Crocheting for the Girls Continued

Here are the girls wearing the hats. So cute!

Crocheting for the Girls

The roses above are from a pattern I just found on pinterest, which Jess invited me to (thank you!). I love it because of the twist it makes. My Mom said they look more like real roses.

I promised my nieces a while ago that I would make them hats, and I finally kept that promise and sent these off Monday. It was so fun to make them, and I hope they like them. The babies get one each, and the girls get two. Crocheting is such a fun way to relax and take the stress away.

A note about Scott:

Yesterday, he got a $100 keyboard and a $90 mouse from this blog he writes for, Gamesplash. He doesn't get paid, but he gets a ton of perks like free games etc. for reviewing them. He was like a little boy in a candy shop when the keyboard and mouse came for him to review. There's a good chance they will let him keep them. For his sake, I hope he can keep them. He's already getting attached, lol.

Graduation and Life

The day finally came when Scott and I graduated. Sweet! It seemed almost anti-climatic though for me. When you first start college, graduation seems so far away that your head sort of goes into this stick-to-the-grindstone mindset. So when graduation finally came, I was kind of like, well here we go. Let's move on now. We have been so blessed to get to this point. It was a really special moment to be able to walk together during graduation while holding hands. It was somewhat symbolic of our passing through all walks of life together.

Although I am somewhat remiss to bring the topic up, there is also the sadness of our recent miscarriage. This may be a bit private to write about, but it would be hard to explain our lives without mentioning such an integral part of it. Graduation was a strange juxtaposition to this grief, combining joy and tragedy. The experience has brought Scott and I closer; we definitely have a different, special perspective concerning life now. One of my struggles has been the physical aspect of healing. My hormones are a little out-of-whack, and it's been interesting waiting for my body to get back to normal. For the most part, we have healed and moved on, but there are always the unexpected reminders of our grief. When I e-mailed my supervisor and cooperating teacher for permission to use them as references for my resume, they both asked me how the baby was doing. When I went to church, an old Young Women's leader asked me in a teasing manner why I was behind some other girls in having babies, ignorant of our recent hardship. These are the things that I'm looking forward to dying down. The unintentional pricks to the pain that is still healing.

Whew, I'm sorry about dwelling on that. It is nice though to get it out. Currently, Scott and I are living at my parent's house down in the basement. Scott has his own lovely little corner in the alcove of our room, which used to be my beauty parlor. A fact that I enjoy reminding him about. Mom painted the room lavender with a pretty, butter yellow. the lavender matches the color of the flowers in one of our engagement pictures, which she is going to blow up and put in the room. Scott is working a few writing jobs while accumulating more, and I am in the process of applying for some online, teaching jobs. We are both looking forward to hearing back about the master's degree programs that he has applied for. And that's pretty much what's been going on for us.

Love to all,

Clarissa

Summer Dyer Reunion

Hey all,

I didn't get a chance to talk about the fun we had in Sunriver for the Dyer reunion during the summer. It's a very family friendly place to vacation. The highlight for me was floating down the river and squirting each other with water guns. Fun! Here's a picture of Scott and me in our reunion shirts.

Updated Layout

I was informed by Clarissa that she didn't like the design of our blog and since I'm the site maintenance I had to take care of that. I'll leave the rest of the posting to the lead content writer. She'll give an update on our lives soon.

-Scott

Almost There!!!

Well, Scott and I are getting a little tired, but we are so close. I only have three weeks until I'm done with student teaching. Sweet! I was grading the kids patriotic essays yesterday, and some pretty funny lines came up. I wrote a few of them below. Lol, some of these kids are pretty literal.

-But I will not be a hippy! (said randomly without any connection to the essay)

-We all know that nature has been here since we all can remember.

-If we had no soldiers, we'd all be slaves. And that's dumb.

Student Teaching and School Update

So far, Student Teaching has been one of the hardest and the most rewarding experiences I've had up here at BYU-I. After a lot of struggle, I'm really getting into the groove of things and enjoying my kids. One of my biggest problems has been classroom management with two of my Language Art's classes in particular. My Reading classes are angels. But I've learned how to handle them, and now I'm starting to enjoy the naughty classes too. This Friday, I had my second observation from Sister Frew. After observations, supervisors talk to their student teachers and give them a form with scores for each category of teaching. These are important because they are filed away at the school for review later from potential employers. It really gave me a boost when she gave me a great review. She said I had improved a lot. Hearing her review of my progress was a great reward for all the lost sleep and hard work. Ok, so I'm tooting my horn. But I can't help but want to share with everyone.

Scott is doing really well. He's finding ever new ways to use his transformer tablet. He loves it! Yesterday, he was taking conference notes by writing with his finger on the screen. He's even got me addicted to angry birds, lol! He's balancing school and work, and he's ready to be done with his job because he's worked there so long. I think we are both really ready to graduate in December and move on. He's also got his Stake Tech calling, which keeps him pretty busy on the weekends. Yesterday, he was in charge of setting up the projector at the stake center for conference. We both sat and watched both sessions at the stake center. There were only two other couples and a few singles there. Scott is also getting all the graduate applications queued up in order of importance. They are due in December. Overall, we are both doing great. We are tired but happy and looking forward to the wedding next week when we get to see family!