I'm A Lover AND a Fighter

You know. I sometimes have that show What Not To Wear on in the background while I'm cooking [since these days I'm usually alone with Lester so busy!] and I have realized something. I could never put my finger on why I had this whole love hate thing with this show.

On the one hand, I love how they provide people with a a great new wardrobe-many of them not only need it, but could never afford it [like me haha!]. I love it when they get their hair done [although I do miss Nick Arrojo], and when I get to learn new makeup tips. I love it when they learn to love and embrace their bodies [when they do] and buy clothes that really actually fit. That is all great, and its fun to see the transformation from beginning to end.

But I absolutely HATE how they always feel the need to completely humiliate someone BEFORE they do something nice for them. Some people tell me its because if they don't, they won't see that they need to change. I think that's bull. Sometimes change is hard, but nobody likes to be put down, called names, compared to awful people or even animals, and most especially nobody needs to be hit, which Stacy [who I think is an AWFUL bully] does in almost every episode.

And you know what-they claim that they try to dress people in clothes that are not only age appropriate, but also good for there lifestyle. I also think this is a lie. They will take a stay at home mom, who lets say is into running, and buy her 'casual' at home shirts [which she will not want to get baby food or play dough on] and has her cleavage hanging out, and then sweats that cost $200 are, brand name and are just as good as the cheaper ones...its just not right. And say even after all that, they get the person the perfect wardrobe-what about after the show? How are they supposed to sustain that lifestyle, when most of the stuff is dry clean only and to expensive to continue to buy at such a level? Its just kind of frustrating.

But anyways. The whole reason I was thinking about this is because today, I had a really hard time getting up for my first early class, and eventually it got to the point where I just had to throw something on. Once I got there I realized that with my frizzy fro, lack of makeup or retainer, baggy black high school sweatshirt and dressy shoes, I looked the like the perfect candidate for the show-that or being a homeless person. And I thought to myself-this is one day. Every once in a while, I think every person just has one of those days where you do what you gotta do-high heels dressy blouses, and perfectly styled hair is not something that I need for running to the grocery store or to my neighbors for some sugar. And if someone was secretly recording me for months, they are bound to find something that they can stream to together and make it look like you are the worst dresser ever. And that is just not accurate, or fair.

But then. Even though I am right about this. I would still take the new clothes and stuff if it came down to it. That and I'd give Stacy a much needed attitude adjustment.

Good Things Come in Pairs

On Friday, we went to a production of 'Savior of the World'. It was in the new I-Center which is basically just a smaller version of Salt Lake's conference center, plus an indoor track and tons of courts for sports. But ya. Lester had a CD from his mission of this, and he loved it-so the day the tickets went on sale, he bought some right away. This meant that our seats were practically in the orchestra pit. We went with our friend Catherine, and let me tell you, nothing brings a group of Mormons out more then Savior related music. It was the busiest I've ever seen Rexburg! But it was phenomenal-the music, both a mix of hymns and other songs touched your heart and testimony, and reminded you how many people and events-both divine AND earthly-went into bringing into our life the Savior. He has done so much for us, it is impossible to write it in words-and yet so many before, and after him have made sure that he was able to, and to make sure that he would live on in our hearts and minds. It reminded me that we all have a purpose, whether great or small, and that we can make a difference. It was a much needed experience, and I am grateful for it.

In other news, the two sweet families and their adorable daughter's who make up our entire primary are moving out this semester, having graduated school for bigger and better things. This means we may not have a primary! Sad day! Today was sweet, sensitive, kind Ellie's last day and we were sad to see her go. Her parent's gave talks, and I think to myself if I can be half the Mom that this women is to her daughter, I will be beyond happy. Still though, we get to have a few more weeks with Isabelle luckily, but we are already crossing our fingers that some family will move in so we will get to keep doing primary haha. But over all it has been a great learning experience.

Lastly, I have a new FAVORITE thing. I like to dream about someday being this AWESOME baker who's food looks just as great as it tastes. When it comes to cupcakes and sweets, I can nail it in the taste department, but whenever something requires frosting I have issues. Until duh duh duh DUH...THIS:

Some people are talented and can do it the old fashioned way with the bags for piping, but for me, this has made me the baker I want to be, cosmetically [hah that rhymes..] I am making some food for the Bridal Shower were throwing Hillary this weekend and so I practiced on these little mini cupcakes I will be making. They turned out AWESOME. After the shower itself, I will post pictures of the treats. But, if you have the same problems I do, get one-it makes you feel like cake boss, without all the extra work! LOVE IT!

Random Life Tidbits

1. A women in our ward once told me that she hated cheesecake..I called her crazy, but that she said 'think about it..its a cake made of cheese!' Although she didn't change my mind, she made a good point. That does sound kind of weird. Its like meatloaf-I like it, but the thought of a loaf of meat does sound a little unsettling. But my point is, there is this magical place in Rexburg called G's dairy and they have this 'black tie cheesecake' ice cream that rocks my world to no end. It is like The Cheesecake Factory's Ghiradelli Cheesecake in an ice cream form. HEAVENLY.

2. Today Lester and were researching some stuff we may need to invest in for when we move in our little truck. When we pulled up we noticed that there was someone who had the same car as us. Lester went in the store, and I stayed in the car. Then homeboy who owned the other car comes out and just starts throwing stuff in the back of our truck. I realized he thought it was his, and so I turned around and was like 'Um, excuse me sir, but this is not your truck.' For a split second he looked at me like 'what you doin in my car crazy girl?' but then he looked at me, looked at our car, then looked over and his car and quickly went from a look of confusion to mortification. He said he was so sorry and embarrassed, grabbed his stuff, ran to his car and took off. HE MADE MY DAY! for a bit, I felt bad for laughing at someone elses embarrassment. But then I thought to myself for the amount of times I have done something stupid, liked tripped on nothing, and been embarrassed I am sure there was someone I didn't notice laughing hysterically. So then I didn't feel bad. I just felt good.

3. This is embarrassing, but sometimes I secretly dream about being an awesome rapper. When a song comes on that I like Lester and I will sometimes have rap offs. I also have a little bit of Beiber fever, so whenever his songs comes on it is great cuz we can sing, dance AND rap usually all in one song. PERFECT. With this whole play list thing, I think I mainly just listen to his song on here, and of course all the MJ songs. He can't be beaten. Right now my current fave is Remember The Time but I am sure that will change to another one of his masterpieces shortly. I have to dance now.

4. Every time dinner time rolls around, I am to tired to cook, and then deal with the cleaning afterwards. So since all my classes ended 2 weeks early for the semester, I made a bunch of freezer meals and we are set for the whole week! Hooray! So if someone unexpectedly comes over, we are set! and if not, no worries we are STILL set! Its a win win I tell you!

So these are the things that have been on my mind lately. Random, like I said but there you have it! PAYCE!

Adventure TIME!!

This weekend finally came and guess what? It actually lived up to the hype we’d been giving it! As stated previously, our friend Amanda is one of those total package people, who is not only cute, but the ultimate outdoorsy women. She is in charge of all the outdoor activities of the school, and her and her husband Travis planned a cross-country skiing overnight trip for a bunch of the married students. For food, skis, shelter and other equipment it was only 20 bucks per person so we jumped on it! We left Friday at around 4, all geared up with out packs of snacks and sleeping bags, and drove for about 45 minutes over to Badger Creek. Rexburg itself is finally starting to thaw out, but up there it is still white all over, and in a breathtaking sort of way. Upon arriving, they gave us a little run down on how to ski and off we went. Of course, this being the first time for both me and lester, as well as the Morco’s we rounded out the back of the group, taking our time getting used to it, falling occasionally, and also snapping pictures of the beauty nature had surrounded us with. After skiing to our location with all our stuff for a little over a mile, we made it to our lodgings for the night. We stayed in a Yurt, which is a European tent thingy-it was spacious and nice, and there was a wood fireplace and what not for cooking and warmth. After the four of us went exploring for a bit with the gorgeous sunsets, we came back to a wood stove made dinner of fajita’s and chips. After playing games for a while and socializing, we set up shop with all our sleeping bags and just enjoyed ourself-we played games, made smores, had girl talk [and guy talk..] and just enjoyed being friends. It was so fun. The boys themselves looked like mad scientists as they enjoyed melting down snow into cold water for us while we just chatted it up. Eventually, we went to went to bed for the night, or tried-we forgot pillows, and I found out that Lester wasn’t the only man who snored haha-but overall it was worth the loss of sleep. The next morning we made breakfast burritos, had a spiritual thought by our experienced camping friend Joel, and then began packing it up. Upon getting back to the vans we dropped off our stuff, and had an hour more of just fun skiing, picture taking and what not. It was just so much fun-it reminded me that no matter where you go, however far from home and the familiar you are, you can find good people, good places and good times wherever you go, if you are just willing to look hard enough. I am going to make it my goal to my more positive and look for ways to enjoy Idaho for the next few semesters we are here. And it will be grand I tell you. Just grand.

PS: I would like to point out that unlike most of the wonderful, straight haired white girls we were camping with, I have a fro and was playing nature women, so had nothing to tame it with. So just remember that we are camping, hence why I look as I do throughout this trip HAHA.

PPS: Most of these pictures were taken by our good friend Emil, who is an awesome friend, and photographer along with his wife Stephanie! And keep in mind that these are in reverse order-so the last one is right before we got to the camp site, and this one right beneath me is right before we headed home.

To My Mom

My Mom recently got a new job in which she will be assisting special needs children. When she told me, I was excited for her, although she felt that while she was happy about it, she had some reservations. It is a difficult job, and while you love and want to help the kids, there are struggles incorporated with it. I won't say that I completely knows how she feels, bc I haven't worked with children or been half as qualified as she is. But I used to work in a juvenile delinquent home for just a bit, and while it is completely different, I remember feeling some of the same feelings she may be now-like feeling bad for sometimes having to TRY to love these kids instead of just automatically doing it. Or wondering what makes me qualified to take such a responsibility in my hands? Or when I truly did get to that point of loving these kids, feeling resentful that they have to deal with these hardships because of the situations they are put in, sometimes against their will. Well, obviously everything worked out and I learned a lot from it-but this Sunday during Sacrament I was reading the back of Primary manual and it said something that really hit me. I would like to share it with all of you, but especially you Mom, because it reminds me of you.

"Jesus spake unto the multitude, and said unto them: Behold your little ones. And as they looked to behold they cast their eyes towards heaven, and they saw the heavens open, and they saw angels descending out of heaven as it were in the midst of fire; and they came down and encircled those little ones about, and they were encircled about with fire; and the angels did minister unto them" [3 Nephi 17:23-24]

"Clearly, those of us who have been entrusted with precious children have been given a sacred, noble stewardship, for we are the ones God has appointed to encircle today's children with love and the fire of faith and understanding of who they are." [M. Russell Ballard, "Great Shall Be the Peace of Thy Children," Ensign, Apr. 1994, 60]

I cannot think of a single person in this world who is more worthy of this trust, in or out of the church, then my Mother. She has encircled me, and hundreds of other children throughout the years in this very fire of faith, love and understanding of who I am and who I can be. I am sure that there will be challenges with this new job, and that these kids will have good days and bad days, which will translate to my Mothers good days and bad days-but I feel sure that they are in good hands.

Love you Mom.

Ya Man!

QUICK NOTE: Lester cleaned the whole apt while I was in class turning in my final paper, and now he's doing the dishes even though he has a ton of hmwk and I didn't even ask him to! WHAT AN AWESOME HUSBAND! thats all.

Current and Upcoming Battle Wounds

Lately, Lester has been and I have been hitting up the gym every day. Sometimes we run on the indoor track, sometimes we will play BB, sometimes we'll do weights and occasionally I will do Zumba with Catherine while he does his own thing. But the other day, our friends Emil and Stephanie told us they were gonna get together some people every Friday and play volleyball. We told them we would be happy to play. So Friday, we headed to the Hart gym. First, we stopped though at the Slam Dunk Contest that was going on. They had this professional jump-roping team there in between, and let me tell you-everything I thought I knew about jump roping was blasted. They rocked my world. I had no idea you could do so many things while jump roping. They were doing break dance moves, sitting down while jumping, acrobats, flips, on top of each other, 20 ppl at a time...it was just insane. So after being sufficiently intimidated by there athleticism, we met up with everyone and did some playing of our own. It was so much fun, and it worked us all pretty hard. At one point, poor Steph got nailed in the face-hard I might add by some guys who continually kicked the ball [hate that lol..] She handled it well, but after this our husbands convinced us to move on to basketball. It started fine, but shortly after that, Steph accidentally nailed me in the face with elbow. The next day, all four of us woke up sore just about everywhere. Steph's eye was all swollen and red, and my cheek and mouth were all swollen and bruised as well. After laughing about how out of shape we were, and what a motley clue we made, we remembered something.

This weekend we are all going on a married couples cross country skiing over night trip, from Friday to Saturday. We are SO excited, partially because none of us have every done it before, but partially because we can make smores and sleep in yurts in the beautiful wilderness and make home movies haha. But then we started thinking-if we get this sore from a few hours of sports on a Friday night, how sore are we going to be after this? Hah. So if you don't here from us after next weekend, we have died for pain we got from cross country skiing-but no worries. I'm sure we'll have fun getting there!

Ice Cream and Cakey Cake!

Do you ever just have one of those moments where it feels like your seeing everything in a totally different light? I know I have multiple times, but especially this weekend. It was my 23rd birthday today, and my first one since being married. My life is so different now then it ever has been-growing up, I never realized how lucky we were to have so many people who loved us and who liked to party big time. We always had our 'friend' birthday parties and our 'family' ones and they were always crazy, loud and fun and you always walked away feeling so special. When I first came to college, everything was different. I had just made new friends, and had no family there. But since then my college birthdays have been just as crazy and fun-I've enjoyed every bit of it. I guess I just wasn't sure what to expect after all those years, now that it is just the two of us. To be honest, I was kind of not expecting much at all. But my sweet husband completely amazed me yet again. On Saturday, we doubled for a sort of 'birthday dinner date' thing with our very good friends the Anderson's. After seeing The Adjustment Buero we went to dinner at the delicious Texas Roadhouse. The movie was good, and it was so fun to just enjoy eat the delicious food and enjoy each other. We had a blast, and it was chill!

[us at the movies!]

[Me and Catherine!]

[our friend's the Anderson's!]

[Texas Roadhouse dinner and dessert! Delicious!]

Then on Monday, Lester had told me that I was supposed to pick our whatever cake I wanted, any kind and he would make it. I laughed, and thought 'ya right!' and picked out the hardest [and most delicious] cake I could find and thought it would be an epic failure. WRONG. He NAILED it-I even took pictures of it to prove it. He made two of them, because we had invited a bunch of our old and new friends over for cake and ice cream-and just in case your wondering it was a layer of devil's food cake, layer of chocolate mousse, layer of devils food cake, chocolate ganache, and then toffee on the top. And he just. He just made it! By himself! I just think he is amazing. Anywho, that night a TON of my freaking awesome friends came to share my day with me and we laughed, talked and just hung out till about 10. It was funny b/c towards the end, we were laughing about how the ones that stayed the longest were all three filipino guys and there white [at least in part..] wives.....in Rexburg! But anyways, it was so fun! My sweet family who I miss so much sent me an awesome package to, w/ my beloved Emma DVD to call my own..that, coupled with the fact that Lester said he will even watch it with me is 2 presents in one! Lester got me an awesome purse to now that my other one has finally bit the dust after 5 or so years. My sweet friend Stephanie Campbell made me the cutest headbands, and I got some cute cards and delicious chocolates from my awesome friend Erica, and my close friend Ms. Catherine got me a cocoa bean card!

[ya. lester made this cake. BY HIMSELF. amazing!]

[us ladies!]

[our handsome husbands! we told them to do GQ, but only a few of them got the message lol]

I guess my whole point is to just say that sometimes I feel bad for myself, or think how homesick I am-and even though I do still miss it, the wonderful people we have met here have made this a home for us. I thank God that he has sent me such wonderful friends to make this time a good one that we will always look back on fondly. I just feel like this day, this night-Rexburg is not a just something to endure-it is something to be enjoyed, loved and experienced. Life is good. My husband is good. My family is good. My friends are good. The gospel is good. Food is good. My birthday was good. Life is just so, so, so incredibly GOOD.