Fall Is Here

Once again, I've left weeks in-between posts...someday I'll keep up with it! But until then, my posts will have to be summaries of what's been going on in my life. Mama came to visit a couple of weeks ago and we had an amazing time! We drove down to St. George with Aunt Bonnie and visited Aunt Gayle and family. It was great to see everyone and have a relaxing weekend. We ended our mini-trip with a session at the St. George temple, which I have never been to before. It was very old, but beautiful. Below is Mama and I standing in front of it. You can't really tell that's where we are, but it is!

After my mom left, some of my friends from Fort Collins, Ryan and Katie came to stay for the weekend. We had fun catching up and goofing off just like old times, and Katie and I spent the better part of Saturday at Liberty Park. In my opinion, its the best park I've ever been to. Below is a picture of the duck pond.

Fall is absolutely my very favorite time of the year. I love the "sweater weather" and the colors, and the smells. I love the corn mazes and the pumpkins and the halloween costumes. I love apple cider and warm blankets and being able to see your breath outside! The tree in our front yard is the only one on the block that has any color. Every other tree is still dark green, but ours is brilliant yellow! I had to take some pictures. Below is my favorite one.

The last update...it's Conference weekend! I look forward to watching General Conference every time, and this time has been especially fun. I was able to see some friends that I haven't in a long time. I had lunch with Jon and Mallory on Saturday, and then spent the evening with Stacy Lynn and Kara while Ryan and Dan and Jon Nash went to the priesthood session. It was so much fun to catch up with old friends. I'm excited for the conference sessions today. I love learning about the gospel and knowing the things that I should work on in my life.

My most wonderful friend Stacy Lynn!

Utah is good!

Sure, the water is still gross, the air is much hazier than anywhere else I've been, the weather is too hot in the Summer, and my family isn't close by, but other than that, I'm actually enjoying Utah! (What? Did she just say that?) Of course I still hold Colorado, with all of its charm, close to my heart. However, Utah is not as revolting as I once thought it to be. I still don't think I will want to live here forever, but for now it's been really good for me. I've found it to be much more pleasant than I ever thought I would. Maybe my attitute has just changed, (no doubt) but I've had a lot of good experiences and made some really wonderful friends. When I first moved here, I forced myself to make a list of the good things about living in Utah. This is what I listed:

*There are many members of the Church here

*The Temple is 10 minutes away

*I get to see Temple Square at Christmastime

*I found caffeine free Diet Dr Pepper at the grocery store

*Cafe Rio

*Chipotle DOES exist here!

*My roommates are great

*Ryan and Kara are here

*The ward made me feel welcome

*I'm glad I'm here in a semi-familiar place and not in a strange city

*Cheap rent

*My church building is really old and beautiful

*It's easy to get un-lost because of the street layout

Now, this list may seem slightly pathetic, but at the time I made it back in November, it helped me to be just a little bit happy about being here in Salt Lake (because I definitely was NOT).

I have had many good times since those lonely days of my first month here. I have learned to see Utah's beauty, to enjoy my job, to get to know people outside, to enjoy being close to some extended family, and more. There are a plethora of other things that I won't share here, but the point is that I have learned, and continue to do so. Thank you to all who have helped to make my move here and my experience thus far a little better!

Here are some recent pictures of what I've been up to since my last post. :-)

My sister Tiffany visited, and we went for a hike to Cecret Lake.

Sammy!

Katie came to visit and we went to the Capitol.

The view from the Capitol Building.

Let me 'splain...no, there is too much. Let me sum up...

Posting on my blog has taken a backseat to...well...everything. If I were to provide an account of everything that has happened since my last post, it would be terribly long and no one would read it. Therefore, I shall resort to summing up, even though it's not quite as good.

At the beginning of July, my roommates and I made the decision to move out of our sub-standard (no really) apartment, and into Sarah's mom's old house that she hasn't been able to sell. Shortly afterward, we decided to re-do 3 of the upstairs bedrooms before we moved in. To make a long story short, we now despise wallpaper with a passion! After working 16 hour days for about 2 weeks, and painting on a Saturday from 8am to midnight, we finally finished and moved in the following Tuesday. Here are some before and after pictures.This is my bedroom. See the holes in the wall? Yeah, that's right, the brilliant people that put up the wallpaper glued it right to the drywall. Sweet.

After we got off most of the wallpaper, we had to goo-gone all the sticky tack and glow-in-the-dark stars off the ceiling, plaster and sand the holes in the walls, then prime the whole room, and then finally paint it with paint that included primer.

Look how nicely it turned out though!

I can't believe we called this "home" just a week and a half ago.
Our new house! It was built in 1969...gotta love that flat roof!

The view from my new bedroom. Love it.

The weekend of July 11th, my daddy, and brother and sisters came out for the weekend for Grandpa's 75th birthday party. We had a blast with family, and we really enjoyed the birthday party at a park in a canyon outside of Bountiful. Here are a few fun pictures.

My dad's dad and stepmom, brothers and sister

Grandchildren and Great-Grandchildren

Yes, those are M&M's. My family is fancy... :-)

Fireworks and a lotta Food

I expected the weekend of the Fourth of July to be a rather boring event for me this year. I was pleasantly surprised with its outcome, however. Friday, my roommate Sara and I tried to be social. We had invited about 30 people from the ward, via text message, to a picnic at the park. While we only had 6 people there, it was still a good time, and we probably spent about 2 hours, just talking and laughing at the park.

It was a beautiful day and we even fed the ducks! Then we spent Friday evening with Sara's family at a barbeque at her grandparents' house. Sara and I helped cut up watermelon and cantaloupe and other things not quite as pleasant (I hate cutting onions). We then spent the rest of the evening outside in their beautiful back yard eating entirely too much food, talking, and enjoying a firework show put on by Sara's dad, brother, and cousins. It was really a lot of fun! Saturday morning began early as we headed to Sara's other grandparents' house for a HUGE breakfast, complete with eggs, hash browns, pancakes, sausage, bread, and fruit. We spent the morning being lazy and enjoying being outside. I fell asleep in a chair which meant that I was sunburned when I woke up (shocking, I know). We went to sit by the pool with the family for a while, and Sara and her sister Kim were pulled into the pool, fully dressed! I managed to escape, thank goodness. I'm pretty sure Sara's cousins were a bit hesitant about throwing the unfamiliar girl (roommate, is she?) into the pool, too! We spent the afternoon at Sara's mom's house watching a movie and napping after a huge (and again, free) lunch of KFC. Then we headed to Sara's sister's husband's grandparents' house (confusing, I know) for more free food! After that we walked through a neighbor's backyard that led us to a beautiful golf course overlooking the valley. We watched a great fireworks show free of cheesy patriotic music accompaniment, and drove home! I'm pretty sure I ate enough food for 2 weekends, but it was all free, how could I refuse! It was a great weekend and I'm glad I had people to spend the holiday with.

You Have Swine Flu!!!

Last Wednesday night I started to get a bit of a scratchy feeling in my throat, which caused a slight cough. By Thursday night, I was dying. Okay, I wasn't actually dying, but my roommate, Heidi, thought I might be. I had a fever and a very painful cough, which caused me to lose my voice. Heidi was convinced that I had swine flu. She kept yelling it through the house, "You have swine flu! You have swine flu!" and I would yell back in my disappearing voice "No I don't!!" It was all in good fun, but truthfully, being that sick was NOT fun. I wasn't able to go see my dear friends Ryan and Kara at the hospital on Friday, when they had their baby boy, Sammy. I missed a ward camping trip to Bear Lake. I missed hearing Sister Bonnie Parkin speak at a stake activity. I missed Friday and Monday at work and was very weak and tired. Thank goodness for home teachers who worthily hold the priesthood. I got a blessing, and they brought me chicken soup. My fever was gone the next morning! I made it back to work on Tuesday, and then went to see my new favorite baby in the whole wide world, Sammy Reynolds. He is SO CUTE!! He was 5 days old when I met him. Ryan, Kara, and Sammy left for Alaska this Thursday evening, a week after Sammy was born. They will be gone until mid-August. Sad! I am very glad that I got to meet little Sammy before they left. He'll be 2 months old when they get back! I already miss them.

Here I am

I've finally done it...I've joined the blogging world. I have had many suggestions to do so, and consequently, here I am. I spent quite a bit of time trying to create the name for this medium for my new hobby, and I finally settled on "Happily enduring...” I like the word "enduring" because that’s what this life is, and I'm determined to endure to the end. Of course, I couldn't leave the title as just plain "Enduring". I had to add "happily," because my goal is to endure the adventures that come my way with a good attitude. I like to get up in the morning and attack the day with a smile. It's much more enjoyable than sluggishly moping through the day with a rain cloud over my head. I would say that most days I accomplish this quite well. Just like every other person, there are days when I struggle to fight off that rain cloud, but the point is to keep progressing and striving to be better each day. The purpose of the "..." at the end of the blog title is to illustrate that happily enduring is an ongoing process (or maybe it's just because I like to use a "dot dot dot" far more often than any normal person should). I plan to post ideas, thoughts, photos, and anything else that can express my adventures and what I think I learn from enduring them. Enjoy!