My Room

I am sitting on my bed right thinking that first I am a horrible blogger and second I have so many good memories of this room. First it was my brother's and mine. We shared a bunk bed that had been my dad's when he was a boy. It squeaked whenever you moved so trying to get to sleep at night was not always easy. We had those blinds that you pull down and if you don't pull them just right they shoot back up and spin around the circle at the top. Since I have 5 windows in my room, 3 of which are the whole South wall, we had a time getting all the windows covered at one time. Aaron and I used to torture our babysitters when they came over. We would tell them that there was still a crack of light that we could see. We knew that if you pulled the blind anymore it would fly back up to the top but it took the babysitters a while to figure that one out :)
After a while the bunk beds had to come apart. They were just too old and dangerous to be on top of each other so...we had two twin beds in this room. I don't know how we fit them both but we did. We barely had room for a little night stand between them. My mom decided to do an ocean theme at this point. My Grandma and her made curtains that fit between each window. They blocked more light from coming in but it still was pretty light in here (when you have 5 windows it is hard to keep mother nature outside). After he moved out Brianna moved in.
We kept the two twins for a while but they were really old by this point. A lady in my ward called and said she had some furniture she would like to give us. It had been her daughter's when she was growing up but there just wasn't room for it anymore. There was a day bed with a trundle bed underneath. A chest of drawers, a desk, and a shelving unit that went above the desk. At that time my bed was the trundle. It worked for a while but it got really annoying some mornings when I was so tired I didn't want to push my bed back under. Sharing a room was also night my idea of fun. I was supposed to be getting older and I wanted my freedom. I decided I no longer wanted to share a room so I kicked Brianna out. I have no idea now how I got my mom to agree with the idea but she did and that is all that is important.
Finally my own room. Now I had the day bed and I didn't have to push or pull anything out to sleep at night! What a feeling. I knew I wanted to get rid of the ocean theme, but what did I want instead...well we went to New Zealand and I knew. I wanted a room that was warm and inviting, peaceful, earthy, and green! It took a while but I finally got the room of my dreams. I found a bed set online that I loved. It has palm trees on it and it is all different shades of green. Next step...paint. I wanted two shades of green. An accent wall and the rest the same color. It took a lot of different swatches and opinions but I finally picked out the two greens. One green was really light and the other was just a little darker. My room was coming together so well. With paint on the walls and a new bed spread I thought I was in heaven. Next came my chair. The one I love to sit in when I am reading. We had to figure out something with the windows. Because I have so many it was going to cost a fortune to get blinds. A fortune I did not have. My mom had been looking whenever she had the chance and she came upon the coolest blinds. They were 8 feet long which was perfect because I would only need two. One for each outside wall and they were only $12 each. That is right I got blinds for $12! And not just those ugly venetian blinds. My blinds are made out of bamboo. They are the kind that usually go on decks and roll up. They are perfect for the day. I can see out but nobody can see in. We still needed something for the night though. My aunt who is always finding great deals found some fabric for really cheap and it was green! It took a long time but my mom and I made curtains for my room. There are two pieces of fabric on each one so that the light can't get through. Now my room is mother nature proofed :) I love it. And finally the tree. Yes I have a tree in my room. It looks like a palm tree! My parents got it for their wedding. It has been in many different rooms and at one point my dad's friend had it at his house, but now it is in my room and it is finally home.
I have had so many conversations with my mom and friends in this room. Whenever I need to feel calm and peaceful I come here. It is an oasis from the world. Yesterday we put risers under my bed so we could fit some stuff under it. (After living away from home I have collected way too much stuff for this little room to hold and new places had to be found to hide stuff :) Anyways it is one of those changes that makes the room feel completely new. I told my mom I finally have a big girl bed now because I have to jump to get onto it. In the process of getting my bed on the risers and sticking blankets under my bed I found a spider. A tiny one but a spider no less. And the tiny ones grow into big ones. Well it had to go. I was definitely not going to let it stay in my room. This is my oasis and my oasis doesn't have bugs in it! Well my mom wouldn't kill it and neither would Brianna so it was up to me. Me the one who is terrified of spiders. So I decided to be brave and get rid of the spider. I tore off a piece of cardboard from a small box I had on my desk. I put it in front of the spider and waited for it to crawl on the cardboard. When it would I would scream. I thought that it would get scared and stop and it did just right after it had crawled off the piece of cardboard. Well my mom and Brianna found this very entertaining. I was getting so mad at the stupid spider. I did eventually get rid of it but it took a while.
I love having lived in the same house for almost my whole life because there are so many good memories here!

Love

The other day I was reading a talk for one of my classes. It was all about the power of forgiveness and how to attain peace, both in our own lives and even more in the world. There was a simple formula that was given to attain the peace that we all desire. It was given by William Gladstone, he said "We look forward to the time when the power of love will replace the love of power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace." How simple and yet we still have wars and contentions.
Love is just a four letter word but it can change what happens to entire countries and civilizations. If instead of loving power people had loved those around them we never would have had World War II or the War in the Middle East. Thousands of lives would have been saved and thousands more would never have known the brutality of ruthless leaders.
This is my proposition. If for this Valentine's Day instead of buying our "valentine" chocolates or flowers we went and showed someone that we loved them we might be able to change the world for good. I often hear people say things like "I can't change the world by myself so I won't even try". You are right, with that attitude you won't change the world, but I think if we all actively try to change things something might happen. So this Valentine's day I am going to show someone how much I love them.
I might not change the world today, but tomorrow I know it will be that much better because someone out there knows I love them.

Disappointment

You know when someone looks at you a certain way or says something and you just know that they are disappointed in you. Well whenever that happens to me I want to scream and cry and explain my side. You know that they don't have all the information. And usually you are already feeling bad about the situation. They don't have any reason to feel disappointment in you, at least I hope not. Anyways today I had this math test. I wasn't as prepared for it as I should have been, but given the circumstances that led up to the test I did my best. Well I did really badly on it. I was a little disappointed in myself, but looking back on the past two weeks I don't know that I would change anything if I were to do it all again. I learned in different areas. There were different classes that needed attending to and I am trying to work on my social skills :) Anyways I had told a few people about the test and they had all said something to the extent of "Oh man I am sorry. I hate tests like that. You will do better next time." You know what that did...it motivated me to do better next time. I went home to drop some things off quickly and my mom asked me how it went. I told her that it went badly. She said something like"I am sorry..." and then my dad cut in. He told me that it was because I wouldn't allow him to help me and then went on telling me that next time I better do better. Not a word of encouragement, just disappointment. Well dad now I just feel horrible. I feel like I have failed you in some way because for one math test in one math class in one semester of college I failed. So yep I must be a failure...only I don't want to be a failure!!! I want to be the person that does better the next math test because I was supported by those around me. I want to be able to miss a few questions on a test and not beat myself up about it. I want to be someone you are proud of! Alright I have decided what I am going to do. I am going to be the person that everybody else sees and just hope and pray that at some point that will be good enough for you. And for anybody out there that looks at people with disappointed eyes. STOP!!! It never helps the person it only hurts them.

Meteor Shower

So this morning there was a meteor shower. Cicily, Amelia, me, and a friend of theirs Sean went up the canyon to watch it. We woke up at 3 and drove up the canyon until we found a really good place to get out and watch. It was so much fun and the stars were AMAZING! Deffinatley worth loosing sleep over! We might have to make this a tradition every time there is a meteor shower :)

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 :).

New Apartment

Aubree and I are sitting in my apartment right now. I wish all my friends could be here :)

Roommates

It is amazing what pictures can do. I was looking at pictures of my roommates and so many memories came back. We had our struggles like every apartment, but we seemed to get closer because of them. These girls feel like my long lost sisters :) I love you guys!!!!!