A Tidbit of Wisdom

I want to hang this quote up in my home:

"Great people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people." - Author Unknown

Something I would like to live by.

My Resolution!

So, obviously with the new year now come and gone, the topic of resolutions has definitely come up a time or two. In relief society (I still feel too young to say those words) the other week we were to turn to our neighbor and discuss our new years resolution. It applied to the lesson...somehow.... Anyway, I had not yet thought of a resolution! I don't usually come up with one, I just say what my mom says "I will try and get better at everything". Really its pretty safe. I have a smart mom. It keeps you constantly trying to improve yourself, but you don't really have an end goal that you HAVE to meet, so you don't have to be disappointed at the end of the year. Of course, I always come up with the "normal" goals (like losing weight, which, lets face it...is pretty lame. Plus, I'm already a low to average weight for my height so I don't have that much to lose, and always disappoint myself with this one.), but they are never very fulfilling. Anyway, after faithfully reading my wonderful sister-in-laws blog (which, by the way, how did I end up with the most amazing in-laws? I swear, I was so scared after the horror stories I heard about in-laws, but seriously mine are incredible), Bret and I decided to come up with a Martineau Family Mission Statement 2010, complete with daily and weekly goals/tasks. (are we nerds...why yes, yes we are) So far it's working great :) and we're both starting to feel a lot better about some areas of our lives that were lacking before. However, something was still missing....for me at least.

If you ask most people, they will probably tell you that I am a pretty confident person. I can approach people, talk to people, get a long with strangers, am not shy on any account, etc etc. However, recent pondering has shown me WHY I'm confident; because I'm unconfident. I've always known this about myself in certain, more superficial areas of my life. For example, I've always struggled with modesty, less now than I did back in high school, but nonetheless do. My immodesty, however, was not a desire to show off my hot bod to boys to get a few whistles, it was the need for some attention from (usually not so desirable) men to make myself feel better about myself. Obviously it was not the only reason, but it was a large contributing factor. I've gotten more comfortable with my physical appearance since I got married, but still, sometimes a compliment from another man gives me more self-confidence that one from my husband. Weird, and a little sad huh? Anyway, there are more examples, but we won't delve into my personal shortcomings too much.

So in addition to finally getting that six pack, my resolution this year is to be truly confident in myself! No more cheating to feel confident, just plain self confidence :) Would you like to join me?

Good ol' Arizona Winter

Something fun happened in our lives! Therefore, I must blog about it :)

2009 Winter Break

Fall semester ended and Bret and I both did really well this semester! We were so excited to have such a successful semester after working so hard! It's definitely a lot harder than we thought to juggle work, school, and marriage; but we made it through our first real semester as a married couple.

Bret and I decided that we wanted to move a closer to campus so that we could walk instead of having to coordinate who was going to get the car and such. Plus, I love walking so I was 100% okay with that. It worked out so that we were set to move the day after finals ended. Thanks to Danny, Aaron, Nate, Austen, and a guy in our old ward with a trailer, we were able to get moved into our new apartment in about an hour! The carpets still had to be shampooed, so we just unloaded all of our stuff into the bathroom and the kitchen and then took off to ARIZONA!

Unfortunately, on the way down we ran into a little car trouble (nothing too serious, just enough that we'd get a ticket for driving in the dark) so we stopped in Boulder City for the night. While there, Bret, Craig, and Tenery reminisced of good times from their childhood.

We eventually made it down to Arizona:) I just have to tell you how much I love Arizona! First off, my family is there, whom I love spending time with. They are just so funny! I don't think I ever appreciated how wonderful my family is until I moved away. Secondly, it is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! There's nothing like walking around on a December day without a jacket on. Bret and I really blessed to have both of our families in the same area, that way we don't have to switch off holidays and we always get to see both! We do see Bret's family quite a bit less that we see mine, but I think thats mostly due to Bret's parents being gone. (Which, by the way, they come home this summer! Crazy huh?!)

We did a lot of fun stuff over this break. Last year we had a lot of wedding planning going on, so we didn't get to see as many people. This year though, we both made sure to catch up with a lot of friends and spend plenty of time with them. Friends are a great thing too :) You never appreciate your good friends until you can't see or talk to them everyday either.

Christmas was great :) Christmas Eve we went on a hiked Black Mesa. Arizona desert, another wonderful thing. It was a lot of fun. Jade, my mom's dog, is so funny! She likes to herd, so if we separate into groups (meaning my mom falls behind and my dad stays with her) she runs back and forth, crying, trying to get us to stay together. After that, we went and picked up some tamales for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. This year my mom wanted some Buffalo Wild Wings as well, which I had no complaint about. Everything was delicious. Christmas day was also a lot of fun. Like I've said before, my grandparents are on a mission, so holidays are still a little weird without them (they'll be back sometime in April, I believe). We woke up bright and early (thanks to the rest of my family being early risers) and opened presents. My big present of the year was a bread maker! Man I'm so excited for this! The best thing about it, in my opinion, is the dough setting. You make pizza dough in about an hour, roll it out by hand, put on toppings, throw it in the oven and ten minutes later delicious pizza emerges. YUM! I can't wait to use it. We had a lovely Christmas dinner of nikuman, lettuce wraps, and shrimp. Definitely not your traditional Christmas dinner, but ten times better in my opinion ;)

Everyone minus my mom

Can you be a cholla?

Fly away!

Let me just tell you, this is pretty much our actual heights now. Erika is about an inch taller than me and Jonah is 4 inches taller!

Jade the dog

Christmas Dinner

The day after Christmas we got together with Bret's family. I love seeing Bret's family. They're so fun to be around! There's so many of them that there's never a dull moment, especially when the kids are involved.

That week we went ice skating with the extended family, followed by a delicious meal at Joe's BBQ. I guess the Handly side doesn't have the ice skating gene, because everyone seemed to be having trouble except for me, Jonah, and Bret (Erika couldn't come, otherwise I don't think she'd have a problem either). Bret and I spent a lot of time helping my little cousins out, but after a while decided to set them loose and do a little skating on our own.

Yes I know, we have mad skillz ;)

My uncle Mark and I helping my cousin Eva out.

New years eve my family has a tradition to go up to my aunt and uncle's house in Payson and stay for the night. Now this is a one story, 4 bedroom house and we attempt to fit close to 30 people (and thats not even everybody!). Its an adventure, but its a lot of fun. Last year, my family started making it a tradition (is it a tradition if it's only happened twice so far?) to go skiing new years eve day. We went again this year, and were joined by some more of my extended family. Bret's only been skiing twice now (both times with my family) and he does so well! He pretty much had it his second time down a hill. We both had a blast! Thanks to my parents for taking us!

The whole gang: Mark, Lucy, Erika, my mom, Bret, Katie, Casey, Spencer, Taylor, Jonah, my dad, Maya, me, and Nate ;)

The next day we went to breakfast at the local Payson airport and the headed back to Gilbert. That night we went out with Bret's brothers and sisters for an "adult dinner". Its so funny to be called an adult among a family group, because in my family I'm still a kid! We went to Outback steakhouse, followed by a white elephant gift exchange at Eric and Beth's house. So much fun! How intense this game gets amazes me!

The next day we left bright and early for Provo. Here some moments from the drive

Should I be taking pictures while I'm driving and my passengers are sleeping? I don't know, but it was keeping me awake and I think that's all that matters

The famous mile marker 512. We all look fabulous I know

We got back to P-town safe and sound. School started on Monday, and so far we're both enjoying our classes. We've been unpacking and trying to get our new apartment situated all week. I'll post pictures of that when we're more settled in.

My maiden voyage

Well, this is my first post on this blog, which in and of itself isn't that surprising but at the same time kind of is.....

Anyway, I wanted to announce something that I find very exciting:

http://saas.byu.edu/classSchedule/schedule.php?yearTerm=20101&dept=RUSS

Just give it a clicksy and scroll down to RUSS 490R.  Once there take a look at the instructor for section 2.

I think that will do for now ;)

My Dancers

Since my last post didn't include any pictures of my dancers, I thought I'd include some here. I teach 3 classes at Innovations dance in Saratoga Springs. The first 2 are for the senior company. These girls are considered the "elite" of the studio and have the most time commitment. They will also be competing this spring (which I get to choreograph! woohoo!). Anyway, I teach their company jazz class and an advanced technique class. There are 7 girls total, but since it was the last week and they weren't required to come, only 4 of them came (boo on them!).

The third class I teach is an intermediate jazz class. These kids are absolutely adorable! I teach one boy, who can be a punk at times, but is a joy to have in class. I've never really taught younger kids before, so I struggled a bit at first, but its definitely been a fun experience.

Good Job to my Dancers!

Although I'm almost positive none of my students read my blog, I just wanted to give a shout out to my wonderful dancers for their awesome performance of The Little Match Girl last night! Unfortunately, as I was rushing out the door to be there a half hour early, I forgot my camera :( Take my word for it though, they were amazing!

November Wrap-Up

WOW time really does fly! Its been a month since my last post (that seems to be the trend I go for these days: once a month), so I figured its time for an update.

Not much happened in November, just school and work like always. The end of November is always exciting though because of Thanksgiving! Of course we went home to good ol' Arizona and it was a blast! We drove down Tuesday after we got done with classes. We caravanned with Amber and Garrett, who just so happened to be going down to Mesa, which was a lot of fun. Its always nice when you can switch up who's in your car when you're stuck in a car for ten hours. Anyway, we got in about midnight, so not much exciting happened then. The next day Bret and I each went to hang out with some of our friends, separately lol. Bret played V-ball with some buddies from high school while I went and got a pedi with Tess. Man I wish I could get those everyday, then again I wish I could hang out with Tess everyday as well :) My dad and Bret decided to have a pie making contest, so that afternoon they made their pies. Each made a pecan pie, Erika made an apple pie, and I had to make the crusts for all of them.

Thursday was Thanksgiving, which was awesome of course :) It was a little different this year because usually we spend Thanksgiving with my grandparents, but they are on a mission. In the morning Bret, Erika. Jonah, and my Dad ran a 10K Turkey Trot (my Mom and I stayed with the dog and took pictures haha). We also ran into Eric and Beth while we were there. It was a lot of fun even though I was standing on the sidelines. Bret ran it in 1:01:11, which I guess is pretty decent because he hadn't ran in a couple months, so good job Bret! My dad came in the fastest out of the group at 56 minutes, Erika tied with Bret, and Jonah went about an hour and ten minutes.

After that, Bret and I make a quick appearance at the Peterson Thanksgiving. It's always fun to get together with Bret's extended family because there are so many of them. We came home and finished up the cooking for our Thanksgiving. It was fantastic! It was kind of nice not to have a billion people at Thanksgiving like we usually do, plus there were a lot more leftovers!

The next day Bret and my Dad went shopping early in the morning. I don't know how they do it. I am all about sleeping in when we're on vacation! Anyway, they got some pretty cool stuff, which is always awesome. Then Bret and I had a gathering with his brothers and sisters and their families. I love spending time with Bret's family, especially because we don't see them very much. It's funny to see the nieces and nephews because most of them don't quite know who I am yet. I guess I need to go to AZ some more so they'll get my name down! After that, I went with all of the sisters to see New Moon. I'm sure you all know that I have never read the Twilight series, and after some experiences with a roommate who maybe enjoyed them a little too much, I had a bad taste for them. I decided it'd be fun to spend some time with my lovely sister-in-laws, so I decided to go, and you know? It wasn't that bad! Haha, in fact, I rather enjoyed it ;) (Though maybe for different reasons than most Twilight fans do). Anyway, it was still a lot of fun J

Saturday I got a perm! Crazy I know. Naomi with curly hair! It's a lot of fun actually. I enjoy not having to do too much to my hair in the morning (Not that I did much anyway, I'm pretty low maintenance I guess). Here's the curly look (Don't mind the face so much, I was pretty tired when I took these):

The rest of the day was filled with some homework I needed to get done and shopping with my mom (which is always the best!). Before we drove back on Sunday we took some family pictures. I love my family J

This past week has been pretty crazy with all of the catch-up (yea definitely didn't get everything that I needed to get done over break) but its been pretty good as well. We decided to move, which is pretty exciting. We want to be a little closer to campus, and a great opportunity to arose so we decided to do it. Although we're sad to leave the Stoker's and the friends we've made in this ward, we're way stoked to move into our new place. We're moving the day after finals, so we won't be able to go home to AZ as soon, but its worth it we think. Anyway, when that happens I'll post some pictures, and if you're cool enough to come and visit P-town we'll have you over as well.

Last week of classes is this week, and then finals next week. Its amazing how fast the semester goes. I can't believe I only have 3 semesters left! Life moves way to fast sometimes.