Kite Festival in DC March 29, 2008

Yea the Kite Festival in DC. I went last year with my mom and sister Julie. I didn't know if I was going to be able to go this year because I had so much homework and was feeling stressed about school. However, I stayed late on Friday night to get homework/assignments done and woke up at 6:00 am and was able to get some other things done this morning. So I was able to go. Yea!

I picked up my friend Tiffanie (who is to the left of me in the photo) and we headed out on the metro to DC. It was a cold day, but the sun was out and it turned out absolutely beautiful! I loved being out there and seeing all the kites in the air. It's really a beautiful site. We also walked around just a little to see some of the cherry blossoms. I love spring. It makes me feel alive and gives me a sense of excitement. Spring was in the air and you could smell it and see it.

I was also in a good mood as I had completed a lot of my school work and was not so stressed. I purchased a kite to take with me which turned out to be such a fun thing to do. Tiffanie and I met up with a group (some are in the picture above). I didn't really spend time with the group because I was having fun flying my kite. Tiffanie was explaining to me that I don't have to run the whole time that I need to guide the kite with the string. I finally did get it up without any help and it flew for a long time until the wind quieted down.

I loved looking around at the colorful and creative kites in the air. There were pirate boats, butterfly's, dragons, turtles, and then more normal kites. There were enormous kites and itty bitty kites. What a fun experience!

Here I am with George Mason. Our office decorated him for the Majors Resource Fair.

We had our Academic Advising Awareness Week at work this week. Therefore it was a very stressful week!!! There is a lot of backbiting in our office which I hate and a lot of the ugliness came out this week! It makes me really want to look into other positions. However, with school I don't know if I could handle learning a new job right now. I may just start looking just in case something would fit well for me.

The week went well and at the end I was able to have chocolate cake. YUM! Ok you probably need an explanation. We always have a luncheon and order this divine cake from the Bread and Chocolate Bakery. I was in such an aggressive mood on Friday that I decided I was going to have two pieces which is just what I did. Then I stayed around for three and a half hours after work to do school stuff and had another piece. Let's just say that it did make me sick. I am not going to have another piece of the cake.

I went to be weighed this morning and was over my 'goal' weight by five pounds. Of course I had eaten breakfast and was wearing lots of clothes so it's not a true gage, but I weighed myself at home and was over by almost two pounds. So today I was very good and stayed within my points. I also went to my WW class this morning which I think is very good for me to do. My goal for tomorrow and next week is to stick within my points every day!

Easter 2008

Debbie, Julie Bohn, Melissa Hill, Tiffanie Williams at the DC temple

Debbie (me), Melinda Semideni, Tiffanie Williams, Melissa Hill

Cute Easter cookies.

Mauree McIntosh and me with our cute cookies.

It's Easter today. I have lots of fun memories of Easter. One of my favorites is when I was a child we went to Goblin Valley in Utah and camped. We had brought dyed eggs with us and we had races to see who could get their egg up the hill the fastest using a spoon to push it. I remember when we were done that the hill had all these pastel colors from the egg shells.

This Easter my dear friend Mauree (who I call my little angel) came over and helped me decorate Easter cookies for the young women. The cute ones in the pictures above she decorated. I love how she did the bunnies! I always appreciate my time with Mauree. She will listen to my ramblings and disjointed thoughts. She is an excellent listener and just a supportive amazing friend! She's also very creative and has great ideas.

My friend Melinda Semideni's birthday was on Saturday so we had a little birthday brunch get together at my house. I bought a crepe maker just for the occasion. What a fun machine. :) Melissa brought Nutella (YUM!!!) and Tiffanie brought ham so we had ham and cheese crepes, strawberries, Nutella, and whipcream crepes, and yogurt crepes. Yum, Yum, Yum! I am going back to counting calories tomorrow. (I weighed myself yesterday and really need to do this!)

We went to the temple and did sealings for some of Melinda's family and some other people. It was a wonderful experience. I could feel the spirit so strongly in the sealing room. It was nice to be there with my friends.

Afterwards I picked up my sister Julie and we met up with my friends at temples visitors center. We went to the Hosanna concert to celebrate Easter. It was a nice concert. The violinist was amazing! We headed off to Silver Diner afterwards for dessert. Shakes--yum!

It was a good week. We are going to be doing our Academic Advising Awareness Week this next week which will be somewhat stressful. Hopefully all will go well. I'll be glad when the week is over, but then again we go to half hour appointments next week which I despise. So it's nice that this week that we've been working on for awhile is almost done, but on the other hand what comes next isn't great. :) I'm just hoping I can mange all of my school work, work, and social life.

Random Thoughts

I'm taking piano lessons and am actually practicing. When I was a child I hated to practice. I just wanted the pieces to be perfect immediately and was frustrated when they were not. I don't have a lot of time so I have been only working on one song called "Bittersweet" by Jim Brickman. It is such a beautiful song! When I listen to Jim play it I think of memories that are bittersweet. It makes me somewhat nostalgic and grateful for my memories and experiences. It's like watching a movie like "Steal Magnolias" where it is just so good, but parts are sad and other parts are happy.

I had a shock this past weekend. I was at church and was released from my calling as the young women secretary and was put into a calling for Relief Society. I didn't know anything about either calling. I had been told recently that I wouldn't be released so it was quite a shock! I was really quite upset at first. I felt unimportant and neglected. However, as the week has progressed I am dealing with it better.

My EDIT 772 course this week is about RSS feeds. They are so cool! I wish I would have known about them beforehand. What a great tool!

Spring is finally starting to arrive. It's almost here. I was driving to work the other day and thought the trees looked like they were starting to bud. I love the little purple flowers that have bloomed. I love the smell of spring and how it makes me feel alive. It makes me want to be outside and moving. Yea for spring!

Podcasts

I am so in to podcasts! I'm actually a little addicted. There are so many subjects and interesting speeches, information etc. that I have gone overboard on downloads. My nano ipod just can't take all of it. I need a new ipod. :) Anyway I wanted to mention just two that I absolutely love. I listen to "This American Life" by NPR and "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" also by NPR.

What I really like about some of these podcasts is that they open up a whole new world that you may never know about. It's so much fun!
Just wanted to share. :)

March 6th, Blog of the week

Well, it's been a stressful week, but I've survived. :) I have decided that I really need to live where the sun shines most of the time. I need the energy it gives me. I am also very glad to have an extra hour of sunlight at night. When the sun goes down I want to go down. So this extra hour is great!
I've been working hard on my classes and trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. I wish that I could just quit work and take a lot of different courses-not just courses for my program. However, I love to shop and need to eat so I will continue to work.

I went to a young women/young men stake event at the church. I am the secretary in YW so I felt like I needed to be supportive. The girls were happy to have their picture taken.
It's spring break this week. I wish I was going somewhere warm. :) We'll see what next week brings.

I went to a baby shower for Erin Freeman on Saturday. I really know some wonderful amazing people! I'm not usually baby hungry, but after looking at all those cute adorable clothes I have to say that I was a tiny bit baby hungry. No worries though, I can just go shopping for my new niece that will be born in April.

The New 'Blog of the Week'

Hello family and friends! I am taking a class called Web 2.0 which is all about social networks. Blogs are part of Web 2.0 (in case you didn't know.) I decided that I would like to do a blog of the week. I will take a picture each week of something that I did that week. It might be me sitting at my computer, but at least I'll have a record of it. :)
Having explained what this is all about let me tell you about the pictures of the week. I went to Julie's (my sister) house on Friday to a Leap Day party. My friend Mauree McIntosh and I made frog cupcakes for Leap day which you can see in the picture and Julie made a Leap Day Cake with yummy 'frogs' from a chocolate store in Utah. The party was a lot of fun!!! We ate, played games, socialized, and laughed. I was very tired so of course I laughed uncontrollable many times which made it all the more fun for me. :)
Today I went to Nicole Peterson's (a very close friend) birthday party. (Her b-day is actually on Monday, but we celebrated today as she will be in Florida.) We had a potluck lunch. It was delicious!!! I made an angel food cake. When I was at my house I thought it would be brilliant to frost the cake with whip cream and then put strawberries on it. I started the process before I realized two things 1) how in the world was I going to transport it and 2) whip cream melts. Needless to say I was a bit stressed about it.
The good news is that I had the brilliant thought (the spirit is such a blessing!) to use a box to transport it. So I went ahead and finished it. Parked illegally to run it in to put in the fridge. As you can tell it worked out wonderfully!
Nicole is such an amazing person! It was so great to get to celebrate with her. She has touched so many people's lives and continues to do so. She has enriched my life so much! I'm very blessed to be able to call her friend. Love you Nicole!
Afterwards I went to the library and checked out all these books on websites and php. I have a lot of learning to do. I worked on my homework, but am very tired after Julie's party last night.
I've got to practice the piano before I can chill so goodbye for now. Check back each week for a new and exciting update (ha, ha). Deb :)

New to Blogs

I decided it was time for me to get a blog (or is that a life.:)) I am going to start taking a course that discusses social networks on the web and thought I would go ahead and create a post. For those of you know know me well I love to travel! I had the amazing opportunity to go to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and the Maldives last August. It was a wonderful experience. I met many fun interesting people. I am going to post a few pictures. Notice the amazing water!