My Birthday week!

This year my birthday caused a lot of anxiety and stress, just ask Billy ;)  It turned out to be an awesome day, and an awesome week!  I love when a birthday turns into a birth week.  It started out with an ice cream cake and singing at Bruce and Karen's the week before.  Maddison was VERY excited it was our birthdays (me and Kara...still so amazed that we share the same birthday).  Probably because there was cake :)  We all had to wear our party hats the entire time or Maddison would not be okay with it.

Grayson giving me his pirate "argh!" face

My actual birthday started out with a few selfies in the car that I will now share for posterity's sake.  It was spirit week at school (I should share some of those pics!) and this day was animal day so I wore my awesome tiger shirt I haven't worn since high school.

At school my students were super sweet and kept wishing me a happy birthday.  One of them brought me a starbucks (double chocolate chip frappuchino) and doughnuts!  A group of my favorite 7th grade girls made me some cards and put them on my door and people kept signing them all day which was so fun!  Also my friend Natalie got me some balloons and made me do her birthday dance in front of the students which was funny (I forgot to take pictures of the balloons and signs!).

At lunch Natalie brought in a big surprise...a dozen cupcakes from my favorite cake place!  She is so awesome!  My work friends all chipped in for the cupcakes.  They sang to me in the lunch room and then we headed out to go get some in-n-out just to get me hyped up on more sugar.  It was fun.  I love my work friends!

My afternoon kids killed my soul a little bit as usual which sucked but I took some selfies with my 7th period class anyway.

 A note from my friend Rachel on my white board

Guess what my Mom did!!  That awesome woman sent me a birthday flower basket and jelly bellys that got delivered to me after school!  She is so great!

After school I got some work done and then headed home.  I was going to go shopping until dinner but I was super tired and hung out at home instead.  Once Billy got home we researched where to get my ear re-pierced because we were going to go do that before dinner but we ran out of time so we were going to do it after dinner, but it didn't happen then either, ha.  So we opened the presents Billy got me!

New ninja pants!  And I got some rainbow sandals!  Thanks Billy!

Another awesome surprise from my Mom was a big gift card in the mail!  She is literally the best.  You know what she was thinking about doing?  Flying out to take me shopping on my birthday!  How amazing is she?  And how much does she spoil me?  She's so great!  She also sent me a new swim suit!  WOW!  Thanks Mom!!!

We went to dinner at Gecko Grill with Billy's fam which was super fun!  My BFF Jen called me on my way there and we got to catch up which was great too.

Birthday fried ice cream!

Crossing her legs like a lady enjoying the birthday dinner ;)

Getting sung to...Billy was obviously scared of the people singing

We then went home and my visiting teacher brought me over some treats.  Such a perfect day!

The Friday after my b-day we decided to do the big deed and get my ear re-pierced!  It was intense.  We went to this scary body piercing place called HTC Body Piercing and got my ear looked at my the scariest guy ever!  But all the people turned out to be super nice and the guy helping me was so sweet and patient.  He ended up not having to pierce it and just stuck his little needle right through the grown-over skin...awesome I know.  It hurt like crazy but it saved me $15 so it was worth it :)  I am SO MAD I forgot to have Billy take a picture of this!  I did, however, get a picture right after while we were driving to Walgreens to get distilled water for soaking my ears in...super high quality and a moment worth remembering for sure haha jk.  AND here is a pic I got from the website of Jacob, the guy who did my ears.  Super creepy I put this in here.

I was so excited to have earrings!!

Soaking my ears in salt water like a champ

The next day Billy went shopping with me to spend some birthday $$ which was awesome and that night we had planned a little birthday get together with some friends.  We went out to eat then had cake and played games at our apartment.  It was so fun!

My new birthday clothes

We ate at joyride tacos...so good!  Love these people!!  The Bests and the Johnsons!

I promise we had friends over...Billy forgot to take a picture of any of the people :)

 We played some intense pounce and called it a night.  Super fun birthday week!  Thanks to all involved in making it awesome!  I am so lucky to be so loved.

Color Obstacle Rush

Months ago, Jody sent me a text and asked if I wanted to do the color obstacle run with her!  I have never done a color run so I was super excited, and so was Billy so we both signed up!  Kara signed up with us too.  The run was April 18.  It was a very interesting event, that's for sure.  We got there on time but Jody, Kara and Karen got pretty dang lost and were a little late, but it didn't matter because we had to wait in the registration line for hours.  By the time we got started it was pretty warm but it was really fun, not because of the event, but because of the company.  The event was actually a huge disaster.  Super long lines, not enough color powder, a course that just went around a track, and a HUGE swarm of bees!  The obstacles weren't only inflatable ;)

It was super fun running with Jody and Kara, love my sisters in law!  I think the course ended up being only like a mile and a half, but it was a good workout anyway.  The obstacles were pretty tough, especially for Jody who tried to do an awesome froggy move and ended up smacking into an inflatable wall.  So funny!

Taylor hanging out

This is the best picture of all time (except I missed the goofy memo)  Perfect timing Karen!

A series of awesome failed jumping pics:

 

Using up the last of our color

Afterwards we went to get lunch at Smashburger!

Yum yum!  Love these people!  Super fun day!

Phoenix Pride Half Marathon

The weekend after Easter was my much anticipated half marathon!  Danielle and I had been training really hard.  We stuck to a training schedule pretty dang close and so I felt really ready for this race.  It was a pretty big disappointment to me, I didn't do very well.  I stuck with Danielle for about 4 miles of the race but then I had to let her go ahead of me.  I was dying pretty much the whole time after that.  It was rough!  But I am glad I did it.  Danielle and I had some good times training together!

There were some interesting characters at the race :)  Starting behind the Tinkerbell

The Human Beings

Woohoo!

Danielle and I on our first loop around.  We look like we're dying haha

Smiles!

Danielle the second time around the giant loop

Me one the 2nd loop, I was so tired

Finishing!  I was so done

Awesome medal

My awesome number...#8!

Later that evening we went and saw my school's production of Cinderella.  It was awesome!  It was really fun seeing my students perform and be ushers and everything.  They were so cute.

I felt pretty sick and exhausted from my race so we headed home pretty quick after the performance.  It was a crazy day!

Easter and General Conference

I had Good Friday off of school so Billy and I got up at 3 AM and headed to San Diego that morning!  We spent Friday running, sleeping, beaching, getting Billy a haircut, then Costco-ing.  We ran into so many ward members in Costco, and then more in Chipotle for dinner.  Craziness!  It was a very fun day.  Except the beach was way too cold.  We couldn't even get in the water it was so cold.  We actually couldn't take off our towels as blankets because it was so cold!  Ha!

3:30 AM doughnut run!

Freezing beach...those people laying out were cold I promise

Beach sky

 Saturday my Mom and I went for an 8 mile run in preparation for my half marathon.  It was fun running with her even though we had to go at 5:30!  My parents had a garage sale that morning to get rid of a bunch of their old furniture and stuff since they did the remodel.  It was a little crazy and made me realize how horrible garage sales are.  A lot of work and time for not very much $$.

The rest of the day we watched conference and did food prep.  My mom is so nice and always tries to make my favorite things when I am home.  We went shopping during the priesthood session which was fun!

Sunday was Easter and we got to wake up to some awesome Easter baskets from my parents!  Then we had more delish food and watched conference.  We had to leave right after conference ended which sucked.  It was a great weekend!  Thanks Mom and Dad!!

Jayce playing with a kendama...he's super into these right now :)