FINALLY, An Update! (But no Call yet)

Since a bunch of people have asking and giving me a hard time about updating my blog, I am finally getting around to doing it, even though the exciting news isn’t here yet!

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. My family spent Thanksgiving with my Dad’s family it was a lot of fun. Kim, Kody and I had fun playing guitar hero and taking turns playing photographer and models with my camera. But once dinner was over, I didn’t make such a great model! I ate way too much and I’m still paying for it.





Now I’m suffering from a house full of “Will Head’s” Chocolate Truffles, Mom’s caramels, both regular and her new ones with marshmallows (YUM!), and my sugar cookies with frosting! I thought I was safe at work until one of my co-workers brought in a Chocolate Orange for everyone last week. There is no escape! Let me just say that that chocolate orange was gone within 24 hours from the moment I opened it!



I love this time of year. This truly is a magical time of year. I’ve been really getting into it this year as well. I’m the one at home keeping everyone caught up on our many different countdown calendars and I’ve been listening to the radio since Thanksgiving. My boss actually banned Christmas music from the office for the rest of the week last Wednesday (really he requested we listen to something else for a while but banned sounded so much more dramatic)! In return for listening to some everyday music, I get to turn on as much Christmas music as I want this week!

I had my last final for the semester on the 6th. I would have had to try really hard to get a B in Geography because of all the extra credit my teacher offered in that class. If my math was correct, I needed a 25% or less on the final to get a B in the class. I definitely Aced the class, Whoop Whoop!


For my Interpersonal Communications class, my final was a movie project that I worked on and presented with my friend Sierra. We chose “Elf” for our movie, in honor of the holiday season, and dressed up as Elves when we gave our presentation. We were instructers for our class E.S.I.C. 101 (Elfin Studies of Interpersonal Communication) It was a ton of fun and we got an A. Go Team E.S.I.C.s!



My mission papers were sent to church headquarters on December 2nd and these past few weeks have been killer! I'm still waiting to get my call in the mail and to finally find out where the Lord wants me to serve! Good news though, I found out last Saturday that my mission call is in the mail and on its way to me. Churchheadquarters sent it last Friday which means I should be finding out this week! WOOHOO! I am so excited! Hopefully it will come tomorrow or Thursday! This waiting game is pure torture. Haha!

So be looking for an update once I get my call because you can be sure I will have something to say about that and probably lots of pictures to accompany it!

15 More Days

Hey All!

So I realized I posted my last blog and never sent out a notification to anyone that I even started a blog. I know, I'm a genious. LOL Well a few things have happened since so let's get on with it!

First of all, the Taylor Swift concert was great, Kirstin and I had a great time. Taylor wasn't the greatest singer live but she was really fun and entertaining to watch. Kirstin also enjoyed looking at the lead guitar player. She thought he was pretty hot! In my personal opinion, he was ok but I didn't really pay attention. Anyway, it was a ton of fun and we got to hear a couple of new songs, "Permanent Marker" and "Fearless" that are going to be on her next cd which is supposedly coming out next year. They were really fun/great songs, as are all her songs, but unfortunately for me, I'll have to wait a couple years for that one! But thats ok! Anyway, operation Taylor Swift and Veronica Mars was a success and Kirstin and I had a blast. We didn't do much besides go to the concert, eat, sleep and watch VM... We really know how to party!

As for geography, I ACED my midterm ("Thank you very much") and my group got 1st place for our country booth for the Tuesday group (there was also a Wednesday group). Stephen would tell you that I sold my soul for half the votes we got but thats not true! All I did was tell people to vote for us and if they were a little skeptical at first I would volunteer our group to dance a haka for the vote. lol The Ka Mate went really well, everyone looked at me like I was crazy and going to kill them any minute. It was really funny because there was one guy talking with his friends at the next booth over and he was writing down votes so I told him that he should vote fore New Zealand (our booth) as one of his 3 and he wasn't really buying it so I finally got him to agree to put our name down, even though he said it was going to be on the 3rd spot (hey I'll take what I can get if it means Extra Credit), if we did our dance. When we were done, his reaction was hilarious. He was looking at us with wide eyes and said "WOW, that DEFINITELY deserves a spot on here!" It was the funniest thing. It was even funnier when we saw him again and again when we would do the Ka Mate again. It was a lot of fun!

Stephen got his mission call in the mail last Thursday.My dad and I had the opportunity to be there when he opened it. It was really cool. We all passed his call around unopened and guessed where we thought he was going. I guessed Montana and I was the closest! He's going to the Minnesota Minneapolis Mission, which is exactly what he wanted. Somewhere cold and it even includes part of Ontario Canada. It took less than two weeks from the time he submitted his papers which means that I could have my call in less than a month if that's the case with mine! And even better news than that is that I miscounted and I can actually turn my papers in on the 4th of December instead of the 6th. That just made my Sunday all that much more enjoyable when I found that out. Now I only have 15 more days to go until they are completely submitted, but who's counting? Ah, I can't wait! I'm so excited!

Yesterday was my last Sunday in primary. I was officially released as the Primary pianist in Sacrament meeting. My good friend Larry has been called to take but place. He's already told me that he's excited to be in there and that its going to be the best calling ever. Larry, if you are reading this, all I have to say is AMEN! For everyone else, have no fear, the bishopric only let me rest for one min, the minute between releasing me from my calling as Primary Pianist and the calling me to serve as Relief Society Pianist! LOL Oh well, I'm ready to serve where the I am needed.

Until next time!

I Broke Down and Made One!

So it seems like all of my family and friends have blogs so I thought I join everyone else and make my own, especially with a mission just around the corner.

Things have been so busy lately with going to school and working. It's hard to fit everything in! Work has been a little interesting lately but for the most part things have been going really well. We had a hard couple of weeks in there and we just recently lost one of my co-workers but in the process we gained a new one. Now things are starting to get back to normal again.

School has been going really well this semester. I decided to take Interpersonal Communication and Geography. Interpersonal Communication is the other speech class offerred at FRCC and I have the same teacher I took Public Speaking from last Winter/Spring semester. I decided to take the class for three reasons: 1. I really liked my public speaking class last semester, 2. I really liked the teacher AND 3. Easy A! I didn't actually think that I would learn as much as I have. I never really thought much about the way that I communicate with the people around me (I always thought I was doing a pretty good job) but this class has taught me a lot and I've learned that I have a lot of things that I can improve on! If any of you ever have the opportunity to take an interpersonal communications class, I would HIGHLY recommend it! Lol just yesterday, instead of a test, we got into groups of two and had to prepare presentations for different sections of a couple chapters. My partner Mat (with one T) and I had a section in the "Managing Conflicts in Relationships" and decided to do our presentations as pirates. Needless to say, ours was the most entertaining presentation by far! And we maybe had a little fun doing it, but just a little!

Geography was another class that I signed up for with the mind set of "Easy A and I always liked coloring maps and doing that fun stuff in highschool!" Boy, OH boy was I wrong. It is an "Easy A" class in the sense that it's not going to be hard to get an A in it but it requires a lot of hard work and studying. The best part is is that I'm actually enjoying the class, I don't mind the hard work, I'm learning a lot about geography I didn't know or ever really think about in terms of geography, and Dr. K is really funny and entertaining to listen too. He's got stories to go with practically everything he talks about. Not to mention Dr. K doesn't believe in wasting time on lame homework, he insists that we use our time to study what we don't know, AND he gives out a ton of extra credit. I'm currently tied with 5 others at the top of our class with 112%... but that's only one grade. Next week is our midterm and apparently it's really hard. But I've been studying the study questios he gave us and been in once or twice to clarify some stuff so I'm pretty confident I'll do well. Wish me luck

Our big class project is a group project where 3-4 people sign up for a country and then you have to represent the country using 5 different senses (sight, smell, taste, sound and touch) and bunch of other stuff and then present it at a Fair our school holds in November. Stephen Flanders and I chose New Zealand (at my request). We are working with a couple other people from Dr. Ks different geography classes. We just got together last night for the first time. It's due in a couple weeks but I think it'll actually go really well. Next Thursday I'm teaching everyone the Ka Mate for our Extra Credit piece! Look out fair, we're coming to get you!

A couple weekends ago, Dad and I went elk hunting with Little Daddio and Stephen Flanders. It was a ton of fun, even though we didn't shoot anything or really see anything. On the drive down to our area, Stephen and I rode in the back while our Dads endlessly chatted about this and that up front. They seriously act like they have been best friends since they were kids and are still teenage boys sometimes. It's really funny and very entertaining. Along with listening to those two silly kids, I read a lot, listened to music and slept a litte. Stephen, the little twirp, stole my pillow and ipod for at least half the trip down there because he forgot his. The kid does not know how to travel by road. Pillows, ipods and some kind of blanket are a necessity. Dad and I stayed together most of the time and the same goes for the other two, we'd usually meet somewhere in the middle. Little Daddio's Aunt Faye and Uncle Jim work at a hotel down in Silverton so we stayed there and got to hang out with them in the evenings in the dark hotel restaurant watching the Rockies and CU games.

My friend Kirstin is currently preparing to fly home from school in Kansas just to spend the weekend with myself, Taylor Swift and Veronica Mars. We are both pretty excited about it all! We are leaving for the Grizzly Rose as soon as I get off work and then after we get home from the concert, we are having a Veronica Mars Season 3 Marathon since it just came out on DVD this tuesday and we haven't seen it yet! It's been really hard to survive these last 4 months not knowing what happens at the airport! Ah, only a few more hours to go until the fun begins! I'll try and get some good pictures!

As all of you may or may not know, I have been preparing to serve a full-time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. If you had asked me last year, I would have told you that I this time of my life couldn’t come fast enough. Well now I’m trying to figure out what happened to the past couple of years. Perhaps this will be a bunch of mumbo jumbo to you when I say this but time is flying by so fast but at the same time moving so slow. Is anyone still with me?

Anywho, in preparation, I’ve been meeting regularly with my ward Bishop, Bishop Dunford and it’s been great. The spirit that we feel in those meetings is always so strong and it continually strengthens my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and that serving a mission is what Heavenly Father wants me to do. I can't wait!

At the beginning of this month, Bishop Dunford finally decided it was time I started on the official paper work (it’s all done electronically now so all we had to do was set it up so I could create a login name and password). Well, needless to say, in my excitement I finished most of it in one hour. All I had left to do was go in for a physical and get the ok from my doctor, the ok from my dentist, get my picture taken in my Sunday best, and wait for my passport to come in the mail. Easy stuff, right? Oh how naïve of me to think such a thing!

I went in for my physical examination last week, which started quite an adventure. Oh don’t worry, I am as healthy as… well nothing comes to mind but you get the idea, I’m a healthy girl! The adventure all started with the evaluation forms for my mission papers. There were a few tests I had to have done. First the PPD (tuberculosis) test, and then a blood count test, neither of those made me jump for joy but they had to be done. Now before I go any further, let me clarify for all of you reading this, I am NOT, I repeat NOT afraid of needles/shots. I could care less about them, they don’t hurt that bad (if at all) and they are over pretty quickly. I do however hate the idea of IVs (or needles that stay stuck in your arm for longer than a few seconds) and anything blood related. That stuff makes me queasy just thinking about it. Anyway, 2 “shots” that day. 48 hours later, I had to go back in and make sure all my tests were negative and whatnot. I passed! Woohoo. I also had to figure out my blood type, so in order to get that test done for free, I went and donated blood and the local blood bank. Lets just say I have done my blood donating good deed for my life time!

The real problem was my immunization records. My doctor didnt have those so I had to call around to get them. Then after all that work I found out my mom had them all along. Haha, oh well! "It mattereth not, I am not angry" -Pahoran Alma 61:9. After looking over my immunizations, I only needed the Hep A so I went in to get that only to have the nurse "suggest" that I start a series of prevention shots. I figured "hey, i'm here, go for it!" Well little did I know that the shot was like jello being shot into your arm... Agh that hurt. My arm felt like it was dead for 10 mins. I have 2 more of those babies to look forward to! Haha, I don't know if my poor arms can handle any more needles for a while!

Now all I have left to do, as far as the papers go, are take a pictuer of me in my sunday best and visit my dentist next week and have him sign me off! Let me just say this here and now, if any of them claim I have a cavity and think they are going to give me a shot in the mouth, they are seriously mistaken! Ok, not really but I will be very disappointed that my break hasn't come yet! After those are taken care of, it's time to start setting up my official Bishop and Stake President (whoever that will be since President Newman and his family are moving to UT) interviews. Ah, it's all so close, I can't wait!

Alright, well I'm gonna stop now, I'm sure that anyone who has read this far is thinking "Is it ever going to end?" Just kidding! Alright, until next time!