Christy's Corner

New blog

2008-08-05T11:19:00.003-06:00

I'm starting a new blog. It's called A Lively Bunch. Isn't that great??!! Please change your blog rolls to our new address: http://alivelybunch.blogspot.com/ (after you look at my bridal pictures here first, of course!) See you at our new blog!

Bridals

2008-08-05T10:24:00.011-06:00

The wedding was sooooo fantastic. I couldn't have asked for a more wonderful day. The sealing ceremony in the temple was beautiful, the reception was so fun, and everything went superbly. I'll post more about it later, but for now....here's my lovely bridal pictures. Enjoy!

I love how the cowgirl one turned out. It's my favorite!

The photos were taken by Elisha Snow at Garden Park and the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Oh, it was so fun to feel like a princess!

I'm getting married tomorrow!!! Auggh!

2008-07-24T15:14:00.003-06:00

So all the plans are made, everything is done and ready to go. It's kind of a weird feeling knowing that in less than 24 hours from right now, I will be married! It's one of those things that you think about your whole life, and now that it's actually here you don't quite know what to do. I've been getting everything ready for the past 3 months....it's so strange to not have any wedding stuff to do right now.

Even though it is crazy, I feel so calm and peaceful about it all. (I definately have had my freak outs over the past several weeks though.) But I'm so excited to get married and be with my best friend forever. I feel so lucky and blessed to have him in my life.

This morning we got up at the crack of dawn to run the Days of 47 10K race. It was so much fun! I love that we are both into stuff like that and can enjoy it together.

So, we are going to Victoria, Canada for our honeymoon. Fun! So this blog won't be very exciting for the next week or so. And....next time I post, I'll be Christy Lively. Weird!

Bye bye Mickey...

2008-07-20T14:04:00.004-06:00

...and hello big, beautiful diamond! Matt gave me my real ring last night and it is so beautiful! I love it so much.

He set up a cute little table in the middle of the park, complete with martinellis, a red rose and a red checkered tablecloth. We had a lovely picnic dinner, and then he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him (again)!

It was so cute! I said yes (again) and our wedding is in 5 days! Holy smokes!

I love you Matt!

Showers

2008-07-20T13:47:00.008-06:00

This has been the week of bridal showers. Fun stuff! My dear friend Caron threw me a bridal shower pool party. We decided that we just wanted to have a fun party instead of a lame shower, so we had a pool party/BBQ. It was tons of fun. We made kabobs and had a grand time swimming in the Margetts' pool.

Bekah was not there so the synchronized swimming did not happen, but we did discover that it is much easier to do chin-ups on a diving board than on those chin-up bars in the high school gym.

I got lots of fun gifts. Thanks everyone!

One of the funniest gifts I received was from Sarah Ann. She said that a new home needs to have lots of pictures, so she gave me a lovely one to start with. It's Sarah Ann and her brothers. I about fell in the pool laughing! I also received a very funny gift from Emma, but I will need to refrain from posting a picture of it on this G-rated blog.

We also discovered that some of our friends have some hidden talents. Here is Jill demonstrating her newfound talent.

My grandma and aunts also threw me a shower this week. It was a lot of fun. Here is one of the games we played. There were a bunch of candy bars in the middle of the floor and you had to guess which candy bar went with which word on the poster.

I also got lots of fun gifts at this shower. My favorite was a quilt from my grandma and aunts. My grandma makes a quilt for all her grandkids when they get married, and she decided this one would be perfect for Matt and me.

It is a reversible BYU/Utah quilt!!! How funny is that? I love it! Now the only problem is that we may have a disagreement on which side to put facing up. Hee hee! What a fun week!

Tri tri again

2008-07-14T09:42:00.006-06:00

On Saturday, Matt and I completed the Echo Triathlon. None of the events got canceled and neither of us got injured. Hurray! I didn't do so hot, but I had a lot of fun. We decided to do the sprint distance instead of the olympic since we haven't had much time to devote to our training because of wedding planning and such. But before you think we are pansies, the sprint distance is still pretty intense...it's a 1/2 mile swim, 12 mile bike, and a 3 mile run. Matt did awesome and got an overall time of about 1:35, with a 17 minute swim. Sweet! I pretty much sucked, but at least I finished all in one piece. And we had a lot of fun, which is really all that matters.

The course was awesome! I loved it! I think it's my favorite out of all the races we have done. I am so lucky to have such a great fiance who likes to do this kind of stuff with me. :)

Last week, I had to go to a conference in Park City for work. There was a Cannondale bike conference going on at the same time. So on Thursday night, Matt came up to Park City to hang out and we went and saw all the new bikes. We even got to "test drive" some. I test drove a sweet road bike and now I want a road bike really bad. It makes such a difference.

Matt was in heaven being surrounded by all the bike stuff and bike people. It was a lot of fun. Oh yeah, and I saw Elder Nelson at the temple last week. He smiled at me and shook my hand and said hello. Two apostle sightings in one week! Lucky me!

Cowboy boots, a wedding dress, and Pres. Eyering

2008-07-03T09:15:00.004-06:00

Earlier this week I was getting my bridal pictures taken in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and guess who walked by? President Eyering! He smiled and waved at me and had this cute little grin on his face. It was so fun! I wish I would have thought to get my picture taken with him.

For some of my bridal pictures, I really wanted to wear my cowboy boots and hat, and so I did. I was walking around Temple Square in my wedding dress, cowboy boots and cowboy hat and EVERYONE was staring at me. It was so funny! And I got several hilarious comments from lots of people like, "Oh, it must be a shotgun wedding." or "There's got to be a story behind those boots." There really is no story, I just thought it would be fun. And it was. That's it.

Weekend retreat

2008-07-02T10:54:00.008-06:00

Each summer we take our student leaders on a retreat to help them bond with the other students and also to teach them leadership principles. This year we took them to Salt Lake and Park City. We visited many of the Church's historical sites and learned a ton of cool things.

We hiked Ensign Peak and had a really neat devotional at the top. We saw Brigham Young's house (the pink one!), and went to This Is The Place State Park.

The park was so much fun. I had never been there before, but there is so much to do. You can see an old blacksmith shop, cabinet makers, dance hall, old cabins from the 1800s, and more. Here are some of the student in the barber shop.

At one of the houses we learned about courting candles. When the gentlemen would come over to the house to court the ladies, the father would light this courting candle and when it burned to the next rim, he had to leave. But do you see the little turny thing at the bottom of the candle. If the dad liked the guy, he would raise the candle up so it would take a longer time to burn. Funny huh?

We also went to Memory Grove, Jordanelle Reservoir, the Salt Lake City Cemetery, and more. Here we are having lunch from the back of the van!

The cemetery was really neat. It was fun to see all the past church leaders' graves and learn more about them. Even though spending a weekend with 35 very energetic students is exhausting, I had a ton of fun. Have I mentioned that I love my job?

Sunday afternoon fireside

2008-06-30T12:11:00.003-06:00

Sunday afternoon Matt and I were enjoying the Sabbath when we get a call from Matt's roommate telling him that their apartment building was on fire! He said their specific apartment had not been burned at all (it's on the bottom floor and the fire was on the top floor), but it was really smoky and the firemen had to break down the doorknob to make sure no one was inside. There was also some really gross-smelling water leaking from the ceiling into Matt's room.

So we headed over to the apartment to see what was going on and taped to the door was this big red sign that said it was unsafe to enter.

They told us that the building was unlivable so we had to pack up Matt's stuff and move him out. We just took his clothes and valuables and anything that would absorb the smoke smell and took it over to his parents' house and to Garrett's brother's house. Luckily Garrett is housesitting for his brother for a few weeks, so they can stay there for awhile.

It wasn't quite the fireside we were expecting to attend on Sunday! Now Matt just may move into our apartment a few weeks early instead of waiting til the wedding. He should be able to move in this week and he'll just stay there until we get married since his apartment is unlivable for awhile. No one was hurt though and none of their stuff was damaged, so that was good. What a crazy turn of events!

Walking and Olympians

2008-06-30T09:49:00.004-06:00

At my work, we have these health challenges every two months. For the past two months our challenge was to walk at least 8,000 steps per day. I am proud to report that during the months of May and June I walked a total of 622,479 steps, which averages out to be a little over 10,000 steps per day. Yay for me!

Our next health challenge for the months of July and August is to win the Olympic gold medal. As of July 7, I will officially be an Olympian going for the gold! There are 6 different events--I will be in the biathlon event, which consists of running and swimming. In order to win the gold medal, I have to run a total 60 miles and swim 12,000 yards by the end of August. That averages out to be about 1500 yards of swimming and 7.5 miles of running per week. I can totally do that! Let the games begin!

It's my birthday...shout hurray!

2008-06-19T09:39:00.015-06:00

My birthday celebration started 19 days ago on June 1 and will continue for 11 more days until June 30. Why celebrate just on your birthday when you can celebrate the whole month? Anyway, on June 1 in honor of the first day of my birthday month we had Chinese fondue in China at Greg and Rinda's house.

This is the fondue birthday cake creation that Rinda made for me. It was delicious. :) We enjoyed some Chinese fondue and I got sung to in 4 1/2 languages. Chinese, English, Spanish, Pig Latin and Double Dutch. (Caron only made it through about half of the song in Double Dutch before we started laughing too hard for her to finish, so that is why it was only 4 1/2.)

Then last Saturday, my friends and I headed up to East Canyon for a birthday campfire. It was also Ryan's birthday so we made sure to light a marshmallow on fire for him to blow out. We had birthday tin foil dinners and birthday smores. We had a lovely time. (Well, except for when Bekah's car got rear ended on the way up and we had to assess the damages and talk to the cops.)

Matt did a great job of making our tin foil dinners (they were sooo yummy!) and getting everything together for the campfire adventure. It was so much fun!

Then this morning I woke up early to go for a lovely morning run and found this fun little surprize from my cute roommate, Rachael. I especially love the music card!

Oh yeah, and my sister sent me a text at 12:01 a.m. that said, "Fried Chicken, Country Hog, It's your birthday...HOT DOG!" This is reminicent of our favorite Seattle restaurant...Jimmy Mac's. Whenever we go to Seattle we ALWAYS go there and if the waiters are singing to someone, we all (meaning all my cousins and a few aunts and uncles) stand up and clap and sing with the waiters. Even if we don't know the person whose birthday it is...it is great fun. We even went there for my cousin's wedding dinner and sang the same song. Hee hee!

When I got to work, I found this delicious piece of chocolate cake on my desk from my boss. Then one of my students came and gave me a bag of chocolate-covered cinnamon bears. Have you ever had those? They are divine. And I don't even like normal cinnamon bears, but these ones are so good. And he gave me a card that said, "It's good if you have another birthday because that means you're not dead yet." Ha ha! Another one of my students gave me some more cake. They are so cute!

My grandma, great-grandma, some aunties, and some cousins came to take me to lunch at the Brick Oven.

And cute little Lily Bug came to give me some birthday wishes.

When I came back from lunch these flowers were waiting for me in my office. Thank you Matt! I'm not sure what kind they are but mmmm....they smell good.

Then after work Matt took me on a birthday picnic and then up to Park City to ride the Alpine Slide. It was so much fun! I haven't done that in years!

I lost miserably in the race down the hill, but that was OK.

We had a great view of the sunset as we started down the mountain. Anyway, it was a great birthday and thanks to everyone who helped make it a special day. Here's to a great year of being 28!

Wedding plans update

2008-06-16T10:38:00.012-06:00

Here's a little preview of our engagement photos! (Umm...we had like 700 taken.) We had them taken by Elisha Snow, who used to work at CK Media with me. I think they turned out great. We had so much fun just goofing around during our photo shoot.

Awww.....aren't we cute? Anyway, the wedding plans are coming along quite nicely. I've gotten my wedding dress, we have the temple and the reception center all squared away, we have ordered our flowers and cake and the bridesmaids dresses, and I have finished designing the announcements and sent them off to the printer. Last week we went to go taste cakes and it was so fun! We picked some really different, yet delicious flavors so you'll have to come to our reception to taste them.

China Wrap Up

2008-06-16T10:27:00.003-06:00

OK, so here's the wrap-up from China. On our second to last day there, we took a 5 hour train from Beijing to Chengde, which is a town near the inner-Mongolian border. We slept most of the train ride there because we had only gotten 3 hours of sleep the night before, but I did wake up for a few minutes to see the beautiful Chinese countryside.

When we got to Chengde, we went straight to this Tibetan temple that is supposed to resemble the one in Lhasa, Tibet. It was really pretty.

I finally got brave enough to gong the gong.

And we climbed more stairs. Here is April and me in the gong tower.

The monks were wearing these cool cowboy hat looking hats. Dane told them that he was a cowboy too. And those big cylinder things are prayer wheels. You run down the line of prayer wheels and spin them in a certain direction. Interesting.

I really liked Chengde. It was smaller and prettier, and we could actually see the blue sky. What a trip of a lifetime! China had never been on the top of my list of places I wanted to see, but when the opportunity arose for us to go, I couldn't turn it down. And I'm so glad I went.

China, Part 3

2008-06-12T10:56:00.003-06:00

The architecture in China reminded me a lot of the architecture in New Zealand. I thought that was very interesting. Just the way the beams on the roof were and the beams coming down from the roof. I loved how colorful and bright all the buildings were, and the intricate carvings and paintings were so amazing.

This was the Garden of Harmonious Interests at the Summer Palace. I really loved it. There were so many lily pads in the little lakes and ponds there. I'd never seen a real lily pad before that. The Summer Palace was HUGE! I think we walked about 15 miles that day when we walked around it. Apparently the Empress Cixi built this palace during her 50 year "behind the curtain" reign. Her son died at an early age and then her grandson really couldn't take over until he was old enough, so she had a pretty long reign.

Can you see the amount of stairs? The Summer Palace, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, and lots of the other sites had SO MANY stairs! Buns of steel...that's all I have to say.

We took a short plane ride to Xian mostly to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. Guess who we saw on the plane? The SLC Channel 4 news anchor! Funny huh? In Xian, we also went to the Wild Goose Pagoda and this culture show. The culture show was a bit of a disappointment. The acrobat show we saw in Beijing was much cooler. Those people could seriously do amazing things...like balance on a ladder on a tightrope or juggle 9 balls while tap dancing. Coolness.

They had street vendors everywhere selling questionable things on a stick. I opted for the watermelon on a stick vs. the scorpion on a stick. At the train station they also had little old ladies who were making these crepe egg roll things on the back of their bicycles. I had to try one of course and it actually was pretty good.

The Terra Cotta Warriors in Xian were simply amazing. This emperor back in 200 B.C. spent his whole life planning his funeral. He only ruled for about 17 years and died at the age of 29, but in that time he managed to build a terra cotta replica of his entire army. He employed like 700,000 people to work on it. His tomb is apparently filled with booby traps and mercury and silver streams. Because of the mercury, it has not been excavated, but they have found records of the plans of his tomb.

The warriors were only found in the 70s when some local farmers were drilling for a well and they stumbled upon lots of pottery and artifacts. So they started excavating and found just tons of soldiers, pottery, weapons, terra cotta horses, and just a ton of stuff. Since the 70s they haven't even excavated all of it...it's a work in progress. Each warrior is a replica of an actual person. You can tell because each one has a different face. And they are all life size. It's pretty incredible. I can't imagine living your whole life planning your funeral though. Crazy.

After Xian, we flew to Shanghai. You can tell from this picture how extremely polluted the air is there. Gross! You can't even see the tops of the skyscrapers. Shanghai was very modern and European compared to the other cities we visited. Oh and they have big plans to clean up the air for the Olympics. Like shut down the factories, regulate the cars, and cloud seed to make it rain. I am interested to see how China will look on TV during the Olympics.

The coolest thing that happend in Shanghai was that we got invited to a tea ceremony by some people we met outside the museum. They have a different type of tea pot for each kind of tea and you have to smell it before you drink it. It was really cool. We had the herbal tea selection, and most of it was pretty tasty.

While in Kunshan with Caron's cousins, we got around on electric motor scooters. So fun! Here is Caron driving one of them. I did not attempt to drive one because that was right after my attack by the human leech and I was still feeling traumatized. So I was not up for a crazy driving adventure on a scooter.

Caron's cousins were awesome! They are teaching at an international school in Kunshan. We stayed in the dorms with them and went to their class. It was out of control crazy! The kids were jumping off the walls. But they were cute. They all gasped when they asked how old I was and I told them I was 27.

We also went to church in someone's house in Suzhou. That was pretty cool. There were a lot more people in church than I expected. Another interesting thing is that they have to have separate branches for the Chinese people and the foreigners. They cannot attend church together. But at least we could go to church in China! I just think that is really cool.

OK, I think I just have one more post after this one and then I will be done with the China blogging.

China, Part 2

2008-06-11T09:17:00.002-06:00

OK, here's some more about China. This was a cool temple that we went to at Longqing Gorge just outside of Beijing. It was a pretty small temple, but it was very cool because it was up in the mountains. I really wanted to ring the gong, but that was our first day, so I didn't quite have the courage to. Don't worry, I got brave and rang one later though.

Here are April and Dane in the rowboats at Longqing Gorge.

The dumplings were really good. They were kind of like potstickers. While we were in China, our diet pretty much consisted of noodles, fried rice and dumplings. those were basically the only edible things on the menu.

I've never seen such giant incense sticks! And the huge urns they burn them in. These were pretty much at every temple we went to. And inside all the temples were giant Buddas. Of course we couldn't take pictures of them, but seriously they were huge.

These next few are from Behai and Hohai parks. I loved the parks in China. It was so much fun to people watch there. I just love that people actually go to parks to hang out and do whatever.

They had paddle boats you could take for a spin.

People were doing all sorts of fun things at the park. I loved it.

We went to a water town near Suzhou called Zhouzhaung (I think). It was really cool. The streets were canals just like in Venice and there were these cute little bridges everywhere. We had a bit of an adventure getting there. We hopped on this old, rickety bus and pointed to the name of the town and hoped we were going there. A cute little Chinese girl kind of adopted us and told us where to get off (using gestures of course). And she tried to help us figure out how to get back. We just pointed again and got on a bus and hoped for the best. And we made it safe and sound.

These water towns are like 3,000 years old. We got brave and tried some roasted pork leg for lunch at the water town. Once you cut through the huge layer of fat and actually got to the meat, it was pretty good. And we bartered for pearls and jade.

Tianemen Square. Now that was an interesting place. There were policemen everywhere. It is right across the street from the Forbidden City and in the middle of it there is this huge mausoleum for Mao (the ruler who brought communism into China). To go into the mausoleum you have to go through these security checks and you can't bring any bags or cameras or anything with you. Then you have to take off your hats/sunglasses/etc. and be really quiet. Then you go into the huge building and there is Mao preserved in a glass coffin. It was really creepy.

We also bought tons of souvenirs at the Silk Market in Beijing. It was really overwhelming to have people swarming you trying to sell you stuff, but it was kinda fun to barter with them. I even got a silk Chinese dress tailor made for me.

I've still got more to come, so stay tuned.

China, Part 1

2008-06-09T08:26:00.017-06:00

These pictures are in no particular order (mostly because they all got mixed up when I downloaded them off my camera) so this account of the trip is not in chronological order or anything, but I will do my best to remember the good stories. Oh, and check out Caron's blog for her side of the story. She will probably do a better job at telling it than me.

This is the Great Wall. We went there our first day. It ended up being one of my favorite things we did there. We went to the Badaling section and got stuck in a really bad traffic jam on the way there. People were getting out of their cars and just hanging out...or smoking. Most of the men in China smoked. I don't think I ever saw a woman smoking though. We made sure to listen to that Mulan song on the way. In both English and Chinese. It was great.

Anyway, the wall was just really amazing. It went on and on for as far as the eye could see. It's just really amazing to me that they would put forth so much effort to build a huge wall around the country. And honestly it really wasn't that tall...I don't know how it was supposed to keep people out. Maybe that's what the big watch towers were for.

We discovered that the nickname for China is "The Land of a Million Stairs". OK, so maybe that is just our nickname for it, but seriously there were so many stinkin stairs. Because of all the stairs, the people need to be limber in order to get around. They had these funny exercise things in the parks and along the streets. Here are some Chinese grandmas doing their exercises.

This was one of my favorite things to see...everyone would gather in the parks in the morning to do their exercises. We saw everything from line dancing to ballroom dancing to sword practicing and jump roping to ribbon and fan dances to Tai Chi and hackey sack playing and badmitton. Just tons of stuff. And tons of people participating in the stuff. I loved it. We should go to parks more.

This is Longqing Gorge. It was beautiful. I love those steep mountains. We took a lovely boat ride and rode on this huge dragon escalator. We also rented some ancient rowboats and took those for a spin. And there was a small Buddist temple nestled in some of those mountains. And a place to bungee jump and a tightrope that people were doing tricks on bicycles up above the gorge.

Rain or shine, everyone was sure to have their umbrellas handy. They had such pretty umbrellas there. One girl we were talking to said that all the girls want to be as white as possible so they try to keep the sun out. She also said that since every family is only allowed one child and lots of people want boys, there are lots more men than women in China. This makes it hard for Chinese men to get girlfriends. And it makes it easy for the Chinese women to be very picky. Interesting.

I was telling her that in Utah it's completely the opposite. How we have so many girls, but not enough guys to go around. She said maybe I should get a Chinese boyfriend. I told her I was already taken, so then she told Caron the same thing. It was funny.

We didn't see all that many Chinese men with foreigners though. But we did see a fair amount of Chinese women with foreigners. And the Chinese men that we did see with girlfriends were completely ga-ga over their girlfriends. They probably have to be doting to keep them since the girls can be so picky.

We went to a bonsai garden in Suzhou (a town outside of Shanghai). I really loved the gardens there. They were very peaceful, which was a nice break from being swarmed by people all the time.

This is the leaning tower of China, also in Suzhou. It's really called Tiger Hill, but it really is leaning. You can totally tell in the foundation.

Our first night, April and Dane took us out to a Hot Pot restaurant. They have a big pot in the middle of the table and they cook everything right there. It was delicious. My friend April and her husband, Dane, have been living in Beijing for the past 10 months or so, so they knew exactly what we should see and do and eat while we were there. And they let us stay with them...it was so great. And Caron's cousin has been living in Kunshan (outside of Shanghai) for the past year and we stayed with them too. Thanks guys!

That does it for Part 1. Stay tuned for Part 2. (I have no idea how many parts this trip will take up.)

P.S. I just wanted to add that Blogger was blocked in China. Interesting. April said she has to go through some back way through some U.S. server to get in and view blogs. Facebook is also blocked. And so is Wikipedia sometimes when people are searching controversial stuff. I just thought that was so interesting.

I survived China

2008-06-05T15:49:00.007-06:00

We made it back from China without any mishaps and we had a whole bunch of great adventures. Here I am doing some heel clicks on the Great Wall. I will have to post more of the pictures later (I filled up my entire memory card!) and post a more detailed account of our fabulous trip, but for now here's a small summary.

We saw all the main sites...the Wall, the terra cotta warriors, a ton of ancient palaces and temples, the Mao masoleum, the Forbidden City, the leaning tower of China and Chinese Venice, an acrobat show, a tea ceremony, the silk/pearl market, some of the Olympic venues, the horrible pollution, people wearing those Chinese hats, people riding bicycles, people crammed into the subway (we were crammed in there too!), mostly just lots and lots of people.

We were swarmed by people everywhere we went who would either a) stare at us. or b) invade our personal space and try to sell us something. (They would say, "Hello lady. Postcard. Taxi. Umbrella. Or whatever else they were trying to sell us.) or c) attach themselves to us with a death grip. (Ok, that only happened once, but it was very traumatizing.) And we tried lots of weird food, but fortunately not any bugs on a stick.

We also rode in a rickshaw powered by a little old Chinese man. And we walked a total of about 123 miles. We also rode on a boat, a train, a subway, a taxi, a van, a bus, a motor scooter, and a bunk bed train. And we got around using a Chinese phrase book and map where we would point to the characters and hope we were going to the right places and not ordering fish heads or something gross for dinner.

It was such a fantastic trip. It was very different from what I expected it to be like, but very very cool. Here's my Picassa album of the trip if you're interested in seeing ALL the photos. Otherwise, I'll post the highlights here sometime soon. But for now, here's one of some cool pavillions. (They all had great names like "Pavillion of Blessed Shade" or "Pavillion of Harmonious Sounds".)

Fortune tellers

2008-05-19T09:39:00.002-06:00

I got two fortunes from fortune cookies at our ward activity this weekend. They were especially pertinant to my current situation and have restored my faith in fortune cookies. (Fortunes have become so lame nowadays). Anyway, the fortunes said...

1. You will become intrigued with Chinese culture and food. (How did they know I was going to China in 3 days?)

2. You will have a lively family. (Note: On July 25, my new last name will be Lively.)

These Chinese people really know their stuff!

One week from today...

2008-05-16T10:23:00.003-06:00

...Caron and I will be HERE: Hurray!

I'm going to China, I'm going to China, I'm going to China...Hey, hey, hey, hey! I am totally excited. My friend April just sent me an itinerary of all the things she is going to take us to see while we are there and I am stoked. (Don't worry, we are not going to be affected by the earthquake.)

I have been so extremely stressed out the past couple of weeks so Matt surprised me and made an appointment at the spa for me to go get a massage and other pampering things this weekend. What a sweetie! I love surprises!

I looked up my official time for the tri, and boy was it ever pathetic. My total time was 2 hours and 12 minutes...and that doesn't even count the swim! But I guess I should subtract 30 minutes or so for the time I stayed with Matt after the wreck before the truck came to take him away. And for when I went to check on him between the bike and the run. With taking all of that into consideration, I was only about 5 minutes over my regular times for both the bike and the run, which I'm OK with since the course was so awful.

The triathlon that wasn't (again)

2008-05-14T09:39:00.020-06:00

I have decided that I am officially done with the St. George Triathlon. It only brings bad luck. Remember last fall when I attempted to do this triathlon and it got cancelled because of the rain? Well, this year wasn't much better.

We had 8 of us recruited to participate this year, and about 15 others who came as pit crew members. We even had to reschedule the ward activity and move it to a different weekend since we were taking half the ward with us.

So, we drove down on Friday to St. George. At packet pickup, Roy decided to shave his head. They were paying people $5 if they would shave their heads so Roy jumped right up. I wouldn't let Matt do it because we had our engagement pictures scheduled for this week.

Then we all went to the Pasta Factory to carbo load for the big race. It was really yummy last year when we went so we decided to make a repeat visit and we were not disappointed.

We all stayed at the Hampton Inn in St. George. It was so much fun! We raced down the halls on the luggage carts, took a dip in the hot tub, watched part of the Jazz game, and jumped on the beds!

You can't go to a hotel and not jump on the bed...it's the best! We also watched Alison make her bug face. It was hilarious!

We got up bright and early the next morning and headed off to Sand Hollow. It was freezing! We stood around waiting FOREVOR in the windy coldness waiting for our heat to start the swim. After more waiting, they tell us that they were going to cancel the swim because of the wind. Are you kidding me? I could not believe it! I was so mad.

So we all get on our bikes and start riding. It was horrible! The wind was so bad and we were riding directly into it. It felt like I wasn't even moving. I think I was going about 5 miles an hour. (That=slow) About a mile into the bike ride, I see some people off to the side of the road with their bikes. I thought somebody had gotten a flat tire. But then I got closer and saw somebody lying on the road. I rode past and took a double take because it was Matt laying there!

The wind had blown him into the gravel and he took a nasty spill. I turned my bike around and went back to see what had happened. He had a big, gross hole in his knee and blood was everywhere. And his fingers were all shredded up. So I waited with him until a truck came to take him to the medical tent.

My mom made sure he was warm. :) Anyway, at the medical tent they determined that he needed stitches and so they paged Garrett over the intercom to come and take him to the hospital. (In the meantime, I was huffing and puffing up the ginormous hill on my bike. Matt told me he wanted me to finish the race, so I was trying my hardest not to hyperventilate while finishing the race for Matt.)

Garrett and Tyler whisked Matt away to the local instacare where they stitched him up. He got 4 stitches in his knee and one in his thumb. The rest of his fingers were torn up pretty good, so they taped those up. I will spare you the gory detailed pictures that Tyler was so kind enough to document. He even got the grossest video of the actual stitching process.

Here he is trying to be tough as they cleaned him up. The rest of the weekend, he couldn't even walk or do anything. Like feed himself. I had to cut up his meatloaf at lunch and feed him his In-N-Out Burger at dinner. (Yes, they do have an In-N-Out in St. George.)

A big thanks to Garrett and Tyler for helping him so much this weekend. You guys are the best!

And another shout out to our fabulous pit crew for coming to support us. And way to go to all the triathletes...Yay for Caron, Roy, Rachael, Katie, Almarie, Emma, Matt, and me! And my Dad! We all finished except for Matt of course. It was by far the most difficult course I have ever seen. The run was entirely on sand...it was awful.

But I will still continue to do triathlons...normally they are fun. I'm just never doing this St. George one ever again. Ever.

After we got Matt taken care of, we went to the crack in St. George. It was so fun to see everyone try to shimmy through it. I love the crack! Matt spent the weekend hopping around on one leg, but mostly sleeping. His hands look like the crypt keeper because they are all bandaged up. We had to reschedule our engagement photos because I decided I'd rather not have Mr. Frankenstein as my future groom in the wedding announcements.

But anyway, he is doing much better now. He really was lucky that it wasn't worse. He very easily could have broken a bone or severed a tendon or something more serious. I'm so thankful it was just some road rash and a few stitches. And I'm so thankful he is doing better and healing well.

And another interesting thing is that I have completed the entire St. George triathlon course. (It just took me 8 months since I did the swim in September at the last attempt and the bike/run this weekend.)

Never cease to be amazed

2008-05-13T09:31:00.006-06:00

These are the awesome students that I work with at BYU. They never cease to amaze me. They are so talented and bright and are full of energy and enthusiasm. Last week, we took them to a student leadership conference at Snow College. They pretty much wore me out! But they were so impressive. They took care of each other and looked out for each other. They helped everyone around them whenever they saw a need. One of the students went around at every meal and cleared everyone's plates.

I was just so impressed by the way they carried themselves. And I'm constantly amazed by their talent, creativity, and ambition. I love working with them.

And they are so much fun! A couple weeks ago we went to a ropes course and just had a ball.

I love this picture. This is Chance on the high ropes course. He was so stinkin' scared to be up there and every part of him was shaking. But he was determined to finish what he started. Seriously, I think if I've ever seen a picture of fear, Chance's face was exactly that. I was so proud of him though for completing the course.

I am just so grateful to have this new job where I have the opportunity to work with such amazing people.

A fairy tale weekend

2008-05-02T09:19:00.019-06:00

Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a lovely princess named Christy. After many years of wishing and dreaming for a handsome prince to come knocking at her door, she realized that there had been a handsome prince right under her nose for the past year and a half. Little did Princess Christy know that her dear friend, Matt, had been hiding his princely ways from her.

But one day, Princess Christy noticed that her chaply friend Matt really was a prince. Princess Christy was amazed that it had taken her so long to discover his true identity. But once the discovery was made, they embarked on many crazy adventures together.

One day, Princess Christy decided that she needed a vacation. She decided that she needed to visit the happiest place on earth. She invited Prince Matthew to accompany her on this journey. Since Prince Matthew was always up for an adventure, he agreed to the crazy idea. And off they went to the land of where dreams come true.

While in the land of a million dreams, Princess Christy and Prince Matthew had many wonderful adventures. They got drenched on Splash Mountain, danced the waltz in the Beast's Library, and discovered what Disney character they were most like (Christy was Mrs. Potts and Matt was Captain Hook.)

They became honorary bugs and Space Rangers, they got Captain Jack Sparrow's autograph, they did heel clicks down Main Street, and did not die on the Tower of Terror.

They discovered many new and wonderful things in this magical land like giant teacups, a grotto of sea creatures, and even a most delicious caramel apple. (To their delight, it was not even a poisoned one!)

They dined in style at the Blue Bayou restaurant, which was one of the coolest places they had ever seen. The Blue Bayou was located inside the Pirates of the Carribbean ride and resembled a cool summer night on the bayou...complete with drooping willow trees, lanterns, chirping crickets, and candlelight.

There was even a grand southern mansion off in the distance. The food was an excellent array of scrumptious Cajun delicacies. And there were even chocolate deblumes for dessert.

Princess Christy and Prince Matthew even discovered a fairy tale castle where they came upon a wishing well. Princess Christy loves wishing wells and this one was especially fabulous because it was a Snow White wishing well. (Christy bears an uncanny resemblance to this "fairest princess of all") Princess Christy made a wish...

...and Prince Matthew made it come true! Prince Matthew asked Princess Christy to marry him, and she said yes.

(Actually the proposal happened the night before. They were walking along a secluded beach on a starry, moonlit night with the city lights off in the distance, and the waves crashing in around them. Prince Matthew got down on one knee in the sand and asked Princess Christy to marry him. She said yes, but Prince Matthew did not hear her response because of the waves. Ooops! They proceeded to write their names in the sand and Prince Matthew picked up Princess Christy and twirled her around...right into a big wave. They both got soaked! And of course, they celebrated by doing some heel clicks down the beach.)

It was very romantic and a perfect night. Princess Christy loves the beach and it was the perfect setting to have her prince propose. She couldn't have asked for anything better.

And of course, they shared in true love's kiss. :) Since Prince Matthew was not prepared with a ring, he got Princess Christy a lovely Mickey Mouse ring the next day at Disneyland and gave it to her in the fairy tale castle. It was perfect. And Prince Matthew is working on getting Princess Christy a real ring. Very soon.

See...dreams DO come true! Prince Matthew and Princess Christy will be married on July 25 in the Jordan River Temple.

They watched the spectacular fireworks show in the shadows of the magically lit-up fairy tale castle and proceeded to have a wonderful rest of the weekend. It really was the happiest place on earth and Princess Christy is the happiest princess on earth.

And even though you usually conclude these types of stories with "The End," this is only the beginning. But they will live...

...happily ever after. And they will continue to wish upon stars and dream because... if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true!

The happiest place on earth

2008-04-28T11:13:00.004-06:00

So our weekend at Disneyland was just fantastic. I loved every minute of it even though I am now completely EXHAUSTED from all the festivities. Unfortunately, we accidently left the camera with all the wonderful pictures we took on the trip at the Shea's house (a family from Matt's mission). Bummer! I will have to post the pictures and write the whole story when we get the camera back. So for now, this picture of the two most awesome Space Rangers ever will have to do.

The whole weekend was just fabulous. So. Much. Fun!!! Disneyland IS the happiest place on earth!

My brother has been saved

2008-04-25T09:23:00.003-06:00

I hope my brother Nathan doesn't kill me for posting this, but it's hilarious! This was his latest letter from his mission in Louisiana...

Here in Lousiana there a lot of Born Again Christians and they always ask you, "When were you saved?"...expecting to hear a specific date. I would always get frustrated with them for their misunderstanding of doctrine but due to recent experiences I can answer them with boldness. I will now respond, "April 11, 2008" A couple of weeks ago we found a less active member named Alessia who is really cool, and awesome and pretty. We had already given her the branch information and the branch's hers. We visited her a couple of times and she kept getting more and more attractive and more and more distracting. Something had to be done and blessed by the name of Elder Gardner for doing what he did. We read the famous "Lock Your Heart" talk by Spencer W. Kimball that morning for companionship study. It gave me the confidence to do what needed to be done. We then called our 2nd councellor, a return missionary who went to the Dominican Republic named Tim Wood. You must know a few things about him before proceeding. He is a great guy but he's a little weird and he is "wife hunting." We told him that we had a Domincan guy that we were teaching and that we wanted him to come with us. We went and saw her with him and they hit it off suprisingly well. I was so sick the whole lesson. After a few hours a had a new spiritual awakening. I was no longer infatuated by her any more. I am now able to proceed with missionary work with a new focus, knowing that it is only a matter of time until they get married. It was Elder Gardner who envisioned it all beforehand and thus, I was saved on April 11, 2008. Adieu

I just think that is so funny! My brother rocks.

4 a.m.

2008-04-24T04:01:00.002-06:00

The current time is 4 a.m. I'm so annoyed! I can't sleep worth beans. I've been up since 2 and I've tried to fall back asleep, but it's just not happening. I've already gotten out my Cinco de Mayo decorations and put them up, surfed the blogosphere, cleaned up my pile of holiday decorations that I hadn't put away from Easter, watched the rain outside for awhile, and started packing for Disneyland this weekend. I hope I can fall asleep soon...this is ridiculous.

72 and 48 hours

2008-04-23T09:05:00.004-06:00

In just 72 hours, I will be at the happiest place on earth! DISNEYLAND...here I come! I am so excited! Even though I will only be gone from Utah for 48 hours, it's gonna be so fun.

I decided last Saturday that I needed a weekend getaway so I bought a plane ticket to L.A. and I'm going to Disneyland for the weekend. And Matt bought one too, so he's coming with me. We found a pretty decent deal on plane tickets, and we'll stay with my auntie.

Matt also served his mission in California, so on Sunday we will be going to church with his favorite mission family. And the best part...the weather forecast for this weekend in Anaheim is in the low 80s. Woo-hoo!

Tour de Salt Lake City

2008-04-19T12:10:00.005-06:00

This morning, Matt, Caron, my Dad, my brother Kyle and I rode in the SLC Bike Marathon. It's so cool...you ride your bike along the marathon route. It was a lot of fun. Except for the fact that I had to get up at 4:30 a.m. Oh well.

Anyway, there were about 1500 bikers. We didn't even get to start riding until about 10 minutes after the official start time because we were inching our way forward and trying to spread out from the other bikers. They give you a time limit of 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete the race. (So you don't get in the way of the runners.) I am happy to report that I beat the cutoff by 7 minutes...finishing the 26 miles in 1 hour and 38 minutes.

Matt finished about a half hour before me...how pathetic am I! But at least I finished. It was so much fun. Here are some of the highlights:

-the old dude who had duct tape on the bottom of his pants to keep his pant leg out of his bike chain.
-the signs that said, "Spandex is happiness" and "I likey your bikey" and other random signs that were put out for specific people but no one was near them. (I think some people's friends didn't want to get up at o-early-o-clock to cheer them on so they just left signs.)
-the people who live along the marathon route who pulled their couches out on the front lawn and sat and cheered for us.
-the couple who rode a tandem bike in the race.
-the parents who had those little bike attachments for their kids to ride along with them.
-Spiderman, who ran the 5K.
-the trail mix they gave us at the end of the ride. Man that stuff was tasty.
-seeing the sun come up while riding along the route.
-riding through red lights without having to stop.
-the policeman golf carts.
-cowbells and horns.
-the people who kept commenting on my race number. (It was 123.)

Anyway, here we are at the end of the race. And yes, I am well aware of the fact that I look ridiculous. And no, I don't care. Congrats to Rachael and Emma who ran in the 5K. Well done! I love the SLC Marathon festivities...this is the third year I've participated (each year a different event) and I think I'm going to make it a tradition.

I have the best Mom

2008-04-17T09:03:00.002-06:00

I would just like to say that my Mom is so great. This week she went grocery shopping for me, brought me some dinner the other night, and sewed my Tshirt quilt together. I just have been having a rough time the past couple weeks, and she has helped me to do some of the things I haven't had time to do. What a fabulous Mom. I love you!

Too good to be true

2008-04-17T08:06:00.002-06:00

2008 has been such a wonderful year so far. One good thing after another kept happening to me. Everything was so exceptionally great that sometimes I wondered if it was all just a dream and one day I'd wake up from it. Well, I woke up. And it is so sad. I just feel like my life is falling apart. I don't know what to do to get it all back and to be in that wonderful, blissful, couldn't-be-happier state again. What did I do wrong?

Go Jazz Go

2008-04-16T09:27:00.004-06:00

Saturday Matt and I got to go to dinner and the Jazz game with Kristen and Shawn. Kristen was my roommate when I first moved to West Jordan and so it was fun to hang out with her again for the evening. It was also reminicent of my first "real" date with Matt. And the game was fantastic. What a fun night!

I love these little quizzes

2008-04-16T08:49:00.002-06:00

You Are An ENFJ

The Giver

You strive to maintain harmony in relationships, and usually succeed.

Articulate and enthusiastic, you are good at making personal connections.

Sometimes you idealize relationships too much - and end up being let down.

You find the most energy and comfort in social situations ... where you shine.

In love, you are very protective and supporting.

However, you do need to "feel special" - and it's quite easy for you to get jealous.

At work, you are a natural leader. You can help people discover their greatest potential.

You would make a good writer, human resources director, or psychologist.

How you see yourself: Trusting, idealistic, and expressive

When other people don't get you, they see you as: Bossy, inappropriate, and loud

What's Your Personality Type?

I'm so official....HA!

2008-04-15T10:11:00.004-06:00

Since I have an office now, I decided I could be official and be one of those cool, intelligent people who hang their diplomas up in their office. So I did. Except I still feel as overwhelmed and inadequete as ever as I am trying to figure out all this new stuff. But I love the challenge.

One of the many cool things about my job is that I get to meet lots of really neat people. Like yesterday, when I had the opportunity to meet two General Authorities of my church. Elder Kerr and President Samuelson. And I had the opportunity to be instructed by them. I learned some really cool things from these great leaders. Elder Kerr talked about how we should develop one new proficiency each year and how our success is determined by how we facilitate the success of those around us.

He shared a quote by Jeffery R. Holland that I really liked. He said, "We can't do everything. But what we choose to do, let's do it superbly well." I need to remember that. I don't need to do everything, but I can do a few things well. He also shared the scripture Romans 5:19 which says, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." He reminded us the incredible influence we can have on others--for good or for bad.

Even though I am extremely overwhelmed with all these changes in my life, I am really grateful for the learning opportunities that I have been provided with.

Oh yeah, and I constantly get mistaken to be a student instead of an administrator. I don't know whether or not that is a compliment. (Like I look too young to be so smart and professional or I look too much like I don't know what the heck I'm doing to be an administrator.) That usually happens at least once a day.

Awww...

2008-04-09T10:09:00.003-06:00

Last week I was having a pretty cruddy week. I was just struggling with a bunch of dumb stuff. Anyway, in an effort to help me feel better, Matt brought me a beautiful pink flower. What a sweetie! This picture was taken with my phone...hence the poor quality. But it really is very pretty in real life. I love flowers! Thank you Matt!

So, I've been at my new job for two weeks now...and I am still liking it a lot. It's a huge challenge for me because it is something different and new, but I am enjoying it. The students I work with are so stinkin' talented and amazing that sometimes I wonder what the heck I can offer them. Hopefully I will figure that out.

Over the past two weeks I have been working with my students to create a team for the upcoming school year. We've been interviewing people for director positions, outlining an organizational plan for our area, and determining the projects we want to accomplish this year. I've also been working with the outgoing team to finish up the projects they have been working on throughout the year. We've published a poster encouraging students to attend the weekly devotional here on campus and we are in the works of planning a volunteer appreciation party, which will be held this weekend.

I'm constantly amazed at the talents and abilities of these students. They pretty much rock. And not only are they extremely talented and smart, they are so friendly and truly try to reach out and serve everyone around them. It's so refreshing. I've witnessed so many tiny acts of service in the past two weeks, and I must say that I am extremely impressed.

Back on the block

2008-04-08T09:55:00.003-06:00

Can you believe this? The New Kids On The Block are reuniting. Weird! I loved them when I was like 9 years old and they were only popular for like a year. I just find this really strange. They are like 40...what's the appeal of a 40-year old boy band? Anyway, just thought I should share.

A Golden Opportunity

2008-04-02T14:41:00.009-06:00

Last Saturday was Matt's Golden Birthday. For those of you who are uneducated as to what a golden birthday is, let me explain. It's when you turn the age of the date your birthday is on. For example, Matt turned 29 on March 29th. Anyway, we had a wonderful day of "golden" festivities. First of all, we went for a little bike ride up Provo Canyon. There was a really neat frozen waterfall.

Then we went to Rodizio Grill for a golden birthday feast. Rodizio is Matt's favorite restaurant....and boy was it tasty! They even gave him some golden flan for dessert and sang a Happy Birthday song in Portugese--complete with bongo drums and tamborines.

Then we went bowling at the golden bowling alley. All the guests received a golden ticket to get in. Matt wore a golden crown and got a golden bowling score. It was tons of fun.

Here are some of us playing piggy back bowling. It was quite entertaining.

After bowling, we all went back to my apartment for some golden treats. We had some golden chocolate birthday cake, Golden Grahams, goldfish, and Golden Oreos. It was great! But most of all, I hope Matt enjoyed his golden birthday. Happy Birthday Matt! I love you!

It has already been quite the day

2008-04-01T11:12:00.003-06:00

What a day! So, first of all I got a flat tire on the way to the gym this morning and had to get out and change it in the freezing cold weather. (Let me remind you that it was 5:30 in the morning and I was wearing shorts!) I thought I was going to die!

Anyway, that put me running behind all day long, so I almost missed the bus to work. I had to run after it like an idiot flailing my arms to get the driver's (or some compassionate passenger's) attention so they could let me on. It brought back some scary middle school memories. Uggh!

Then when I got to work, I was so frazzled by the morning's events that I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking. We have a ping pong table in our office and some students were playing, and I walked by a little too close and got whacked in the head with a ping pong paddle. I think a nice little bruise is starting to form on my nose. I have been holding this frozen water bottle to my nose all morning to help the swelling. Good thing I have that temperature control in my office---I totally cranked up the heat to make up for the frozen goods on my face.

Oh yeah, and I ripped my pants on the bus. So I have to walk around with my coat tied around my waist to cover it up. Joys. Maybe I should just go to the bookstore and buy a new skirt or something.

On a happier note, today is Caron's birthday! Hurray for Caron! I hope you have a great day!

Well, the good news is that this day can only get better....

....because it's APRIL FOOLS DAY!!!! Ha ha ha! Did I fool you? ;)

New job update

2008-03-28T09:32:00.004-06:00

I would like to announce that I am now the proud owner of a UTA bus pass. I found out that there is an express bus from Sandy to BYU. It only takes me about 15-20 minutes longer to get to work than if I were to drive myself. AND I can actually do stuff (like read or sleep) during my commute instead of just waste time driving.

This will especially come in handy when I start up my graduate classes again in May. And the bus has wireless Internet connection for my laptop. How cool is that? And it’s not one of those ghetto city busses. It’s actually quite nice…with reclining seats.

And the best part…my bus pass is free! Since I am a student at the U, I can get an education bus pass for free. This is gonna save me lots of gas money, and not to mention that Chester (my car) will get a nice little break. What a great deal!

My new job is going really well. I am liking it a lot. I’m just so excited to be working in a job where I really get to help people and (hopefully) make a difference in their lives. The mission and values of where I work are things that I really believe in. My job is basically to train leaders so that when they leave college, they can go out into the world and make a meaningful contribution and make a difference themselves.

I specifically work with the Communications division of BYUSA. That means that I am in charge of the students who are in charge of all the marketing, PR efforts, publications, media relations, website, etc. that comes out of the BYU Student Association. Plus, I teach a leadership class and help out with the campus activities division as well. So far, I love it!

I love that I get to work with people specifically with the assignment to build character, teamwork, and leadership skills in them. And I love that I have the resources available to me to be able to do that. I’ve been encouraged to do what it takes to build good relationships with these students and really build a great working team, and that means I can take them to lunch, take them on retreats, etc.

I love that the fact that I get to play and get to know people as part of my job is so highly encouraged! In fact, this weekend we are taking the students on a retreat up to a cabin. With the sole purpose of having a good time and getting to know each other. Yesterday, the office staff went out to Thanksgiving Point for a good majority of the day to do the same thing.

I have also been told that I will have plenty of resources available to me to do the things that I want to accomplish with my students. Things like redesign the website, print new posters and brochures, have big recruitment events and efforts, and other really cool things. It’s so nice to actually be able to have what I need to reach my goals.

I also have a HUGE office. With a door that locks. And a table and chairs for meeting with students. And a big whiteboard. I really want to bring in a love sack or something. I’m really looking forward to decorating it and making it really cute and fun. And the best part….

I have my own temperature gauge. I don’t have to freeze and wrap myself in a blanket anymore! Oh, I am so happy about that. Anyway, I am just really excited about this new change in my life. So far it has been wonderful and I think it will be really great.

When we went to Thanksgiving Point, we went to this stained glass studio and got to see them working on the windows for the Draper Temple. How cool is that?! Here’s one of them in progress…

Anyway, I am just really thankful for these cool new opportunities in my life right now.

...and here we have Idaho!

2008-03-24T10:06:00.009-06:00

Since we had to drive a very long way (SLC to Boise for Brooke's wedding) in a very short period of time (2 days), we decided to cram as much as we could into our little weekend jaunt. We made sure to sing the Idaho state song as we crossed the Utah/Idaho border. We told jokes as we passed through the town of Bliss. We saw some haystacks, and tractors, and potato fields. And of course, we made sure to eat some potatoes while in Idaho.

I have always made fun of Idaho, but the city of Boise really grew on me in the 24 hours we were there. It was so clean and quiet and green and there were so many cyclists and runners. We passed by tons of running/sporting shops, and they even have a 26-mile paved running trail by the Boise River. It was so awesome! We took a little jog on it Saturday morning and had a great time. There was also this huge park where the entire town had gathered for an Easter egg hunt. We jogged by several parks, the Boise State University campus (and saw the blue football field), and several other sites. I loved that so many people were out on the trail just enjoying being outside.

There were also a bunch of cute little restaurants and bars in downtown Boise. We decided to dine at the City Grill. It was housed inside an old national bank building. I ordered the noquis (potato pasta) to keep with the tradition of eating some form of potatos while in Idaho. It seriously was the best meal I've had in a really long time. It was so fabulous.

On the way home, we took a little detour and stopped off at the Golden Spike. Where the two railroads met back in 1869. It seriously is out in the middle of nowhere!
I have always wanted to stop there, but never had time, so we made the detour. It was pretty cool to learn about it though.

Here we are on the spot where the golden spike was driven.

We also passed the ATK rocket display thingey. It was pretty cool to see all the different parts of a rocket.

Here's me inside a rocket part. And here's Matt running around the rocket launcher.

Anyway, despite it being a long drive, we had tons of fun!

Year of a million weddings

2008-03-24T09:58:00.005-06:00

This past weekend my cute mission companion, Brooke, got married. We went up to Boise for the festivities. Everything about the wedding was so totally Brooke. I loved it! It had a complete fairy tale princess theme.

Her cake had a castle, a glass slipper, and a horse-drawn carriage on top.

Reed wore a top hat and carried a cane.

They had this cute light-up carriage and princess outside the reception. Oh, and Brooke wore a very poofy princess dress and tiara. It was great!

One thing I really loved was the Boise Temple. It is very similar to the Buenos Aires, Argentina Temple. Anyway, we had a great time and congrats to Brooke and Reed! I love you guys.

Unemployed and momentarily insane

2008-03-20T16:42:00.004-06:00

So I'm unemployed this week and loving it! I can't believe my week of unemployment is almost over. Sad! I have done lots of fun and exciting things with my time off this week. I've spent countless hours at the gym, and I even swam a mile and ran almost 5 miles in one day! Go me! I've also made some pretty good progress on a T-shirt quilt I am making, I took care of Matt while he was sick on Monday and Tuesday, I have worked on my talk for church and my Relief Society lesson I have to teach this Sunday, today I went and got massages with my mom and sisters, and then we went to lunch, and I have slept in every day. Oh, and I did my taxes and other boring paperwork stuff that had to get done. What a glorious week.

My T-shirt quilt in progress.

I also momentarily went insane last night. I signed up for an Olympic-distance triathlon. That is TWICE the distance of the other triathlons I have done. I think I was feeling pretty confident after my swim/run yesterday morning. It's in July, so hopefully I'll be ready by then. And I'm seriously considering doing the Logan Marathon in September. Anyone interested?

Lucky, charming, and magically delicious

2008-03-17T11:31:00.023-06:00

This year's St. Patrick's Day celebration was quite the success, if I do say so myself. I think it was probably one of the best years thus far. We had so much fun at our annual St. Patrick's Day party.

We had plenty of Irish festivities including kissing the Blarney Stone, limerick writing, learning an Irish jig, watching the St. Patrick's Day Veggie Tales cartoon, eating green food, doing heel clicks, and going on a treasure hunt.

The treasure hunt took us all over West Jordan in search of clues that eventually led to the treasure. All the clues were written in limerick form. I love doing stuff like this! And I love that everyone participated and really got into it!

Here is Courtney imitating a leprachaun, Matt kissing the Blarney Stone (you have to do it upside down), and Emma performing an Irish jig.

Emma taught us all a jig, and we had so much fun learning it and making fools of ourselves! Krista and Brittany were actually really good at it. Here's a little video clip of the "jig-off" we had to determine the winner.

For more jigging videos from the evening, check out Garrett's blog.

And let's be honest, what would a good Irish party be without drinking games? The first one we played was with these cool dice that I found at Target. You rolled the dice and had to do whatever the dice said. They said things like, "Hug someone wearing green", "Kiss an Irishman", or "Swap drinks with a friend". It was hilarious! Of course this was all done with water and green punch. Who needs alcohol to have a good time?

Then things got a little crazy. We played another drinking game (out of my Best Drinking Games of All Time book) where you had six glasses full of whatever and on your turn you have to roll a dice and drink the contents of whatever numbered glass corresponds with the number you rolled on the dice.

We raided Caron's fridge and filled the shot glasses with whatever we could find...grape juice, ginger ale, hot chocolate, whipped cream, salsa, chicken broth...etc.

But the funny part comes when you roll the dice and the glass is empty. You then get to fill it with whatever you want. And the next person who rolls that number has to drink the contents of the glass. Well, people started to get a little mean and fill the glasses with weird concoctions like hot chocolate mixed with salsa and ginger ale. Gross!

And guess who got the worst of it? ME! I had to drink salsa mixtures like 5 times. It was disgusting. But I've also never laughed so hard in my whole life. It was so funny, I seriously thought my abs were going to die from laughing so hard. Good times.

We also went to the St. Patricks Day parade downtown at the Gateway. This parade is so fun because really, anything goes. We mostly went to see Emma's Irish dance school perform. Here she is!

They were awesome. We also saw a girl on jumping stilts.

Some lepre"cons", some police on these hilarious stuffed horses, a bagpipe band, and lots of other fun stuff.

We have decided that next year we will join the parade either as a pogo stick brigade or the Ninja Turtles. After the parade, we headed over to the Irish festival and watched some really cool Irish dancers and listened to some Irish bands.

It was tons of fun! I love St. Patricks Day! Top O' The Mornin' To Ye!

First race of the season

2008-03-17T10:24:00.006-06:00

Ahhh, the first race of the season! On Saturday, Caron, Matt and I ran the Rex Lee Run 10K. It was so much fun! I'm not sure what my "official" time is since the results have not yet been posted, but according to my watch, I finished the 6.2 miles in 68 minutes, 36 seconds. Not too shabby. And, the best part is that I reached my goal of running the entire race without stopping to walk! Woo-hoo! Matt and Caron both did awesome, too.

The Rex Lee Run is held each year to help raise money for cancer research. One of the cool parts of the race is that you can run for a cancer fighter. You wear their name on your back during the race. Matt and I ran for Matt's grandpa.

This is why I love race days...I love seeing all the people come to run. There's just so much energy being there with everyone, and it's so exciting to look both in front of you and behind you and just see a sea of runners. Bring on this year's race season!

So long, farewell

2008-03-17T08:00:00.006-06:00

Friday was my last day of work at Creating Keepsakes. I've been the web editor there for a little over 2 1/2 years. I have enjoyed a lot of things about that job. I've learned so much, and I've really enjoyed working with the extremely talented and creative people there.

For my last day my cute boss, Leslie, took our team to Thanksgiving Point for lunch and to make glass flowers. It was so much fun!

You get to pick what colors you want your flower to be and then they melt the glass down on this big pole in a fiery furnace. Then you smash down the glass with a big metal spade and pull it out with tweezers to make the petals. It's not as malleable as you might think! You seriously have to have a lot of hand strength to pull it out. It actually is quite hard.

But it was really fun, and interesting to see how you actually do stuff like that. I am going to miss the creativity of working in the scrapbooking industry. But I am super excited for my new job.

My cute red punch friends gave me a supply of red punch packets and a red punch poster as a goodbye gift. I'm going to miss them! Thanks to all the wonderful people I have had a chance to work with over these past few years...you guys are awesome!

Some random facts

2008-03-12T10:48:00.002-06:00

I got tagged by Danielle. Enjoy reading about, well...me!

1. What time did you get up this morning? 6:30
2. What do you usually have for breakfast? It depends. Cereal or yogurt or toast or fruit or oatmeal or eggs or sometimes leftovers. Whatever sounds good. Today I had oatmeal and yogurt.
3. What is your favorite CD at the moment? One that I don’t have yet. Caron’s Summer Staples CD. I have been thinking about it for days and how I need to remind her to make me a copy!
4. What kind of car do you drive? A Honda Civic named Chester.
5. Favorite sandwich? Probably some type of club sandwich from Great Harvest.
6. Favorite item of clothing? Do shoes count? If so, I would have to say my Reef flip flops. I love them! They have been with me for almost 10 years, have been to 3 (almost 4) different continents with me. I won’t wear any other kind.
7. If you could go anywhere in the world for a vacation, where would you go? Tahiti, Italy, Greece, the British Isles, um anywhere really. I think the question should be…where would I not go?
8. What color is your bathroom? Purple and sage green.
9. Where would you retire? I don’t know. I really like Utah, but I don’t like the cold.
10. Most memorable birthday? Probably 21. My roommates filled my ENTIRE car with newspapers that they stole from campus and got in trouble for by the campus police. Then I went roller blading with my friend Sarah and bruised my tailbone. (I had to sit on a pillow for 2 months after that!) Then at work, my coworkers wrote me a really cool song and made me a bunch of leis. Then my roommates threw me a party with all my friends. It was so much fun!
11. Favorite sport to watch? Basketball or football
12. Are you a morning person or a night person? Um…neither?
13. What is your shoe size? 7 1/2
14. Pets? No way! I hate pets!
15. What did you want to be when you were little? The Secretary of Education. (So I could make it so we didn’t have to go to school as much!) Or an astronaut. Or a dolphin trainer.
16. What are you today? Today I am Christy Lee Shepherd. Same as every other day. :)
17. What is your favorite candy? Trail mix…does that count?
18. Your favorite flower? Plumeria
19. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? March 17. It’s St. Patrick’s Day!
20. What are you listening to right now? The printer at work printing stuff
21. What is the last thing you ate? Oatmeal and yogurt
22. Do you wish on stars? Of course! Don’t you?
23. What faith are you? LDS
24. Who was the last person you spoke with on the phone? I think it was Caron last night
25. Hair Color? Dark brown
26. Name of your favorite school teacher? Mr. Cox for Yearbook in high school
27. Chocolate or vanilla? Definitely chocolate
28. When was the last time you cried? I think it was a few Sundays ago
29. What is under your bed? A stuffed animal that my favorite mission companion gave me
30. What did you do last night? Went on a bike ride and running, made tacos for dinner with Matt, took Caron “shopping” in my closet, almost fell asleep on the couch…
31. Favorite smell? Plumeria flowers and baked goods baking
32. What are you afraid of? Not being good enough
33. How many towns have you lived in? Um....a lot. I’ve lived in 8 different states and 2 countries. And a lot of towns within those states and countries.
34. Do you make friends easily? I don’t know. I hope so.

I tag…Garrett, Jill, Leslie, and Bill.

Running shorts and swimming pools

2008-03-11T09:17:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I swam 1400 yards. All the front crawl. (That means no switching it up with the side stroke or back stroke or something.) That is a major record for me. That is .8 miles! Go me! And the coolest part is that I think I even could have kept going. And the other cool part about this is that it is almost the distance of an Olympic distance triathlon swim. Maybe I could do one after all.

I'm so proud of myself. I'm actually starting to like swimming, which is also a major accomplishment considering how much I hated it when I first started. I think I'm starting to like it because I'm actually starting to be decent at it. Hurray for swimming!

Also yesterday I went to Sports Authority to buy a swimming cap. Well I ended up leaving the store with my swimming cap, some anti-fog spray for my goggles, and three pairs of running shorts. Why do I need three pairs of running shorts? I don't. And why do I need anti-fog spray when I've gotten along perfectly fine without it? I probably don't need that either. (Just for the record, I am taking one of the pairs of shorts back.) But why does this happen? I go into a store with one thing on my list and I come out with 5 items. I have got to be better about that. But I just get excited every time I go to a sporting store like that. And I will say that everything I bought was on the clearance rack.

It's official

2008-03-06T09:45:00.005-07:00

Ahem. I have an announcement. Caron and I just bought plane tickets to China!!!!!! We will be there from May 22-June 4. Nihou! (That's the only Chinese I know.) Woo-hoo!!!

Another one bites the dust

2008-03-05T17:22:00.008-07:00

We survived my sister, Laurie's wedding last Saturday! They got married in the Mt. Timpanogos temple. (Before the snowstorm.)

I was kind of sad that Nathan wasn't there. I miss him!

Kyle was the honorary flower girl! We made him carry Laurie's train. It was hilarious.

It was kinda windy, but at least we got some pictures in before the crazy snowstorm hit.

The reception was at the Alpine Arts Center. It was really pretty. Since Nathan wasn't here, Kyle walked around all night with Nathan's picture pinned to his shirt. We indulged in a chocolate fountain and the most delicious chocolate wedding cake with strawberries on top. Doesn't it look divine?

We had a lot of fun just being goofy at the reception.

We danced a ton and even did the Crocodile Rock for old times' sake. Pretty much it was just me, Scott, Allison and Kyle who were dancing. Everyone else was just staring at us wishing they were having as much fun as us!

Here's me, Allison, and Kyle just being dorks!

But at least we are fun dorks. :)

I made Matt come with me so that I wouldn't get bombarded as to why I am not married yet. I think it worked pretty well. Anyway, congrats to Laurie and John!

I Know You Are But What Am I

2008-03-05T09:38:00.000-07:00

On Leap Day, Emma had a fabulous Pee Wee Herman/DDR party. It was great fun. We played Connect the Dots (la la la la!), showed off our mad dancing skills at DDR, had pancakes, wore red bow ties, and watched Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

I volunteered to bring a fruit salad because on the TV show, Pee Wee's Playhouse, I remember an episode where Pee Wee said, "I love fruit salad". And then someone said, "Why don't you marry it?" And so he did, and there was a fruit salad wedding scene.

I didn't have time to make the fruit salad because I was in charge of Laurie's bachelorette party earlier that day, and I was at the spa and the Cheesecake Factory. So I asked Matt to make the fruit salad. The funniest part was that he asked me what fruit salad was. I seriously laughed for like 5 minutes! So I told him how to make it, and he ended up doing a great job.

Here we are playing DDR while wearing our red bow ties. It was a great time! Emma always has such great parties!

Life is good

2008-03-04T09:30:00.004-07:00

Yesterday I had a completely awesome day. I seriously had an ear-to-ear permagrin all day long. First of all, I accepted a really amazing job opportunity. I will be working as a student government advisor at Brigham Young University. I will specifically be working with the communications division of student government. I am super excited! I have been wanting a job like this for a long time, so it's really exciting for me to be getting into that field.

Second, I was able to change my grad school program to part-time instead of full time, so that it will work with my new job. And I will still be able to finish in 2 years! I only have to go to class one night a week, so that will totally help on commuting time.

Third, I found out that my trip to China is going to be less expensive than I thought and I get to go to three cities in China! And my new job is going to work around my China trip.

Fourth, Matt took me to Coldstone to celebrate and they had my favorite ice cream flavor of all time! (Which they haven't had in 3 years.) Oatmeal cookie batter ice cream. Mmmmm!

Fifth, I finally felt good enough to make it back to the gym after a week-long leave of absence due to my extreme illness last week. And I got in a fairly decent workout and I didn't die!

Sixth, I didn't have to cook dinner because for FHE we had a soup night provided by the bishopric.

What a completely fabulous day! Life is good.

Not so fun week

2008-02-29T13:05:00.002-07:00

I got the flu. And it hit me hard. I have been pretty much out of commission all week long. Me and my couch (OK, well Rachael's couch) have become great friends over the past few days. I seriously have never been sick like this before. It is ridiculous. It needs to stop so I can get on with my regularly-scheduled life!

Thank you to everyone who has helped me out this week by bringing me juice, and grapefruit, and cheese, and get well cards, and Tylenol PM, and calling to make sure I was OK. I REALLY appreciate it.

On a happier note, today is Leap Day! Happy leaping everyone!

Fun weekend

2008-02-25T10:22:00.007-07:00

This past weekend was a blast! On Friday, Matt took me to dinner at The Pie. I had never been there before, and I must say...it was excellent! Some of the best pizza I've had in a long time. (It was also the only pizza I've had in a long time.) :) We went with Garrett and Courtney and had a really fun night.

On Saturday, we decided we hadn't had a perilous adventure for a couple of weeks and so we went snowshoeing with Roy and Beth. It was a lot of fun.

We had intentions of hiking to Donut Falls, but we never actually found the falls, and ended up just traipsing through the woods.

It was beautiful! I think I could really get into this sport. I love hiking in the summer, and so this was the perfect winter alternative. Matt and I followed this really cool trail that led to some mines. We never actually got to the mines before Roy came running after us telling us we had gone the wrong way, but we really enjoyed the trail.

We even saw a moose! It was so cool...I had never seen one out in the wild before. Don't worry, it was plenty far away from us.

On Saturday night we went Disco Roller Skating. It was a lot of fun. It totally reminded me of middle school. Classic was the place to be at the age of 12. I was kind of disappointed that they didn't use their disco ball though. But we had a lot of fun dressing up and doing some old school skating. What a fun weekend!

Why does stuff like this keep happening to me?

2008-02-21T07:42:00.003-07:00

Um, I got this letter in the mail yesterday. I have no idea who it is from or what to think. I have no clues at all except for the fact that it is strange. Why does stuff like this keep happening to me? What did I do?

Note: If you can't read the letter, click on the image for it to show up larger.

I am a lucky, lucky girl

2008-02-15T10:12:00.009-07:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day! As Garrett would say, I heart Valentine's Day! I had a fantastic one. First of all, I woke up to a TON of snow...I even had about 6 inches on my BBQ grill that is on my covered deck. It was insane!

My roommate Rachael and I decided to brave the snow and head out at 5:30 a.m. to deliver some Valentine treats to some friends on our way to the gym. I think we are crazy because we totally got my car stuck right in front of one of our friend's houses. I was so worried that they were going to wake up and see us out there trying to dig my car out of the snow. Or even worse, I was worried we were going to have to go knock on their door and solicit help.

But luckily after about 15 minutes of digging and pushing, we managed to get the car unstuck by ourselves without having to resort to asking for help and getting caught. And I think that they didn't even see us out there. We successfully delivered the treats and even made it to the gym without any further incidents.

At work we had a cookie decorating contest. It just reminded me of how I work with some extremely creative people. Some of those cookies were seriously amazing works of art!

Then these gorgeous flowers got delivered to my work for me. Wow! I am such a lucky girl! There was a note attached that said, "I thought you might like some tropical flowers to accompany this 'tropical' weather..." How sweet is that?

Mmmmm....they smell so good and they are so pretty! After work, Matt cooked me a lovely dinner and we watched the movie, Stranger Than Fiction. Some of our friends have been talking about it recently and I had never seen it, so Matt decided that I needed to watch it. So we did. And I liked it.

I am such a lucky girl to have such a sweet Valentine! Thank you Matt! Happy Valentine's Day!

Something fun for V-Day

2008-02-14T16:21:00.004-07:00

The Keys to Your Heart

You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free.

In love, you feel the most alive when your partner is patient and never willing to give up on you.

You'd like to your lover to think you are optimistic and happy.

You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please.

Your ideal relationship is lasting. You want a relationship that looks to the future... one you can grow with.

Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment.

In this moment, you think of love as commitment. Love only works when both people are totally devoted.

What Are The Keys To Your Heart?

Gong Xi Fa Chi

2008-02-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

We had a lovely Chinese New Year celebration this past weekend. It was much less high-strung than past years, but we had a lot of fun. This is the dragon that Caron made...isn't it great? It didn't get finished in time though, so we were unable to parade it around town. Next year though.

We made sure to bow to the Chinese God of Luck so that 2008 will be full of good luck for each of us. We also made some Chinese New Year's resolutions. Of course we had a delicious feast of Chinese food. I even made some healthified Chinese chicken that turned out really well.

We played Chinese checkers and made some Chinese fighting stars and various other pieces of origami. (OK, so origami is Japanese, but who's keeping tabs?)

We also did some Chinese brush art painting. Good thing my brother Kyle gave me a Chinese brush art calendar for Christmas so we had something to go off of.

Some people were just really good at painting. Look at this cool tiger Bill painted...

Others of us struggled a bit. Here I am with my painting. In case you can't tell, it's supposed to be some Chinese mountains and flowers. :)

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. We ended the evening by watching the movie, Ratatouille, since it is the Year of the Rat. Gong Xi Fa Chi!

Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cake

2008-02-11T09:17:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I made Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cake. It was divine. Here is the recipe. (Note: this is not healthified in any way, shape or form.)

Cake:
1 1/4 C chocolate chips
1/2 C butter
3/4 C brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp water
3/4 C flour

Melt chocolate with margarine. Cool. Beat eggs and sugar. Add chocolate and water; mix. Stir in flour and baking powder. Bake in well-greased and floured square, round or heart-shaped pan at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

Truffle topping:
1 C chocolate chips (melted and cooled)
1 package cream cheese, softened
1/4 C powdered sugar
1/3 C raspberry jam

Beat cream cheese and powdered sugar; add jam and beat. Mix in melted chocolate chips. Spread over cooled cake.

Glaze:
1/4 C chocolate chips
1 tsp. shortening

Melt chocolate chips with shortening. Drizzle over cream cheese layer. Garnish with raspberries.

Reunion

2008-02-06T08:56:00.000-07:00

The neighborhood that I grew up in was so great. There were about 10 girls my age. We had so much fun together at girls camp and carpooling to school and living through about 5 Sunday School teachers every year. Since we have all grown up and moved on with our lives, we make it a point to get together every once in awhile to catch up. So last night we had a little reunion at Chilis.

The little reunion started out with 6 of us. But then I took a bathroom break, and as I was washing my hands, there was this police officer there in the bathroom. I was wondering what on earth a police officer was doing at Chilis on a Tuesday night, and wondered if there was any trouble going on. Then the police officer started talking to me. She said, Hey Christy what are you doing here? I thought to myself, Why on earth is this police officer talking to me and how does she know me? Well, it took me a minute to recognize that it was Heather Brady! Heather was one of the girls I grew up with in my ward and we had lost contact with her over the years.

So then I brought her over to our table so she could see the other girls, and as I was walking up with a police officer, they were thinking, why is Christy bringing the police over to our table? Until they recognized her too. Anyway, it was a really fun reunion!

Someday...

2008-02-05T13:30:00.000-07:00

I need to do this.... It looks like SO much fun!

2008: The Year of High Adventure, Episode 2

2008-02-03T09:24:00.001-07:00

I have officially dubbed 2008 the year of high adventure. And this weekend I had another fabulous adventure. This time in the snowy wonderland of Star Valley, Wyoming.

Caron, Jamie, Matt and I headed up to Star Valley to do some cross-country skiing with some of Jamie's friends. We stayed in the lovely town of Thayne, Wyoming in the Cowboy Bunkhouse on Friday night. Friday just happened to be National Hula in the Coola Day, so we had to celebrate by doing some hula moves on our front porch in the freezing "coola" weather.

The Cowboy Bunkhouse was so cool! It was a log cabin with really cool horse pillows, a horse shower curtain, a log towel rack, buffalo, LOTS of snow, bunk beds, and best of all....a cowboy light fixture!

I want one for my room! On Saturday we got up early, and since it was Groundhog Day, Caron wore her lovely groundhog shirt and we looked for our shadows. (We did not see them all day long, so I guess that means spring is on the way!) We were going to choose the person in the group who looked most like a groundhog to perform the shadow sighting ceremony, but then we decided that might be mean.

I had never been cross-country skiing before and we were going with a bunch of experts, so I was a little intimated at first. But I did just fine, and it was so much fun! I totally loved it. We even saw several dog sled teams along the path. I have never seen a real, live dogsled before. It was really cool!

It was amazingly beautiful out there. I got the hang of it pretty quick and was just trekking along through the winter wonderland. I had heard about how hard cross-country skiing was, but it definately wasn't nearly as hard as I was expecting.

We skied 10 miles to this really cool place called Granite Hot Springs. It's this gorgeous hot springs pool out in the middle of nowhere. It was so cool being in that hot springs surrounded by feet and feet of sparkly snow. And boy did that hot water ever feel fantastic after 4 hours of skiing in the snow.

After the hot springs, we put our skis back on and headed back out for another 10 miles. I was doing great until about Mile 17. Those last few miles really kicked my butt! Matt got really sick at about Mile 13 and had to hitch a ride back from a snowmobiler. Caron and Jamie did the same at about Mile 15. I felt kinda bad that they had to wait for me to finish, but I wasn't about to give up when I knew I could make it the whole distance.

The trail was absolutely gorgeous. We skiied alongside the Snake River and through some mountains. My favorite parts were where the trail curved through the snow-covered pine trees. I am pretty sore today though, but it was so worth it!

It was lightly snowing the whole day long, and it was just so serene. I absolutely loved it. The drive home on Saturday night was a bit interesting. Poor Matt got really sick and we had to stop every half hour the whole way home for him. We would have just stayed the night in Wyoming, but we were trying to hurry and get home because there was a big snow storm coming and we didn't want to get stuck in Wyoming til Tuesday. But we made it home safely and soundly. Bring on the next adventure!

The war is ON

2008-01-31T09:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday after work I came out to my car to find this wretched piece of metal attached to my beautiful BLUE car...

All I have to say is...the war is ON! I'm pretty sure those involved in this terrible act of car vandalism don't know who they are messing with here. Apparently YML hasn't heard about my prank war record. I always win. And I don't resort to lying to do it either. So beware.

P.S. I'm still waiting for my peace offering. :) Oh yeah, and just for the record...I promptly removed that hideous thing from my car and stomped on it a few times for good measure. :)

Way to Be

2008-01-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

Wow. What an incredible example of what it means to be a great man and to truly live life to its fullest in the service of the Lord. President Gordon B. Hinckley has been the prophet of my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the past 13 years. And he passed away last Sunday night. I feel so honored to have come to know and love this amazing man, and be a recipient of his love, teachings and leadership. I truly feel that I have become a better person because of his example. And I know that the world is a better place because he was here. What a great example of a true disciple of Christ.

Being involved in the media industry myself, I was always intrigued by his interest and actions in the media. I enjoyed watching him raise awareness of the church and our values through his many media appearances and endeavors. I love his books, Way to Be and Standing for Something. They focus on being and doing and becoming. And President Hinckley was a true example of that. He was always working and improving and progressing. I love that about him. He worked so hard right up until the very end of his life. He never slowed down. He was always on fire. That is something I aim to emulate.

I loved his ability to interact with people. He was comfortable with anybody in any situation. You could feel his love and charisma radiating the moment he entered a room. You could tell his smile was sincere and he had a twinkle in his eyes that just screamed love. His caring and humble personality shined through in every situation. I loved his ability to connect with people of all ages and in all circumstances of life. I love that he made the effort to allow the members of the church the opportunity to see the prophet in person and also how he focused on bringing the blessings of the temple to all members of the church around the world. Having lived in a foreign country, I know that both of those things mean a lot to people.

I’m amazed at the growth of the church these past 13 years under his leadership. I know that his talents, skills, ideas and simply who he was are truly preparing us for the future. I will miss hearing his powerful talks, seeing his cute smile, smiling at his witty remarks, watching him wave his cane around, seeing him enjoy every moment, and learning from his words and his example. But I am happy that he is now in a better place continuing his wonderful work.

And soon I will have the opportunity to sustain a new prophet. And I am looking forward to what the Lord has prepared to teach us through him.

Thank you, President Hinckley for your incredible example. It will not be forgotten.

Wedding Announcement

2008-01-27T17:23:00.000-07:00

So my sister Laurie is getting married and she wanted me to make her wedding announcements, so here is what I came up with. I think it turned out really cute. Maybe I should start a business to make wedding announcements...it was a lot of fun to make.

Decisions, decisions

2008-01-24T14:29:00.000-07:00

I got this today...It is my acceptance letter to the University of Utah graduate program to get a Master's degree in Educational Leadership and Student Affairs. Taking that class last semester must have paid off! Now I need to decide if this grad program is what I really want to do. I love opportunities but sometimes I hate making decisions!

Which Disney Princess Are You?

2008-01-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

I Am Ariel! (I seem to get her a lot when I take these things.)

Headstrong and fiesty. You have a mind of your own that's full of romantic dreams about the world around you. Exploring exotic places is your ultimate dream, and although you can be a little naive you'll realize that there is something to be gained from your family's wisdom.
Which Disney Princess Are You?

Speaking of Disney personality quizzes, one time my friends and I were discussing what Disney character we were most like, and someone nominated me to be most like Nala from the Lion King because "I was caring and determined, fun-loving and adventurous, and could help people see their true potential and do the right thing." I liked that.

P.S. Thanks everyone for your opinions on where I should go on vacation this year. Even though China got the lowest number of votes, that is where I have decided to go! I'm so excited! I'll be going the end of May and I'm trying to get into the Great Wall of China 5K race...how cool would that be? I really hope I can get in. I chose China over the other two because a) the cost would be significantly cheaper than the other two options. b) my friend April will only be living there until the end of the summer, and what better opportunity to visit China than when I have a friend living there? c) the other two vacations are guided tours and going to China would allow me to create my own itinerary and choose my own travel buddies. China, here I come!

Officially Declared: Crazy and Insane

2008-01-21T11:25:00.000-07:00

I just had the best weekend of the year so far! I decided I wanted to escape the sub-arctic temperatures of West Jordan, Utah and head down to St. George to do some hiking. So Caron, Garrett, Matt and I headed south for a quick road trip.

We stopped for dinner on Friday night at the One Man Band Diner in Nehpi. (And yes, it was spelled that way on a giant billboard.) We had a lovely small town experience complete with a wonderful assortment of country tunes and some interesting dining partners.

We made it to St. George, and when we got there I was so excited because when I breathed outside I could not see my breath! Oh it was so glorious! We woke up Saturday morning to an absolutely beautiful day and headed off to Zion National Park and the famous Angel's Landing.

My awesome grandpa came with us. He is 81 years old and is a hiking guide for Green Valley Spa in St. George, so he knows all the cool hikes and everything about the geology and history of the area. I love hiking with him--he is so amazing and can still kick my trash. When I grow up, I hope I'm still as active as he is.

We were doing great for about the first 1.5 miles up the trail. It was sunny and gorgeous and I just really loved being outside. I have missed the sun and being outside so much!

Here's my grandpa climbing up to and peeking out of the peep hole in the rock. After about 1.5 miles up the trail, we reached what is known as "Walter's Wiggles". It is a series of steep switchbacks and we came to discover that it was completely iced over. Well, being the die hards that we are, we proceeded to climb up the ice ridden switchbacks. We only slipped a few times. :)

We made it up Walter's Wiggles to Scout's Lookout. This is where the adventure gets scary. To proceed up to Angel's Landing, you have to climb up this narrow, steep ridge with sheer cliffs on every side of you. Luckily they have chains you can hold onto to keep yourself from plunging into the depths of Zion Canyon. However, as we proceeded to climb, we discovered that the trail was super slippery because of the ice. But Caron, Matt and I were determined to go anyway. Garrett and Grandpa elected to climb the West Rim Trail instead.

We made it about halfway up before we realized how extremely crazy and insane we were, and decided to turn around and go back. It just kept getting more icy and perilous, and we decided that it wasn't our time to go so we better turn back before we died. Getting down from there was much worse than going up. At one point, I decided I might just have to stay there until spring because I was too scared to move.

This was the point at which we decided to turn around. As we were figuring out how to get ourselves down off the cliff and clinging to the blessed chain, we sang our favorite hymns to keep us alive. If you ever do this hike, be sure to memorize the words to "Hold to the Rod" and "How Firm A Foundation" :) It will be your saving grace! :) Luckily since I am writing this post, that means we are all still alive and did not slip and fall to our death.

When we got back to Walter's Wiggles, we had the great idea of just sliding down all the switchbacks. It was SO MUCH FUN!

Matt decided to take it "snowboarding" style and slid down on his feet. It was hilarious!

We then hiked to Emerald Pools to discover these amazing icicle waterfalls. Wow! It was so incredibly cool. Despite the ice and snow, it was sunny and 50 degrees and beautiful all day long. The red rock against the bright blue sky was like a dream come true. These pictures don't even do it justice at all.

After the hike, we headed back to my Grandpa's house for dinner. On the way to Grandpa's house, Caron, Matt and Garrett nearly got attacked by a crazy driver so they had to pull some tricky driving manuvers to lose their followers. But they were successful and made it there safely. Grandpa and his wife AnnaLou were telling us tall tales about rattlesnakes and bears. Garrett was intently focused on the rattlesnake story and was so dumbfounded when it wasn't true. It was so great!

Sunday we went to church with my aunt and uncle and then basked in the sunshine on the GRASS! It was so fantastic.

We stopped off to see the St. George temple and enjoy more of the warm weather before driving home. Oh yeah, and we drove with the sunroof OPEN! And wore sunglasses.

It seriously was so great and exactly what I needed. The whole trip just made me so happy. I loved not having an agenda, being out in the sunshine and nature in good company, doing silly things and not caring how silly they were, having a near-perilous adventure, hanging out with my awesome grandpa, and just having a fabulous time. So if that declares me crazy and insane--bring it on!

Note: This post was brought to you by the song, "Friends in Low Places".

Drinkredpunch.com

2008-01-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

Those of you who know me well have most likely heard my schpeil about how to be "approachable" at social events. Basically it consists of 3 rules. 1) Wear items of clothing or carry props that invite conversation. 2) Wear items of clothing that invite touch. 3) Be holding a beverage (preferably a red beverage rather than a clear one) .

Well, a few days ago at lunch I was educating a few of my coworkers about how they could become more approachable. So yesterday they all came up to my desk wearing items of clothing that invite conversation and touch and each of them was holding a cup of red punch. They nonchalantly said hello and just started chit chatting away with me. Until I realized what was happening and then I was rolling on the floor laughing. They proceeded to give me my very own little packet of red Kool-Aid powder so I could be sure to make my own red punch at every event--even if it wasn't readily available.

We then decided maybe we should start an Internet service informing others about these very important matters of social ettiquette. The site will be called http://www.drinkredpunch.com/. Look forward to extremely useful information about your own approachability coming soon.

Conversion is possible

2008-01-16T11:21:00.001-07:00

Some people just need a little help pointing them in the right direction until they realize the error of their ways and convert on over to the light. :)

The primary colors are 1, 2, 3...

2008-01-16T11:17:00.001-07:00

At church the other day our friend came up to Caron, Alison and me and said..."Hey, you're the primary colors!" It was so funny we thought we should take a picture. So here it is. However, it wasn't nearly as funny as the lion incident that happened later on in the day at Alison's house. I am proud to say that I now know the true source of stress relief. Thank you, Alison!

Before I Die...

2008-01-11T16:39:00.001-07:00

I Would Like To...

Have children
Climb the Great Wall of China
See the pyramids in Egypt and ride on a camel
Kiss the Blarney Stone
Go on a humanitarian trip
Ride a gondola in Venice
Be a motivational speaker
Sing “The Hills Are Alive…” and eat schnitzel with noodles while hiking in the Alps
Serve a mission with my husband
Go on a sleigh ride through the forest in a one-horse open sleigh with jingle bell reigns
Participate in the Puxatawney, PA Groundhog Day celebration
Go on an African safari
Visit all seven continents
Eat a Ruths Chris steak
Swim in the Great Salt Lake
Hike the Inca Trail
Run a marathon (and run a race at Disneyland while wearing Minnie Mouse ears.)
Ride in a hot air balloon
See Mount Rushmore
Attend the Kentucky Derby wearing a fancy-schmancy hat
Ride a double-decker bus
See the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in person
Watch a meteor shower
Hike the Narrows in Zions
Wear a southern belle hoop skirt
Eat chocolate at Max Bremmers
Win the cherub in Trivial Pursuit
Go to the White House
Dance at a ball til the stroke of midnight

I totally stole this idea from here. What's on your list?

I have a gospel question…

2008-01-11T12:21:00.000-07:00

Consider the following scriptures:

Matt. 11:28-30: Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Mosiah 3:19: For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

And that quote (that I can’t find right now) that says how if you turn your life over to God, He can make much more out of it than you can.

Anyway, I know that the atonement of Jesus Christ is to a) help us overcome physical death and b) help us overcome spiritual death so that we may return to our Heavenly Father. The wonderful thing about the atonement is that we don’t have to do it all ourselves. Because none of us can. He has done for us what we can’t do for ourselves.

My question lies in what do you do when you believe that, but you still feel like you’re alone and you don’t know how to cast your burdens at His feet and take His yoke upon you and partake of the wonderful peace he offers and really feel like you don’t have to do it all yourself? How do you truly use the atonement to overcome the natural man and really become a saint?

So if anyone can shed some light on the subject, I would be much appreciative.

P.S. If you have voted on my poll about where I should go on vacation this year, please tell me why you voted the way you did. I’m curious to know your reasonings.

Team name

2008-01-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

My next triathlon is on May 10 in St. George. So far I have successfully recruited a bunch of my friends and my dad to participate with me. (I am still working on talking a few others into it, so we might have some more if I can help them realize how great it will be.)

Anyway, I was thinking it would be fun to come up with a team name and a team cheer to get us all excited for the race. (We are doing weekly group training sessions too so we will be ready!) And I’m going to make us some team sweatbands or something. But I need a team name! Any ideas? Help!

Here is a list of our fabulous triathletes-to-be (in case that helps to inspire the team name):

Me
My Dad
Caron
Rachael
Emma
Matt
Roy
Katie
Almarie
Amanda
Mike

And Raymon (as soon as he comes to his senses and realizes that he really does want to do this!)

Yay for ________ (insert team name here)!

The Great Foot Attack of 2008

2008-01-07T12:39:00.000-07:00

This short poem was inspired by an extremely traumatizing experience I underwent this weekend of being attacked by feet in a hot tub. And by Mr. Theodor Geisel.

Left foot. Right foot. I hate feet.
Wet foot. Dry foot. Still hate feet.
Socks off. Shoes off. Hate bare feet.
Up in the air feet. Under the water feet.
On the volcano feet. Next to my drink feet.
Matt’s foot. Darin’s foot. I even hate Nate’s feet.
Help! Here come more and more and more feet. Aaagghh!
Left foot. Right foot. Gross, gross feet.
Oh how cruel is attacking me with bare feet.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year! And welcome to 2008. We had a fantastic New Year's Eve party--complete with lots of friends, fun, and 5 different kinds of fondue and plenty of stuff to dip in it.

I made my annual New Year's Eve stuffed mushrooms especially for Ryan, Raymon and Sarah Ann (my mushroom-loving friends). Mmmm....

We played lots of fun games. Don't ever challenge Garrett to a game of Mad Gab--you will lose miserably. However if you happen to be a princess, be sure to challenge a bunch of boys to a game of Disney Princess Go Fish--you'll be sure to win!

Can I just say that I have really great friends?

Emma and Matt treated us to an impromptu karaoke and interpretive dance performance in conjunction with the Top 10 songs of 2007. Don't worry, we got the whole thing on film (thanks Darin!) and it will be debuting on YouTube shortly. :)

Of course at midnight we counted down the seconds to the new year, made a big ruckus, blew our horns, popped some confetti poppers (although most of them got used up before midnight), hugged everyone, and I sprayed everyone with silly string.

Then Kyle stole the silly string and covered me in it. It would not come out of my hair until I washed it the next day! He even got some in my mouth--gross!

Matt decided my leg was a good footrest. And then he decided it would be a good idea to drink the leftover fondue! I think he was a little sick the next day. :) But finding the lovely new addition on his car made everything much better.

Anyway, it was a great New Years. And here's to a fabulous 2008! I have big plans for this year--it's gonna be a good one. :)

And speaking of a fabulous 2008, it's time to post my New Year's Resolutions. This year I resolve to:

1. Increase my temple attendance by at least 50%. (This means I need to go at least 3 times a month. I'm going to try for once a week though, but I'm giving myself some leeway.)

2. Lose 10 pounds. (I know everyone says this, but I am serious and I am really going to do it. That will put me right at where I'd like to be. And besides, I've already lost 45...what's another 10? I can totally do that.)

3. Strive to become more Christlike. (I am going to do this by really focusing on Him in my scripture study, my actions and my prayers.)

4. I have one more resolution, but I have decided not to post it here for a number of reasons. Maybe if you ask me about it in person, I will tell you.

So if you could please follow up with me throughout the year about these goals and keep me on track, I would really appreciate it! Thank you and good luck in all your New Years Resolutions.

Note: These resolutions have been brought to you by the letter A and the number 22.

Wingardium Leviosa

2007-12-30T14:03:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to Emma and Bekah's Harry Potter party. It was fabulous! They are so creative! We made wands at Ollivander's Wand Shop.

We got sorted into Houses by the Sorting Hat. We took our O.W.L.S. We played wizarding games. There was even a Goblet of Fire.

And we had some tasty treats. It was lots of fun.

The Gryffindor House won the gold cup on sheer luck. They came back from way behind and won the game! I think I need to read the books again though...there was a ton of stuff I had forgotten.

P.S. The official mileage total for 2007 was 390.64!

Disney princess comforter

2007-12-29T13:03:00.000-07:00

My brother Nathan is the coolest! He is on a mission in Louisiana and is doing great. Here he is with his Disney Princess comforter. The thing I love about Nathan is that he does what he likes even when everyone else thinks it's weird.

Anyway, it was so great to talk to him on Christmas. He has a bit of a southern accent, which is kinda fun. He is so enthusiastic about the work...I love it! Way to go Nathan.

I have been sick all week long. And I'm sick of being sick. And because I got sick, I'm not going to make it to 400 miles. I'm so sad! I was so close. Well, at least I tried. Speaking of goals, I think it's time for my New Year's Resolution check-in. My 2007 resolutions were:

1. Run a 1/2 marathon. check

2. Learn to swim. check

3. Take guitar lessons. Can my tennis lessons count instead?

4. Get up on time in the morning to actually have a decent amount of time to study my scriptures. check (well, on most days I did this)

5. Throw more parties. I did have some good parties this year.

6. Find a way to consistently use my Spanish. still need to work on this one...any suggestions?

7. Apply for graduate school. I applied. Twice.

8. Give away a Book of Mormon. check

I think I did a pretty good job of meeting most of my 2007 resolutions. I will post my resolutions for 2008 soon. Oh, and I am having a New Year's Eve party...you all are invited. We're having fondue...it'll be great!

Merry Christmas

2007-12-26T09:59:00.000-07:00

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We had our annual soup buffet, and Scott made his famous baked potato soup. We played Monopoly this year on Christmas Eve instead of Risk, and I was out before 11:00. Everyone finished by midnight. Normally we try to get out around 2 a.m. so we can go to bed. My friend Sheri came over and played with us since she couldn't go home for Christmas. And we even had a white Christmas! It snowed about 4 inches on Christmas Eve. We got to talk to Nathan, and it was great. I had a wonderful Christmas, and I'm so grateful for the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. I love the spirit of this Christmas season.

On the third day til Christmas...

2007-12-22T16:40:00.000-07:00

Let my Christmas vacation begin! My cards and presents are made, my gifts are wrapped, my projects are done, I wrote my letter to Santa, and I made my favorite holiday treat...cranberry bread! (Actually, I made it three times this week!)

This is my mom's recipe that she makes every year, and I healthified it (sort of). I actually like it better than the original recipe! It turned out SOOOO GOOD. It took three times to get it right, so I'm sorry if you got one of the 'experiment' batches :) I tried some different butter substitutions but in the end, I decided to just go with the butter. (It's worth it) Here is the perfected recipe:

Cranberry Bread
2 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter
1 cup Splenda
1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
1/2 cup fat free evaporated milk
1 cup chopped fresh cranberries
1 cup walnuts (optional)

Cream butter, sugar and Splenda. Add eggs one at a time, beating well. Add vanilla and milk. Mix well. Mix in the dry ingredients. Stir in cranberries and walnuts. Grease and flour bread pans. Bake at 325 for 1 hour. Makes 2 loaves or 5 mini loaves.

I have also been making more Christmas cards today! Fun!

Last night, we went to see the play It's A Wonderful Life. My friend Nate was in it, so we went to go see him. They did it like a 1940s radio broadcast, and it turned out really, really good. I do love that story. Good job Nate!

Yesterday I went to get my hair cut. My hair lady said she wanted to try and see if she could make my hair straight, so away she went with the flat iron. Here's the final result...

I thought she did OK, but I must say that I like my curls better. :) Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. May all your Christmas wishes come true!

I had a crazy thought

2007-12-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

I was looking at my mileage log for the year, and I was thinking how cool it would be to get up to 400 miles for the year. That means I would have to run 25.67 miles by the end of the year. That gives me 12 days--with an average of approximately 2.13 miles per day. And I just decided that I am going to go for it. Go me! Wish me luck!

How cute is this?

2007-12-18T10:49:00.000-07:00

I got to work this morning to find this sitting on my desk. It is the most adorable little teapot and teacup ever full of some delicious herbal tea (camomille, honey and lemon...mmm). My boss is so cute.

Last night after FHE we watched the movie, Elf. I love that show! Anyway, one of my favorite parts is when Santa says to Buddy, "I really need an elf right now." And Buddy says, "I'm not an elf." And then Santa says, "Buddy, you are more of an elf than anyone I know."

The "elfing" season has begun and I just love it! My little "elf worshop" is a big mess right now with all the projects I'm in the middle of. I think one of the reasons I love Christmastime is because I love gift-giving and the increased service opportunities. Plus, it gives me an excuse to let everyone know how great I think they are. I know I should do that year-round, but it's just so much more magical at Christmastime.

Some of the cute Christmas cards I am making!

Fantasy world vs. reality?

2007-12-17T13:13:00.000-07:00

So this past week I watched the movie, Miracle on 34th Street, for the first time and loved it. I was really intrigued by Brian the lawyer’s speech about faith and hope, and how even if something may not be “real”, why stop ourselves from believing in it if it makes us happy? He talked about how if the hope for something that may be considered to be an unrealistic fantasy brings a smile to your face, why suppress that? Why subject yourself to the possible bitter disappointment of so-called reality?

I admit that I sometimes live in a fantasy world. I often have high hopes and I tend to be a dreamer and an idealist. I try my best to make my dreams into reality, and although a lot of my dreams come true, some don’t. And because of that, I tend to get disappointed sometimes. So where is the balance? How do we embrace reality and avoid getting disappointed without losing the hope and magic of an idealistic dream?

Merry Christmas

2007-12-15T17:14:00.000-07:00

Well, here's my annual Christmas newsletter (Click on the image to see it full-size). For my loyal blog followers, however, this isn't really much of an update because you probably already know everything I wrote about. Anyway, have yourself a merry little Christmas...

Married people should wear rings

2007-12-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

Why is it that some married people do not wear rings? It really would save them (and everyone) a lot of trouble if they did. A prime example: today at lunch I decided to go to the Ryan Shupe & the Rubberband concert at the mall. I love Ryan Shupe! Anyway, by the end of the concert, I decided the bass player was HOT and I wanted to meet him. I, of course, checked to see if he was wearing a ring--and he was not. I am really trying to make an effort to go out of my way to meet new people. And really, what did I have to lose? So I proceeded with the plan and stalked him--waiting for the opportune moment to arise so I could strike up a conversation. Jamie even helped me come up with a fantastic opening line. Well, fortunately for me (and my pride) the opportune moment never arose and I left the concert without meeting Mr. Hottie Bass Player. And then I later found out that he WAS married. Darn him!

Here's a bad photo of him taken with my phone--he's the one in the green shirt.

So my point is... if you are hot and married, you should obviously wear a ring to assure that you can avoid being stalked. I'm glad that some people got some entertainment value out of the whole thing. I actually thought it was quite funny myself. And just for the record, I thoroughly enjoyed the concert. Gotta love those bluegrass-style Christmas songs!

Holiday treats

2007-12-10T11:42:00.000-07:00

Last night I had my annual Christmas cookie party. It was lots of fun. I like making holiday treats, but I don't like to have them all laying around the house for days so I have a cookie party and everyone comes over to help decorate the cookies and eat the treats. And then I send them home with the leftovers! It works great.

This year I had a few "healthified" recipes I wanted to try, so I made healthified fudge and healthified egg nog. I must say they were quite tasty. You'll never believe the secret ingredient in the fudge, but try it--seriously, it's good! Here are the recipies...

Healthified Fudge
15 oz. can of pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup cocoa
3/4 cup melted margarine
7 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1. Mash beans with a fork til smooth. Heat in a saucepan or microwave.
2. Add cocoa and butter.
3. Slowly stir in sugar.
4. Press into greased pan, cover and refrigerate til firm.
YUM!

Note: I tried adding peanut butter to some of it, and it was quite good. And I added chopped almonds to some of it and that was good too. I tried adding some pumpkin to some of it, and that wasn't quite so good. :)

Healthified Egg Nog
Mix one package of sugar free white chocolate pudding mix with 2 cups of skim milk. Blend well. Add 6 more cups of milk, 1/2 cup Splenda, and 1 tsp of nutmeg. Blend and enjoy!

O Christmas Tree

2007-12-07T17:44:00.000-07:00

Last night Rachael and I went and got a lovely Christmas tree! Isn't it great? Oh and it smells so wonderful. I have always been a real tree sort of girl. Just can't do the fake thing.

Even though every year I forget what a pain it is to get the tree put into the stand and get it standing up straight. It took three times this year! But we got it up and it looks great. We had so many ornaments between the two of us, but we crammed them all on our little tree.

For FHE this week, we had our annual Temple Square outing. I just love the lights there. And the bubbly lights in the reflecting pond are so cool!

Darin and Matt decided it would be a good idea to play "King of the Mountain" on this big pile of snow. They are such dorks! Plus, they had both been really sick the weekend before so I'm sure throwing each other in the snow didn't help much. But boys will be boys.

Here are some of the ward peeps enjoying the lights. And, last but not least, I think this has been one of my greatest Christmas finds yet. It's a missionary triathlon Tshirt that I got for my brother Nathan. He is the one who introduced us all into this whole crazy triathlon thing after all.

Love this

2007-12-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

Don't hide out...it's all in perspective. Why focus on the negative, when there's so much positive? Another good one from the Campaign For Real Beauty.

Christmas memories

2007-12-05T16:31:00.000-07:00

I have been tagged. But I’m switching it up a little and I’m going to share 6 of my favorite Christmas memories…

1. On my mission I got this brilliant idea of delivering “singing telegrams” to all the members of the branch for Christmas. (I was trying to think of new ways to get references.) We got the ward missionaries together and they went about caroling to the branch members. After the members got sung to, we invited them to send a singing telegram to all their friends. We made these cute little cards inviting them to church and the branch members signed it and wrote a little Christmas note to their friend. We then went about caroling to all the references and inviting them to hear more about the church. It was such a fantastic experience…more than one of the recipients had tears in their eyes and agreed to let us teach them. I really could feel the spirit of the love of Christ for those people that Christmas. That was my favorite Christmas ever.

2. In college, my roommates and I went to get a Christmas tree. We then proceeded to make a skit about getting our Christmas tree. The skit involved us reenacting the picking out of the Christmas tree in the “styles” of each of the four of us. Nattie=singing in the shower (we wore shower caps and sang the whole thing); Yajaira=ghetto style (we made the skit into a rap song) Bethany=Spanish (we did the skit in Spanish and held up signs with “subtitles”) Me=Reporter style (we all acted like reporters and held microphones up to whoever was speaking) It was so hilarious!

3. One Christmas Eve, we were at my Grandma’s house and the power went out—all night long. We couldn’t cook our Christmas ham or turn on the Christmas lights or anything, so we just ate salad, lit a bunch of candles and listened to Christmas songs on the battery-powered radio and sang and read stories while we curled up in blankets. It was so fun!

4. Wooden sleighs, elves and mistletoe.

5. My dad refused to let us kids get up very early on Christmas morning, and since my siblings and I could never sleep, we would all get together in my room and watch the neighbors open their gifts through the window. We disguised ourselves and used binoculars. We would also make “Christmas Eve Survival Kits” to help us get through the long night. And play Risk. We still play Risk on Christmas Eve.

6. I love shopping for and making Christmas gifts. It’s so fun for me to try and think of the “perfect gift” for everyone.

I tag everyone who stalks my blog and has never left a comment, and everyone else who wants to play along. :) If you don’t have your own blog, you can post your 6 memories in the comments section!

Outside the snow is falling and friends are calling...

2007-12-01T13:47:00.000-07:00

It's snowing! This is what it looks like from my balcony right now. It has been snowing all day long. I actually like the snow in December, it's so pretty. I have all these brilliant ideas of holiday projects I want to do so I went to the craft store the other day to get supplies, which inspired me even more. (This can be dangerous). But anyway, I'm really excited and I hope the projects turn out as fabulous as I envision them to be.

I made my front door look like a giant Christmas present. And I made these super cute star lanterns.

And I love sleighs! If any man ever wants to woo me, he could just take me on a sleigh ride and I would be putty in his hands. Horses with jingle bell reigns would be an added bonus. Isn't this sleigh the cutest thing ever? Well, I promised myself I would write my paper for school that is due this week before I got started on any of my other projects, so I can't share any more of my holiday fun until I get that done. I think I've only got a couple more hours on it though.

Last night, I went and saw the movie Enchanted. And it is rather enchanting. I quite enjoyed it.

Rudolf

2007-11-29T17:49:00.000-07:00

So I have this weird rash on my nose and I look like Rudolf! It is horrible!

I have a question to pose. I love Christmastime. But I have some memories associated with this time of year that make me sad. How do I still enjoy it without being sad when I think of those memories? Any suggestions?

P.S. Friday is National Stay Home Because You Are Well Day. Unfortunately, I will not be able to celebrate that holiday because I stayed home on Thursday because I was not well. Next year perhaps.

BYU 17, UTAH 10

2007-11-25T16:10:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to say...what a sweet, sweet victory! GO COUGARS! (I tried to take a picture of the scoreboard with my phone, but it didn't turn out very well, so you get to see all the commotion on the field after the game.) I almost didn't make it to the game due to the fact that someone stole my tickets! From my pocket somewhere between the car and the stadium. Can you believe that? But luckily some blessed man had pity on us and let us in. Anyway, it was a fun game even though neither team scored a touchdown until the last 2 minutes of the game.

Also yesterday I had the opportunity to go to Handel's Messiah sing-in at the Utah Symphony. It was fantastic. I'd never seen a performance of the Messiah before and I thouroughly enjoyed it. I think I just may have to make that an annual tradition from now on.

I did manage to steal Matt's camera at the game and take a picture of the scoreboard. He said he was going to delete "that terrible picture" from his camera, but he turned out to be a nice boy and sent me a copy of the glorious photo. Thanks Matt!

Run for Gratitude

2007-11-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

This morning, Caron, Garrett, Bekah, Emma, Rachael and I participated in the Draper City Run for Gratitude 5K. It was so much fun. It was Emma and Rachael's first 5K ever, and they all did so awesome. I think I'm going to make this a yearly tradition. All the proceeds from the race went to the Utah Food Bank and LDS Humanitarian Services. Anyway, it was really fun. And really cold. But I reached my goal of running the entire way without stopping to walk. Yay!

I am so thankful for all the wonderful blessings in my life. I'm thankful for family, friends, my health, heaters, fleece, my bed, the sunshine, the beautiful world in which I live, technology, a good mind, my church leaders, and most of all...a loving Heavenly Father who has a plan for me that all has to do with happiness. I'm so grateful for the atonement of my Savior that gives me the opportunity to have a second (and third and zillioneth) chance when I mess up, and to give me strength and comfort when I'm struggling. I don't know what I'd do without that knowledge.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

More from Seattle

2007-11-21T10:56:00.000-07:00

Tuesday we went on a ferry ride through the Puget Sound. It was gorgeous. We rode over to Bremerton in the late afternoon and came back at night when we could see the city lights of Seattle. On the way over, there were a ton of seagulls that were just flying alongside the boat. It was so cool.

It was sooooo cold! I forgot to bring my gloves and my hands seriously turned purple.

We saw some seals in the Sound on the way over. It was fun to watch them play. And the sunset was beautiful. Luckily we could see the sun since that is such a rarity in the state of Washington!

I just love being near the ocean! Even if it was cold.

We also went to Snoqualmie Falls, which was beautiful. And we went to Issaquah Creek where the salmon come to lay their eggs. We did see a few big salmon and a bunch of baby ones. It was pretty cool. On the drive home, it was 20 degrees coming through Washington...freezing! But the snow-covered pine trees just made me want to listen to Christmas music. For the first time all year.

From the road

2007-11-20T12:28:00.000-07:00

Hello from Seattle! We are up here for my cousin's mission farewell and we decided to stay an extra couple of days and see the sights.We went to Pike Street yesterday in downtown Seattle. We made friends with the fish-throwing boy and he made us go stand by the fish counter and he promised us a great picture opportunity. Then he threw the huge fish right over our heads! Then he threw a fake fish at me and I thought it was a real fish and so I let out a big squeal. Of course he waited to do it until there was a huge audience so everyone laughed at me. It really was quite funny. Gotta love the fish throwers at Pike Street Fish Market.

And of course we had to go to my favorite place in Seattle...Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe. It's only the coolest place there. They have the most crazy stuff there, like mummies and Siamese dogs and jumping beans and just a bunch of funny stuff. I love it!

Here we are sporting some of the crazy hats.

And they have all these funny games you can play. Here we are playing on the Love Tester. According to the Love Tester, I am "Hot Stuff". Laurie was "Poor Fish, Try Again". She was so sad!

It was so funny. They also have these old movies you can watch, a fortune teller, this old cowboy slot machine, a vampire killer thing. I love that place!

And I swear I have gained 10 pounds already on this trip. It seems like all we have done is eat. Here we are eating some most delicious clam chowder on the pier. Mmmm...

We also went to the aquarium, the original Starbucks, and we've sat around and eaten lots of yummy food at my Auntie Tracey's. She is the best cook ever. She made us ribs and cheesy potatoes for dinner one night and lasanga and breadsticks one night and cinnamon twists this morning. Yum! More to come later....

Who needs men?

2007-11-14T21:47:00.000-07:00

So I have had this "project" that I have been meaning to do for several months now. I got this punching bag and I needed to assemble it and put it up on the wall, so I could actually use it. I thought I needed a man to help me put it up. I was waiting until I got hometeachers so I could give them this assignment, but I've only seen one of them once, so they have not exactly been available to help me put up the punching bag.

And all of my male friends who said they would help me have not followed though on their offers. So I decided I would just put it up myself. And so I finally did today. Here is my lovely work...

I can now look forward to relieving my stress, toning my muscles, and filling in all the "extra" holes I drilled in the wall. Oops! Anyway, go me!

P.S. If anyone feels the need to punch something, they are welcome to come use my punching bag. It really does help!

If you could have a super power...

2007-11-12T09:37:00.001-07:00

Your results:
You are Green Lantern

Hot-headed. You have strong
will power and a good imagination.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

You are Vanilla

You're as popular and relaxing as vanilla ice cream. You go with the flow, and get along with all sorts of people. You appreciate peace and simplicity, so you sometimes find crowds and loud noises overwhelming. You are a chilled-out, calming influence on the people in your life, and your friends appreciate how supportive and flexible you are.

What ice cream flavor are you?

Dashed dreams

2007-11-07T11:44:00.000-07:00

I am tired of putting up a strong front and acting like everything is okay, when really I feel like I’m just going to explode right now. So I am going to tell it like it is. Just know that you have been warned should you choose to read on.

I’ve always been a firm believer in dreaming big. I’ve always believed that you can make your dreams come true if you really want to. I’ve always been a big advocate about the fact that if there is something you really want, and you’re willing to do what it takes to make it happen, you can achieve anything.

I was wrong.

Up until this year I’ve found my theory to be true. If I had a dream, I set out and worked hard and did everything I could to make it come true. And it always did. This year, however, there have been several things I really wanted that have not come to pass. As I always do when I have my heart set on something, I have done everything I could to make these dreams come true. But they didn’t. Everything I had wasn’t good enough. And so my dreams did not come true. Because I didn’t have what it takes to make them into reality.

And what really stinks is that I honestly felt like these things I wanted were also what the Lord wanted for me. He kept telling me that my dreams were righteous desires and that I should move forward in achieving them. Only to have them all blow up in my face.

So now I just feel like a big failure. And not good enough. Or capable enough. And I just feel like I don’t quite fit in anywhere. I guess I’ll go eat worms.

I just want to find my niche…to find something to be excited about again that I am capable of achieving. Is that so wrong?

That’s it. Venting session closed. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

The Great Chicago Caper

2007-11-04T09:29:00.000-07:00

My fourth annual Halloween murder mystery was a big success, if I do say so myself. I didn't have time to write the mystery this year, so we used one from How to Host a Murder. It was a 1920s gangster theme, and it was so much fun! I loved how much everyone got into their characters.

We had a lovely dinner of Chicago-style pizza.

And of course we had to have lots of fun drinks. And drink out of elegant glasses. I found these really cool sparkling cider things that were so much fun to open. They made a really loud sound when you popped the cork. And we had plenty of "moonshine," (apple) beer, and "bathtub gin".

Garrett kept using a peanut as a cigar...it was hilarious!

I transformed the basement into a 1920s speakeasy. Everyone had to enter through the back door and give the secret password to get in. I made this really cool city skyline and night sky out of butcher paper and put Christmas lights behind it so it would look like stars. I also made silhouettes of dancers and jazz musicians. I had my cousins, Hope and Emma, dress up and pose for the silhouettes so I could trace them.

I used all of Kyle's musical instruments and their cases as props. And then I just put beads and feather boas everywhere and made some "bead curtains" with streamers. And of course we had the fog machine to create a smoky atmosphere, and we listened to some fabulous jazz tunes. I thought it turned out really well and created a fantastic ambiance for the party.

Here are all the fabulous characters. We had Eddie R. Gyle (Matt), Torchy (Rachael), Billy 'The Kid' Thrower (Josh), Silky M. Adam (Anne), Molly M. Awbster (Emma), Adelaide Banks (Bekah), Ernest G. Ambler (Garrett), Clara S. Uffridge (Alison), Scoop (Caron), S. Treighton Harrow (Darin), and Boots Legger (me).

Anne and Emma kept referring to this paper they had of 1920s lingo and used the slang words every chance they got. It was hilarious! And Darin had printed out "files" on everybody and carried them around in this briefcase. And Matt kept speaking in a British accent. It was great. And everyone's costumes were fabulous. Anyway, it was a blast. I always have so much fun with this party every year.

Baby Christy, TMI, and the bad dream

2007-11-03T10:04:00.000-06:00

Baby Christy. Check out this cute baby! Guess what her name is? Christy! I was so shocked when my adorable Chilean mission companion told me she was naming her baby after me. Christy isn't even a Latin name. I'm so flattered.

TMI. In my efforts to move on and meet new people, I met this guy last week through a mutual friend at this activity I was at. We talked *very* briefly that night and a couple of other times at different functions that week. Well to my surprise, he called me the other day, and as we were talking on the phone, he proceeded to tell me way too much information about himself for only having known me for a week. Anyway, it was just really weird. So my question is, although I believe in being open and honest, how much is too much?

The bad dream. Back to my Chilean mission companion. She tends to have these strange dreams that often have some sort of significance. Well, she emailed me the other day in a panic wanting to know if I was okay because she had a really scary dream about me. When I told her I was fine, she was so relieved and said she had been really worried about me because of the dream. I asked what the dream was about, and she said that I had been in a really bad car accident. Yikes! I'm a little freaked out by that, and every time I get in my car to drive somewhere, I am reminded of it. And it's even weirder because of some other things that have happened this week, and because it is November. So I really hope that her dream didn't mean anything bad.

Friends. I just wanted to say thank you to a very wonderful friend. This week has been...um....quite the challenge for me as I've had to face some not-so-pleasant trials. But I received a very encouraging letter from this great friend at just the right time. She said, "Christy, you are someone special. The Lord brings people into our lives for specific reasons, and personally I'm so grateful that you came into my life when you did. You bless many lives, and I don't think that will go unnoticed in your life."

And then she proceeded to "sing" me this: "Keep smilin', keep shinin'. Knowin' you can always count on me-ee, for sure. That's what friends are for. For good times and bad times. I'll be on your side forever more-ore. That's what friends are for."

Anyway, THANK YOU! I needed to be reminded that I am a good person, doing good things, and being a good influence for somebody out there.

Happy Haunting

2007-10-31T19:38:00.000-06:00

Happy Halloween! I know I say this every year, but I absolutely love this holiday. Here's me and my sister Allison in our smashing costumes. Really, I just love any excuse to dress up.

On Monday I went to my old ward's annual Halloween dance. It is always so much fun. Oh, and that is the pumpkin I carved at FHE last week.

And I love Halloween at my work. Everyone gets so into it! And the employees' kids come and trick or treat around the office. This year, we even had a mad scientist's lab in the office complete with brains, eyeballs, hearts and more. It actually was pretty gross. The Paper Crafts team dressed up as a chic band...they even made posters and press passes. They are so creative! And check out the kid dressed as a washer/dryer...now that is funny!

Stacy the mad scientist

Here is my friend Emma and her coworkers. They dressed as the Clue characters. How fun!

And Garrett and friends dressed up as Super Mario brothers...isn't it great?

I'm excited for the annual murder mystery party on Saturday...one more chance to wear my costume this week! Fun!

And I thought I liked theme parties

2007-10-31T11:49:00.000-06:00

Check out this girl's Harry Potter party and her Witches Brew Tea Party. How fun is that? They put my theme parties to shame! I'm just so incredibly impressed. And I love the idea of having to search for clues as part of the invitation. And that she created a blog specifically for the event and you had to end up there to find out vital information. And how cute are those owl invitations? And I love that all her friends get so into it as well! Maybe I will recruit her services to help me plan my next party.

Speaking of my next party, does anyone have any decoration ideas for a 1920s speakeasy?

The Vast Unknown

2007-10-30T12:58:00.000-06:00

Behind me lies a route of confusion.
Why that course has ended is unknown.
Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to journey that way.
But that is where the signs have directed me.

The path I have chosen is no longer an option.
But I can’t go back. I can only go forward.
With the knowledge I have gained along the way.

I see no signs indicating which way to turn.
Ahead lies an unfamiliar path.
One I never intended to take.

All I can do is step forward into the vast unknown.
With my flashlight and my compass.
And hope the signs will appear in the distance,
Directing me forward until I am sure I'm on the right path.