Our Nation's Capital

A couple of weeks ago, I flew out to Washington D.C.
Why?
I don't have a good reason. My friends talked me into it.
And it was AMAZING.
I love our country!! I loved seeing the monuments and memorials, and feeling the amazing spirit there.


Saturday night when I arrived, we wandered around D.C.The Lincoln Memorial was my favorite. He is one of my heroes!


Some nice men with british accents took this picture. Bahaha.


On our way to Thanksgiving at Grandma Meam's house on Sunday, we saw the sand man.


We stopped by the D.C. temple later that night. It's beautiful!


:)


Vietnam Veteran Memorial


The Capitol building! Christian's sister, Heather, works for Senator Hatch at the Capitol so we got a private tour. (Heather was also kind enough to let us sleep in her apartment while we were there!)


......And then we drove home. In Christian's '96 Honda Civic. That was an adventure.

But really, I love that place. I learned a lot on that trip, about myself, others, and our nation. I realized that a lot of people (myself included) complain about our government, etc, but... we are SO BLESSED to live here. Heavenly Father made it possible for this country to be founded. There's no way we could be where we are today, enjoying our freedom, without Him. I love this Nation!

My Kids!

I work at a daycare. I am a mother of 120 children, give or take a few. (Luckily, I have a lot of other "mothers" to help out.) I'm going to be honest right now, and say that it has taken me a LONG time to love my job. It's HARD to take care of that many kids, and it's hard to LOVE them all! But finally, after a few months of working there, I can say that I love my job and I love the kids. It's amazing how much I've learned from them!



This little guy is my three-year-old-best-friend. His name is Efrain. Every day he jumps into my arms, hugs me, and asks me what I had for breakfast.



Boston is almost 2 years old. He is obsessed with Shrek and is terrified of the garbage truck.



The kids decided to bury Santiago in the woodchips. I thought it was hilarious, so I snapped a picture before he got out. Oh, Santi.



Annalyse is the most precious little girl I've ever met. Her smile makes my day! We're friends. :)



For the Thanksgiving season, we wanted the shool-age kids to write down what they're thankful for on feathers, then we put them on a big turkey! This is Suzie's feather. While the other kids wrote the usual things like "I'm thankful for friends" or "family" or "food" or "my toys", Suzie wrote this. I almost cried when I read it. Ha!

These kids are a huge part of my life right now! They have amazing, strong spirits and I am so blessed to be able to spend time with them every day. I'm so blessed to be loved by them! I'm so glad I get to take care of them. :) This job is preparing me a lot for the future; my adventure in Ukraine, and when I become a mother. Life is wonderful!

I Kind of Fail At This Blogging Thing.

It's been two months since I've blogged. Seriously, I don't know where my time went.
Up until a week ago, my life was:
Wake up. Go to work. Eat dinner. Sleep. Occasionally hang out with Natalie, Macall, or Rachel. Repeat.
Over and over again, for months and months.
And then, my best friend came home from his mission!!! So now life is like this:
Wake up. Got to work. Eat dinner. Go to Christian's house/climb mountains with him/carve pumpkins with him/watch movies/explore SLC/dance/talk/drive/etc. Stay up too late. Sleep. Repeat.
Every single day. It's fun to have him home! He makes life a little more colorful!
Also, last week my family went to Zion's National Park with a few other families from the ward, which was a blast! I hiked Angel's Landing for the first time. AMAZING.

Isn't the view gorgeous? I love that place.
That's my life in a very little nutshell.

The Concert

That's right. GoGo13 came to Thanksgiving Point. And I went.


I was joined by some crazy awesome people, whom I love very much! Aus, Tay, Elise, Cami, and Hanna.




We painted our faces with mascara


And bought some sweeeeeeet band T's.


Meanwhile, Elise wouldn't stop whispering sweet nothings into her husbands ear.


The best part was, the drummer knew all of our names, and he totally came over to chat with us! He even came to the movie theater with us afterwards to see 'Inception'!
It was such a fun evening full of family and entertainment!Gotta love those get-togethers!

Wedding

It was a great day for a wedding! Everything was beautiful! It was fun to see so many family and friends.
Congratulations Taylor and Elise!




















(Truck decor courtesy of "the boys".)

Bridal Luncheon

Last Saturday, ladies of all ages - Slades and Bennetts - met at Olive Garden to enjoy soup and salad in honor of Elise, my almost-sister-in-law. Elise came with her mother and two sisters, and it was great for everyone to meet and get to know each other a little bit!







It was fun to chat and eat and welcome her into the family. We love her!

Summertime in the Bury (and beyond!)

I love summer. Especially at home. I have (some of) my friends back, my family back, my mountains, my lake, and my Flats back.



Summer isn't summer without this sunset.


Or hiking with a best friend or two.


And of course, it can't be summer without taking pictures at railroad tracks.

Summer is my season.

Ok, I Confess. I'll Miss It.

The closer I get to Friday (the day I'm moving home), the more I realize how much I will miss Cedar City! I've lived here for the past 9.5 months, so I'm sort of attached! And since I'm not coming back any time soon...I might cry. Perhaps one day I'll return, and buy one of the huge houses on the hill. Yeah!
Things I will miss:
~The parks (and people-watching at them.)
~The sunsets
~The Adam's Theater (Shakespearean Festival, anyone?)
~SUU Campus
~Fake rocks strewn about campus
~Main Street shops (Especially the cafe and the little bookstore!)
~Red mountains
~Random statues all over town
~Making drugs
~Institute dances
~Shopping for "college food" (Pasta, potatoes, cereal...potatoes...)
~Student wards
~The gutters, filled with ever-flowing waters

These are just a few things, the list could go on and on! I tried to post pics, but the computer yelled at me. Maybe later?

But still...I'm excited to go home!

El Plan-o

This is my plan. That's right...I have a plan. And since I'm blogging it, it's official (at least for a few days)!
The Plan:
This summer and fall, I will live at home, and work. (Some of my guy friends come home from missions in the fall, too, so that's a plus!)
In January, I'm going to Ukraine to teach English. I'll be there until early June.
That summer, I will work and play, and re-establish The Couch.
That fall, I will either go to school, or move somewhere exciting and just work. Maybe I'll go to the east coast. I've always wanted to live there.
For a couple of years I will travel, maybe teach English in Mexico or China, and just do whatever Heavenly Father wants me to do.
Then, eventually, I will meet some gorgeous and righteous man, and we will get married in the temple.
We will have a family, and I will be a stay at home mom.
The End.
Throw some trials in there, and I think it's a pretty great plan!

Home...Sick

I came home for the weekend, last Friday afternoon, because I was homesick. I had a lovely couple of days with my family and wonderful friends, in good ol' Stansbury. And then...BAM. I was hit by the flu harder than a fat guy hits the ground after falling off the empire state building. I thought it wise to...NOT go to work. Or to leave the house for that matter. I've been in no condition to drive the 4 hours back to Cedar. It's now Tuesday, and although I feel a tad bit better, I'm still not peachy. But at least I get to be with my family a little longer!

May Days in Cedar

Welp...my life went from SUPER BUSY to super not. My new apartment is nice, as are my roommates, but I hardly ever see them. I work anywhere from 4 to 6 hours a day, which is great! I love my job! The rest of the time I have absolutely nothing that I have to do. So I read/write/watch movies/go to the library. It's nice, I like being able to relax and have tons of "me time". But..I really miss friends and fun and parties and dancing and rocking out and being busy doing exciting things! I can't wait til I can move back home to where all my friends and family are! I miss everyone so much!! Hopefully I'll be out of here by mid-June. :)

Finals Week

My life has been just a TAD crazy the past couple weeks, with tons of papers to write, presentations to organize, etc etc etc. Thank goodness for Finals Week. This is the first time in weeks I've been able to slow down and BREATHE! (Doesn't that seem a bit backward?)
This weekend I'm moving out of my dorm, and into a new apartment for the summer. I'm still not sure how long I'll be staying in Cedar. I'm just playing it by ear!
I'm going to miss my roommates soooo much. We've had so many good times! I've had an excellent freshman year of college! It's crazy to me that it's already over.
Summer will be most wonderful. :)

New Blog

This is exciting! A brand new blank blog! I had an old blog, but I rarely posted anything on it. So I deleted it. Yes I did, I deleted that blog and decided to start fresh! My friend Natalie inspired me to start this one, actually! Let's hope I'll be able to uh..maintain it this time.