Long time, no blog.

     So last night I realized, I have not blogged in FOREVER!! Lots has happened since I last blogged. I got a job at the USU/CEU Prehistoric Museum here in Price, I lived here for the summer (and loved it for the most part), and am now going to school again for the fall and spring semesters. If you don't know this, I'm majoring in psychology and went to the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association Psychology Conference in April, and met the president of the Psychology club that has been started this year. Towards the end of the summer, she invited me over to her house to have a meeting to get everything started, and I agreed to go. When I got there, she told me I had been chosen to be one of the vice-presidents for the club. I agreed, and am now loving every minute of it! Last night was the opening social, which was fun... but would have been a little better if more people would have shown up.
     Hmmmm.... after going so long without blogging, I'm not sure what to blog about next since so many things have happened. On Saturday, I went to the most amazing fireside I have ever been to in my entire life. Elder Jeffery R. Holland came to Price, Utah and was kind enough to come and speak to the Young Single Adult Stake. It was such an amazing experience, that it deserves an entire post for itself.
     Nothing overly amazing has happened to me this summer, so I guess I could end my post here.

Summer is almost here! =]

     Well I haven't blogged in forever, so I guess I'll update you all on my (pretty boring) life. School is technically out for the summer on May 7th, but I will take my last final on the 5th. I had three finals last Wednesday, and turned in my last English paper this morning. After turning in my English paper, I picked up my psychology paper and found out that I will end the semester with an A- in Psychology! =] There is a possibility that half of the reason I have that good of a grade is because I got extra credit for going to the Rocky Mountain Psychological Conference a couple weeks ago, (but still!) which is a whole other story in itself for another time.
     About two or three weeks ago, I got a job at the USU-CEU Prehistoric Museum as the Gift Shop Clerk. So now that I have a job to afford it, I will be staying in an apartment owned by my institute teacher in Price for the summer and for next year with three of my friends. I have decided to take a break from school, and will be just working for the summer to save up much needed money for the coming school year.
     I do believe that is all for now. Peace and blessings! :)

spiritual moment

     This past weekend I had a great opportunity to spend time with my mom. The IWA (Institute Womens Association) had a mother/daughter weekend. They had Miss Utah come speak to us (she did excellent) and had dinner on Friday night. Then the next morning they had breakfast and had some of the leaders and members speak. After that they had a testimony meeting. When they announced it, I had the thought of "aw crap!" go through my mind. Before you think that I am bored or something by testimony meetings, don't. I enjoy hearing the testimony of others. The problem is that every time there's a testimony meeting the spirit nags me to bear mine until I bear it. Those in my ward back in Aurora would know this. I bear my testimony quite often. They have to put up with it every month. The poor souls. When I do bear my testimony, I sometimes don't know what to say, or feel like I embarass myself.
     This time was no different from any of the others. The spirit began to nag at me, and I fought it. I had no idea what I was going to say. Finally I caved, and walked up to the podium. When I got up there, it was so amazing. The words just kinda started flowing out. Things I had never thought of came out of my mouth.
     An example, the fact that in church we hear the same things over and over again. We think "yeah, yeah. I know. I've heard this one a million times." But that doesn't make it any less true. In fact, it kinda makes it more true. Kinda like when your mom tells you something over and over again and you say to yourself "yeah, yeah. sure mom." but there's a reason she's telling you that. Every single time. If we don't listen, we might be missing something that we really needed to hear. That's a concept I had never really thought about until I was standing in front of a group of mothers and daughters. It was something that really built my testimony.
     Another spiritual thought, is that I can't even imagine what I would do without the gospel in my life to be a comfort and support. It's a rock. It'll never change. It may be constantly growing and expanding, but the values it has will never change. Love one another, forgive men of their trespasses, basically live your life as if the Lord were standing next to you. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm VERY FAR from perfect. I don't mean to offend anyone by trying to say I'm perfect or anything. Because I'm not. I have plenty of things that I have to work on. No one is perfect.
     Anyways, I just needed a moment for some spiritual ramblings. I had an amazing weekend. I got to spend time with my amazing mother. She's my hero. I don't know what I would do without her. She's there for me all the time. She has a crazy life and yet she still finds time to talk to me. She's my best friend. I love her with all my heart.
     Saturday night, after my mom left, Hillary invited me to go with her in the hot tub at her parents' motel. I had a blast :) it's kinda nice to have roommate bonding moments. We have lots of them, but they're nice all the same.
     Sunday was Stake Conference. It was spiritual and amazing. The talks were great. They said several things that I needed to hear. So all in all, the weekend was great. Now that I have had a moment for spiritual ramblings, I'll end this post.

My newest obsession

     Lately I have found myself becoming fascinated with finding inspiring quotes. When I get bored, I google them. I have actually found quite a few good ones. I'll name some of my favorites.

• The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it's too low and we reach it. -Michelangelo
• You are where you are today because you've chosen to be there. -Harry Browne
• Courage does not always roar. Sometimes it is a quiet voice at the end of the day, saying... "I will try again tomorrow" -Mary Anne Radmacher
• The only opinion about your dream that counts is yours. The negative comments of others merely reflect their limitations, not yours. -Cynthia Kersey
• Beautiful pictures are developed from negatives in a dark room. So if you see darkness in your life, be sure that a beautiful picture is being prepared by God!
• Life's a journey. It's not to arrive safely at the grave in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways shouting "Woohoo! What a ride!"
• Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.
• The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
• When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. -Franklin D. Roosevelt

     I have taken to posting them on my bedroom wall. Bless Hillary's heart for putting up with it. I post them on Facebook all the time as well. So don't be too surprised if you see these same quotes on facebook too. :D

National Hillary Brown Day :)

     February 1st is officially National Hillary Brown Day. Haha just kidding. But this year it may as well have been. It was one of the best days I have had in quite a long time. About a week (give or take a couple days, because I'm not exactly sure what day it was) before her birthday I decided that we were going to celebrate her b-day in an amazing sort of way. Before I start this story I must say, that since I tell Hillary everything, this was the most difficult secret I have ever kept in my life. So I got in touch with all our friends from Price, came up with a time and place, and started my planning.
     That was the longest week in my life. I had everything planned and put together, and all I had to do was decorate the day of and keep it a secret. The hardest part was keeping the secret. I was so excited I could hardly contain it. It all came together perfectly. She had a class that she had to attend for her work that lasted from 6:30-9 p.m. Which gave me time to blow up baloons, decorate the apartment and make lemonade before everyone showed up at 8:45. Surprisingly enough, everyone actually did show up before Hillary got there. The best part of it all: Hillary had no idea. Before she left I asked what time she would get done, and I probably made it look so obvious that I was planning something. She says she had no idea. I'm just glad it was a success.
     After she got there, the candles were lit, and the cake was eaten, we played Apples to Apples and Uno. Once everyone had left, it was midnight and we were beat. Despite that fact, we stayed up for two more hours. It was a blast.

just catching up

     Well, when I started this blog I thought it would be a nice way to keep a journal. I figured since I spend a lot of time on the internet, (confession: I spend WAY TOO MUCH time on the internet) that it would be easy to keep up on it all. oops. I was wrong. hmmmm... what has happened since I last posted?

     We'll start with christmas. Since I got a second semester in college as my main christmas present, (which was definitely good enough for me) I didn't get much as far as material stuff goes. But on christmas eve, my cousins and uncle came over to pick up a truck we had. They discovered a leak in the fuel line, so while we waited for them to fix it, the whole crew pulled out the sleds and went sledding down the gigantic mound of snow and had an absolute blast. Jaden's dog, Boo, had almost as much fun, if not more fun than the kids by chasing the sleds down the hill and catching snowballs in midair.

Clara and Jaden helping Tatelynn and Stetson get ready to sled down the snow hill

                                                       


Tatelynn was so cute in Clara's jacket, (which looked like a dress on her tiny body) but at the word picture she refused to even look near the camera. Bless her heart, Clara tried to get her to look at the camera, but no such luck for her either.



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Stetson was a little more cooperative with the picture taking while Jaden prepared him to sled down the hill. i think his mother may have trained him well ;)

 


Boo staring at the snowball preparing to catch it before i dropped it for her. (this is the best picture i could get. i discovered it's really hard to get the timing right on things like this)

      On January 10th I started a new semester at CEU. I am loving it. I discovered that I picked the right major and minor. I decided to major in psychology and minor in criminal justice. last semester I took a criminal justice class, and loved it. I looked forward to it all the time. This semester I'm taking a criminal law class and an intro to psychology class. I love them both. The beginning of criminal law is proving to be a review of criminal justice, but that's ok because I have gotten a little rusty over the break. As for my psychology class, I have been fascinated since day one.
     The one downfall to this semester so far, is that every one of my teachers (okay, except for my institute and math teachers) have managed to embarrass me in front of the entire class. On the first day of the semester, I found myself with a very large problem. I couldn't figure out where the building was that my criminal law class was supposed to be in. So after searching the entire campus, I asked a woman in an office if she happened to know where my class was. Unfortunately, she didn't. But she looked up the class on her computer, and told me where it was supposed to be. Since I was about five minutes late to class, I tried to draw as little attention as possible to myself as I found a seat and sat down. Not thirty seconds after I had sat down, my teacher proceeded to tell me in a very loud voice, "Oh, Laura! You signed up for this class on the San Juan campus! You should probably go to the registrars office and get that changed!" (which completely explained why i couldn't find the building the class was supposed to be in, but completely mortified me)
     One day in psychology, our teacher was trying to explain how professional psychologists perform studies. As an example, he said that he would do a study on intelligence and that you were smart if you knew how to tie your shoes. He proceeded to look at the shoes of all those on the front row and tell them that they were stupid if they weren't wearing shoes that were tied. He got to the end of the first row, and I began to get nervous because I was sitting on the end of the second row, and I would be the next one to have my intelligence critiqued. (I was very much regretting my choice of wearing boots for that day) My nervous feeling didn't last long, because after he finished with the front row, he began talking about something else. Unfortunately, my small victory didn't last for long. As soon as he finished his thought, he looked at my choice of shoes for that day, looked me straight in the eye, and said, "You're wearing boots! You're not smart!" (which he was obviously joking, but it still caused the girls on the row in front of me to turn and look at the shoes I was wearing, and caused me extreme embarrassment)
     To save money, I ordered all my textbooks online. (which really does save a lot of money) After I finally recieved my textbook for my English class, I was devastated to find that it was the eight edition instead of the ninth. Before I ordered the new edition, I decided to consult the teacher beforehand. (with some of the classes, the teachers don't require the newest editions of the books) I ran into him on campus, and asked him about it. He said that it was probably missing some essays and such, but that I should be fine. The next day, in the middle of class he proceeded to tell the entire class that I had bought the wrong edition. Then he said, "That's probably why she only paid ten dollars for it!!" Once again, complete embarrassment in front of the entire class! (and this class has a super cute guy in it!!) Then twice during the class, he would tell the class to turn to a certain page in the book and say "Sorry Laura, I don't know what page it is in your book!" all I could think is "everything will be just fine as long as you stop drawing attention to me!"
     Well that's enough for now. It's definitely time for me to go to bed. I'm still not completely caught up, but I can barely think straight, so that's a sign that it's time to get some rest. Good night all! :)