It's Over!

Today I was in charge of Sharing Time in our Primary. If you know anything about me than you know that I hate (with a capital H) public speaking. It was nice of the primary presidency to give me 3 weeks notice so I could prepare but it also gave me more time to stress out about it!

The theme for primary this year is I am a Child of God and this month we talked about showing our faith in Jesus Christ by being baptized and confirmed. My class was so excited about it. They all wanted to help with the lesson which I was happy about! They have just learned how to read and they all read their part beautifully and helped put up the pictures and stuff. They were too cute! The lesson went very well and I was pleased at how well it turned out. But the best part of it is now it is finished! I have a whole other year until I have to do it again!

Making the Commitment

So I have finally decided that today is the day! I am going to make the commitment to myself about losing weight. Today is the first official day of my lifestyle change! I know I should have started on a Monday but, hey, I like to shake things up a bit!

I have always been one of those unlucky people who have always struggled with their weight. Not to mention the extreme difficulty in taking it off! That is the most frustrating part. But I have decided that I can no longer live like this and I want to be healthy and happy. So to help me in my long journey to my goal weight I am going to blog about it and keep track of my weight loss. I am hoping it will be a motivation for me to stay on track. If not, the rest of you can help me stay on track! Deal??

Hansen Family Reunion

We had a family reunion for my mother's side of the family this weekend in Provo. Unfortunately I had to work and so I only caught the last hour of it but I really enjoyed the short time I had with my aunts, uncles, and cousins - all of whom I don't see enough.

I don't know my mom's parents at all. Her mother was very sick but when she found out my mom was getting married she made a remarkable recovery for the wedding, getting well enough to stand in the recieving line and greet everyone who came. She died just 3 weeks after my parent's wedding. My grandpa Hansen died when I was about 3. I don't have any memories of him. I have always said the one thing I would like different in my life is to know my Hansen grandparents.

My mother is the youngest of 10 children and then she didn't marry until she was 35 so by the time we were born, her brothers and sisters were long done with having kids so there is quite an age difference between my family and the rest of the Hansen cousins. I think some of my cousin's children are closer in age to us then my actual cousins!

There are 4 of my mom's siblings alive and they all made it to the reunion. It was pretty neat considering some of them are close to 90 years old! Each family brought some memorabilia of the Hansen family with them such as stories, pictures, or genealogy. One cousing brought a family history chart that showed the Hansen family as decentants of King Edward the First, so I am royality! I thought that was pretty cool!

Clock Party

My sister Janette hosted a Tick Tock Collection clock party on Saturday. It was so much fun! She invited her friends and family and we all got to make a clock. It was so simple! We had great teachers, Mandolin and Sheri. They showed us how to paint the clock so it looked antique and they even fixed our mistakes when we made them. The whole party was pretty neat, the company gives the vinyl letters for the numbers and you can pre-order your names so that the clock is personalized.

I decided on a white clock so that it would match our future house decor (whenever that happens) but Ian really, really wanted me to make a red clock to represent the Boston Red Sox. (I tell you he is obsessed!) So to surprise him I decided to make a smaller red clock for him. Since I made it on impluse I didn't have anything to personalize the clock with but the cool thing is that you can order after you make the clock and they will mail it to you and then all you have to do is stick it on. So the nice wife that I am I ordered "Red Sox" for him.

So if anyone is interested in it you should really check it out! They are so cute and easy to make and the whole party concept is so much fun and the prices aren't too bad! They have several colors to choose from in the larger clocks and tons of smaller clocks. I am so proud of my work and would totally make another one!

Lagoon

On Saturday my sister Janette called me and invited Ian and me to go to Lagoon with her. I decided that since we had bought season passes this summer and had yet to use them we might as well go and get our moneys worth! So we met up with Janette and her 5 kids. It was the first time in probably 12 years that I have been to Lagoon. And I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun we had! In fact we had so much fun I just might go back one more time before summer is over! ;)

There is a new ride (or at least new to me) at Lagoon called the Spider. The first time everyone went on it I volunteered to watch the little boys but as soon as they came off the ride they all wanted to go again. Everyone talked me into going on it. Reluctantly I agreed. This is a crazy ride! It's a regular roller coaster but the cart spins around while you are traveling along the tracks. I don't mind roller coasters but our cart was spinning the whole time we were on the ride. I couldn't even open my eyes because we were spinning so much it was making me sick to my stomach to watch all the lights whiz by me!

Another ride we went on was Rattlesnake Rapids which promises that you will get wet! Considering how hot is was that day, none of us cared if we got wet. Except Dallin, he said he didn't want to get wet. We all went on the ride and had fun, even the two little boys had fun until we came to the waterfall (pictured next to this). It doesn't look like you would get that wet going under it, but looks are deceiving. As soon as we went under it everyone got soaked. Poor little Liam had all the water land right on top of his head! There was not one person who escaped getting wet. Even Dallin got wet but he didn't complain or cry, he just smiled, he even said he had fun!

Despite my decade long ban on Lagoon, I was very happy we went. Ian even said to me that he had more fun than at Disneyland! I don't know if I would go that far but I did have a lot of fun. Even thought the food costs an arm and a leg and I was a sucker for my cute niece and nephews and bought them all $3.00 ice cream cones!

Goodbye Notes

On Friday we had a bon fire with the girls from my dental hygiene class. The main purpose of this bon fire was to burn the mountains of notes that we collected over the last 2 years from school. Most of it being pointless, outdated, leftover crap from the dark corners of our teacher's files that they felt they needed to share with us.

There were 7 of us that joined in the festivities. I thought we had a great turn out! Kim S. and Marie did a great job planning the night. They were so sweet - they brought hot dogs that we roasted over the burning notes and we made smores. But my favorite part of the night was when we burned the UCDH banner! That felt great!

I brought a stack of notes but I barely made a dent in the files of notes I have from school. I even donated my community health book the the cause! It felt great burning all those notes! Some of the girls were smart and remembered to bring their dental hygiene class manual booklet. Why didn't I think of that?

Marie put on a great show for us by blowing fire balls with powdered sugar. I was too scared to try. I didn't want to burn my eyelashes off! But the best part of the night was just sitting around and talking. It brought back the good old memories of all our talks in the lunchroom at the MATC building. I am sure going to miss all these beautiful girls now that school is finished! We need to get together more often!

Lets Go Red Sox

So as some of you may or may not know, Ian's all time favorite baseball team is the Boston Red Sox - and any team playing against the New York Yankees. In light of this fact, we planned our whole vacation around the Red Sox's play schedule. We arranged our trip to California to coincide with Boston's series against the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles so that we could see them play, not once but twice!

The first game we went to was a night game and my sisters and their families joined us for the game. I was surprised that little two year old Millie was good for the whole game. Of course she spent most of the night playing around with the binoculars but that's part of what makes her so cute! She was so pre-occupied with them she wouldn't even look at me for the picture.

The game went to almost 11:00 which is way past Chelsea's bedtime, but even with all the noise she fell asleep. She even slept through the firework show at the end of the game. I guess there really is some truth behind the phrase "sleep like a baby"!!!

About half of the crowd were Boston fans. I was actually surprised by how many Red Sox fans were there! My sisters were good Angels fan and they wore all their Angels gear. They even dressed my nieces up in Angels outfits. I tried my best to convince Chelsea to move over to the Red Sox Nation, but my sister was having none of that! She even booed me!

The game was really good and we had a good time, in spite of the drunk fans behind us that kept yelling profanities. Sadly the Red Sox lost the game, but it was still fun to see them play live.

The next game we went to was a day game and it was just the two of us, so we splurged and got really close tickets so Ian could be up close and personal with the players. We got there early so we could see them warm up. However our tickets were right by the Angels dug out and so all the Red Sox players were across the field from us! But I got to see my favorite Boston player, Jason Varitek, walk right in front of us, that was pretty cool!

It was a fun game but we were sitting in the sun for 4 hours and we both got fried! It was a good game and the Red Sox looked like they were going to win after Youkilis hit a two run home run, but in the 7th inning the Angels rallied and came back to win the game. That darn rally monkey! Ian was very disappointed and a little upset that we didn't get to see the Red Sox win, but it was still a good time - minus the sunburns!