Happy Sunday

Life is crazy. It seems that anytime you try to make plans, the Lord just laughs at you and has something different in mind. I was talking to a friend at church today and she told me to just live in the now and so that is what I am going to do. Whenever I try to look too far in the future it stresses me out and makes me nervous anyway, so I am not going to do it. I am going to live in TODAY and focus on what is happening now. Maybe I am on a spiritual high right now cause I just got home from church a couple hours ago, but I LOVE the gospel so much! I kind of wish everyday was Sunday cause I always feel so great on Sundays. I have also learned that our prayers are ALWAYS answered. Gosh, anytime I feel alone or abandoned the Lord is always there to remind me that He really is there and then I just feel stupid for feeling that way.

But life is great! I had a great time this weekend in Palisades with my awesome friends playing in the snow, going sledding and snowmobiling, eating lots of chocolate and junk food, and laughing A LOT! But I am really happy. Yes it's hard some days and we have our challenges, but I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world. It helps me appreciate the good times and encourages me to be better and keep trying!

2010

Well its 2010 and all I gotta say about that is...BRING IT ON! :) I am seriously very excited about all the things I have ahead of me this year. It's gonna be the best one yet! Things have ended with a certain someone, and yes I am sad. It's hard going from spending all your time with someone, telling them everything, making plans that revolve all around them, to being absolutely alone again. But, it's also good cause it apparently wasn't meant to be, I wouldn't want to try to make something happen that wasn't right. I learned many things, grew in many ways, and am working on finding myself again and focusing on those things that make me ME! :)

But as soon as one door closes another opens and the Lord is VERY aware of me and what is gonna make me happy. Which is why He is "encouraging" me to relocate (if encouraging is the right word. :) He won't let it go!). So probably in the next 4 months I will be somewhere a lot warmer. I will get a chance to start over, be near my bestest friend, and hopefully get me back in school so I can make something of myself! It seemed like the "theme" of church today was how the Lord knows each one of us. He knows our name, our situation, our weaknesses, what will make us happy. Which was perfect for me and reminded me that we are NEVER alone and I am not the one in control. HAPPY SUNDAY! :)

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!

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.