I haven't written in a long time and I very rarely write in my journal so I want to try and start keeping up my blog so that it can become a journal of sorts...we will see how well I do. I need to catch up on a few highlights of the summer though. First off I stayed in school...I know...a great way to start the summer off :) I applied for a scholarship for spring/summer semesters and miraculously I was awarded it and I decided while I was being given the opportunity to take classes for free I better take it, thank you all to all those tithe payers who made it possible for me to do that! I didn’t take any pictures so you will just have to take my word for it, but it is so pretty. All the trees are in bloom and everything is green.

In May the elementary school does a “fun run” it used to be a 5-k, but I think they have cut it down to just 2 miles now. Regardless it was my sisters last time to run it. She had asked if I would be there to cheer her on at the end and I said I wasn’t sure, but probably. Well that morning my mom came down to wake me and I was so tired and said I was just going to sleep. My mom left and I felt so bad I couldn’t sleep anymore. I got up, showered, got ready for the day and still felt terrible so I decided I would drive over and meet my mom. When I got upstairs I realized my mom took my car, but used her keys. This caused a problem because I don’t have keys to my mom’s car. I decided I better just start walking. When I got to the top of my street I was my sister round the corner and start heading toward her school. I decided I could catch her if I ran bare foot. Within seconds the shoes were off and I started to run. It felt so good and I started to pass people making my way closer and closer to her. The adults all along the route looked and pointed and kept saying “you don’t have any shoes on”…duh I took them off and they were in my hand :) Anyways I caught up to my sister and we ran almost the rest of the way until I broke off so that I could be with my mom at the finish line to welcome her in. I am so glad I started to walk :)

I went to 3 graduations on the same day. First Brianna graduated from 6th grade! I seriously can’t believe that my sister is old enough to have graduated from elementary school! Next I went to my Cousin Rachel’s graduation and then my friend Shamae’s :) Needless to say it was a very, very long day.

My cousin Jillian got married in June and it was so much fun. She got married in the Salt Lake City temple and it was absolutely gorgeous outside. The whole week it had been offal. It had rained nonstop for several days and we were all worried because the wedding reception was supposed to be outside in my grandparent’s back yard. The morning of her wedding I woke up and looked outside and saw blue sky. I was so grateful! Prayers really work :). Most of the family was able to make it to the temple where we took pictures. It is so crazy to have her married but Brandon is amazing and they are so perfect for each other. There was dancing at the wedding reception out on the tennis court and I think we all might have had a little too much fun.

At the beginning of the summer my family decided that we would build a shed out back so that we would have some more storage. It became a never ending project, but it was really fun. Even though my mom went a little crazy as you can see from the picture ;)Some girls from my singles ward decided they wanted to hike Timp. I have never done this and wasn’t going to do it until I decided that I might never have the chance again. Let me preface this by saying I was NOT physically ready for this, but the mind has a way of making things happen that wouldn’t otherwise :). We started the trip at 5 in the morning and I thought I was going to die because I NEVER wake up that early. I am so glad I did it though because it was so much fun. We went up the side that starts from American Fork Canyon. We started on the trail and all of us were really pumped to go so we started walking. We walked and walked until we came to a road. We crossed and then Sister Healey said she thought maybe we were going the wrong way because she didn’t remember crossing a road the last time she hiked Timp. So we turned around until we came to a fork in the road. We decided that we had taken the wrong fork so we took the other one. Needless to say we had taken the completely wrong trail. By the time we figured it out it was too late. The only reason we even realized it was because we saw we were on the wrong mountain…whoops. We decided that we had to just keep going until we reached Timpanogos mountain…that was probably a bad idea :). We walked over rocks, through a meadow and then we came to a stream. A stream doesn’t seem like a bad thing until you have to cross it and you really don’t want to get wet. Well we were looking all around for a way to cross it when Sister Healey cried out in pain. We had walked straight into a grove of stinging nettle. Can I just say I was really, really grateful I had decided to wear pants that day. We finally made it across the stream thanks to Amanda who jumped in and put a log across for the rest of us. We started to hike the real path and then we went too far so we had to turn around again. Thankfully those were our only mistakes of the day. They probably cost us 1 and ½ hours, but that is alright it was worth it for all the memories we gained. It was absolutely beautiful. There were waterfalls coming down the mountain because it was so early and everything was still so green because it had rained so much. The hike took 8 hours and we had to stop a lot along the way, but it was totally worth it. We had a theme song along the way “Life is a climb, but the view is great” which is in the Hannah Montana movie. It was so true. The hike was hard, but I wouldn’t have appreciated the view at the top nearly as much if it had been easy. I got home and felt like I would never be able to move my legs again, but even if that had been true, which it wasn’t, it would have been totally worth it. Now I look at that mountain and think “I climbed you…I can do anything”. I would have to say that it was definitely one of my life’s major accomplishments.

We had a visitor from New Zealand come and stay at my Aunt’s house. While she was here we did some pretty cool things. First we went out to the salt flats which wasn’t really cool, but there were all these old cars that were racing and they were really cool. I think that is something I will only need to do once :). It was my grandma’s 80th birthday while Bev (the lady from New Zealand) was here. Because my grandma didn’t want a really big party we just had a ladies night with some of the people closest to her. We all met at her house and then went to eat at this café. It was really good food. I got like a 4 cheese macaroni type thing. Then after we were all done we went back up to Nomi’s (my grandma) house and told stories about everyone. We went around the circle of women saying things that we could remember or that we admired about that person. It was really cool to hear stories about the women because a lot of them I had never heard. The people that were there were: Nomi, Bev, Michelle, Me, my mom, Aunt Kimber, Aunt Julie, Aunt Denise, her mom Marcia, Aunt Heather, Aunt Melissa, and Aunt Cheryl. Most of us stayed the night and then those who didn’t came back the next morning and we had waffles for breakfast. It was so much fun.

I also had a wedding reception to go to this summer. My roommate Amber got married to the perfect guy for her! I was so excited to go to Idaho Falls. Bev wanted to see Yellowstone while she was here so I drove her and Nomi up to Idaho Falls with me. While I was at the wedding they just had fun at the hotel. I was able to spend tons of time with another roommate Marissa and get caught up with her. When Amber walked out of the temple I couldn’t believe how beautiful she looked. The dress was perfect, the shoes were perfect, the hair was perfect…but more than that she looked so happy. You could tell that she was meant to be with Justin. The wedding reception was beautiful too!

From Idaho Falls we headed out towards Yellowstone. We saw that there was a small park that had bears and you were able to drive right past them. We decided that we would stop there. I am so glad we did. The bears were right by the car and they were wandering all over the place. Then once you left the area where the big bears were you were able to go to the gift shop. Through the gift shop though was the best surprise. There were bear cubs in a pen!!!!!! I took so many pictures. From there we went to Yellowstone which was a disappointment because everything was burned, but we came out of Yellowstone on the South side. We didn’t realize that the road had all been torn up :). For several miles it was just dirt road. It was quite the adventure driving through. We hit the Grand Tetons which made the trip through Yellowstone totally worth it! They were amazing.

To end the summer we had a big family party for Nomi’s birthday. I love getting together with the family so it was so much fun. It was the perfect ending to the perfect summer. I had such a great time doing so many things I had never done before. Now I am ready for a hard school year and then another summer :).