Bob's Burgers in Albuquerque. So spicy!! Even Tyler couldn't handle it.

Look closely and you can see my hand print. That's what he gets for not wearing sunscreen and having a hot bod that his wife can't stay away from.

What is that face??

The Riverwalk! Downtown San Antone - a beautiful walk along a river lined with amazing restaurants.

one drawback of tyler's job: late nights. i'm sitting here alone at 11:30 p.m. stuffing my face with quesadillas and watching countless episodes of extreme makeover: weightloss mostly to entertain myself and distract from all the creepy noises in an empty apartment...

so this is summer

no alarm clocks in the morning. good, big, real breakfasts. sweaty workouts. big pool and hot, hot heat. the smell of sunscreen and hamburgers. naps in the sunshine. yogurt and blueberries. eating pineapple until my tongue stings. snickers ice cream. bachelorette and sytycd. delicious dinners. late nights with an amazing boy. so THIS is summer.

so this post was supposed to be about how awesome portland has been the past few days, but instead i can tell you about san antonio, tx!

friday night. i'm all packed. my car is loaded up. 11:00 p.m. i'm thinking about my drive the next day and trying to sleep, but i can't. tyler calls me. he says not to drive up the next day. the office is moving to san antonio, tx in a few days.

i cried. i had been waiting six weeks for school to end and to see my husband again! are you kidding me? i have to wait two more days?! i couldn't handle it.

two days later, tyler drove through salt lake, picked me up, we stayed in albuquerque, and then made it to san antonio. it's pretty amazing here. it's hot and the pool is awesome, so yes, i'm loving my life.

it feels soooo good to be with tyler again. and i love summer, even in san antonio instead of portland.

i just cut two inches off my hair. i feel like it's sooo short! am i crazy? everybody knows my loooong hair and now i feel like it's just regular long. but long does not equal pretty. and let's be honest, it was not lookin' good.

i have the hardest time with hair. what girl doesn't? lighter or darker? shorter or longer? curly, wavy, or straight? and let's not even get started with bangs!

so i know that last post was supposed to be my last until i left for portland, but ya, i get bored so i blog. anyway, school is done! tomorrow is half-day/yearbook day, and then i'm off...can't wait!!!

goodbye utah

it's about freakin' time. two more days in this wretched condition and then i'm off to portland.

i'm really happy that the end is near, but time almost seems to drag even more as i wait for the final days to pass. i'm super ornery. i get irritated really easily. people are buggin and my patience is wearing thin. i'm trying to be a nice person and be pleasant to be around, but seriously! i'm dying to be with my husband again. (or is it because i'm on my period?) anyway, i feel like i'm single again, and uh, it's not fun. i miss seeing him every day. i miss his smile and his laugh. i miss his big arms around me. i miss how i feel complete with him.

goodbye utah! i will NOT miss you! hello portland...

I'm finally starting to see the light at the end of this deep dark tunnel...5 more days of school...8 more days til I'm with Tyler. Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end...


Hmmm...kind of wish we were in Tucson again this summer...I mean, I'm excited for the cultural and beautiful Portland and all, but c'mon! Rainy, cloudy, and 60's compared to sunny and 90's? BTW, anybody have good suggestions for things to do in Portland???

why does knowing i only have two weeks left not even feel much better than when i had six weeks left?

for the love! i'm dying. slowly slowly dying away. i feel mentally like i did physically when i drove three hours in the middle of the day in the middle of summer in the middle of arizona...without air conditioning. suffocation.

i've been trying to keep myself busy to make time pass quickly. i've been volunteering at the ymca, helping kids with homework. i like elementary age kids but they actually seem harder to teach because they're so adhd. they're always moving around and can't focus. they're a little cuter than jh kids though. i also went to an african dance class recently which kicked my butt. it was fun to be the student again though.

i miss tyler so much it's unreal. but then i think about my friend jenna who won't live with her husband again until september, and i don't feel so bad.

seriously i want to poke my eyeballs out. but i won't. i'll carry on and continue my pathetic countdown: 9 more school days and 14 days til i see tyler.

on a brighter note, i'm glad the world didn't begin to end today because i'm very much looking forward to my tv lineup this week: ai finale (i'm definitely team scotty. he's a natural, although i can't handle the way he holds the mic.), bachelorette and sytycd premieres.

in other news, tyler now has two siblings out on a mission. his brother talon entered the mtc on wednesday, getting ready for the netherlands/brussels mission. (his sister is in russia.)

carry on, carry on, carry on!

sonya tayeh - you're a freak! pure genius and inspiration. can NOT wait for sytycd.

um hello! one of my favorite singers and one of my favorite choreographers TOGETHER...can it get any better? (oh yeah, don't mind the awkward camera angles.)

ok, FOR THE LOVE! time: i hate you right now. i'm trying not to be a debby downer right now, but seriously i am d.y.i.n.g waiting for school to end and to be with tyler again. will i survive? we will see...

what do you like about being a woman?

two of my favorite women

since i became a woman i've realized something: we are keeched!

"keech" is the armenian word for jipped, short-changed, screwed, whatever. keech just sounds so much better.

really, i'd rather be a guy! in general (of course there are always exceptions) we get paid less, we're less athletic, we're emotional and generally less stable, we bleed in our underpants accompanied by abdominal pain that's guaranteed once a month for a whole week, we have to take birth control, sex is painful and sometimes frustrating, we have to continually dodge the outside world's attack on our self-image and self-esteem, we have to be pregnant for nine months that's accompanied by permanent damages to our body, we have the pain of a human being come out of us, etc., etc., etc.

and according to my friend, doug rasmussen, men are better than women at everything. (i won't even get started on that maddening conversation.)

keeched i tell ya!

so i try to be positive and think about the things i really love about being a woman. and sometimes i sit and think and think and think...

there are things i like. i feel like we're generally more spiritually inclined. we're more compassionate and loving.

but i'd really like to be more proud of being a woman and learn to love it! i want to be glad i'm a woman and stop wishing i was a man. (this sounds weird, doesn't it?)

so help me out, what is it that you really love about being a woman?

dance concert #4 is over.

it was kind of a disaster.

the main stage crew member didn't show up. (i won't even get started on the stage crew this year.) the music was low on the stage so the dancers could barely hear it; one dance had to start over in the middle. the black lights fell half way off the stage. students broke performance rules.

i told myself, i'm never doing this again. (yeah, i said that last time too.)

but...the students were happy and excited. the parents loved it.

and i'm just glad it's over.

it's funny how the things you dream of doing when you're younger aren't quite as glamorous as you thought they would be.

ah...four more weeks...

(am i seriously not even half way done with my separation from tyler?? you've got to be kidding me!)

sometimes gossip is a good thing?

This last week was pretty painful. But I feel like the worst is over. I usually miss Tyler right away and as time passes I forget about him. No! JK. But it gets almost easier for me. He is the opposite. So yeah, he doesn't miss me right now.

So why is gossip a good thing in junior high? Well because you can tell your first period students that your personal ipod and expensive dock that you use for dance every day was stolen from the auditorium and it will take about three hours for them to be returned to you.

I was pretty panicked when I opened my locked closet door in the auditorium and found my ipod and dock missing. I hardly made it through first period, crying in front of my students (embarrassing). So word got around fast and those that were responsible at least had enough guts to return my equipment by lunch time. I still don't know how they got in there or when and why they were in the auditorium but now I've learned my lesson to keep my stuff with me always. And I've learned that gossip can be a tool in a junior high.

Can not wait for this week! That's right, I've got it on my calendar.

Missing my husband. Ugh, time is crawling...

P.S. Here comes the blogging. Time away from Tyler = a lot more of Jodi on the blog.

Finally Tyler is a college grad! So proud of him.

Aubrie givin the grads high fives on their way out

BYU! It's been good...

that cap just barely fits. love him!

some of the crew: me; the grad; my brother dave; niece aubrie; the grad's dad jim, brother talon, and uncle bob

oh yeah!

here we go again

here we go again...it's that time of the year that tyler moves away, i move in with my parents, and we bear the dreaded six week separation. we're moving out of our apartment and away from provo forever this weekend. tyler's going to oregon to be a lead technician for vivint and i'll be living with my parents in salt lake for possibly the six longest weeks all year, waiting out the end of the school year.

i feel good about leaving provo. i've been here for a total of six years and it's been great. from king henry to glenwood to arlington to the house and to branbury. this is where i decided to serve a mission. this is where i saw tyler on campus time after time wondering when for the love he would ask me out. this is where we dated, fell in love, and started out our life together. i have a lot of friends here but also a lot that have already moved away. it's time to go.

i know i shouldn't wish time away. i try to live in the moment and carpe diem. but really, being completely honest with myself, i can't wait for the next seven weeks to be over. school done, summer here, reunited with tyler. i know he hasn't left yet, but i know what's coming. it's worth it in the end though.

2008

Today is the first of five glorious days where I get to say to myself "Self, I could be in second period right now dealing with who knows what, but instead I am sitting on my couch, blogging, listening to Matt Nathanson, and eating sour patch watermelons." Oh the joy of spring break!

This weekend was a big celebration for Tyler: his birthday and the end of the MCAT! We celebrated by going to The Homestead. It was refreshing to be in the mountains and a good getaway from our apartment. Tyler is now the big 2-5. I'm really proud of how hard he worked to prepare for the MCAT and hopefully we'll see good results in a month.

A Day In My Life

Sometimes my dance students really surprise me. We just completed a unit about composition with theme. I decided to give them the theme this time. They were to create a dance in their group of 5-6 about inclusion (including others/not leaving others behind/being kind/not bullying, etc.). They did this in about two weeks, working every day with their group, everyone contributing equally. Here are two of the best groups, the one on the left being my favorite. (You'll have to excuse the huge table in the way at the bottom and the fact that the dancers dance outside the camera sometimes. I was busy grading while they were performing.)

this weekend was definitely different than usual. i really am a home-body. a perfect night to me is just being at home with tyler and a movie and probably some sour patch watermelons. can't get much better, right? but occasionally it's fun to go out and do different things.

saturday began with a trip to the provo bakery. quite delicious actually. little hidden secret of provo. we headed up to salt lake to go to sleeping beauty by ballet west with leah, anna, buck, and anna jr. it was amazing! those dancers are so talented.

i love dance. i really do. but i do kind of feel like i'm done with it. i like being a dance teacher but i think one or two more years will do it for me. i used to be so afraid of losing my talent and ah, what would i do if i wasn't dancing? but now, no, not so much. i realized that at the ballet. it was a good thought. just to know that i'm ready to have a family. (easy jeremy, not any time soon.) but i'm just kind of done with the things that i used to be so passionate about. and that's ok. i'm growing up and realizing there are more important and fulfilling things.

after the ballet, tyler and i celebrated valentine's early with dinner at mazza. yum.

we spent the night at my parents' new house in salt lake. yes, they moved back to salt lake from bountiful. my mom never really liked it there. they're right back in our old neighborhood and ward. we had a fun time camping out on the floor last night since none of their furniture is moved in yet.

alas, the sick bug has finally gotten me! i was seriously sick for three months straight last year, my first year teaching. so far this year i had not been sick at all even once. but i guess even a first year teacher's immune system is still not strong enough.

life's good, ya know? i feel content. i have an amazing husband (seriously i don't know how i got so lucky), a good job, a nice apartment, and peace.

so i'm sitting here, just got home from work, and tyler will be another half hour. i've got time to sit down and rest for a minute before i need to make dinner.

i'm looking at my blog and knowing that i haven't written forever, but i can never imagine anything to write that's read-worthy. what about my life is so cool that you'd actually want to read about it?

all i can think about is how tired i am. all. the. time. except saturdays. and sundays. i guess i am just not cut out to be a working woman. last year i was exhausted every second of my life. and i thought, this is just how the first year of teaching is. which it was. exhausting. but i am surprised at how tired i still become every day this year.

maybe it's just teaching. i tend to be a grass-is-greener kind of person. i always prove these thoughts wrong but still sometimes i wonder if i'd have more energy and enjoy my job more if I ended up doing my #2 or #3 choice of profession: editing or nursing. if i was single and planning on becoming a career woman, i would not stick with teaching. it just tears your entire soul out every day. dramatic, you might think. but true. i will always respect teachers now.

since when are mondays so exciting at work?

today i had a little scare right in between fourth and fifth periods.

i came out into the hall (as we are to do during passing time) to find one student with another in a headlock. thinking they were horsing around i walked over and shouted at them to knock it off. as soon as i got over there i realized they weren't joking. one kid slammed the other kid against the wall and then hit him hard twice right in the face with yes, me right in the middle trying to pull them apart. while continuing to shout for them to stop and desperately (and unsuccessfully) pulling on them to stop, the other kid getting romped on pulled out pepper spray and it went everywhere. luckily it didn't get in my eyes but did get all over my hands and all over other people in the crowd. if you've ever experienced pepper spray before you'll know that it not only burns your eyes but completely kills your throat. needless to say, since this happened right outside my classroom, fifth period was spent with twenty coughing kids and a teacher that couldn't talk.

i didn't really see the end result of the fight because i booked it once the pepper spray was fired. i called the school cop and got her up there.

there's me again, little old me, getting myself into sticky situations at work. oh the joy of junior high...

i am so tired right now...this first week back from the break has killed me. i guess a super relaxing break has some drawback: it's ridiculously hard to wake up at 5:40 again and spend all day teaching (um, babysitting) teenagers.

today was pretty out of control. we had an incentive activity at the end of the school day for all the seventh graders who had no "N"s or "U"s this term. so someone came up with the brilliant idea of teaching all the kids the electric slide and virginia reel and me, being the dance teacher, was automatically nominated for the job. well i was happy to do it. but picture this: a gym full of 215 wild monkeys running around like chickens with their heads cut off and little old me frantically trying to teach the steps to the electric slide while standing on a wobbly, little (and let's stress little) table. it was pretty awesome. just one of the daily crazy things that happen at my job.

yahoo for the weekend...

tomorrow's the last day of winter break. boo. this break's been awesome. i've been lazy enough that i now have energy again to go back to work. that's what i like about a relaxing break.

christmas was a lot of fun. tyler and i went up to my parents' for christmas eve and christmas day. tyler got a new wedding ring (his old one doesn't fit anymore), pinheads and patriots, temple pants, best buy gift cards, tools, etc. i was spoiled with a lot of jewelry. no complaints there. we also got a picture framed that tyler bought in armenia, thanks to tyler's parents.

so this break was spent with a lot of sleeping in (11:45 this morning people), big breakfasts, and lots of tv series and movie watching. we actually made it out into the frigid snowy wonderland a few times. (seriously who wants to go outside in this?) we finally tried the pizza pie cafe which is surprisingly good. we walked there and then walked to despicable me. not as good as i've heard. i just liked the fuzzy unicorn part. we also drove up to farmington and spent a whole day playing games with my brother, his wife, and their two kids. we worked out a few days in the byu weight room and probably should have done that a few more days. last night we welcomed in the new year while watching chopped on our homemade living room bed.

well, now it's back to work and school. tyler starts a new semester on tuesday. he also begins his intense study for the mcat which he takes on march 26th, a day before his birthday. the school year is almost half over for me, which i cannot believe. that also means the dance concert is coming up in two weeks. cross your fingers. there are always a million things that can and sometimes do go wrong.

happy new year! i hope this year is just as fabulous as last year.

welcoming in the new year

yesterday was one of the longest days i've had in a loooong time. i can't tell you how glad i am that i'm now sitting on my couch watching ncis with tyler. i've been waiting for this moment for a long time: work done until january 3rd and me back in my cozy apartment away from the anxiety-inducing snowy roads. what a joy it was driving an hour this morning in two feet of snow.

anyway, yesterday. so i'm used to coming home after work each day around four or five and wasting away the rest of the day by spending time with tyler, eating and watching our favorite shows. yesterday i had a lot of things going on after school and let's just say i was a little pms-y when i got home at 11:00, which btw is usually when i've been in bed for an hour already. it was already snowing hard and i knew it would be a commuter special the next morning on the way to my last day of work for the next week and a half. anyway, i was happily surprised to see flowers, chocolates, and a note waiting for me when i got home. bless his heart! (well, i was actually in such a bad mood when i got home that i headed straight to the bedroom to change and didn't see the flowers for like ten minutes...)

so needless to say i love being married to tyler. he's the only one that can make me laugh after a day like that.

yahoo for eight paid days off! i heart christmas break.

just me

so yeah, that's my hair in a pile below the vacuum. tyler spent a good while pulling it out of the spinny thing after vacuuming.

tyler and i had an interesting weekend a week ago. we headed down to lake powell (my favorite place on the planet earth btw, even in november, but esp. in the summer) for a fishing trip with tyler's parents and sister on a family friend's fishing boat. tyler and i left from provo and were to meet his family/friend near lake powell. there were a few miscommunications and tyler and i thought we were supposed to head toward kanab. well, after five hours of driving, nearly three hours of no cell service, and a couple hours of confusion, we realized we were FOUR hours away from where we were supposed to be. so we decided to spend a lovely evening in page, arizona in a sweet motel and head out the next morning for another 4.5 hour drive that basically took us on a round trip around lake powell.















the route we should have taken
















the route we took

so there were some positives from this accident. 1: we saw a cow right after it got hit by a car. i'm no vegan animal lover but this was seriously sad! it was moo-ing out of control and it's leg was basically behind its head. 2: we got pulled over for the second time together and for the second time got out of a ticket. i think the putrid skunk smell in southern utah was mostly responsible for getting the cop away from our car and back into his, dodging another ticket. 3: we got to see way more of lake powell than we bargained for. now you might think all three of these are negatives, but no, we are choosing to see them as positives.

motel 6 (notice the beautiful bed cover)

anyway, the trip was fun. it was surprisingly warm (except for the 70 mph driving in a fishing boat) and lake powell still looked as stunning as ever.

this past weekend was a little more relaxing. we spent friday with friends at happy sumo and a relaxing saturday at home. i finally went to the eye doctor yesterday after five years. i've been having problems with my contacts and basically feel like i put anyone in my car in danger of their lives when i'm driving.



well i'm glad for a break this week. only two days of teaching and then off to denver. hooray for family, fun, food, and thanksgiving of course.

tyler said, "it's been awhile since you've blogged." yes, he checks our blog. i said, "why don't you write something?" silence. yeah...

sometimes i just feel like i don't have anything to say or my thoughts are worthless anyway. i don't know. my day is the same every day and who really cares? i don't have a baby that i can show adorable pictures of daily. i don't have a crazy job that sends me to fantastical destinations. i don't have drama in my life. i feel pretty good about the constancy but as far as blogging goes, it doesn't go over very well.

but, maybe some of you are like me. maybe some of you check blogs every single day and delight in even the smallest update. so here i go...

everyday i do the same thing:

yes, i wake up at 5:40. it's a beautiful thing - not!

every morning i have to brush out my wild hair. believe it or not i think my hair's getting even longer and perhaps thicker. my mom has a wild lion's mane and perhaps my hair is heading in that direction. anyway, i have this weird habit: i rock and roll in my sleep like a crazy monkey. basically when i was a baby i broke my leg, had a cast, couldn't move, and so i developed this endearing rocking habit. tyler loves it! so now i wake up with knots in my hair. it's awesome.

i teach junior high. the first two periods i teach modern dance to eighth and ninth graders. this has been quite an experience. right now we are rehearsing for our dance concert in january. the way i set it up the girls volunteer to be choreographers and i put them in groups. some of the girls are great leaders and natural choreographers. other girls are so timid with the whole process. i have to really coax them to lead and be the boss. it's interesting to see how much girls that age care what others think about them. don't worry, those classes can be very entertaining too. let's just say "non-coordinated." oh and on monday two of my students got drunk in the girls locker room before class, btw.

the last four periods i teach english to seventh graders. and that's all i'm gonna say about that.

last year my job was about survival. it was so hard! the hardest things i've done in my life are: 1.mission 2.an unnamed event when i got home from my mission and 3.first year teaching. this year i'm over that. i feel like i can actually teach now and not just survive. i love being around the kids because they're so ridiculous and entertaining. i also feel so bad for some of them because of their home lives. why are some people allowed to have kids?

tyler and i are super lucky that we get to spend every afternoon together. we're fans of fox news (bill), dancing with the stars (tyler's favorite), glee, criminal minds, and the office. tyler's also still very in love with his amazing new ipod.

life is a routine. for me anyway. the daily grind, now i know what that means. anyway, i'm happy 98% of the time (especially now that udot has left me alone), because i know i'm blessed and mostly due to my amazing husband who by the way is happy 100% of the time (i don't understand it) and always gives me something to look forward to every day.

My current love: Tyler! Especially at Timp in the fall...

My current hate: UDOT! For the love! An hour and half drive home after work? Life is so hard...

what is this, seriously? it's 8:45 a.m. on saturday and i've been awake for an hour! i can't sleep in anymore. i guess waking up at 5:40 a.m. every day during the week will do that. anyway, i'm starting to turn into my parents. i've always made fun of them because they're overjoyed if they can "sleep in" until 8:00. tyler's peacefully passed out in our bedroom, snoring as usual. so precious!

today i didn't know what was going on when i woke up. is it really saturday again?? i asked myself. the last two days were also saturday. it's fall break in utah and it's glorious. last year i valued my breaks by 100 fold. this year they're certainly nice but i don't dread going back to work like i did last year.

last week was my birthday. 2-6 people! what is happening in the world? thank heavens i'm married or i'd be in a deep depression right now! no offense to all my '03 graduates still living the single life. i still don't feel quite like i'm all grown up. yes, i've graduated college. yes, i have a career. yes, i have a huband. but without kids i still feel like a kid, even at 26. and i probably am. i have no idea what it's like to have a child and i'd like to keep my ignorance for many years to come. i see pictures of friends with their adorable babies and yes it looks so appealing but then i think of all the sleepless nights they must be having, puke and poop they're cleaning up, screaming and crying they're dealing with and then i feel pretty good about still being a kid, even at 26.

all my dreams are coming true! it's been sunny and HOT in october! i do love fall but i can't stand the season that follows it so i'm reveling in this record breaking heat.

yesterday i had the day off of work. we have a compensatory day on the week of parent-teacher conferences. i guess they decide we need a day off when we work two thirteen hour days. i spent my day off by sleeping in, getting a deep conditioning treatment, going to the pool (brought me right back to summer), and attending my (and tyler's) mission reunion. it's getting weird going to the mission reunions. i was the oldest sister there. i think that means we should stop going.

today was also a day to celebrate. conference has been great as always. we also went to kneaders. i could die for their turkey bacon avocado on foccaccia! we decided that we needed a new router so we went to rc willy. we ended up buying a tv, naturally. tyler's been wanting a tv for a long time and his dream finally came true today. it was a great deal and we couldn't pass it up.

tyler's love affair with his new ipod touch

life's been treating tyler and me well lately. last week we enjoyed one of our anniversary presents at the brad paisley concert. it was packed! i've never seen the usana lawn so full. of course we were sitting next to drunk smokers. yuck. sometimes i forget that there are people in utah that drink, until i go to a concert. sad, i know, but i live in utah county. the week before that we got to go with jamie (tyler's sister) to the timp. temple as she received her endowments. i still can't believe she's going to russia. i know she's probably itching to leave but i just want to tell her to enjoy her time in the good old u.s.of a. i didn't realize how good life is here until i lived in armenia! the very first thing i thought when i walked in my house after a year and a half was how clean it was! seriously. the little wonders of this nation like cleanliness, walmart, people with good hygiene, and smooth running church meetings were sorely missed. earlier this month we also got to spend a weekend with friends at a cabin in the uintas. we went up to one of tyler's friend's cabins with a bunch of couples, played games, ate awesome food, and hiked. currently, teaching is going so much better this year! it's ridiculous how much easier this second year is. well, peace out till next time...

p.s. katie: you inspired me to make this post. just want to give you something to do on your lunch break :)

this weekend was tyler and my first anniversary! friday the third to be exact. we celebrated with a trip up to my cabin on hebgen lake, montana.

hebgen lake

dead mice. yum.

yellowstone park

playmill! we saw beauty and the beast.

such a joy. i can't believe it's been a year! it's been awesome. i love being married to tyler!