Crazy times

The other day I paid $1.68 for gas! And I've seen places where gas is as low as $1.54!

Contrast this to this past summer, where I was paying over $5.00 for gas. By the time I moved home, I was paying about $5.40. Granted that was the cost for diesel, but it is still amazing to me how much can change in 4 months!

Belated Gratitude List (Complete Version)

As per Marissa's Thanksgiving challenge, I've created my own list of 100 things I'm grateful for (albeit it somewhat late). Some of the things may seem kind of silly, but I think life is the sum of all the small things that bring you joy! Some of them are cheesy, but they are probably the ones that I am most grateful for.

1. The Savior
2. Scriptures.
3. Temples. I didn’t realize how much I valued being able to go to the temple anytime I wanted until I moved to Alaska for the summer and the temple was 7 hours away. I’m very grateful that I live so close to so many temples.
4. Joseph Smith
5. Good leaders and examples
6. Not having to worry about whether I have money for food every day.
7. Tender mercies
8. Good friends
9. BYU football
10. 4 seasons. I love living in Utah and getting to enjoy fall, spring, summer and winter. Anytime the seasons change I get so excited and feel full of life and renewed!
11. New friends. I love making new friends!!
12. Old friends. I Heart My Old Friends. I’ve been so blessed to meet so many amazing people and form great friendships. If you don’t live near me or we aren’t able to hang out anymore, I probably miss you and wish we could get together. Call me!
13. Agency
14. Books. I love to read. Especially books where there are explosions and people falling in love all in the same story—violent love stories.
15. Blankets. Nothing better than curling up in a blanket and watching snow fall or being all tucked in bed with warm blankets in the winter time.
16. Good music. My current favorite songs: Video by Indie Arie, How Great Thou Art by MoTab, If I Were A Boy by Beyonce, and Chicken Fried by Zac Brown Band.
17. Nature. Being outside and hiking around and being away from the hustle and bustle of a city is one of my absolute favorite things to do. I am definitely not a city girl. Most of the times that I can remember where I feel most at peace is when I’m way up in the mountains seeing God’s creation.
18. Laughter. I’m grateful for people who bring laughter into my life.
19. Good health. I’m in the medical field and so I see lots of people who don’t enjoy good health and it makes me grateful that my health problems are very minimal.
20. Sunsets
21. Opportunities to grow. I can’t explain this well, but it is one of the things I am most grateful for in the world.
22. Frequent flyer miles. Thank you Daddy. I wouldn’t have been able to do half of the things I’ve done without my dad’s generosity with his frequent flyer miles.
23. Being single. It isn’t that I don’t want to get married, but I am very grateful for the experiences I’ve been able to have and the people I’ve been able to meet because I am still single.
24. Memories. I’m still so young and yet have a lifetime of fantastic memories already.
25. Diversity. I’m grateful that I have the opportunity to meet and talk with so many different types of people. I love meeting people who are different than me.
26. James McAvoy. Ladies, if you don’t know who he is you are missing out. Guys, he has a lot to teach you—watch the last 5 minutes of Penelope.
27. Bronco Mendenhall. If I had a Bronco is My Hero shirt it would be one of my most cherished possessions.
28. Mom
29. Dad
30. Sean
31.Heather
32. Landon
33. Dallin
34. a reliable car that can go anywhere (i.e. off-roads)
35. the Joseph Smith movie and my proximity to a theater that shows it—I seriously love that show and go see it at least once a month.
36. Bones. Best TV show ever. Enough said.
37. America.
38. Experiences at BYU. Although I hated BYU at first, I had some amazing experiences during my 3 years there and I feel like I am a better person because I went there.
39. Being able to live in Alaska for the summer. One of the highlights of my life. I absolutely loved it there. There are not enough positive adjectives to describe how awesome living in Fairbanks was.
40. Kaiizen. I’ve met some great friends and experienced some wonderful things because of Kaiizen. Thanks Josh!
41. Being able to live in Hawaii. Living in Hawaii was way different and better than people would think. Everyone always dreams of living there, but living there and vacationing there is very different. I lived in a trash hole, had a $650 car, had mildew growing in my microwave, ants in my cereal (which I ate anyway), mice poop on my food boxes, etc. AND I LOVED IT! I learned a lot about myself out there and how it really doesn’t matter what car I drive, how nice my house is, etc. but the important thing is the having friends and being grateful for what you do have.
42. speeches.byu.edu. This is a great website. It has enriched my life.
43. BYU basketball. “4 coach!”—never gets old.
44. PT school. I am very blessed to be able to get an additional degree and have a career that is so ideal.
45. Classmates at the U. I have some awesome people in my class and I really like being around them. Most the time.
46. Zupa’s, Chipotle, PF Changs, Legend’s Grill, Quiznos. All a big part of my life.
47. Jamba Juice. It gets its own category.
48. Pretty stress-free life. I was watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and the family had 5 out of 6 children who were autistic and the husband worked 2 jobs and their home had just been foreclosed and they had to worry about living on the streets with 6 children, 5 of whom are autistic. Ya-- my life isn’t that hard or stressful at all.
49. Institute.
50. Great living situation. I live in a very nice house, have my own bedroom, awesome roommates, and I pay less than I did in Provo.
51. Great ward. I love the girls in my Relief Society. I was very worried moving back to SLC and what kind of ward I would have, but I’ve made some good friends.
52. Finding the Enclave.
53. Sports. I love watching and playing sports—football, basketball, tennis, soccer, etc etc etc
54. Growing up with the Gospel. I am grateful to my parents for the decisions and sacrifices they made so that I was raised with Gospel teachings.
55. Scarves. They make me happy. If you ever feel like buying me something, a scarf is a good way to go.
56. Food gift cards. Also a good bet if you are trying to think of the perfect present for me.
57. President Hinckley. I am most especially grateful for his example of how marriage should be.
58. Elder Wirthlin. I will miss his talks the most. His conference talks were always the best. I will always be grateful for the lessons I learned from his talk on kindness, not only from the words in the talk but from the situation as he gave the talk.
59. Basic amenities like flushing toilets, hot water heaters, etc. I got sick of putting my toilet paper in a trash basket in Brazil... it is just gross.
60. Quinn Gooch's blog. www.deepshadesofblue.com
61. Cool things to do in SLC. Although I still miss living in Provo, I love all the things there are to do up here, such as the Opera, Body Worlds, Utah Jazz games, jazz festivals, etc.
62. The Cougarettes. I love watching their dances.
63. Photographs. I wouldn't remember most of my childhood if it weren't for pictures. I love that photographs make it easier to stay connected with people. For example, my brother sends us pictures from the Netherlands and it helps us to know what is going on with him and what his life is like.
64. Historical figures that fought an uphill battle for things they believed in.
65. The Trigon commercials. (1, 2, 3).
66. Late night chats with friends/roommates ("couch talk").
67. CHRISTMAS!!
68. The Food Network.
69. Lake Powell. The happiest place on Earth.
70. People who comment on blogs.
71. Scrapbooks and a mother who scrapbooked 18 years of your life.
72. North and South. This show has brought much happiness into my life.
73. Not moving while growing up. I lived in the same house until I turned 18 and moved out and I'm very grateful that I had that constancy in my life and had "roots".
74. I'm kinda grateful for my parent's new house just cuz it is so cool... still miss the old one though.
75. Peyton Manning commercials.
76. Jon Schmidt. I love piano music.
77. Grilled cheese! Toasty! Brussel Sprouts!
78. Inside Jokes.
79. LDS fiction. Love it. Not even gonna pretend I don't. Especially when there's a love story.
80. The swing in front of 218. Good memories there.
81. People who are smarter than I am and who teach me things without making me feel inferior.
82. Worthy priesthood holders who I know I can go to for a blessing when I need it.
83. Knowing how to cook. Thanks Mom (and Rachael Ray)!
84. Bumping into old friends in random places and picking up right where we left off!
85. General Conference.
86. Candles.
87. Guys that wear cologne.
88. Can I have your number?
89. Inspirational sayings.
90. The Pioneers.
91. Gchat.
92. Spontaneity.
93. Knowing there is someone out there that can understand my anguish. (1, 2)
94. Earplugs. Seriously. They were a brilliant invention.
95. When you have those "It's a small world" moments.
96. My cadaver lab experiences. Some awesome stories there.
97. Hunting.
98. My dog.
99. Intramural soccer and midnight soccer!
100. Marissa for her challenge. I spend my days trying to think of things I'm grateful for.

Memories...

I am super excited to go back down to Baja Mexico for the Kaiizen Christmas trip, and thinking about it reminds me of my memory for today. It comes from my first Kaiizen trip in July of 2007. It was the last day of being in Mexico (Saturday) and we had finished up everything we had planned at the orphanage, so all of the volunteers went to either Ensenada or the beach. The girls in my car all decided that we wanted to go to the beach. Even though it was July, the water was FREEZING and so it was just me and Janel that got into the water.

We were having a blast in the waves and were attempting to boogie board. A wave washed over me and I felt this stinging on my left arm and I looked down just in time to see a jellyfish come unwrapped from my arm. My arm immediately started hurting and so I hollered to Janel and we hustled out of the water. We ran back to the girls from our car and begged for someone who had to pee. Of course, no one had to, and Janel had just peed in the ocean J (You’re welcome Janel). Anyway, we couldn’t find anybody and so I think Janel offered to try to pee on my arm even though she just went. We were running across the sand to the bathrooms, which p.s. were locked, and we ran into Jessie and she was like “Ya sure, I’ll pee on you. I can just do it behind a car.”

My arm was starting to hurt/sting/tingle pretty bad by now. I can’t remember exactly how it happened, but one of the Mexicans selling stuff along the beach heard about my dilemma and offered some of the vinegar from his pickles or something. So the story ends with me not having to be peed on. But thanks to all those who were willing to help out a friend!

Rivalry

So I randomly saw this picture on my facebook homepage, and it made me laugh out loud. Despite the fact that it is dissing my beloved Cougars, I thought it was pretty clever and thought I'd share. Gotta love being a part of the #3 rivalry in the country. Go Cougs!

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/stewart_mandel/11/11/power.rankings1/index.html?eref=T1

Just as a reminder...

Memories

My memory for today comes from my adventure in Alaska this past summer. My roommates Jessie, Shirley and I went on a sea kayaking adventure down in Valdez. We left Sunday afternoon after church and began the 7 hour journey. The scenery was breathtaking, of course, because everything in Alaska is undisturbed and beautiful. The Alaska Pipeline was visible for a lot of the drive down, and it was neat to see how great a distance the pipeline travels. We saw several glaciers and hundreds of lakes. And my roommates are AWESOME and so the drive was a blast! Sometimes road trips suck the energy out of me, but this time it was just pure fun! We had a little bit of a scare on the drive down with our gas levels. We were about 100-120 miles outside of Valdez and passed a gas station, but we still had a little over a quarter tank of gas so we thought we would drive a little farther and then get gas. Well, silly us, that was the last gas station until Valdez. Our gas light went on about 50 miles away from Valdez. Luckily, it was downhill for a good portion of those 50 miles. We ended up making it to a gas station, and then we went out to eat at a restaurant along the pier.
Let me just say here that Valdez took my breath away. It is what I imagine heaven to look like. I called my parents and told them they didn’t need to come get me because I was gonna stay and live in Valdez. (I was 75% serious… if my parent’s didn’t come to Alaska to drive back down with me, I probably would have stayed). The port was surrounded by steep mountains that looked a lot like the mountains in Hawaii—very green and beautiful. There were waterfalls streaming down the crevasses and snow covered the peaks. Soft, white clouds floated along the middle of the mountain. Then you had the sea in between the mountains, with all the goodness that goes along with that. It was your typical fishing port. The air was super crisp and fresh. I loved it!
After dinner, we went and found the campsite that our other 2 friends from Wasilla (I think) were at. It was about 11:30 or midnight by now, and the coolest thing was it was dark! Since we were about 400 miles south of Fairbanks, it actually got pretty dark at night! It was amazing how quickly I got used to the sun being up most the day, and it just being dusky the rest of the time. Anyway, we set up our tent and went to bed.
The next morning, we got up and had some leftover pizza and cheetos for breakfast and then drove to the pier again and met up with the rental place that we were getting all of our kayaks and gear from. That took FOREVER. We get all our waterproof gear, our sea skirts, our dry packs, our kayaks, etc. We were camping at the glacier that night, so we had to stuff our tents, sleeping bags, food, etc. into the dry packs, which lemme tell you… that was an adventure. Only so much stuff could fit into the kayak, so we had to take only 3 sleeping bags and not all of the clothes we brought.
We finally got onto the water around noon I think. Shirley and I shared a kayak, Jessie and Rosie shared a kayak, and Megan was a pro and had her own kayak. Thank goodness for Shirley! I know I look super strong, but I’m really not. I was exhausted after the first 5 minutes. We kayaked out to Shoup glacier, which was ten miles away. TEN MILES!!! My poor little arms were not too happy when they found that out. I had to count out 150 strokes and then take a 30 count rest, then 150 more strokes, then a 30 count rest just to keep myself going. Again, thank goodness for Shirley. She was a kayaking machine!
Despite the fact that my arms hated me, it was amazing! It is the coolest feeling in the world to be paddling along the ocean (not really open ocean, we were still in Prince William Sound), with the fish jumping all around you, sea otters popping up every now and then, and beautiful scenery all around. We kayaked past all the fishing boats out there doing their thing, which was awesome.
It had been raining the whole day, but not too heavily so it wasn’t a big deal at first. But then about an hour into our journey, I started to feel wet—like I was sitting in a big puddle. Keep in mind that I had on basketball shorts, waterproof pants, a T-shirt, sweatshirt, and then heavy-duty rain gear (pants and jacket). I also had a sea skirt around the opening of the kayak that I was sitting in. So despite all of my waterproofing measures, I was getting soaking wet. Apparently my sea skirt had worn away in some areas and water was leaking in. We stopped after about 3 hours of kayaking to eat lunch and I was already soaking wet, clear through to my underwear. No bien.
Well it took us about 6 hours to get to the glacier, and by this time it was raining fairly heavily. Our plan was to camp out by the glacier, but the forest service had built 3 small, basic cabins out there that you can use. We didn’t have a reservation for one, but we were hoping that the rain had deterred some people from making the trip to the glacier and that one would be open. Unfortunately, that was not the case. By this point, I was very cold and exhausted. Shirley and I stopped at a cabin right by the glacier and stripped down on the porch. One of the other girls had some extra clothes that I changed into and that helped. The people who were in the cabin were not there, so we just hung out on the porch for a while. The rain was coming down very hard by now. After much discussion, we decided that we that we better stay where we were and not go camp closer to the glacier. We got out the food we brought and made dinner on the porch. They had given us emergency flares, and a walkie-talkie radio thing and so we tried for about an hour to get a hold of someone to come and get us because we did not think it was a good idea for us to stay the night at the glacier and we wouldn’t be able to make it back (it was about 9 o’clock now). We didn’t have any luck with that.
Eventually, the people who were staying in the cabin showed up and were very nice about the fact that we had been chilling on their porch for a few hours when they had some very expensive equipment inside. We decided to get camp set up and get ready for bed. We found a patch of wild grass that would be semi-comfortable for us. We had a 3 man tent and we decided that it would be best for all 5 of us to sleep in the one tent for 2 reasons: (1) body warmth. (2) We were worried about bears and thought it would be best for all of us to be in the same tent because the fishermen in the cabin had given us a pistol. A pistol would be pretty useless against an attacking bear, but it was nice of them to let us use it anyway. Shirley was put in charge of it because she was in the Marines for quite a few years. There had been numerous bear sightings in the area, and there was semi-fresh bear poop near where we were set up, so we were very concerned. Needless to say, there were numerous prayers said throughout this journey of ours. We only had the 3 sleeping bags and most of our clothes were wet, so we had to strip down and do what we could to stay warm throughout the night.
Some funny stories during the night… apparently I started snoring (lightly, of course) and it scared the crap out of the other girls because they thought it was a bear. Another time Jessie scared us to death when she let out a scream… luckily it was because water was dripping on her. Not very fun for her, but a relief for us.
Well, we made it through the night alive. We had some bagels and granola bars for breakfast and started the ten mile journey back! The trip back was much easier because I knew I was headed back to a nice warm car and dry clothing. Shirley and I spent a good majority of the trip singing away, mostly Christmas songs. It was quite an adventure, and at numerous points during the paddling I wondered why I was doing this, but now that it is all over, it was AMAZING and I would love to do it again!
Ironic side note—that same week some girls from Utah were attacked by a bear up in Alaska, and my brother in law found the article in the Salt Lake Tribune and was very worried!

Operation Smile Fundraiser

The University of Utah and Westminster College Operation Smile Clubs are sponsoring a fundraiser at Rubio's Mexican Grill on Thursday November 13th from 3pm - 9pm.

Rubio's is willing to give Operation Smile 20% of their profits from every order placed with a flier on Thursday. If you right click on the flier below, then go to save image as, you should be able to print it off! Or if you just click on the flier, it will pull it up in a new window and you can print it from there!


You not only have an excuse to go out for dinner, but you will more importantly be supporting a great cause!

This would be a great date night, celebration after a test, group activity, or family night (they have a kid's menu)!

Spread the word!

The participating Rubio's locations are listed on the flier (they are in SLC and Sugarhouse).

Visit www.rubios.com/menu/ to see what food they have to offer!

ENFP... ??

So Marissa took this quiz, and I just want to be like her so I took it too. I think some of it describes me pretty well, but some of it doesn't sound like me at all :). When I took the real version of this test (that you have to pay for) for school, I was an ISFP...

You are an ENFP

The Inspirer

You love being around people, and you are deeply committed to your friends.
You are also unconventional, irreverent, and unimpressed by authority.
Incredibly perceptive, you can usually sense if someone has hidden motives.
You use lots of colorful language and expressions. You're quite the storyteller!

In love, you are quite the charmer. And you are definitely willing to risk your heart.
You often don't follow through with your flirting or professed feelings. You break a lot of hearts.

At work, you are driven but not a workaholic. You just always seem to enjoy what you do.
You would make an excellent entrepreneur, politician, or journalist.

How you see yourself: compassionate, unselfish, and understanding

When other people don't get you, they see you as: gushy, emotional, and unfocused