Whirlwind

Chris and Jolyn got married this weekend!! It was a crazy day but so much fun! I flew into Phoenix at 8:15 Saturday morning, changed at my aunt and uncle's house, went to the Temple and didn't stop the rest of the day! Between doing hair (I did hair 7 different times that day on 5 different people), taking pictures, and eating we were super busy! Here are some fun pics of the day:

My new cousin Ethan! He is Chris' son and 11 years old. We are so excited to officially have them both in our family!

Kenzie came to the reception! She is in Arizona this term while I am in Utah, and next term we switch spots! We miss each other so much it is kinda crazy - but in 3 weeks we are going skydiving together!

Taya was so cute with the flowers I had to snap a pic!

The beautiful bride and I <3

My wonderful family! I love them so much.

On top of all the wedding stuff this weekend I was able to go work a dance recital for Dance Element. It was at 2:30 on Saturday, so it fit right into the afternoon! I was so excited because this would have been their first ever recital without me since they have been opened! I miss working for this studio and cannot wait to graduate and come home to work year round for them!

I was also able to finish Jane Eyre this weekend! I loved it so much more this second time around! I felt so bad for Jane in some parts of it and in other parts really hated some of the characters. Definitely a good read. I will probably read it again - purely because I want to!

Life Plans

I have been thinking a lot lately. This is something that some people [they know who they are] think I do too much of. And in a sense they are correct. I am a planner. I make lists literally everyday of what I need to do that day. I don't necessarily have to cross everything off my list, but I make the list. Sometimes I make multiple lists in a day. Seriously. I will make one in the morning, accomplish more than I thought I would, and then I make a revised one in the afternoon. I know. I have issues. But anyways that is not the point of this blog post. The point is, life is too unpredictable to have a plan.

Allow me to digress for a moment.

For Christmas I got a book called "BYU Speeches 2009-2010" and it basically consists of all the devotionals/forums/firesides given on BYU campus during the 2009-10 school year. I have slowly been making my way through the book reading a talk at a time. I have marked up the book like crazy underlining things and writing down my own thoughts. One of the talks that I recently read was given by Lynnette B. Erickson who is a BYU associate professor of teacher education. In this talk she said, "In our race to the finish line, we need to anticipate and be ready for unexpected events that may hamper us on our course and detour us from our goal."

Now back to my personal thoughts.

Up until a little while ago I had had a plan. A plan that spanned the next year and half to two years, with a vague idea of the several years to follow that. But then some things happened and as someone oh so kindly put it, I had the mother of all wrenches thrown into my engine of life. Now my plan is to graduate next April. And that's all I've got. I don't know what will happen after that. I don't know if I will go teach school down in Arizona, go teach somewhere else, get a job other than teaching, serve a mission, or none of the above. Who knows! I sure don't. But He does. By relying on Him, trusting in Him, and living righteously, I will come to know the plan for me.

So I don't have a plan right now. That's okay. I will just keep moving forward. I may be blind at times, but I know that eventually it will all work out the way it is supposed to.

Many important things will occur in our lives that we have not planned, and not all of them will be welcome...Even our most righteous desires may elude us, or come in different ways or at different times than we have sought to plan. [Elder Dallin H. Oaks]

The lesson here is to keep going, keep building the kingdom, keep improving yourself, stay worthy of His blessings and His love, and stay on course! [Sister Erickson]

The Y

I did it! Up and down in 35 minutes might I add. Beautiful hike, beautiful weather, hopefully Utah decides to stick with spring now! Kenzie and I headed up Friday afternoon, got to the Y in probably 25 minutes, stretched for a few minutes enjoying the beautiful view of Provo/Orem and then ran down in about 10 minutes. It was great. Granted my legs felt like jell-o the rest of the evening, I am super sore today, and I have a purple toenail, but it was worth it and we are hopefully going again next week. Unfortunately no pics were taken - maybe next time. :]

My Loves

So this post is not in any relation to my list of 20 things - but I have recently fallen in love with a couple of things and since I am avoiding a research project due a week from today, I thought I would take some time to share these things with all of you. The first one is Modern Family. This show is hilarious. Seriously. I sit in front of the TV (sometimes by myself) and laugh nonstop. I love it. And my roommate is borrowing the first season from her sister. I can now watch it anytime I want and I just might have watched it at 11:30 last night. Trust me. It's funny. Go watch it.

The other love is not a new found love - but it has been reinforced recently. Dr. Pepper is the most satisfying soda out there. But it has to come from a fountain. I am becoming a Dr. Pepper snob. It just is not in the same when it comes from a can or bottle. Fountains are just so much better. Occasionally a fountain will be off on their carbonation or something and then it's gross but for the most part fountains are the best source of Dr. Pepper. Gosh writing this is making me want one...too bad I can't get one anywhere near by. I may need to use the car tonight to make a 7-11 run.

Now that I have so dutifully informed you all of my loves, cause I am positive you were just dying to know, I am off to write a paper on aging and social security. Social security sucks by the way and by the time I am old enough to get it (currently that's age 67 but my guess is I won't be seeing anything till I am at least 72) there won't be any left.

I Got Cultured

I was starting to panic because I was not sure how I was going to fulfill going to the circus for two reasons. 1) I am on a college student's budget and 2) there is no Ringling Brothers Circus on the west coast this year. But by keeping my eyes open, and having an addiction to Sudoku in the school newspaper, I grabbed a Daily Universe on Tuesday to see the headline of the day was "Circus at BYU Today." By golly, I was going to be able to go to the circus! So I made my way over to the HFAC, got the cheapest ticket available, and after classes on Tuesday, I went to the circus! Granted there were no animals, it was more acrobatic, but it was so good! This particular group is called Circo Aereo and they came all the way from Finland! So not only did I go to the circus, I saw a foreign circus. How much more cultured can you get.

[This is the group and one of the acts they did, it was actually really cool cause she could roll all over the floor and full on dance with them balancing those canes on her]

I Made It To Vegas!

That is a TOTAL lie - but I did audition! Emmas came with me and we hit up the Salt Lake City auditions of Season 8 for So You Think You Can Dance. It is a long process of auditions. The first day we were there from 6:30am to 7:30pm. LONG DAY. But the good news: we both made it through the first two rounds of cuts. Which meant we got to improv in front of the judges (Mary, Nigel, and the creator of the Pussycat Dolls) but we both got cut at that point. It was a way fun experience, but let's just hope this week doesn't kill my grades. Oh and since no cameras or anything were allowed (we weren't even allowed to keep our numbers) this is the only picture I have, and it is from the Mix 107.9 website. Overall great experience, probably won't go again, but now I know the REAL audition process!

I made it....

And I think I will stick to quilting for awhile! :]