Its The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Well it happened... it is winter time. And not like according to the calender Winter, because that is still a while away. I'm talking about big coat wearing, snow falling, nose freezing, hot chocolate drinking, crying when you walk outside... winter! Today was the first snow fall of the season. So to celebrate, I went and got myself a hot chocolate from the Crossroads! Perfect!
Here are things I am looking forward to this season...

Drinking more hot chocolate, from the crossroads and from Cocoa Bean!

Going sledding, ice skating, having snowball fights, and SNOWBOARDING!!!

Taking pictures with my roommates in the snow!

Seeing the Temple with the grounds as white as the building!

Watching Elf, a Christmas Story, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and How to Train Your Dragon (I know its not Christmas-y, I just really love that one!)

Now for all of you that think I am a little too optimistic, here are some things I'm not looking forward to.

The day that it is too cold to even snow...

The feeling you get when you walk outside and your nose hairs turn to ice (sorry if thats too descriptive for you, it really happens though.)

The snow that I will have to scrap off my car every time I get into it, and then driving in that snow!

And the slippery ice that makes me slip and fall, (I remember thinking, Hey! I am predominately slipping, and then you tripped, ya, we don't do that!) hahahahahahaha

Anyway, I am excited and scared for the snow to be here for real!

Hurry

–verb (used without object)
1. to move, proceed, or act with haste
–verb (used with object)
2. to drive, carry, or cause to move or perform with speed.
3. to hasten; urge forward
4. to impel or perform with undue haste: to hurry someone into a decision.
–noun
5. a state of urgency or eagerness..
6. hurried movement or action; haste.

—Synonyms
rush, hasten, accelerate, quicken; expedite, hustle.

Think about the things you hurry to. I hurry in the morning to be ready on time for work. I hurry to finish all my assignments before they are done. I hurry to the kitchen when I haven't eaten anything all day. I hurry to my car at the end of the day to get home! I hurry my studies so I can play with my friends...

Today as I left the temple, the temple worker told me to "Hurry Back!" Hurry back, I thought... I don't think I have ever thought about hurrying to the temple in the way I hurry to other things. And why not? Being in the temple is my favorite part of... life! haha. But honestly, I don't know why when I am not in the temple I think, I don't have to go today, I will go next week... Why do I put it off?! I really need to HURRY to the temple, because once I am there, all the other things I am stressed about, all the things that consume my busy life, they all melt away as I focus on the what really matters. As I was there today, I thought about my family, my current and future one, I thought about the scriptures, and how much I love studying them each day, I thought about the kind of person I want to be, and the person I am striving to be, and the person that is my number one example, my savior Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for a temple that is so close to me, that I can attend as often as I can! I'm so grateful for the Gilbert temple that is going to have a groundbreaking soon, and I look forward to one day going there with my best friend! I can't wait!

The point of this blog post was not really to give you the definition of what it means to hurry. But mostly for me to express how much I can't wait to hurry to the temple for the rest of my life!

You know you're busy when....

You know you're busy when....

You wake up, get ready, go on campus, and its dark.
You stay on campus all day and when you leave, its dark again.

When you get to school, the Presidents car isn't there yet, and when you leave, his car has already left. Dang it!

Your meals start consisting of a bowl of cereal for breakfast, a slim fast shake for lunch, and a piece of bread with peanut butter on it for dinner.

You no longer have time to just sit down and enjoy a meal, everything has to be multi-tasked with something else. Like eating lunch while you take a quiz or eating dinner while walking to FHE.

You start to feel guilty just for watching a 30 minute episode of The Office on Thursday night because you should be doing something better with your time.

You HAVE to do homework or study or do something else while you watch a movie (How to Train Your Dragon is the best movie to do Statics Homework too! :D)

You want to ask a guy to hang out with you, but then realize you have no time to hang out anyway! :(

You have homework due in an hour and you still haven't started it.

On Saturday, instead of enjoying a day off, you prepare a treat for a ward activity, a talk for sacrament meeting, and a lesson for Relief Society, both to be given on the same Sunday!

Yes, all these things have happened to me, pretty much in the last two weeks too! This is the way I stay sane when I am as busy as I have been this semester....

President Uchtorf gave the best talk, at least for me, this last conference.
Of Things That Matter Most

He said, "Therefore, it is good advice to slow down a little, steady the course, and focus on the essentials when experiencing adverse conditions..... May I suggest that you reduce the rush and take a little extra time to get to know yourself better. Walk in nature, watch a sunrise, enjoy God’s creations, ponder the truths of the restored gospel, and find out what they mean for you personally."

My new thing is to take at least an hour each day just to enjoy living! These hours have consisted of going out to ice cream in the evening with my roommate and then going on a walk, taking the hour in between my classes to go to the Gardens, lie down in the grass, and talk on the phone to family or friends, play sports (softball is over again, but Battleship starts next week, there will be a post on that soon!), and just spending time not stressing or doing school work! It has been amazing how happier I have been since I have started this little experiment. I literally had days a few weeks ago where I woke up at 6, went from work, to class, to the library, to another class, back to work, to another class, home for 10 minutes, to FHE, and then went to my room to study until 11 when I went to bed, and then woke up the next morning and did the SAME thing!!! I was so stressed and not having any fun at all! Even though I did have a minor melt down yesterday, my roommates helped me to calm down, enjoy life, and to have fun! I am so thankful to have amazing people in my life to help me!

I love that I didn't schedule anything on Fridays, because today is my catch up day, I have a huge to do list that I didn't quite get to during the week, so I'm gonna go get started on that, and when I am done, my roommates and I are going to go shopping in Idaho Falls! yay!!!

Road Trip!

So growing up, road trips were never my favorite... that might have to do with the fact that they were like 5 days long and our entire family was stuck in the mini van and my brothers bugged me... but now, road trips are the best!

We have been planning a road trip to Yellowstone since I went last semester with my cousins! We finally agreed on a weekend to go, and it ended up being perfect. The weather was amazing, 4 out of 5 of my roommies were able to come, and it was just a perfect day!

Fun things we did:

Listened to Brian Regan- and then tried to apply his jokes throughout the day, we got about 5 real life applications from Brian Regan! haha

Named all the animals in the park, we had Phrefrey (the lone ranger), Bob and Betsy, Charles, Burt the fisherman bison, Belinda and Robert, Patrick, The Wilsons, The Swansons, Bernard, Parker, Gurtruide, The Westons, Thadeus and Ilene, Timothy (the 2nd lone ranger), Hoot, Daisy and Duke, and Daphne!
(Most of these were bison, some were couples, some were herds, and some were Elk.)

We saw a bear and her 2 baby cubs, they didn't get names though because we were too excited to see a bear!

We saw Old Faithful, and then listened to the song Faithfully by Journey.

We had a picnic, I had a ham and cheese sandwich, Fritos, and sweedish fish.

We went shopping for souvenirs, I got a Christmas ornament.

We sang to the entire Camp Rock 2 CD and totally rocked out!

We saw tons of hot springs and freaked out because of the horrible spell...

We took goofy pictures!

And we lol-ed, a lot!!!!

I love Yellowstone!!!


To view all my pictures, click here!

I fail

Ok, so I don't really fail, in fact I have only ever failed 1 thing in my life, and it was an accounting test. But in the end I got a B- in the class, and a GPA of 3.7 for that semester, so I didn't consider it a failure.

But last night, I went to a straw maze with my roommates and FHE brothers, and let me tell ya, nothing more humbling than being stuck in a maze for 40 minutes and walking out of the entrance. The worst part was the fact that the entire rest of my family was standing outside waiting for us, and they had finished a long time ago. One of my brothers actually went through it twice. :( Dang it straw maze...

But really, that straw maze was crazy fun, and it was just a small glimpse of the fun-ness I have had this semester. I have so many fun adventures to blog about, and about 0 time to do it. I had a class cancelled today which is the only real reason I even have time to write this blog.

Some fun adventures lately:
Robyn's 21st Birthday!!! I love (root) beer, I love margaritas (virgin of course), I love beer pong, I love loud music, I love pizza, I love laughing so hard I have to pee, I love my roommates, I love Letters to Juliet, I love Killers (the movie, not actual people that kill others), and I love ice cream cakes!

Going home!!! I love AZ, I love Tucson (but mostly I love Amy Webb and Staci Beckham), I love my family, I love the comfy bed in my parents guest bedroom, I love Prince of Persia, I love Costco, I love In-n-Out, I love traveling, I love Ulta (even if my makeup wasn't there...) And I love the welcome I get in the 205 when I am gone for more than a day!

Road Trip to Panda Express!!!
I love Christine, I love talking with my roommates, I love listening to fun music, I love driving, I love Beef and Brocolli, and I love Idaho Falls!

Conference Weekend!!! I love this church, I love the leaders of this church, I love that my roommates love this church, I love staying in pajamas for an entire weekend straight, once again I love Prince of Persia (HOT PERSIAN BABIES!) and I love eating!!!

And now for the best thing to happen to me all semester.... (drum roll...)
The Other Side of Down is finally out! Oh David, how I have waited for this CD to come! It totally makes me smile! I have already listened to it probably about 4 times since I got it at 1:00 today! I wouldn't have listened so much, but because I did have a class get cancelled, I have had to occupy my extra time with something, right! Oh how I love him!!!

So ya, I love this semester, also I love pictures, but I have lost my camera. So if anyone is in the Rexburg area and wants to come tear up my apartment with me to find the camera, it would be much appreciated! Then I could take fun pictures of yellowstone (which I am going to this weekend) and put them online for all to enjoy!

Hopefully I won't fail at writing in my blog and I will keep you updated more often!