Living and Loving

I love life!!! February has been a great month, what have we been doing...... We started February off heading to District Orchestra Clinic with the middle school kids. We got a real charter bus and that was incredibly exciting for the kids. Once on the bus we headed off to rehearse all day long and have a concert that night. I was so proud of all of them, they worked hard and did a great job.

Then we had an all night party at the High School to help us prepare for the upcoming musical. What did I learn at the all nighter???....That I am way to old to stay up all night long. What did the students do? Well...

They turned the music up in the auditorium and showed of the dances that they learned for the temple dedication.

We rehearsed from 3-4 am. Not the most productive rehearsal we have had but now they can say they have practiced that early in the morning.

We did yoga. At the end when you are suppose to relax and clear your mind they all fell asleep on the gym floor.

Then we had breakfast, which I burned because I was taking pictures of the yoga class, whoops.

I have also had many great visitors this month. Jennifer, James, and their daughter Mary got to come visit. It was fun to see old friends and they brought a great game called Killer Bunnies.

Yep, I am still skiing and absolutely love it. I am getting a little better and a little faster each week. My last trip on the ski bus was the most fun because dad got to come and join me.

We had lots of fun and were getting along fine until he decided we should attempt a little harder hill. A little harder, whatever. It was straight down. I was to afraid to even turn so I side stepped my way down the mountain, and informed him that I loved him much more before he took me on that adventure.

So now that February is coming to an end, I am sure thankful for family and friends, and the great opportunities that I have been able to have this month with everyone.

Ski Bus

I have decided to face a long time fear of mine racing, or tumbling, down the cold mountain on two skinny pieces of wood. I knew that the only way to do so was to jump in all at once. I signed up for ski bus, along with this great opportunity comes free ski lessons once a week. I also have a student whose father owns a sporting goods store so I swapped lessons for ski equipment, and now I am off and running or rather skiing.




One of the other huge benifits of ski bus is that I don't have to drive on the roads. Thanks to our bus driver Karen, who also teaches Math at the high school. She braves the snow covered curvy roads with fog, to get us safely to our destinations. I have let her know over and over how much I appreciate this bravery on her part.

Here are my friends from week one that made sure I new where to go and what to do. They could see the fear in my eyes. I was so scared!!!! So scared that these are the only pics that were taken on week one.

I only fell once my first day of skiing and that was getting on the Magic Carpet, a conveyer belt that takes beginners to the top of the bunny hill. Problem was that once I was down I could not get up and they had to stop the Magic carpet. All the students that were on kept looking down and yelling at me to see if I was ok. Then they lost patience and just got of the Magic carpet, walked up the hill and then skied down past me still on the ground trying to get up. Finally success and I was on my way again. I decided that I just wouldn't fall any more.

At the end of week one what had I learned???

• I needed to have more water and tissues because I got really thirsty and my nose was constantly running.



• I don't care if the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, I always looked for the safest, slowest route, regardless of if I had skis on my feet or not.



• I absolutely love skiing and wish I had not waited so long. I wanted to head back up on Saturday morning.

And so ends week 1.

Week 2-I am so excited to go back up, and not so much scared this time....but I am still a little. I know that today I am going to conquer the ski lift, and ski down the much anticipated "Milk". I also know that my old singles branch is going to up here for an activity tonight and can't wait to see everyone.

When I first arrive I quickly change into my ski cloths and go to meet my ski instructor. We head straight to the Magic Carpet so we can head up the bunny hill. Rember the only fall I had last week was doing this very same thing. In my head I am thinking, "Don't fall, Don't Fall, DON'T FALL!!"

Steps to a succesful Magic carpet ride:

Step 1: Make sure skis are parallel and lined up, scoot onto the Magic Carpet. "Don't Fall, Don't Fall...."

Step 2: Stick ski poles behind me into the Magic carpet and then ancore myself so that I do not start sliding backwards. "Don't Fall..."

Step 3: Enjoy the ride. "Yeah, I did it!!!!"

Once I had one success I was well on my way to a terrific evening. Here is a video clip of me coming down the bunny hill. Enjoy, and notice the graceful way in which I turn, ha ha.

Click here to watch me ski!

Come and join me, we can race down the mountain, I am not afraid to lose :)

My Wonderfully Relaxing Christmas Break

I woke up on my first day of Christmas Break really excited to go skiing, but I didn't have a camera to capture the wonderful event for posterity. I decided I would run to Walmart to get a camera, and hurry back to teach a lesson. An hour and 15 minutes later I had barely shovelled out 1/8 of my driveway and sidewalk. I still could not get out of my garage to get to Walmart. I had to give up shoveling to teach a private lesson, and my hope of getting a camera that day. No pictures of me tumbling down the hill this time.

As the lesson was ending I heard a great noise outside and low and behold the best home teacher ever had come to rescue me!! It took him minutes to clean out my driveway, I was so amazed and very grateful. I need to get me one of these for sure.

The ski trip was canceled due to all the snow closed roads, no camera no problem.

I was able to get out of my driveway and make it home for Christmas, which I spent at my sisters home. Santa knew exactly what I needed and I received this beautiful camera, and a pink tool kit.

After opening presents we proceeded with the next Christmas tradition: Dad makes omelets for everyone, yum! This is one of my favorite holiday traditions.

Chloe even had a little Christmas fun, and my niece and nephew were so kind to feed her everything they did not want to eat off of their plates.



During my break I also got to visit friends, help hang shelves,

and make pecan fudge with my grandma on her birthday. This is the best fudge ever. I am posting the recipe so that you can all give it a try.

1 tall can of evap mild

41/2 cups sugar

1/3 margarine

cook 6 minutes full boil, take off heat, add 3 pkgs chocolate chips and two pints marshmallow whip, 2 cups chopped nuts. Stir until smooth and turn into a pan until cold, then cut.

Yum Yum.

Overall a great break visiting friends and family. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season too. Happy New Year.

'Tis the Season, What about the Weather???

It is time for the Holidays, and I got my very best Christmas gift a little early. My Grandma Cook has moved in with one of my Uncles and gave me her piano. I am so happy to have it and can't wait to get it tuned so that it will sound as good as it looks.

I once again was given a live Christmas tree by loving neighbors, and enjoyed putting that up when I got home from Thanksgiving in my Music Room to welcome all the students back and get them in the mood to play at Festival of Trees. To bad I still don't have my own camera or I would post pictures from our performance. Everyone did a great job, I was so proud of my cute students. They are wonderful!!

Here is the real news of the season. Mindy and I are still walking outside. Temperatures are still high enough that we can enjoy our morning walks outside. This is our second year walking this route at 5:00 in the morning so I thought I would give you a little glance at what our mornings are like.

I wake up happy and ready to go....ok well i wake up and get ready to go. I hate to wear hats so thus the bear head. As you will soon see Mindy is not afraid of layers, I credit her Mission for this.

Here is Mindy on the same morning layered up and ready to go. As we walk the layers will come off, one by one because she always dresses for the worst and then gets hot, lol, it cracks me up. I am laughing even as I write about it.
After walking past Mindy's we round the corner and pass one of the many Churches in the area. Please notice the Manger and still no snow!!!
We continue to walk many many blocks and past many many houses and round our last corner at the Catholic church. Here is our last corner marker....

and as we finish walking on December 4th I still wonder how it is that there is no frost on the windows or snow on the ground, but truly enjoy the fact that I am still walking outside because I would much rather do that then walk inside any day.

I have been tagged....

I have been tagged, which in the blog world means I have to finish a bunch of statements and let you all know exactly who I am...and my deepest darkest secrets. So here goes and I hope you still like me at the end :)


I am a child of god, and and glad that I know this is true. I want everyone to know that this is true, it is a great comfort and guide to me and I am very thankful that I know this.

I have a dog named Chloe and she is a papillon. She loves to have lots of attention and love and to get her hair done. She also likes to go to Four Paws on Tuesdays and Thursdays to play with all her other doggie friends. I dislike it when she attacks the door with her "I am going to kill you" bark. We are working on this and hope that it will soon be resolved......HOPING HOPING HOPING!!!!

I miss Logan. I lived in Logan for four years and still love it. I love the mountains, the canyon, and the shops. I miss my really good roomates and friends that I had there. I love it when I hear from them or about what they are doing. You guys are all awesome!!!

I feel tired, satisfied, and happy most of the time. I can usually be found teaching violin. I love my job but sometimes I forget that their are other things in life that I can do. I posted some of the things that my students and I have been involved with.

Twin Falls Temple Youth Cultural Celebration. We practice for months and when the time came they could play and dance at the same time, which is way more then I could ever do.

Private lessons in my teaching studio, which is a huge room in my house that use to be a garage. It is perfect for what I need. I can use it for private lesson or it can also hold lots of kids in their at once for group lessons, which are held once a month.
Do fundraisers to help my students raise money for our fun fun trips. This year the high school is going to Disneyland and the middle schools are going to Lagoon.

Car Wash(above) and Cowboy Dinnner(below)

I smell very poorly (ok this statement sounds totally wrong....I personally smell really quite good, but my sense of smell is bad). I really do not have a very good sense of smell. I blame it on a series of very bad sinus infections, but that may be to much information.

I crave chocolate in all shapes and forms.

I wonder and I worry about my future. I hope that I will be able to continue to support myself, and have money for retirement and health care. I worry that I will be old and alone. I am scared that when I am old and need love, support, and extra care that no one will help me because they will have their own family members to worry about.

I wish that I could loose weight but still eat chocolate :)

I'm happy most of the time. I love my life, my friends, my family, my job. I believe that happiness is a choice. There will always be challenges but we always have a choice in what kind of an attitude we decide to face our challenges with. I regret that sometimes I forget that I know this great advice and choose just to cry about it.

Well there you go. Now you know way more about me then you ever wanted to. I have actually learned a few things about myself that I need to work on...mostly my addication to chocolate. Now it is my job to tag someone else so I am going to tag my Mom. Good luck mom, can't wait to read all about you.

The Cowboy Dinner

Yeah it is over and it was a success so let's move through the evening backward (only because I loaded the pictures in the wrong order....whoops). Here I am at the end of the night. The dinner is over and I am happy because it went so well. No major disasters or problems, everyone enjoyed the food and the entertainment so that was a great relief, but mostly I am happy to take off my boots and put on a comfy pair of flip flops to start the clean up.

This year we used 42 bails of hay, lots of scarecrows, 9 cornstalks, 31 tables with cowboy boots and hats, and feed 250 people. We had enough food for people to get seconds and the kids did great serving the food. There was a choice of luau pork or bbq chicken and both I heard were very good.
As a pre-show I had my little private students serenade the tables with their favorite fiddle tunes. They were so brave and really the highlight of the night. Way to go guys!!!

Here are all the cute cowboys and girls out in the hall waiting to go in and perform for the hungry crowd.

Before the show we had a dress rehearsal so that everyone could get use to playing in the gym, great acoustics...ok not really. It is very difficult to play in there because of the echo but they adjusted quickly and did great job when the show went on.

I could not do any of this without my family and parent committee. They were a huge help getting the food organized and ready, so that I could work with the music and any sudden problems that should come up. For some reason this night everyone was missing their bows or their music yikes, don't worry we found everything in time for the performance. I love teaching!!! and the sudden surprises that always occur.

I even got help from Karson and Kambree. I think they just wanted to eat the brownies and the candy off the tables.

Here are our cute tables before everyone arrived. My parent committee put these together as well. Thank goodness for them, they helped relieve a lot of stress before and during the event.

Yeah the second annual cowboy dinner is over and what a huge success, lots of money raised for our orchestra program. Many people told me they would return again next year, hopefully they bring their friends. The kids were happy and I was very happy that all went well and that it was time to start planning for next year.