A little Radiohead love...

Dean and I at the concert last week!

It's official!

You're now reading the blog of a Wildcat grad student. 

In case you were wondering. 

In May of 2012 I'll begin my first classes in the 

Information Resources and Library Science MA program.

Send your library questions this way people! 

Laissez les bons temps rouler!!

Or, how to throw a stellar mardi gras fete in nine easy steps!!

Step One: Find some inspiration at the best store ever.

Step Two: Create some killer invitations.

Step Three: Collaborate with this party-goddess.

Step Four: Decide upon a delectable menu of red beans and rice, New Orleans style bbq shrimp, baguette slices, a cheese plate, grapes, olives, cheese sticks, mini lemon ice box pies, and of course homemade King Cake!

 Step Five: Create a photo booth by setting up a sheet as a backdrop, placing the camera on a tripod in timer mode and providing a basket with plenty of mardi gras themed props.

Step Six: Borrow a white board and play mardi gras themed pictionary with large mardi gras beads for prizes. Terms should be a mix of easy and challenging with words like parade or French quarter followed by zydeco, hurricane, or beignets.

Step Seven: Set the stage. Blast some great blues, jazz, or zydeco music via Pandora or your own itunes mix. Use mardi gras themes picks in everything. When in doubt, add a pick. Set up a welcome station where guests can grab a mask and some beads, as well as use this key to find their very own blues name. Provide nametags and purple, green and gold sharpies to write the names on.

Step Eight: Wrap homemade pecan pralines in purple cellophane, tie a mardi gras ring to the package with goldeny yellow ribbon, and give away as party favors when guests leave at the end of the night.

Step Nine: Let the good times roll at your very own mardi gras celebration!

What are your plans for Mardi Gras? 

Best Birthday Ever

So my family is basically amazing.  Not to sound like the kind of blogger that Seriously So Blessed makes fun of or anything, but yesterday I totally had the best birthday ever.  My sister Lacey threw me a surprise party for my 25th birthday!  Not only was I COMPLETELY surprised...shocked would be more accurate...the party was mucho fun as they say.  Luckily Lacey and I are basically the same person so she knew exactly what I would like.  I should add that she collaborated a great deal with the rest of my familia and even her best friend Alisha who is equally adept at throwing fantastic parties.  (Check out her son's recent Lego party- so fun right?!) I'm still not sure how she and Dean were able to keep the secret, but much thanks to them and to Bille and Logyhn for all their hard work and clean-up support, as well as everyone who showed up to help celebrate. And now on to my sister's amazing talents!  Check out all this cuteness!!  (Sorry for the pic quality, these were all taken on my phone as I didn't think I had any reason to bring my camera!)

Catch-Up

Well it has been a very busy end to the Summer and start of the school year at our house, which is why we haven't posted in so long!  After July 4th we were able to go to Newport Beach, CA with my Dad's family and spend time relaxing and enjoying the beach.  It was very fun and a much needed vacation.  Then I was able to stay a little longer and spend time with my sweet mamacita which was also so fun!  We ate delectable ice cream treats, cooked breakfast together, went to the beach, went to some excellent book stores and had an all around good time.  After getting home from that, we were able to spend some time with Dean's parents and sister Lynne.  It was way fun!  Lynne and I were able to go see a fun movie and also eat some delectable ice cream and sorbet from the best place ever. We were sad to see Lynne go but excited for her because a sweet vacay in the Bahamas was in her near future!  Later that week Diana came down to take the AZ bar.  We are sure she aced it, and after she took it Rod also flew down for a few days of birthday fun.  We were happy to get to see John and Haley at their reception down here in AZ.  Do you see what I mean by busy now?  And I'm not even through yet! :)  At the end of July we found out that my grandpa is not doing so well and doctors discovered that he has a tumor in his brain.  I feel lucky to live so close because I've been able to drive down to Tucson a few times to see him.  My mom, little brother and sisters have also been able to go down and it was neat to spend this time with my grandparents. One fun thing we got to do was have dinner at Lerua's for my grandma's 80th birthday.  My sister surprised her by ordering a tres leches cake, which we all devoured despite being full of guacamole, green corn tamales, beans and horchata.   Then we went to a football scrimmage at the UofA with my grandparents.  My grandpa was able to tell me about a time when he played in that stadium during his high school days at Tucson High.  It was a fun evening and great to spend time with family.  Finally school started and Camp Zoo ended for Dean.  Dean was called into jury service but was released after a few days which he was grateful for.  School has been going well, I'm co-teaching this year which means my classroom has two teachers in it all day except for one period.  It has been a really good experience so far.  My partner teacher had a staph infection and was out all last week though :( and I can't wait to have her back!!  I thought handling 39 kids by myself all day would be fine, but I was so wrong! lol- Never before have I looked forward to a Monday, but this week I definitely am!  Sorry no pictures but I will post some picture-heavy posts soon!!

Happy 4th!

Wishing everyone a happy 4th of July tomorrow! We hope you'll party it up with lots of flag-waving, fireworks, and delicious bbq!  We'll be having our annual soiree in the evening, but we sure miss all our old pals who used to celebrate with us in front of our first lil' house in Provo.  Much love to everyone, we'll certainly be thinking of you tomorrow!

Eeek.

And now I remember why I never changed my name four years ago.  Well, at least one of the reasons I never did.  Just looking at this list makes me want to vomit.  Why are there so many fees?  Why does it have to be so complicated?  Why will this take weeks to actually finish?  Why will I not be able to travel in the interim?  Why will I now have to change junk with our car, house, insurance, etc? Why did I want to do this in the first place...