Thanksgiving Break

I don't know where this week has gone, but it's been well spent.

I head back to Rexburg on Sunday, which leaves one more day for play :)

Last Friday a snow storm set in, so my dad rode the bus up to Rexburg, and he drove down to Utah with me. Thank goodness he did, because the roads were a mess and it took us forever to get home.

On our way we stopped at Lava Hot Springs, which was amazing with huge snowflakes falling :)

The first part of the week was spent just relaxing, doing homework, and watching an entire season of a new TV show I'm obsessed with.

I spent Wednesday cooking with my mom, and when Thursday came around, we were still cooking for Thanksgiving, which was a success. My sister and brother in law came down with their two kids, and we had a really great dinner. Afterwards, we went to my grandparents house for pie with the rest of the extended family.

Then tonight, my family and I went to Temple Square.

Tonight they turned the lights on. 

Temple Square during Christmas has got to be one of my favorite things in the entire world.

I love it.

The plan tomorrow:

Going shooting with all of the boys

My .22 needs some action ;)

Three weeks and I'm school free for four months!

Happy Happy Birthday

My little AudreyBug turns four today.

She's grown from this...

to this...

 

to this...

to this...

to this...

(The apron my mom made her for her big day)

She's so big, I can't even believe it.

I love that little girl so much, and I wish her the best 4th birthday a girl could ask for!

Dreams, that's where I have to go

I may or may not be obsessed with this song...

p.s. I'm not sure why she's half naked most of the time. Beats me.

p.p.s. I love his Ray Ban's

p.p.p.s. That is a beautiful piano

I'm also obsessed with this song...

 Oh, and I adore this song...

I just love music :)

My Secrets to a Happy Day

Sometimes it takes a bad day, or week, or month, to really accentuate all of the great things you have in life.

When I have control of my life, just do things (even if I really don't want to), and focus on serving others rather than serving myself, I am so much happier.

These are the things that saved me from drowning yesterday:

1. Exercise. I can't even begin to describe how much running decreases my stress and brightens my mood. That alone makes my day go a million times better

2. I slept. A lot. I made myself find the time and took an hour long nap, and then last night I got 9 solid hours of sleep

(Thank you to my Child Development teacher for cancelling class!)

3. I started a (mostly) no-sugar diet yesterday. I'll be doing that until Thanksgiving, so nearly the entire month. I'm modeling it off of the picture that follows, but taking it a little further with no fruit snacks, granola bars, sugary cereals, and so on.

4. Thanks to Kathryn, I started my morning by thinking about things that I'm thankful for. We're going to put one thing a day that we're thankful for on our Facebooks :)

5. I began my morning doing service. I looked out the window this morning as I was doing dishes and noticed that some immature college kids had smashed a million pumpkins on the ground below our apartment, and it was a mess. Kathryn and I knew that Arden, our groundskeeper would have to clean it up, and we felt bad. So we took ten minutes to go outside and put all of the frozen pumpkin pieces into garbage bags and left a note for him.

(We couldn't carry them to the garbage because they'd break...)

Doing service really does put you in an incredible mood.

So no more slumps for me for a while.

I'm going to keep these five things in mind.

It might be the only thing that keeps me sane :)

Drowning

You know those phases that we all go through, where every aspect of your life is demanding just a little too much from you?

I'm waist-deep in one of those phases right now, and I'm on my way to drowning.

School is demanding too much energy and brain power

Work is demanding too much time

I'm having trouble finding time to invest in my relationships

Church callings are stressing me out beyond belief

But don't worry, I'll survive.

"For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand."

D&C 58:4