A Great Year!

Lately I've been really surprised to hear so many people say, in one way or another, "2011 was a terrible year!"! I loved this year. It was a really good year for us. Here are a few highlights of our year:

* Shayebear totally blossomed as a videographer. It's been AMAZING to watch what he can do.  He started working with ThePianoGuys in February and completed about a dozen or so videos with them. Through this process we became good friends with all the guys involved, and just had a blast! Later this year, Shaye decided as much as he loves working with ThePianoGuys, he feels most fulfilled when he has total control over his own work. He parted with them on a good note and stays in good touch with them. Now Shaye is building his new channel Shaye2k.  I'm so proud of my hubby!

* In association with the point above, I was featured in a Piano Guys video, "Rolling in the Deep"! It was so surreal because I've listened to Jon's music since I was a kid, and I think Steve is so so amazing. I was so grateful for this amazing opportunity to perform again and on such a huge platform.

* I completed my Ph.D. coursework alive! Yipee! (More about that in the post below.) On top of that, I was able to teach at Dixie State, UNLV, and The University of Phoenix. I absolutely love teaching and scholarship!

* We went to Bellingham, Washington (again). So much fun! We can't get enough of this place!

* We spent lots of precious time with our families. So grateful for every day with them. This is a picture from a girls' weekend with my Mom and sisters at Mandalay Bay in Vegas. :)

* I became a lot more domestic this year. I have been on a crocheting rampage lately and have really been challenging myself with cooking. With the help of Pinterest, I have collected lots of recipes and have been having a ton of fun with it. For our family Christmas party on my Mom's side I made 2 super difficult cakes. A six layer salted caramel chocolate cake and a white chocolate mud cake. It took me 7 hours, but they were so yummy it was worth it!

* I have been working on being more grateful this year. I definitely have had my moments...lots of moments... of feeling sorry for myself for one reason or another, but overall I've been more successful at being in the moment and being grateful for my life.

* We've spent lots of times with these cute little cheeky dogs. Here is a picture of us Christmas morning at my parents'. I am such a nerd with these two. They really are my little babies. They are a blessing to us!

* I have got to spend one more wonderful year of marriage with Shaye. It's been 5 and a half years, and he continues to be the best husband I could ever ask for.

This is just a short list of what we've done this year, but we have been so, so blessed. 2011 has been a fantastic year and we look forward with hope and excitement on 2012. I hope it is a wonderful year for all of you! Lots of love!

Ode to UNLV

Hello friends,

Life has been very good to us lately. We're so blessed. Shaye has been doing a lot of film work, and expanding his business, so that's all been great. Also, I am now finished with my doctorate coursework! Can't even articulate how relieved I am about that. I wanted to write a little post to reminisce about good old UNLV.

Here's a little day in the life of a UNLV grad student:

6:45 a.m.: I left St. George and Drive to Las Vegas (and don't I look happy about it?)

8:00 a.m.: I arrived at UNLV. This is the building I taught in.

8:30-12:45: I taught World Literature to 2 classes of 35 students each. Here is one of my classes. The classrooms looked like prison cells. Totally gray with no windows. Sometimes the students acted like prisoners too. :)

12:45 Stopped by my office to help students. This is a space I shared with 6 other instructors. Glamorous, no? :)

1:00-6:45 p.m.: I took classes in this,  the humanities buildings. This semester it was Contemporary British Lit, American Realism, Detective Fiction, and Gothic Fiction.

7:00 pm: I braved the crazy Vegas traffic and drove home.

10:00 pm: I arrived home sweet home to St. George.

Boy oh boy did this semester test my mental and emotional stamina. Thank goodness for Shaye! He kindly listened to me when I complained and kept me laughing through my more neurotic moments. Just for the record, I wouldn't recommend making a 4 hour commute twice a week, nor would I recommend 11 hour academic days. I was blessed to get all As this semester and make it through well, but it definitely took a toll on my health. So happy that it's over!!

This is my last day on campus, at least as a course taking student. I have to say, I felt a little nostalgic when I pulled out of campus.

I learned so so so much as a student at UNLV. I'm sure that I have a lot to learn ahead of me as I study for my comprehensive exams and then write my dissertation, but I've already come so far. I learned a lot of things that I expected to learn...all about Literature, of course, but even more important, I learned a lot about myself. I have never been around or befriended so many people so very different from me. My testimony has grown more than I could have imagined. There were lots of moments of being mocked for being a religious person, even more so for being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but in these moments of being challenged, I learned that I really believe what I think I believe. It's not only for convenience or because I'm not intellectually capable of accepting life without God, like many of my peers would say. I definitely was exposed to a whole lot of things I didn't like, but I learned that people--no matter how they live their lives--are God's children and deserve love and respect. I've always known this, but it was really put into action in my interactions with people at UNLV. So grateful for these realizations.

Plus...get a load of this. These are the books I read for the fall. About a third of them I read in the summer before. It was good, crazy, mind numbing fun! :)

Thank you so so much to all those who have supported me throughout this process. Again, I am not finished yet. I still have A TON of work to do before I'm officially Dr. Scott. (That looks super weird!) Hopefully I'll be done with the entire process sometime in 2013, but I can do most of the rest at home. Wahoo! :)