How did I get so blessed?

Since I have been at college my appreciation for my family has grown so much. Don't get me wrong, I have ALWAYS loved my family, but the statement "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" is so incredibly true. I just always want to show people pictures of my family and be like, "aren't we so cute?!?" I just want people to be around my family so they can see how amazing they are. Maybe I'm just getting homesick and I want to spend more than a 2 week time period with them, but seriously, how did I get so blessed with such an amazing family?!?!

I want to brag about my dad and how everyone loves him and my friends even give him nicknames. He is always willing to serve us and those around him, and he laughs at my dumb humor. He is the biggest STUD! Seriously, he is in his 50's and he is doing Iron Mans...what a crazy man!!

I want to brag about my mom and how she is becoming so good at photography and she does it just because she loves it. She is the best Stake Young Women's President, she fulfills her calling to the fullest, and all the youth just love her. She is so thoughtful and sends me love packages that make my day!

I want to brag about Amy and how she is the cutest little mother ever, seriously I want to be as cute as her someday. She is already a Registered Nurse, but continues to do school just because she loves learning. She is in the best shape...I don't think it is fair to have legs that skinny as a pregnant lady.

I want to brag about Kara and how she impresses me with her desire to serve the Lord. She will be the cutest, Spanish speaking, gospel preaching missionary EVER!! I'm going to miss her so much, it has been fun visiting each other in school. I'm going to have to endure the Fresno single life alone!! Ahh!! haha.

I want to brag about Lauren and how she always looks cute...it almost disgusts me. I look at her pictures and I'm like, "man, I never looked that cute in high school," definitely not fair. She is always having fun and everyone wants to be friends with her!

I want to brag about Kylie and how she makes us all laugh! She is the most fearless little missionary, and has such a strong testimony of the gospel. She has such a desire to be good and include everyone.

I want to brag about Bryan and how he fits so well with our family. He deals with all the girl drama and is always willing to serve. My mom always tells us that we are going to have a hard time finding someone as awesome as Bryan...thanks mom. It's true though, he is just an awesome brother-in-law!

I want to brag about McKay and how stinkin' cute he is!! Enough said!!

I'm just so grateful for the family that I have been blessed with!! I'm so grateful to have been raised in a home where the gospel is strong and we are all actively trying to live it. My sisters are my best friends and they are such great examples to me. I hear of others' family problems...and I realize more and more how blessed I am. I seriously could not have asked for a better family! We have so much fun together! How did I get so blessed?!?

(Here are just a few of the more recent, cute pictures of my family...isn't my family so cute? haha.)

Love Love Love them!!

Pumpkins, dances, and...crayons?

Ok, so even though Halloween was a couple of weeks ago...I still had the urge to blog about it!! Halloween weekend was fun/crazy!

I am one of the activities chairs for my ward, and towards the beginning of the year, all the activities chairs in my stake had a meeting! The high councilor that was over the meeting just so happened to be the high councilor that was over my summer ward, so since I had been in a leadership position, he knew who I was. He went about the meeting and began to tell us about how they have two big events during the year, the first being the Halloween Activity (which is generally a dance). He said they would call someone to be over the activity, and continued on to say that being at BYU over the summer allows people to know who you are and gives you an edge. Then said, "Heather, will you be over this activity?" I replied with, "Uhh, ya sure." He then proceeded to gesture a piece of chalk towards me...oh ok, ready go! So...I had the fun/stressful opportunity to plan the Halloween Dance!! Thankfully all the activities chairs were pretty on top of things, so it turned out great, and I wasn't left to pick up all the pieces! It was very successful, but I was definitely glad when it was over!

Here are some cute pictures from the dance! We decided to have a group theme with my roommates, and I thought we looked pretty darn cute!

One of my roommates' has graphic designers as parents, so she definitely free-handed our cute crayon shirts/dresses and we all painted them. Talent much? People kept asking us where we got them...definitely made them! (Just your ordinary pile of crayons! haha)

I love my friends, Maddy and Becky! I got super close to them my senior year and I love that they live in the same dorms that I do...so we get to see each other at these events!! Maddy and her roommates were crayons too...what are the odds? She was even the red one!! How does that even happen? Oddly enough, this isn't the first time that we have had a problem with matching. It just so happens that we had the same prom dress and had to figure out a solution to that, and we both went to the BYU Homecoming dance and we were both wearing similar black dresses! Twins much? haha :) Becky and her roommates were trees! Aren't we cute?

I have always grown up with the family tradition of dinner in a pumpkin! It just isn't Halloween without it! So, I planned in advance (which is an odd thing to do as a college student) and went and bought all the supplies!! Sunday afternoon I called my mom a few times to make sure I was doing it right. I loved that Amy, Kara, and I had all made our own dinner in a pumpkin! What a fun tradition!

These are my cute roommates! Not the best picture, but pretty good for self-timer!

Another family tradition is making the infamous pumpkin chocolate chip muffins! I even saw a picture of my sister eating one on Facebook and got extremely jealous, because my mom insists on only making them in the Fall. I wanted to make them, but got super busy and didn't have the chance. I then heard that Great Harvest had pumpkin chocolate chip bread, and I didn't hesitate much to jump in the car and go get some! My roommate, Sydney, and I tried to be sneaky because we knew if everyone saw this bread, it would be gone so fast, and this bread is precious stuff! Yum!

Well, life is good as always! School is definitely stressful, but I'm trudging along, trying to figure out exactly what I want to do with my life! I'm happy, and that's all that matters! :)

The Shenanigans of a Freshman!

Although summer term was so wonderful, I have definitely had my share of fun experiences this Fall Semester! I went completely random on roommates and was blessed with roommates that are crazy and like to have fun...I mean like to study! haha :) But don't worry, we have study parties as well! Here is a run down of all the fun things we have done (I know, my posts are always a summary of all the things I have done, but this is the last one, I promise!) CAUTION: IT'S A LONG ONE!

So, the first week of school, my sister texted me saying that she heard John Mayer was in Utah! I basically freaked out, because I love John Mayer! I looked it up and found out the concert started at 7...it was 6:40...and the concert was past SLC! I hesitated and finally just yelled, "I'm going to John Mayer, who is coming with me?" Yay for spontaneous roommates! We jumped in the car and used the wonderful navigating device on iPhones to find the concert! We missed Owl City, but made it just in time for John! WIN!

BYU tends to have a lot of dances...we have been to a freshman dance, a 70s dance...and this picture in from a Decades Dance! We seized the opportunity to raid DI, which is my favorite! I love DI! I think my dress is pretty hott if I do say so myself!

One of the great things about fall semester is going to the games! I realize that BYU has not had their greatest season, but it is still fun to get into the school spirit and cheer for the Cougars! The fun part is I have Fresno friends in my sports group, so games give me an excuse to catch up with them!

I finally hiked the Y for FHE! Somehow I went the whole summer without doing it, and I have no idea how that happened. I just never had a chance! We have had some fun activities with our FHE group, like a picture scavenger hunt, a flour fight, and more! It's nice when you have an FHE group that actually gets excited about doing stuff! (This isn't the whole group, somehow we have 14 girls and 6 guys...talk about a bad ratio...that's basically the summation of how my ward is though.)

So, one week a group of my summer friends said they were going to have a paint fight...we were stoked! It was so stinkin' fun! A pain to clean off, but so incredibly worth it! (We were literally finding paint in our hair weeks later!)

Spanish Fork holds an India Fest at the India Temple, so we seized the opportunity to be culturally enlightened and went to the Festival! It was fun/interesting...I wish I had a picture of the temple, it is very pretty! We pet llamas, looked around and inside their temple, and explored the gift shop.

During Conference weekend, I was set on getting out of Provo and attending Conference...I didn't have tickets, but I was going to go! I got my roommates, Sydney and Lindsey, to come with me...and we made little signs saying that we needed tickets...before we even got to the conference center, a man offered us tickets! Score! That night we stayed at my Grandma and Grandpa's house in Riverton. We showed up to homemade soup and bread and topped off with ice cream. My Grandma is amazing, it was so nice to be in a real home with real food! The next morning we had breakfast awaiting us, so we enjoyed the morning session at their home. Then we headed to the afternoon session, which we actually had tickets to! It was such a fun weekend...I LOVE CONFERENCE!

BYU always has so many activities going on! During Homecoming week they especially have all sorts of things...like the Blue Foam Slide!! It was epic! Just look at the picture...joy is in our eyes! haha
I also got asked the Homecoming Dance by one of the FHE brothers! It wasn't the best dance I have ever been to, but we for sure made our own fun! I enlightened him on the art of awkward dancing and interpretive dancing! haha :) Oh the joys of dances!

Ok, so my roommates and I are just weird! I am the Activities CoChair for our Ward, and the Ward Talent Show was coming up and people were not signing up...so we figured that we must have some talents! We did the best talent EVER! We played Chubby Bunny in front of the whole ward as Eye of the Tiger played in the background! My roommate, Sydney, got a whoppin 12 marshmallows into her mouth! It was insane! The talent show ended up being pretty successful...not just because of our wonderful talent!

Surprisingly in my summer ward, we had a couple of nonmembers in our ward! So, as Fall came around, one of them announced that he was getting baptized! Woohoo! We had a nice mini reunion with some of the kids from my summer ward!

I had never been to IKEA and I heard that it was epic! So, we all asked a guy on a date and went and explored! I think it will be so fun to one day go to a store like this and pick out stuff for a future home! I love home decorations! (Btw, IKEA has super cheap food, it was wonderful!)

Ok, so that was a post overload...I applaud you if you actually endured that because I probably did it more for my own enjoyment!! Here was just a little taste of some of the things that I have been up to! Life is good!! School is stressful, but I love BYU! I am so blessed to be able to go to school here. I love being spiritually fed and getting an education at the same time! Isn't life great?

Playing Catch Up!

Ok, so I realized that I love looking at other people's blogs...so maybe I should be better about updating my own! Makes sense, right? Once again though, I get overwhelmed and feel the need to recap everything that has happened since the last time I posted...which was back in May! Man, time sure does fly! So, even though nobody will probably look at this, I'm doing it for my own sake, so I can get back on track to the present! Also, since I am a terrible journal writer, this will only benefit me...so here we go...

So, I GRADUATED!! haha :) I know many doubted that this day would come, but it happened!! This first picture is from Seminary Graduation, and I definitely had to do some make-up work to get that diploma! I didn't necessarily have an absent problem, I was pretty consistently there...I just have the hardest time getting up in the morning! I tend to wait until the last possible minute before getting out of bed! When I look back, I really wish I would have been better about being on time, but waking up in the morning has never been my strong point!

Next came actual graduation! It was a very bittersweet thing for me, because I knew how fast everything would change! I am super grateful for the friends I had in high school! I loved that I went to a school where the Mormon population was in the minority, yet I had a good group of LDS friends! My friends are awesome! We never had to worry about peer pressure, we always were just obedient and did the right thing! What a comforting thing in high school, a peer pressure to be good! I loved it!

A week after graduation, my mom and I boarded a plan to Utah! I think that was the hardest thing about graduation, was knowing that I was leaving so close after! I was sad to leave so fast, and miss out on a summer at home...but excited for the adventures BYU had to offer! One of my best friends, Becky Cox, and I had made a last minute decision to live together...and it was the best decision we could have made! We absolutely loved it! We had a semi-disfuntional group of roommates, so Becky and I being together was such a blessing! (Becky made this little collage when we were back home after summer term...I think we were experiencing separation anxiety! haha)

My summer term was such an amazing experience! I don't regret it one bit! I have decided that it is the best time to be at school! Everything is more chill and a lot more social. Everyone is in less classes, and there are a lot less people, so everyone becomes very close in such a short period of time! We had fun going to a symphony, hanging out until late hours, eating at yummy places, having dance parties in the library (we were really good studiers...ha!), and enjoying the summer and going to school at the same time!

So, a couple of days into the first week of school, I got a call from my Bishop to meet with him! Who knew that within my first week at BYU I would get called as the Relief Society President! It was weird because it was such a short period of time to even get things down, but I loved being able to get to know all the girls, and get a taste of a big leadership calling in the church. It was such a neat experience!

I developed some of the best friends during summer, we had so many great times! I realize that was all super happy and excited sounding, but I loved summer, and I miss many aspects of it! I'm grateful for the way Heavenly Father worked in my life to bring me here during summer and allow me to have such an uplifting experience!

After 8 weeks of school, I was excited to come home for a couple of weeks! I got home and my family right away went white water rafting with a couple of other families! My family had a lot of fun making fun of how white I was. While the rest of my family was out in the sun every day, I hadn't put on a swimsuit since before I had left. I was basically a ghost, especially compared to my tan family. So, into the sun I went...white water rafting and multiple days at the lake. I was going to live up every day I had, before I went back to school.

I love my sisters! Of course, we had to make a music video while Kara and I were both home! Dressing up and being crazy comes way too easily for us!

I also wanted to live up being California! So, a group of my friends and I went to the beach for a day! We had fun riding bikes, taking naps on the beach, eating yummy food, exploring, and just chillin! I have no idea how I ended up being the only girl, that is definitely not the norm...but I think all of my girl friends were getting ready for college, and I didn't have any preparing to do! My stuff was already in Utah, so I was able to stay home until the last possible day!

Summer was great! I felt like I was blessed to be able to experience the full spectrum of things to do in the summer! Even though it was fun being home for a couple of weeks, I became even more aware of how glad I was to be going away to school. I loved being home, but I was bored not having to worry about a job or school or a calling!

More posts to come...

What have I been up to?

So, my little sister gets on me about being such a blog slacker. . .but I think I just get overwhelmed by how much I haven't blogged about and I don't know where to begin!!!

I have had so much going on! It is so crazy that I will be graduating in less than a month! Where did all the time go? What is even crazier is that I leave for Utah in a month!! What in the world?? How did this happen so fast?! I know that I will have an amazing time at BYU, but it is definitely bittersweet!

Ok, so here goes my long, picture filled update!! (I definitely am more of a "picture is worth 1,000 words kind of person)

Middle of March: I finished up the school musical, Guys and Dolls, in March! It was a lot of fun and I'm so glad that I got to participate in it! It definitely tested my confidence because we had to wear leotards on stage (Oh my goodness!), it was not the highlight of the experience, but it was definitely interesting!! All together it was so much fun and I'm glad that I got to participate in the musicals throughout high school!

I was a tourist for the opening scene, so these were my fellow tourist friends!! Definitely not my most flattering outfit, I think everyone agreed that I had one of worst costumes, but I worked it! haha :)

March 29th- May 1st: EFY!!! I can't even begin to explain how amazing EFY was! I was a youth cochair, so I helped plan it, and it was such a wonderful experience! I gained such a love for all the youth in our stake! I even tested myself and could pretty successfully name all 200 youth from our stake! I thought it was quite an accomplishment!

This is me with most of my purple group seniors!! I love them!! At EFY, the seniors all dress up in their color, and the youth find out what group they are in when they get up there! Purple group was clearly the best!! :) I think Tiffany definitely beat us in her originality with the grapes, but we had a lot of fun!!

This is my entire purple group! Such a fun group of kids! I was so glad that I got to get to know them! I wish I could have bonded with them more, but it was hard when I was running around a lot!

My friends Tiffany, Kelly, Christel, Tori, and I decided that we wanted to have a little fun with the skits this year! We made up a dance to the song Boy Scout that is parody of the Tik Tok song! It was so funny and we had so much fun!!

I love these two!! Emerson, Christel, and I were the cochairs, and we had such a great time planning EFY!! They are both such hardworkers and are such great examples to me! We made a great team and had so many laughs throughout the year!! I am so grateful that I got to serve in this calling, it was an unforgettable year!

April 10th: My friends and I decided to go on a little road trip and my friend Becky said that her grandparents had a house in North Fork, which is about an hour away! So, Becky, Matt, Emerson, Brendan, and I spent a Saturday enjoying the great outdoors and had fun just getting away!

April 17th: I took my sister, Lauren, and her friend Brie to their first Quad Stake dance!! My little sister is growing up! haha

April 24th: This year was the first Quad Stake Mormon Prom!! It was fun! We didn't feel like going with dates, so we just went with a group! They set up a nice dinner for us and

Christel, Emerson, and I!
May 1st: I went to regular prom! It was a lot of fun! I'm not a big fan of how all the pictures turned out. . .but I love this picture of my two good friends, Maddy and Becky, and I. This is our "we see a hot guy" face! haha (More pictures are on my mom's blog)

May 4th: For mutual, my mom took pictures of my laurel class at the temple! The pictures turned out really cute! I love these girls! I'm going to miss them a lot!

May 6th: I turned the big 18!! I can't believe that I'm an adult! How did that happen? I don't really consider myself an adult. . .I think becoming an adult comes more by experiences, not by age!

I had a great day though!! I'm so grateful for all the great friends that I have! I definitely felt loved by my friends and family!!

This picture is after Becky, Maddy, and Brendan decorated my room! It was so cute!
My family had to get my out of the house so that my friends could decorate my room. . .so I took my sisters to the park! We had a little too much fun taking pictures on the self-timer! I love my sisters!
May 8th: Once again, my friends and I really wanted to go on a road trip! We didn't know exactly where we were going to go until the day of. . .but we headed to Monterey for a little bit and went to the beach in Carmel! It was a fun day!! The beach and friends. . .how could that not be fun?

Maddy fell asleep on the beach, so we decided to have a little fun and built a mote around her! It was the funniest thing. . .we were silent and she didn't even wake up! We even humored some of the people around us!
This is my good friend Becky, who I am actually living with during the summer!! We were hesitant and were going to try and go random, but we couldn't resist! We are excited to start off our BYU journey together!!
Basically, life is good!! I have amazing friends and family!! I feel so grateful to have friends that live the standards and help me to be better! I am having fun and living up the little time I have left! I can't believe how fast life is changing, but I know great things lie ahead!