Back to school.....Am I crazy?

Some of you may or may not know that I have been applying to graduate school. Monavie will pay for a ton of my schooling so I would be stupid to not take advantage of such a perk!

Well the verdict is in and I will be attending (drum roll please)..................




I was accepted to all 3 universities in the area (BYU, U of U and Utah State (remote program)) which made the decision mine to make. After doing a logical analysis I just couldn't turn down the opportunity to go the Y. Their program is a Tier I school and is #22 in the nation.

So school starts on Aug 3 and I'm excited and nervous. I will be in their EMBA program that meets from 6-9 Tues and Thursday nights for the next 2 years. Am I ready to go to school AND work full-time? Will I remember anything from my Finance undergrad? I guess we will find out....LOL

Spring Snow......

Don't get me wrong......I am all for spring to be here and to put away my snowboard for good. But if it is going to snow then I'm going to take advantage of it. Today I took a "Snow Day" from work and spent a full day at Sundance cruising through the powder with my friend Wendy.

The powder was AWESOME and it is a great way to end the season (see how I'm willing spring to be here??). In addition to the powder I was lucky enough to have lunch with Robert Redford and stare at him and all his beauty as he talked to my friend Wendy about the book she just wrote and that he is interested in reading (they had talked previously). He was totally nice and remembered her and is very, very interesting in reading her manuscript and helping her to get it published. So pretty much she is going to be famous soon and on Oprah promoting her book (its a biography) and I'm going to get to tell everyone I was there when it all went down. Hopefully she'll get me tickets to Oprah!!

Here are some pictures and videos of the day (you don't have to watch them all if you don't want to, but they made me laugh).

Check out these powder shots!!


My awesome skills until I crash at the end...LOL!!!



Me attacking Bishop's Bowl



Wendy - I promise she is better than this run indicates, but I was laughing so hard when she crashed right into me (her photographer)

Remembering Aunt Mary

My sweet Aunt Mary passed away last week on March 16th. She had held on for a long time, but died peacefully with family around her. Her funeral was this past Wednesday and it was one of the best funerals I've ever been to. Mary was finally free from her handicapped mortal body and it was time to celebrate her life. I can only imagine the sweet reunion she had with her Mom and Dad and many others when she passed to the other side.

Her funeral was beautiful. In addition to seeing so many family members many of Mary's handicapped friends were there. With so many sweet spirits I literally felt I was surrounded by angels (in addition to the many actual angels I'm sure were also present). I was deeply touched when her roommate, Ann (who is also Down Syndrome), was the first to pay her respects after the family prayer by running to the coffin to give Mary a kiss on the forehead. It was so touching!! Her funeral really reminded me what a sweet spirit she really had.

Here are my top 5 favorite Aunt Mary "isms"

1. Jingle Bell Rock at Christmas time. This is a Christmas tradition that I will greatly miss. It was a Christmas tradition that I really looked forward to. Even in the last years of her life she would take off her oxygen and do her choreographed dance to "Jingle Bell Rock."

2. Mary Poppins & The Sound of Music - She watched these movies everyday of her life. I truly believe that my love of these movies is directly related to her love of these movies. It was only fitting that at her funeral we heard a piano solo of "Climb Every Mountain." Talk about bringing me to tears!!!

3. Teasing her - She was so fun to tease. She took it so well and often had a great comeback. I especially loved it when she would say "yeah right!" I loved that phrase!!

4. Being "reprimanded" by her - If Mary didn't like what you were doing she made sure you knew it. Often she would beckon you aside and let you know of her disapproval. I especially loved hearing what her "punishments" were going to be. She always came up with some great ones such as "taking away the ribbons for your hair."

5. Her imaginary kids. She had 1,000 imaginary kids and she would at random talk to them, discipline them, etc. She also told me that I could marry one of her kids. I considered the offer, but thought that it wouldn't work out since that would be marrying my first cousin...LOL!

I will miss her. I truly believe that her presence at so many family functions and throughout my life helped me to grow as a person. Her sweet spirit was evident wherever she went. During our final good-bye's I did tell her to tell my future kids hello and that I'm sorry and trying hard to get them here to earth. Hopefully she passed on the message....

Here are some pictures from the funeral (sorry there are so many, but it will help my blog book at the end of the year).

Draper Temple Dedication

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I promise to be better in the future, but not much has been going on.

Today I took Madison to the Draper Temple dedication (at our Stake Center). Since Jenny & Scott were out of town on a cruise I thought perhaps Madi would like to attend her first temple dedication with me. Since she is only 8 I knew she probably wouldn't "get" most of what was going on, but I hoped to just add to her reservoir of spiritual experiences in her childhood that will hopefully keep her on the straight and narrow as she gets older.

Well Aunt Jen did not really plan accordingly for an 8 year old to sit quietly for 2 hours. We got there about 40 minutes early (instead of the instructed 30 minutes early) and being the bright Aunt that I am I didn't bring anything to entertain Madi while we waited. Not even scriptures she could read. She had her white hankerchief and that is it. Needless to say Madi was bored to tears after about 20 min.....and the temple dedication hadn't even started yet. Here are some one-liners from her in what had to have been the longest 2 hours of her life to date:

"Jen, I'm not thinking this is very fun yet"

"Jen I think my tummy hurts, I think I'm getting sick"

10 minutes later......."Jen, my tummy really, really hurts. I probably need to go home." (Note as I asked more clarifying questions I determined that she was "faking" sick, especially since she was magically better the second we started walking to the car. I even called her on it and asked if she was faking to which she said "no" but i know better :))

Regarding the dedicatory prayer - "That was the longest prayer I've EVER seen or heard" (it was probably 5-7 minutes long at least). She did sit with her arms folded the whole time, but got really squirmy for the last 2 minutes.

To her credit she really did great. Her acting skills did have me thinking for a bit that she might actually be sick and had me trying to figure out how I was going to handle a sudden sprint to the bathroom (if necessary). However, once I gave her my watch to play with she never discussed being sick again....LOL!

When all is said and down I was sick of sitting on the hard chairs too so I can't really fault her. As Aunt Carol welcomed her home Madi proceeded to say "Yeah! Finally!" Guess I can't fault her for that. She probably hasn't had to sit that still with nothing to entertain her ever in her life. Hopefully she doesn't equate her boredom at the temple dedication with going to the temple in the future. Guess she is still only 8......

Saturday was an awesome day!

I realize it has been over a month since I posted. I guess there hasn't been much going on to blog about. However yesterday was a GREAT day. The day was started by going snowboarding. The weather was BEAUTIFUL (even though the snow was not). My new ski buddy, Wendy, joined me on the slopes. It has been really fun boarding with her and reconnecting since we grew up together, but haven't been in the best contact over the years. It is also so much more fun to go with someone then to go alone. I was so happy to have on my sun glasses and just enjoyed the gorgeous weather. Here are a few pictures from the top of the lift at Sundance....always looking my best as a ski bunny (LOL!)



When I came home it was too nice. I had to keep enjoying the weather so I ran outside in shorts and a t-shirt. Although I sometimes hate running I could have run forever yesterday I was enjoying the weather so much. It was SO nice to just be outside running with my iPod.

Then Stacy and I went to the Cafe Rio and then to the Jazz/Hornets game. It was touching to be there as they honored Larry H Miller's passing. I was choked up, but fortunately not sobbing like Stacy was :) The game was awesome and I'll just say that Deron Williams OWNS Chris Paul. Man I love Deron and love watching him and Paul go at it. I had so much fun being there with Stace and chatting. It is sad that it was only her 2nd game this whole year. I planned on taking pictures, but I forgot so here is one from last year that I know Stacy will love seeing reposted since she is super pregnant in it. You can thank me later Pak!


Unfortunately the day ended with me having a sore throat that has persisted through today. Luckily this minor sickness did not ruin a beautiful Saturday! Now I have spring fever big time!

I'm a klutzz!!

It seems in my old age I'm becoming very clumsy. First mallet finger, now this..... Last night in my boot camp class (which by the way is EXCELLENT) I was hurdling benches as we normally do. Well towards the end of our 4 minute interval I must have been getting tired as I didn't completely clear the bench and my foot caught on the side of it. Needless to say I completely ate it. The class was running in a line so of course everyone behind me crashed into me and tried to help me. I jumped back up & kept running even though I had rolled my ankle and it didn't feel just right. I was too embarrassed. Anyways, I finished the class and came home. My ankle felt a little sore, but nothing too bad, but then when I woke up this morning it was nice & swollen and I had a limp. Apparently it did do some damage and now I have a "cankle"

I guess I won't be going to boot camp for a while :)

Christmas, The Jazz, and Skiing with Bobby

Christmas this year was celebrated 4 days early in order to have the entire family together. It was tons of fun to have everyone together. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures because my camera was taking crappy pictures. Anyways, here are a few from the day......

Ashley enjoying her present from her favorite Aunt Jen (her new princess dress and the Snow White book.

Sienna enjoyed opening every present she could!! Look at the excitement on her face.

Ashley and me (not the cutest, but all I have)

The day after Christmas I was able to benefit from the big x-mas day storm and went snowboarding. I went with two girls I used to work with and it was SO much fun. We stayed until 3:30 which is way longer than I normally stay but the snow was AWESOME and the sun was shining (most of the time). Besides the snow the best part of the day was skiing with Mr. Robert Redford. Okay, okay so he may not have known we were BFF's and skiing together, but we were! He got on the lift right in front of us so naturally once we were at the top I needed to see how he skied (not very well I might add). We followed him down the mountain and even snapped this picture of him (I promise it is him!). Anyways, it was fun to chase him around for a bit since I've never seen him in all my times at Sundance and I really love him. He is not quite as good looking as his younger days....he is an OLD man now, but still a little sexy :) I have to say at 70+ years old I'm impressed he can ski at all.

Mr. Redford is on the right (with his infamous orange boots)
**Picture taken with a crappy phone camera. Why didn't I have a better camera on me???

Then later that night my Dad and I went to the Jazz vs. Dallas game. Considering most of the Jazz players were hurt I was impressed they pulled out the win. It was tons of fun to go to the game with my Dad even though somehow they forgot to plow the roads on the way to SLC so we had to drive home pretty slow!