birthday boy

It's been a while since I posted anything. And to be honest the only reason I am now is because I've already procrastinated my homework with pinterest, facebook, and instagram. The only thing left was my blog.

I'm really not in the mood to even do this right now but anything is better than writing a lesson plan on the desert. Nothing really epic has happened to us lately. So I will give you a rundown on what our past few weeks have been like.

Cris and Jason came to visit us and we got to have dinner with a bunch of friends. It was SO nice to be around all of them! We had fun with Cris and Jason and listened to conference.

Trent works 3 days a week from 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. M,W, F

Ouch.

I usually wake up on those days to him kneeling on the floor next to me holding my hand and saying our morning prayers. Then he kisses me goodbye and I'm out! I wake up an hour later looking for him and realize what I thought was a dream had really happened.

Then he has classes everyday until about 5. He also plays football and basketball so we have two games a week at least.

I student teach every day. It's fun. Exhausting. Adventurous.

We went to Montana to visit Brody and Hanni and we got to go to a football game there. It was good to visit them and see Montana. It was a lot prettier than I was expecting.

We finally had a weekend to ourselves after that and we spent it grocery shopping and doing homework.

This past weekend we spent our Friday night at my school carnival. We brought our Kinect and had it set up for the kids to play Wipeout. HILARIOUS.  Trent and I were rolling on the floor laughing a few times. We were pretty tired after that night and as we drove home I could tell Trent was bummed about something. I asked him what was wrong and he said nothing.

He is so funny.

He thought I had forgotten about his birthday.

I had my mom buy his gift with her card so he couldn't trace it by looking at our account. I kept telling him what he wanted was too expensive and he didn't need it. He took it surprisingly well for a while until it was the night before his birthday and we were sitting at a carnival and I asked him what I should get him.We even went into target and sportsman's looking for ideas. The whole time I was praying he didn't get anything because we couldn't afford both but i didn't want to ruin the surprise! He didn't thankfully.

So we got home from the carnival around 10 and I decided I needed to cheer this boy up. I did my best to sneak out of the house while he was doing homework and went to the mailbox praying that his present had arrived. It did! I trudged my way back through the snow and knocked on his door. He said "What"

I said, "Can I come in?"

He said, "Yes.."

I walked in with his gift behind my back and said, "I was wondering if you would hate me a little less if you knew I got you this!"

BAM.

Whipped that bad boy out and he was smiling so big.

Then I got in trouble for making him think I was a bad wife who hadn't gotten him anything. haha! It was an otterbox case for his ipad he's been dying to have for months.


He has been a happy camper ever since. We spent his birthday lounging around most of the day and eating cupcakes and taking naps....and homework of course.

only 6 more weeks of student teaching....

I think I can....I think I can...

It's not every day...

....you almost burn your house down. Oh wait, for me it is. For those of you who know me well you know I have a history of house fires. Well, the other night I was craving some popcorn and Trent and I were about to watch a movie so I threw some in the microwave hit the "popcorn" button and ran upstairs to change into my pajamas. BAD IDEA.

Mini bag of popcorn + "popcorn" button =  death.

           

I came downstairs and saw smoke coming from the kitchen. I opened up the door and a plume of smoke hit me right in the face. Then I yelled something like "oh, no" or something else... and Trent came running down the stairs to see our whole kitchen and living room covered in smoke.

did our smoke alarms go off? No.

Do they go off after I open the bathroom door after I have showered or if i am boiling water on the stove? Yes.

Needless to say our house smelled like burnt popcorn for the next few days....and i didn't feel like popcorn so much anymore.

Trent started school this week and it's going to be a difficult semester for him. He has a ton of hard classes but he is a trooper and studies way more than I ever had the patience for! So far student teaching has been great. I feel like it's easier than being a college student! The students in my class are all really good and my teacher is really good to work with. I taught a lesson on the layers of the earth and found this idea on pinterest and just happened to have a plethora of play-doh in my teaching box. The kids were amazed by it and asked me if they could touch it. haha. They crack me up!

I also taught a lesson on pangea and one girl in my class is convinced it didn't happen. She was so mad! I had my first observation from the University this past Friday and it went well. :) I always get sooo nervous for those!

Trent and I have been wanting to go hike the R mountain and we finally did last week. I was surprised how steep it was! I was huffing and puffing the whole way up! It was really pretty at the top though.

This weekend we decided to go play tennis on Friday night because we are slightly addicted. So we went and played a few games, went to go get in our car and it was booted! NOOOOOOOOO!

That was an expensive game of tennis.

Then we went home Saturday morning for Jaren's reception. We got to spend time at Trent's house and played some football with Dillon. He is a miniature Trenton. They were hilarious together. Here are some action shots....

After that we went golfing with my dad. We have him addicted now :) I got par on a hole finally! Then we went to the reception and saw Jaren and his happy wife! they were cute together.

That night we went to my house and ate pizza and watched the byu/utah game with my ma and pa. It was nuts. and really frustrating. I sat there imagining how angry Kalli was. HAHA!

Now we are back in Rexburg ready for another week to come and go!

Spoiled

Sorry to keep you waiting in suspense for so long about the burlap curtains...i know..you haven't been able to think of anything else this whole time. But they turned out! Thankfully! I just used stitch witchery to put them together because I was afraid of sewing burlap. And I took Joelle's advice and didn't measure and guessed my way through it. :) Here's the finished product!

It's been a while but since we left Oklahoma we have basically been on a month long vacation...We have been soooo spoiled! Mostly because we got to spend all day everyday with each other. What more could you ask for?

As soon as we got home Sadie got married. It was so fun to see everyone and Sadie was a gorgeous bride. After her wedding Trent and I didn't know what to do with ourselves because for once we had no plans. It felt so good.

So we went jet skiing, golfing, rode bikes, made some decor for my mom, and kept my dad busy because my mom went on vacation with her sisters.  We also got to spend a lot of time with our nieces and nephews. We missed them so much this summer! Terrel asked me if i was burnt...I said no.. and he said..."oh so you're half mexican like me then?" hah!

Coy and Katie

Skylee has so much energy it's unbelievable but she is dang cute!

his shirt says..."This guy is a ladies man" totally true.

Hanging out by the horses...

We thought Trent might go back to Oklahoma and sell for a couple of weeks so we moved into our apartment pretty early so I wouldn't have to do it on my own. He didn't go back. He couldn't leave this for two weeks! :)

In front of Olympic Park in Park city....we will never have a picture without the sun in our eyes...

We got all moved in and then went down to Park City for a quick getaway before I had to start student teaching. My car was in the repair shop so we got a rental car...(this was all they had)

 An updated version of a geo metro...the Mazda 2. It's pretty sad when your car only takes up half a parking spot. We lost it so many times because it's impossible to see until you are standing next to it....it made for some good laughs.

We went shopping at the outlet mall there and found some great buys! Then we met up with Cris and Jason for a fun day at 7 peaks and then got to go to dinner with Karee and Josh too! It was a really good weekend.

The goofs

Missed this girl big time while we were away!

Too long since we have all hung out together!

More goofs...

Then real life began :( BOO

I was so nervous to start student teaching. I HATE being judged. Student teaching might as well be titled..."the final judgement"

 I went to the orientation and they said "Think of this as a 16 week interview"

That was supposed to make me feel better?

I can't think of anything worse!

My goal for the next 3 months is to keep the stress levels down. I'm a perfectionist and I want to put 100% into every lesson. Can't happen! So i'm focusing on doing what I can and letting the rest work itself out. And not caring what others think about me because i know that i'm doing my best. WAY easier said than done but i'll try!

My teacher is really nice. She does a lot of things in her classroom that I want to do which is nice.  I had a week of inservice with the teachers and then this last week the kids came to school. I already love them! It's so fun to get to know each of them and have experiences that make me laugh so hard inside I can hardly stand it.

My favorite quotes from this week....

You're married? You don't look that old.
You are short Mrs. McKenzie!
Mrs. McKenzie how old are you? (me) Guess...  Them (16!)       
Halfway through the day...Mrs. McKenzie can I go home?

My favorite...During a fire drill

Mrs. McKenzie are we going to have a fire drill every Monday?
(me) No... and it's Thursday...
Oh yea...

My teacher also plays the chipmunks CD. It has "All my single ladies" on it and I almost died laughing when I saw a boy in my class dancing and singing to it when he thought no one was watching.

Tuesday I have to teach a lesson on self confidence...how to you teach that?

Believe in yourself kids...the end.

Trent...has been a little bored. Chance has been keeping him busy or vice versa at the gym, golf course, and I don't even want to know what else they have done. I heard yoga and I just asked Trent to stop there..

and if you were wondering...he is napping right now of course.

Yes..it's 7:30 at night and he is napping....

I got Friday off and will get tomorrow off from teaching. Such a good long weekend for Trent and I. We have been able to get a lot done including making more curtains, getting a new computer chair so we can both sit at the desk, go golfing, and we tried to go to the fair last night but as we were driving to it in blackfoot a horendous storm was headed our way so we diceded to just eat at buffalo wild wings in idaho falls....which i'm not sure was a better choice. We also bought the game Farkle randomly and have been loving it!

I found the BEST roast recipe in the world on pinterest and I want to share it with you!

http://keeperworthyrecipes.blogspot.com/2009/10/3-packet-pot-roast.html

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All you have to do is mix the packets together, throw the roast in the crockpot and put in a 1/2 to 1 cup of water. BAM best roast I have ever tasted...Try it! The drippings make and awesome gravy to go on top of potatoes too!

Like always, time to wake Trent up and make him take me on a walk :) I made that sound like i'm his dog. oh well...

burlap

Since Sadie's wedding all I can think about is burlap projects. To make it worse we just moved in to our apartment in Rexburg and I feel like I need to decorate everything with wall to wall burlap. Trent won't let me.

So I'm attempting burlap curtains.

Scary.

I bought 5 yards but I'm procrastinating because I'm nervous that I'll screw it up.

Pray for me! If you don't see a post in the near future about my burlap curtains...don't ask. It will most likely be a touchy subject. :)

365 and counting...

We made it! A whole year! It seems like its gone by super fast and we have had a blast. It's funny to think a year ago right now we were sitting at our luncheon in a daze. haha. It would be nice to be leaving to Mexico tomorrow like we did on our honeymoon! I tried to convince Trent that it should be a yearly ritual but it was a no go. Dang.

So I took a short break after writing that paragraph because the perfect blue eyes I married were staring at me asking me to come snuggle while he fell asleep for his nap. I had to....and I NAPPED. Dangit! and no...it was not under an hour. (refer to my last post if you are confused as to why i would be upset)

ANYWHO....now that I am among the living I can do a recap on our week.

Monday- Diving for dollars

Trent's weekly incentive at work last week was if they got over 10 sales they got to jump in a pool of 500 gold coins and keep everything they got...we did this about a month ago and Trent has been perfecting the art ever since..

 I tried to get him diving in but obviously I was too late...

















 Scoping for monies...

 

 This was his pile accumulated. 

So Oklahoma is weird in the fact that I have yet to see a national bank around. Definitely no Wells Fargo...so we currently have 250 gold coins sitting on our counter that we don't know what to do with. Ice cream every day? I know he's going to say no to that one. Maybe we will use them to pay for gas this week since that is all we seem to do these days!

 Tuesday- We mostly worked out and made lunch then went to work. - the pool has been closed since Monday. WHAT! they would choose the hottest week of the summer to do that to us.

Wednesday- We went to return a few items that I kept forgetting to return and we ate lunch at a place called Panera. Supposed to be like Kneaders but was disappointingly not even close! That night we went to a restaurant called On the Border for dinner because we ended up working later than we thought and I was in no shape to cook and we have been wanting to try this place for a while. I ordered something called loaded queso and when I saw it my brain immediately started flashing red lights and screaming HEART ATTACK! So I ate a few bites and called it quits on that restaurant. Trent wasn't too pleased either. SO we decided we were done trying new and would spend our money where we knew we would like it!

Thursday-
Thursday was a funny day.  We went to work and I knew Trent wouldn't be coming back with the car until 9 or 10 that night. A girl I work with told me around 5 that she could give me a ride home. We stopped on the way home to get a few things at the store and then were heading to my apartment when I realized that I didn't have my keys with me. They were locked inside of my house. I knew the management of the apartment complex would already be gone for the day because it was 6:00 by then. I would sit outside and wait but the temps were over 100 degrees plus humidity so I knew that wasn't an option. I live right by a mall so the only thing I could think of was to have her drop me off there and I would wait for 3 hours for Trent to come get me.

I looked down at all the stuff I had with me.....

My purse
the dinner I had packed with me
my water bottle
a grocery bag with toilet paper in it
a baby gift for our friend at work that I didn't want to leave at the office
Trent's ipad

thank goodness for a gigantic purse.

I wish i would have taken a picture. I looked like i had a serious shopping problem while I was carrying a purse that was now half my size around the mall. Little did anyone know there was a full supply of toilet paper in it! :)

I was totally bummed. I don't get off work that early ever and I was stoked that I was going to get to clean and make dinner for Trent for once this Summer.  Most of you know I don't have the best back and so lugging that purse around the mall was starting to take it's toll after hour 1 so I sat and called Trent to let him know he had a foolish wife who needed him to come get her. He was working an hour away that day. So I waited for him to come save me. He met me in the mall and carried my purse out for me because my back was done. Thank goodness for him!

Friday- Way less epic and grateful for it.  We did find out that our friends (the Starnes) had their baby boy and we were very excited for them! I still have the baby gift.

Saturday- Trent went to work and I got to stay home and clean. When he got home we relaxed for a while and then decided to celebrate our anniversary because it was really on a Sunday and that wouldn't be much fun. So we got dressed up and went to dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse. SO good! I have been there twice and I got the Parmesan crusted chicken. It is the best chicken I have ever had.

Here's a picture of some someone made and their recipe....it sounds pretty close to what I ate and i'm going to try and make it! Longhorn uses boneless/skinless chicken which I prefer...but seriously if this picture doesn't make you want to try it maybe my words will. I eat chicken ALL the time and I have never had better! They make this creamy sauce that they put under the Parmesan and it's so delicious!

 Parmesan Crusted Chicken Recipe

 After dinner we decided to REALLY go mini-golfing. We made it to a place about 20 minutes away (and it was actually there unlike last week) We did a round of 18 holes and we both even made a hole in one! 

So stoked I got a hole in 1 I made Trent take a picture....he showed me up a few holes later.

            

The course was supposed to be challenging but it really wasn't....so we decided to make it more challenging by golfing with our eyes shut...through our legs....or my favorite.... I would stand in front of trent and move my feet together and apart and he would have to try and make it through. We had a lot of fun with it even though it was still 99 degrees outside at the time. 

We went inside to the arcade and found our favorite most addicting game. Deal or no deal. WE HAD TO PLAY. It was so suspenseful...

If you look real close you can see the only two cases we had left were the 200 or the 16. The offer was 108 tickets....Deal or No Deal?!?

NO DEAL!

we ended up with 16 tickets.

sad.

But what isn't sad is that we ended up with a sweet plane thingy and some taffy :)

Overall it was a fun night to get to spend time together! Our time at Oklahoma is almost over! A week and a half and we will be enduring the 20 hour ride home....Yay! 

And if you want to know how sweet Joelle is she is practically in the middle of labor and she texts me to tell me she is sorry because she forgot to tell me happy anniversary! Only Joelle....only Joelle. Love that girl and can't wait to see her little baby girl when we get home! Now we are off to see our friends little baby boy....

Casual Napper

Trent is napping right now which means it's blog time for me because I have a love/ hate relationship with naps. I love to take them but if I take one that's longer than an hour (which I can only think of like 4 times in which that hasn't happened) my taste buds go all wacko on me and I can't taste anything for the rest of the day. Ya I know. You think I'm crazy but I'm not! And I also can't fall asleep worth a darn that night. SO for me naps = desperate need for sleep.

 I'm not a casual napper

However Trent is and that is totally okay with me as long as it doesn't interfere with our evening walks or pool time :) 

This week FLEW by. It started out slow with work and I knew it would because we just came back from vacation but it picked up as the week went on. 

Monday-Thursday = pool days-Trent popped his floaty. He cried. I picked him up and carried him home. (okay so most of that didn't happen) You decide.

Friday we had to go get an estimate on our car. Which turned out to be a fiasco. I'll give you the shortened version. 

Insurance called told me where to take the car and pick up a rental car. 

Picked up rental car. -Which made us late for our appointment at the repair shop. 

Repair shop ANGRY!

Repair shop can't fit us in for hours.

We go get chick-fil-a (of course)

Go back to repair shop- they say they weren't going to have the car done for 4 more hours. 

I say- We have work to go to! 

They look at car. 

They say car bad....maybe

?

They say they are booked till September to fix the car. 

We say...Idaho...2 weeks...no go. 

They say SUCKAAAAA!

We take rental car back and drive our little Chevy home. 

Not sure why I started talking caveman-ish there and not sure that was the shortened version but you win a million dollars if you understand what happened. Remember that crazy storm I had to go through with tornadoes a while ago? Well thousands of cars have hail damage (most cars look like the surface of a golf ball) from it and the repair shops are booked forever here now. So we will wait for Idaho to fix our car! 

Saturday- I didn't have to work! YAY! So I cleaned the house which needed it badly and Trent worked till 2. Then we watched 24 which we are slightly addicted to and went to the weekly sales dinner at Charleston's. BEST SALMON OF MY LIFE! 

After dinner Trent and I decided to go mini-golfing just for the heck of it. So I used my handy dandy gps and navigated us there....or so we thought. We landed in the middle of a road next to a Super Target and a Ross. Sick joke!

 So we randomly found a park and took a 5 second walk through it and got back in our car because it was 100 degrees and we couldn't handle it any longer. 

 A walk with my husband is always a little...different.

We stopped and tried to take a picture but the shadows were totally killing them moment....

 We tried to get away from them....and this is the end product.

 Don't we look good!? :)

Then I asked Trent if we could go get some milk at Braums (Tiny Market/ Ice cream place) he said sure and I smiled because I knew if I got him in the Market I would get some ice cream too! 

We ended our night by playing the game of life on our ipad -Brings back so many childhood memories! 

Today we went to church with Trent's mission President because his son was being ordained as a priest. Trent and his son are buddies. Then we went to their house to have dinner and it was Delicoius! They are amazing people and it's so fun to be around them and talk about all the stories I heard about in letters. 

Now I will go wake up Trent and coax him into go for a walk with me :)

good decisions

I have recently been thinking about how lucky I am to have married my best friend. We laugh all the time and enjoy pretty much the same things. shopping, basketball, scaring the heck out of your wife daily. but seriously we do have a lot in common and I think to myself at least daily that I couldn't be happier with anyone else.

Marrying my best friend for eternity-Great decision!

Another good decision we have made lately was to come to Oklahoma. There is nothing like driving 20 hours away from your family and friends and looking at each other and saying well...here we go! It was scary and I'm not going to lie, I did shed some tears after I saw who and what I would be working with. But as always my husband tells me to buck up and just do it! So I am. And it's not as horrible as I was thinking.

Trent has been doing really well selling. He works so stinkin hard and sweats more out in the 105 degree weather with humidity to top it off than I ever knew was possible. The perks? We get to spend every morning together until 2 p.m. basically every day. Most mornings start with a run and then strait to the pool! We have become so close over these past couple of months. At college we were both going 20 different directions all day long and it was a good day if we got to spend more than 2 hours together. It was scary to come here and risk a lot but it has definitely been worth it. Trent's grad school is going to be around $100,000 by the time he graduates so a few extra dollars in the bank is helping us relax and feel like we aren't going to drown in debt over the next 6 years. We may be swimming in it but we aren't going to drown! :)

Coming to Oklahoma-Good decision! 

 Trent found this little nasty on the road. When I say little I mean HUGE GRASSHOPPER!

 We went to watch some horse races. SO COOL! look that their shadows...they were going so fast my camera caught two of the same horse!

We also decided to go home to visit friends and family for the 4th. We missed them so much! It was a good time to be able to see everyone. My family hasn't all been together for a whole year and that time was pretty crazy considering we had two weddings in week! We weren't camping and had delicious dutch oven and played my favorite game ever...catch phrase. If you ever get the chance to play that game with my mom... do it. You will cry because you are laughing so hard.

Everyone is at different stages and it is so exciting. Joe is about to be a mom. Sadie is about to be a wife. Karee, a grandma. HA kidding! ( a budding chef?) Keisha is on a mission. Cris is in the middle of cake making season and is skinnier than my index finger and she thinks dates taste like candy? and Kalli...Miss Kalli is officially a certified teacher! WAY TO GO LADY!

It was reallly hard to come back but once we got back here I was okay because I realized it was only 3 weeks until we moved home!

 Visiting home for the 4th-Good decision!

If you are wondering, I don't always make good decisions. Like telling a cop who hates Mormons that I am a Mormon...or applying the wrong sticker to 100 envelopes, or locking my keys in the car, or taking a break from running a week before I ran a 5k or eating 3 krispy cream doughnuts one day before noon. ( that was before the diet started....or why the diet started.) and accidentally leaving our heater on 80 in our apartment while we were gone to Idaho...ya NOT good. Booking our flights for 6:00 am so we had to get up at 3:45 to make it on time.....i could just keep going! but i won't because then people would think less of how great of a decision maker i am :) (okay so my husband gets credit for most of the good ones)

he still loves me....

You know those times when you get that nasty cold where all you can do is breathe through your mouth and you feel like Darth Vader? Well i'm having one of those times and it's accompanied with coughing, sneezing, and blowing my nose every 5 minutes. and guess what...my husband still loves me! But seriously, I am a WIMP when I am sick so anyone that can put up with me is a winner in my book! and Nyquil is my HERO.

Today was really boring/AWESOME. Trent and I woke up and he had to go to work for 4 hours. Those 4 hours usually fly by on a Saturday and I usually have a million things to do. Not this time. I decided to make a date with the couch and t.v. and try to get over my sickness. Well, that lasted for a while and then I looked at the clock hoping it was almost time for him to come home and it had be 40 minutes since he left. GREAT. So I decided to read a book for one of my classes called reviving ophelia, don't waste your time. It's 300 pages of why girls are so crazy as teenagers. I feel like every paragraph says the same thing. Girls are crazy, during puberty they become crazier, if they make it out alive they become grown-ups.



After I bored myself with that I decided to get ready for the day and Trent came home soon after that. It was such a gorgeous day that I had to get out even though I wasn't feeling too well. So we went on a walk! I LOVE walks! The sunshine was hitting my face and I was holding the hand of the man of my dreams! That's when my day became amazing if you were wondering. Then we went to a ward party and got our bowl on. He won. Shocker. My glory days of high school bowling domination are over. Now we are "doing homework" :) Well one of us is.

The last month has been CRAZY as far as school work goes. I've been teaching my unit that I created on Alaska to my first grade class and it has gone so well. I'll have to post pictures of the things they created during it. They are all so cute! Trent is taking Anat & Phys and a lot of other hard classes so that is ruling his life. He is doing really well though! Such a proud wifey!

Trent got an email that has lit up his life lately. I haven’t stopped hearing about it. Our apartment complex finally decided to move into the 21st century and install wifi in all of the apartments. Every time I turn around Trent is saying, “Guess what, we get wifi!” It will be nice to finally be able to do homework in the same room. 

We went home for the three day weekend and we got to watch our nephews play basketball. They were ballers! Just like their uncle! J We got to have a sleepover with all of them too. That was CRAZY but a lot of fun. Trent is a master fort builder and Coy will kill me with the look on his face if I don’t make him “pink rabbit milk.” I gave him normal milk and he looked like I had just stolen all of his Halloween candy! I laughed super hard and learned my lesson.

 someone is a little into the game...

Oh yea, Trent and I are the nursery leaders in our ward and we LOVE it. The kids are so dang cute and we get to work together which is a huge plus! Aren’t they adorable!?

  2 of them playing dead. Devin is freakishly good at it. He will go limp when Trent tries to pick him up. 

 

Playing with bubbles is the BEST idea ever in nursery. Except sometimes it looks like a wrestling match.

 

Coloring doesn't last long with boys.

They love to pull "teacher" up after ring around the rosey. (don't know how to spell that!)

 

SNACK TIME! -The only way we can bribe them to put the toys away.