What's New...

Just wanted to fill everyone in with what is going on with us ALL the way over here in VA.

I am making all the final preparations for my studio recital which is on May 17th. I have designed the program and how the kids will be getting on and off the stage, (safely but quickly) and I will be starting 3 new students in May so I am so excited for that. I will have 19 students performing and myself, and one student is going to have a private recital on the 8th, because she will be out of town on the 17th.

Matt has been away all week in DC for work and will be there for another week, and gas prices are so bad that I am not going up for the weekend and he is not coming back down. But since he has been away I have been busy with the house. First, I went and bought some flowers and planted them in the front yard and I also planted a bunch of seeds too. So I kind of dug up our flower bed and it looks like there are holes everywhere, which there are, but I am excited to see if the flowers even come up. Second. Before Matt left, he and another neighbor put up our new ceiling fan, but didn't wire it correctly to all the light switches. So a guy in my branch who is an electrician came over to check it to make sure it was not a fire hazard and fixed the fan installation, and he also installed our new track lighting in the Kitchen. I love it. My payment was to him for the work he did was dinner. This weekend or early next week I am going to be working on my veggie, fruit, and herb garden with this help of Sister Copeland, who is a guro of the garden and all things in the ground, she went with me to a nursery last Tuesday and helped me pick out flowers and also taught me a lot about flowers, and her husband is the one who fixed our fan and installed the track lights. She has some extra flower bed borders and is giving them to me to help start my garden this year. She has been a great help to me.

I also have a third calling in my branch, and boy was my dad right when he said that I will have more than 2 callings at once, now I am on my third but one of them I am just a backup so I don't really do it every week. I was just called to be the Branch Pianist, basically I play in Sacrament, and at Baptisims but I was already doing both of them, but now it is official. So I am now the Branch Pianist, the Primary Pianist, and a Primary Teacher. It is kind of funny because I play the piano for all 3 hours of church.

I am also still exercising 5 times a week still trying to make it 6 times a week, but haven't lost a noticiable amount of weight, about 1.5 inches around my waist. I have been gaining a lot of muscle so I am getting buff again. I am hoping that soon I will have lost a little bit of weight so that I can start to see more results. Matt also started a much more intense work out regiem called Power 90 X, you might have seen the infomercial late at night. I am doing the Power 90 and once I finish that I will move onto the Power 90 X. I am making a huge effort to finally get back to where I was before I got married and hopefully even smaller, and healthier. My friend Corrine has been a huge inspiration to me in getting my big butt in gear, but I am on day 40, Almost half way there.

Well that's about all with us over here at the moment. I will be adding in the pix of the ceiling fan and the track lighting when Matt gets back, cause I don't know where the card reader is for my computer. Hope everyone is safe and well!

Louisa Losers!- Day 31 out of 90

Who else was glued to the TV last night to watch the season finale of The Biggest Loser. I defiantly was. I was routing for Ali to win and I am so glad that she did. Well right now I am in my fourth week of a little group we started over here called the "Louisa Losers". Each of us is partners with someone/anyone else. There are people that live in my town that are partners with friends that live in Utah and Idaho. I am partnered with Matt. Well we pretty much started it because we all wanted to get in better shape, and there is a prize of some sorts that goes out to the group that looses the most weight. I don't think that will be Matt and I because he is trying to bulk up and I am trying to lose. But he has already lost 3 pounds and I gained at first and I am back to my starting weight now, and I will be shedding my weight now. I am on day 31 of 90 so wish us luck. I have been exercising 5 days a week and will be working out 6 days a week starting this week. If you would like to join our little group just to give you an excuse to exercise and get in better shape just email me and let me know.

Day 5- Hershey and the Amish

We stayed the night in PA so that we could just go straight to the town of Hershey and get some free chocolate. Funny story though. My parents, Matt and I stayed in a family suite and Matt and I were in the hide-a-bed. My parents were in their room and I finally finished getting ready for bed. I went to sit at the top of the bed to sit up and right when I sat down the bed went up. The foot of the bed just rose up and practically pinned me and Matt in. The first thing I did was call for dad to help us but he never came to the rescue, and once I did that Matt shot a look at me in disgust and said, " I can get us out." Well he did it was just so funny the whole thing that happened. After being cramped in a car all day long I get cramped in a hide-a-bed. Anyhew, back to the day.

The little town of Hershey, how quaint it is with its street names as Chocolate Ave. Cocoa Ave and many more. Also little subdivisions like Cocoa Towns. They also have Hershey kisses as the street lamps. Some are wrapped and some are just the chocolate. We went to Hershey World and had a tour of how they make chocolate, and I did get some pix of that. It was a very fun experience. We had some pretty good Sundaes, our was vanilla and chocolate ice cream with chocolate fudge, Carmel topping, with Kit Kats, Reese's Pieces, and Macadamia Nuts on it and whipped cream. We couldn't finish it all the way but it was very good.

Next we drove to a very cute town called, Intercourse, PA. I promise it is named that and only because many major roads cross in the town, and not for the other reason. It is an Amish town with some amazing stores in it, and a very fine restaurant. Matt found a kettle corn stand with fresh kettle corn and got 4 bags worth. That is his favorite snack food. They have an amazing fudge shop and actually explain how they make it by spreading the fudge around on these huge marble tables. They have a relish and jam canning store which you can taste things before you buy them. I was in heaven there. Everything was so good. There is this Raspberry salsa that is incredible. They even had Amish people working there canning as you buy. There is also this craft store that had a ton of hand crafted stuff and I wanted so many things but I only got a couple of things. We then went to a very nice restaurant called the Kling House. They use the canned food from the other store on almost every thing and it was amazing. My strawberry lemonade was the best I have ever had. They just used lemonade and put some of their strawberry preserves at the bottom and it was amazing. I got a chicken salad sandwich with raspberry preserve on top and, boy howdy was it tasty. (I have been on a strict eating habit for the past 4 weeks, and this week alone has sabotaged everything that I had done, because I have had some amazing food.) Anyways, I had more fun in this little town of Intercourse than I did at Hersey. I have really enjoyed my time with my parents and they are leaving in a day and a half. I have been cramped in a car though but it still has been very fun.

Day 4- Gettysburg

Well I actually went to Gettysburg and learned a ton. We hired a personal tour guide to ride with us in our car and take us around for about 2 hours. It was really neat and he was very knowledgeable. My parents had me watch the movie Gettysburg on Sunday and Monday night so that I would know what happened there, yes, so I would "know" because I pretty much only knew the south was fighting with the north and who won and that was about it. I didn't do too well in that part of history. Well I sure know a lot more than I did and the movie helped a ton for me. One of the things that really blew my mind when we got there is how the people could tell what was a good hill to capture, because the tour guide took us from one end and showed us where the Confederate army wanted to be and it just looked like a little stump in the hill. Like Little Round Top, but when we were actually on it, wow the Union Army had a major advantage point from up there. It was a very neat experience to be there and see where this great war took place and very difficult to comprehend that many people in that area and how many actually died there. It is defiantly not something I will forget anytime soon.

--Matt at the museum--

Artillery cannon from the Union side looking at the Confederate Side

--Looking down from Little Round Top--

--Looking from the Union Artillery line back to the Confederate Line where that monument is--

Day 3- Shenandoah Valley

So today we spent about 6 hours driving and driving and driving. We drove through the whole Shenandoah Valley National Park and really got up close and personal with the deer, some chicken playing squirrels, a possum, and skunk and some other road killed animals that weren't too lucky in the end. the squirrels all ran out in front of the car and waited until we had to slow down to even bother to move. They must have a death wish or something. I got up close and personal to a white tail deer. I was about 4 feet from it taking pix and it just kept on eating and didn't even mind a bit.

Tomorrow we are going to Gettysburg, PA. It's only a couple of hours away. I am very excited to see this history stuff and look forward to actually being there for the first time.

Day 2- Washington D.C.

Good morning everyone. Well after a long day of traveling yesterday we finally made it back late last night. Yesterday was a very fun day. Leaving around 10am, we first traversed to D.C. in pursuit of locating a quilting shop for my mom. After passing beautiful home after beautiful home, ranging in prices from 1 mil-4 million bucks,we finally located the little shop. My dad found a display case with kaleidoscopes which kept him occupied. I actually looked around and found a quilting pattern that I like and asked my mom how hard it was to make. She said that she would teach me the "paper technique" some time. I know what you are thinking, Becky quilting, WOOOWWWW.

Anyhew. After that we passed some more multi-million dollar homes enroute to the Washington D.C. Temple. We spent a good few hours there and enjoyed the session inside. I have never been in a Temple that large before. You pretty much need a map just to get you around the inside. It was very beautiful inside and I look forward to attending this Temple many more times.

So now it is about 5 pm, and still haven't had lunch. So we didn't want to loose the light of the day so we decided to go directly to D.C. to see the Cherry Blossoms that are in full beautiful bloom. It was so gorgeous. I knew there were a ton but I didn't think there were that many. Here are a few pix of yesterday.

-Elizabeth, you wanted a pix of the parents, well here is my dad practically running to find the perfect pix. And you know my mom, she doesn't like to be in pix.

--This is funny, the sign says "Caution, Low Tree Limbs Ahead" Ok but where are the railings from keeping you going into the water if you do smack into a tree limb?

Ok, so that is all the pix from today. I know a ton but it was beautiful. Well, today we are going to the Shenandoah valley. More pix later!

Day 1-Charlottesville

So this week my parents are in town and I get to play tourist with them and learn all the things about the US history which has failed to stick to my memory from school. I am not kidding you I litterly can not remember learning some of this Civil War or general history information in school. I am not a "history buff" like my father or my hubby so I am joining my parents for the ride to learn more. So today we went to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. I was so beautiful here. It was an overcast day but the tulips were almost in full bloom and there were a ton of them. It was really neat to see the gardens and to learn about the history of the house. There was a beautiful piano forte in the parlour but under lock and key so I don't even know if it works or not. Here are some pix from today, we weren't allowed to take pix inside of the house so here are some garden pix.

Oh and Matt has to work for the next few days so he isn't able to come with us but he will be with us on Thursday and Friday.

Next stop tomorrow the D.C. Temple, Tyson's Corner and the Cherry Blossom Festival.