Is this normal?

Porter is a hoarder. I hate to say it, but he is. He collects things from all around the house and stashes them behind the subwoofer (did you know that's how it's spelled? I had to look it up just now-- never written that word before. interesting.).

Brian and I slowly started noticing that things were disappearing, then one day Brian caught Porter throwing something back there. When he looked, there was a whole mound of objects. Since then, we've been cleaning out his "stash" every couple days. We find all sorts of things: goldfish crackers, remote controls, toothbrushes, toys, keys, shoes . . . basically, anything that Porter finds interesting and small enough to fit. From now on, if we can't find something, that's usually the first place we look.

As I was taking this picture, he took the Nikon lens cover and threw it into his pile. Sneaky kid!

Sadly, though, I'm pretty sure he has another "stash" somewhere that we haven't found yet. There are LOTS of things disappearing around here.

Park City

Just got back from a week in Park City. Why are we not living there? Seriously, it's so much greener . . . and there's good food and the shopping is wonderful. I loved it there!

Chocolate Raspberries

While we were at Bear Lake, we bought a bunch of chocolate-covered raspberries (I don't think Brian's family ever goes there without buying them). They were delicious . . . but Brian still had some ideas on how they could improve. So as soon as we got home, he decided to make his own. And, of course, I was in full support of this idea! Since we've been back (for about a week & a half now), I think I've eaten close to 100 chocolate-covered raspberries. Oh my goodness! They are so good!

If you want to make some, here's what you do:

First, buy some yummy raspberries.

Second, melt some chocolate. We already had a bag of melting chocolate for fondue that happened to have microwave melting directions-- pretty simple.

Third, using a fondue stick, dip the raspberries in the melted chocolate and set them on wax paper to harden.

Last, put them in the fridge to harden them up even more. Then eat them!

In case you were wondering, Brian's only problem with the Bear Lake raspberries were that they had too much chocolate around them. These new ones have a perfect chocolate-to-raspberry ratio.

Richfield Week

During the last week of June, I did a workshop in Richfield and Brian & Porter got to come with me. Where is Richfield, you might ask? I honestly had no idea before we actually went there. It's a tiny little town off the beaten path, about halfway between Provo & St. George. Although the small-town setting left us trying hard to come up with things to do, it was absolutely beautiful. I have a weakness for small towns. Here's why Richfield won me over:

Reason #1: Richfield has some BEAUTIFUL parks. (Brian & Porter spent a GREAT deal of time at the parks while I was in workshops all day.)

Reason #2: Wouldn't you just love to live in a town where this was your public library?

Reason #3: Beautiful scenery

Reason #4: Small diners with good, old-fashioned, homestyle cookin'. The plaque behind our heads says that Stephen King sat at that booth behind us. Man, we should've sat there!

Oh, and while we were there, Porter took his first picture with a camera- we're so proud of our budding photographer!

The biggest downside (yet again) was staying in a hotel for a week. Porter made various attempts to escape our tiny room!

We'll definitely have to visit Richfield again sometime!

Bear Lake

For the 4th of July we went to Bear Lake with Brian's parents and his sis & bro-in-law. They all stayed in cabins and we camped. It was our first time camping with Porter, and oh my goodness, it was an adventure.

First of all, Porter is not fun to sleep next to in a tent. He's a cutie, but he's also quite loud when he wakes up at 5 am. But it had its good sides too- he is stinkin' cute when he puts his face next to mine, smiling really big, waiting for me to open my eyes in the morning. Also, it's fun seeing him experiencing new things.

We stayed at a KOA campground. They had this amazing Jumping Pillow thing that Porter absolutely adored. We seriously need to find a way to get one of those in our backyard. Well, maybe we should work on getting a backyard first.

We went on bike rides; both on normal bikes . . .

and not-so-normal bikes. . .

On the night of the 4th, we did sparklers and pop-its with Porter, then put him to bed to the sounds of loud fireworks. Luckily, he was tired enough to sleep through it all.

My favorite part of the entire trip, though, was playing on the beach with Porter. The lake was actually much higher than it normally is, so it was a little tricky finding a beach at all. But it was well worth the search. Apparently Porter LOVES water. He seriously loves it. So cute!

Independence

Happy Independence Day! . . . a few days late. Brian and I celebrated early by going to Stadium of Fire in Provo on Saturday. We loved it!

A few of the highlights were . . .

Parachutes:

David Archuleta (he's the little tiny guy wearing white in the center of the stage):

BRAD PAISLEY!!!

And lots & lots of fireworks:

Of course, we also celebrated on July 4th with Porter- that post is coming soon. 

Alpine Week

We spent all last week in Utah County. I was doing a workshop with Alpine School District, Brian was finishing up his finals for summer semester, and Porter was very patiently shuffling around with new babysitters and adjusting to sharing a hotel room with his parents (or rather, his parents were trying to adjust to sharing a room with him!). It was a busy, busy week, to say the least!

I had a great week with the Alpine teachers and learned so much from them. That's not to say I didn't have a migraine from stress every single day . . . but it did make me reminiscent of the days when I was an Alpine teacher--and I missed it.

Luckily, since we were so close to my new school, we took a truckload and began unloading ALL of my junk into my new classroom during our evenings. Here's what it looked like before we unloaded my stuff:

And I'll spare you from an after-picture. Just imagine every desk and countertop stacked with boxes and storage crates and books and math supplies. I should have just thrown it all away- the classroom looks so much nicer without all the STUFF! However, that would also make for a pretty boring year for my new first-graders. Ahh, the things I do for them!

We definitely enjoyed a week of hot breakfast prepared for us and room service cleaning up after us. But that being said, hotel life can get pretty old after a week. We were anxious to get home  by the weekend- even if we had to prepare our own breakfast and make our own beds.

We returned home for a couple days to do laundry, attend a very special baptism (our sister-in-law and 2 nephews), have a fun dinner at Olive Garden with Grandma & Grandpa Nye, and attend church. Then we left again. I'm starting to think I should've taken my summer off!

Our Update for May

I was reading blogs yesterday and found myself getting annoyed that my favorite blogs hadn't been updated for 2-3 days. Horrible, right?! Then I found my way back to our blog and saw that our last post was almost a month ago. Woops!

So here's our update:
Brian has returned to attending school full time. He loves being back in classes, and the hour-long commute each way gives him lots of audio book time. Not sure I'd be so happy about that, but he is.

I've been busy preparing for the end of my school year (this Friday!). I'm going to miss my cute first graders so much, but I have to admit it'll be nice to have some of my stress gone. However, there's no summer break for me this year- I'll be facilitating the USOE Common Core Academy for 4-5 weeks throughout the summer, and in whatever free time I have I'll be moving classrooms and hopefully selling/moving our home. Lots to do!

Porter has been busy walking, talking, and getting used to going to babysitters again. You can definitely tell he's having Daddy-withdrawals. When Brian's home, Porter whines & cries and won't be happy until Daddy's holding him. But even with the whining and tears, he's just as cute as ever!

And because no post is complete without pictures, here are a few . . .

Here's Porter watching Mommy & Daddy play tennis with Uncle Brad & Aunt Katie. Did I mention our condo has tennis courts? It does. Kinda makes you want to move here, right?

I know he looks bored in the first picture, but he actually quite enjoys being outside with us. He stays busy by throwing tennis balls into the court:

Here are Brian & I at the Capitol Theater. We went last week to see Les Miserables with Brian's fam. Brian's parents got us all tickets for Christmas-- such a great gift!

Also, we had a visit from Grandma & Grandpa Sudweeks. They only stayed one day since they were just passing through on their way to see Uncle Deven graduate in Arizona (so glad I wasn't doing that drive!). But Porter loved the time he got to see them:

And one last picture-- Brian brought donuts in for my class last week with a special one for me:

No, I did not finish it . . . in case you were wondering!