All I want for Christmas is You!

So I've been looking on the internet for some gift ideas for various people. I have come across some great suggestions, some interesting/humorous*ones, and some that are just wrong!

I hadn't used either of these two sites before (gifts.com, uncommongoods.com) but they do have some good stuff on them.

What's on your Christmas gift list?

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In other news, if you want to see your favorite elf (aka me) in the Provo Christmas parade...get yourself down to Center Street this Saturday (like tomorrow) at 10am! It's always a good time at the Christmas parade!



*okay let's just talk about this one specific gift for a moment. i just think it's hilarious that you can buy a "CSI"-like evidence kit and use it to determine your dating status. i don't know for sure, but i think this could be the wave of the future in dating! :)

Surrogate Nieces and Nephews

These are my cute surrogate nieces and nephews. My brother and sister-in-law are expecting a baby in January so then I will have my first nephew, but I love these kids just the same. It is so fun to see them and watch them grow! I especially love it when Lincoln gets so excited to see me! He's the one that I get to see the most and he just loves to hang out with "Aunt" Ann-Marie!

Before and After: A true story in Ann-Marie's Life

Once upon a time Ann-Marie lived in a house. She like this house and even though her landlords decided to sell the house in the middle of her contract, she decided to live there again the next year.
One day in the middle of October the old landlords decided that it would be a good idea to come get their furniture out of the house. This was a grand plan...EXCEPT they didn't tell Ann-Marie or her roommate or her CURRENT landlord that they were coming. Since Ann-Marie didn't know they old landlords were coming so soon, she had not yet ordered any replacement furniture to go in the house.
So she and her roommate scrambled all that week to find at least beds, and then other furniture to fill the house. They tried hard to stay in their landlords budget (and only went a little bit over!). It was a busy, stressful week. They eventually did find all of the furniture that they wanted and had it all shipped to their house later in the week. The next week Ann-Marie spent hours putting all of the furniture together. She didn't want to build anything for a long, long, long, long time after that. In the end her house did get put back together and looked very pretty. The End!

(But don't take my word for it! Come visit and see my new digs!)










Our empty living room before we got the carpets cleaned! Yuck!









Our kitchen became our temporary storage unit!










Look at our new, pretty entertainment center










New couch and coffee table









I love our new kitchen set!

Thoughts after cruising the Mediterranean

Our Ship the Voyager of the Seas

I have now been back for over a week, but am just now taking the time to write about my travels to the Mediterranean. I had a great time on the cruise seeing the different sites and spending time with my family! I took a ton of pictures and will only put a few up here, but if you want to see all of my pictures just ask!

We left for the cruise on Friday Sept. 28th. I flew with my Grandma and my aunt and uncle that live in Payson.
Here is a picture of Grandma on the way to the airport

We had a lay over in Atlanta and then on to Barcelona. Grandma "lost" her passport twice (I found it in her carry-on both times, but it sure did make me nervous that she couldn't find it for a few minutes. On the flight back home, I held onto her passport and just gave it to her when we needed to show it :) That worked out much better!)
I didn't sleep much on the flight to Spain, but wasn't too tired. I sure did sleep well that first night on the ship though!

So we got in to Barcelona around 11 am on Saturday the 29th and just explored the ship and got settled in our stateroom. Here's a picture of me in my room and a picture of part of the ship.









The next day we went to Nice, France which is along the French Riviera. It was so beautiful there. We rode the city bus up to a little town called Menton where we walked around the city market, played a little in the Mediterranean and just sort of took in the sites.

On October 1st we went to Pisa and Florence. In Pisa I climbed all 294 steps to the top of the tower. It was really fun!
That afternoon we went to Florence. The first picture is one the church in the middle of Florence and then a replica of the "David" statue. The real statue is in a museum that was closed the day we were there. Grandma and I spent hours looking for this statue and that's pretty much all we did in Florence. Florence wasn't my favorite stop since all we did was walk in circles and we were separated from the rest of our group!
On Tuesday we went to Rome. We had the best tour guide that day! She was just awesome!
We saw the Forum, the Colosseum, the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. That day was probably the fullest, we didn't even eat lunch that day. Here's a picture of the Colosseum and a statue with marble eyes inside the Vatican.
The next day we went to Naples. We went on a drive along the Amalfi Coast which was just gorgeous! We ate an authentic Italian meal at a restaurant in the mountains and then went to Pompeii. It was another incredible day!









Thursday October 4th we went to Palermo Sicily. We went to some catacombs there in Palermo (we couldn't take pictures, but click on the link to see what I saw. It was cool and weird at the same time!) and then went up to a town called Monreal. It had the coolest church! The church had all of these cool mosaic's and I was surprised how many Bible stories we could recognize decorating the walls of this church.









Our last day on the ship was at sea as we sailed from Sicily back to Spain. We slept in, ice skated, played mini golf and watched the Ice Show. Each night our stateroom attendant would make us a little towel animal, so here's a picture of my mom with their towel monkey!












Here's Ashley's parents playing mini-golf on the top deck of the ship. It was pretty windy up there, but still fun to play!

This trip was a lot of fun! I'm glad that I got to go and that Grandma invited me and paid for part of the trip. I will always remember my first time to Europe. And it is only the 1st trip, because now that I've been I have to go back again!!

Grad School

So about a month a go I submitted my application to graduate school and on Monday I found out that I was accepted!

It is a Master's in Library and Information Science from San Jose State University. All of the classes are online so I will be able to continue working here in Provo while I obtain my degree. I start in January and am really excited.

After I get back from my Mediterranean Cruise I will need to look into scholarships and financial aid.

Yipee!!

Sheepdog Championships at Soldier Hollow

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It's the little things...

I tend to overlook the small luxuries in my life until they aren't there anymore.

Case in point: my car (on the whole) is awesome. I haven't had to do many major repairs and it is ready and willing to take me most everywhere I want to go. Last week, however, it began fighting with me. It is an automatic, but every time it shifted gears the entire car would jerk.
I was able to get it fixed and back for me to drive yesterday. All day today I have been marveling on how wonderful it is that when the car shifts gears I don't get whiplash! Before this incident I can't really remember every noticing or caring what the car did when it shifted, but now I have definitely been paying attention.

My car currently smells like mechanic, but I'll take that any day over a broken car!

Ann-Marie Needs

According to Google... these are my needs!

Ann Marie needs a family who can provide a great deal of structure and individual attention, and who will not take the fluctuations in her moods personally.

Ann Marie needs more exposure like Survivor needs more rats.

Annmarie’s friend is Jewish and Annmarie needs to pretend that Ellen is a part of her family in order to keep her safe from the Nazi’s.

Ann Marie needs to check it out.

Ann Marie needs some of the following items in her environment:. __ (a) A lot of interaction with people. ...

Ann Marie needs to give us the information for rebates, though she won't be with us for the rest of the week.

Ann-Marie needs to get her J.Lo-booty in gear and post a pic of herself.

Ann Marie needs to find a home with a tender hearted person as she's a little bit shy until she gets used to her surroundings. She's not a demanding cat ...

Ann-Marie needs a testimonial!

Ann-Marie needs to know whether or not she should get rid of her cat.

Ann Marie needs pop rocks

Ann Marie needs a strong role model.

Ann Marie needs to be validated and wants Stephanie to like her.

Ann marie needs to start making efforts.

Ann Marie needs newsletter articles.

Ann-Marie needs backing of our group—no objections ...

Ann Marie needs to take a Self-Defense class in conjunction with her exercise routine.

Ann Marie needs support and doesn't need to be picked on.

Ann Marie needs more comment love.

Crazy Cool!

I ran across this article tonight and thought I would share. There are some other videos of him and his art on YouTube. You should also check out his sight. philinthecircle.com

Interesting Article

I ran across this article the other day and thought it was pretty interesting. What do you think?

Shopping Expedition

I had my first "IKEA Experience" today with Em, Caroline and Lincoln. We had a great time and the store is really cool. Now I just wish I had the money to buy all of the stuff I liked in there!

(I still don't understand people camping out to be the first ones in the store, but I do think that it's a cool place to shop!)

Harry Potter is taking over my life! (and for the most part I love it!)

So it all began back in March...We decided to have a Harry Potter Party at the Provo Library and I volunteered to represent the Teen and Adult Services Department in planning this library wide event.

It is going to be really cool! (However we have already given out all of the tickets, but if you want to volunteer to help you can come!!!) We are going to show the first 4 movies all throughout the day. They are going to run from 9:30 am until 7 or 8pm. You don't need a ticket to come watch the movies so if any of your are interested you should come.

Then from 6:30-8:30 we are going to have a carnival-style party in the ballroom. We are going to have face painting and a fortune teller, a costume contest and play Harry Potter Scene it. And we are going to have some of the classes as well. Potions, and Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures (the Bean Museum is coming to do a bird and reptile show), and Charms. There will be crafts and such. It has been quite a bit of work to plan, but is going to be a lot of fun.

I have been working on getting together the owl paper bag craft, and the trivia quizzes, word searches and the movie marathon. (This doesn't seem like a lot when I have it written down, but it seems like I spend all my time at work working on the Harry Potter stuff)

I will be running the Charms booth where we will make chopstick wands and then I will give a lesson in Wands. I am just going to make stuff up. You know the old "swish and flick" It makes me feel like Professer Flitwick.
I also recently finished reading "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and "Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince".
Tonight I went to see the new Harry Potter party.

Harry and I have been spending quite a bit of time together. I think that things are getting pretty serious!

I'm Proud to be an American

Happy 4th of July!!!

Ann-Marie's a Fatty!

I got fat today.

Well actually just the left side of my face got fat. I went to the dentist to get 3 fillings (which, by the way, if you don't have dental insurance is not cheap!). It feel so weird to have half of my face numb and the other half feel normal. But I think the worst is my nose, I currently have one fat nostril and one skinny one! Weird!

Summer Reading Program

The Summer Reading Program at the Provo City Library begins TODAY! You can sign up all day today (June 1st) in the ballroom and anytime today or until June 30th at the 1st floor reference desk.

Come see Ann-Marie at the library, read books, and win prizes...that sounds pretty good to me!

Professional

So I presented at the Utah Library Association Conference this past Thursday and Friday.
On Thursday 2 other librarians and I presented about Teen Summer Reading Programs. And on Friday 7 of us talked about Reader's Advisory (basically giving book suggestions when someone wants to know a good book to read).

They both went well and it will look good on my resume!

I'm quite the career woman these days, what can I say! :)

Grrrr....

Is anyone else annoyed by the fact that when you leave on comment on Blogger you can't tab between the log-in boxes? It frustrates me EVERY time!!

I'm COLD!!!

What I've been up to lately

• I hiked the Y last night and finally got to see how they light it for graduation and homecoming. I've always wondered....
• I've been working at my 2 jobs just like regular, and also being the temporary supervisor for the position at BYU that I turned down. Yep it's been fabulous...all the work and none of the pay or benefits!
• I helped my sister and cousins get their stuff moved down to my grandma's house for the summer.
  
• My sister and I went to the Living Planet Aquarium, Clark Planetarium, Gateway Mall and the SLC Library the day before she went home. That was a lot of fun!

Yep just like usual my life is a roller coaster of a ride!

And most days I wouldn't have it any other way!!

Easter Egg Hunt

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A few weeks before Easter my students at BYU asked me if they could have an Easter Egg hunt in the library. I told them that they could NOT have an Easter Egg hunt in the library, but that maybe we could have it at my house. So I invited the kids to my house and we had the hunt and pizza. My students had a lot of fun together!