Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.

I know everyone has been overloaded with gratitude posts on Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, etc., this week, but if you're apt to complain about it, let me point something out to you: long, gushing, Oscar-style "I'd like to thank my..." posts are a heckuva lot better than the ranting/venting/life-is-terrible posts that you're overloaded with the other 364 days of the year. Eat that for breakfast!

Speaking of breakfast, I'm starting my gratitude post there. There are many things that I'm thankful for this week. Right now, I'm grateful for the white chocolate raspberry cheesecake that I had for breakfast - that it sat so invitingly in the fridge, that I could eat and enjoy the holy shiz out of that dessert. I mean breakfast.

I'm so thankful for my amazing fiance who understands and never criticizes me, even when what I do is irrational or selfish; in fact, selfishness is almost encouraged? Honestly, the man's perfect! I'm thankful for the support we've received from family and friends. Actually, in a way I'm also grateful to any who questioned us along the way - for causing me to reconfirm that I am making the right decision. I have zero doubts that I am!

I'm grateful for my supportive, understanding family that takes care of me, is genuinely concerned, and is so willing to offer and deliver help at the drop of a hat. It's inexpressible the gratitude I feel for Buster and Emelie for providing me with a cheap (and free for most of my stay, until I put up a big enough fight to pay rent) place to live, and for the love and support that they give. Even during those few times when things seemed hard, I could never complain; I had them and a place I felt totally at home (and still do!).

I'm grateful for the Gospel in my life, for a loving God who is willing to give me blessings I know I do not deserve. I'm grateful for covenants and promises, the opportunity to give (although very little) back to my Heavenly Father and Savior. I'm sure this gratitude will only grow when I go through the Temple soon.

I'm grateful for my wonderful friends (some of which are also family!) for supporting me and putting up with my flakiness and endless faults. Maegs, Nell, Rach, Weenie (in no particular order besides alphabetical) - thank you for being so kind and caring. You are seriously the best friends I could ever ask for, and if I were to have bridesmaids, you would definitely be they! You're welcome, by the way, for not making you stand in line and try on and wear borderline skanky dresses that you will never take off the hanger again. ;) Hehe, just kidding. Sorta.

I'm grateful for my health, my continued safety (especially driving 70+ miles per day! That's a REAL blessing), and for the health, safety, and happiness of my family and friends.

There are so many other things I'm grateful for, but those are the ones that I absolutely had to get out for fear of bursting this weekend. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Oh no, I'm not falling for that again. If it doesn't have Siamese twins in a jar, it's not a fair!

Just a quick update before bed. For those waiting for the news, I am officially engaged now. We've had a date picked out for quite a while, but as of 3 weeks ago, it's official. here's my sapphire ring.

How'd he ask? Well, funny story. We drove out to Antelope Island with our bikes, parked at the end of the causeway, and went for a ride. The causeway is a really fun, really easy ride. The only catch is all the brine flies. I was not wearing an immodest shirt by any means - just a Ninja Turtle t-shirt - but still the flies flew down the neck and flew around in there until I pulled a Tarzan, pounded my chest, and killed them all. Blech!

Anyway, we rode the 7 miles to the entrance and the 7 miles back to the van. After I killed the new batch of flies, we drove to a rocky area where we took pictures with a group we camped with a few weeks before - the view of the sunset there is always breathtaking.

We climbed the rocks so we were far away from the other people and watched the sunset. Joe bent down to pretend to tie his shoe and came up with the ring. While I wasn't totally surprised (I tried it on 2 days before), it was still perfect for us. There we were, covered in sweat and dead bugs, watching the sunset on Antelope Island.

I said yes, and he pulled a dead brine fly out of my hair (no joke!). It was pretty great. :) We went to Chef Tom's and got some cheap but fantastic Italian - which is also us! What's wrong with cheap if it's delicious, right? Best alfredo ever! We stopped at FYE, looked for the absolute worst movie we could find, and watched Frogs at his house.

That's the story! I've just been busy shopping for a dress and reserving reception centers and whatnot since then. I'm still in favor of elopement, but, as Joe so rightly put it, "we need stuff." Hehe.

Other things going on? I joined Joe's family on a trip to Cedar City a week later to see the final weekend of the Shakespearean Festival. I'd never been before, and I loved it. We saw Winter's Tale on Friday night, then Dial M for Murder on Saturday (obviously not a Shakespeare, but I do love me a good Hitchcock script.). We had tons of fun!

This picture is from a hike we took in Kolob Canyon (which is technically a part of Zion National Park, but it's accessed somewhere funky and very few people know about it). Pretty, right?

One last picture for the road. This is my favorite engagement picture, taken 2 weeks before actually being engaged so's not to miss those leaves:

Yeah, I like Thai. Do you like shirt?

I've been collecting quite the conglomeration of good times, intending to blog about each one individually. In the interest of moving on with life and saving time, I'm just posting a few highlights.

August 19th and 20th - Grand Teton Relay! I was in van 2 with Jess, Josh, Kim, a high school friend of Jess's, and a younger brother of Josh's coworker, who DOMINATED the 10-mile leg. This is a picture of Josh ending our van's first leg and Jess picking up the second. This race worked exactly like a Ragnar. Not sure how weekend relay races work? Here's an enlightening video:



This race starts in Ashton, ID, and ends near Yellowstone, WY, taking the team all over the Grand Tetons.

I ran the 12th leg, which means I finished the race (boo-yah, Grandma!). I was also fortunate enough, at the end of our second set of legs, to hog the sunrise run. I was running up a mountain road, meaning I was cursing mountains, elevation, and the world in general. The sun rising over the peaks as I rounded the east side of the mountain was the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen in my life. Too bad you'll have to take my word for it, because I wasn't running with my camera.

September 5th - Say one Labor Day you decide to go on your second favorite hike in the world, you take a wrong turn, and wind up facing the choice of either scrambling the jagged mountain edge or backtracking a couple of hours. What do you do? 1) You take the knife's edge. 2) You turn your second favorite hike in the world into your first favorite hike in the world. Seriously. My favorite part about the hike (taking the Red Pine trail and then climbing the Pfeifferhorn) in the first place was the rock scramble near the end. The fact that we extended the scramble and skipped the steepest part of the hike made it absolutely perfect. Sure, we were nervous about moving forward when we first realized we were on the wrong side of that mountain, but just look at Joe and Reba in this picture. So. Much. FUN! As for the picture on the left, there's our destination as seen from about halfway through our invented rock trail.

Those are the two big things. As far as hikes go, here are a couple of honorable mentions:

Twin Lakes (Up by Brighton and Silver Lake) - not a particularly difficult hike - it's steep, but it's also very short - but it's absolutely gorgeous.

Remember that snow storm in the mountains last weekend? Well, Joe and I took a little drive up Little Cottonwood canyon to scope it out. This is the bridge at the start of the Red and White Pine trails.

Feelin' Campy - Like Karate Kid!

Earlier this month (the 4th through 7th to be precise), some of my family and I ventured on our I-can't-count-that-highth annual camping/fishing trip to Bridger Lake - the mystic waters of abundant planters! I defy you to spend an hour there and not catch your weight in puny, white rainbow trout. What made this trip special (among other things which I shall detail later), was that we invited Joe along. It was great spending time with him and getting him more acquainted with my wonderfully insane family.

As per tradition, the moment we arrived, we set up camp at a speed only possible for super humans, and hauled our fishing gear to the lake. This year, it started raining about an hour after we started fishing. This picture is of the lake during our first afternoon at Bridger Lake. We were soaked through pretty dang fast, so we pretty much froze the rest of the night (I was too stupid to change my socks before bed and wound up with really cold feet all night).

The second day was a blast, because after a morning of throwing our lines in Bridger and a hike (only Joe and I did that), Dad and Larie put their four-wheelers to good use, finding a lake with decent-sized trout that were actually native to the lake. All of us took turns riding the four-wheelers to that lake and fished there the second half of the day with some pretty good results. Most of our fishing time was spent there the rest of the trip. My favorite thing about Marsh Lake? Buster found this salamander in the weeds one morning. I'll not lie, once he showed me what he caught, I stole it and played with it for a ridiculous while before I even considered giving it back. It had so much energy! Sally was old and weak her last few years, so having to work to keep this salamander in my hands brought back some much older memories!

Some other fun moments of note:

Papa Gary teaching Chloe and Gaige to whittle - as he did for all of us when we were younger. Chloe asked me for whittling tools for her birthday next year.






Joe being silly whilst fishing at Marsh Lake.

Wait for Me While I Play Catch-up, Play Catch-up

Well, this is embarrassing. I thought I'd been slacking off for a couple weeks, but it turns out it's been almost 2 months! Sadly, as I imported pictures from my camera earlier this evening, I discovered that my camera is more neglected than my blog. There's a 4-month gap between my most recent photos and my second most recent. I've been using my iPhone for pictures, but still! In the spirit of making up for my disappearance, here are a few updates, brought to you by some of the images I just loaded:

About a month ago, Joe and I hiked Broad's Fork again (we've done it three times now: once snowshoeing as friends - ha! And twice this summer). As I led the way back down the trail, I heard a rattle. And proceeded to bolt to the other side of the trail at speeds I never knew were possible, all the while asking, "What the heck IS that?!" I knew was it was (derp!). It's really hard to see the snake in this picture, but sadly, it's the best shot I have. It's towards the lower right corner. Actually, contrary to what it looks like in the picture, rattlesnakes are pretty big. I thought they'd be the size of a garter snake or something, but he was muchly much more bigger.

A couple weeks later (I guess this would be 2 weeks ago now), we hiked Grandeur Peak. It's definitely a new favorite hike of mine. The only thing there to slow us down? A rattlesnake. I kid you not, haha. I'd never seen one while hiking before, and now I've seen two within a couple weeks! This one was pretty boring compared to the first one; he just curled up under a bush by the trail and refused to let anyone pass without throwing a fit.

The filthy legs you see here are the aftermath of that hike.


This picture is about 5 months too late, but here I am, dominating Moab on President's Day. That's right - my Moab trip is the most recent thing on my camera besides Grandeur Peak and Broad's Fork. Can you say it with me? On the count of three. One, two, three: FAIL! Fail of epic proportions! To add to the glory of this huge exhibition of shameless slacking on my part, I'm going to go ahead and conclude my update here. Honestly, I'm keeping busy and enjoying the living crap out of my summer (not to mention life!), and yet I'm having issues thinking of things to blog about. So, on that note...

Until next time, suckas!

It's a Beautiful Day, Don't Let It Get Away!

Well hi! It's 8:45 AM on a Sunday. What should I be doing? Planning the lesson I didn't bother planning all week. Naturally, that means it's time to update my blog. Mono-wise, I'm doing fantastic these days. My only complaint is that I have no idea long how long I'm contagious - anything I've looked up has a very wide date range (even wider than how long the symptoms last. I know now for me that they last 3-4 weeks; however, this information has no value. You can only get mono once.). I did somehow pass it on to one person - unless she happens to know someone else with it. Joe's sister. I feel horrible about it, but I am extremely puzzled as to how she got it. I haven't been anywhere near her in ages, and anytime I was at their house I kept my distance from everyone but Joe and didn't leave anything of mine around. Go figure!

I started at work 2 weeks ago. I think it was too soon based on how hard the first week was, but after watching Jurassic park a 3rd time and checking out a second Goosebumps book from the library, it was time. I actually did great this week, and I'm feeling totally normal. In fact, yesterday I went on a little hike up Big Cottonwood and went on a tandem ride along Wasatch Blvd until it ended up North. As you can see from my hiking picture, it was a gorgeous day.

The only thing dragging me down and causing fatigue? All the fun I'm having! 2 weeks ago it was the U2 concert. The picture here is of their stage - it was amazing! You'd really have to see it in motion and in the dark, but just trust me on that. The concert was a blast and totally worth my dragging myself to survive the rest of the week.

This past Tuesday, I went to Les Miserables at Capitol Theater. I'd never seen the play in any form and really loved it - enough that I wound up starting the audiobook on the way to work the next day.

I think the only other thing to report is that yesterday I sent in my forms for my concealed weapons permit. Awesome, right? I took the 5-hour class on Friday night after work, which was offered for free from a coworker. Since he and his wife took care of everything, all I had to do was address an envelope and send it off. That was actually more difficult than it sounds. How safe would you feel mailing off your name, address, race, height, weight, hair color, eye color, social, credit card information, finger prints, a copy of your driver's license, signature, and a recent photo all in one envelope? Someone steals that, they steal you! Anyway, the application can take a couple months to process, but in the meantime, I'm choosing out my gun. I had my heart set on a Glock, probably a 9mm, but then the instructor pulled out a 1911. I fell in love with it. When I looked it up on Cabela's website, I decided on the Springfield brand, since Glock doesn't make a 1911 and that was my second choice anyway. When I saw all the pictures, I decided on this silver guy here. Isn't he pretty? 9mm Glock, .45 Springfield... same diff, right? ;)

I'm also posting a picture of a second gun I really liked. It's also a .45 Springfield 1911, but it's more of a WWII design. As you can tell from the fact I like the 1911 design, I love older-looking guns, so this one is still definitely a good possibility. Anyone want to choose? The silver one was exactly what I had in mind after the class, but this one has a charm in its rustic look, yeah? I believe it is also $50-60 cheaper, and let's face it, at this point I should definitely be saving money any way I can.

In conclusion, no one ever, ever tell me not to hike alone again. Why? 'cause I'm packin' HEAT!

I Once Thought I Had Mono for an Entire Year. It Turned Out I Was Just Really Bored

Naturally being constantly very fatigued leads to some pretty impressive mood swings. Nothing as bad as it sounds, just the normal ups and downs you get when you're super tired. One minute you're laughing so hard you're crying, next minute you're frustrated about you don't even know what. That said, I'm making a list of positive things about mono to make the mood UP:

1) Creamies and chocolate pudding
2) Down 5 pounds in a week? Not my favorite method, but I have no complaints about the result
3) As mentioned above, those moments when you do laugh so hard you cry
4) Sleeping 9 hours without meds
5) Visits from family, daily texts from Mama, and her gift of endless popsicles, juice magazines, and flowers
6) Getting to read, watch movies, or play video games all day and not being considered lazy
7) 1-2 weeks of not driving through the awful Utah County I-15 construction
8) No one cares or blames me if I wear sweats or glasses or don't bother doing my hair
9) I have something to blame when I say something stupid

Two of Us Riding Nowhere, Spending Someone's Hard-Earned Pay...

Saturday was easily one of my top 5 days ever. Why is that, you ask? Well, sit back and keep a tight hold on your pantaloons, because I am about to answer your question! One of the best days ever starts like this: waking up at 4 AM. Bet you didn't see that one coming, did you? So after 3 hours of sleep, I dressed, packed up some stuff for a 25-mile bike ride and drove out to South Jordan to meet my fellow biker cronies. We left around 5:20 (much later than we wanted), but wound up at the U's institute just in time.

Joe and I bailed on the others and rushed to the starting line literally less than a minute before it started, but as we crossed the street near some Trax tracks (haha, tracks-tracks?), the tandem's front tire caught the track and we fell over. I almost took some lady down with me, it was very amusing. Anywho, once we shook off the scrapes and bruises, we made it to the line and started the ride. The most entertaining part was that it was raining - everyone had this wet streak up their backs from the back tire that looked like babies when they... well, ya know.

Anyway, not long after passing the 8 mile mark, I heard a pop. Not feeling anything, I asked, "Was that us?" It was. So we pulled over and started taking the tire off. I found the tear in the tube, and it was pretty impressive. Joe called his dad. We had a repair kit on the tandem, but there was no way to patch that thing up. So we told his siblings to ride on, and we just waited for Kevin. We finally called him after a while to find out that he thought he was behind us when he was actually ahead, so he'd been riding in the wrong direction. In the meantime though, we fell back on our usual form of entertainment while we wait for things. The goat ladder video.

Eventually, Joe's dad got there, we pumped up a new tube, fiddled with the off-center brake for a bit, then took the bike out into the road. It was easy, since the rest of the bikers were long gone. The second I sat down, I heard an all too familiar popping sound. I stood up, felt the back tire and yelled out, "THAT just happened!" At that point it crossed the funny mark and became just downright hilarious. So we felt ALL over the rim and tire for anything tearing the tubes and found nothing. We took the risk and pumped up a third tube, but this time it was inside the tire and on the rim before we pumped. As it inflated, the tube pushed out through a rip in the tire. Yep, that had to be causing it. I was so glad to find out that I hadn't gained 1,000 pounds since I woke up!

Joe's dad rode back to the van and we waited for him to come back. In the meantime, we sat on the curb and watched the marathon runners. One of them sneezed, I yelled "bless you!" and some lady threw us a shirt and told us to throw it away (Uh, yuck?). Some guy was wearing Kiss make-up and an 80's rocker wig, another guy dressed like a flower, one was in a shirt and tie... it was good fun, haha. Oh, and there were many mean jokes about Ethiopians as the ones who were dominating the race ran by - mostly inspired by Billy Crystal's joke in When Harry Met Sally. Anyway, after maybe an hour, Kevin came back and took the above picture for us.

Since the bike tour failed, there was really only one obvious solution: spontaneous zoo trip. But first we stopped at a grocery store and bought bagels, cream cheese, and strawberry milk. We ate that in the zoo parking lot, then headed in for the first time in a very long time for both of us. We got mooned by a gorilla! I'd never seen an ocelot before, so I cooed over that for a while, and kept squealing "KITTY!" like Boo in Monster's Inc. Joe's response? A playfully condescending "Okay, let's go get a drink out of the giant lion head." Hehe. Love to!

Anyway, the zoo's the zoo, and the zoo is awesome. After all that, obviously it was nap and shower time, so I drove home and did just that. After an hour and a half (what's wrong with me?), I got dressed and we went for a real bike ride on the Jordan River parkway, sans killer tandem. After a long, relaxing ride and some dinner at The Pie that felt like swallowing a delicious brick, we went to Nick and Weenie's to play for a bit. Weenie, Nick, Joe, Jake and I walked over to Macey's, grabbed some movie food and, for some reason, more cereal than any human could consume in a lifetime, and headed back to watch 1408. That about concludes the day. Partying it up with friends and eating the Western Family version of Samoas, which I nicknamed Tongas.

Yep. That answer your question?

Geez, Banana! Shut Your Freakin' Gob, Okay?

And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.
Ether 12:27

Lately I've been feeling that I need to be a better friend. I tend to repel people, but I couldn't quite figure out how I was doing it. I know I can sometimes make myself unapproachable, but the trick is figuring out just how I do it.

On Sunday, I read a few articles in the Ensign. One was a small snippet from a woman who felt inadequate somehow, but couldn't figure out how. Referring to the scripture in Ether 12 that I quoted above, she prayed for Heavenly Father to reveal her weakness, and it was something totally unrelated to how she was feeling (she'd been impatient with her kids). I decided to do the same thing. Sunday night, I prayed to know what I could do to be a better friend.

My best ideas and answers to prayers usually come right when I wake up. They come in those final dreams that are short, yet vivid, then in the pondering as I lay in bed that first 5 or 10 minutes of the day, my mind unaffected by surroundings. This time, I had a dream about a friend I had in several classes at the U. I always admired her, wondering how she was able to get along with so many people. She took initiative, and I always felt like if I tried that I'd scare people off. She's just likable. In this dream, I sat in the back of a classroom, right in front of three girls who gossiped to each other. They said something mean about the girl I mentioned, and I turned around to tell them that I knew her. "Yeah, the one with long, blond hair?" one asked doubtfully, testing me. "No, it's short and brown." I was proud of myself and felt happy to be a part of the group.

Then the girl they had just talked about walked in with chocolate-covered pretzels that she brought to share with everyone. She also brought some random pudding or something she'd made with Slim Fast (it's a dream, something weird and random had to show up somewhere), since it was just after New Years and some people might want to avoid the straight chocolate. I woke up, knowing which of these people I wanted to be friends with.

This girl (her name is Emily) reached out to everyone. She showed kindness and thoughtfulness (completely blind to the clique) and expected nothing. Her only motive was to make others happy and brighten the day. Ultimately, she is the better friend. This is the kind of person I want to be. I feel that this was the answer to my prayer. To be a better friend, I need to reach out to everyone. As hard as it is for me, I need to talk to people - without considering whether they even want to be my friend or talk to me. I need to show kindness just to make people's day brighter and not even worry about what they think, do or say. All that matters is what I think, do and say.

You know, Catholicism. We believed in the teachings of Cathol and everything it stood for.

These last two weeks have been pretty dang eventful, considering I haven't done a thing really! How does that work? Oh, well, have a seat, get some popcorn, and I'll tell ya. I paid off my car last Monday (and I received the title in the mail 2 days ago). Yeah, I officially own The Black Mamba... but wait, IS she black? I'm very convinced that she's actually gray... but then again, I only wash her in the summer. Hm.

On Wednesday, I came home from work and immediately went to the kitchen to make dinner, 'cause I was starving when Buster said, "There's a surprise for you downstairs." I was very confused, so I went down there, and I have a brand new cedar chest. I instantly knew who it was, because my mom's been talking about getting me one since I graduated from high school. I called her up and thanked her, but she insisted it was all Dick's doing, 100%. A few days before, he had texted to ask our address. I was suspicious, but I didn't connect these two immediately. I can't believe he does these things for me - he's so thoughtful!

On Monday, I got to play with my best friend for the first time in what felt like forever (though it's only been a couple weeks). We went to Zupa's and watched an episode of the Gilmore Girls. Such good times! I've been missing all that - I'm pretty sure I've been craving Zupa's for 6 months, I've been needing friend time badly, and then there's the Gilmore Girls withdrawals... I think I might just pull through now.

See? Like I said, it's been eventful, but at the same time... think about it, all but the playing is over in an instant - and even then, the playing sure feels like an instant. I hope everyone had as good a week as I did and has an even better one this week! Hopefully in the next couple days I'll finish some sewing projects I've been working on and have some pictures to share. :)

PS (can you PSify a blog?) check out this song! No More Hotdogs
Buster came home with a copy of this CD, and we've literally been laughing for 3 days straight at this song.

Mr. Cellophane

I feel like I need to update this more often, so here I be, wondering what on earth can I write about... so I'll go with what's going on in my life right now. So what's going on my life? Work! And... well, yeah, that's about it, unless you count driving to work as well. Or I suppose I could do a narration of my reading entirely too much over the weekends, but I'm sure I'll be forgiven for not, hehe. I took these pictures the other day and thought I'd share a little of the new experiences with everyone. This first picture is the view from my desk out the door. I can actually see a window... amazing, right?! HUGE change from the windowless Costco! Oh, and it's also very clear that I need some posters or something. :)


This next picture is obviously what I face most of the day... this is my computer. Well, no, actually, the computer is underneath the desk. These are my monitors (Yeah, that's right, we get double monitors. It's actually kinda rough, because when I get home my one monitor on my laptop is just not enough. So inconvenient! Not gonna lie... there have been a couple times that I really wanted a third monitor. Can you say "spoiled"?).



I wanted a better shot of the very few ways that I personalized my office. It's still bare, and I still get comments on that. But hey, I made an effort. Those are a few pictures, an awesome bowling score, a Colonel Sanders bobble head, Bill Goldberg and referee action figures... oh, and a rubber chicken. Yeah, I know, I'm awesome. Just to prove it further: any guess what's holding the chicken's noose up? Go ahead, take a guess. Yeah, it's a Samus bobble head on the shelf above. I think I've said enough, feel free to admire me, I won't stop ya.


This last picture is my favorite of the bunch. This is a sign that somebody posted on the wall next to the tech side printer. I saw it on my first day, and it hasn't changed at all, except that last week someone crossed out the '4' and wrote in '5.' It makes me laugh every time. My coworkers are pretty fun. I just wish I knew which one did this so I could team up and make a space invader out of post-it notes on the wall in someone's office (I don't even care who, I just love the idea!). I definitely need a prank accomplice if I'm going to do stuff like that.

Anyway, yes, that's my life right now. There is stress, hurt and frustration, of course, but I just try to work through those, and for the most part... life is awesome. Always.

Obviously You're Not a Golfer

To copy my good pal Elise, I'm dedicating a post to 2010. I hadn't planned on doing this until I woke up this morning and realized how drastically my life changed last year.

January:

I started off my new year hanging out with these clowns. This picture was taken after running out in the street barefoot (there was a ton of snow and ice out there), screaming to the neighbors and causing quite a stir. While I have no picture documentation, they also were company to my first attempt at snowboarding this month. I still suck at it, but hey! I'll get there.

February:

Wow, some very huge changes came very close together and very quickly this month. On the 10th, I moved. Yes, it's true. I, Jane E., the girl who spent 22 years, 4 months, and 29 days living in the exact same house finally moved. The picture on the left is my old room, my last time in there before hauling the last load. The picture on the right is my new room, all set up.

For some reason I can't find any pictures, but my mom was married on February 25th this year. We all spend that weekend in Wendover (my first time there) where I did and did not gamble. I didn't use one cent of my own money, but I did play craps in Dick's stead when they left the table to go get dinner.

March:
I spent March adjusting to my new home. What does that entail? Chasing this up-to-no good kitty around the house. You know, coaxing him out of drawers, the drier, blinds, etc...

April:
April was pretty eventful... one of my very best friends and cousins was married to a good friend of mine. And Weenie asked me to be a bridesmaid - that was so much fun! The picture on the right is our surprise for them when they were on their honeymoon. We painted their bedroom.

Oh, and I also ran my very first half marathon at the end of this month.

May:
I enjoyed a 2-week break from school and then started what I thought was a 10-credit semester. And then I discovered something about how summer Spanish classes work and came to the conclusion that I could graduate in December rather than next April. Long story short, I started a 17-credit semester this month.

June:
Despite all the time spent in school, I managed to find time for other things. For instance, I went to my first concert in June - it was my favorite band, Cake! They put on an excellent show too. We also adopted this little kitten that Ludo is scoping out. We named him Archie after a character in the movie Rocknrolla.

July:
I played entirely too much this month! On July 5th, I once again set off to hike Mount Olympus alone (this time it wasn't snowy though). I also hiked Timpanogos (that's the jumping picture there). I also went to Bridger Lake for a week, a tradition of my family's. Those are two of my nephews chilling in my camping chair after we caught a few frogs.

My brother, sister-in-law and I also took a Wednesday we all had off to go explore. We wound up driving in the Jeep, top down, to a canyon waaaay out in the middle of nowhere. There we discovered a teeny, tiny, abandoned mining town. Ghost town hunt, whoot! It was pretty dang cool. I included a picture, but I think I accidentally deleted it and I'm too lazy to reupload it. Just trust me, it was rad.

August:

This is where I started my last semester. I also went on my favorite hike of the year, up Red Pine trail and to the top of the Pfeifferhorn. So much fun! It was freezing up there though. I also commenced my final semester at the end of the month.

September:

I turned 23. Still not sure how I feel about that...

October:

Pretty uneventful month. I think I spent most of it studying. By November I gave up and just prayed I'd just pass.

November:

I invested in a pair of snowshoes. Good purchase! The picture on the right here is from Donut Falls. Looks absolutely gorgeous in the winter, right? I also started a new job. By some miracle, I landed a job as a technical writer at a software company in Provo. I worked part time on Tuesday and Thursday start November 9th.

December:

Christmas! Oh, and I finished classes. yeah, I took my last final on December 17th. I also had some random illness during this week that made me so achy and feverish that my hand hurt like heck when I tried to write my exam essays... yuck. But I did pass everything and now I'm free! I also started working full time on December 20th. Looks like I don't have any major decisions or milestones to hit anytime in the near future, and I'm actually liking that. Maybe 2011 will be the year of remaining static.... except when I'm using my AWESOME new snowboarding gear I got for Christmas. check me out!