40 Years of Love

Today is my parents' 40th wedding anniversary. They are such a good example to me and I hope to one day have what they have; a successful and loving marriage. I realize that it hasn't always been a walk in the park, but they never gave up on their marriage. What is even more amazing is that after 40 years they still love each other and like being with each other. With all of the many negative examples of marriages it is nice to see and know that with work, love, and the gospel there can be success. I love you Mom and Dad and hope for you many more years of love for all eternity!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Well, inside the house it is anyway. I set up my Christmas tree on Thursday and got out my snowmen decorations. It was like Christmas came early for me as I was pulling out my decorations, because I had forgotten what I had since I hadn't used any of them in the 3 years I was in Utah. I was oohing and aahing as I pulled out the decorations because they were so cute I was very excited to use them. I love this time of year!

My Thanksgiving

I was very lucky to be able to drive to my parents' house in West Virginia for the Thanksgiving holiday. It was a bit of a long drive to make by myself, but I survived. My Thanksgiving vacation could have been a lot better if I hadn't gotten sick with strep throat. I felt so very horrible for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. My temp was between 99.2 and 102. I was achy and could barely sallow and I had no energy. I am so blessed to have parents that love me. I don't have any insurance but my Dad took me to the doctor and paid for the visit and my prescription. So thank you Mom and Dad for loving me and taking care of me, I hope no one gets sick because of me.

Trunk or Treat

On Friday I participated in my very first Trunk or Treat. Before the actual Trunk or Treating there were games inside. There were so very many people who showed up that I have never seen at church before, which is ok, I was just surprised by the number. I went to Sam's and bought 2 large bags of candy and could have easily gotten rid of it all, but I saved some for myself. I decorated my trunk with just a few items that I had, my plan is to make it look better next year. Luckily it wasn't too cold out and all were able to have a good time. So here is a picture of my sparsely decorated trunk.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!

Mmm, mmm, mmm

So this past week I decided to throw some rice in my rice cooker so I could have a bowl of buttered rice with salt and pepper for lunch. On my way home from work that afternoon I was thinking about what I would have for dinner, not wanting to have buttered rice again. So you need to know that I love love love Chinese food. I decided that I would make my first attempt at ham fried rice by using the leftover rice from earlier in the day. So I got online and found a recipe for which I had the majority of the ingredients and got to cooking. It turned out so wonderfully! I was rather impressed with the results and have decide that I am definitely going to be making it again. I loooove ham fried rice!

Awakenings

Dear Flint,
I realize that crime is a problem. But as a law abiding citizen I would love to be able to sleep without being awakened by the strobe lights of the varied city vehicles flashing through my bedroom window. I do realize that it is important to put out house fires and inspect the shooting at the neighbors house and other such things. But realize this criminals of Flint, it is important that I get some sleep at night so GO AWAY!
Sincerly,
A very tired resident

Sleepover

My niece and nephew, Chelsea and Jaxson, came over on Friday for a sleepover. My house is not an exciting place for young children, but I was able to keep them entertained by watching a couple of movies. Here they are relaxing and enjoying the movies.


I enjoyed having Chelsea and Jaxson over and am feeling rather loved because they wanted to come over. We had pizza for dinner and they were most excited about the ice cream sandwiches for dessert and the popcorn during the second movie. I was anticipating having little bodies in bed with me, but thankfully they slept the night through on the couches in the living room. The one downside is that they are early risers and I am not. 7:30 came to early for me. I loved having Chelsea and Jaxson over and look forward to the next time they spend the night.

Yeah!

I just checked the Michigan Department of Education website, and guess what it said? I am now officially certified as a Michigan teacher. It is about time. Doing a happy dance in my house and my cat Kelly is looking at me strangely. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Now for a job.

Goodbye

Since I had to go to Fowlerville I decided to stop at my aunts house and got my hair cut yesterday and I personally can tell the difference in length. I don't know if you can really tell from the pictures, but here they are anyway.


I knew that I would have to get quite a few inches cut off because it had been just about a year since my last hair cut. I should just get it cut more often so I won't have to cut such a large amount at one time. I also decided to put layers back in my hair. Since I never really see that back of my head, I was rather surprised by how much red is in my hair, or it could just be the lighting in the bathroom. Anyway, my hair feels better and I will straighten my how occasionally again since all the nasty split ends are gone. Goodbye hair.

My New Calling

I received a new calling today. I am now the first/education consular in relief society. Despite this new calling I am still teaching my Sunday school class, but my brother Charlie (who is in the bishopric) said he is going to work on finding a replacement for me. I know that this new calling will come with a great deal of responsibility, but I feel good about it. I look forward to serving the women in the ward. I already know one thing that I need to do, talk to the teachers about staying on topic during the lessons, which is a problem. I have my first presidency meeting on Wednesday and I will then hopefully have a better idea of what is expected of me. So here goes nothing.

West Virginia

Last week I drove with my brother and his family to West Virginia to my parents house. The goal of the trip was to redo my parents' downstairs bathroom. While the other adults worked on the bathroom I watched the kids. So here are some pictures from the week.

Here is what the bathroom redo looked like at one point.


The kids enjoyed being able to watch a lot of TV, something that doesn't normally happen.

Here is my nephew Merrit who got inventive with 2 big bouncy balls.

It was a crazy week, but I really enjoyed seeing my parents and my nieces and nephew that live with them.

Girl's Camp

I volunteered to be a ward leader at girl's camp this year even though I'm not in the YW Presidency. I remembered how much I enjoyed camp as a youth so I thought I would try it out as a leader. What a long and exhausting week. There were moments were I was able to enjoy myself, but I just felt like I spent the whole week babysitting the girls from my ward. Many of the Flint Ward girls are a handful and pretty much always involved in drama. They had to constantly be rounded up and corralled to where they were supposed to be. Thankfully my sister-in-law Hillary was also there and we were able to keep each other sane through the week.
Here are Hillary and I


Here I am happy to be home from girl's camp

Becca's Visit

On Monday my 18 year old niece Becca came over for a couple of days for a visit.

It was to be able to hang out with Becca. We didn't do anything real grand but the visit was nice anyway. We rented movies and had a movie marathon. We also embarked on an adventure, we made chicken enchiladas for the first. They were very pretty but they sure did taste delicious! Thanks for a wonderful visit Becca Boo, I sure do love you!!!

A Post Office Rant

So I have had some annoyance with the United State's Post Office. This past Tuesday I put my sister's birthday card in the mailbox to be picked up and it didn't get picked up until today, which is Friday. So it took the mail carrier 4 days to get my mail. I think that this situation would annoy anyone. The sad truth is that this is not the first time it has taken many days for my mail to get picked up, this is a reoccurring problem. I have been urged many times by my sister-in-law Hillary to call and complain to the post office. I finally followed her advice and called yesterday and received some rather frustrating news. Apparently because I live in the city if there is not any mail to be dropped off the mail carrier is not required to stop and pick up the mail. If I lived on one of the rural routes with my mailbox at the road, not requiring the mail carrier to get out of the vehicle, my mail would get picked up the day it goes out. The lady I talked to at the post office said that routes are already too long and that is why they have the blue collection boxes for those in the city, and if the mail carrier has to walk up steps to get to the mailbox they don't have to stop if they have nothing to drop off. My response to her was that first it is absolutely ridiculous that they don't have to stop. Second, my mailbox is at the bottom of my stairs so there are no stairs to climb. And lastly since when is it not the job of the mail carrier to pick up the mail and carry it to the post office. I did not receive a satisfactory answer from her and I know that my complaining won't make a bit of difference. Is this a normal thing to happen for those that live in the city or is it just the great city of Flint? I am obviously rather annoyed with the post office and the whole situation.

4th of July

Happy 4th of July to everyone and a happy birthday to America! I am so thankful to be living in this land that has been blessed with many freedoms. Fireworks have been going off all day, it seems like everyone in Flint has fireworks. In fact it is actually July 5th now at 12:25 am and people are still setting off fireworks. Luckily for me I didn't have to go very far to catch the fireworks show. In fact all I had to do was step outside my front door. This short clip is just an example of what I saw from my front porch.

(You might notice the lack of video and think to yourself: "Hannah, you crazy, there is no video." I realize this. I recently got a new camera and I am having trouble uploading the video. In fact I have been trying to upload for almost the last hour...I QUIT!!!! So just imagine 22 seconds of seeing fireworks off your own front porch.)

Because of the prime spot in which my house is at there were people gathered on my lawn and the neighboring lawns to watch the show. This didn't bother me because it was only for a short period of time. There is an empty lot across from my house and there were a lot people who parked there to watch the fireworks and set off their own little fireworks. Luckily it was a clear night, but it was a hot and humid night.

Family Reunion

We had the Hicks family reunion on Saturday and I really enjoyed myself. The numbers of attendees have diminished since so many members of the family have moved out of Michigan. The only children of my Grandpa's to attend was my dad and my Uncle Joe. Despite the fact that there weren't a lot of us, it was still a good time. I was asked to be in charge of the games this year and I had fun coming up with the games, they seemed to have been a success. So here are some pictures from the games. I would share more pictures but they are taking a ridiculously long time to upload and I need to get to bed.

The Old Oak

This was the sight that I woke up to on Sunday morning. Sometime during the night a large limb from the old oak tree in my yard fell into the street. I'm not sure what caused it to fall because there wasn't a storm or anything during the night. I'm sure that it made a rather loud noise, but I slept right through it. I actually didn't even realize that it had happened until I was pulling out of my driveway Sunday morning on my way to church and realized that I could not go my normal route. Part of the limb was hollowed out and a bee hive was in it so a bee keeper was called and collected most of the bees. Because of the bees the tree didn't get moved until early Tuesday morning, which was too soon for me and my neighbors. There is a lot of road construction going on around my home so the street right outside the house has been more busy than normal because it is the alternate route. One thing that absolutely drove me crazy was that people were rude and too lazy to turn around and thought it was ok to drive up on my lawn to get around the tree, this made me so very mad. My neighbor across the street decided to put logs from the tree on my sidewalk so that the cars couldn't go through on my lawn anymore, it was very smart and kind of him. I can't say that I am all that surprised that there were those who thought that they had the right to drive on someone else lawn. I am working on trying to get the rest of the old oak cut down so that the next time a limb decides to fall it won't be taking out the house.

What a pain in my...

...foot. That's right, I have a pain in my foot. I somehow managed to get a bee sting on the bottom of my foot. While at work yesterday I was taking the kindergarten class for a follow-the-leader nature walk while wearing sandals, and nature got real close and personal with me. Walking yesterday was a very painful thing to do and I actually spent the day hobbling on the side of my foot. It is still sore today, but it is so much better.

It's Official

I got my unofficial score for my teacher certification test on Friday, I passed! I received my official scores this week in the mail, and I still passed! A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. All I have to do now is find a job. I am starting to put out applications now and hopefully I will be having interviews soon.

Bah

So today I took my teaching certification tests. I feel good about the basic skills test. On the other hand I don't feel all that great about the elementary education test. I guess I will just have to wait and sees how the scores are. All I got to say is "Bah" about the whole ordeal.

Weather

Since the weather has gotten rather nice here in Michigan, excluding this week which has been rainy, I have decided to start walking everyday. I must admit that I was rather nervous the first day I went out because it is Flint and I would be walking all by myself. Needless to say I did survive and the experience has not prevented me from going out again and again. Since I am on my own during my walks I have decided to stay on the busier roads and never take the same route 2 days in a row. I have really enjoyed my walks so far and getting to know the area a bit better and also getting some fresh air. I have only had one person holler out their window at me so far and I wisely ignored them. Maybe I will get a dog someday so that I can take it with me on my walks.

A New Experience

Yesterday I had my first experience with subbing in high school. It was actually very boring because I was there for the art teacher and so all I did was sit there while the students either did their art work or not. I wasn't going to make/argue with the students to do their work, so a vast majority of the students did other things. Watching how they acted made me grateful that I am an elementary teacher and not a middle/high school teacher.

Catch Up

So, it is time to catch you all up on what has been happening. In December I graduated with my Bachelors degree in Elementary Education from BYU and I actually received my degree in the mail earlier this week, so it is official. On my last day of class Mom flew out so that she could drive back east with me. Before we left Utah Mom and I made a trip to Temple Square with Grace and Rick to see the lights.


It was quite the challenge to get everything in the car. Actually everything did not get in the car and it was still a very tight squeeze. What I couldn't fit in the car went to Jen, so it was like an early Christmas for her. The trip was eventful. Traveling cross country in the winter time isn't the best idea, but it was necessary. Mom and I headed out on Sunday and it took us 2 miserable hours to drive through the canyon. The roads were horrible and so snowy and an accident happened right in front of us. Later that day we stopped for gas and to use the restroom. We stepped out of the car and antifreeze was pouring out of the car. So we made our first call to a towing company. Luckily there was one shop opened on Sunday and we were able to take the car in. The Lord definitely blessed us because all that needed replacing on the car was a new cap, the other cap wouldn't stay sealed and that is why we had a problem in the first place. The car was able to get fixed fairly quickly and then we were off on our journey once again. On Monday Mom and I once again had to call a towing company. We had just been driving for hours on slick highways and we pulled off to get gas. As we were turning to go into the gas station we hit a patch of ice and went off the shoulder. There was just enough of ledge that we couldn't get the car out on our own. Tuesday was a great day because we didn't have to call for a tow truck and we finally made it to West Virginia.




I was able to spend Christmas in West Virginia with Mom and Dad and it was very nice. Charlie and Hillary and family and Sabrina and family were also there for Christmas, then Les and Kristi came up the day after Christmas. I loved being with everybody for the holidays and wish that the rest of the family was able to be there. For not snowing a lot in West Virginia, it sure did snow a lot while I was there.

It was nice to be able to have a white Christmas. It had been a year since I had seen the family and the kids had grown so much. We decorated cookies one night and it was fun. I left West Virginia and headed back to Michigan. I have my own place in Flint and I love having a place of my own. I have gotten the downstairs of the house clean and I am not worrying about the upstairs right now since I am not using it. I will post pictures of the house at a later time.