On the 18th I took my friend, Rachael, home to West Jordan for the break. While I was down there I got to go with her and her family to Jon Schmidt's Christmas concert. Actually, that was the reason for me taking her home in the first place. But that's beside the point. The concert was fantastic! It was either the fourth or fifth of his that I'd been to, but the first where he had the entire band with him. And by that I mean his drummers, bass player and cellist. The others were all just him, except for the one in September where he brought his cellist with him. Rachael and I were expecting the concert to be an hour and a half, maybe two hours. It ended at 10:30pm. Three hours after it started. It didn't even seem like it had been that long! That's how good it was. I highly recommend going to one of his shows sometime. I know I'll do it again!

He played his song North Pole Express for us that night, showing this video on the screen behind him. Someone, somewhere set their Christmas lights to this song. It's pretty awesome; check it out!

'Twas the Day After Christmas

Christmas was different this year. A lot different. First off, Rian and I were the only ones here. Well, Luke and Lacey came over later. Anyway, we had this awesome plan to stay up all night on Christmas Eve. Why we never thought of that when we were younger, I have no idea. So we were in Rian's room all night playing his Xbox (mostly him) and then we watched Muppets From Space. By the time that ended it was 6am. So we decided to "get up." We both already knew that he had gotten the game Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots so the plan was to go out and get it set up while Mom and Dad were still in bed. Yeah, when they finally got up twenty minutes later they were not happy. We usually have to wait until they give us an okay to go to the living room. But it was fun doing something we wouldn't normally do. 

When the other two got here, we goofed off playing games all day. Mostly on the Wii, as we got 6 new games. But we mostly stuck to Mario Kart. :) It's awesome on the new tv that you can actually see things on. Today wasn't much different, other than Luke and Lacey weren't here. I woke up to Mom and Dad playing Mario Kart, and the tv has been on all day. We watched the Celtic Thunder dvd I got from Grandma and Grandpa Hulsey (thank you thank you thank you!!! I love it!!) and now they are watching Bolt. I love Christmas break because I can be so lazy!! Even better, tomorrow is the last day of 8:30am church. Yay! 

We're headed to Washington for New Years again this year. And school doesn't start until January 11th. I have a lot of lazy time left and it might be all that I get for a while.

On a happier note, here's a Christmas song from Celtic Thunder. (It wouldn't let me embed it, so you'll have to click on it. Hopefully it works.) I'll throw in an actual video too, just because I can. :)

More of Jason & Shayla

Here's more of my favorites from my shoot with Jason & Shayla. Also, check out my friend, Elise's blog. She's the one that taught me what I know. :) (Which, if you think about it, isn't that much.)

Shootin' With Jason & Shayla (preview)

I did a photo shoot with Jason and Shayla today. I've decided that it's not as much fun in the snow, as my feet are still freezing. But we had some good laughs. :) Here's a few of my favorites so far.

And Life Goes On

I feel like so much has happened in the past month, but at the same time that nothing has happened.

First off, Thanksgiving happened. And wow, did I have a lot to be grateful for! On the top of that list is my parents, who (even though I know they can't afford it) gave me the money I need for next semester. Second would have to be my roommates. They were probably the only thing that kept me sane this semester! I'm also grateful to Aunt Sharon for letting me use her computer for two days in a row so that I could finish my last lesson plan for preschool. And I'm also grateful that preschool is over. And the list could go on and on.

Thanksgiving break was fantastic! All of my stuff for preschool was turned in before the break, so I actually got to enjoy it. Mom and Dad took us to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert the day before Thanksgiving. It was so cool! However, I would definitely want to go to Mannheim Steamroller again before another Trans-Siberian concert. It was still fun though. Before I came back to Logan that Sunday, Mom wanted me to take Rian out and do a photo shoot with him. Now, I enjoy photography. I like to look at it, and I like learning about how to take good pictures. But, I don't have any desire to make a business out of it. It's totally something I do just for fun. And I found that even shooting Rian can be fun. :)

After the break, I had one more week of high stress to go. Turns out parent-teacher conferences on top of head teaching for the week equals a constant headache. Ugh. But the good news is, it's over! And I think I got one of the best grades of all 6 student teachers that were in my classroom. Which makes me feel a lot better for all the extra work I put in. I'll admit, I miss my students a lot, but I don't miss everything that came along with knowing each of them. One thing that is fun about teaching close to Christmas is all the silly presents kids bring. We got homemade (sugar free) suckers, sticky notes, chapstick, and (my favorite one) a bottle of vitamin C. We all knew it was coming from the parents and not the kids though. But it was fun to see what each child wrote in their little thank you cards. :)

Finals week was a blast! I only had to take 2 tests, and they were super easy. Well, I failed one, but I still got a B in the class so I feel okay about that. Plus, the institute fed us breakfast and lunch every day. Free food always tastes so much better! I went home last Friday night, and then spent the day Saturday shopping with Mom and Dad. I wasn't supposed to find anything new for me, but New York & Company was having this awesome sale so Mom got me a new skirt. But I have to wait until Christmas to get it. Monday I came back to Logan and went shopping with Dad (he needed my input on what to get for Mom). My cousin, Trevor, came up for the day and we played all afternoon and into the night. He came with me and my friend Rachael to our ward FHE, which was awesome! We went caroling around the bishop's neighborhood. I forget how much I love caroling until I do it every year. After FHE, we went to Rachael and Shonnee's apartment and chatted for a bit and then made crepes at midnight. Crazy, I know, but they were tasty! We started off today by watching this awesome chick flick called A Boyfriend for Christmas. I've watched 3 other movies since then, as well and dropping by Aunt Sharon's and doing a little shopping. Oh, there was an episode or two of Pushing Daisies in there as well. Man, I love that show. Also, I love being able to be lazy for a few weeks!

Up next, a few more days of laziness, a Jon Schmidt concert with Rachael, photo shoot with Jason and Shayla and a party on Saturday, and playing in the Messiah on Sunday. Woot!

I Probably Should be Sleeping....

I haven't posted in a while so I thought I would tonight. Plus I had this song stuck in my head so it's the perfect reason to put it up. All the women dancing in the audience remind me of Mom. She would totally be one that does that. Also, I love Keith, Ryan and Paul in the background. Their choreography is fantastic. Mostly, this song just makes me smile. :)

Still not crafty, but I think I'm learning!

I think my IWA girls are trying to turn me into a little homemaker. They always pick the activities that have to do with making something; whether it be sewing, drawing, cooking, you name it and they want to do it. Like the activity we had last spring when we made those super cute scripture bags. Now don't get me wrong. I enjoyed that activity. Probably not anywhere near as much as others though. And, I love my girls enough to do the activities that they want to do. After all, I'm there for them and not for me. So a couple of weeks ago, we had one of these "home making" activities. We made these super cute picture board things. There was no sewing involved this time...just a staple gun and a glue gun and even a hammer. Now that's stuff I can use without hurting myself! Mine didn't turn out too bad either:

That little ribbon has little brown and blue dots on it too.

You know what else is turning me into a home maker? Preschool. Every time we head teach we have to have a cooking experience as part of our lesson plan so that the children get a chance to work with something real instead of pretend. (Not that pretend is bad because it's actually really good for them!) Anyway, I head teach this coming week. For my cooking experience we're going to make pretzels. I'm actually kind of excited for it. You know why? Because tonight, I decided to try out the recipe I found to see how it really works and how they taste. First off, they look good! And second, they taste good. Even my roommates say so. Too bad I hate cooking eh?

I Think I'm Going Crazy!

I finally made it to fall break. It's been a long time coming! The semester is actually going by really fast, and yet it's not fast enough. I've come to the conclusion that I never want to teach preschool. It's not that I don't enjoy it, and I know that in other preschool programs things don't have to be as detailed as they make us have it at the university, but still. Yuck! I've been working on my lesson plan for weeks now, and I'm still not finished. I think there's something wrong with this picture. Lesson plans shouldn't take weeks! And honestly, there's only so long a person can think about simple things like light and dark before they go crazy! Plus, almost everything I came up with my head teacher vetoed. Ugh. So I basically had to start over. Now, don't get me wrong; I do like my head teacher. But there are some things I think she needs to lighten up on. Like snack, for example. She doesn't eat sugar. Cool. Kudos to her. But if we want the kids to make anything that involves sugar, she makes us substitute honey in it's place. Talk about gross! And, what any other head teacher in any other class of our lab would say is an acceptable food experience for the children, my head teacher says isn't. She makes this student teaching thing so much more difficult than it should be! It definitely doesn't help that I have two other classes on top of the 40+ hours a week I spend on preschool stuff. Public school is looking more enticing to me every day...

On the bright side, I took a break from lesson writing tonight. Shouldn't have, but I did none the less. And I decided to post another favorite of Celtic Thunder songs. Okay, so most of them are my favorite. This one is Caledonia by the entire group. Oh how I would LOVE to see them in concert!

And There was Much Rejoicing!!

So on September 12th, I took a massive test. It's called the Praxis 2: Content Knowledge test. It's one that every elementary ed major has to take and pass with a score of at least 150 before handing in their student teaching application. I get to turn in my application in January. (Yay!) My plan had been to take the praxis over the summer, but alas, Mill Hollow totally and completely distracted me, and I forgot. Go figure, right? When school started, a couple of friends of mine were talking about how they were taking it in September. That's when I started to freak out a little. It takes a month to get your scores back and I couldn't wait until the November test and risk not passing it the first time. So I paid all the late and emergency test registration fees (yes, they are two different fees!) and took the test last month.

Yesterday, I decided to see if my scores were posted yet. It hasn't been a month, but they said that sometimes they come in early. So I logged into my account, and saw that they were there. I got really nervous. I was going to be so upset if I had only gotten a 149. I guess I got a worried look on my face because my roommate asked me if I was okay. I clicked on the score link and told her I didn't know yet. It seems like it took forever for those blasted scores to come up! But when they did, there was much rejoicing coming from me! I got a 169! I more than passed the test! So now I can print my scores and get to work on my student teaching application. :) The end of college really is in sight!

General Conference

This is one of my two most favorite weekends of the entire year: General Conference!

Remember this post a while back about how I got to help with the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house? Well in general conference this morning, President Monson announced 5 new temples. I can't even remember what the last four were because the first one he said was Brigham City, Utah! Yay! That means that I will have two temples within 30 minutes from me! I've never lived somewhere where I've had more than one temple so easily accessible. I mean, yeah, there's Ogden and the 5 in the Salt Lake valley, and Provo and Manti all within a 3 hour drive from me, so I do have more than just Logan. But it takes so much extra effort (not to mention gas) to get to those ones. But now, there will be another one that is super easy to get to! And I'm so excited for it! I never would have guessed that they'd build one in Brigham. :) Mostly conference was absolutely fantastic! And I'm so excited that there's still another day of it to go.

Life

So life has been super busy lately. However, this makes 3 blog entries in one month. That's a lot if you look back at what it normally is. :P Anyway, back to my life. It consists of school, school, IWA, and more school. I think this is the first semester that I've actually put so much effort into my school work. I mean, I put a lot of effort in all the time, but nothing like what I've done in the past 5 weeks. Preschool is so super intense! I never thought it would be so much work! Planning is insane; I knew it would take a lot of time because I've done it before. But going through the planning and then the implementing and following through etc, is so much more work than I ever dreamed possible! However, seeing my students actually learning and having fun makes it all worth it in the end. :) The other side of life is IWA. I'll be honest, at the beginning of the year I wasn't too excited about it. But now that it's up and going, I really enjoy it. I absolutely adore our advisor, Sharon. And all the girls I get to work with are fantastic! I couldn't do it without them! Sometimes, I feel like as president of the chapter I have to know exactly what's going on when and where. But, I'm finding that it's okay if I don't know everything. I can find out after something's happened how it went and be just fine. I wish it was like that with preschool sometimes. :)

On another note, here's my favorite Celtic Thunder song of the day:

Puppy Love by Damian Mcginty

Celtic Thunder

My friends Megan and Heather introduced me to this group last night. They are absolutely AMAZING!! This video is kind of long, but it gives a good preview to their music. Every now and then, I'll post a full song for your enjoyment. :)

The Best Night EVER!!!

Okay, so real quick update. School is super stressful right now. Teaching preschool is not as easy as it sounds. I still need to finish my lesson plan that's due Thursday. Actually, I probably should start that plan. Typing it at least. This was the longest week I've had in a long time! Last weekend, we went to Washington and spent the holiday at Grandma Barnes' cabin in Packwood. It was fun; but wet. It rained the entire 2 days there. Got some good pictures on the way home though.

On a clear day, you can see Mt. Rainer in the middle of the trees here.

This morning I took the praxis. It's the content knowledge test that all el ed majors have to take and pass before they can apply for student teaching. I'm planning on student teaching next fall. It was little weird to be reading a question in the history section about events that I remember. :S I know I didn't pass with flying colors, but I don't think I failed either. Guess I'll find out in a month. Then, tonight, Daisy (aka Janielle) and Shannon and I went to Brigham City to Peach Days. Only for one reason though: Jon Schmidt was playing a concert there. :D And, it was free. And, it was AMAZING!!! I love to watch Jon Schmidt live! Someday, I will be able to play as well as he does.

I so wish I could play like that!

Those darn bushes were were in our way, but it was still fun. :)

This one is "Love Story Meets Viva La Vida." My camera card didn't have enough space on it, so the last 45ish seconds of the song got cut off. :( Sad, I know. But the rest is fantastic!

One of my all time favorite Jon Schmidt songs ever: "Dumb Song." He has to wear the crazy wig to prevent head injury from all the "head banging" he does at the end of the song. It's awesome.

The random kid in the middle of this one is there because his dancing was highly entertaining. You can't see him very well though, which is a bummer.

Tomorrow, I get to go down to Provo to sing at the CES Fireside. I'm pretty stinkin' excited for it. I'll get to see some Mill Hollow friends, and Kat will be there too. Yay! Plus, singing at the fireside is going to be an awesome experience, as it always is. My next goal: to be in a choir that gets to sing for General Conference. :)

The Beginning....Again.

So it's the beginning of the school year once again. One week of classes down, and 15 to go til the end of the semester. Um...yes, I'm counting down already. It's not that I'm not going to enjoy this semester, it's just super busy. I'm doing my preschool student teaching, and it's really going to be fun. I'm super excited for it. There's so much planning to do for my head teaching weeks though! Wow! Sometime I wonder why I'm going into education. But then there's days like Thursday, when we had orientation and got to meet all the kids in our class, that I remember why I love it so much. :) And then there's IWA. I'm president this year. And while I do love it, it makes for a very busy Ashli! I also still need to find a job on top of all of this. Whew! I hope I make it another 15 weeks!

On another note, my 5 year high school reunion was today. The only reason I went was because some good friends from high school (obviously) that also went to Snow with me were going. Smiley is moving to Arizona tomorrow, so it was the last time I get to see her and Landen and Scott for a while. We had a ton of fun catching up and playing with the kids. :)

Beckah

Dixy, Susie (w/Beckah), Smiley, me and Kat (w/Landen)

The Snow College crew! Plus Beckah and Landen. :P

All of us with Scott and the kids.

Me and Landen. He had a lot of fun playing with that stuff!

Landen. I love this one!

Oh My Love is Mill Hollow!

So this summer was awesome! I've only been done at Mill Hollow for 2 days and I miss it and everyone so so much! I definitely think I'll go back next year. Here's a bunch of pictures of all the fun times we had this year. :)

Oh my love is Mill Hollow!