Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everybody! I can't believe this day is finally here and about to be over! Kinda crazy how that happens. :) But it's a good time to reflect over the past year...the good, the bad, the ugly and see what you want to change or do better for the next! The past couple weeks though have been a little rough, but definitely a learning experience. It's amazing how life can be good and happy, making plans for the future one minute and take a complete 180 the next, and leave you feeling lost and confused. So this is what I have learned this past week:
* I cannot rely on a boy to make me happy and determine who I am.
* My trust in the Lord must be more powerful than my confidence in myself.
* I am still beautiful, still worthy, still able to accomplish anything I want out of life.
* When you go through a hard time, your real true friends and family definitely make themselves known.
* You can't grow if every little matter got resolved at the first petition.
* I am starting to really like the snow. :)

That's just this week. I don't want to go on and on about everything I have learned throughout this year, but I know that I wouldn't want to change anything and I don't regret a thing. The Lord loves everyone and knows you by name. Even when you feel completely alone, He is always there, you just gotta believe. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Salt Lake City

This past weekend, I went down to Salt Lake with Jared and Jared's brother Justin and his girlfriend Naomi. It was so much fun! We drove down Friday night and got there about 2am that night. We stayed at their brother Jake's house in Sugar House. Saturday we woke up at about 12pm and finally got our butt's out of bed to have some fun in the city. We ate lunch at Pei Wei, which was SOOO GOOD! If you want some good chinese food, you gotta go! We then hit all the fun stores: Nordstrom Rack, Rue 21, and the mall. We shopped for hours and the only person who bought something was Naomi, who bought one baseball shirt at Forever 21. HAHA. We went back to Jake's house, ate some macaroni and cheese, got all bundled up, and went over to Temple Square! That is definitely something I miss about Utah. The lights were beautiful! There were so many people there and we all had so much fun together. We made it all the way around just when they turned them all off thank goodness! After we got back to the house, everyone wanted to watch a movie, but Jared and I were exhausted so we went to bed while they watched "Inglorious Bastards?" I think that was the name....I can't remember. I woke up the next morning and drove down to Orem to visit Beth and Doug! I picked up some In N Out for lunch for us and it was DELISH! :) We had fun playing with Ryder and catching up for a few hours before they had to go to church, and I headed back up to Salt Lake. The entire weekend was a BLAST and it was so nice to get away and have fun with each other. I loved it all!

I am still alive!

Wow, it has definitely been a while since I have blogged! Don't worry, I am still alive. I have just been a little preoccupied. :) There has been so much that has happened since I last blogged that if I tried to write about everything, it would take too long. So I am just going to do a little preview of each.

*For Halloween, I drove down to Provo to visit Beth and Doug and little Ryder. We got to drive down to Carrie and Chris's house to take the babies Trick or Treating. It was so much fun! The kids were adorable and we got to eat lots of yummy food and candy. I got to do some shopping with my bestest friend Sarah and her boyfriend Ryan. It was fun getting to know him better. Our cousin Alicia got married while I was down there too so we got to go to her reception which was BEAUTIFUL, and so good to see my family again. Thanks for letting me visit Beth, Doug, Carrie and Chris!

*Work has been going well. It has started to get busier as the weather gets colder so that has been nice. We also got an expresso machine put in to start selling, so I have been learning about coffee, and mochas, and steamers, and expresso shots, and lattes. I am very nervous that I am going to mess people's drinks up since I know nothing about those kinds of beverages. :) But it's also been kinda fun learning.

*I went and saw the midnight premiere of NEW MOON! YAY! :) It was awesome! I went with Stephanie and Monica. We went and ate at Perkins before and then went to the theater. It was completely out of control but so much fun! The only seats available in the theater we were in were the very front row and we didn't want that so we went and found a different theater with better seats. haha Don't tell anyone. ;) But the movie was SOOOO GOOOD! A lot better done than Twilight, Bella was even more pretty and awesome this time, Jacob was pretty good lookin (but only when his hair was short), and then Edward. Oooooh Edward. :) I love you.

*I had one of the best Thanksgivings ever this year! Beth and Doug and Ryder came up here to visit me, which I loved! It was fun sleeping in, watching movies, playing games, eating lots of good, fatty foods, playing with the baby, and just spending time together. I got to have two dinners on Thanksgiving. We had our big dinner at my house with the whole family of the people I live with (we had about 30 people there!). I then went with Jared and his family out in the boonies to go shooting! It didn't sound that appealing to me when we left my house, but after we got out there and I held those guns and got to shoot at stuff, it was actually pretty fun! Jared had to plug my ears while I shot cause they were LOUD, and a couple of the guns made me jump backwards when I fired them. After that we went over to his parents house and ate another delicious dinner with his parents and siblings. His mom is an excellent cook and we definitely played a little fat dog after eating. :) And then Saturday all of us (Me, Jared, Steph, Lyndon, Beth, Doug, Jordon, Kaleb, Monica, Chris, Riley, and Cassidy) went to the movies and saw The Blindside. WHAT AN AMAZING MOVIE! If you haven't seen it yet, GO SEE IT! It is really cool.

*Which brings me to what has been keeping me away from blogging the most.....Jared. :) Jared and I are back together and stronger than ever before! We have definitely had our ups and downs, our challenges. But going through all that has made us realize that we don't want to lose each other, it has brought us closer and strengthened our friendship. He makes me happy and I love spending my time with him. He makes sure my car is running correctly, that I have clothes in my closet, and will surprise me with hot chocolate or an ice cream bar or little notes when I am at work. Well, I don't want to bore you all by going on and on about us. :) But things are very good right now, I love him, everyday has been an adventure since the day we met, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

I will get some more pictures of us....this one is from forever ago! :)

Well, that is all I am going to do today. Hopefully I have caught you up enough and I promise I am going to try to blog more! :) Till we meet again!