HAPPY NEW YEAR'S EvE

Headache?

Tylenol and Aspirin are so 2009. Welcome to the future. The UCrown found at your local Brookestone. Yeah, it a huge plastic helmet with a remote control coming out of the back that allows you to heat your head, massage your temples and vibrate your headache away. PLUS the best part is that there are built in speakers right over your ears where the most pleasant voiced lady meditates you into a peaceful ache free bliss.

DREAM

Do your arms ever get so cold when you're reading?

Oh, mine don't.

Christmas was good to us this year. And not just cause I got a leopard print Snuggie that came with a FREE book light. Awesome.

We started our Christmas rounds in Tahoe where the gang was bigger than ever

Press got a ship in a bottle, a rifle, knives, Beatles collectables and other manly man stuff from my dad who is so so stoked to finally have him and Gillrie as sons

Thank you thank you thank you mom and dad. We love and miss you already.

Tahoe is so pretty and we are real lucky to get to call it home.

Next stop, Utah with the Pugmires. Tons of family and food. I dared Press to shoot Cheese whiz up his nose and before I was even done with my sentence this happened.

We spent Christmas Eve and morning with Preston's mom and little brothers here in Rexburg. After a few weeks away, it felt sooooooo great to be HOME in Idaho. Love it.

Our brother Cy made us a 'Merry Christmas P and C' cake for christmas.

My brothers

We spent Christmas day in the snow.

Rope swings, sleds, snow balls and friends.

And Jonathon and Megan stopped by too

Such a great Christmas. I love my life. Love my family, my friends. Love Preston and our little Idaho house. I love my Savior and the time of year when we get to celebrate Him. I love that I have the kind of husband that would shoot cheese wiz up his nose just to make me laugh and I super love my leopard Snuggie.

Merry Christmas from our heart to yours.

Dream

Oh, This...no big deal, just me and 90's country music star Collin Raye. Beacause my awesome work decided to have him play our christmas party. And I don't think anyone was as excited as me. Collin Raye was everything to me in tenth grade. Really. And I forgot that I even loved him until last night when he started singing and it totally took my heart back to high school and road trips and Julie and Caleche and me singing so loud in the car. And I might have got a little choked up. Ok, maybe I cried. It was so unexpected. I don't think any current artist, as much as I like them, could do that to me. There's something about music from when you were in middle school and high school. It gets real stuck in your heart so when you hear it now you feel exactly like you did when you were 14 and so you're not just hearing music, you're flooded with memories. That's what Collin Raye did to me last night. Man. It was cool. And I got to meet him and take a too dark picture with him. Can you say best night ever? Really.

Today was my last day of student teaching. It was a total party day at school. I went to lunch with the kids and went to recess and schooled them all in freeze tag. Then the teacher and all the students organized a huge celebration for me with a billion presents and treats. It was the nicest thing ever. EVER. I felt like 1 million dollars.

And to top it all of, I came home and walked into Miley Cyrus 'Party in the USA' blaring and this...

My very own party. With 100 balloons...He is so nice

Maybe I got A little Jealous of Julie's Shauna Post...Maybe

Dear Shauna,

Happy birthday darling!!

We love you very very very very very very very much.

You're real pretty, and skinny and funny and miraculous.

And you tie Julie for my favorite sister.

And we were real good/rich business partners

And I think you might have been grandmas favorite.

And Collin's hair looks so funny in this picture, I couldn't not post it.

I love you. Balloons or no balloons, but always preferably balloons.

Especially on your birthday

LOVE,

Corine

****

It snowed today in Rexburg.

This place is so lovely, it kind of makes me very happy.

Love and Light

This is Elder F. Enzio Busche. He was my mom's mission president when she served in Munich, Germany a long long time ago. I got to meet him one day. He is such a powerful, kind man. Hearing stories of my mom's mission all growing up inspired me to serve. It was one of the best decisions of my entire life. Meeting My mom's mission president was so so cool. Overwhelming. I just wanted to thank and thank and thank him for the impact he has had on my life.

And I LOVE his tie. I think its a real thick shoelace.

Here is a little message from his heart to yours.

Happy Halloween!

Corine and Preston's Halloween Past

Preston's not in this one, but how hot is Shauna's hair cut?

I don't know why its underlining everything i type here. and i'm too computer lame to figure out how to fix it. Anyway, my favorite costumes were from when Julie Tresa and I were kids. My mom went allll out making them. I don't have pictures here, but maybe soon. Our costumes were killer. I think thats where Julie gets her costume making talent. Can you believe that she made these? and these?

AND ON A DAY OF THE DEAD KIND OF NOTE...

3 years ago today, Grandma Bell decided to peace out and make Heaven just a little bit cooler. I was on my mission when she passed away and it was the hardest thing of my life. Even knowing about life after death and the gospel of Jesus Christ, it still super sucked and I might have cried at least once a day for 2 years. The thing that did make it a little better was the fact that she died on Halloween. Like early in the evening so there were still plenty of trick or treaters who definitely got the ultimate halloween spook by seeing a hurst pull up to the house and roll her on out. And i feel like thats how Grandma Bell would have wanted it, just a little creepy and sneaky and reeeeal funny. I love her so much and i miss her to death. Preston and i got to go to the Temple for her a few months ago. It was such a healing experience. The Temple is so real. Families can be together forever.

Porch Swing

I served a mission in Oklahoma. Preston wrote me letters every week. I wrote him back. i would tell him how much i love loved the porch swings. They were everywhere. And it was such a dream to just sit and swing and watch the world.

While I was still out serving, Press wrote me this song below.

Push play for a listen.

And then for my birthday, he build me this...

I'm kind of more than obsessed with it... and him.

Sometimes

Sometimes when I'm bored I like to show off for Preston.

He's a reeeeal great singer and musician. Look at this

I don't want him to think he's the only one with musical talent in the fam.

(can you hear him say 'you are the worst lip singer ever!' in the background?

He LOVES when I make him music lip singing videos)

We Got The Beat

I teach fifth grade science. We're learning about the circulatory system.

I thought, how cool to let them see a real heart.

So I called a butcher and asked if he could save me one.

I expected a clean little organ that i could just stick in a jar and let he kids look at.

When I got to the butcher's he handed me the bag he saved for me. It was reeeeal heavy.

I got home and turns out he was a way generous guy cause he gave me the ENTIRE chest cavity of a sheep, fatty heart membrane, heart, lungs, trachea, intestines... the works.

So all i have to do is take it home and extract the little heart out. I'm freaking out at the thought of it. And pretty close to abandoning my amazing 'let them see a heart' science lesson and just printing off a picture from the internet.

Lucky for my students, my mom-in- law is a surgery nurse and offered to perform the surgery on the sheep guts and get my little heart out.

I'm nominating myself for teacher of the year.

+

+

+

=

Dear Lindsay

Just look how pretty you are. And not just that, but soooo talented. Remember when Preston asked you to paint some of his musical inspirations for him and you came back with these most incredible canvas paintings? Me too. you are AWESOME. Pleeeease can you start a blog? Cause it would be the most perfect thing ever. And I bet i'm not the only one begging.

Thank you. Love you.

RAfting

What we learned on our family white water rafting trip down the Snake River:

-Preston + Short Shorts= The best tour guide ever

-If the tour guide says it takes 3 hours to do a 26 mile stretch, he means 7 1/2 hours

-It's not necessary to prepare for the huge rapids 12 miles in advance and when i say prepare I mean wrap Kason in 5 garbage bags and not let him cut arm holes.

-The rapids are always just around the corner and they're HUGE and when you get to the corner and the water is as still as still it means rapids are just around the next corner and when they're not there either, its just the next one. And if we would have rowed for 8 hours instead of 71/2 I just know we would have hit A rapid cause i really think they were around the next bend

-Kason can walk faster than out raft rafted.

All in all it was a perfect experience. Frustrating, annoying, long, hilarious and we all learned about love and patience. We hit zero rapids and were fighting the wind to cover inches of ground. It was such a funny day. For me it was a huge wake up call about how I show up in life. I blamed my frustration on everyone else. And i thought i wasn't happy because the trip wasn't going exactly like i thought it would in my brilliant head. So I was more than bratty, mostly on the inside, but I might have let a few bad words fly out. And then i decided that maybe instead of it being everyone else, maybe the problem with my happiness was me. And i was right. I was looking and looking for it and it never came. Its because there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. If I look for it i'll never find it. Happiness is something that I bring to the table. There's no happiness to be found in doing things, I can only bring happiness to every experience. The first half of the trip I was pulling out my hair crazy annoyed at the situation, and then I just chose to BE.

And I remembered that its always a choice. And when I'm frustrated or mad or whatever, its cause I'm choosing it. And i can choose out of it just as easily. I can see it so clearly now, but you should've seen me on that raft. Can you say brat?

P.S. Preston wins for shortest shorts check out those legs for days.