Things That Make Me Happy

• Cafe Rio for dinner AND having leftovers for lunch the next day
• Finding out I passed my CHES exam. I'm a certified health education specialist!
• Having a sweet husband to remind me I don't have to do something just because everyone else is doing it
• Going to the temple and feeling its peace
• Otter pops
• Hearing from old friends
• Sunshine
• Good hair days
• A clean car with a full gas tank
• Finding new ways to improve my health
• Laughing with my husband
• Movie Nights
• Good friends
• Getting my diploma in the mail 
• Getting more comfortable with my new job
• Slowly starting to figure out where our life is headed in the next 5ish years 
• Supportive family
• Late-night talks
• Repentance
• Watermelon

New year, new semester.

What am I supposed to be doing right now? Writing a paper. That doesn't sound very fun so I'm going to sit here in my room typing so that my roommates think I'm being a good student :)

Life is so great right now. I know I say that all the time, but it truly is. I couldn't be happier! I had a wonderful Christmas. I got to spend three whole weeks at home with my family and friends. I had so many fun lunch dates with old friends and got to see my returned missionary buddies. Can't believe they're all home!! Oh, and even got to have my old job back for those three weeks. SO grateful for that. Yay for making money and seeing my old work buddies again!

A new semester has started and I'm definitely struggling to get back into my studious routine. It's so much more fun to hang out with my friends, meet new people, waste time on Pinterest, etc. I am really enjoying my classes, though. I love being in upper-division classes and learning the things I actually WANT to learn. It's the best. Yes, the classes are hard and will be pretty demanding as the semester goes on, but I am so excited for it all. I recently changed my emphasis to environmental/occupational health to health promotion and I couldn't be more excited. I love that I've found something that will lead me to a career that I'm passionate about and will enjoy completely. No, I won't be making as much money as I would have been as a PA, but I know I will enjoy this much more. It's a perfect fit :)

Since it's the new year, I've set some goals for myself so I can grow and improve. I'm excited because in my pathophysiology class, we have the opportunity to make a healthy change in our life for a whole month. We're required to write about our experiences in a daily journal and at the end, write an evaluation. My goal is to exercise for at least thirty minutes five days a week. Believe it or not, I haven't been doing well with exercising since high school. It'll be good for me to get back in shape. Can't wait!

Also... I have a new room-roommate since my cute Becca is leaving on a mission in a couple of weeks. My new roommate's name is Lexi. I adore that girl. Seriously.  Nobody could ever truly replace Becca, but Lexi is super duper great. We hit it off so well, and she's quickly become one of my best friends. She's so sweet, fun, and just all-around wonderful. I just love her and am so grateful for that girl!

Obviously, my other roommates are still fantastic :) They're so patient with me and I love them! Couldn't ask for better roommates. Love you, Sarah and Whit!

While I'm listing the roommates I'm grateful for, I might as well give a shout out to our "fifth roommate," Alex. He's our FHE brother and comes over all the time. We've loved having him around to fix things, tell us stories, give advice, watch YouTube videos, and just have a good time. He's definitely taken the "big brother" role for the apartment and we're grateful for him.

Other exciting news... my family is coming down this weekend to visit and go to my cousin's mission farewell! I can't wait to see them!

Well, that's all I have for now. Sorry this post is so random (okay, all my posts are super random).

Until next time...

Love life :)

So I'm really inconsistent with this whole blogging thing, oh well. I have all sorts of exciting new to share, though!

1. Missionaries really DO come home after two years! My cousin, Josh, came home last Thursday; my friend, Sam Whitworth, came home last Saturday; and  another friend, Kendall Hatch, comes home this weekend! I never thought this day would come. I can't wait to see them in a couple of weeks!
2. I get to go home to see my family in just two weeks! TWO WEEKS! I haven't seen my cute little sisters in over three months. I'm so excited to see them along with my parents and extended family for Josh's homecoming talk.
3. My roommates are just fantastic :) Karaoke nights, drinking mass amounts of hot chocolate, group dinners, watching Friends, creeping on the mailman, and baking are regular activities at our apartment.I didn't know a single one of these girls when I moved in, but you would never guess it now! We've become so close and I really don't know what I'd do without them!
4. I'm making friends! One of my biggest fears when I first moved down here was that I would have trouble making friends and being social. Luckily, this has not been the case.
5. I love my job and the people I work with! I feel so blessed to have a job in an area where unemployment rates are fairly high, especially one that I enjoy so much! It helps that my co-workers are lots of fun, too :)
6. School is going really well. I LOVE my public health classes and am learning so much. I'm getting excited to find an internship and eventually a real job where I'll be able to use these skills and help others every day.
7. I'm starting to learn a little bit more about my Heavenly Father's plan for me and my future. It's definitely not the exact path I would have planned for myself, but I know it's going to be so much better.
8. It's finally fall. Fall is my FAVORITE season :) It was even cold enough for me to wear my yellow pea-coat last week. 

Here we go again!

Well, at least I blog once a month, right? Haha! Today is move-in day at my university. Has it really been a whole year?? I can't even believe how fast it's flown by. It's weird to think that within the last year, I've sent out 15 of my best friends on missions. It has been so incredible to watch them all grow.

It was this time last year when I met one of my very best friends, Liz, and started a closer friendship with Beth Ann, the prettiest little red-head at our whole university! We've been through SO much together!! Liz's knee surgery, our chemistry classes (yeah for ice cream to get us through!), boys, my random teary-eyed break downs, Beth Ann's many dates, oh the list could go on! I could never thank these girls enough for putting up with me through all of this.

Also within the last year, I discovered who my best friends really were all along... My family. In high school I never would have thought they'd be my best friends. Nobody really knows me like they do. Nobody but my mom would be able to handle me the way she does :) I love them so much, I really do. I've loved being home for a little while to see my sisters growing up. I helped teach Hailee how to count and recognize colors. She is just my most favorite little munchkin ever! I hope I have a little girl like her one day :) I've loved finally being able to get closer to my cousin, Courtney. She'll be up at school with me this fall and I am so excited to have one of my XC workout buddies back!!!

It's crazy to me how much I've learned and changed in the last year (and how random this blog post is... sorry!) There are so many things that have shaped me into somebody better, and I know there are so many more growing experiences to come. Growing up makes me excited and freaks me out all at the same time! It's just nice to know that I have a Heavenly Father who's watching out for me, giving me experiences I need, and guiding me the whole way through. He has blessed me SO MUCH  this last year... I've had at least two jobs at a time, pulled the grades I need for PA school (except chemistry... maybe if I study this time I'll get a better grade), and so much more! Can't wait to see what the new semester brings!! Sophomore year, here I come!! :)

Jesus wants me for a sunbeam...

Wow! I know I say this all the time, but my life is just so crazy! It seems like ever since graduation I've been running a million miles a minute. I've been sleep deprived, worn down, and pushed to my limits... So lately I've tried to take a second and look around. I realized the other day that I've been living and working for tomorrow, next year, 5 years from now, and for anything but today. Once again, I've gotten caught up in the future instead of looking at the beautiful things today. So... I decided to look at some primary kids with simple lives and learn from them.

I've been so blessed to have so many little kids in my life. They are the best examples to me! Little kids have so many Christlike attributes and for some crazy reason, as we grow up we lose them and have to work to regain them. Probably one of the most Christlike people I know is my sister, Emily. She's 10 years old, and a master at patience. You can poke her, tease her, follow her around begging to play with her friends, break promises to her, (this list could go on forever...) and she still forgives. She loves everyone the same no matter what they do to her. She doesn't really yell or complain, just does as she's asked. I hope one day I can be like Emily. In fact, she has impressed me so much that I have decided I will name my first little girl Emma, after my sister, Emily, and Emma Smith, wife of Joseph Smith, Jr.

Another Christlike individual is my neighbor, Davis. He is honestly one of my favorite little boys ever. He's probably 4 or 5 and I just love him. The other day I was watching him have a nerf gun war with his friends. The two older boys had huge nerf guns that could hold 55 "bullets" and you could just go crazy shooting them. They also had little lasers that helped aim so you could shoot more accurately. Davis had this tiny little nerf gun that only held one "bullet" at a time and he had to reload it every time he shot... He didn't have anything to help him aim either. Obviously, Davis lost every time. The funny part is, he hardly even complained. He'd give his best, shoot a couple people, lose within a few seconds, and then just go sit out and wait until the next round so he could try again. I thought about how many times I complain about my circumstances when they really aren't that bad. There are people in this world that clearly have an unfair advantage and don't complain at all- they just fight with all they have and wait for the next time to try again. I have been blessed with so much, why am I always complaining? (Side note... I also love Davis because he thinks I'm smarter than his brother, Mark, and "really REALLY pretty")

Anyway, enough of my story time. I'm going to get off this computer and go enjoy the simple things in life like eating raspberries and peas out of the "ground" (garden) with my baby sister and this week try harder to really find the joyful things in my journey :)

Spontaneous Family Adventure Weekend

Holy cow! It's been a really long time since I posted! Sorry! I guess life just got all crazy on me! Lucky for you, I'm posting about my wonderful "spontaneous family adventure." My mom decided that we needed a family trip so Friday morning after my anat & phys class we all loaded up and got ready to head to a nearby water park. Well, the adventure started before we even left. I come from a family of 6 girls and so packing requires a lot of effort. After a fair amount of struggles, we fit everything in the car... unfortunately we couldn't see out the back window. The sad part is, we were only going to be gone for two days and we didn't even bring any makeup, straighteners, hair dryers, etc. because we were going camping. So finally... we were off! On our way to the water park we watched one of my new favorite movies-- Megamind. That's really all I have to say about the car ride.

So we got to the water park and I spent a lot of time with my sister, Sidney. We decided that we didn't really want to get our hair wet because we didn't want it looking ridiculous for our adventures the next day. Well... that idea didn't last too long. The lazy river had waterfalls/sprinklers and little girls were out to get us. They kept splashing us and trying to knock us off of our tubes... so we gave up and just had fun. It was nice to finally be able to spend quality time with her... that hasn't happened much since I graduated from high school.

After the water park, we went to Big Jud's- home of the 1 pound burgers. We had some really good burgers and fries (which they hand-cut so they are MUCH healthier than fast food. Random fact.) We also had some really good ice cream. I just got rocky road (in a cup because I don't like my ice cream in a cone) and split it with my two-year-old sister, Hailee. I just love her :)

Next we took of for Yellowstone to stay the night in my grandparents' motor home. We started to watch Yogi Bear but that didn't go over so well. We ended up just rockin out to my dad's 80's music the rest of the way and it was really fun. Somehow we managed to fit 8 people in the camper. We had the 3 middle girls on one bed, the 6-year-old on the floor, and I slept on a twin-sized bed with the two-year-old. Long story short, I didn't sleep very well that night :)

The next morning we got up and had a really nice breakfast thanks to my wonderful mom. Then we packed up... again... and headed off to Mesa Falls! Hailee thought it was a really awesome slide and wanted to go down it. She was sad when we wouldn't let her. Afterward we stopped for a picnic lunch. We met a baby squirrel and Karlie threw Cheetos at it. She was amazed when he started to eat them and demanded that we take a picture. Hailee started to pretend to be a mosquito and eat people and I got attacked by a killer moth and screamed. My dad made fun of me. Typical.

Next stop... feeding the fish! We had leftover pancakes from breakfast so we decided to feed the fish by warm river. I loved it! Feeding fish/ducks is seriously one of my all-time favorite things! I don't know why, but I just love it. My sisters had fun too :)

Then... we went floating down warm river. I really wasn't excited about it because I knew it would result in screaming because the water was too cold and the little rapids would be too scary but my mom made us go. Here's how it went... Karlie and Emily barely touched the water and then refused to get in. Emily got forced in and we took off. Hailee and I made it without any problems- good thing cuz she kept saying, "Ninz (Lindz) I don't anna get wet." Brittney completely fell off her tube. Mom and Emily made it safely. Round two... Karlie decided to go, I refused, Emily went on her own tube, Brittney went too. Mom and Karlie get dumped into the icy water, Karlie lost her flip-flops and started screaming, "Get me out of this place!" I had to jump in and try to rescue Karlie's flip-flops (funny, because when we went boating on the 4th of July, Karlie got knocked off a tube and I had to jump in and save her because she didn't believe her life jacket made her float. That's a great story. Ask me about it sometime.) Anyway, Brittney made it down okay. Emily made it, but then left her tube floating down the river so I had to jump in and get it for her. After all that, we decided it was time to go home.

We rocked out to more 80's tunes on the way home and Karlie kept asking why we couldn't watch a movie. We just kept saying, "in a minute!" because we were having a lot more fun listening to music than we would have watching a movie. When we got home, Mom made scones and we unpacked. You think this is the end of the story, but it isn't... Spontaneous family weekend is still going. Today is Sidney's 17th birthday so we celebrated it and now we're off to make s'mores and roast starbursts and taffy :)

Wonderful week :)

Pretty much I am SO blessed! Here's a list of things I'm grateful for this week (obviously not in order of importance)...

1. Missionaries. In the last two weeks I have received 5 missionary letters!! I've gone like over a month without a single one and they all came at the same time :) I love missionaries so much!!

2. My roommates. They are seriously the best! I love all the random things we do together- like grow beans in a cup (which is actually working very well). They are such amazing girls and I love them all more than I could ever express.

3.Sunshine. In fact, my shoulders got a little burned at my track meet today! I'm so excited to have the sun come out! I love summer. I love all the beautiful flowers everywhere. Believe it or not, I actually had the urge to mow a lawn yesterday. SO weird. I think it was the sunshine and the smell of spring

4. My family! They are so supportive of me! I couldn't ask for a more wonderful family. :)

5.My Heavenly Father. For the last year or so I've been trying to plan out my life and it hasn't really been working. He kept telling me to just be patient and things would work out... Well this week I was guided to the right places at the right time and a whole life plan was thrown at my face. It was so perfect! It's definitely not an easy one, but I'm so grateful for the opportunities I'm going to have along the way :) I'm grateful for the opportunities my Heavenly Father gives me to learn and to grow- that he doesn't always give me what I ask but instead gives me what I need.

6. My body. Being a somewhat science-oriented person I've been taking lots of science classes and have had the opportunity to learn quite a bit about the human body. I will never cease to be amazed! I can't believe how wonderful our bodies are! They can see and feel and touch and taste and hear and move and so many wonderful amazing things!  I'm grateful for exercise and healthy food and how wonderful it makes me feel.