Meet Jackson!

I've really done it. I am officially a dog owner and I am in love.

Meet Jackson Smith! An 11(ish) month Golden Retriever who already has a love for comfy furniture and a slight obsession with tennis balls. He was found wandering somewhere in the great valley of Salt Lake and I found him among pages of pit bulls and tiny yappy dogs on the Salt Lake Animal Services website.

I was told that someone was already looking at him but the next day I called, he was still there and I immediately drove to Salt Lake with Mike to meet him. The rest, is history.

Southern Comforts, Part 1.

About a year ago, I found out that Tennessee was playing at LSU on October 2nd. My Americorps term ended on September 30th. Perfect, no? Well I set it in my mind that I would be in Baton Rouge 2 days after my job ended, and lo and behold, there I was.

What a wonderful trip it has been so far! Aside from the absolutely ridiculous ending to our game on Saturday, which I can't even talk about. I flew into New

Orleans on Friday, October 1st at 10:30 pm. My dear old friend, Catherine, came to pick me up and we drove to Baton Rouge and promptly changed and headed to the bars. I was able to see some good friends from LSU and to my surprise, I ran into a handful of old Tennessee friends as well!

The next day, we started our tailgating bright and early. How I have missed gamedays in the south!! And what a day of reunions. Amy and friends came up from Pensacola and it was the first time we've seen each other in a year and a half. We began our day walking around campus, and visiting different tailgates. As we were walking down the sidewalk, watching an overweight man booty dance on a cooler, we ran into our long lost friend from middle/high school, Katherine Torrence. It had been years!! It was so great to catch up.

We then went to meet Courtney, who was with her family tailgating and who I was going to the game with. We had some fried food and then headed to the game. It was wonderful to be in Tiger Stadium as a Volunteer fan with fellow vols, as I am usually there with all of my LSU friends. Well, we won the game, if you didn't know. We celebrated, cried tears of joy, and then we had our celebratory bubble quickly stepped on when LSU got a second chance and we promptly lost the game. Unbelievable.

The rest of my trip in Baton Rouge was wonderful. I love that city. We had another friend, Amanda Armstrong visiting as well and we all went to get our beignet and cafe au leit fix at Coffee Call. Only my favorite place to eat in Baton Rouge. And thankfully, this time I wasn't immediately leaving to drive for 10 hours with fried dough and rich coffee in my stomach. Then I ran into my dear friend Louise at Wally World. That afternoon, I went on a wonderful walk around the LSU Lakes with my old camper, Renee. When she introduced me at her sorority house as her old camp counselor, I felt OLD. We had a great walk and got to catch up on our past couple of years! Not to mention the walk around the lakes is beautiful.

I am now in Jackson, Mississippi. I'll let you know how this leg of the journey turns out!

New Post, New House!

Greetings! It's been quite a while since my last post. Woops. I can't even begin to recap the past 8, going on 9 months. I went from teaching snow skiing to teaching water-skiing, which has given me an itch to pursue a career in adaptive water-skiing (which will have to be an entirely different post). I was home in May and then, as most of you know already, I drove back out to Utah with my sister, Erin, who took a summer job in Park City at the NAC. Her experiences this summer and her newfound love for Utah drove her to apply for the upcoming Americorps position at NAC and she will be joining us out here for the next year! YAY Erin! Her new residence here also leads me to my most exciting news...our new house! Unfortunately it isn't "ours" but we are the new residents of a cute, 2 story old miner's house on Park Ave.

For those of you know don't know the significance of Park Avenue, it is the residential road through Park City that parallels main street and is within walking distance of Park City Mtn. Resort (aka, work), coffee, stores, bars, parks and is on the route for all of PC's finest buses and parades. Hurray! I was able to experience the perks of living on Park for a few, blissful months last fall until the unfortunate flooding of our condo. Now we're back and ready for a fun year of being right in the action! Erin and I will share the house with our friend, Erica, who is also joining the Americorps force with Erin in the fall. We'll start the moving process in a few weeks, as well as the locating of furniture and household items. It will be my 3rd move in a year, but hopefully we will stay put for a bit.

Everyone come visit!!