Home again Home again

Had a lovely trip back to Idaho this past weekend. I gave a ride to Abraham, a student from BYU. My cousin found his name to be very entertaining and said it every chance she got. Usually with her hand outstretched and with a deep voice. She dived right into his life asking him all sorts of personal questions. He was a good sport about it.
Saturday morning Jamee, Julie, and I headed out to the airport to go for a ride with grandpa in his new plane. It was fun. I had never been flying with my grandpa. As I was getting out of the plane I noticed a sign on the dash (I don't know if that's what it's called in a plane, but you get the idea). I'll post a picture, but for now I'll just tell you basically what it said.
"Passenger Warning"
This aircraft was built by ametuers and does not meet Federal Regulations. Fly at your own risk.
Or something like that. I told my sister to read it as she was getting in and I was getting out. She sent me a text while she was up that said, "I should have waited until we landed to read that."
After the flying I had to hurry home and get everything ready for a babyshower I decided to do last minute for my friend Lucy. She's the cutest little pregnant lady and I knew she didn't know many people in Rexburg yet, so we got some of the girls we use to work with together and it was so fun! I hadn't seen Hilary in over 4 years. It's crazy how life blazes by and sometimes leaves you behind. After the shower, I stuck around and just chatted with Lucy. She's always been so easy to talk with and I just love spending time with her.
After that I headed up to the University. They were doing a show and I hadn't ever seen a show from the new auditorium. It wasn't too exciting since the show was actually in the Hart and they were just running it out of the auditorium. Derek and Luke provided a good show though, with their conversation and singing.
Then we (my siblings and I) snuck off to work on our top secret Father's Day present, that sadly was discovered by the crew when they all walked in and dumb Mike thought it would be a great idea to yell about it. If my dad still doesn't know it will be a miracle.
Sunday was a birthday party for me, sacrament meeting and lunch and then the long drive back. More good times with Abraham and Jamee. :) I almost ran my car out of gas, but luckily we made it to Thanksgiving Point.
This week is pretty uneventful. Just packing and getting ready for my CRUISE! No post next week since I'll be on a boat, but when I get back I'll have to post pictures.

Tabby Fest: Winter 2011

Well I made it to 26. It was a good birthday. Nothing too exciting to report. I do need to report on my date with a werewolf though. So my cousin Jamee has been wanting to set me up with her friend Jake. I actually facebook stalked him and thought he looked really familiar, but we both went to BYU-I so that could be it. Anyway he called me on Monday and we made plans for Wednesday. Prior to the date I was talking with my friend Jen who told me she had a good feeling about this. I told her she didn't even know his name. She asked his name. I told her Jake Black. She responds with " A good name . . . Wait. . . Isn't that the name of the werewolf on twilight?" I laughed out loud at my desk at work. So the actual date was good. He made dinner, then we went to donate blood. Turns out he couldn't so it was just me. At the end they were filling all the little viles and I asked why there were so many and he said they were for the vampires. I couldn't help but laugh again. Then he said "well you are out with Jacob Black". So funny. After the donating of blood he taught me to play the guitar and then we watched Groundhogs Day, since it was groundhogs day. It was fun.
Thursday, my birthday, I went to work. After work I got a call from my grandpa Van saying he was in Provo, so I called up my cousin Emma and we headed over to see him. After a slightly awkward visit with him we went across the street to meet my friends for dinner. It was a lovely evening.
Friday my sister drove down with her friend Melissa and then we were off to Tabiona. It was a blast as always. Aubrey knows how to have a party.




It was snowy and white and a bit cold but so much fun. That night we went to dinner with my roommate and then icecream with Aubrey. It was a fantastic weekend.

I may complain about getting older, but I am definitely glad to be alive. Life is so fragile as was brought home as we suffered the loss of an Elder from my mission. I didn't know him very well, but what I did know of him was great. He was very friendly and as I have read things others have written about him it just makes my heart break more. Elder Stephen Scott, you will be missed.

Sad Day

My camera died. It's been on it's way out since Thanksgiving, but finally gave up the ghost last night. This is especially sad to me since I was going to take pictures of the quilts I did this last weekend and since there is Tabby fest this weekend. What is Tabby fest you may ask, well it's a big party out on the farm. My friend Aubrey's family has a farm in Hanna, Utah, which is out toward Vernal. Anyway they have horses, 4-wheeler, snowmobiles, a big barn, and lots of land. In the summer we do the 4-wheeling, horse riding, play at the pond/fishing, hay ride, and in the winter we do the snowmobiling, sleigh ride, feed the cows, ride the horses. It's so much fun. We stay up late, karaoke, watch movies, have dances in the barn, big breakfast in the morning and really just loads of fun. My sister is coming this time so I'm exciting about that. This past weekend I went to Wyoming to take advantage of the quilting machine. I got 4 quilts quilted and managed to break 2 needles. Oops. My goal is to get a few more done before Aubrey leaves that school. Better get busy. Really aside from that nothing too exciting has happened. I do have a blind date with a werewolf tonight. :) I'll have to post next week and expound upon that and tell how it went. Also I'll try and get my hands on a camera so I can get pictures of my quilts up.

Crummy Days

Do you ever have those really horrible days? The kind where you want to find a hole, crawl in, and never come out? Maybe cry a lot while you're in the hole? That was my Monday yesterday. I don't think it started out too terrible, but by 1:30 I was ready to call it a day. I may have shed a few tears, but since I was at work I tried to contian myself. I'm not sure what it was. A combo of may things I guess. The fact that my body hurts (freakin' tailbone), I have 5 little cuts on my body, I'm almost 26 and am not feeling very accomplished, who knows. That last one happens every year around my birthday, I look at another year gone by and think, so what? What have I done? Anyway, I texted my sister, she's always good for a pick me up, and she had me read an article from the February Ensign. It didn't exactly fit how I was feeling but did give me some good insights for life in general. http://lds.org/ensign/2011/02/did-i-still-love-him?lang=eng Finally at 4, I decided I had had enough and left early. I went to Dairy Queen for a Georgia Mud Fudge and then headed to Katie's house so her husband could take my stitches out for me. That done I went home. I decided I needed some Mike Tompkins. His cymbal makes me laugh. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlW5c4tInvY Feeling a little bit better I decided to be productive and went to my room to work on some quilts. I turned on the ipod and went to work. Then this song played. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgmTyIf_eEg It's from the RM soundtrack. I don't like a lot of the pop versions of hymns/primary songs, but I really like this one. I listened to it over and over again. Cried some more and then I felt SO MUCH BETTER. I finished the night watching 2 movies, and getting a lot accomplished on my quilts. Then I went to bed. It turned out to be a fantastic night and now I'm ready for Tuesday. Really the rest of the week was pretty uneventful. Saturday I didn't even get out of my pajama pants. Last Wednesday I went to bed at 7 p.m. I took a nap Saturday and Sunday. I think my body is really just trying to heal itself and it's hard work. :) Can't let the crummy days get you down, call your sister, read the ensign, listen to music, be productive, it'll pass.

Bucket List

I want to start a bucket list. Things I want to do before I die. I'll have to keep adding to it and hopefully I can actually do all the things on here.

- Go on a cruise
- Go skydiving
- Learn Italian
- Visit Italy
- Learn to play the guitar
- Go to the festival of colors
- Run a 1/2 marathon
- Ride in a hot air balloon
- Shoot a gun
- Write a children's book
- See Wicked
- Go to all the temples in Utah


so there's the beginnings. I'm open to suggestions, things you think everyone needs to do at least once.

Every man dies, not every man really lives. ~William Ross

Rexburg or bust

I had quite the weekend! Friday I picked up a girl from BYU and together we headed up to Rexburg. We stopped in Logan to pick up my cousin Jamee on the way. Jamee was feeling a bit blue and needed to get out and be with people who are fun and love her. What better place than Sugar City? So off we went. The roads were great and we made it with no problems. The girl from BYU was really fun and easy to talk to. Friday night we stopped and visited my friend Josh who is at BYU-I and we all (Josh, Jamee and myself) went out for ice cream. Then Jamee and I headed home. I was tired and wanted to go to bed but my family was watching a movie. I tried going upstairs but my mom and cousin were talking there. I chatted with them for a bit and then went back downstairs where I ended up chatting with my sister. I finally made it to sleep around 3:30 a.m. Not the most ideal time since I had made plans to go to the temple with some friends. I didn't sleep well and then got up at 7:30 to get ready. We went to the temple and surprisingly I stayed awake the entire time. After that I headed home and tried to take a nap. That didn't really work it was more like a rest. Then we packed up our snow clothes and headed back to Rexburg. Julie had been invited to a snowmobiling/sledding party so we met her friend and then made the trek to Ririe where we waited some more and then finally made it to the cabin.

Turns out there were more people than snowmobiles so we volunteered (we were actually volunteered by everyone else) to stay behind and sled and they'd go for a "short" ride and then come back and switch. We were fine with that, so they left and we headed for the hill and the GIGANTIC slide. We went down it a few times and packed the snow down pretty well at the bottom. My sister got hit in the face with a brick of snow and got a bloody nose. She finally go that under control and then had the great idea we should all do a train on the slide and get a picture. The first attempt failed so we had to try again. It was hard to fit everyone and to get us all in we had to have the first person (Julie) slide down a little bit, so Jamee had her feet around Julie then I had my feet around Jamee and we slid down a little bit. We got a couple pictures but it was hard to fight gravity.

Josh kept prying Jamee's fingers off the pole so I told Julie to just go and then Josh gave me a good push and Jamee and I headed down. Sadly this ended in tragedy. The slide is huge and we had a lot of speed. My feet were still up around Jamee and there was nothing to slow me down as I came to the bottom where the snow had been packed down. My poor poor tailbone took the full hit and I wanted to die just a little bit. I layed there in the snow for a minute or 2 laughing, to keep myself from crying. It hurt SO BAD.

We played in the snow for a while longer, and after I got a snowball in the face and there had been jumping off of buildings and flying through the air we decided we were done. Now we had been outside for over 2 hours and still no snowmobiles. We went inside and took off our winter garb and explored the cabin, Julie, Josh, and Jamee played in the wood box and then we decided they were never coming back and we should just leave. We were just pulling out when my sisters friend came back. They had had a horrible time and had been stuck most of the time. We decided we got the good end of the deal (despite the broken behind and bloody nose), told her friend not to feel bad and headed back. It was a really fun day, but the drive back home, church for 3 hours and then a drive home Monday wasn't very fun for me. I also had to go to the dentist where I had 2 fillings replaced and then the dermatologist where I had 5 moles removed. It was quite the weekend. Loved it!

Masquerade!

So not a whole lot to report. The year thus far has been pretty dull. Monday the 3rd I did have to go to court. One of my former roommates had a stalking injunction against her ex-boyfriend and he contested it so it had to go to court and I was going to be a witness that he's a psycho stalker man. Luckily I didn't end up having to testify since they changed the stalking injunction to a restraining order and we all got to go home. Really the rest of the week was pretty dull. Friday night I went to bed at 10:20. It was fantastic! Saturday morning I woke up early (since I had gone to bed so early) and headed to the temple. After the temple it was errands and lunch with some girls from my ward. That was fun. Then I went home to make a mask. Some of you may not believe this, but I am not very crafy. I don't have the patience for it and I'm not very creative. I was on the phone with my sister quite a bit asking her what I needed to buy and how to do it and what I should do. Now you may be asking why was I making a mask. Well you can't go to a masquerade without a mask! (you can, but it's not very cool). So I got myself all ready for the big Mocktail, Masquerade dance and headed over to my friend Pam's house to do her hair. Our friend David showed up to her house in jeans, silly boy doesn't know how to read. My friend Josh came and picked us all up and we took David back to his house so he could change. The dance was SO MUCH FUN!!!! The entire reason for me to go to the dance was for my friend Aubrey's birthday, instead of a party they decided we should go to this dance. I'm so glad we did. The Mocktails were so fun and we danced the night away like crazy people and at the end of the night we were still okay to drive home.
This Sunday was my last time in my old ward. My records have now been moved and names have been submitted for my replacement in the RS presidency. It's sad but at the same time exciting to be moving on to something new.