Mr. GQ

At Michael's school, the student council puts on an annual Mr. GQ contest as a fundraiser. Michael was selected to participate. This year's theme was Las Vegas. In the show, male teachers make two appearances on stage. First, they come out to a song of their choice and work the stage Vegas style. Then, they come out a second time in formal wear (to show all the young wannabe gangsters how to dress for prom) and answer a question suibmitted by the other contestants.

Michael dressed for his first appearance as a high roller. He came out in a white tux jacket with vest and hat. He very smoothly tossed some money around the stage and did all the latest dance moves (His students taught him those). Out of all the teachers, he received the biggest crowd reaction.

Here's a close up of his outfit (from the night before). And yes, that big ring on his finger does light up.

Looking fly.

Working the stage.

The interveiw portion of the contest. His question: "What is the air speed velocity of a swallow?" His reply: "An African or European swallow?" None of the students got the joke. Only the adults. In the end, Michael got first runner up. According the crowd reaction, he was the winner, but apparently the front-office judges thought otherwise. Check out the cool sash he got.

After the show--- Michael with some of his students.

Some Good Reads...

Lately, I have been reading some really great books. It just so happens that all the books I've read lately are children's books (all in the line of duty, right?). But if you are looking for a fun, quick and wholesome read, you might want to consider one of these....

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

This is one of my all time favorite books. I remember reading this book in fourth grade and since then I've probably reread it atleast 4 times. I love it everytime espeically the chapters where Nicodemus is telling Mrs. Frisby about what happened in the laboratory.

Frindle

Andrew Clements writes such cute, clever books that everyone can enjoy. I giggled through this book. The ending to the book is an ending that just kind of makes you sigh with satisfaction. Love it!

Matilda

This is one of the books that I am reading right now. It's so quirky and fun. Roald Dahl always does a great job of making fun of adults and exaggerating their flaws. I also love the British terms that are used throughout the book like telly and ducky. It's another book that makes me giggle all the way through. Plus it has a happy ending and I only like books that have a happy ending.

The Hatchet

This is a book that I seem to read every couple years. I read it again this summer. It's always so interesting to find out how Brian survives in the wilderness. I catch myself wondering how I would handle the situation that Brian finds himself in.

How I Became a Pirate

Who doesn't love a good picture book? David Shannon's books are my favorite picture books. While he didn't write this one, he did illustrate it. This book is just cute and that's all I can say about.

Now I just want to make sure that you all know that I do read adult books occasionally. But I think I will always love children's books the most.

A Request From a Friend

A friend from work, Kathy, asked me to write the story of how Mike and I met. We didn't have time at work to exchange stories, so this was the solution. Here I go....

My freshman year at BYU a group of friends and I were huge BYU basketball fans. We went to every game. We even showed up way early to get the best seats available in the student section (first come first serve). We had a lot of fun together, espeically since the team was great that year. The BYU basketball players were like celebrities to our sad little group.

So, in December when I new guy showed up on the court during the pre-game shoot around, I was perplexed. I didn't recognize the guy at all. I was even more perplexed that I didn't recognize him, because he was so cute. Right then and there, my crush on "Dresser" started. During the rest of the season, my eyes were glued on Dresser as he shot around during warm-ups (he didn't get much playing time, but hey I didn't care).

The game before Valentine's Day a buddy of mine dared me to get Dresser's attention some how. That's why I brought a big sign with me to that game. When my friends and I walked into the stadium, the shoot around hadn't started. A few minutes later, Mike walked out with the best player (he always did that so that he felt like the people who cheered during the entrance were cheering for him). I was too embarrassed and didn't want to hold up the sign, but I gave into peer pressure and held the sign up high for Dresser to see.

The sign read, "Dresser, Will you be my Valentine?" He saw the sign and acknowledged my presence. I was done there. I was happy just to have him smile at me. But a few minutes later, Dresser was at the bottom of the stands talking to a friend. Again I gave into peer pressure and went to the bottom of the stands and had him autograph my sign.

Another few minutes later, the trainer for the basketball team convinced Mike to write his number down and send it up the stands to me. When I got his number, I was so excited. Luckily, I held it together and wrote my number down and sent it back down the stands. By this time, the team had gone back into the locker room, so the trainer delivered my number to Mike (I later found out that the trainer had taped it to Mike's locker and used lipstick to write "Call me" on the locker mirror.)

Now I didn't intend to call Dresser at all. That would just be too embarrassing and make me look like some lame groupie. But I did make sure to tell all my friends about what had happened. I was so proud that I had gotten Dresser's number.

Two nights later, I walk into my dorm room just in time to answer the phone. When the voice on the other side said, "This is Mike Dresser," I didn't beleive it was really him. I was convinced that it was a friend trying to pull a prank on me. It took a good five minutes for me to finally beleive that it really was Dresser on the other side. That night we talked for about 10 minutes, then Mike asked me to go out on a date with him. Of course I said yesa dn instantly began planning what I was going to wear!

The next night we went out for ice cream and movie and as they say the rest is history.

Here is picture of me the day after I got Dresser's number. Don't I look excited!

This is a picture from one of our first dates-- a movie night at a cabin in Park City.

This is a picture from about a month after our first date. It was taken right before one of Mike's game. That's why we're both decked in our BYU basketball gear!

An Easy, Fancy New Trick

During the holiday season Mike and I have had a lot of friends and family over to eat. I wanted to make my usual cupcakes look a little more festive.

Waa-Laa...

It was really easy to make the snowflakes. First, I found pictures of snowflakes on the internet that were simple enough to trace. I formatted them to be the size I wanted and printed out a sheet. Then, I layed a peice of wax paper over my snowflake print out. In the microwave, I melted some white chocolate chips in a baggie. I snipped a little corner off the baggie and piped out the melted white chocolate. All I did was follow the design of the snowflake print out. After the white chocolate cooled, I gently lifted them off the wax paper. I placed the snowflakes on the cupcakes while the frosting was still wet, so that the snowflakes would stick. I also added some white sugar sprinkles for some sparkle (You can't see that in the photo).

It really is so easy and literally only took 15 minutes. Snazzy!

Christmas 2008

Michael and I spent this Christmas with the Dresser family. On Christmas Eve, we went to Jena and Mike's house for food and games. We also took a tour on our town's street of lights. We finished the night with mint chocolate chip brownies. Yum.

On Christmas morning, Michael, Cooper and I packed up our presents and drove over to Mama Lana's house. After a nice breakfast (that seemed to last forever!), we opened presents. Michael and I had both picked out each of our presents on a shopping trip together. However, we did wrap each other's gifts. So, the surprise wasn't what we receieved, but what was actually in the package. My mom said this was very practical, but I think it's just smart. We both got exactly what we wanted for Christmas. My big Christmas gift was an ottoman (no, this was not wrapped). I love my ottoman! It's perfect for our living room and I love having the storage inside for blankets. This is a photo of a similar ottoman.

Later on in the day, more family came over to eat Christmas dinner. During the evening we played several games, but Mikey and I hosted the Right Family game. Everyone enjoyed the game, though there were some tears shed when a nephew discovered that he didn't win the hidden $5. Maybe next year, right? (get it?)

We had a Merry Christmas!

This is a photo of Cooper and Lila. Lila is Jon and Lana's new puppy. Cooper and Lila played constantly on Christmas day.

Even though Lila only packs 2 pounds, she never gave up her toy in a game of tug of war. Maybe her growling scared Cooper off alittle.

San Francisco

Michael and I had a grand ‘ol time visiting San Francisco with Jay, Michael’s brother, and Jay’s “special friend” Bethany. We started the day-cation by driving across the Golden Gate bridge. We took time to take some pictures featuring the bridge itself and the city on the bay.

After that stop, we searched for some cheap parking up close to Union Square. Since that does not exist, we parked in a parking garage a black away from all the awesome shopping. ($30--- ouch!) We then rode the trolley down to see the usual tourist spots: Ghirardelli Square, Fisherman’s Warf, and Pier 39. We snapped this shot of Jay and Bethany joking around while watching the seals.

Next we headed up to the shopping. We did a couple hours of shopping and believe it or not I didn’t buy a thing. What self-control! We ended our San Francisco trip by eating at the Cheesecake Factory. That was delicious just as the Cheesecake Factory always is.

Finally, on the way home we took a little detour to see the lights on the Oakland temple. It was beautiful. There were lights everywhere. As I was looking around and I thought to myself, “I wonder if they followed the ‘“only three strands to a line’?” Then after a little investigation, I discovered that they did! It’s amazing. They has hundreds and hundreds of strands of lights and they had some how only consecutively connected three at a time. Amazing. You can't see the lights very well in the picture, but believe me, there were lights everywhere!

All in all, it was a very enjoyable trip.

Happy Halloween!

Michael and I had a quiet Halloween night. We were ready for a crowd of kids with a super large bag of candy, but not too many kids came by. We have plenty of candy left over. We did have fun dressing Cooper up. I know, we're silly, but it's still a lot of fun.

When Cooper's in his pirate outfit, he holds still a lot more. It's like he's not sure if he can move all the way. It's funny.

Here's Cooper with his pirate hat on. He was pretty good about wearing the hat, surprisingly.

What a mean looking sword!Megan and Cooper on the front porch.

Michael and Cooper on the front porch. Megan with Cooper, Mocha (Jon and Lana's puppy, in his army fatigues), and Jeffery (Mike's nephew). We visited Mocha to have a small, joint birthday party for the puppies. Yes, Cooper is almost one year old (Nov. 17).