18... 17... 16... party : )

One day a Freshman in college and a Junior in high school decided that they were going to sleep under the stars!
To give a little background, these two girls had grown up down the street from each other, they were practically sisters. When the one graduated from Logan High School and proceeded to go to Utah State University she became really busy. Now the other, still a Junior in High School, was also very busy, taking an insane amount of AP classes and concurrent enrollment (congrats about bio, by-the-way) and mowing 48 lawns a week. Well they started seeing less and less of each other. It had been months from the last time they actually had a longer conversation then saying hello as they passed on the street.
And then that fateful day happened, neither of them had stuff happening on a Friday night! They saw the opportunity to hang-out and catch-up on each others lives... and they seized it! And what a party they had.
These two girls also had a very good friend, a Senior in High School. She also had a full, busy schedule consisting of school, soccer, and chasing boys ;) Now they figured that because it was such a strange thing for them not to have anything on a Friday night that their friend might not either! So they texted her... and waited... then texted again... and waited... finally they just decided to called her... and, as fate would have it, she was at the high school football game BUT that she would leave and go party with them instead :)
So the three girls, an 18 year old Freshman in college, a 17 year old Senior in high school, and a 16 year old Junior in high school, finally hung out! They entertained themselves with Twister, Pictionary, and watching "The Man From Snowy River" (what a great movie... if you haven't seen it, go NOW and watch it).
After the movie the 17 year old Senior had to leave. The other two girls were sad to see her go and knew that she would miss out on the fun that was about to happen but respected her mother's rules.
They waved goodbye and headed out back to unroll their sleeping bags :) it was a beautiful night with twinkling stars and a full moon! Neither of them felt very tired, even though was 2 in the morning! The two, pretty-much, sisters laughed and talked late into the night (or early in the morning, either way you look at it)!
With little sleep they woke up at 7:30, rolled up their sleeping bags, gave a hug and went their separate ways. They had places to go and things that needed to be accomplished.

What a great memory to have :) and what great people to share it with

(Note: this is NOT my picture, i stole it from fb :) and it is not the night that was described above. but this the best picture of us that i could find! and leave it to me to ruin a cute one. But anyways, we have had penalty of fun together and i hope to continue enjoying their company)

Wherefore, be of good cheer... I the Lord am with you and will stand by you.

The past 9 days have sure been long. So many things happened. So many things that changed lives. It has been a rough ride for me. I found my self asking why. Why is this happening? Why did all of this happen to me? During this time I turned to my leaders, my family, and my friends for comfort and reassurance that everything with be okay. And I sure found it. I am SO blessed to have so many people that care for me! One of the many people that I talked to said (I think quoting someone else) "Don't turn away from God when you have pain. Rejoice you have the resources to deal with it."
I also turned to the scriptures to find comfort. Underneath is my favorite picture it is tucked away in St. John 16:33 "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."
This picture has a lot of meaning to me. A couple of years ago I was faced with a pretty hard trial in my life. One of my friends knew this and knew that I needed some comfort, encouragement, and reassurance. She gave me this picture along with her testimony written on the back.
When I look at this picture I am reminded that Christ knows me personally. He knows my loneliness and my trials. A scripture that I associate this picture with is D&C 68:6. "Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you."

I know that I am never alone. I know that Heavenly Father does watch over me and does care what happens to me. I know that when The Priesthood is used worthily and correctly that miracles happen. I know that Jesus Christ LIVES. I know that he died for me. I know that through repentance I can be made clean again because of Him. I know that we are on this earth to be tested, to be tried. I know, because of those times of trials, that Heavenly Father loves me and that He is preparing me to live with Him and His Son, Jesus Christ, again. I am SO thankful to have this knowledge, and to know that there is meaning to this life!

10 short fingernails... only 9 toenails?

This post includes 3 stories about my fingernails and toenails:
1. If you know me then you will know that i love my hands! i think they are so cute! i love wearing wrings, painting my fingernails, and keep them looking nice.
When i joined rugby i was told i had to cut my fingernails! i love my long fingernails (that is one of the reasons i stopped playing the guitar was because i had to keep my nails short.) Well i love rugby more so i chopped them off. At first i hated it! Short nails... on me... yuck... but im kinda getting use to it, and i started playing the guitar again!
2. Last week after practice i got home and noticed that i had 3 beautiful long scratches on my neck from someone's NAILS! i couldn't believe that someone was tricky enough to go a whole week without cutting their fingernails! Who ever you are... congrats, but PLEASE cut them :)
3. The last nail story happened at practice. At somepoint while practicing tackles my foot got stepped on. Nothing out of the ordinary but this time it HURT! I rode my bike home and took off my cleat to find my sock a nice dark shade of red. (I had put white socks on earlier). I gently took off my sock, examined my foot and tried to find where all the blood was coming from! i found it... my little pinky toenail had been ripped off!

Now i have 10 short, ugly fingernails and only 9 toenails

From here to there... no chance to breath!

*gasping for air!
This has been the first time for a while that i have time to do what i want... and the only reason for that is because i am avoiding math homework :)
My life has been CRAZY busy... i go from classes to work to kickboxing to work to rugby to best buddies to class then to institute and when i finally make it home its time to study study study!
My schedule keeps me on my toes, but i love every minute of it!
Today was AMAZING! got up at 7 and went on a beautiful bikeride up green canyon, went to my kickboxing class and then hurried home, took a shower and headed up the canyon! For my WILD 2000 class i have the opportunity to teaching fourth graders all about bird migration! we go up the canyon, go on a short hike and then play a game that relates to how birds migrate each year! It was so much fun and the kids are so cute! i get to do this for 2 more weeks, and am looking forward to every day!
On my way home, trying NOT to act like a bird any more, i went cleat hunting! I needed cleats for rugby by today and i still hadn't bought any. (i wasn't procrastinating at all) Lucky me the first store i went to had the perfect pair! (See picture, with a few changes... imagine gray for the black and light blue instead of the pink) They are beautiful! I wanted them SO bad, i hadn't looked at the price yet because i knew they were going to be pricey. I braced myself to see a 3 or a 4 as the first number, but to my surprise it was a 1!!!! can you believe that?!? These cleats were $16.37! NICE, well i snatched them up and went to check out, but to my dismay when she rang them up the price was NOT $16.37 it was $43.65! WHAT! well i explained to them that the shoe was marked as $16.37. She made a few phone calls and they decided that since it was their mistake that they would sell it to me for the mark priced! So i bought a $43.65 pair of cleat for $16.37... what a great deal :)
After bargain shopping i studied, then went to rugby practice (in the rain! it was great!), and then studied some more, and now i am on the computer wasting my time :)
A busy day, a busy life, one happy girl :)

College involvement

I often ask upper class-men for advice about college. "If you could go back to your freshman year what would you do differently?" The most common answer is to get involved! Join a club, volunteer, go to the dances and movie nights, and make some new friends!
In highschool i had no problem with this! i did cross country, french club, key club, lacrosse, best buddies, and i had friends everywhere i went! i LOVED it! and i wanted college to be the same way! So right off the bat i got involved! i volunteered at the Blood Drive, i went to all the activities, i even got involved with "Week Of Welcome". (Week Of Welcome is held on the first week back to school. There are all kinds of activities going on to help people get involved and excited about school!) On of the things that i did was to help set up for "Day On the Quad". On Wednesday all of the clubs set up tables on the quad and advertise trying to get people to sign up! there were tons of clubs and i signed up for a couple... it was a great way to see what USU has to offer!
Now one of the booths was the rugby team... What is rugby?
Rugby is a form of football which originated in England in the early 19TH century. It is more similar to football than to soccer, although players in rugby are allowed to kick the ball at any time during the game and not only for penalty or goal kicks.
The team is made up of either 13 or 15 players. A game last eighty minutes, split in half by a break of ten minutes.
The object of the game is that two opposing teams score as many points as possible, by carrying, passing, kicking, and grounding the ball with the team scoring the greater number of points being the winner of the match. It is, in a way, similar to football with players passing the ball to each other and running with it until a point can be scored the difference is forward passes are not allowed.
Rugby is a full-contact sport payed without padded uniforms or head protection, but mouthguards are mandatory. Which means players are more prone to accidents and injuries than in other similar sports. Although there are strict rules as to what can be done physically when blocking toter payers, injures still happen.

That is rugby and that is the sport that i am playing :)

I am an AGGIE

College... what fun! i am loving it! I am going to Utah State University and am majoring in Wildlife Science.
Because i live so near to campus i decided, when i got accepted to USU, that i was going to ride my bike to school. This decision was before my birthday and the bike that i currently had was about to fall apart at any moment... but i didn't care! i loved riding it. You can imagine how excited i was on my birthday when a brand new bike was sitting on my back porch with my name one it!
On the first day of class i was so excited, i couldn't wait! i looked outside and saw that it was raining... YES!! i LOVE the rain! i thought to myself "what a great day this is going to be!" then i realized, i ride my bike to school! On any other day i would be out riding in the rain, splashing through the biggest puddles i could find, but on any other day i wouldn't have to sit through class soaking wet! and then i realized anther thing, i don't have a rain coat or a rain poncho! HA so i ended up borrowing my mom's rain coat, which was WAY to big, but i kept me dry! i think that maybe i will go and invest in a rain coat :)
All in all it was a great first week of college!

Summer in a nutshell

aww summer! one of my top four favorite seasons :) this year i loved every minute of it! i am going to try and summarize it from the time i graduated high school up until the day i started college!
here we go...
I graduated from Logan High School on June 3... that night there was a graduation party at the Sports Academe, and of course i went! it was so fun... they had a hypnotist hehehe! After the graduation party Chelsie, Christina and i were starving so we made a late night run to WalMart! what a fun experience that was :)
Every summer, and sometimes if i have time during the school year, i volunteer at the Cache Humane Society! i absolutely LOVE animals, especially dogs! My dad is allergic to both dogs and cats so i go there to get my fill of animals! One June 5Th we had a HUGE adoption day! i was asked to go and help with the set up and keeping the dogs looking nice and taking them on a run if they were getting a little too excited. I took Dianne and Kristin, my sisters, with me. We had so much fun! If it were up the three of us... we would have many, many dogs living with us!
My summer also consisted of, my favorite, long bike rides. I love my bike and i love being outside! i beg my sisters, my friends, and anyone in the neighborhood to come with me on bike rides. Now about the picture, my sisters think this is the funniest thing! Dianne and Kristin say that i take too many pictures, i however do not agree! On this bike ride i had to beg them, on my knees, to come with me. They agreed and off we went. It was a great bike ride and i wanted to capture that moment in time so i told them "smile im takin a picture" and this is what i got... o well!
O Montana... what a beautiful place you are! For my senior road trip Chelsie, Whitney, Laura, Janessa and i drove 7 hours to Whitney's Grandparent's cabin in the mountains! it was so much fun, and so pretty! We enjoyed every minute together :) Some of the "highlights" of the trip were we got a flat tire, it rained every night (we found that out after the first night we were there. we were outside cooking hotdogs over the fire and it started pouring! we had nice soggy buns), Laura twisted her ankle (who knows on what!), we got lost, Nessa ran a read light, we went shopping and pushed Laura in a wheel chair, we ate at Fuddruckers, Nessa got pulled over (she was the driver), and Whitney puked on the car ride home :) it was definitely a week to remember.
Right after getting home from Montana it was off to LTC (Laural Training Camp). This is an amazing place where the "just graduated seniors" and the "soon to be seniors" have the opportunity to go up the canyon, to camp Lomia, for a week. Your first year you are a participant, you are there for the experience and to be taught. The second year, after you graduated, you are a leader. You start planning in Fall for that special week. You receive a calling, teach the lessons, and are an example to the younger girls. It is a special place where wonderful things happen. This year i was called as the Activity Specialist! Maddy, my partner, and i were in charge of all the energy release games, and get to know you activities. We also had the opportunity to teach the younger girls. We were assigned "Wilderness, 40 days and 40 nights" a "Path of Jesus" lesson. In our opinion it was by far the hardest lesson to teach, but we bonded and learned from that experience. It was the perfect calling for me! I wasput into the Good Works group. I was so blessed to have such wonderful people in my group, including the younger girls. We were pretty-much the amazing people up there :) I became friends with so many marvelous girls up there.

Shortly after returning from LTC it was blood donating time! i donated some blood, which i got the worst bruise from! The nurse putting the needle in my arm was a newy and missed my vain! So she had to dig around from it! My whole arm was a beautiful shade of purple for a while. That same night i was invited to my very first tramp sleepover! And boy was it ever fun! Missy, Whitney and i were the party group. While Chelsie and Courtney slept we talked and talked and laughed and talked some more! Whitney eventually fell asleep... but not Missy and i! we pulled an ALL NIGHTER! not on purpose mind you... we just kept talking and talking, we talked for approximately 14 hours straight! I didn't really know Missy that well at the beginning of the night, but i sure did know her at the end :)
The next night i got to spend with Meg! We were at the same birthday party, we didn't really know each other, i mean we lived near one another but we never hung out or really talked before! But by the end of that night we had started an amazing friendship! We just know how to have fun and when we get together it's always a party!
The next night was the fireworks! This is my favorite holiday! My whole family comes to Logan, we have a bbq and then we all walk over to the stadium to watch the fireworks! After the fireworks we walk back to my house. you would think that everyone would be tired from walking so far and having it be late at night... but that is not the case :) it is a crazy house! but that is the way i like it, always fun always enjoying ourselves!
The day after the fireworks was the eve of my birthday, and it was GREAT! It started off with a puddin' fight! yes that is right... we attacked each other with pudding! it was SO much fun! After going home and cleaning up it was time to go to the cruise-in. This was my first year going to it, and i hope it is the last! it was SO boring and HOT... but the company was good. After the cruise-in we went to Meg house, ate pizza, played Chinese Checkers, ate icecream, composed some music, went on a late night walk and celebrated my birthday and hour early!
By this time i was running on nothing! From going to the opening night of Eclipse, to the tramp sleep over, to the fireworks, and then my birthday eve... i have not slept in a while! But that is the way summer is suppose to be :)
My birthday came around and i got a SPANKIN NEW BIKE! and i love it! my old one was getting a little small!
Well as you can probably tell, my summer is doing things back to back... to back! two days after my birthday it was off to girls camp! This was my 7TH and last year at girls camp:'( Girls camp is such a special place, it is where i first gained my testimony and a large part of that was because of the YCLs that were teaching me and being good examples to me. I want to be there for the younger girls, to help them gain their testimony and to witness the growing and learning and miracles that happen there! This year, as it was my last year, i was able to choose which level of girls i wanted to be a YCL (Youth Camp Leader) over. There was no question about it, i wanted to be a 4TH year. As part of certification the 4TH year girls are required to go on an over night back packing hike! I LOVE hiking and being outdoors, and i love girls camp so what a perfect combination! This year the Stake theme was "Oh the Places You'll Go". My ward choose the theme Whoville. Our ward theme, based off of Whoville, was "Who Are You?" It was such an amazing camp... i would write pages and pages about girls camp... but this post is already getting long enough!
At this point in the summer it started to calm down. i had finished all of the church activities and was ready to party with my friends the rest of the summer! And i DID party! i won't give you details, i am getting sick of writing. But if you know me you know that i had FUN! i went on many new adventures and tried some new things and made some new friends!
This summer has been a BLAST! i loved it... i love summer!
And that was my summer in a nutshell! (Here are some more pics from my wonderful summer!)

BBQ before the fireworks

Tubing down the canal and riding in the JEEP

Partying with Megan

Did some science experiments: "Do eggs sink or float?" hahaha :)

Did some pranking :)

Enjoying a soccer game... we are really know how to pay attention