The Fruits of My Labors.

June 4th was the BIG day for Mike and I. Mike took level II of the CFA and I had my big fundraiser. Like most things I do, my idea evolved from something small to something much bigger. I originally thought we should do a spaghetti dinner. After pricing it all out I knew we wouldn't make very much doing that. So we should add a bake sale to the mix and we should auction off some of the best desserts there. THEN I thought I could get a few actual items/services for the auction. In high school my choir always did an auction to raise money and it was pretty successful. The auction idea just snowballed out of control and we ended up with 50 items! Which was awesome. The only thing I didn't take into consideration was how much work it would be. I had to keep track of all the auction items coming in and who was donating them. Make description sheets for all the items. Make a silent bid sheet for all the items. Make posters to advertise the items so people would come to bid. Thats just some of the things I did. It took hours! And the worst part, it wasn't something I could delegate. It was such a tedious task that only one person could do it. My friend Cynda works with me in YW and came over a few times to help as much as she could. We are lucky things went as smoothly with the auction as they did.

Here are some pictures of how the RS room was set up for the auction

So I thought I had most of the work done with the spaghetti dinner until a few days before when I realized I didn't have centerpieces for the tables. I didn't want to spend a lot of money but I wanted the tables to look nice. That is when my awesome coworkers came into rescue me. They came up with the idea for three different centerpieces that would be easy to do and cost effective. They also got their hands on 15 vases for me to use so I didn't have to buy them. I spent a total of $30 on 17 centerpieces. THAT IS AWESOME! I wanted the whole thing to have an Italian theme so the table clothes were red, green and white (the colors of the italian flag) and the centerpieces were all very italian.

The red tables had a vase with multi-colored pasta at the bottom and spaghetti coming up the center fanned out for a full look.

The white tables had a vase filled with lemons (Italy is famous for growing lemons)

and lemon leaves sitting on top of more lemon leaves that were on the table.

The green tables had a box of empty pasta stuffed with red, green

and white tissue paper and an italian flag.

I was lucky to have a lot of help the night of the fundraiser. The girls came early dressed in black pants and a white shirt (like I asked them.) They all volunteered for the "stations" I needed them at and stayed at their post all night. The leaders and mothers were also awesome. It is a lot of work to feed over 150 people and they did an awesome job in the kitchen. I was so lucky to have them helping me.

All in all we raised a ton of money. Enough to pay for all the girls to go to girls camp and them some. It was such a blessing. When we started planning the whole thing the bishop told me 2 things. 1) don't stress and 2) let the Lord be in charge of this. I did stress, I can't help it. However, I did the best I could to let the Lord help me and he did. There were sooo many things I did because I was inspired to do them. Which sounds silly but I would wake up in the middle of the night and think "i need to call this person, check on the price of this and organize this." I was working over 50 hours a week (40 at school and 10-15 babysitting in the afternoon), preparing wed night activities and lessons (because I still had responsibilities for my calling) and doing all the house work (cleaning, meal planing, grocery shopping, ect.) since Mike was in intense study mode. As you can imagine I didn't have much spare time and all the free time I had went into this. There is no way it could have been done (and in such a successful and well organized manner) with out the help of the Lord. When it was all over I just wanted to cry, I literally felt a huge burden lifted off my shoulders.

I also have to give Mike some SERIOUS credit. He spent all day taking the CFA and just wanted to go out and do something fun to celebrate the end of the CFA. However, he came straight from the CFA to the church to do what he could to help. I have never been more happy to see him. I know what a huge sacrifice that was for him but he came. We stayed at the church until 10pm that night but we still wanted to do something fun. Our friend Ben had taken the CFA that day as well and came to the church to help Cynda. So the 4 of us decided we would go to our favorite place in stamford (Lucky's) for some post CFA/Auction dinner. After that we went back to the Johnson's place and played a game and watched a movie. We stayed up past 3am (which is big for us married people) and still made it to church on time the next day (your welcome, mom.)

I am glad it is over but have never been more grateful to work with such amazing women and girls who did so much to help. And for a husband who supports me, even when it was not convenient or fun. I'm a lucky lady and feel very blessed.

"I think I'll go to Boston"

The weekend of May 20th I did my friends a big favor. I was a volunteer for their team in the New England Ragnar Race. If you aren't familiar with a Ragnar race it is where you have a team of 12 people (2 vans of 6 people) and you run a 200+ mile relay race. Each person runs 3 times and the amount of miles you run depends on what "leg" you have. It generally takes a little over 24 hours to complete. One of the tag lines is "Eat, sleep, run, repeat." I have to say I was glad I wasn't running. It looked exhausting.

My friend Cynda and I drove up to the Boston area on Friday night. We went to sleep as soon as we got there seeing as we had to wake up by 3:30 to go volunteer. When I woke up in the middle of the night I started walking to the bathroom and I stepped on someone who was on the floor. I quickly looked around and saw multiple bodies sprawled on the floor. Ben (Cynda's husband) and his van of runners were all sleeping on the floor. They only were able to sleep for about 2 hours before it was there turn to run again.

We showed up at the volunteer sight at 4:15. For the record, I am NOT a morning person. I was actually pretty bitter for most of the shift. Cynda was good to put up with my bitterness and laugh at me. That what friends are for though. Our team (the Unconquerable Soles) showed up around 5:30. Ben was the runner coming into the exchange point. He did awesome running up and down hills for over 7 miles so early in the morning. That was about as exciting as it got all morning. I spent most of my 5 hour shift writing down the time each runner came in, watching people vomit and gagging from the smell of bad BO.
I have to say, we got a great deal on the hotel room. This is a pile of over 20 used towels. That is about how many showers were taken. The whole team of 12 and the 3 volunteers all slept (at one point or another) in this room, most of us showered and all of use enjoyed the free breakfast. To top it off the Johnson's paid for the hotel with Marriot points... so we got all of that for free... PERFECT!
After breakfast we all went to the Harvard campus where the finish line and party were set up. It was a pretty cool atmosphere. Lots of energy and free stuff ;-) We also scooped out another mormon team, which is always fun. It was a beautiful day and it was fun to be apart of the whole thing.
After the team finished and took pictures we all went our seperate ways for the weekend. I was lucky enough to play 5th wheel to my friends the Johnson's and Jensen's. Mike was at home in Stamford studying hard for the CFA, so proud of him. The 5 of us walked to Mr. Bartley's there in Cambridge. It was delicious. The onion rings were to DIE for!

Then we headed to our hotel. Yes, all 5 of us shared a room. I slept on a roll away bed in the "kitchen" area of the room. Cynda and I forgot bathing suits so we decided we would go buy one. And that we did. We really enjoyed the hot tub for a few hours. We all had big plans for a night out on the town. Especially since Scott and Camille didn't have their son Peyton with them.
What we didn't factor into out "big plans" was the none of us got more than 4 hours of sleep the night before and over 1/2 of us had run a total of 50 miles combined. So we drove 15 minutes down the road to Chilli's (I had never been) where we received poor service and mediocre food. On our way back we realized that there was a Chilli's right across the street from our hotel. Nice work guys. We wanted to see a movie but we were all so tired we went to CVS to buy card games instead. We didn't even open them. When we got back to the hotel we all feel asleep talking. The next morning no one was 100% sure how they got into bed.
We spent Sunday morning in Boston. On our way to the U.S.S. Constitution we saw a bike accident in downtown Boston. The guy was riding right in front of us. He hit a big pot hole and flew off his bike. Meanwhile Ben had to swerve so he didn't run over the guy. Camille is a nurse so she was already jumping out of the car before we were even pulled over all the way. She did awesome. She got him out of the street and put pressure on the HUGE cut in his head. He was in shock and so was I. I remembered very quickly why the medical field never interested me. I was a wreck. All this guy had as a broken collarbone and a nice gash in his head. But the blood oozing out and the perfect droplets clinging to his biking outfit. Oh man I needed to sit dow. We called 911 and there were there in about 7 min. Which felt like an eternity for me as I tried not to magically make my breakfast reappear. SICK. So 20 points for Nurse Camille. YOU ROCK!!
Once we sent our new friend away in the ambulance went to the U.S.S. Constitution which is one of the oldest American war ships still in use. It was cool to see the ship deck lined with canons and the city skyline was the perfect back drop. I had to have Ben and Cynda take pictures with me so I wouldn't look like a looser all by myself in all the pictures.

We also visited Bunker Hill while in Boston. It reminded me of the washington monument. I loved the street we parked on. It was so picturesque and perfect. I only wish the sun would have been shinning. Gray clouds don't make for good picture backdrops.


Next we headed to little italy and the famous pastry shop "Mike's." We all got a cannoli (it was my first one ever and I have to say, it was good, but I wish I had gotten the cupcake.)
We nibbled on our pastries while we people watched in little italy by the Freedom Trail. Then we headed to the Italian place Camille and Scott had been looking forward to going to for months. Apparently it was on Dinners, Drive-ins and Dives (triple D) and they had great lobster ravioli. Well when we got there (after a 20 minute drive) it turns out the were closed on Sunday. Good for them for honoring the Sabbath day, shame on us for wishing they didn't.
So we headed back for CT. But we started looking at all the other triple D restaurants from Boston to stamford. We found 2 in Providence road island. The first one we watched the clip from the show that featured their food and everyone (but me) was salivating over the fisherman's stew (yuck sea food!) But they closed at 3pm on Sundays, it was 3:15. Fail. So before we went all the way to the other restaurant we looked up the hours online (thank you smart phones) and it was closed on Sunday as well. So we were pretty let down. But Cynda came through. She rallied the disappointed troops telling us about this great Italian place this Italian cop had raved to her and Ben about when they were in the area earlier this year. Ben had put the name of the restaurant in his iPhone. So Bam. we had a place to go.
HOLY COW!! That place was good. I still dream about their vodka sauce. I love that we are all such good friends we just passed our plates around and everyone sampled and oww'ed and ahhh'ed over the food. I don't think anyone ended up with their actual plate in front of them.

The rest of the car ride was full of road trip games and laughing. I don't think I had laughed that hard in a while. May was SUCH a stressful month for me since I was putting together the fundraiser. This trip was seriously what the doctor ordered for me to be able to make it through the rest of the month. I am so blessed to have such great friends (and not just these guys. So many other have made living on the East Coast some of the best years ever. And there will be PLENTY more to come.)

The In-Laws

Mikes parents got into CT on Monday May 9th. We wanted to take them out to dinner somewhere nice, but we just ended up going to Lucky's, go figure. It was fun to spend time with them since we hadn't seen them in about 10 months. We caught up and ate way more fries and onion rings than we should have.

The next day we went to the city. It was a BEAUTIFUL day. We started our afternoon by going to a taping of "The Late Show with David Letterman." I'm not the biggest fan of late night shows (probably because I never stay up late enough to watch them) but it was fun. It was cool to see how all of it was done and to see the guest. I didn't know any of them well but I had seen Mark Harmon on NCIS before.
After the show we walked to Rosa Mexicano. We had heard a lot of really great things about it. It was mexican so we loved it but it didn't blow me away. I was slightly disappointed. I think my standards when it comes to mexican food are pretty high. Or maybe I just like cheap American mexican like taco bell and Cafe Rio. Who knows. If you like mexican than you will probably enjoy it.
To end a great day in the city we went to see "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." Daniel Radcliffe (AKA: Harry Potter) was one of the leads in the show. And yes, Aubri, he was AMAZING!!! I was really nervous that as a huge Potter fan I would only be able to see him as Harry. But that all changed the minute he starting talking in a NYC accent, sang and danced. It was incredible. I can't say enough good things about the show. GO SEE IT!! Do anything and everything it takes to see it. You won't regret it. Unless Dan comes down with the flu that night and they have an understudy play his part. That would be sad.

Sterling and Joleen

Mike and I after the show.

Mike and I had to go back to work on Wed and mom and dad left for a NAC meeting in Boston on Wed afternoon. So that we the end of that short but memorable visit with them. I will say that day i the city was fun but my allergies were off the wall. I was miserable. I ended up being sick for a few days afterward. This year should go down in the books as WORST ALLERGY SEASON EVER!!

Thats all :)

As of Late...

So I have basically taken a leave of absence from the blogging world for the past 2 months. I don't like it. I feel like there is a two month gap in my life. I hope to be able to catch up over the next month, but it doesn't help that I'm leaving for another vacation in a few days. In the past two months I have:

*Organizes and executed a massively successful fundraiser for the YW in my ward (which literally took up ALL of my free time at nights and on weekends for almost a whole month.)

*Was a volunteer for the New England Ragnar Race with my good friends. Which was followed by a weekend in Boston (without Mike :( He was studying for the CFA.)

*My in-laws came for a short visit in which we went to NYC and saw the David Letterman show & the Broadway musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying."

*Started my very first herb garden

*Mikes Brother and sister-in-law came from MI for a visit. It included a trip to a Yankees vs. Red Socks game.

*My brother Andrew came to NYC with his High School Choir. I met him in the city and spent a wonderful day with him which was topped off with my 3rd viewing of Wicked on Broadway!

*I had my last day of school for the year and was offered a contract with the same school for next year. Very Cool!!

*Spent a week in Florida with my family and had an absolute blast!! (My brother and sister BOTH preformed @ Disney's Hollywood Studios American Idol Experience and ROCKED!)

It's been a very busy but fun past 2 months. Hopefully I can catch up with all my pictures.

xoxox

Kris

The Squirrelly Surprise!

This is the week. Mike's test and my fundraiser are in just 4 short days. As you can imagine I'm going nuts. I'm so stressed out I could just cry, all day long. I know I'm a baby. I've been told numerous times "Don't stress about this." Obviously they don't know me very well. Plus how can I not stress knowing the financial fate of our YW going to Girls camp lays in my hands. ANYWAYS, I'm tired, cranky and stressed. Not a good combo. I needed a good laugh.

Well I got it. I was taking out the trash to our big dumpster today. When I opened it... A MASSIVE SQUIRREL lunged out at me, jumped over my head and scampered away. I screamed so loud that my neighbor ran out of her apartment saying "Are you Ok? What happened?" By this time I realized what had happened and was dying laughing ashamed of my reaction.

I laughed at myself for a good five minutes. I don't think I've ever needed a laugh like that more.

"Just keep going. You can do hard things. It's almost over. 2 more weeks till freedom!" This is my current mantra!

If you live in CT come to my fundraiser. We have some freaking sweet auction items! A hair cut at Warren Tricomi by Edward Tricomi (valued at $350), a condo in Park City for a week in summer and winter, Jewelry but an amazing designer, a private tour of the New York Stock Exchange, guided tour of the MET museum, traditional japanese dinner for 8 and SOOOO much more!! COME, COME, COME!!

I'm Alive

Friends,

I am alive. Barely. But I am alive.

Life has been a blur these past 3 weeks or so. I am overwhelmed, stressed and tired! My poor husband is feeling about the same. At this point we are more like roommates. We see each other long enough in the morning for a quick scripture reading and prayer then we say "Love you, see you tomorrow." And it's true, by the time he gets home at 10:30 or 11pm I am asleep. But it will all be over soon.

June 4th is D-DAY! Not only is it the day Mike takes the CFA test he is studying for but it is the day of the YW fundraiser I am organizing. I can't wait till June 5th!! Not only will I get my husband back, but my sanity as well :)

After that I have a lot to look forward to. The week after Mikes brother Jared and his wife Maryle are coming to visit AND my brother Andrew is coming to NYC with his choir group! The week after that is the last day of school. The week after that is FL with my Family and the next 2 weeks after that we are in Utah. Then I have the whole summer off WHILE still receiving a paycheck from school!

Work Hard, Play Hard. Just a few more weeks of hard, hard work and it's 2 months of play time!!

On a side note. I am still keep up with all of your blog posts. But reading them on my breaks at work on google reader, hence my lack of comments. But I still love you all and glad you all are doing well! Congratulations to all my friends graduating!

Love and Kisses,

Kris

Just Another Day (or week)

I have come to the conclusion that I am NOT a morning person. Especially not a Monday morning person! Every weekday I go into work at 7:45 (I know its not even that early) and I am kindly greeted by my coworkers. It is all I can do to mumble a good morning or give a half hearted smile. I really like all the people I work with, I just don't want to talk to anyone. And Monday mornings are the worst because I really don't want to be there... I'd prefer to be in bed. So there I've got that off my chest, please don't take it personally if one morning I grumble a little when you say "Good Morning" to me.

I am a worry wart. Anyone who knows me well knows I come by this honestly as my mother and grandmother are even worse than I am. I have been trained by the best of them. Here is an example of my extreme ridiculousness. Most morning I try to send Mike a "Good Morning, I love you text." I see him in the morning before I go to work but I still like to give him a lovey text. In return I usually received a nice text back at some point in the morning. So this morning I sent him a few texts, I get nothing back. I am a little worried but decide he must be really busy. Then I see a Police car pull up. My heart skips a beat and my mind goes into over drive. Within .7 seconds I had concluded that Mike had been killed in a car accident on the way to work. That is why he had not returned my texts. The police had tracked me down to give me the news in person. It was awful, until the police turned around and left. Wrong address I guess! I calmed myself down and a little while later I got a quick message from Mike telling me he was way busy at work. Ridiculous I know!!

Second funny story of the day. It is short and sweet. My black pants zip up in the back. Today the zipper broke. Luckily I had a long undershirt on to cover my g's and a change of pants (I brought shorts to get the length okayed) to fix the situation. I hope I can fix them, they are my favorite.

In the days leading up to the Royal Wedding I wasn't sure if I was really interested in watching it. And then BAM it was 6:30 in the morning and I was teary eyed and weepy. As soon as I got home from work that night I was ALL OVER anything Royal Wedding. Six hours I spent watching coverage on it. But how could I of all people not get caught up in it. It is a normal(ish) girl living a fairy tail "Happily Ever After." I loved it! Kate looked so beautiful and demure in the dress. I also loved the balcony kiss and was happy to get a second :)

Have you ever read the book "I knew You Could?" Well I read this book to my class a few weeks ago and I choked back tears the whole time. I've been meaning to buy it at Barns and Nobles but haven't found the time. After school on Friday I went to a boy scout book sale in Darien. I was flipping through books when what do my wondering eyes appear? The very book I wanted in pristine condition for $1 !! SCORE!! I was so excited. I also picked up some other really great books. I am running out of room on my children's bookshelf. I hope my children appreciate all these books someday, because daddy isn't to happy that we have so many and no kiddies yet!

In other related news we are fast approaching the end of school and I may be job hunting again. As of right now the school is not offering the Pre-K assistants contract for the 2011-2012 school year. When I met with the headmaster he mad it sound like they would do what they could to find some type of a spot for me next school year. At any rate I'm not to concerned. If I need to find a new job I will have all summer to do so. Things always work out they way they are suppose to. I'm just not to thrilled at the idea of looking for another job.

In other unrelated news in the last 24 hours Osama Bin Laden was captures, killed and burried at sea. I have a lot of mixed feelings about the whole situation. 1) Maybe Obama took a little more credit than he should have in his speech, but good job for getting it done. 2) Bin Laden was one of many extremists and I fear with his death there maybe some attempted retribution. Living so close to NYC the only thing I worry about is terrorist attacks. It is such a big target and we live close enough to be majorly effected by bombs or things of that nature. 3) Is it morally okay to celebrate the death of another human being, even if they represent the center of evil? This quote by MLK jr. comes to mind.

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that" — Martin Luther King Jr

Just some thoughts. It has been interesting to watch all the news coverage. All normal nightly news shows were focused on Osama's death, 9/11 and the family and friends who are still dealing with lose after that horrible attack.

So at the end of the day I am grateful to live in the promise land. I hope and pray that we as a nation continue to worship the God our country was founded upon so that he can continue to bless us. God bless America.