11/17/1988=24 years old!

If Jon was here i'd be singing this song to him because it's sooo dang cute!
24 things about Jon!
1) He is hilarious
2) He is an awesome dancer
3)he is literally the nicest person you will EVER know
4)He loves his wifey
5)He loves babies & puppies (shhh....he really does!
6) He loves Disneyland/world
7)He loves buffalo wild wings
8) He is the handsomest person in the WORLLLD
9)he's hilarious. x2.
10) he loves his family sooooo much
11)he's a really really hard worker
12) GENIUS alert.
13)he's great at fixing things
14)he gives the best snuggles/hugs/kisses/you name it!
15)he is the best mario kart player around
16)and mario party
17)he's a soccer master
18) he gives the best presents
19)he has an amazing testimony
20) hates diet soda
b)and butter
c) and mint
d) and coconut
e)and sweet meat (sometimes)
21)loves Coke
22)loves sleeping in
23)loves inside jokes (insert: "i'd like to be a part of one someday"--michael scott)
24)basically he's just the greatest human alive. and i love him sooo much & i'm so grateful for him. and i wish he was here right now :(

ANDDD one more day of school till we go to California! yipeeee! I'm so excited! :D

Happy Firthday, Jon!

Firthday:
Fake birthday. Fake birthday's occur when you'll be out of town without your wife ALL weekend on your real birthday, so you celebrate early! And boy, we celebrated! I've been saving up to do something really special for Jon since I'm terrible at present ideas.
SO:
here's how the fbirthday went.
1) RENTED a puppy. the cutest puppy you've ever seen. half chocolate lab, half beagle. Surprise!

2) After we played with the puppy, I took jon to Red Iguana downtown. DELICIOUS. holy crap. I'm not a huge mexican fan but Ohmygoshitwasgoooood. Pretty cheap and a ton of food!

3) Big surprise (the one i've been really excited about) I took Jon to stay at the Inn on the Hill. It was an AMAZING bed & breakfast. So gorgeous. The house dates back to the 1800's, and if you've ever seen the movie Clue, that's pretty much what it looks like. We played pool, ate lots and lots of snacks, watched some TV, relaxed, took a bath (the tub was huge and had jets, yay!). Then in the morning they made us waffles with fresh fruit, OJ and bacon...mmmm.

Andddd right now we're off to see my dad, yay!

Saturday

Right now I am watching gossip girl reruns on netflix while Jon works on HW. When Jon woke up today he kept saying his hands looked weird...then he lost vision in his right eye, and his hands and mouth went numb. He figured it was a migraine so he took an immitrex around 11 and laid down. He was so sick and it broke my heart! It was terrible. my mom gets frequent migraines so i called here after two hours of NO relief, and poor Jon couldn't sleep because it hurt so bad. So, he took another immitrex and thankfully (3 hours later), he finally found some relief, fell asleep for a while, and got a whole lot better. I sat next to him on the bed and tried to rub his head, and ended up on the computer with headphones in because I couldn't bear to leave him!! My mom was a lot of help. But since he had planned to wake up and do HW so we could go on a date when I got home from work, he's still doing homework (6 hours later)....so no date tonight. I'm so grateful my prayers were answered and he is feeling better. We are so excited for thanksgiving break!! We are tired of school and work :(

People of the world, get instagram on your smart phone! kbaum91 is my username. You will follow my life much more accurately since I tend to upload pics of my day & stuff we're doing a lot more. Plus, I want to follow you guys! ( oh wait the 3 people that read this?) haha.

Tomorrow we are going up to SLC so Jon can help set apart Tony jr to be an elder..and then we're off to my grandma's with my brother to have dinner and hang out.

PS MY DAD COMES ON SATURDAY!!! I am so excited! I miss my dad so much! He is my bestest friend (alongside my mom & J of course). It'll be really short, but I couldn't be more excited.

We hung out with my awesome brother Josh yesterday. We got ice cream & played lots of wii, till 1 in the morning...and then I had to get up at 6 AM for work! but it was totally worth it. What's better than ice cream? Nothing!!! Jon says I always want to share dinner, but when it comes to ice cream, back off. haha. it's bad but very, very true.

Before I turn 22

I'm 21 now. Prime of youth, I say. I am trying to learn to be patient with time, and trust that the Lord has the right timing for our little family. I'm trying to enjoy school more and not be so impatient to start teaching. I'm trying to soak up every moment of teaching I get though, and love my 4th graders that I'm working with right now. SO so sweet. They remind me of why I want to teach & how much of a difference I will make as a teacher. But there are some things I'd like to do before I turn 22, so I'm hoping that writing them down will help me be responsible:) :
1)Read the entire Book of Mormon
2)Get accepted into the Spec. Ed program
3)Finish all my stupid GE's I have put off (only 3 left!)
4)Keep dating my husband
5)Save some money(at this point, any amount would equal "some" haha)
6)Continue to volunteer with spec. ed kids & teaching
7)Go on a vacation that is not for a holiday (i.e. Christmas)


Any other suggestions are welcome! :)


Oh, what's jon doing you say?
being a hermit. in the library. I see him 1 hour a day. it's great. :(
He's working really hard on school & trying to find an internship for next summer. prayers are welcome.

Grateful/Ungrateful

Grateful:
Fall
leaves
cool weather
jeans
jackets
sweaters
camping
smores
bonfires
pumpkins
baking
cuddles
love
warmth
blankets
sweet husband
Church
love of my life
puppies
school
life
learning
education

Ungrateful:
8 AM Math
Sickness

I need to blog more

Seriously though. I always forget. Then I remember and I'm like, ehhh, I'm tired. But I'm gonna try to really blog more!
update:
There is an awesome school called Horizon Academy here in P-Town. it is for ONLY autistic kids of all spectrum. I am working here for 4 hours every friday! HELLO! So excited!!!! :)
Second: Jon was the best and came to this program called "friday's kids" with me and volunteered with kids with special needs for 4 hours--we each were in charge of two different boys that had fragile X syndrome (so, so sad :( )
I had a sweet little boy named Angel, who really was an angel (and then a devil....and then an angel). he loved to play with me! He was 8 but was at an 18 month old level. Jon worked with his younger brother, who was much more severely retarded and had NO words at all and was in diapers at age 7. I loved working there. I also worked with a sweet little boy with cerebal palsy who told me, " I like you!" and absolutely melted my heart the way he smiled at me. He & I were best friends. It was great & I can't wait to volunteer again! Jon was amazing with the kids! He was so patient and kind. He is going to be the best dad in the world!!! He's amazing and LOVES kids! (perfect man? yes.)
School is busy as always, but I really like it as well! I'm so torn between spec.ed & eled...I'm going to apply for spec ed in January and figure that if I'm meant to get in, I will ( i really really hope I will!!).
Thursday I start working at Wasatch with 1st and 4th graders, woot woot!

jon is way way WAY too busy for a normal human to function. He works so hard at school and is always going to extra events for his AIS club. Soon he will apply to a bunch of internships and hopefully after that we will find out where we will be living next summer.

We are soaking up every moment at BYU (even though we still have 3 yrs left, I don't think the last one will count....me at my internship, jon at grad school)
We never want to leave college but we are excited for what lies ahead too :)

Back to school, back to school

to prove to dad that I'm not a fool. (BM anyone?)
Sooo back to school. It's tough. Monday/Wed I'm on campus from 8 AM--7 PM. Pure. Torture... But on the plus side, I LOVE MY CLASSES! They are amazing. It's such a reassurance everyday that I chose the right major/minor when I love my classes. Here's what I'm taking:
MATH ED: Surprisingly, I really like this class. How do you teach math to elementary students? It's amazing how our minds work--everything seems so obvious and simple to us, but you have to realize we are adults--it wasn't easy at ALL when you were first learning to count, either!! It takes a great teacher to explain math to a child. And there's so much vocabulary that deals with learning math that you would never know (unless you're a teacher, obvs)

CPSE: Special Education. Sometimes I think "oh man why am I not doing special ed!?" because I really love special ed. kids. And its awesome to learn about disabilities....how do you change each lesson plan, each unit to fit every single child with an exceptionality? It's crazy how much work teachers have to do. It's really cool to learn about syndroms/learning disabilities that you've never heard about before (systemic lupus erythematoses, anyone?). PLUS, I am doing a practicum in this class, which means I will be working for 10 weeks in a provo school with a child with either a disability or who is at risk for failing. I am beyond excited! So excited that Jon & I are volunteering at a center in orem called Friday's Respite---this is a NP organization that allows parents of children with brian damage or a disability to drop their kids off friday/saturday night and have a date night or just a break!! We will each be assigned to our own kid and I am beyond excited. There is something so special about kids with disabilities. It can be awkward and uncomfortable for a lot of people to be around children with disabilities, but what if it was your child? You would want people to treat them with love and respect. ANYWAY---

IP&T: Instructional Psychology & teaching. How do you create curriculum for a class? Seriously....how do you? (haha, I'm learning I guess). This is SUCH a difficult class. There are these things called "standards" that every state has (wanna read? look here and get ready to claw your eyes out). Then, as an educator, you have to teach ALL OF THOSE THINGS. which of course is literally impossible, so you do the best you can....but you have to create a years worth of curriculum before you start the school year so you can give a handout to parents and let them know what their kids will be learning...you also have to take pictures of the student's work (like if they are doing a project), and file their worksheets/tests with notes written on every single one, in case a parent tries to sue the school for their kid not doing well...it's part of assessment teaching. boo.

EDLF: Learning about the laws of schools, why we have public schools, what our moral obligation is as an educator. It's awesome. So. many. laws. you can literally be sued for EVERYTHING you do. I have a little book called "a pocket guide to school law" that you have to reference and make sure you are so so so careful about everything you do as a government employee.

TELL 410: Good class, for my minor. about teaching student's who don't speak english. Love learning about this stuff!!


As for Jon--well, I really can't tell you much about his classes, other than that they are CRAZY INTENSE & super hard!! That boy studies like 12 hours a DAY! He is gone for at least 13 hours a day, today he left at 8 AM and won't be home till 11 PM. He's sooo busy and it roeally sucks never seeing each other except, "oh hi. love you. night". when we both crawl in to bed completely exhausted. BUT we are really loving school, so that is good. 

We are also MOVING right now. On top of all that crazy stuff above, as of Wed. I started moving things over to our new (albeit tiny) apartment. We're both excited and a little sad. We've loved our ward & neighbors, but we're excited to see our new ward as well. Plus we're sad because our apartment is now a small 600 sq ft, one bedroom, and we have to drive to do our laundry instead of walk :( And it's farther from school (still in Wymount, just farther north). We love having two bedrooms, but it is just too expensive and we have no need (other than storage) for it. 

Saturday Jon is taking me out for our 1 year anniversary! I can't believe it's already been a year! Time has really flown by. I love him so much more each and every day and we are so happy together! :) Monday is our actual anniversary, so I get to take him out that day, then Tuesday is my 21st birthday!!!! Luckily I don't have class tuesday so that'll be nice!!

I'll post anniversary pics. and updates soon!

xoxo,
J & K

Parents week!

Yay! My mom & dad came to visit me! They were here for like 4 days and it was the BEST! I love hanging out with my mom, dad & Jon at the same time. We had so much fun. We played lots of bored games, ate good food, taught my parents how to play the Wii ( I think my dad loves it, and my mom killed us in like every sport haha). We went to park city and looked at lots of fun stores, we went to Hatch family chocolates (the best chocolates in the world. I'm drooling right now). My mom and I got to spend a day together when my dad had to work, so we got some fabric to make pillows, made a target run for some cute clothes & shoes, and went to cafe zupas. I love my mom! She's coming back out in two weeks and I get to see her again! I feel so spoiled that I get to see her again, it'll be hard to let her go and not see her again until Christmas.

SO after that, Jon and I hopped in the car and drove the torturous 10 hour drive to Indio, CA, because my mother in law let us stay in their awesome time share at a sweet resort for free! It was SO HOT (like 110 every day), but we swam in two awesome pools, played tennis and shuffleboard, and pool, cuddled in bed all day and ordered pizza, went and saw the dark knight and watched way too much TV. It was so fun! Jon was so sweet and even let us drive an extra 15 minutes away to go to a Bread Co. (If it's within an hour of where we are, i'm going...) so I was extra happy. We were supposed to leave on saturday morning, but ended up driving up to LA to see my brother & sister-in law and my in-laws. It was so fun! We went to old town Pasadena, which was the CUTEST town ever! It had some awesome (expensive) stores I love like MAC, Sephora, J. Crew, H&M, Michael Khors, etc. We went out to eat at the Cheesecake factory and went to an awesome store called Lush (organic bath & body works kind of?) that Ari told us about. It was sooo cool and needless to say smelled amazing. So we got an awesome lotion bar that smells amazing and makes your skin feel so good! It was a blast. I love hanging out with them! D & A are the coolest. (hey just move to utah already? thanks.) :)


THENNN
This weekend Jon & I went and saw Humor U, which is a stand up comedy club at BYU. It's audition, so they're REALLY good. We were laughing so hard the whole time! SO much fun. Now I have a billion projects/papers/studying to get done before finals and I'm kind of freaking out just a little...
So we'll see how this next week goes.

Jon is so smart!! S-M-R-T.

In case you don't know that line, it's from the Simpsons <Watch. A big CONGRATS goes out to Jon, who is SO SMART!! He found out Thursday that he was accepted into the Information Systems program in the business school at BYU! He is so happy and so relieved that he now has a plan and a tentative graduation date! :) He won't brag about it, so I will: It's a really hard program to get accepted into, he had to take a ton of hard pre-requisite classes and manage a 3.0 in them, which he killed by getting straight A's anyway. Also, when he went to the meeting about applying, they told them that there were way more people applying this year than even before. I am so proud of him! He really deserved it, and he worked so so so hard to get in! :)
We're excited to see what fall semester will be like for both of us. Probably really hard, but *hopefully* really worth it as well.

Coming up soon!

Tomorrow, Jon will be hosting an outdoor movie for his job, "How to train your dragon" (so excited!) @ BYU. I LOVE the outdoor movies they host. Jon is so fantastic at his job, they always have the best events.
THEN on Sat, my Mom & dad come!! I could not be more excited. Seriously. I have been looking forward to this for months!!! I am trying to figure out some fun plans since they'll only be here for like two days (sniff). But it will be so fun to see them!


Can I just say...midterms SUCK! I feel like I will never be done with school, but I am excited for the fall because I will ONLY be in El Ed classes, which I actually enjoy. Except now there's super pressure to get straight A's so I can get an internship (who knows if I'll even want one in two years, but right now I do). But I get to start teaching! I'll do a practicum in Special Ed and a practicum in Physical Ed. this fall, working at two Elementary schools and I think I work about 24 hours in the classroom in the fall. Plus, I get to volunteer for Provo Outreach and work in ANOTHER classroom for an hour each week being a classroom volunteer. Awesome!


Also, my husband is AMAZING! I had the worst. day. ever yesterday. Seriously, it sucked. And he brought me beautiful Lilies at work, it was so sweet! I love that guy! I'll add a pic of my pretty flowers later :)

Catching up time!

Jon and I have been SO busy lately, and I am the worst at remembering to blog! So, here's an update of what's been going on lately:
Jon's younger brother, Jake, was married June 29th and his cousin was married the day before, so we had a crazy weekend with weddings, receptions, rehearsal dinners, and spending time with family! We stayed up in a cabin in Sandy with Jon's family and it was a BLAST! I married into the greatest family ever! I've been really busy with class, this semester has been really hard because I have NO motivation and I'm doing general classes which are booooring!


ANDDD We went Ziplining!! It was AWESOME! It was a 5 station zipline up in the Canyon, and we had a blast.

Jon and I like to go to petsmart on Saturday's because they have pet adoption, and we play with all the puppies and kittens, so we went to that on Saturday, then we went to the Provo Farmer's market before I had to go to work.

On the 4th, we went to a Colonial festival in Orem, and it was AWESOME. Being the huge history nerd that I am, I LOVED it and we were there for a good two hours. I am trying to figure out how to get involved in reenactment because I did renaissance fairs in high school and loved it, but I would love to get involved in civil war or any sort of historical reenactment! After that, we went to Salt Lake to hang out with Jon's cousins and family (again, they are the best!). It was so fun. We went to sugarhouse park to see the fireworks, and they had a great show!

Right now we are just enjoying a lazy sunday, even though I really should be studying for midterms. BLEGH. We made some delicious chocolate chip cookies and we're watching some shows :)

Fireworks on the 4th

Pictures from the past few months

our broken coffee table :)

Space Mountain! THE BEST RIDE!

Jon playing with an adorable baby bunny! It was so precious

Bragging rights

This week was incredibly stressful in school. I have upcoming finals for spring and was trying to finish a HUGE teacher project that was costing lots of time and money and seemed to take F O R E V E R. Our house was a disaster as well. *Bragging time!* I came home from work at 10:30 at night, and Jon had washed and put away every dish in the house, vacuumed the entire house AND put all the clean laundry away, made our bed and straightened everything up! It was the best surprise EVER! He knew I was stressed and he always does the sweetest things for me when I'm having a hard time. It was such a load off my shoulders and made staying up late to finish my project that much easier. I have such an amazing husband!:) I am so grateful for him. He is the kindest, sweetest, most thoughtful and nicest person in the whole world.

Date Night

Tonight Jon and I are FINALLY going out on a date!!! Both of us have been so busy the past couple of weekends, especially because I started working a six hour shift every Saturday and Jon has had events all weekend the past couple of weeks. It's almost finals for Spring term and both of us need a good night out. We're going out to dinner and then to see Men in black 3, which we are so excited for! We are the biggest nerds ever, and love any sort of cult movies, especially sci-fi movies.
Jon's soccer team won round one of their tournament, so tonight before our date they are moving on to the next bracket in the tournament! He is so amazing, it is awesome watching him play soccer. Last week's game was insanely intense, with one girl getting really hurt on the opposing team (they were all playing so aggressive!) Hopefully they'll keep advancing and win the whole tournament!

R.I.P

Saturday night, I was being extra grumpy. I had been at work for six hours and then we had to go to a ward party, which I wasn't looking forward to, to be followed by Jon doing accounting HW all night. no bueno. I was just tired and wanted to spend time with Jon before he went out of town (all this week). Jon was trying to cheer me up by singing "Stop! In the name of Love" with some pretty sweet dance moves, and then proceeded to jump on the coffee table mid dance move, splitting the table in half. Goodbye grumpiness. I laughed for a good five minutes. Why oh why didn't I have my camera with me! I have pictures of the broken table, which I will post, but oh man it was so funny. Especially if you've seen Jon's dance moves. haha :)
Would your husband break your coffee table just to cheer you up?
I love that man.

Not so anonymous AA

SO this week for my multi cultural Ed. class I had to work on a "community experience" which basically means doing something outside of your comfort zone and helping you to become aware of social issues in your own community. You would be shocked by the number of AA meetings there are in Provo alone! There are at least 3 meetings a day, every day of the week! I had to do a write up about my experience, so I'm going to include a little on here because it's really interesting!! It's not the same reading it, but if you want to become more compassionate and realize how extremely blessed your life is, go to an open AA meeting... here's a little of what happened:
        "My husband and I arrived to the meeting early. We sat at the back and felt a little uncomfortable as the rough and tumble men around us drank coffee and swore. In my mind, it was exactly as I had pictured. Guys with tattoos and motorcycles; men with no jobs, no families and no teeth. Homeless. I didn't expect to learn anything, but was ready to stay for twenty minutes and leave when it was convenient. I never expected what happened next. Several women walked into the meeting. One of them, a nurse, was a beautiful young 20-something that looked like every other Mormon girl around. Several of the women looked my age, perhaps a few years older. Next walked in a young man who looked like he'd just gotten off a mission. My husband leaned to me and asked, regarding the young girl,“Is that one of the girls from your class?”. “No” I said, “I think she's here for the meeting!” The meeting started with a moment of silence. The men who had been so callous before suddenly fell silent as they bowed their heads. The meeting continued by reading the 12 steps. Most of the steps included a statement about God. This, too, surprised me. These members, as one of their 12 steps, accepted that they were powerless to alcohol and gave themselves over to a higher power. How ignorant I had been. I couldn't believe how easily I judged these humble people who were seeking to end a battle that had stolen their lives. It dawned on me that each of these people were my brothers and sisters. Some of them probably had kids going to Provo schools, kids that I might one day be responsible for. I found a new sense of compassion as I heard their stories and listened to their broken hearts.

When Al, a man who had been sober nine years, got up to speak, I couldn't believe he had once been an alcoholic. He joked that people often asked him if he was a bishop because of how he looked, and I had to agree he looked like a typical lawyer you'd find around Utah County. His story made me realize that as a teacher, I have the skills to intervene and help troubled students in my classroom. Al told us that he grew up in Provo, right by Kiwanis park. Being the only non-Mormon in the neighborhood was hard for him, and he always felt out of place. He physically matured faster than anyone else, and was always looking for a way to fit in. Finally, he found that alcohol made him feel like he did fit it. Each time something went wrong in his life, Al turned to alcohol more and more. Eventually, he couldn't get out of bed without taking a few drinks, or his hands would shake so badly that he couldn't move. He went through two divorces and tried to pull off what he referred to as a "functioning alcoholic" front. His story taught me the importance of my role in seeking out the troubled students in my classroom and helping them find acceptance and confidence. There is so much I can do as a teacher to help students who are obvious outcasts among their peers find acceptance."

WHEW! I am so grateful that I don't drink! The whole time I was there I kept thinking of all the kids I know from high school that are going down this same path, and it makes me so sad. You don't wake up one day and become an alcoholic. He drank in college too, and never thought that he would be lying on his death bed because his kidneys were failing. I just wish more people realized how terrible a disease this is, & maybe they would stop drinking. Sorry for the extremely depressing post, but it was so cool to learn more about social issues surrounding our elementary schools. Promise I won't post this sad stuff again!

JUNIORS

I cannot believe that I am a JUNIOR in college. This point has always seemed so far away in the future (like every major milestone) but now it's here! I have four semesters of class left, then either three months of student teaching or a year long teaching internship. Jon has four semesters left as well, but then he'll graduate, which stinks because he graduates in April and I can't start student teaching until August!  (and how am I supposed to do a year long internship if he's graduated!?) Everything is up in the air. I just want to know where everything is going to land already, but I know that's unrealistic. We are just enjoying our time in school and living the college life to its fullest! Here's a highlight of things we've done lately:

1. went on the most AMAZING disneyland vacation! It was by far the best vacation I've gone on. we had a blast and keep talking about how much we want to go back. perfect weather.

2. along with our disneyland trip, we stopped to see jon's mom and stepdad and Jon's awesome brother and sister-in-law Ari. They just had the cutest baby boy and it made my week to get to play with such a cute baby!

3. We finished up winter semester with awesome grades. Jon got all A's and I got all A's and B's.

4. We're both currently in classes for spring, and I'll be going summer as well. Bummer.

I'll post a ton of pictures from our vacation in the next post, but all of the pics. are on Jon's phone, and he is out of town tonight :( So I am watching girl movies, eating cafe rio and trying to not get scared of being home alone!