Happy Halloween!

Here are some pictures from Halloween. We spent the evening at our ward's "trunk or treat" passing out candy. However, we didn't decide we were going until the night before so our costumes suffered a bit, but we still had a great time! Here are some pictures!

Our pumpkin! (It's a moon with a bat)


And now on to the costumes!!!!


Justin was none other than.....a BYU fan!


Notice the blue hair!


Not quite sure what I was...I wanted to find a witch hat, but as you can tell I didn't succeed. Gotta love the tights though!


Us at the "trunk or treat"


Our friend's trunk at the "trunk or treat" where we helped pass out candy


Our friends little girl dressed as a duck! How cute!


One of my nursery kids dressed as Superman

Both Good Days and Bad Days

Teaching Special Education has been quite the experience. My job can be very stressful, but also very rewarding. The school district can be a huge pain to work with and the school politics are extremely annoying, but things happen that make me smile and remember why I love what I do. My students amaze me and make me smile everyday. Here are two of the latest comments that I remember that made me smile. I was having a coughing attack one day (for no reason) and one of my students said "Mrs. Beasley, your husband is not going to be happy that you're sick!" I thought it was too funny and me laughing during my coughing attack only made things worse! After the ordeal was over, I was still laughing at what my student said. The other comment that always makes me laugh happens every Friday. We talk about what my students are going to do and then a student (never the same one) will say "Mrs. Beasley what are you going to do this weekend, watch football?" They know me too well! It's pretty funny that they say this all at once and they know it's true! Also, every Monday when they come in they'll say, "Mrs. Beasley you watched football all weekend, right?" Too funny!

One perk that my job has that I absolutely love is taking my students to compete in Special Olympics. I love being able to teach my students about different sports and then watching them compete. The best part has to be when they receive their medal. It doesn't matter what place they got, they are just so proud to have that medal. Their smiles and excitement are unforgettable. Yesterday was the bowling competition for Special Olympics and my students had a blast! They competed against 1-3 other students on their lane. The Special Education program at my school came home with 4 gold medals, 6 silver medals, 4 bronze medals and 1 4th place ribbon. They were so excited! I absolutely love my job!


My students with their Special Olympics Medals

Too funny to resist!

So I got this from one of my friends and it's too funny!


Mine

1. My rock star name (first pet and current car): Gidget Elantra
2. My gangsta name (favorite ice cream flavor and favorite cookie): Mint Chocolate Snickerdoodle
3. My "fly guy/girl" name (first initial of first name and first three letters of last name): K Bea
4. My detective name (favorite color and favorite animal): Pink Fish
5. My soap opera name (middle name and city where you were born): Yvette Logan
6. My Star Wars name (first three letters of your last name and first two letters of your first name): Beaki
7. My superhero name (2nd favorite color and favorite drink with "The" in front): The blue juice
8. My Nascar name (first names of your grandfathers): Rand Leo
9. My witness-protection name (mother's and father's middle names): Yvette William


My husband's

1. My rock star name (first pet and current car): Dusty Sentra
2. My gangsta name (favorite ice cream flavor and favorite cookie): Mint Chocolate Snickerdoodle
3. My "fly guy/girl" name (first initial of first name and first three letters of last name): J Bea
4. My detective name (favorite color and favorite animal): Blue Wolf
5. My soap opera name (middle name and city where you were born): Edwin Salem
6. My Star Wars name (first three letters of your last name and first two letters of your first name): Beaju
7. My superhero name (2nd favorite color and favorite drink with "The" in front): The Green Sprite
8. My Nascar name (first names of your grandfathers): Bud Leslie
9. My witness-protection name (mother's and father's middle names): Jean Oren

Now I tag: Everybody you see on my friend's list to the left and anybody else that wants to do it!

Update

Just wanted to do a quick update and let those that read the last post know that our dear friend John Martinson passed away Tuesday night after a week long battle. We are very sad that he is no longer with us. Please pray for his wife, who is pregnant with their first child, and family. They need it more than anything right now. I never thought that I would be attending the funeral for somebody my own age. Life is very precious. Let those that you love know so everyday.

It's been a long time!

So there's been quite a bit going on in the Beasley household. I haven't uploaded pictures to our picture site yet, but I'll post on here when I do. A lot has actually happened since the last post (obviously). First, we went to the midnight book release for Harry Potter #7. Let's just say it was interesting. We went in our normal clothes and we were in the minority! haha! It was pretty fun. They had a costume contest, crafts and a debate. We got there about 10:30 or 11 so we missed a lot of stuff, but we just hung out and had fun. The best part is saying that we were there to get our reserved copy at midnight! I went and picked up our wristband from Borders that morning, so we were in the first group to get our books. Of course I had to drive home that night so Justin could read on the way home! Then I went to bed when we got home and he didn't come to bed for a few hours later! What can I say except that he's a true Harry Potter fan. It was an interesting night, but it was pretty fun! Then, at the beginning of August I was able to attend a scrapbook conference that came to Charlotte. I had a blast! Thanks Mom! I had classes and activities Thursday night, and all day Friday and Saturday. By all day I mean 8:30 AM to 11:30 PM! I had a blast though! I made a lot of projects (most of which still aren't finished because I'm missing supplies). When I get everything together I'm gonna take pictures and post those on our site. Other than that, we haven't done too much yet. School started back up, and I can't decide if I'm excited or not. Right now I'm too stressed to feel anything else! Long story short, the Special Education program at my school is a mess! I'm a first year teacher and I have the most experience in Severe/Profound Special Education! I think once things calm down I'm really going to enjoy this school though. Justin just started taking online accounting classes from LSU and once he gets enough accounting credits he's going to take the CPA (Certified Public Accountant) exam. Hopefully this will help him in his job ie: promotions and raises :) !

The real reason I'm writing is because we have a dear friend in our ward here that is in need of desperate prayers and thoughts on his behalf. I won't write the whole story, but here's a shortened version of it. He was in a REALLY bad car accident Tuesday morning on his way to work. He was air lifted to the hospital and he had internal bleeding, which they've stopped, broke both legs, both ankles, his pelvis, both arms (one in two places) and his shoulder. He is currently in the Trauma/ICU unit and was making improvements until today. He is on a respirator and is having problems with his heart rate, blood pressure and lungs. I'm asking anybody that reads this to PLEASE offer up a prayer in behalf of John Martinson. If you would like to see updates on his progress here is the website.

www.caringbridge.org/visit/john_martinson

Thank you so much!

Both of us have a greater appreciation for the blessings in our life, especially our friends, family and our faith. Please remember everything you have been given and give thanks everyday! We love you all!

Vacation Day 2

So I finally have all the pictures from the rest of our vacation in order. Below are some of the pictures from the rest of the week that we spent in Tennessee. From now on I'm going to post pictures at www.justinandkitara.myphotoalbum.com and you can go there to look at them. They are the same pictures as in the slideshows you'll see, but you can see them bigger if you would like. Now for the rest of our vacation!

Pictures!!!


So the first day of our vacation was Monday and we posted that 2 posts ago if you want to go back and read that. Tuesday we drove from Knoxville, where we stayed Monday night, to Nashville, Tennessee! We spent all day at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. It was acutally pretty cool to see how country music started and learn about all the country music stars that I grew up with. Justin is new to country so he didn't know too many of the older singers, but he knew a lot of the current ones since country is mainly all we listen to out here in North Carolina (well, country and sports radio!). After spending all day at the museum we met up with our friends Blake and Danielle that lived above us while we were at BYU. We hung out and got settled and then we went over to Danielle's parent's house. We all hung out and talked for a while and then went to another house to watch fireworks. Yes, we watched fireworks on the 3rd of July. I enjoyed them! And Blake and Danielle's dog Cosmo did too! He would bark and every firework that went off! It was pretty funny since Cosmo doesn't really have a bark. Here's a video of him during some of the fireworks. You can kinda see him, but you HAVE to listen to him!

Click To Play

On to Wednesday! We spent all day on the lake boating! And I do mean ALL day! It was so much fun! We took a 4 hour tour of the lake on a pontoon boat. That was pretty cool. The first couple of hours were really fun, but then everybody wanted to get onto the speedboat! We almost submerged the pontoon boat, which was scary at the time, but pretty funny afterwards. The best part of the day, at least for me, was I learned how to wakeboard! Well, kinda. I posted a video in the previous post. There was a lot of crashing, but a couple of good ones too! It was a blast!

Thursday Justin and I sent the day in Nashville again since Blake had school and Danielle had work. Nashville is the only place in the world that has a life size replica of the Parthenon so we went and saw that for most of the day. It was really cool to see and fun to take pictures of! The main floor inside had a really neat art gallery that we spent quite a while walking around. After that we went upstairs to the main room that had the Athena statue in it. It was huge! I don't remember the exact height, but she was enormous! You can see how big she is in the pictures. Also on the second floor there were replicas of the statues that are found on the outside of the Parthenon up at the top. After the Parthenon we went back to Blake and Danielle's and hung out for a while and played some Wii. It was so much fun! After playing around for a while we met up with Danielle's family and Blake's sister and brother-in-law at Monell's. This restaurant was so good!!! It's like southern family style cooking. They bring out huge bowls of food and you pass the bowls around the table. The restaurant building just happens to be an old jail and the room where we ate was the room where they used to hang people. Crazy! It's the room where you waitress leaves you hanging! Right Danielle? After Monell's, Blake, Danielle, Justin and I had the opportunity to go to the Nashville temple and do some sealings. It was so nice to be able to go to the temple and it felt like old times when we hung out in Utah.

Friday was a great day! It was Danielle's Dad's birthday so we did what he loves best! Spend ALL day on the lake! I loved it! This time we had a big party boat that we hung out on, the pontoon boat from Wednesday and around 4 speedboats. It was a blast! We went tubing and rode a banana behind the party boat. We didn't go very fast, but it was a blast! And it was the only thing Danielle could really do since there's a baby Haines on the way!!! Justin and I got to use the wave runner for a little while, which was a blast! It was Justin's first time on a wave runner! That's crazy! He loved it though, which I'm happy about! After hanging out on the lake we went and saw "Live Free of Die Hard" for Danielle's Dad's b-day. It was such a good movie!

Saturday was our last full day in Tennessee. We spent all morning hanging out at Blake and Danielle's house and then went over to Danielle's parents house again. We all went and saw "Transformers" and even though I complained about not wanting to see it, I have to admit it was a pretty good movie. After the movie we went to a party with Danielle's parents and we happened to see Brittany Cromar's parents (another friend from BYU). THat was pretty random, but kinda cool. We left the party early and the girls went to Old Navy to go shopping while the boys went home and did who knows what. Once everybody was back home we played Settlers!!! I love this game! It was a pretty long game and so that took up the rest of the night.

Sunday was a pretty sad day. We had to say goodbye to Blake and Danielle and drive 7 or so hours home. It was a great vacation and we had a ton of fun!!! Thanks Blake and Danielle!!!!

Wakeboarding!

Click To Play

Vacation Day 1

Today was the first day on our vacation to Tennessee! We left the house and drove to western North Carolina to some waterfalls outside Asheville, NC. We first went to Bridal Veil Falls. It was supposed to be pretty cool, but this is what we ended up seeing.

It ended up not being so majestic, but it was still pretty. You used to be able to drive under the waterfall, but not anymore. The big rock on the left ended up falling and blocking the road so you can't drive under it, but you can still pull off to the side and walk around it.

After Bridal Veil Falls, we went to Dry Falls. This waterfall was a lot better. You're able to walk behind it to the other side. It was pretty cool! When you walked behind it you got misted, which was actually kinda fun! Here's a picture of us with the whole falls.

After the waterfalls, we randomly stopped in Cherokee, NC. It ended up being pretty fun. We saw a couple of Native Americans perform a dance show that was really interesting! Justin was wearing his Brigham Young University shirt and one of the performers saw it and was telling us that he graduated from there in 1984 (the best football year ever for BYU!). It was kinda cool to meet somebody out here that knows what BYU is, much less went there.

Our next stop along the way was Gatlinburg, TN. This was a very big tourist town, but very cool at the same time! We just walked along and looked at different stores, ate some really good BBQ at Corky's and played mini golf at Hillbilly Golf. The golf course is up on the side of a mountain and you ride a cart up the side of the mountain. It was pretty fun, but not too different from a regular mini golf cart. The first picture is of the golf course, and the second picture is one of the many traps you would see on the course.

After Gatlinburg, TN we finished our drive for the day and we are now resting in Knoxville, TN. I'll try to put more pictures up when I have time. More adventures to come soon!

The Beginning

At the request of a few people, we're creating this blog to keep in touch with all of our friends and family that are now all over the country! I can't promise there being too many updates because we really don't do too much. Sad! Maybe I'll have to change that. So here's the first post and I'm sure there will be more to come at some point!