Read-A-Thon

Hi Everyone! I hope you're all doing well! I was just realizing something fun and kind of crazy that I wanted to share with you all. As many of you know, I'm a PhD student at UNLV (earning my degree in British and American Literature). This semester I am taking two classes, which is only part-time, and I have approximately 800 pages to read each week. That translates to 21 novels, and about 12,000 pages in all.

I guess when you're a grad student in Literature they want you to read a lot. Weird. :) It's a good thing I love it! I have to admit though, I do miss the Read-A-Thons in elementary school when I could wear my pajamas and read the Boxcar Children and eat Swedish Fish and M&Ms... No, grad school is much different than that!

A Hauck Christmas

Shaye and I had a fabulous Christmas! We spent Christmas Eve at the Scotts' where we had a nativity scene, games, and caroling. We had our own little Christmas and opened up our presents to each other on Christmas Eve also. (Shaye got his fancy, new camera and I got a treadmill :))

We spent Christmas morning at my family's (as usual) and it was a GREAT time! Shaye created this awesome little video of our Christmas morning festivities. (You'll want to click on it to make it full screen.) Hope you're all having a wonderful holiday season!

Our Weekend Trip to Downtown SLC

We took a fun weekend trip a few weekends ago to the Salt Lake City area to visit Shaye's brother Shane. We had such a great time. We went shopping at the Gateway and went to Temple square. I also took Shaye to Ikea...he tried to act unimpressed, but I'm pretty sure he thought it was cool. :)

Below is a short (5 minute) video that Shaye created of our fun little outing in Downtown Salt Lake. (You might want to view the video full screen because my blogger template will cut off some of it if you just view it normally.) You'll see that a lot of these shots are experimental and there's a lot of boring footage of me, but I'm really impressed with how artistic Shaye is in editing videos, so I decided to show it off. Due to his creative flair, hopefully I'll have a lot move nifty stuff to post here.

Hope you're all well and having a great holiday!

What would I do without girl time?

Sorry I've been so an inattentive blogger lately. With starting my PhD in Vegas and teaching college at Dixie, UNLV, and for University of Phoenix online (6 classes in all) I haven't had a whole lot of extra time. However, when I do have extra time, I have been so happy to be able to get out with my mom and sisters, and my friends. I've been blessed with such an amazing family and such supportive friends that have helped me through the hard times and even just the super busy times. What would I do without you all?!

Here are some pictures from my girl adventures over the past few months:

Mom, Steph, and I before a trip to Spoon Me. :)

Cindee, Jenny, and I at Ericka's reception. She looked so incredibly beautiful!

Yes, we were part of the crazy herd of women at the movie theaters on New Moon's opening weekend. (But we definitely didn't go two weekends in a row. That would be really dorky :) ) Needless to say, we LOVED it!

And this is from an infinite ago, but I thought I'd still post it. Caitlin left on her mission a few months ago and is doing awesome. She's stationed at Carthage Jail presently. Love you Cakers!

So as you can see, I'm about as blessed as one can be in the way of having good family and friends. Thanks everyone! :)

I'm Not Going to Lie...

So, at this point there's just no point in denying that I'm a huge Twilight fan. Yes, I know they're not the best written books in the world, but I adore the characters. Being the dork that I am, I can't WAIT for New Moon to come out. Here is the new trailer that was just barely released. I don't care if your a Meyer fan or not, this movie looks really cool! (Shaye, who usually mocks my interest in Twilight even agrees with me on that.) Anyone want to have a party with me on November 20th? :) Enjoy the trailer!

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

UNLV Here I Come!

Due to a promotion I got at Dixie State College to go from being an adjunct instructor to a part-time professor, I am now able to begin my Ph D at UNLV!!! I am so excited about it I can hardly sleep at night! Of course, it is going to be a big commitment and a little pricey, plus, I'll have to commute to Vegas once a week, but I'm still super excited. It has always been my dream to get my Doctorate degree so I can someday teach as a full-time English professor, though I never thought I'd be doing it this early.

I'm so grateful for the opportunities I've been given to work in a career I love and really push myself academically. Many of you know that I've been hoping to be a mom for several years now, but since I've been diagnosed with endometriosis and fertility treatments haven't worked out, I've decided to push myself in other ways and find out what Heavenly Father wants me to do with my life right now. Though we still have a lot of fertility treatments to try and there is plenty of hope, I know that it might be a while. Lucky for me, Heavenly Father has opened up one opportunity after another for me to better myself in other ways. I'm so grateful!

Wish me luck in my school work at this big university with the literature Big Wigs!

It's Time for a BIG Update!

So...I've been a bad blogger lately--a really bad blogger. I find that the longer I take to post, the more out of the loop I feel. So I decided to break the cycle and just start posting again. :) Here is an update of what has been going on with Shaye and me over the past few months:

Our New House!!!

We moved into our brand new home at the end of April and are LOVING it! Our home is in the Tonaquint area. We love it because it is so quiet, but only about a 5 minute drive to downtown. It's also fun because we have all kinds of bike trails nearby and beautiful views of Pine Valley Mountain, Zions (far off in the distance) and Snow Canyon. We feel so blessed to have gotten into the home when we did. We have awesome neighbors and are in an awesome ward! We couldn't be happier.

I will post more pictures inside when I get it more decorated and take some blog-worthy pictures.

Fun With Friends

In high school my friends, Marci in particular, sang a song that I've never forgotten. "Good friends, everyone needs good friends--the kind you can talk to..." Though this song is rather cheesy, (it's from "For the Strength of Youth" by Janice Kapp Perry,) it's so true. I'm grateful for GREAT friends.

Over the past few months Aleesha Fife (now Marshall) got married to a wonderful guy. Her wedding was gorgeous and it was a perfect opportunity for the "Morningside Clique" to get together and catch up.

Another fun thing that happened is that my bestie roommate Laralyn came to visit me in St. George. She has since had her baby, Kaylee Rayne, who is ADORABLE!

Also, I sang at the Renaissance Fair with Candace Thompson and Krista Wasden. It was super fun! I felt like I was five again walking around in my medieval dress. (Yes, I did aspire to be Guinevere as a child.) The fair was super fun to sing at, except when we tried to sing a difficult Latin song "O Fortuna" and totally started laughing in the middle. :)

Sudden Valley, WA

I never thought I could be so addicted to a place that involves hiking and small Scandanavian port towns--but I am! Ever since I've known Shaye I've heard all about Sudden Valley from his family. Until we went last year, I had no idea what I was in for. It is BEAUTIFUL! We went again a few weeks ago and I loved it even more! First of all, it is always 60 or 70 degrees there. Second of all, we get to spend quality time with Skyler and Jamie, who are a blast. Thirdly, it is about 3 hours away from Forks, WA. (This is where the dorky Twilight fan in me comes out.)

I haven't exactly been to Forks, but being so close to it and being in such a similar landscape makes me think about the books. I even start to believe the characters are real when I'm up there. (Man, now I really sound dorky!)

We're lucky to have a great vacation spot where we can stay with family for free and buy $28.00 tickets out of Vegas to get there. Can you believe that?? Seriously, if you want a fun cheap trip book a flight last minute with Allegiant and you can go all kinds of cool places for super cheap!

Well that's all for my massive update. I'll be sure to stay on top of it better. Hope you're all well. XOXO