Catch up!!

Now I have a REALLY good excuse of why I've been slacking so bad with blogging... FINALS!!! I am wrapping up my first year of the ed program. Last week and this week have been FULL of assignments and final exams and I truly wasn't sure if I was going to make it through.... but I did and I know only have 2 assignment and 1 more final to go!! Woot woot! So clearly nothing too exciting has happened these last two weeks, but before then I had a blast with some friends and fam.

For reading week, I headed down south to watch my best friend, Kenzie's last university basketball game. I put a little gift together for her and sat with her family while cheering on my bestie. They didn't come out on top, but I was sure proud of her and the huge accomplishment it is to finish 5 years of university ball in one piece!! She has pushed through this last year even though she really didn't want to always be there and I definitely think it was worth it.

After her game, we went out for dinner with her husband and the rest of her family, which is always a good time! Lucky girl got to head to Hawaii that night with her hubby and the rest of his family. They had a blast and I was jealous the whole time!

After dinner with the Sheens and Baldersons I headed over to Kara and Kimber Leavitt's to hang out with some them and some friends from Utah that came down. They were some boys that Kaitland and I sold with last summer: Toddy, Chase and Richard. It was great to see them again and wish we lived closer so we could hang out more often!

I spent the rest of reading week in Portland with my favorite Tolman family and I had BLAST!! Beckam is growing up so fast and he is getting so fun to hang out with. I spent numerous hours playing hide and seek or basketball in his room with him. Maddox and I started out slow as he pulled the shy card for the first day, but after that we were the best of friends!

I had an interesting trip home though... got stuck on the Amtrak train in Whitefish for 24hours because of snow and wind warnings..are you kidding me... my stop was next. Mom was a trooper and waited for me in Shelby, MT and we headed home Sunday night. It felt great to be home and I was not ready to head back to Edmonton to face the two weeks I am wrapping home just now :)

I spent last weekend hanging out with Cristy Duce and Kaitland while watching the college boys Final Four playoffs and we sure did have a blast together. On Sunday, Kait, Cars, Shelby and I went to the Bucknor's church and we sure enjoyed our time there. They were so welcoming and kind and going there always reminds me of the truth of our church and although others may be close, they don't have the full truth. Man do they love though! It was a really neat experience for the other kids too!

Work It, Work It

So... last Friday Land and I were asked to participate in a photo shoot with the one and only... Miss Jenni Peterson professional photographer of Edmonton.. ok maybe she's just one of Kait's good friends, but she is an amazing photographer and I love checking out her photos! Jenni is trying to put together a portfolio to send off to try to get into a school in the states and has been asking some of her friends to do photo shoots for her portfolio... Land and I were a couple of the friends selected :)

So Thursday night, we decided we had better put some clothes together so that when we got to Jenni's house she could pick out the outfits she wanted us to wear and we wouldn't waste any time. We may have got a little carried away... we ended up packing a suitcase full of outfits. Land had a good laugh about it... I was just playing the part.. I mean, as models... we need options.. hehe

So we trudged the suitcase out to my car while slipping around on the icy path we now have from all the melting and re-freezing that has occurred, had a busy day at school, and then headed to the Peterson house. Jenni took about 5 seconds picking out our 1 out of 100 outfits we took over :) and we got on the road. She lead us to a cemetery where we took all the photos.

We had a blast! It was a little awkward in the beginning because we weren't entirely sure how we should pose, but once we got the hang out it, we just acted naturally posing in all different ways and had some laughs while we were at it. It was a quick photo shoot, but a lot of fun too!! It was more of serious photo shoot, but there were lots of laughs and goofing around too... here's a lil sneak peek. :)

oh this... just my beautiful lil sista!!

Jenni has started helping with a campaign that speaks out that love is louder than things like abuse, racism.. and so on... so Kait and I did a photo to help out

love of music

gazing... out at the cemetery :)

the best of friends...

love the yellow umbrella

emotion!

Any hoosiers.. we had fun and are both hoping to see some more of our photos soon... cross your fingers :)

Just Thinkin...

Sunday's are a great day! Not only because I get to go to church, but it tends to be a day of reflection on random and, at times, important things. Today I focused in on two thoughts. The first was sparked by my activities last night.

I had the opportunity to meet up with an old friend/cousin, Marin McCue. We were really good friends when we were younger, sharing a passion for basketball and adventure. I loved spending time at the McCue house as they turned their barn into a gymnasium. Our families were great friends and spent many happy times together. Things have changed quite a bit since that time. The McCue family have all left the church besides one daughter and her family, the parents are now divorced, and the values they used to pride themselves in have now been filled with worldly pleasures. As I sat down with Marin for dinner, I felt happiness being reunited with her and laughing while sharing stories and memories of the past, but I also felt a sadness. As she shared with me the experiences of her siblings and parents, I felt sorry for her and her family. Her beliefs are very different from mine now. I had a great time catching up with her, but when I got home and thought a little about how much her family has changed and gone through these past few years, I felt so blessed to have the gospel in my life and to KNOW that it is true. I hope and pray that Marin and her family's hearts will be softened someday. All I can do now is continue to be an example and stand up for what I believe in. I love Marin and am thankful for the opportunity we've had to share some time together... it's been fun!

Secondly... I was thinking tonight.. if I could choose my dream job right now (money not an issue), what would it be? It used to be to be a professional athlete, but I've moved past that for now:) I'd have to say my dream job right now would be to be a professional traveller. Now you may be thinking... what the crap is that... well let me tell you.

A pro traveller has many challenging aspects and responsibilities to his/her job. He/She is in charge of travelling around the world on adventures to explore, experience and give feedback for all the places he/she goes. You see.. I think this is a very important job because when people are looking to go on vacation, sometimes they don't know enough about the place or are unsure of where they really want to go. I could be the pro at letting them know where, when and how they should go. I would also determine how long an adequate stay would be and have a list of activities they may want to participate in while on vacation. Brilliant I know! Of course I would be making a ridiculous amount of money and would be able to also travel to third world countries and do some service in my off-season :)

I have already done a big chunk of travelling, but I mean the world is huge... one can never travel too much right!?!?! :)

Bball Weekend!

I have been kindly reminded of my avoidance of doing my blog by my dear father again. Thank goodness for him! This past week was a busy one and I'm pretty sure the next month will be very similar. School assignments are are coming up and are worth between 40-50% each, so I have got my work cut out for me. This past Wednesday, our social class went on a field trip :) We went to a history center that just so happened to be on the top floor of the school I am working at for my practicum this semester. It was interesting... well for the first 10 minutes.. I spent the following hour and a half sitting at a table visiting with 3 other ed girls. It was fun to get out of the classroom though!

This weekend the ysa had a basketball tournament, well at least for the boys, so we spent most of the weekend at the gym watching Cars play. Cars played awesome in the first game and I made sure all my church friends new I had taught him everything he knew :) Saturday was a bit of a different story, Cars' team played 4 games on Saturday and you could tell their bodies just weren't used to that kind of continuous play. Their team got into the final, but just didn't have the legs. The other team got lucky and couldn't miss a shot, but Cars' team was the exact opposite. Shawn Elford was the only one hitting the shots the whole game. It was really too bad because Cars' team should've won it all!

I worked Friday and Saturday night again. My last scheduled awake night shift, which I'm a little relieved about. On Friday, I was chatting with the youth worker who was getting off shift and we started talking about some old residents. She told me a story about a 7 year old girl, blonde hair, blue eyed cutie, who was placed in the home for a few weeks. The little girls' story goes that her and her 4 year old brother used to get locked in the basement while their parents went out and partied.... sad i know... but it gets worse. The little girls mom used to sell her daughter to do sexual favors for drugs. That's right, at 7 years old!! I couldn't believe and my heart ached for this little girl. While she was living in our home, she tried to give the other residents her allowance money to 'touch her' among other things. Luckily this was caught by youth workers and she was moved to a hospital for psychological help as we are definitely not trained to deal with this sort of stuff. You always hear stories like this, but to meet or know someone it actually happened is unreal! It reminded me of how blessed I have been in my life to grow up in a great little town with great people and a stellar family who love me more than anything in the world!

Last night I was laying on the couch attempting to catch a little sleep and just as I was getting comfortable, cramp in my right calf.... OUCH!!! I wanted to cry! I don't remember the last time I had a cramp like that! And that was my week in a nutshell!

SIGHT!!!

I've decided that this weekend deserves a blog to its own. So about a month ago I started getting an irritated eye, which I ignored and figured it would just go away... well it didn't, so a few days later I went and saw a doctor who gave me some eye drops and referred me to see an opthamologist. I used the drops for a few days and my eye cleared up, so I called the opthamologist office to see if I still needed to come in. They said no and that it was ok to wear my contacts again, but if my eye flared up again to go back and see them. Well I left the next day to go home to Raymond for Christmas break. I wore my contacts home and had no problems, but woke up the next day with an irritated eye, so we called our special friend, Doctor Tollestrup to save the day. He gave me this lubricant to put in my eye and said to use it for 5-7 days and not to wear my contacts for 2-3 weeks. Now for those of you that don't know me very well (which is probably none of you seeing as my family are the only people that read this :)) but I rarely, if ever wear my glasses and if I do, it's usually at night time when I'm going to bed, so this was hard for me.

When our family went snowboarding and skiing... yup that's right.. I was wearing glasses with goggles over top. I was looking GOOD!! Needless to say, I couldn't wait for those 2-3 weeks to be over. Now skip forward 3 weeks. Christmas vacation is over and I am back up in Edmonton. I decide to finally take a chance with a fresh set of contacts after 3 weeks of waiting. I put them in, they feel good... no problems. 2 days later... little bit of irritation, so I immediately go back to wearing my glasses. I decided to go see the opthamologist. She says I don't have an infection and that my irritation and redness is probably because it's so dry out, so she gives me more tear drops and tells me to maybe take a break from contacts for a month, but that I can use them if I'm going to the gym or playing basketball for those couple hours. Next day, I had a basketball game, so I put my contacts in... feeling great.. play a fabulous game of ball Thursday night, come home, immediately take the contacts out and put glasses back on.. things are still feeling great at this point. Go to bed. Wake up Friday morning at 7:30 a.m.... eyes VERY heavy... which was weird seeing as I had gone to bed at a decent hour. So I decide maybe my eyes just need some eye drops... so I go in the bathroom and put some drops in.. still not able to keep my eyes open. So I give them a few minutes with me not looking in the light and try to do my make-up with out looking. Half an hour passes and I still can't keep my eyes open for more than a second... there is NO WAY I am driving to school and able to function, so I call one of my fellow students and tell her the news and I put a few more hopeful drops in my eye and lay back down to sleep. I wake up a few hours later... still pretty much blind. And this was my weekend!!! I spent most of my time in my bed listening to either music or a movie play. I was bored out of my mind. Luckily I had Carson and Shelby here to keep me company at times!

So this morning, Sunday, I was finally able to get up and see for more than a few moments. I could actually keep my eyes open and functioning most of the day. I've noticed that my eyes are still very sensitive to light or bright things, so every once in a while I have to close them both and re-focus. It's official.. I am getting lasik surgery!! I don't know when, but it is happening in the next 6-8 months!! I have thrown my contact case out as well as my solution and am buying a whole new set to try in a couple weeks... till then call me 'four eyes' because I DO NOT want to experience another weekend like the one I had recently!!

Now for the positive from this experience... I have gained a whole new appreciation for sight!! I love seeing!! I love watching people and things. I love blinking. I love color! I love everything about sight and hope I never have to do without again!!!

WHAT SONG BEST DESCRIBES HOW YOU ARE FEELING RIGHT NOW?

Well I just spent a good half hour going through some of my songs and it's really hard to pick just one that best fits how I am feeling right now, but I have narrowed it down to two for tonight. The first is called 'Believe in You' by Amanda Marshall and the second is called 'Beside You' by Marianas Trench. 'Believe in You' has always inspired me and always reminds me that I'm not alone. The song 'Beside You' does the same... it inspires me and makes me want to be a better person. Enjoy!

Land's Bday!!

Friday was Land's birthday!! She is 19 now... getting pretty old! Cars and I went out for dinner with her to Red Robin's. On the way to dinner, we gave her the present from mom and dad. It took some convincing, but we finally got her to open it up :) She was VERY excited about her new scriptures!! Dinner was delicious as always. Sadly Cars and I were both not feeling so good with colds and headaches, but we trooped through and made dinner a fun time for our favorite lil sister. I know it's hard to believe, but Cars' choice in drink proves just how crappy he was feeling.. he ordered water... yup that's right.. and I got it on camera. I don't think I've ever gone out for dinner with Carson ordering a water.. he ALWAYS gets pop.

Yay for new scriptures!! Kait has been wanting them for a while, so she was pretty happy!!!

Proof that Carson does drink water!!

So, I'm not sure if you are all aware, but at Red Robins they make a pretty big deal if it's your birthday. They get a group of waiters and waitresses and crowd around your table, announce to the WHOLE restaurant loudly that it is your birthday and they get the special birthday individual to stand or kneel on their chair while they sing a happy birthday day. Kaitland made is VERY clear that Cars and I were to NOT tell anyone it was her birthday! What did she expect us to do when she sauntered off to go to the washroom left the two sick, but clever siblings at the table alone :) We were brought our food and enjoyed it while goofing around. Our waitress came by a few minutes later to take our plates and left to 'get the bill'. He he... we got her!! A clan of Red Robin employees made their way to our table, got Kait to kneel on her chair (this was not easily done), and an announcement and birthday chant were done. You could tell she loved us sooooo much. We enjoyed the heck out of it! Anyway.. it was a fun date night with the siblings.

Kait was enjoying the heck out of her song!!

I have loved living with Land and will definitely enjoy the next 4 months with her up here. We always talked about living together, but didn't really believe it would happen. Kait is so driven and has such a good heart! She has always been such a great example to me and I am so thankful for her friendship and love. She is the most amazing, talented and beautiful little sis anyone could ask for!

I decided to get a pic of Kait's hard work shovelling today!

So I'm sure you have all heard about the insane snowfall we have gotten here. It is ridiculous!!! I went to work Friday night down in Millwoods. The roads were not very good especially because the city hadn't been able to get out and cover all the main roads yet, but I drove cautiously and finally made it to the house. The main roads weren't too bad, but once you get to the side roads, there is a one way track, so if another vehicle is coming, I prayed it was a big truck that could move to the side while I drove through. Luckily I didn't run into any vehicles! It snowed the whole night. Finally I was able to head home to get some rest at 7:45. Now I always park in the back alley because the alley has been cleared better than our front road and we have a parking spots back there, so I knew it had snowed a lot, but I figured if I gunned it up the first big of the alley, I'd make it just find the rest of the half block to my parking spot. I was wrong. I turned into the alley going a pretty good speed and made it about a meter.... nothing... so I backed out again and sped up the alley again... I made it a lil farther this time, but still slowed down to barely moving. I got out to assess my situation. It had snowed more than a foot and my car is pretty low. I thought about attempting to park in the front, but I knew that was a far worse option than the alley, so I back out one more time and pinned it into the alley for the 3rd try. In short... it took me 50 minutes to get into my parking spot... this included getting out of my car... marching to our garage, grabbing a shovel and shovelling my way into my parking spot... RIDICULOUS!! So I called in sick for my Saturday night shift... and cuddled up in my house for a snow day or two.

Just to give you an idea of how much it has snowed. Those are our roommates bikes.

Kinda hard to see, but that is the drift by our sidewalk going to our house

The road in front of our house that I can't drive on because my car is too low and the city sucks at clearing the side roads.

Kait got brave today. I asked her what her plans were for the day and she replied a few tasks and then said she was going to go out and do some shovelling. I smirked inside because I knew she didn't know what she was getting into. I've been the shovelling roommate for the past week with all this snowfall and I know how tough it is, but I left her on her way. I decided to go out and get some pics of the snowfall and got some pretty good ones... including one with Kait pondering what the heck she had gotten herself into :)

Kait is contemplating what she has gotten herself into :)

So after Kait had been outside for a little over an hour, I decided to go check up on her. She had ton all our walkways and was shovelling around my car in the back lot. I went out to see if I could help her finish up, which led to us becoming more motivated and we decided to shovel 3/4 of our alley way so that if I did choose to use my car, I would be able to without getting stuck. Two hours later we shuffled inside with red faces, runny noses and sore bodies... BUT the alley way looks fabulous and drivable without getting stuck!! Nice work to Kait and I for being the only keeners in our alley way!!!

INSPIRED

The holidays were great!!! I loved being around my family and see a couple friends too! My family and I headed to Whitefish to ski and get away for a week before Christmas. I got a little unlucky and got the 24 hour flu the night before we left to head down. I was kind of out of commission for a couple days, but we still had a blast and it felt great to get on a board again. It took me a bit to get back in the swing of boarding, but I finally got it on our last day. Maybe I'll have to plan another trip before this season is over :) It was fun to go to Sugarbowl and see how amazing the Comet boys are this year! They are very gifted and competitive and it will be interesting if any team will even come close to competing with the mighty mighty Comets!

Mostly I want to talk about tonight. I worked my first awake night shift last night and it went really well, but it also caused me to sleep from 8:30 a.m. till about 1:30. I know I need the sleep, but it sure makes ya feel like you're wasting your day away. Anyway... I got up and ate some cereal then nestled back in bed and cuddled up to a movie. I decided I needed to get my lazy butt outside for some fresh air, so I got all bundled up and decided to walk to the movie store to grab some dvds to keep me awake for my night awake shift tonight. I stepped into the most perfect winter night. The air was crisp, but not to chilly. The city wasn't as busy as it normally is on a Saturday night.. probably because most people are recovering from their New Year's Eve activities and I was completely ok with that as I strolled down the street. I had my ipod on listening to a new band a friend introduced me to called "Living Water", which is a Christian group and as I walked down the streets with my head up looking around and taking in the diversity and beauty of the city, I couldn't help but smile.

I felt so inspired tonight and there really is no special reason as to why. I started reflecting on how blessed I truly am. I have an amazing family who love and support me. I have friends who listen and care about my life. I have a job that has given me the opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and see a part of childhood I was luckily never exposed to. I am in an amazing education program where the teachers and my peers want me to be the best I can be and push me every day to accomplish my education goals. I have a Heavenly Father who loves me unconditionally and who NEVER leaves me alone. I AM BLESSED!

I was reminded tonight of how easy it is to question who we are and our worth. I was reminded of how Satan patiently waits for us to become comfortable with where we are and let our guards down... just a bit... and he slyly squeezes a doubt in our potential and worth. I have been hypocritical in a way. I am very good at giving advice on how to get out of a spunk, but have not done so well at getting out of my own. It is time! It is a new year and is going to be a great one at that! I have been pondering what goals I would like to accomplish this year and I am excited to sit down and plan out how I am going to ensure they are followed through and some exceeded! This is going to be a great year!! It will be full of positive, challenging, inspiring and great things!

So question of the day is an interesting one... YOUR DREAM WEDDING!?!?!?

Well my dream wedding would include an amazing man who loves me and makes me feel like I am the most beautiful and talented woman in the world. I will feel so safe and naturally comfortable with him. My whole family will be present along with my best friend and her studly husband. A beautiful temple will most definitely be part of it. My husband and I will be happier than we have ever been before and will be surrounded by people who love and support us. It will be a beautiful day. The rest of the details... well they can be figured out at a later day... but it will be perfect and a joyous day!