My Kids and Other Cool People.

Ok, I need to brag just a little bit. I have some of the cutest kids EVER in my classes. They are really smart and many of them speak english quote well! I was really impressed when I first met them. I feel so blessed to be able to play with these kids every day! I need to get more pictures of them, because their cuteness must be shared with the world, but here are a few:


This is Helen. She is in my elementary class, and is SO smart and silly! She likes to show off her sweet gymnastics skills before class starts.


Me, Yulia, and Anna. We were having class on the floor that day, just for fun. We're that cool! Yulia is my sister. We like to play Uno and read books together. She helps me with my "Russian reading skills". Anna is a super gorgeous ice skater who is so sweet and polite. One time, when we were playing Go Fish, someone asked her if she had any sharks. She said "No I don't...Please go fish" and gestured sweetly to the deck of cards on the table. Is it bad to have favorites?


Sometimes I wish we could have naptime...these kids are so exhausted by the time class is over. 9 hours of school a day can't be healthy for a child.


These girls are my exploring buddies. :)


You're never lost when you can see the temple! I only have to take two Metros and a bus to get there...not bad!


My branch likes to party. And when we do, we party hard. It was only a little bit shocking to watch my branch president rock out to Weezer when he was playing Rockband. Then I got over it. Because only AWESOME people are in the International Branch in Kiev.

I love life.

P.S. When you have friends at the Embassy, they can hook you up with Dr. Pepper and other American foods.

Ukraine!!

I live in Ukraine. And it's kind of amazing.



I teach english to children. It's kind of challenging, but REALLY fun!
This is my school.
I also teach a woman named Valia, who works for ILP and speaks a little bit of english. She's super awesome!



I wish I had pictures of my kids to post on here!

The other day we toured around the city center. We saw some awesome stuff!




I also went to a ballet...it was BEAUTIFUL! I'm going again this weekend, to see The Nutcracker. :)


I have so much to blog about, but I honestly have no desire to do that right now.
I LOVE IT HERE! I miss home, or rather, I miss the people back home. Already I consider Kiev my home! I've adjusted quite nicely to the culture. :) I never had culture shock. Maybe it's because my host family is so wonderful, and because my roommate is one of my good friends from Grantsville (we were roommates down at SUU as well. We just can't escape each other!)
Life is wonderful!

Our Nation's Capital

A couple of weeks ago, I flew out to Washington D.C.
Why?
I don't have a good reason. My friends talked me into it.
And it was AMAZING.
I love our country!! I loved seeing the monuments and memorials, and feeling the amazing spirit there.


Saturday night when I arrived, we wandered around D.C.The Lincoln Memorial was my favorite. He is one of my heroes!


Some nice men with british accents took this picture. Bahaha.


On our way to Thanksgiving at Grandma Meam's house on Sunday, we saw the sand man.


We stopped by the D.C. temple later that night. It's beautiful!


:)


Vietnam Veteran Memorial


The Capitol building! Christian's sister, Heather, works for Senator Hatch at the Capitol so we got a private tour. (Heather was also kind enough to let us sleep in her apartment while we were there!)


......And then we drove home. In Christian's '96 Honda Civic. That was an adventure.

But really, I love that place. I learned a lot on that trip, about myself, others, and our nation. I realized that a lot of people (myself included) complain about our government, etc, but... we are SO BLESSED to live here. Heavenly Father made it possible for this country to be founded. There's no way we could be where we are today, enjoying our freedom, without Him. I love this Nation!

My Kids!

I work at a daycare. I am a mother of 120 children, give or take a few. (Luckily, I have a lot of other "mothers" to help out.) I'm going to be honest right now, and say that it has taken me a LONG time to love my job. It's HARD to take care of that many kids, and it's hard to LOVE them all! But finally, after a few months of working there, I can say that I love my job and I love the kids. It's amazing how much I've learned from them!



This little guy is my three-year-old-best-friend. His name is Efrain. Every day he jumps into my arms, hugs me, and asks me what I had for breakfast.



Boston is almost 2 years old. He is obsessed with Shrek and is terrified of the garbage truck.



The kids decided to bury Santiago in the woodchips. I thought it was hilarious, so I snapped a picture before he got out. Oh, Santi.



Annalyse is the most precious little girl I've ever met. Her smile makes my day! We're friends. :)



For the Thanksgiving season, we wanted the shool-age kids to write down what they're thankful for on feathers, then we put them on a big turkey! This is Suzie's feather. While the other kids wrote the usual things like "I'm thankful for friends" or "family" or "food" or "my toys", Suzie wrote this. I almost cried when I read it. Ha!

These kids are a huge part of my life right now! They have amazing, strong spirits and I am so blessed to be able to spend time with them every day. I'm so blessed to be loved by them! I'm so glad I get to take care of them. :) This job is preparing me a lot for the future; my adventure in Ukraine, and when I become a mother. Life is wonderful!

I Kind of Fail At This Blogging Thing.

It's been two months since I've blogged. Seriously, I don't know where my time went.
Up until a week ago, my life was:
Wake up. Go to work. Eat dinner. Sleep. Occasionally hang out with Natalie, Macall, or Rachel. Repeat.
Over and over again, for months and months.
And then, my best friend came home from his mission!!! So now life is like this:
Wake up. Got to work. Eat dinner. Go to Christian's house/climb mountains with him/carve pumpkins with him/watch movies/explore SLC/dance/talk/drive/etc. Stay up too late. Sleep. Repeat.
Every single day. It's fun to have him home! He makes life a little more colorful!
Also, last week my family went to Zion's National Park with a few other families from the ward, which was a blast! I hiked Angel's Landing for the first time. AMAZING.

Isn't the view gorgeous? I love that place.
That's my life in a very little nutshell.

The Concert

That's right. GoGo13 came to Thanksgiving Point. And I went.


I was joined by some crazy awesome people, whom I love very much! Aus, Tay, Elise, Cami, and Hanna.




We painted our faces with mascara


And bought some sweeeeeeet band T's.


Meanwhile, Elise wouldn't stop whispering sweet nothings into her husbands ear.


The best part was, the drummer knew all of our names, and he totally came over to chat with us! He even came to the movie theater with us afterwards to see 'Inception'!
It was such a fun evening full of family and entertainment!Gotta love those get-togethers!

Wedding

It was a great day for a wedding! Everything was beautiful! It was fun to see so many family and friends.
Congratulations Taylor and Elise!




















(Truck decor courtesy of "the boys".)