Something Old...Something New...

Good Morning! It's freezing outside and I'm at school holding parent-teacher conferences. My goal this go-round is 25% attendance. I'm almost there too, only one more visit to go!!
Things are going well in the Cooley household. Ryan has one week of the new semester under his belt. He seems to like his classes so that's exciting. I went back to school on the 3rd of January and promptly lost my voice for five or six days. Needless to say, teaching is very difficult when you can't verbally communicate with your students. Luckily I got it back in time for a visit from my superintendent! We're both still teaching in our ward--Ryan in Sunday School and me on the 4th Sunday in Relief Society. We both like our callings and they're pretty stress-free. It's good to be getting back into the swing of things now that the holiday season has drawn to a close. We were tremendously blessed this past Christmas and are so grateful for everything we have. We're excited for this new year and the many--I'm sure--adventures it'll bring! So stay tuned!!!

P.S. To keep up on the Cooley Clan, follow us now at ryanandamandacooley.blogspot.com.

A Little Update

Happy Holidays!
Since I last posted, Ryan and I celebrated our 1st Anniversary, Ryan finished Fall Semester, I started a new session at Adult Ed, we saw to the Hobbit (really good!), visited Salt Lake, enjoyed a wonderful Christmas, and went to Les Miserables (also really good!) for my dad's birthday. Here are the details with the pictures:

A left-over from the last post: Our Christmas tree for this year...we went to Idaho with Heath, Sheila and the kids and harvested it. It was extra tall which meant lots of boughs for decorating!!!

Our 1st Anniversary fell on the Monday of Finals Week for Ryan so we celebrated with a nice dinner at home. Ryan cooked (steak, "Uncle Kevin" potatoes, green beans, green salad, and wedding cake (which was still super tasty!) for desert), we watched Home Alone, and exchanged presents. I got Ryan a watch and he got me a bracelet. The Cooleys gave us a Precious Moments figurine that's just adorable! It was a great night!

Tasty!!!

Cake anyone?

 Mmmmm

  

Yummmmmm

Ohhhh...so cute

Anybody have the time?

 After finals were over, Ryan and I took my mom and dad to Salt Lake for a little pre-Christmas excursion. We did lunch at Maddox on the way, stopped at Smith and Edwards, then wandered the new City Creek Center. Dinner was at Siegfried's Delicatessen (so tasty! and I'm so happy we finally got my dad down there to eat with us!!!) and then we finished off the night with a walk around Temple Square to see the lights. The last time I saw the lights with my parents I was a little girl. We had a great time just getting to be with my mom and dad. We're happy things worked out to make it happen!

On Christmas Eve, with a lot of help from my mum, I finally finished the tree skirt and stockings I've been working on for months. I did the design, all the embroidery, and just about all the sewing. I think they turned out sooo cute!

There are still more Christmas pictures to upload. Hopefully we'll get they up soon!

Hello December!

Well hello! We've sure started the month out with a BANG! Saturday Ryan and I journeyed to Idaho for our Second Annual Christmas Tree Harvest with Heath, Sheila, and the kids. We had a great time searching for the "perfect" tree, cutting it down, and hauling it out. Ryan particularly enjoyed the impromptu duck hunting on the way home. The only bummer was that we got home late and didn't feel like putting the tree up so it's currently sitting in my parents' backyard along with theirs.
Sunday we went to church, Ryan gave a great lesson on the end chapters of Mormon, then we came home and set to work getting dinner ready. We played host to Jaden and Kira--Allan and Kristie have abandoned them for a 9-day excursion to Disneyland. We made roast, Yorkshire pudding, green beans, and jello for dinner with homemade donuts and hot chocolate for Sunday cinema. We're pretty proud of the way dinner turned out. We even made gravy for the roast and pudding! Good thing I watched my mom make gravy all those years!! Thanks mom! I'm bummed we didn't get any pictures of the dinner though....I was a little busy! Haha! It was fun to have Jaden and Kira over. They seemed to enjoy the dinner. I hope they had a good time. Sometimes you can't tell with teenagers. Believe me, I know. I teach them! :) So that was our weekend--busy, busy, busy. And it doesn't look like the rest of the month will be any different. How exciting!!
P.S. One more week and we'll be celebrating our FIRST anniversary! Happy Anniversary babe!!!!

Pinterest Failure

I'm a big fan of Pinterest. I get a lot of ideas from there and for the most part, what I've tried has turned out pretty good. However, it seems that when there's a Pinterest failure, it's usually big! Case in point: Ryan and I planned to have brownies and ice cream for our Sunday Santa Cinema treat. (See the previous post if you're not sure what Sunday Santa Cinema is.) When we got home from eating dinner with my parents, I had a big, nasty headache. So as we started the movie--this week it was Home Alone--I promptly fell asleep hoping my headache would go away. The last part I remember seeing was Kevin realizing he'd "made [his] family disappear." Sometime during the movie, Ryan got up to go make the treat. We wanted to try making the brownies on our waffle iron. I'd seen it on Pinterest so why not give it a try? Cue epic failure. According to Ryan, remember I'm asleep at this point, the brownies pulled apart when he tried to separate the waffle maker once they were cooked. He even tried a different kind of waffle maker but ended up with the same terrible results. To salvage the rest of the batter, he put it in a small cake pan and baked it up. When all was said and done and I finally woke up, Ryan presented me with a tasty brownie sundae and the tale of how waffle makers and brownie batter don't mix. At least the sundae was delicious! And the funny thing is, we went over to his parents last night where he shared the tale and guess what?! Allan informed us that no, you cannot make brownies in a waffle maker. The moral of my story is that sometimes Pinterest is great and other times it's a complete bust. But hey at least the things that don't turn out usually make for funny stories! And if you've tried it and it worked, please enlighten us. Otherwise, know that it probably won't work. :)

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Last night we kicked off Sunday Santa Cinema. It's a Cooley family tradition where we watch Christmas movies on Sunday nights accompanied by popcorn and tasty treats. We decided to watch Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" first--we'd just finished Halloween and figured it'd be a good transition movie. I'm just going to say that if I never see the movie again, I'm not going to cry about it. It was weird! So weird in fact that Ryan and I came home and popped in "Holiday Inn" so we'd have something to take our minds off of the weirdness of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Luckily, we both highly enjoyed Holiday Inn. It's one of my favorites and Ryan liked it as well--it was his first time seeing it. We also decided it was a better holiday movie kick-off. Needless to say we'll not be watching the Nightmare... anytime again soon and I'd very much like to start any future Sunday Santa Cinema runs with something A LOT better! So here's to hoping the rest of the season's movies turn out!!! Merry Viewing my blog friends!

P.S. If you've never seen Holiday Inn, check out this trailer!

What have the Cooleys been up to?

It's been a busy past couple of months. School started and is well under way. I can't believe I'm two units away from being done with first trimester already! My classes are pretty good this year. They do have their moments and sometimes I just can't take the incessant talking! Would you just please be quiet? But on the whole school is going pretty good. It's definitely a step above last year!
Ryan is busy with classes and work. We finally broke down and got the internet at our place which I think has been a big help! We spent a lot of time running around trying to get his homework done. It's crazy how much school relies on the internet these days.
Our families are doing well and we work hard at balancing time between the Downs and the Cooleys. I'm sure that both sides would prefer they get us more but we're doing our best to have "us" time too.
We're excited for fall weather and everything it brings with it. We celebrated Halloween with my family and the traditional chili dinner. It was pretty low-key but we did manage to dress up! (See the picture on the sidebar...)I'm looking forward now to decorating for Thanksgiving and then Christmas!! We're 8 days away from our 11-month anniversary. I can't believe how time has flown. Pretty soon a whole year will have gone by.
One new thing we've started is going up to Ryan's grandma Erm's place on Friday nights. We cook dinner for the three of us and then sit down to watch our two favorite shows--Fringe and Blue Bloods. Grandma doesn't care about the shows but I think she likes the company. We enjoy it as well--it's pretty relaxing and a fun way to spend the evening!
We both have teaching callings in the ward. Ryan teaches gospel doctrine every other week and I teach the fourth Sunday lessons in Relief Society. I enjoy teaching and LOVE that my mom comes to hear me give me lesson just about every month! That's pretty special!
Well I guess that's about it for the Cooley Clan! Twenty days until Thanksgiving! Hurray!!!!

Wow!

I know I've been a slacker blogger for a while now. I've made several attempts at trying to give it a facelift as of late but it wouldn't work so I just became more and more frustrated with the whole thing! Needless to say the months of pictures and information I want to add has gone undone because of my inability to make simple changes to how this whole thing looks! Anyway, as you can probably see, they've been taken care of and I am now ready to download a bunch of pictures from various sources and hopefully get caught up here. After all, I've got great incentive--Christmas is coming and I've got gifts that require pictures so I've gotta download them anyway. Might as well do a little blogging here as well right?

P.S. Ryan only realized last night that we had a blog...yeah, that about sums the whole thing up!

Back to School

If you read my blog does anyone actually read it? then you'll know that the last post I made was on the last day of the 2011-2012 school year. And now here I am, one day away from having my first day of the 2012-2013 school year over with. What'd I do with my summer you might ask? I have no idea!!! Well I do, but it seems like it sure was a whirlwind and was far too short. Now I'm back to school with my room all ready to welcome my kiddies. I'm still at North Cache teaching Ancient World History. I've added three more sections this year YAY!!! so I'll be a bit busier. I moved to a new classroom and we'll see how that works out. I just can't believe it's here again! And to boot, my adorable husband is off on a week-long hunting trip which will conclude on Saturday. Needless to say that though it's only Wednesday, I feel like I've already lived through the week trying to accomplish a lot of things on my own. Boy I miss Ryan!!! It's strange to come home and be in an empty place all evening. Did I mention that I miss him? I'll be glad when this week is over so we can get back into a routine. Ryan starts school again on Monday and we'll be back to the work/school grindstone. Good-bye summer, hello fall! Hopefully being back in the swing of things will give me a chance to catch up on this blogging thing....

Last days

Tomorrow at this time I'll be able to say that I successfully completed my first year as a teacher! It's been a crazy year, stressful at times, but also very good. And I went from Miss Downs to Mrs. Cooley in addition to everything else! How great is that?!
I have to say that I'll miss some of my students--there were some really great kids. Others I won't miss at all...but I've learned a lot, changed my curriculum a number of times, and discovered that Ancient World History isn't so bad!
Bring on next year!!! Well, after a nice long summer break that is! :)

Memorial Day Weekend

We had a fun Memorial Day weekend! Friday we used up some coupons for free Chik-Fil-A, bought Ryan more new clothes why is he so easy to buy for? and met up with Allan, Kristie, and Jaden for our first Slurpees of the summer season. Saturday Ryan had to work so I hung with my parents until he got off. We then hit up the sale at Al's and got some new bike helmets, went shopping for clothes for me a total bust! and then came home. I do have to tell you about dinner that night though: I'd made rhubarb syrup earlier in the week and couldn't figure out what to actually do with it! My dad suggested putting it on pancakes so Ryan whipped up a batch of pancakes and we topped them with some strawberries and the syrup. Oh my! They were so delicious! And yes, I am eighty years old and find rhubarb to be quite tasty! ;0) Sunday we both had to teach--Ryan Sunday School and me Relief Society. A special shout-out and thanks to Kristie for coming to our lessons!! Both times I've taught since having that calling I've either had my mom thanks mommy! or my mother-in-law there for support. How lucky is that?! After church we went to pick up Grandma Erm and took her to the Cooley's for dinner. Pepsi chicken was on the menu and it sure was yummy! We ended the day with popcorn, Linda cake, and watching We Bought A Zoo. That was such a cute movie! Monday rolled around and Ryan and I took advantage of a day off by sleeping in. It was fabulous! For the rest of our day we ate, went to the cemetery, and hung out with family. I'd say it was a pretty great weekend!

Thank-you For Your Worms

Last weekend Ryan and I had some great times with my family. It started off with catching "Dancing with Our Students' Stars" put on by the Logan City School District's foundation. I was super excited to see my kindergarten teacher dance. She did a great job and even earned perfect 10s across the board for her performance. It was pretty disappointing that she didn't win overall!
After the performance we went back to my parents' and hunted night crawlers. The fabulous rainstorm on Friday brought the worms out in droves. We filled a bucket which we figured would be more than ample for our fishing expedition on Saturday afternoon.

Busy but Loving It!

Wow-eee!!! These past few months have been crazy busy! Here's the run-down:
In March we celebrated Ryan's birthday. I made mini puff pancakes for breakfast--so tasty!!! Gave him some presents and then sent him off to school. After I finished work at 9 that night, we had a steak and "Uncle Kevin potatoes" dinner with his family where he also opened more presents and we ate some tasty cake.
We also celebrated St. Patrick's Day with the extended Cooley Family in Newton, marked the 25th wedding anniversary of Allan and Kristie and surpassed 100 days of marriage! (The last two just happened to fall on the same day--awesome!)

A Crazy Life

Yes we're still alive but so crazy busy that I have about a million things on my to-do list every day it seems. Since I last posted we've celebrated 3 months of marriage, 100 days of marriage, Ryan's birthday, Easter, and done a lot of other things. I'm hoping one day soon I get to catch up on all this and document it with a couple photos. Until then my blog readers...we're still happily married and loving life! Even if it's full, full, full!!!

2 Months and Valentine's Day

Ryan and I celebrated our two-month anniversary last Friday. I love celebrating these little milestones. It's so fun!!! And to add to the fun we included Kira in our festivities. I picked Kira up from school, strategized about her history fair project and then we went to pick up Ryan. We grabbed some Subway ($5 footlongs--it's Februany!) and headed back to the Cooley home to watch Beauty and the Beast on their awesome new TV. It turned out that it was the diamond edition of the movie so there was even an extended scene! Allan and Kristie came home from dinner and joined our festivities. We ate popcorn, Ryan played Zelda, we did a Tim-Tam slam... It turned out to be a great evening!
Then for Valentine's Day we got to sleep in ('cause it was Tuesday and we can do that on Tuesday and Thursday), I made Ryan's favorite muffins for breakfast and then filled his pockets, shoes, and notebooks with cheesy Valentines. He had fun trying to find them all, which wasn't accomplished until late that evening! We parted ways about 10 am--Ryan to school then work, me to work, class, then work again. For dinner at 9:30 that night (yep, that's about when we rejoin each other at home), we enjoyed one of those heart shaped pizzas from Papa Murphy's and a S'more pizza for dessert. It tasted fantastic alongside a couple episodes of Fringe! All in all, I'd say it was a great Valentine's Day. Low-key is just what we needed with our hectic schedules!
P.S. The only picture I have is of our Tim Tam Slam. Thanks Kristie!!! I'll try to do better with my own documentation!

Tim Tam Slam!!!

Disneyland! Oh my what a fabulous adventure!!!

Once upon a time I was a girl who married into a family of Disneyland fanatics. Love you Cooleys! ;o) I myself, had never been to this magical place and therefore could not quite grasp the reason for this, shall we say, obsession? But that all changed on the 25th of January....
After an eventful departure from Logan, a super-early flight to Long Beach, and a warm welcome to sunny California, I set my two little feet inside a magical adventure. And for the next four days, I walked, and stood, and ate (A LOT), and rode, and basked in the world of Disney. Needless to say, I had a fantastic time and dare I admit it???? I CAN'T WAIT TO GO BACK!!!!

1 Month!

After a long day at work for me and a new day of classes for Ryan, we both made it home for dinner. We'd planned Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes for the menu, with a little cake for dessert! When I got home, Ryan had the potatoes boiling and I joined him in the kitchen to finish the rest. Once it was all ready, we dished up and headed to the living room to watch an episode of Stargate SG-1. I picked up the first season at the library and have been getting re-aquainted with the series. Ryan still can't believe I watch it! I profess to strongly dislike Sci-Fi.... Somewhere during the show I pulled out the last piece of wedding cake we had-besides the top that's awaiting our 1 year anniversary- and we dug in. It was still surprisingly tasty! I definitely recommend Shaffer Bakery for delicious cakes. We gobbled it up and enjoyed every single bite! I think it was a great 1-month anniversary!!

10 December 2011

In a simply beautiful sealing ceremony, Ryan and I were joined for time and all eternity on Saturday 10 December 2011. Here's to forever babe!!!

Back to School

Hey! Hi! Hello!
Yes, I know it's been what seems like 700 years since I last updated. Let's face it, life's been busy! But great!!
It's back to school time in my world. In case you missed it, I have a real teaching job this year. I'm teaching part time at North Cache. My assignment is Ancient World History. Right now I'm also filling in for Amy with her ESL and Geography classes until she gets back from India. And on top of that, I'm back with Logan's Adult Ed program doing remedial math and English. So as you can see, I'm busy...and school's only one part of it!!! *wink wink*
 
 

Life's funny

It's funny how things come into your life and other's fall by the wayside. It's funny how you learn to reprioritize. Things are great right now! I got a real teaching job--I'll be teaching 2 classes of Ancient World History at North Cache. I'll probably still try and get another job, just to keep myself busy! :o) And everything else is going fabulously!!! If you know what else is going on in my life then you know exactly what I'm talking about!!! ;o)
I love life!!! And I love that I have a blog and a journal so that when one gets pushed to the backburner, the other is there to pick up the slack. I apologize to those of you who've been looking forward to news on my blog--I just haven't had the time to update!!! There are more important things to do..... ;o) But know that things are great, I'm still alive, and I'm oh soooo happy!!!!!!!!

I've been a little busy lately...

I've been a little busy lately and haven't taken the time to update the old blog. Life is WUNDERBAR! I've got a week left of school, my night job finished a week ago, and I started at the opera this past Monday. My church callings are going well, though planning home evenings can be a little overwhelming at times! But the best part of life is....I'm dating the greatest guy in the world and we are soooo happy!!!!