Surprise Birthday Parties to to Shoving spoons of hot sauce

Count Down....
    I will flying home Tuesday!!! I am beyond excited to see my family, I can hardly stand it.  Landon called me this week to tell me that he had saved up 12 of 14 dollars to take us ice skating-We have a tradition of going out ice skating on a date!  A couple months ago he told me that at our next date though he was going to pay, and he has worked to stay true to his word.  I can't wait to see the rest of my family too.... Oh goodness I am so excited!!!  Luckily, two of my classes got canceled on Monday so I am just kind of coasting out until I leave-yay!!!!

Anyhow, Friday was my lovely room mate Jesse's birthday!!!! She will be serving in Brazil for her mission in April.  I have amazing room mates.  Jesse is one of the kindest people I know.  She is so genuine and giving-she will make you feel so loved and will bake you cookies randomly just to brighten your day.
The other 5 of us decided she need a big spotlight on how awesome she is, so we planned all week for her surprise Party:

Janai took her out to dinner at 5:30, and as soon as she left we cleaned up the kitchen and set to decorating.  Then Jeanice went with her to a latin festival and she was due back at 8.

Decorations!  Although these did not last long...

I started making Sour Cream Apple Pie (her favorite!).  I have never made it before, so I was really worried.  Whitney also made chocolate-peanut butter no bakes (she had never had them until I made them a few weeks ago-now I got her hooked!).  One of our friends Cody brought, Guarana (A soda that Portuguese and Brazilians love!), and we had chips salsa, and our friends Natalie, Courtney, and Laura brought cupcakes.  Our Fhe bros brought ice cream to go with the pie.  Basically we were loaded.

I

Waiting Before....

It was also our friend Jacob's brithday, so we celebrated his too! Happy Birthday Jacob!

Us waiting in anticipation for Jesse

8:00 came around...No Jesse.......8:30.....No Jesse...... and then finally! at 9:00 she came home, and we sprang!

Madi, Capri, Ally, and Kenzi! 

Jared, Jeanice, Cody, and Natalie (Jared was sitting, so we had to take this side ways) 

Natalie and the Birthday Girl!

My piece of pie-I was actually happy with how it turned out!  And no one died from eating it and everyone seemed pretty happy with it-What a relief!

Jesse and Jacob's lovely birthday banner that Leah made!

Welll...After some of the people left there was just a group of us, and somehow or another Whitney challenged me to a hot sauce competition.  Please realize that I have the wimpiest tongue on the planet, and Whitney eats hot sauce almost everyday.  This was the stupidest thing I cold have possibly done.....

This stuff, the Rooster Hot Sauce, it HOT! You should always use it sparingly and with other foods to tone it down-it will still burn you.  We,  however, decided to have 7 spoonfulls, and then see who would be the first to reach for milk.  
Whitney kicked my  butt
I ashamedly reached for the milk.  
We are pretty sure we have chemical burns on our tongues.

Then, after cookies, pie, and hot sauce, we woke up the next morning (5 hours later) to do a 5k!  It was with the Womens Services and Resource Center Club, against abuse.  It  was really fun!

I have no idea what my actual time was, but oh well!
Saturday (last) night we also had our ward thanksgiving party, and played night games.  Then we went over to some friend's dorm to watch spider man.  I decided last night not to set an alarm and just see what time my body woke up naturally, because I kept staying up for a full 22 hours for work, and I haven't really had a chance to catch up on sleep all week long.......
I woke up at 10:48 this morning.....yikes!
I feel good now though!
I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving, I sure do love ya!

Sunshine to Snow-but just as wonderful!

I am so stinkin blessed to be here at BYU, I love it so much.  My mid term this past week went well, studies are good, work was good, church was good, and all the fun with friends was a hoot!
The weather was crazy though, and changed like night and day!  Wednesday I was walking around campus in a t-shirt.  The sun was out, and there were beautiful leaves all around.  I took a picture of how pretty and golden they are:

People probably thought I was weird, because a couple times I just had this urge I couldn't resist to kick the leaves.  Its a bit strange, but I actually miss yard work.  Raking the leaves is always fun, and relaxing.  I get that from my Dad--mowing the lawn is his favorite.
This picture is of a fiddle group that was playing on campus.  They were really good!  (You can see how sunny it  was).  They started playing while I was on the phone with my friend Marcus.  He is leaving for his mission on Wednesday for Tahiti-I am so excited for him!


 Anyhow, by Friday, I was incredibly grateful for my big boots (thanks Mom

and Dad!) and my big snowboarding shell-it was cold!  This is the view I woke up to Saturday Morning outside my window to give you an idea:

 The mountains are so beautiful!  The 'Y' is hiding underneath that big blanket of snow-can you find it?

Well Friday night, we went to the opening BYU basketball game of the season-yay! It was a lot of fun, and we won!  
As you can see from the picture, we didn't have the ultimate spot.  Apparently we need to get there a lot earlier, or the nose-bleeds it is.
After the game, we all came back to our dorm for a Nacho Libre Party, with Nachos included.  It was a hoot!  At one point I am pretty sure we had about 25 people stuffed in our little living area.  After the movie, we played winkem, Peter-James-and-John, and Grunt Piggy Grunt.  There were defiantly some good laughs.  Around 12 when dorm curfew hit, we went outside for an ultimate snowball fight.  The snow was perfect!  Not too wet, and made great snowballs.  We were out there for over an hour, and I was soaked by the time we were done though, thanks to some white washing.  At one point one of the RAs was there, and he kept throwing snow at us, so we all grabbed snowballs and charged at him-I don't know that I have ever seen someone run that fast in PJs, it was impressive!

Saturday morning (5 and a half hours after the fight), I got so excited to see more snow that I just had to go on a walk.  I walk everywhere around campus, but I love it.  My favorite place to walk of course is to the temple.  Isn't it beautiful?  Look at all that White :)

 

The rest of Saturday was filled with some productive studying and a group project.  Then at 5 Natalie and I walked over to her sister-Heather's place for a Wenatchee Waffle dinner.  It was fun to see people, and you can never go wrong with Chocolate Chip waffles.  Brandon Edmundson came though, and I haven't seen him since he moved away sophmore year! He is running for UVU, which is just like 15 min away from BYU.  Natalie and set out to find him a football tickets so we could all go to the game.  For the last game, we had the best seats of all season!  We sat 4th row up in the in-zone  right in front of the band.  We only stayed until half because it was so cold, but when we left we were ahead 42-7.  It was a good way to bring to close the football season.

The view from our seats!

Natalie, Brandon, and I!  Haven't seen him since he moved away sophomore year!

Natalie, Brandon, Me, Lee, Jeanice, and Shanna-bravin' the cold!

After the game, we all went back to watch Forest Gump and drink coco.  It was a wonderful close to a great week.  And now I only have one more week, then it's Thanksgiving week!  I am so excited to see my family!    

Hope everyone has a great Veterans day.  I am so thankful for all those who have fought for our country.  I agree with the advice to pray for the leaders of our country, not matter your political beliefs.

Natalie and I started our morning with two of our friends from our ward, Kenny and Elena, walking to the temple at 4:50.  Usually we drive, but Kam, who has the car, was feeling sick.  It was worth it though, and a great start to my week :)

Well, that's all.  Kind of a jumbled post, sorry! Hello from BYU though, sending hugs your way!

Happy Halloween, Tests, Zombies, Majors, and Birthdays!

Our Sunday Night Pre- Halloween Party!  We made a bunh of yummy cookies...then proceeded to eat all the yummy cookies.  SO much fun!

This was certainly a scary week-jammed packed and busy.  (I think I say it's busy every time though, so disregard)

 this was Whitney and I as zombies at the Stake Halloween party

I had two midterms this week-Bio and Book of Mormon.  That in and of it self make a spooky week.  I think I did okay on them though, so that's good.  Each time I go to the testing center I mean to take a picture, but when I get there I am strictly focused on my test, and when I am done I am strictly focused on getting away as soon as possible.  I do love BYU's testing system though.  Instead of doing it in class, students are given a certain amount of days where they can go to the testing center and take the test on their own time.  It makes it way easier to schedule and prepare, and I also think the environment is a lot less stressful and better for tests than it would be in class.

Natalie and I went to the Basketball Jamboree-can't wait for the actual games! We won the scrimmage 100 to like 50!

Wednesday we had a little Halloween Party with our FHE group.  I made pumpkin cookies and baked apple pumpkin bread (with my last two apples from Wenatchee that Mom sent me!  She sent me a whole box, and I was eating apples all the time-so good!), and one of my FHE brothers, Michael, made chicken casserole thingy that was delicious.  Originally we were going to watch a classic Alfred Hitchock, but then somebody (Whitney) made the suggestion to watch Insidious.  I, being a stupid and not wanting to be chicken, agreed to watch it.  Worst. Idea. Ever.  At first I was on the floor, squeezing by FHE bro Brad's leg.  Jeanice was on the couch squeezing the stuffing out of my pillow pet-Nutty.  Eventually, I moved to the couch, and I think I broke my FHE bro James' Hand-poor guy! I never want to watch a scary movie again.  Jeanice and I were so terrified we wouldn't leave eachother alone the rest of the night.  I talked to her while she was in the shower so she wouldn't get scared-we are great room mates :)



(This is the three of us after the movie.  Jeanice and I aren't purposefully making this face)

Thursday I went on  date!  It was completely blind, but he was great and it was a lot of fun.  It's a really funny story though, and it was a very eventful night.  It ended with a parking boot on the car, lovely right?

Saturday was the Zombie Run 5k!  We were actually chased by people dressed up in gory goo that looked like legit, disgusting zombie crap.    It was my roommates Jeanice, Jesse, and Whitney, Jesse's Mom, Natalie, our FHE brother John, and two of our guy friends Cody and Dillon.  I ran with Natalie and John.  The Zombies "killed" you by grabbing a flag that was attached to your hip by your back.  Natalie and I set it up so that all we needed to do was turn and then the Zombie's wouldn't be able to reach our flags.  I had so much adrenaline.  We started 5 minutes ahead of the zombies, but some of them still caught up even though we were booking it.  We ran a 23 minutes and 40 sec time.  With our stopping and dodging people, it was a pretty decent time.  Natalie and I were reminded that even though we can run a marathon, we are not very good at running fast...
I won a t-shirt though!  The other shirts were covered in red blobs of "blood" and said infected.  The came, we ran, I survived!

This is the shirt we won!  Will post other pictures of our group soon!

I had to take a break from blogging to have a dorm dance party-it was pretty epic.  Taylor Swift, Beibs, and One Direction make excellent dance parties, and spatulas make excellent microphones.

This week I only have one mid term-American Heritage.  I signed up for all the classes I want next semester:
      Social Dance (Yay!)
      Writing 150
       Physical Science
      Book of Mormon
     New Testament
      Spanish 105
      Adolescent Development

Currently my major is declared as teaching Social Science--but I need to change it.  Unfortunately, social studies and history teaching is not very hirable or competitive.  Math and Science are, but after taking Bio this semester, and Calc last year, I really don't want to teach that (and that's an understatement!).  English is also not very hirable because there are so many people.
My end goal is to work with students in Leadership.  I want to be at schools to help make a difference in students lives that so many teachers made for me.  I want to help show students their potential.  I feel like one of the best ways to do that is in the classroom.  I was considering getting experience in the classroom, and then changing to Administration.  I still am keeping that as an option, but the best way to go about that seems to be to get a degree or minor in business.  The more I think about it though the more I'd like to get my minor in psychology, or something that would help me to better work with my students if that makes sense, rather than be an administrator.  The only reason I would want to be an administrator is to better help students, but I am not sure thats the best way to go about it.  Ok, can you tell I am not really sure about much?
So as of right now I am considering switching to Spanish Teaching.  I think I could really enjoy teaching Spanish, and then I would be in the classroom.  I would love some feedback and thoughts on what others thought (especially teachers and friends from home that I miss so much!)

And a special shout out to my Mom.  I skyped with her this morning.  I can't count the many times I have thought in my head since being here: "well, she's right-again".  I could never put in a post or words how grateful I am for my Mom. Through all the ups and downs, she remains a wonderful example to me.  Right now she is going back to school, and I am so proud of her.  Work, keeping up with the boys, church, school, and everything else keeps her so busy.  I pray for her often because I know its tough, but I also know that she can do it.  She is a wonderful example of strength and charity for me.  I am so grateful for my mom, and one of my best friends.  Sure do love ya Mom.

Well, that's all folks!  I love reading everyone's elses blogs and facebook posts.  I am so blessed to have so many friends and family members!

Life's Busy-what's new?

My Dorm is ( well was) clean!  We had a cleaning check on last Thursday.  The dorm wasn't that messy, but we had to do a lot of deep cleaning that was time consuming.   Afterwards though I made sure to take lots of pictures! So now you can get a taste of what our dorm looks like.

This is the entry way that divides the living area from our rooms.  Of course, all the quotes you see on the wall were done by my Mom.  I love this one,and its been fun as people come and visit us.  We usually just leave our shoes in here, or Whitney and Leah will run through screaming chasin eachother during a food fight.  Not much else in here though

If you take a left fromt he entry way, you go to our hallway, bathrooms, and rooms.  We have two bathrooms-3 girls each.  This is the hallway though, complete with a quote by Audrey Hepburn (who will all adore!!! We have Audrey Hepburn movie nights lots, and there is a poster of her hanging in our kitchen that was given to me by Katie Shurtz. Love it!) and then you can see the vanity, which is between the two bathrooms.  We don't have to  much trouble sharing the mirrors or getting ready, it all works out very nicely!  And we are good sharers :)

 This is Jeanice's and my room!!! Our room is happy with quotes from Walt Disney and Audrey Hepburn.  Our colors even match!  We have the same sheet set of aqua blue, and then we both have hot pink things too.  I am pretty sure we were a match made in heaven.  I am so thankful for my roommate.  I am so glad she puts up with me and has become such a good friend!  We have lots of fun.

 My side of the room.  On my desk you can see all my little tid bits and memories.  I have letters and pictures pinned up on the board, and on top lots of different gifts from family members.  Landon wrote me a book called "My Sister Tells me No" that I love and keep up there.  Derek spent a lot of time for Christmas making my name carved out in wood-then he spent even more time sanding it.  Its beautiful work!  I have dried roses my Daddy gave me (first flowers!) in 7th grade after I was Annie in the musical. I also have Dr. Suess Book Oh the Places You will Go  that my Mom gave me for graduation.  She took the time to get all of my teachers to sign it-I love it so much.  Shen I am missing home my little shelf of love helps :) Life is wonderful here but I sure do miss my family.  I am so blessed to have them!

Anyhow, moving on :) Each of us were assigned chores!!!! Whitney had the showers:

 Leah had the fridge:

 And this is me being a dork and tackling on the vanity that was covered in 6 girl's worth of hairspray, toothpaste, and more.  The battle was long, but I won!  (look how shiny that faucet is!!)

And so if you back to the entry way, and take a right now instead, you go to our living area.  We have a great kitchen and seating area.  You can't see it but in the other corner where the coaches are facing is a TV (Leah's) where we have our girl, and often our FHE Bro's join in on those, movie nights.  Notice the quote wall that Whitney is reading.  We say some pretty great things :) Quote walls are kind of notorious at BYU.  It's great decoration.  Mostly, it's cheap decoration.  Who doesn't love a sticky note?  We do!

So there is the dorm.  The place is really nice because its pretty much brand new.  We'll see how long it stays that clean-I'll try to keep it that way!

Studying in the dorm isn't always very effective, and so the library is my go to. (I am actually sitting my spot right now, taking a break from homework).  I have my little area where I usually work.  I also have a designated nap area.  By the time Friday gets here, and after waking up at 4 for work, I am usually pretty exhausted.  Before I can study, or function really, I will need a 30 min nap.  I am a power nap Queen!!!  In the 4th floor of the library in the Women's bathroom their is a little lounge.  It is a wonderful place to take naps:

 Occasionally I sleep in the chair, but usually I curl up in that corner.  Then I am good to go for the day! You aren't officially a college student until you sleep on campus.

So life here never gets dull.  There is always something going on.  Two weeks ago was homecoming, which was way fun.  There were a lot of different activities.  Tuesday Night they lit up the Y, and we could see it from our large Kitchen Window.  It was beautiful!  Wednesday was true blue foam.  They literally fill Helaman Field with Blue foam for a massive slip and slide, tug-o-war, and more.  I went with my friend and counselor from FOL camp, Sterling May.  There is a picture on facebook of us covered in foam.  Way fun!! Afterwards though I was so stained:

 Look!  I scared Jeanice!
  When we took this picture I had 5 minutes until I was supposed to meet Natalie for our Inter-mural Soccer Game.

(My poor team already has to put up with my awful skills, but then I had to play with blue version of my crappy skills.  Poor team!  I played soccer when I was in like 1st grade, and loved it.  I dreamed of being a soccer player and would go to the high school games.  When Natalie and I got asked to join a team, we thought it would be fun, and it was. However, we didn't realize we were going to be on a division 1 team.  Natalie and I are not division 1 level.  I went from playing a game where you were not suppossed to let the ball touch the ground (Volleyball) to now you can't touch it with your hands.  Luckily, I only tried digging it one game.  It was perfect, coming down in the air and I tomahawked it!  Great Dig; wrong sport though.  Oh well though!  Our Team name was 'Psych' and we had awesome t-shirts.)

To finish off homecoming week, my roommates and I went to the BYU Spectacular.  It's an event that showcases the different music and dance groups at BYU.  We saw Vocal Point, which was amazing!

Friday Night I went to the homecoming Dance with a friend, his roommates, and their dates.  We went to Brick Oven for dinner and had delicious Pizza!  We also went bowling and I almost won!  Actually, that is a lie because I am terrible at bowling, but it was fun.  The Dance was way fun too.  Of course we all got excited when the song "Gangnam Style" came on.  (If you haven't checked that song out, do please).  We finished by playing games and Slenderman.  I had a great date!

Saturday Night was the football game against Oregon.  We had a black out.
After the game we went to a little Mexican restaurant to celebrate Jesse turning in her Mission Papers!!! I am so excited for her!

 Last week was pretty routine.  Although we did have a booth in the Wilk for our Global Leadership group project.  We got over 100 students to make an evacuation plan in case of fire.  Yay team!

Friday of last week we went to a nerd dance.  Then Saturday night I finally learned how to play Texas Hold Em'!  I actually won the second game, although we only played with Natalie's pennies and quarters,and gave them all back once we were done.  It was fun though!  I made Peanut butter no bakes for everyone else, because one of our friends Cody hadn't ever tried them!  I also made brownies for Natalie and I from black beans.  Nat and I thought they were yummy, but everyone else wanted to puke.  more for us!  And they were healthy! No complaints there!  

Tonight, Jeanice and I are going to go watch Jesse preform with a singing group of sorts in the Varsity Theater. I have very talented roommates!

Now I am all caught up!  Well, on like 1/10 of the wonderfulness here of my life at BYU anyhow.

And As I was finding all the pictures for this blog, I came across this one.  The boys and I took this on the way to Hawaii this summer.  Sure do love and miss my boys!  I hope they know how much I love them. 

Love ya!

Life Happens

There is so much I could write about, college is so busy!  My typical week goes (so far) goes something like this:

Monday-Wake up at 5:00 to be out the door at 5:15.  Natalie and I have set a goal to go to the temple every Monday morning.  We are about a 15 min walk away, and I love it.  It is the perfect way to start my week!  Lately we have been going with my hometeacher and friend.  They give us a ride and are so kind!  Great guys!

 After that I rush back to get ready for class by 9:00.  My first class of the day is in the Clyde Building- Global Leadership.  The entire class is focused on developing leadership skills for future opportunities.  Specifically, its for engineers who will probably one day run some big corporation.  I am learning lots though that even applies for a Social Science Teaching major (which is what I am declared as currently) who is a freshman :).  Hopefully I can learn techniques and skills that I can one day bring to my future students.




Next Class at 10: 00 is American Heritage-possibly my favorite class.  It is a huge class (each class varies from 300 to 900 people) but it reminds me a lot of    AP History, and my professor is hilarious.  One day he danced "Gangnam" for us, and another day he auctioned off Krispie Kremes!  We are learning about the American Government, economics, history, and more.  Love it!

11:00 is my Book of Mormon class.  A lot of the other classes are flying through, but I really enjoy my class because we are going really deep.  My professor spent a lot of time setting a solid base for the time frame of the Book of Mormon in reference to the Bible, and also how it was translated by Joseph Smith.  We are also going to spend a lot of time in the Nephi/Revelation chapters-which I am very excited I about.

From 12 to 1 I have lunch break, where I meet up with Natalie and her roommate Shana, and my roommate Jeanice.  Here is a picture of Jeanice and I this Monday: It was finally cold enough for sweaters and we were so excited we wore matching ones!  It was great :)

At 1 I have my Issues In Contemporary Art Class.  I originally took it because it kicks off a GE, but it is actually a great class.  There are about 10 people in the class, and the professor is fun and insightful.  I am about as far as it gets from artistic-especially contemporary art, but this is really good for me to appreciate the art culture.  We discuss different aspects, do a blog discussing contemporary artists, and more.  It's different, but I enjoy it.  It gets done at 2:30

After classes I go workout, study, and then have FHE.  We have a great FHE group!  So far we have hiked the Y, ice-blocked, made pizza, watched UP and did activities, and more.   It has been a lot of fun, I am very blessed to have such a good FHE family here.  The guys really care about us and are a lot of fun.

Tuesday: Up at 4 am!  And out the door by 4:35 or 4:45, depending on if I am supervising at work or not.  I am a grocery stocker at the BYU Creamery, which is basically a grocery store.  It's early, but I enjoy the people I work with and I don't mind the work because you have to move quick.  If you go slow you'll be there forever loading the shipment onto shelves.  I finish work somewhere around 10, and then I go to devotional!

I love devotional!  Every Tuesday at 11 the entire campus takes a break to go to the Marriot Center (where they have basketball games) and watch a spiritual message from a BYU faculty member or church leader.  I look forward to when I get to hear President Monson or someone in person, but so far the other speakers have shared great messages.  Sometimes instead of a devotional we will have a forum, which is essentially a lecture on a non gospel topic.  Last week for example we were visited by __, who talked to us about the constitution.  It was very interesting.

After devotional Biology!  My only class for the day.  I am not especially interested in math or science, but the class is good.  I really like my professor.  His philosophy is not to use textbooks or other sources that won't matter after college (and don't really matter in college for anyways), but rather to use recent science journals and studies that he hopes we will continue to learn about and read even after college.  I have learned a lot of interesting things, however not taking bio in high school makes it a little more difficult.  I have met with the TAs and set up an appointment with a tutor to make sure I am completely ready for my mid term.  I am worried, but I am working as hard as I can and that is all I can do.

After Tuesday's class at 2:40 I go to Dickson Middle School for a mentorship program for girls there.  The program is through the BYU Women's Services and Resources Club, which I joined.  The point of the program is to help girls with body image and self esteem.  I am very passionate about it and really look forward to helping the girls.  I think that is a really critical age for their development and I hope I can have a positive influence in their lives that will better prepare them for the trials many girls go through today.

The rest of the day is filled with studying and whatever else I might have!


Wed is basically a repeat of Monday, and Thursday is sort of a repeat of Tuesday.  Friday I only have one class at 9, then the rest of the day I try and get as much homework done as possible so I can enjoy the weekend!

I love my professors and enjoy my classes.  I am really blessed to have such a great academic schedule!  The social part is awesome too, but that'll be for another post :)

Marathon Miracles

Last April during Track, I decided I wanted to run a Marathon as a way to avoid the Freshman 15, and to motivate myself to stay in shape.  When I said that, I didn't fully realize exactly how long a marathon was (I was thinking closer to 14 than 26), nor the training involved, or the lovely beatings on my body :) I asked Natalie if she wanted to do it with me though, and she was game, even though she has never run a race before--ever.  

Training began with runs, and then longer runs, then we picked out our Marathon for September 8th in Price, Utah.  When it finally came, we couldn't believe it.  

This week before seemed almost impossible.  However, I have no doubt that my Heavenly Father was watching out for me.  Natalie had overwhelming amounts of homework, and she wasn't sure how she would have time or energy for everything.  Wednesday morning though she got up early to go to the temple, and she felt that she had more hours in a day than possible.  My little miracle happened yesterday.  For weeks, my hip and IT band have been hurting very bad.  My running was off, and when I first came down to Utah my Dad told me not to run until I saw a massage therapist for my hip.  After the massage I felt a lot better, but still not 100%.  The pain went away for the most part though.  Then yesterday morning I woke up for work, and stepped down off my bed.  Immediatly pain shot up through my leg and hip.  I stretched, drank water, did what I could to help but it was getting worse as I walked around campus.  I called my Dad and he told me I needed to see another massage therapist ASAP. However, unless you are a student athlete and school, there are like no resources for injuries.  I looked everywhere I could think of.  Outside of campus, the closest was 3 miles away, and walking 6 miles pre-marathon when you hurt isn't ideal.  Frustrated and worried, I said a prayer.  Then I didn't know what to do, so I went to a club I had been meaning to sign up for.  As I was turning to walk out the door, I felt like I should ask the girl who helped me if she knew of a therapist.  She of course didn't, so I started to shut the door.  As the door was about 2 inches away from being shut, another girl yelled "wait"!  She quickly explained that her sister just became a massage therapist, and was an athletic trainer working with the women's soccer team. She gave me her number, and the therapist actually came to my dorm to treat me.  It was my little miracle, and I know I would have been in a lot of pain without it.  You could consider that all coincidence, but I have no doubt that it was answer to prayers from me, my family, and many friends.

So....after that,

Our wonderful friend Katie who loves us dearly drove us down from BYU Friday night to Price.  We picked up our shirts and timing chips, and checked into a hotel.  It was our first big kid trip, we felt like we were actually adults as we checked ourselves in!

We ate lots of pasta as we watched Pride and Prejudice, then went to bed.  We woke up Saturday morning, the big day, at 4:50 to drive to the start of the race.   Here is a picture of us stretching before: 

The race started at 6:30, and it was cold.  Next time we are going to start out with a little bit warmer clothes.  We initially met many people, who have done 80 or so marathons......that was mind blowing.  Then they told us that they knew people who had run over 800 marathons...that's when I was wondering what in the world Natalie and I had gotten ourselves into...

Anyhow, we started about a 10 minute mile pace easily, we felt great.

We had another little amazing miracle though...

About three miles in we started talking to another lady, who was trying for 10 minute miles too, and it was also her first one.  We all just silently agreed to run together.

Her story was truly motivating.  She has gone through so much loss, but she started running as a way to emotionally and physically heal herself from the trials in her life.  Natalie and I were inspired by her story.

When Natalie and I agreed to run a marathon, we agreed not to worry about time.  We just wanted to start our marathon careers with one that we enjoyed, rather than killing ourselves.  We kept good pace.  Here are some of the sights we saw:

Cave drawings


And then...the finish!!! All three of us crossed together, it felt so good!  

I am so blessed to have the body that I do.  It is really easy to hate the body you are given, especially with how society portrays beauty today, and all the pressures to be so thin and perfect.  Not every body though can run 26.2 miles, and take that beating.  I am very blessed.

I am also extremely blessed with supportive friends and family.  During training my family helped me so much, whether it was running with me or making sure I had the right food--they were there.  And I couldn't be more thankful for my wonderful friend Natalie.  She stuck with me through and through, we helped eachother the whole way.  I love her tons and am so glad to have her here at BYU with me.  I am blessed to have so many friends who are always there for me!
So there you have it, my week was much more than just a Marathon, it was an awesome experience.  I can't wait until the next one!

Awesome Place=Awesome People

I have met so many awesome people and made so many great friends! Last night Whitney, Jeanice and I decided we needed to get out so we invited out FHE brothers to go hiking with us.  It was late, but we had flashlights and they were very careful to make sure we were safe--it was very sweet.  I miss my brothers so much, and although my FHE brothers can't fill that hole, they sure are fun to hang out with and some really great guys!  Here is a very blury picture of us at the top:

Then today Natalie and I went on our first group date!  It was a hoot!  The original plan was to go and do an 8 mile hike...however, of course it had to rain.  Actually it wasn't rain, it was pouring, and the thunder was going nuts!  We decided to make it the most random day possible.  We used Natalie's date's 2 man tent and set it up right next to Helaman Hall Dorms, and played uno!  We got some great looks :)

 

After I lost a dozen games of uno, we packed up and decided to walk to DI (a thrift store).  While there we found the nastiest outfits we could...and tried them on of course!!!

To finish off we went to Macey's Grocery Store and I introduced everyone to the Kong Kone.... $1.38 each!!

Overall, having a great time! Going to hang out with our FHE bros again tonight-gonna watch inception!!! I am so blessed to have so many wonderful friends!