long, open-book and open-note. And I actually made it to every single lecture. The joys of summer term.

On Monday, it will be my last day ever working at BYU Independent Study. I worked as a Math TA for more than a year. It was a really great job, but I really didn't get to do as much teaching as I wanted. So I'm glad it's ending and that I get to start student teaching. To commemorate, I am including this picture I drew a few days ago of what I see at work.

I actually just did it for fun, not to commemorate, but I am just so proud of it. I will never miss that blue and orange website, BrainHoney. Nor will I miss Outlook, but I don't think I've seen the last of it. I will miss my coworkers though, they are awesome. 

What do you know, here is a picture of them from Facebook:

Anyway, this year has been really great and I'm so happy school is over. I'm super duper excited for student teaching. James will be going back to school on September 2. I wouldn't say he's excited, exactly, but... It won't be too bad. He'll only be taking 3 classes, because they are all pretty hard. Geomorphology, Groundwater, and Calculus 1. Here we go!!! :)