The world will miss him

Today I head some awful news. One of my most amazing friends lost her adorable brother yesterday in a car accident, at the young age of 17. It is things like these where I can't help but wonder, "why was it his time?"
I have been blessed to grow up in a religion being taught that we will have the opportunity to see each other again in heaven and that families can be together forever, but it does not make news like this any less hard. He had such a bright future ahead of him, and now the world will never know the amazing person it lost at such a young age.
It makes me kind of of angry that there seem to be so many people who don't even care for or appreciate the life they have but it is the strong, amazing, people who have to face some of the hardest trials. We will never know the completeness of Gods plan on this earth, we just have to have faith.

My heart love and prayers go out to my amazing friend and her family as they cope with the loss of an amazing person.

The great gas light debate!

So in the last few months a few things have changed in our lives (mostly mine)

New Job

New House

New Cat

(All of which I will update about later in my life) but for now

the thing that makes me happiest of all...

Not seeing this annoying thing as much!

Today was the first day in over two weeks that this unwanted reminder payed me a visit.

When I was going to school and working in Salt Lake I was very familier with this annoying little light because I had to fill up my car with expensive dirty looking water just about every 4 days!!

Needless to say this light cost me mucho mula over the last 2 years, So I am happy to now see him less often.

But this brings me to...duh duh dunn....the great gas debate between Landon and I. 

I walk in the house from work today and joyfully tell Landon that my gas light was on, and not burnt out like I was starting to suspect because I had not seen it in awhile. 

So Landon brought up the absurd idea and asked if I went and filled up my gas tank?

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WHAT?@!? Why would I have done such a thing???

(Let me draw your attention to the left side of the picture in bright neon lights my car proudly proclaims that I have (at least) 50 miles that I can still go on said gas! That will get me to and from work easily for the rest of the week, if not on into next week! Why would inconvenience myself now when I can easily put it off for a few more days!

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Landon proceeds to repeatedly bang his head into the wall and states "when you run out of gas...again...I am not coming to help you".

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Procrastination at its finest! I am queen of the E as Landon fondly refers to me. I attribute this mostly to the fact that I while commuting I had to fill up so often that I did try to put it off as long as possible. But in my defense I have only ran out of gas once...that Landon knows of...

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So who else out there waits till the last second to fill up their car?

University of Utah Graduate!

Miss me? I havent had much time lately because I have been bustin my butt for this....

I finally graduated from college!!!!
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The last two semesters I took 24 and 26 credits so that I could be done! If you ask me now I say that it was well worth the time, effort and stress. But if you would have asked me two weeks ago during finals my brain was fried!
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I was lucky that one of my favorite authors was the speaker at my graduation, Mitch Albom (he wrote the bestselling book Tuesdays with Morrie, which I highly recommend)! It made it so memorable for me! One of the things that he said that I loved was, that your life is made up of all the grains of sand in an hourglass. When your time is up and that last grain of sand is falling, what is it that you want most? Your big screen TV? or to be surrounded by the people you love to let them know you love them? In your last grain of sand all you want to do is to give your love to everyone. Every grain of sand is exactly like the next, you can discern one from the other, so why should all the other grains of sand in your life be spent doing anything but investing in the relationships that will ultimately be all you want in life?

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I graduated from the University of Utah with a bachelors of science degree in Health Promotion and Education with an emphasis in Emergency Medical Services and Search and Rescue. Yeah its a mouthful! So what do I want to do with my life now you ask??? My dream is to be a ER/Life Flight nurse! So I will be finishing out my RN degree and in the mean time I hope to start working in the ER and try to get on with the Utah County Search and Rescue team I love the outdoors and I love the adrenaline rush of helping people when they are at their worst. 

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I really enjoyed my schooling and all the classes and teachers I had, which helped me realize even more what I wanted in my life! I also want to say that there is no way I could have done any of this with out my family. My parents and grandparents helped me out so much! And Landon, poor thing had to put up with me on a day to day basis while I was a mental case with stress! I love them all so much for helping me get to where I am now!

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Here are some more pictures from graduation!!!

I got my die hard BYU fan Dad to wear the red U of U tie I got him for Graduation! Shows how much he loves his daughter!

Im pretty sure there is a future U of U alum in there!

My wonderful family!

Yay Me! It took me a long time, and a few different colleges, but I would change one bit of it!

getting around to it....February Recap!

Ha ha ha, that seems to be the theme of my life lately

....getting around to it!

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It kills me to think that March is almost over and I still havent posted anything about February! So much has happend in the last two months that it overwhelms me to think about blogging about it all and so I haven't.

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So here is a quick overview of Feb!

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I love the month of February only because it starts off by my birthday! I turned 25 this year, and totally had a quarter life crisis! I cant believe I am so old! I contemplated what I have done with my life so far and what I still want to do! I have vowed to make the next 25 years much more entertaining! One thing that I really look forward to being 25 is now I can rent a car without paying extra fees!!! Landon and I are really excited about this because it opens up more vacation possibilities for us! 

For my Birthday I was able to hang out with some great friends and all of my family! I had like 4 birthday cakes!

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One present that Landon got me was Kiteboarding lessons!!!! I have been wanting to do this for years now and it was a blast! We learned the basics of how to fly and handle the kite! We get to go again this week and actually get on our boards with the kite!

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My other Birthday/Valentines present was a supper nice Bernina sewing machine! I LOVE IT. I never used to be much into sewing but with my sister having a baby I have started to love making quilts. I finally was able to finish a quilt I started when Landon and I first got married!

LOVE IT! Now I just need to get it quilted!

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The end of February was so much fun! One of my old roomies from USU is pregnant with her first baby girl! So we found it a good excuse to get together all of our old roommates and their husbands for a brunch date and a baby shower! I had the best time! These girls are some of my BEST friends and I am supper bummed I dont get to see them much anymore! We always laugh and have the best time together!

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For the shower I made KJ a baby blanket and to beanie hats from the cutest fabric! I was able to put the baby's name on it seeing they have already picked it!

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And last but not least Landon finished off the month by surprising me and taking me to a Jazz game! He rode up to SLC and surprised me when I got off work! It was a great night and a nice surprise! 

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It was a great month! Hopefully soon I will start posting about the exciting things that have happend this month!

GO ME!

So I picked up the mail today and saw a letter from the U, I figured it was just something regarding my upcoming graduation....but it wasn't.

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It was a letter notifying me I had made the Deans List!!!

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I have made the deans list before but I wasn't taking nearly the class load or the upper division classes that I  did last semester.

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I dont mean to stroke any ego I might have, but I feel so proud of myself! I have been working my butt off to graduate. Last semester I took 26 credits of all upper devision classes, while working and commuting! I spent so much time on homework and tests and I had pretty much punched my ticket to insanity island....but it payed off so I have to say it....GO ME! 

Let the Lists begin....+Exciting News!

I'm going to be mean and leave the exciting new till the end,and let the excitement build!

So I decided to take a idea from one of my Good friends Jenn C! She shall always be know as the queen of lists to me, and she is so good at them! At the beginning of each year she makes some lists an I did list, and a I will do list, and I have decided to do some of my own this year!

I did in 2010...

1. Completed a 24 credit semester with all A's and 1 B!

2. Camped in Lake Powell

3. Welcomed my brother back from his mission.

4. Celebrated our 2 year anniversary.

5. Family vacation in San Diego.

I will do in 2011...

1. GRADUATE from college!

2. Leave the country for a vacation.

3. Go on a cruise.

4. Ace my last semester...(another 24 credits)

5. Eat healthier, and work out more...(isn't this on everyones list?)

6. Learn how to paddle board

7. Finish my first quilt.

8. Spend more time with family and friends.

9. Do at either a triathlon or half marathon.

10. Go parasailing!

And probably many more!

And so now on to the exciting news......

No its not my baby (just a little bummed about this) but it is my big sisters! I'm so excited my I'm finally going to be an Aunt! Im sure my sister is going to get sick of me, but I can't wait to spoil my future niece or nephew! I already have so many ideas for this little one! I can't even contain myself waiting to hear if it's a boy or a girl! My sister broke the new to us on sunday when they invited us all over to dinner, she stuffed little ultrasound pictures in New Years party poppers announcing that she is due on July 21st, yay! Even though I found out on Sunday I had to wait till now to say anything until all of the family knew, we are all so excited!

Finally some Free time!

I have finally finished my second to last semester! Not with out some trouble though....I missed my last final because I was stuck in traffic from an accident! Lucky for me my teacher was amazingly nice and set up a time with me to take it the next day! I do have to say I am pretty proud of myself, with taking 24 credits I didn't know how well I was going to do in all of my classes, but I managed to pull off all A's and only 1 B! One more semester to go, then Im done!!!!

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Since I finished my finals on friday I had some free time to do some christmas crafts that had been collecting dust for awhile!

Two years ago Landon and I were able to get these great silver and gold ornaments for our tree on clearance! I love them and think it gives such a chic classic christmas feel to our house. 

But...I didn't have any matching stockings or tree skirt to go with it. I was blog surfing one day and saw someone who had made stockings and a tree skirt out of a $10 canvas drop cloth from Home Depot, I fell in love, and the canvas color would work great with my tree! I have finished my stockings, but im still putting the finishing touches on the tree skirt!

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While I was at it I wanted to add some other christmas decorations that matched my tree, but could not find any. So I decided to make some Christmas blocks (I had already made some for thanksgiving and valentines day). It takes me awhile because I have to make the stencils all by hand.....hint hint hubbs....! But I think they turned out really cute!

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I LOVE how they turned out, I think they are my best blocks yet! I am horrible at taking pictures while im making things but here is my summarized process.

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I had Landon cut and sand the blocks all different sizes from a 2x4 and 2x6  and a skinny piece for the Merry. Then I picked out different fonts for each letter and printed out on card stock and exacto knifed them to make stenciles. I painted the blocks white and sanded down the edges. I then stenciled on the letteres, I used folk art metallic paint to match my glittery tree! I then took some stain and rubbed it along the edges to distress them some. Last but not least, I also cut out snowflake stencils (the hardest and longest part of it all) and painted them on to random blocks. While the snowflake paint was still wet I covered it with some white sparkle glitter! 

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I now thing my living room looks complete! I am so excited for Christmas if not just for the fact I dont have to worry about school, I also get to spend extra time with my family and Landon!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!