EMOTION BOWL

Last night I attended my very first "Emotion Bowl"! It is a HUGE thing here in Idaho Falls every Fall. It's the biggest rivalry football game between Idaho Falls and Skyline High School. It was such an exciting thing, seeing everyone sporting either orange/black (Tigers) or blue/white (Grizzlies) Even though I was a little torn on who to cheer for since I have friends on both sides, I ended up doing orange and black cause 1) those were MY high school colors, and 2) that is the school all the kids in the family I live with has gone to so I had to support them! The stands were packed with people of all ages. Lots of screaming and yelling, people who go way out in their costumes, and trash talking. The game was super exciting, lots of good plays, excellent interceptions from both sides, and we didn't beat them by too much that I was just bored. It was excellent playing from both sides. But as you can tell, WE WON!!! Woohoo! I can't remember exactly what the score was, but I want to say 28-14? I don't know, I am probably wrong. Anyway, even though it was pretty cold and snowing a little bit, you could barely tell from all the "emotion" :) and excitement going on on the field. Go Tigers!!!

Grandpa, Lyndon, and Stephanie

Me and Steph

The Field

This is what I sent to someone on the other side.....We won't say who. ;)

Oh, and I bought this really cool ring yesterday too. As I walked up to the register I was planning on spending $20 on it, I really wanted it so I didn't care, but when the cashier rung it up, it was 6 bucks!!! I LOVE it when that happens....:) AND I finally got caught up on the new "Office" episodes! This past weeks was awesome! Yet now, I am not really for sure where they are going to go with the show now....I mean Jim and Pam are married. What else do we need to happen? :) I also finally bought a cute little digital camera! Now I don't have to try to use my ghetto crappy one anymore!! I can't wait till it comes in the mail. It was such a good deal on QVC I couldn't pass it up!

Oscar: Kevin and I play this paper football game when Michael's out.
Kevin: Or when we're bored.
Jim Halpert: [uncovers the score-keeping sheet] Oh my God! Wait, this goes back two years.
Kevin: We're bored a lot.

Life is an Adventure

This has pretty much been one of the best weeks ever! It's only Wednesday and it's already been totally awesome. :) It started out with an amazing session of General Conference. I could probably go on and on about each talk and what I loved about them, but you all know how great they are so I don't need to bore you with all that. It was great. A lot of it felt like a very hard slap in the face, but it was very needed. There is so much room for improvement and growth and it's always good to have a little reminder of what those things are. So I feel very refreshed and energized from it all and am very excited for the future and what it has in store for me.

When I went to bed Sunday night, my prayers were full of great need in knowing where I need to be and what I need to be doing right now. I am so tired of dragging my feet and feeling like I am going nowhere. And I just need to make a decision and show some ambition in my life and my choices. I woke up in the middle of the night at about 3am with the answers to my prayer practically being yelled at me! It really felt like that! I felt strongly about what my next step in life should be and what is truly going to make me happy. I was so excited about it I couldn't get back to sleep for a while afterwards. And so, I will tell you all that I have made my decision and I know exactly what I am going to be doing this coming January and it's gonna ROCK! :) You might just have to wait and see for what exactly that is....haha. The other answered prayer is a little more personal so I am not going to go into detail about it, but if and when it becomes a reality, I will be sure to tell you! :) Maybe I am a little superstitious and think if I say the things on here I won't actually do it and I don't want to seem like a failure to you all, so just wait a little bit and you will know! haha

The rest of the day on Monday was pretty normal. I went to work. Ate lunch. Took a shower. Went to FHE. During FHE, Jon took my car keys from me. I didn't really think much of it cause that's just how it is with him. I steal his car. He takes my keys. Anyway, when FHE was over I left with Dusty and was gonna go watch the two newest episodes of The Office cause I have missed them, but then we decided to go to a movie instead cause he wanted to make it up to me for missing my birthday party. So we went and saw "Surrogate", which was actually pretty good! My attention was grasped well during it and so that is always a good thing. :) Near the end of the movie, Dusty got a text from Jon asking him if he was still awake, if he was with me, what we were doing, all that jazz. I didn't really know what was said between them after that. When the movie was over, we walk out to the parking lot, and there was my car right next to Dusty's! I open the hood of my car and there is a brand new radiator in it! My car is all fixed! I have been going the past two weeks without a car and have been trying to save up enough money to be able to get a new radiator in it! I could not believe it! It was so great! Come to find out, Jared's uncle had ordered the radiator for me, Jon paid for it, and then Jared and Jon took it over to his shop and put in together! Wow, I was totally speechless, filled with such gratitude, and my respect and love for them completely grew. I have amazing people in my life. I definitely don't feel very deserving of all the kindness and things done for me. I don't know how I will ever repay them.

I have a sore throat right now. I hope I don't have the Swine.

Michael Scott: I need my entourage. Jim! Dwight! Ryan! Common we're going to Asian Hooters.
Ryan: Oh man I can't.
Michael Scott: Why not?
Ryan: I'm not feeling so well. I've got a ton of work to do here. MSG allergy. Peanut allergy. I just ate there last night.
Michael Scott: Ok. Feel better. Common Jim, let's go.
Jim Halpert: Wow. Thanks for taking all the excuses, dude.
Ryan: Doctor appointment, car trouble, plantar warts, granddad fought in World War II. Use your head, man. I keep mine in here. Look alive, Halpert. Welcome back.

Sweetness

I went and saw Julie & Julia last night with Stephanie. It was way cute! Meryl Streep did an excellent job of portraying Julia Child and I just LOVE Amy Adams. Such a cute girl. It made me wish I was a really good cook. But it also made me want to be doing something awesome with my life like them. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my life and couldn't ask for anything different. I have learned and grown so much the past 24 years and am excited to see what's ahead of me. Conference sessions today were pretty much AMAZING and I know that everybody always says this, but I know the talks were made just for me! :) I am going to make the next year of my life the BEST and not take anything for granted. Life is too short to be wasting away in sadness or laziness.

One of my top interests is photography. I look at different photography blogs as much as I can and see the many ways you can capture life and love. So that's what I am going to do. I am going to take my camera and get out and take pictures! I want to improve my skills and give people something they can have forever. So if you would allow me to practice on you or kids or anything else, let me know! :)

I have been working out and eating better lately as well. Remember at the beginning of the year when I was in that class that helped me lose like 15 pounds? Well, I have gained almost all of it back and I am not very happy with myself! So I am going to try to be better and lose it all again by the end of the year! :) It's hard work. I can be super lazy sometimes and I LOVE eating. haha But that is the only thing that works for me, working out and counting calories.

I have realized today that I have the BESTEST friends and family anyone could ever ask for. I do! They support me no matter what I want to do, no matter what I have done. I can talk to them about anything. I can call them at any time of the day if I need to. They are always there when I am in a pickle or need a shoulder to cry on. I could probably go on and on, but I won't. Don't wanna bore you. So all of you out there, I LOVE YOU! Thank you for everything!

Just a few thoughts I had. I just feel very enthusiastic and excited about life and what it has in store for me in the future. I know that the best is yet to come! :) Oh, and my favorite song right now is "Two Is Better Than One" by Boys Like Girls and Taylor Swift. Listen to it if you haven't! And my car is still broken..:( But I think it will be fixed next week! Yay!

Pam Beesly: There is a master key and a spare key for the office. Dwight has them both. When I asked, "what if you die, Dwight? How will we get into the office?" He said, "if I'm dead, you guys have been dead for weeks."

Relief Society Retreat

This past weekend I spent it in Island Park with my awesome Relief Society. We went and stayed in our Branch President's cabin and had a BLAST! They are such a great group of girls and we really enjoyed getting to know each other better and having fun! We drove up there Friday night and had a delicious dinner of Taco Soup and cornbread. We then had an amazing fireside by President Call and his wife Kelly. Kelly talked about how to make ourselves more attractive by living the gospel and followers of Christ. Then we drove down to the river where Kevin talked about the great things we can do as women. No matter how inferior or small we may feel, we can accomplish GREAT things! When we got back to the cabin we spent the rest of the night hanging out, playing pool and ping pong, and watching the Hannah Montana movie! I LOVED it! haha It was really great! Saturday we woke up and had a yummy continental breakfast of muffins, bagels, and fruit. Lisa had an awesome craft for us to do while we ate breakfast of making cute little photo books. Once we got all dressed and ready we did a little geocaching hunt where we got to work together to solve the clues and got to explore island park a bit. :) In Island Park there is this old couple that has this lodge where they make THE BEST hamburgers and french fries! We got to ride 4 wheelers over to this lodge and eat a delicious lunch together. After eating, we got the cabin all cleaned and packed and headed back to Idaho Falls! :) It was so good to be with my girls and get out into nature a bit.

Katie, Melanie, and I reading Seventeen Magazine

Morning Craft!

Brittney, Me, Jordyn

Doing the scavenger hunt

At the restaurant

4 Wheeling with Ashley

Me and Ashley

Karen: Hey did you guys see this memo that Dwight sent out? 'Women will be sent home if they wear makeup or heels exceeding one quarter inch. Females are not allowed to speak to strangers unless given written authorization by Dwight Schrute.' This is ridiculous.

Turning the Big 2-4! :)

Well for those of you who don't know, I had a birthday about a week ago (September 18) and it was great! :) I spent the first half of the day working, and was able to get off early which was so nice. I only worked out for about 10 minutes cause Monica called me telling me I needed to get home. When I got there her and Kaleb were there and surprised me with a cake, which was DELICIOUS. I hung out at home the rest of the day, and then Cassandra took me to Cafe Rio for dinner. I seriously crave that place everyday and have made eating there a weekly ritual. haha After dinner we went over to Shawn's house cause he was throwing me a party! It was so nice of him to do that for me. I had all my good friends there with me (Shawn, Cass, John, Carolyn, Katie, Brian, Brittney, Melissa, Chad, Alicya, Jared, Barbara, Julie, Jon, and Marissa) and just enjoyed each other's company. We played Apples to Apples (which I won ;), talked, had a fire with smores, started a movie, but didn't get that far into it cause we basically just wanted to talk to each other. We also ate a lot of cake! That was the time Cassandra decided to take my piece of cake and SMASH IT IN MY FACE! :) Haha it was pretty dang funny except the fact that I had cake all in my mouth and frosting up my nose and couldn't breathe! I was cleaning it out of there the rest of the night. Here is the process of the whole thing: :) I played some pool with Jared (which I also won!) and enjoyed some chat around the campfire. The night was great! I have wonderful friends and family and was so blessed to be able to spend my favorite day of the year with them. :)

Jan: I'm returning your call. You said it was urgent?
Michael Scott: It is urgent. I just wanted to call and wish you a happy birthday.
Jan: Today's not my birthday, though.
Michael Scott: Really? 'Cause I thought we had the same birthday.
Jan: [pause] Happy birthday, Michael.

Getting By with a Little Help From My Friends...

This past weekend was the BEST cause my BEST FRIEND Sarah came to visit me! :) Yay! I was a little worried that we wouldn't be able to do a whole lot cause I was super sick the day before and she has been fighting Mono for a while, but don't worry, we ended up having an awesome weekend together. She arrived on Friday about 3pm where we hung out in the Cave of Wonders (that's what I call my bedroom :) and got all caught up on our lives and whats been going on. Then my friend Cassandra was having a BBQ at her house so we went and helped set up and then enjoyed a very fun evening full of fun, food, laughter, and lots of people we didn't know. haha But we had each other and we had the awesome fruit salad we took so it all worked out beautifully.

After we were all BBQ'd out we went back to my house and relaxed in my hot tub for a while.

We finally fell asleep at 2:30am and didn't wake up the next day till 12:30pm!! Man, I guess we needed the sleep! But if you have ever been in my room you will see that I have put a blanket in my window so there is absolutely no sign of light ever, so it's very easy to sleep all day long and never know the real time of day. :) But thankfully one of my friends had texted me at 12:30pm and woken us up so we can at least enjoy half of the day. We quickly got ready and headed over to the mall for some SHOPPING! YaY! It had been a long while since I had bought something for myself and since we were celebrating my birthday, of course we had to go shopping! We found some awesome deals and very cute shirts at Macy's. I tried on so many different outfits, I really don't want to go in another dressing room for a while...:) But it was so nice to have Sarah there with me cause sometimes I am not very good at picking stuff out for myself. She then bought me some earrings and a necklace to go with the shirt she got me that are SO CUTE! After that we were ready for some delicious food at Red Robin! One of my favorite restaurants! (my other favorite is Cafe Rio :). We shared some fried zucchini (I HAVE to get that every time I go there now...it's kind of an addiction) and had a great dinner. They then came and sang Happy Birthday to me, made me wear balloons around my ears, and gave me a hot fudge sundae! :) I LOVED IT! We ended the night by going to the amazing dollar theater here in Idaho Falls and seeing "Post Grad". :) It was WAY cheesy but also WAY cute. The ending was good. And with me, if the ending was good, then the movie was good. :) So go see it! Sunday we just went to church, had a delicious Linger Longer afterwards, went home and took a power nap, and I then had to say goodbye to Sarah. :( But it was an awesome weekend. Thanks for coming Sarah! Love you!

Dwight Schrute: Ralph is my best friend. We met in a shoe store. I heard him asking for a shoe that could increase his speed, and not leave any tracks.

I Look So Good (Without You) by Jessie James

Okay, this is my favorite song right now....if you haven't heard it, then listen to it RIGHT NOW! If you have, well download it on iTunes so you can listen to it over and over like I am right now. :) I just love it and it has definitely given me confidence and motivation recently. Even though the words might not match completley with how I am thinking, it will help me make them that way! But seriously, Love It. Listen to It. It will change your life! HAHA okay, maybe not change your life, but it should make some sort of effect on it. :) That is all.