SPIRITUAL: Go to the temple 6x
I was unsure if I was going to complete this goal, so at the end of August, I took a day and went to five different temples with my mom with 24 hours! It was awesome, and I enjoyed seeing all the different temples and doing various ordinances. I'm hoping to do that again next year, too!
January: Went to the Rexburg temple for Malachi & Molly's wedding
August: Went to 4 temples in Utah with my mom. Did a different ordinance at each of the temples: Brigham City, Ogden, Bountiful, and SLC. I haven't been in the Bountiful temple since it was dedicated (I went to the open house when I was a teenager); it was huge!!! And I'd never been in the celestial room in the SLC temple; it was absolutely amazing with all its hand-carved, hand-painted designs around the walls and ceiling. It was breathtakingly gorgeous!
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| Dad came with us to the Brigham City temple |
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| At the Ogden temple |
September: Went to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple in Draper with my mom. I'd never been there before. We did an endowment session.
EDUCATIONAL: Complete 30 Credits & Pass the Praxis II test
This was a HUGE year of college for me! May and October were particularly stressful--I had to have all my classes done by certain dates in order to be able to stay on target for my student teaching to begin this year in January. And amazingly enough, I was able to pass all my classes in time as well as pass the long multi-subject Praxis test, too! What a relief!
January: 3 credits (Intro to Instructional Planning and Presentation)
February: 2 credits (Instructional Planning and Presentation)
March: 3 credits (1 for Applications in Instructional Planning & Presentation, & 2 for Elementary Reading & Literacy Methods)
April: 3 credits (1 for Applications in Elementary Reading & Literacy Methods, & 2 for Elementary P.E. and Health Methods)
May: 7 credits (1 for Application in Elementary P.E. & Health Methods, 3 for Children's Literature, 2 for Elementary Science Methods, and 1 for Application in Elementary Science Methods)
June: 3 credits (2 for Elementary Visual & Performing Arts Methods, and 1 for Application of Elementary Visual & Performing Arts)
July: Passed the Multi-Subject Praxis II test!!! Completed all the paperwork for practicum and demonstration teaching
August: 3 credits (2 for Elementary Language Arts Instructional Methods, and 1 for Application of Elementary Language Arts Instruction).
September: 3 credits (2 for Elementary Math Methods, and 1 for Application of Elementary Math Methods).
October: 3 credits (2 credits in Elementary Social Studies Methods, and 1 credit in Applications of Elementary Social Studies Methods)
November: 3 credits (Pre-Clinical Experiences)---this was the most stressful class I had this year! I spent 30 hours in Salmon, and 30 hours in Terreton completing my required 60 hours of time, and then I took 2 days off just to complete all the necessary paperwork! I was stoked when it passed after the first submission!
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| Red Ribbon Day at Terreton Elementary--one of my favorite moments during this class. |
PERSONAL: Blog every week
I changed my style of blogging this year; rather than creating stories about certain events, I decided to just blog once weekly about everything that happened during the week. This saved me a lot of writing time, but totally changed my style of writing, too. By the end of the year, I started getting behind and wasn't finding blogging necessarily as fulfilling as it once was for me, so I'm going to change it up again this year and switch to trying just monthly posts.
January: did 16 posts--caught up 2 month's worth of back-blogging and did 4 weekly posts
February: did 7 posts--4 weekly posts, 2 posts about my grandpa, and the monthly fb review
March: did 6 posts--4 weekly posts, a winter Top Ten, and the monthly fb review
April: did 6 posts--4 weekly posts. an anniversary post. and the monthly fb review
May: did 6 posts--5 weekly posts, and the monthly fb review
June: did 6 posts--4 weekly posts, monthly fb review, and spring Top Ten
July: did 6 posts--5 weekly posts, and the monthly fb review
August: did 5 posts--5 weekly posts, and the monthly fb review
September: did 6 posts--4 weekly posts, monthly fb review, and summer Top Ten
October: did 6 posts--5 weekly posts, and the monthly fb review
November: did 6 posts--4 weekly posts, monthly fb review, and updated 2-year wish list
December: did 8 posts--5 weekly posts, seasonal Top Ten, monthly fb review, annual Top 40 list
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| At Christmas, I ordered the blog book from the first half of 2014. |
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| The blog books are always so fun to look through! |
FAMILY: Take one son on a date each month
This has been such a fun tradition the past few years. I changed the guidelines for 2016, though, in an effort to stay on track in my financial budget. I told the boys that monthly dates had to be $40 or less. It was a challenge, but they were able to abide by it, and we still had fun going out together!
January: Took Ammon to Junkyard Bistro, because he had never been there before. I had my favorite Chicken/Curry Rice Bowl, Ammon had the Muffaletta (he wasn't a fan, though), and Josh had the Vietnamese Pork Sandwich. Our bill total came to $36.01 (1 cent over the budget!).
February: Took Jonah to the theater to see the movie "Kung Fu Panda 3". We went on free popcorn night, so we were under budget, and he got to keep the extra $4.
March: Took Micah to see the movie "Zootopia" at the theater. We went on free popcorn night, and we kept it under the budget, so he got to keep $4.
April: Took Kanyon to see the movie "The Jungle Book". We went on a Tuesday so we could get free popcorn. He got to keep the $4 for keeping it under the budget!
May: Took Ammon to see the movie "Captain America: Civil War". We went on free popcorn night, and kept it just barely under the budget, so he kept the extra $4.
June: Took Jonah to the Junkyard Bistro; he'd never been there before. He ordered a French Dip.
July: Took Micah to the Pork Peddler. We've never gone there before. Josh and Micah ordered shredded bbq sandwiches, I had fish tacos, and we shared their fried macaroni & cheese bites.
August: Took Kanyon to have burritos at Taco Grande, then we went to the Mexican Restaurant for desserts. We had deep fried ice cream, Xangos (fried cheesecake bites), horchata (Kanyon tried it for the first time), and yummy homemade tortilla chips with queso dip.
September: Took Ammon to Josephine's in North Fork. He's never been to it before, but it's under new ownership and is now called Water's Edge. We brought Hannah with us. We ordered the Vic's Special (the pizza with white sauce, crumbled bacon, and cut-up potatoes on it) and they got a small pizza with white sauce, sausage, caramelized onions, mushrooms, and sweet peppers. We had a nice night!
October: Took Jonah to the Mexican Restaurant. He ordered burritos and had fried ice cream for the first time. We also introduced him to their queso dip and horchata drink.
November: Micah wanted to watch a movie, so we went and saw "Doctor Strange" at the theater.
December: Took Kanyon to see the movie "Sing" at the theater.
PHYSICAL: Run in a 5K
This ended up being one of my favorite goals to complete this year. I started the goal with the intention of getting into shape. It worked for several months: I pushed myself physically and hated every second walking/jogging/running. I got to the point where I could go a mile in 15 minutes, which felt like a huge breakthrough for me. Even though I hated exercising daily, I absolutely LOVED participating in the Color Run with my friend Jen. It was a highlight of my year! I was glad I did it! But, I stopped exercising after the race, and got out of shape once again. I have high hopes to do better this year and to try it again!
February: signed up for a color run in June in Idaho Falls
March: started jogging every day on the treadmill, increasing my time each day, and then running outside after 3 weeks on the treadmill
May: jogged/walked with friends increasing the distance from 1 mile, to a mile and a half, to two miles. Bought new running shoes.
June: Ran/jogged/walked the 5k Color Run with Jen Judy, and our finish time was 48 minutes. My goal was 45 minutes, so now I plan to do it again next year and improve!
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| BEFORE the race |
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| AFTER the race |
FINANCIAL: Meet with Josh monthly to have a budget meeting
The whole point of this goal was so that I (1) wouldn't overspend monthly, (2) pay down some debt before student-teaching (when I don't get paid at all for 3 months), and (3) put some money in savings for our family vacation in November to Disneyland. I stayed relatively on track for obtaining each of these 3 goals, despite only officially meeting with Josh once! I did the rest of the budget meetings myself, and by this fall I felt like I finally was getting financially where I needed to be! ;)
February 1: 1st official meeting!
March 3: I only spent $40 more than my February's budget! I revised the numbers for this month.
April: I did poorly on March's budget. April's budget is super tight as a result.
May: I met April's budget! I was so excited!
June: I did poorly on May's budget. Ugh.
July: I was just slightly over June's budget--that's progress from last month!
August: I did poorly on my budget--I always forget how expensive it is to get ready for school to start!
September: I got back on the budget after last month's over expenditure.
SOCIAL: Do acts of service weekly
I have noticed that I've become so self-involved because of the amount of focus required to keep my life on track with college, work, sports, homework, boys' schedules, and house duties, and as a result, I haven't been as dutiful in serving others around me. I wanted to be able to shift some of the focus off myself and train myself to look for ways to serve others as much as possible instead. Although I was able to do service at least weekly throughout the year, I find that I still struggle with putting others' needs before I think of myself! It's something that I'm continually trying to work on!
January: paid for dinner for Ammon & his friend, swept & took garbage out at Amanda's salon, visited my Grandpa in the hospital, played piano at a youth baptism
February: took dinner to a woman who's son died, volunteered to sing the National Anthem at the high school basketball game, invited a friend and gave her a ride to a relief society activity, wrote a support letter for a woman in our ward who's husband might be deported, wrote a sweet, small note and left it in Josh's lunchbox
March: Bought some of Josh's favorite Easter candy and left it on his pillow, gave some bags of vegetables to a neighbor, took one of the ladies I visit teach out to dinner for her birthday, vacuumed a hairdresser's salon when she was in a pinch, took some cupcakes to a woman in our ward who couldn't go to the relief society birthday party activity, took a friend out to lunch.
April: Made cookies and delivered them to other families, helped clean up-sweep-and set up chairs at the theater, took money at the high school play every night of its performance, took one of the boys' friends home after the youth in the community all watched a movie at the theater.
May: Took money at the dance recital, did all the lesson plans for Janna at preschool for one week when her mother was in the hospital and passed away, took soup to a friend who just had his wisdom teeth removed, took food and drinks to a friend's house during a party to help with feeding teenagers.
June: did the Sacrament program for the care center, babysat a friends' boys while she had a church meeting, coached a soccer game for Kanyon's team while his coaches were out of town, offered a ride to Aunt Edna to Blackfoot for Judson's funeral.
July: helped clean off tables and move tables and chairs at the library, was the guest reader for the libary summer reading program, made dessert for a funeral, helped a teacher find a long-term substitute while she's on maternity leave, spent time finding new books to read at the library for the kids program after a volunteer put away the books I'd previously picked out ;).
August: helped clean up after Youth Conference, helped Josh pick up branches at the golf course after a huge windstorm, gave rides to a neighbor girl after her & Kanyon's CrossFit classes, volunteered to help with a booth at the fair's Family Fun Night.
September: gave a horse notebook to a little girl at school, donated clothes to and helped clean up after the LDS free clothing fair, taught at a relief society activity, donated apples to the XC team, gave my brother a ride to the airport.
October: ordered and paid for Ammon's date's homecoming corsage, made cookies and delivered them to a family in the ward, let some people butt ahead of me in the grocery store line, gave a woman a ride to find her family trick-or-treating on Main Street.
November: helped take care of some children who's parents were gone during Sacrament Meeting, did errands for a woman I visit teach, helped chaperone the stake youth dance, got snacks for Kanyon's weekly scout den meeting,
December: Volunteered to do the Sharing time in Primary, directed the youth Nativity program at the Ward Christmas Party, purchased batteries for a co-worker, did the 12 Days of Christmas for a family in need, directed games for a youth activity.
