yesterday i turned 25 AND some other stuff happened

Yesterday was the first day of spring and my birthday. I had a few birthday surprises this year. My coworkers were wonderful, surprising me with a lot of great things. My mom always does birthdays well in our family and it was fun to see her card and packages and to talk to my parents and siblings on the phone. I received a million nice facebook messages, texts, calls and voicemails from so many wonderful family members and friends.

And then there was Brad.


He took me to dinner at Carrabbas. Both our hostess and waitress asked if we were celebrating anything special. He told them it was my birthday. We enjoyed a very nice dinner together. Once our plates were cleared, the entire wait staff brought over a bowl of ice cream with birthday candles in it. They sang happy birthday to me. Then our waitress really surprised me by saying, "Amanda, Brad has a special question for you."


Didn't see it coming one bit.


You can, though. Enjoy watching Brad's proposal. I love that boy.

Untitled from Amanda Johnson on Vimeo.

st. patrick's day limerick contest

Imagine Learning is having another great contest! In honor of St. Patrick's Day today, create your own limerick and add it as a comment to our blog post. The winner will get a $20 gift card to Target. Can't quite remember what a limerick is (I couldn't either)? Fret no more...

i also love a good book [and wreath]

[I love this wreath. My friend Lacey made it for me for Christmas this past year. It's made out of pages from an old novel. It adorns my bedroom wall.]

For some reason I have really been struggling to keep up on reading books lately. I've decided I need to set a goal of how many books I want to read each month, because it alarms me at how slowly it's taking me to finish the book I'm on right now. I also have an entire shelf of my nightstand dedicated to books that I have been meaning to read for, oh, the past two years or so. Every time I look at it I think, "What would Miss Door think of me now?" [Miss Door was my kindergarten teacher. I was the first student in our class back at Dunbar Elementary to read a book all by myself. All I know is that it was about trains and after I read it to the principal they gave me a pin to wear all day because I had arrived.] I'm a pretty fast reader, so the only excuse I have for not having read much over the past few months is that I haven't consistently opened a book. But that's all changing. The goal is to read two to three books per month.


Any favorite books of yours that I have to read? I would LOVE to hear about them. I always love recommendations.

i love a good week

I thought the only time I had something scheduled for every night of the week was during December. Apparently saying goodbye to February and hello to March is reason to celebrate as well. This past week's notables include:

• M: Utah Chamber Artists' concert, Bernstein & Mozart: The Long and the Short of It. (Great job again, Carter, you know how much I love Rex Tremendae.) 
• T: Quiddler and frozen yogurt with Brad and the Dulgarians.
• W: A Tale of Two Cities at the Hale Centre Theatre to watch one of my dear friends star as Lucie Manette.
• T: Dinner and catching up at Paradise Bakery with my bestie Karin.
• F: Dinner with L and Steve in Layton before we drove up to stay the night at their place in Logan.
• S: Snowmobiling up Logan Canyon with L, Steve, and Brad. First time I've ever been when no one's gotten stuck.

It was a fantastic week.

 [The play, the Jensens, the boyf and I, the canyon]

this is for L

When did cupcakes become the new creme brulee?


Look at this fancy smanshy packaging and production from the La Jolla Groves (delish restaurant at Riverwoods, by the way) bakery, all for a cupcake.