Hellooooo!

Wow. Thank the heaven's above that the Comcast guy finally showed up today to get our internet hooked up. That's a relief. So we moved into a darling house that we are loving. Let me tell you...it is old. Like 60 or 70 years old (the exact date is unknown). We are working with a company called Homes in Transition and it is marvelous. We are basically partners in trying to get this home sold. So, here's how it works:

1. Move in.
2. Stage the apartment to make it look amazing
3. Get out of the way during showings.
4. Pay $140 per week in rent.

Brilliant.

So, I've spent the last three days playing home stager/interior designer (remember how I studied that in college for a quick second? This is a dream come true.)

We are having the best time having so much space! This house is possibly three times as big as our first apartment. It is incredible. We have a two car garage, a front yard, a back yard with a covered patio, three bedrooms, and two bathrooms.

Now, for the sake of memories let us also note that this swamp cooler isn't even blowing enough air to blow up a balloon and the kitchen sink won't drain because some crazy person poured white paint down it sometime before we moved in. I have been scrubbing the hardened paint off of the sink for the last three days. Lets hope Drain-o works some serious miracles. Oh ya, and there's no door on the bathroom in the master bedroom. Haha! Hello!

I will finish up with the staging tonight and then the professional comes in tomorrow morning at 9:30 to make sure it looks how it should. Timing is perfect because MOM COMES TO VISIT TOMORROW!!! And...drum roll...DAD COMES ON FRIDAY! I am seriously ecstatic. I have put off the job search and voice students so that I could spend every waking moment with them. I know we've only been gone for a little over a week but separation is no good. Aren't I lucky that my parents would come a visit so soon? I'm thrilled.

Once the final staging is over I will post some pictures of this cute place. We love it and the excitement of the unknown is fun. (Did I mention that once this house is sold we have to move out? Possibly only 2 weeks notice! Homes in Transition will then place us in another home to stage OR we can just move onto something else...I hear there's no better time to buy.)

We'll see :)

p.s. I really like this city.

Welcome to Albuquerque!!!

Oh the joys of living in the city.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Wouldn't you know it? Our third day in our new home we could get a rock through a car window and stolen belongings? City life has officially begun.

But the very best part of it all is what they stole. This will kill you.

One basket.

My mission study journal.

One bag of nail polish.

My sewing machine.

Hopefully they enjoy a nice picnic, join the church, have really pretty fingernails, and sew themselves a dress.

Here's to hoping.

This is harder than it looks

House Hunting is not very fun. We are feeling totally lost, frustrated, and homeless. In many situations we make too much money to qualify to live there but then we don't make enough money to live other places. We are stuck in this really difficult in between place and it's proving to be quite difficult. Difficult? Actually, it's driving us nuts. We have to return the moving truck tomorrow morning at 9. Do we have a place to live? Absolutely not. Will we have to re-rent the moving truck? Absolutely.

Yahoo.

The view from here

So, we made it. We officially arrived in our new home last night at 10 something. For a while there I thought we would never see city lights ever again. I nearly cried when I finally spotted the beautiful city lights of Rio Rancho and Albuquerque. We arrived at a lovely hotel and hardly noticed anything except for the SUPER AMAZING BED awaiting our arrival. We hardly spoke before completely konking out. I had it in my head that we would sleep in to make up for the nearly 12 hour drive but my sweet husband was just so excited that at 7:30 he was wide awake. So much for my plan.

Yesterday, this was my view for almost 12 hours. Yow. If it weren't for the spectacular sunset, I wouldn't have been able to stand it! I memorized Javi's license plate, the trailer license plate, and the words on the Budget truck. Just in case you ever end up on 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' or 'Cash Cab' and need that information, call me when you get to phone a friend. I've got it covered.

This was my view today as Javi made his grand entrance into the Univision KLUZ television station. He was a happy boy. I am so proud of him I can't hardly stand it. I just think he's really cool. I just watched his debut story on the 10:00 news. His was the very first story of the whole night! Yahoo! I'll post the link when it goes online in the morning.

Today, while looking at an apartment, this was my view:

Needless to say, we are not moving in any time soon. It literally ran across the floor of the laundry room while we were doing a walk through. Talk about awkward for the guy showing us the apartment. I had the heeby-geeby shivers the rest of the walk through.

Other views of importance:

We have witnessed the most beautiful lightning storm all day long and some SERIOUSLY loud thunder. It's pretty wonderful.

I saw a sign today that says "Peace. Love. Green Chiles." This place is all about the green chile. Walking through Wal-Mart tonight I must have seen three separate displays of green chiles. I am really excited to eat lots of them and get to know lots of wonderful recipes including this favorite food of Albuquerque.

My favorite view is seeing the smile of my sweet Javi as I get to see his excitement for this new adventure and his new job. I'm so thrilled that he is so happy.

I went to the gym tonight and it was really odd to not be running home to do anything. I couldn't go through my to-do list in my head which is where my mind normally roams during workouts because I don't have a to-do list. It was amazing. Speaking of the gym, let me tell you of my workout goal of Albuquerque. It goes like this:

5 miles a day - 5 days a week

Today I did the first mile on the elliptical followed by 3 miles on the bike and the final mile on the treadmill. This girl has got to get herself moving again. When you take away the cardio of hiking the stairs at BYU and crossing that huge campus along with not taking or teaching any dance classes, the old body starts to to interesting things....for example: it gets chubby. Lovely. It's time to be done with that chubby thing.

So anyway, we have thoroughly enjoyed our first day in our new home. I made sure to find the Temple, the nearest Wal-mart, and Sonic. What more could I possible need?

Goodnight to the ABQ.

Peace. Love. Green Chiles.

Some girls I love

Monday night I got to have my first ever girls night with my lovely nieces. We had the best time while their mommy and my husband moved them into their new apartment. The hardest part of the night was getting all three car seats in the back of my Accord! It was all downhill from there.

We spent our night shopping, eating at Brick Oven (for their first time), playing, and reading stories. It was wonderful for me to get to spend some time with them. I'm so glad that it could happen before the big move.

Our shopping trip obviously included a stop at the Disney Store. We love that place.

Thanks for a wonderful girls night out ladies! xoxo

P.S. Aren't these shirts so awesome?! These are the shirts I made for our Youth Conference which is this weekend. Our theme is "We Seek After These Things" and so we decided on using magnifying glasses as our little symbol. I totally dig the shirts...I really hope the youth do too!

The reason to relocate.

Leaving this place is actually quite difficult for me. Those of you who get to live near your families for all of your lives, I hope you realize how lucky you are. I am going to miss the lively Spaniard Misiego's and I'm going to miss the ever energetic Boothe/Johnson fams so incredibly much. I can only imagine the quiet that awaits me in the ABQ. It won't be quiet while Javi is home but while he's gone every single night, it's going to be quiet. I guess you would like to know why the Mister Javier is going to be gone every night.

His work schedule is 2pm-10:30pm. What a riot, right? The reason for this crazy schedule is because he is the newest 5:00 news reporter for Univision in Albuquerque! He will also be anchoring the 10:00pm news! (FYI: reporters are the people who do stories around town. Anchors are the people who sit at the table and tell you the news.)

If you want to you can click on this link to go to the Mister's website and see why the Mister would receive such a job right out of college! (P.S. this is me bragging: Recent college grads NEVER get to anchor the 10 pm news as their first job. It just doesn't happen. And it is market # 12 in Spanish market rankings! (That was for you Shalyse...you're probably the only one who knows what that means))

I'm so ridiculously proud of him.

So anyway, Javi has got a rockstar job lined up while in other news:

We have nowhere to live and I have no job. Yahoo!

5 more days and the adventure begins.

New York City - July 2011

The Fraser family has done it again! Javi and I were spoiled yet again with another wonderful trip with the Fraser bunch. (Remember this post? Also with the Fraser bunch.) New York City BABY! We arrived on a Tuesday and pretty much ran ourselves to death before Javi and I had to fly out on Friday for a wedding. The rest of the gang stayed through Saturday and what did we miss by leaving early you ask? We missed seeing Daniel Radcliffe (aka Harry Potter) in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". It was really depressing to receive everyone's phone calls and texts to tell us how wonderful the show was and how terrible it was that we missed it. Thanks guys.

Welp, here goes. We stayed here:

(Matthew Fraser and Taralee Larsen, our most recent addition to the travel crew. This was Taralee's first NY experience so we really showed her around. It was fun to have a first timer!)

The first night we arrived, all we wanted was Rosa's. If you've never eaten at Rosa's you haven't lived. It's right by the LDS temple in NY and you MUST go there and eat the handmade guacamole that they make right in front of you. Delish.

(We were trying to be artistic by making hearts with our hands. It didn't really work out. We had to do SOMETHING while we waited for almost 2 hours to be seated.)

Another time killer during the eternal wait for Rosa's was modeling photo shoots. Chloe has really got it down.

The next day, Javi and I headed out early to try and find my sister-in-law Erin. My brother Mark was in meetings all day so we were given the task of locating the SIL so she could hang out with us. 3 hours later we still hadn't found her. It was an AWESOME morning. In the meantime, the rest of the crew was at The American Museum of Natural History enjoying an educational experience. We eventually met up with them and enjoyed many, many things.

We dug for dinosaur fossils:

We almost bought this dinosaur backpack for my first day of my second college degree (more on that later...since we're moving and BYU is here. I'll explain in another post.)

We explored an exhibit about the brain and learned that we must teach our children many languages before the age of 5. We learned that children can pick up any language you hand them if they begin before the age of 5. Done and Done. English, Espanol, and ASL here we come!

(Chloe and Javi are deep thinkers)

The first night was finished off with the musical "Sister Act". Can you say UH-MA-ZING? I would have watched it ten times in a row and never complained. The music: incredible. The set: unbelievable. The cherry coke: priceless. (I kind of decided that I needed a cherry coke for both shows. I don't know what my sudden obsession was with cherry coke, but it happened.)

(Dad, Chloe, Taralee, Javi, Matthew, & Alane in their best Sister Act poses)

(Taralee, Javi, me, Matthew, Erin, and Chloe in confessionals. Group confessionals are the funnest.)

After the show we wandered around Times Square and ran into TONS of mormon.org ads. It was awesome! They were everywhere and super huge! This was one of the smallest ones.

You have the take the typical picture on T.S., right?

While heading home on the subway GUESS WHO I FOUND?!?! HAWKEN VANCE! Talk about serendipity. It was wonderful to catch up and chat as we sweat to death on the subway. Love that guy.

Thursday morning we woke up bright and early to take Tara to some of our favorite places. Everyone else wanted to sleep in so we took off around 7 and pumped in as much as we possibly could over the next 5 hours until the others met up with us. We started at the Today Show.

And luckily for us, there was the most amazing farmers market on Gallivan Plaza! We met a man from Norway who made us a typical Norwegian breakfast of rye bread, butter, cheese, and cucumber. Can I just say how much I've missed the Scandinavian way of eating? It is the best.

We went to Tiffany and Co. where Tara tried on a $50,000 diamond and we drooled over the $500,000 diamond ring. We also went to some cathedrals, Nike Town, Saks 5th Ave., Anthro, Coach, Chanel, and watched a photo shoot for Dior.

But after all that shopping we had to fun really fast to the other end of the island for lunch at Max Brenners. Again, a must stop when in the city. My favorite part? One of my best friends from my growing up years met us there! We ordered real food but the main attraction was the personal s'more roasting station at our table. LOVE!

(Emmy and Javi's first meeting. I had been wanting them to meet for sooooo long. Luckily, she approved....even though it's too late now.)

Graham+peanut butter+mallow+chocolate sauce=unbelievable

We finished off the night by missing the show we had tickets to and bought last minute tickets to "Baby It's You". It was completely delightful. I'm glad it happened this way so we could go see it.

Pictures by a beer truck are sometimes necessary especially when it says:

It was a wonderful trip. We were sad to leave but we were definitely tired.

Until next time New York.

This is a FUN game:

Do you know where this film was based? (I know. I know. It was filmed in Utah but it is supposedly based in________)

Do you know what city this famous fellow is from?

Do you know what city is the highest metropolitan city in the U.S. at 5,312 feet?

Do you know what state is considered "The Land of Enchantment"?

Do you know where this picture was taken?

If you know the answer to any of these questions then you know where the Mister and I are MOVING!

10 days folks.

We are psyched.

(P.S. We are referring to it as THE ABQ. We're on a nick-name basis around here.)

(P.P.S. Details to come.)

The time has come.

As some big changes occur in our lives, I have so much to share but I don't need nor want the whole world to know every detail. Thus it's time to go private. Leave your email if you'd like to continue reading.

Xoxo
The Lady

July 2011

Have I become a monthly blogger? Eek. What is happening to me?! If no one is still following this blog I will understand. No hard feelings. There's just a whole lot to say right now. Just know that this has been a summer of miracles for this little family. First of all, many employment opportunities have come our way in many crazy forms and those opportunities have been opportunities of learning, growth, and love.

The studio that I teach at, On Broadway Academy, was able to fill two huge Broadway Summer Camps. I spend a whole week teaching the wonderful children how to sing, dance, and act and the children spend a whole week teaching me about friendship, kindness, stretching out of your comfort zone, and really going for things. I am so grateful for them. This first picture is just some of the kids from our first camp. They decided to climb in the cubby holes, turn out the lights, and scare me when I walked in the room. They certainly scared me alright!

See the little girl in the third cubby from the left? Blue shirt? One day during dance class she came up to me and said "Will you pull out my tooth?" Her tooth had been loose all morning and it was just driving her crazy. I told her that I had never pulled out someone else's tooth before. She assured me that I'd be fine. I asked her if she needed someone's hand to squeeze while I did it and she said yes which brought all the girls scrambling around and Naomi ended up with lots of hands to hold and squeeze. That sweet little girl was so brave as I wiggled her tooth a little looser and gave it a good tug. Out it came and thus, my first tooth extraction.

During the same week as Broadway Summer Camp (BSC) I was able to be a counselor for the BYU Young Ambassador Camp (YASE). It was such a special opportunity to take a step back in time a few years and be a Young Ambassador again. My years as a YA were completely life changing in many aspects and it was such an honor to be able to relive that a little. I will remember performing the Young Ambassador fireside again during the two weeks of camp as one of my favorite Young Ambassador memories. I think you appreciate it more when you are on my end of the YA experience.

BSC and YASE were wild to do at the same time. I would begin BSC at 10 am at the north end of the valley. I would finish teaching camp and voice lessons between 4 pm and 4:30 pm at which time I would race down the valley to be with my YASE girls by 5 pm. I would stay with them, in the dorms, all night long until I would leave the dorms around 8:30 am, race home to shower and get ready, and go pick up the little girls I was driving to BSC with me and all before 10 am. There wasn't much spare time but who needs spare time anyway?

Here are my girls from the first YASE week. I can't even begin to tell you how much I love these girls. I ended up with an older group of girls which was so relaxing. Our devotionals at night would turn into big discussions in which I learned so much. I really looked forward to that time at night to focus our minds on learning more about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a safe environment would be created in which questions could be asked and personal thoughts could be shared. These girls really were awesome.

This is Laura and on Thursday of that week she had a birthday!

We celebrated with birthday cake, gratitude journals, and staying up late.

My second week of girls were also so wonderful! This week I ended up with the 13-14 year olds. Can I just say something? I had no idea how big the difference is between 17-18 year olds and 13-14 year olds. Holy cow. Talk about a totally different experience. These girls were MUCH more difficult to get to sleep each night and were full of endless energy which served as a harsh reality that I am no longer 14. Thanks to them, I know almost every word to every Lady Gaga song and I can tell you a whole lot about almost all the young men participants at camp. They were obsessed. By the first night they had all decided which YASE boy they were each going to marry and what state they were going to live in. {Nothing like the awkward-family-picture-shoved-in-the-fireplace look.}

On top of YASE and BSC, I was asked to be the vocal instructor for the BYU Theatre Camp. I taught 4 group voice classes which was another HUGE learning opportunity for me. It really was a blast. It's just really weird to think that I am on the instructor end of BYU camps now. How did that happen? If you're wondering if the Mister and I have seen each other recently, the answer is no. Out of 27 nights from June to July, I only slept at home in our bed for 7 of them. Thanks heavens for that one hour in the mornings where I got to see him :)

On much more random notes:

This is Parker. I love him so much. My husband and Parker's Mommy and Daddy (my cousin) played in a very intense kickball tournament over the 24th of July holiday. Parker and I watched from the sidelines very intently. Actually, I watched Parker very intently and Parker watched his ice cream very intently. Anyway, there was a lot of intent watching going on.

Here is the only picture I have from the 24th of July holiday! This is my brother-in-law eating his first funnel cake as we hung out at the carnival in the pouring rain. Nothing like soggy people eating soggy funnel cakes!

Dad wore this head lamp as he mined coal the other day. Oh wait. Dad wore this head lamp as he wrote notes during the YASE camp shows. I nearly died laughing every time I looked his direction. I can't even begin to express how much I love this man. While dad was wearing his head lamp, I was at the back of the theatre doing manicures. I'll be honest, I'll pretty good. I do a mean french manicure.

I did it. I gave into the feather extension trend. What I actually mean is during the Summer Scholars Camp (see previous post) another one of the counselors raided her parents home for her dad's old collection of fly fishing lures (aka feather hair extensions). So, we did them ourselves. For Free!!! Did you know that real feathers can be curled with a curling iron and they hold curl really well? I just keep imagining a duck with it's feathers all curled walking around the pond. Hilarious. Did you also know that women are now ban from buying fly fishing lures in Jackson, Wyoming? All of the women wanting feather hair extensions bought out all of the outdoorsy shops in Jackson of their fly fishing lures which left zero lures for the actual fly fisherman. Also hilarious.

Lyric and I threw a nautical themed bridal shower for our friend Amberly. I just had to show off how simple and adorable the decorations turned out. Almost everyone showed up in nautical attire which made for an adorable group picture which I'm really hoping someone else has because somehow I missed that photo opp.

You're probably wondering what in the world is happening with the Mister. This has been a summer full of odd jobs and job interviews. Big news coming soon!

Are you still reading this? You are awesome. There's another long one just around the river bend so stay tuned.