How great it is to love something!

I love my job at UCO. I love to get up the morning that I have class. I love that I have learned that preparing lectures, powerpoints and discussion questions is useless for me. Instead, the class always seems to take on a life of its own and we get discussing and talking about the subject matter and the time flies by. I guess I'm lucky because most of my students are adults, graduate students or at least seniors so they are a bit more mature. I love that the students love my class. There is something great about other people liking something that I do. Sometimes we all end up staying after class and discussing what we discussed in class. This week we had case studies that were researched over the last week and we discussed them. It was fascinating. Here were our topics:

Martha Stewart (stocks, leadership style, phoenix who always rises)
Elliot Spitzer
The spaceshuttle columbia disaster (where did it go wrong? Did you know that they knew there was a problem days before they started reentry...)
Darfur
Immigration and the notorious fence

Boy did we ever raise the roof as emotions and viewpoints came out. Yet everyone stayed so respectful of everyone's opinions.

I love that I love my job. (P.S. I love that I am done for the summer and can spend it with my kids at Pelican Bay. I love it when I'm the only dad there during the day and I run to my kids and whisper, "do you see any other dads? nope, neither do I, see how much I love you" Priceless! I am going to have to remind them of this when they are older and bring up some of my not so great parenting moments.)

Tonight in class one of the students asked me why I was so happy and said she needed to call me up everday so she could be happy too. We started talking about things that make us happy and I couldn't stop so here is some of my list.

I love that I can be out in the sun and warm my cold bones from the winter. I love that I get to spend more time with Gale. More things that I love ; running when it is really hot and listening to a great church talk, italian ice, eating ice cream or anything sweet around 10 pm at night, waking up to a nice sunny day, laughing, watching my kids, giving my kids too much love, reading books (I love books and could spend my days sitting in Barnes and Noble drinking a starbucks venti double chocolate chip shake). I love convertibles, I love laughing with Gale, my walks with Gale, that first moment when you climb into bed and lay down and your body relaxes and you don't want to fall asleep you are so happy, I love cold drinks, I love to see my girls get along and share, I love a clean car, I love to have a light burden and forgive people who bug the living crud out of me, I love to watch people, I love to laugh when my kids do funny things, I love boba tea, I love really funny people, I love it when hardships pass, I love to see some people come into my life and others to go, I love naps, I love it when we have treats third hour of church, I love it when we have snacks during sacrament meeting, I love to watch people change and be better than they were yesterday, I love to get a massage, I love to get together with my brother and laugh my head off, I love that I finally feel like I fit in my skin, I love Pelican Bay, I love the beach, I love to surf (as bad at it as I am) I love to try new things, I love to smell Gale and my girls, I love to think of the future and all the great things that are going to happen. I love to be around good friends who you can be yourself with, I love ping pong, I love chocolate covered almonds, I love to have cash in my wallet, I love how quiet the house is at night, I love to play tennis, I love to dream big about great things, I love to talk with my kids about their big dreams, I love it when my kids don't drive me crazy. I love girls camp and the peace it brings for a couple of days until I miss them. I love surprising people, I love to bike, I love to get slurpees (orange-pineapple is my current favorite) Okay, that's enough could keep going forever.