My Best Friend

In just 54 days I will be flying into the Salt Lake City airport, on my way back to Provo for my fall semester at BYU. The most exciting part of my flight? Seeing my very best friend in the airport waiting for me :-)

We met last fall, when his grandpa Pelo introduced us at my ward prayer one night. But we didn't really start hanging out until Finals week in December, which was a fun week. Trevor texted me nearly every day during Christmas break when I was home in AZ, and I could tell he liked me. It took me a while longer, till about the middle of February, to start liking him more than just a friend. We started going out in the middle of February, but we didn't really make anything "official" until the end of March/early April. 

April was a wonderful month, and we learned how much we have come to care for each other. Then at the end of April we said a tearful goodbye as I headed back home to Gilbert, AZ for the summer. 

Texting, Facebook, phone calls and Skype became our means of communication, which are great, but definitely not as good as actually being together. We had some difficult times, especially trying to get my parents to understand that I'm old enough now to have a boyfriend. My mom met him when she came to Provo to pick up my brother and me to take us home, but she wasn't able to get to know him enough to like him right away. It was very hard for both of us, but especially for me, since I was kind of stuck between my Sweetheart and my parents, trying to get them to like each other. We finally resolved the problem, and my parents are fine with our relationship now. Which makes me happy :-)

Last weekend my dad and a couple of my sisters and I went up to Provo for a family reunion, so Trevor and I got to planning some dates. We spent the whole day on Friday on Yuba Lake, boating with his family. It was such a perfect day! I love his family, and I know they love me too, which makes me really happy. We got sunburned and tanned, and had a blast! 

We were SO happy to see each other after 2 months of being apart :-)

His lovely sisters Lauren and Abby

Abby kept making a heart at Trevor and me... :-)

Me with Chelsea and Abby. I love their red hair!!

We had a little fun on the tubes :-D

Tube wars!! This was right before Haley fell off...

I love him :-)

Shark!! 

On our way back from the lake we stopped at a yummy ice cream place called Red Barn in Santaquin. It was so good! We had dinner at the McIntosh's place in Lindon, and then Trevor and I went to the Provo Temple to just walk around, one of our favorite things to do. It was so peaceful, sitting there with him, just talking. It was a wonderful night :-)

The next day Trevor worked all day, and my family went to Farmington (NOT Farmville, as I mistakenly called it one night over the phone with Trevor...he teased me quite a bit...haha) for the family reunion. I talked mainly with my cousin Austin, because the girl cousins were all talking about girly things and Austin was the only boy cousin there. It was fun, we haven't talked in forever. Five long hours later the reunion was over, and I headed back to Lindon to go on one last date with Trevor before I went back to Arizona. We went to a delicious Indian restaurant in Provo called India Palace, then went up Provo Canyon to Bridal Veil Falls, since I had never been there, and it would be lovely in the sunset before long. The hours we spent there were my favorite from the whole trip. 

Then we went back to his place in Lindon, and went with his sister Haley and a couple of their friends to get frozen yogurt, then back to my aunt and uncle's house in Provo where I was staying. Trevor came in and met my sisters Rosalie (who is basically my twin) and Katie, and my dad. 

Then it was time to say goodbye again. But this time we didn't feel sad, like we had back in April. We were both so happy from being together again for the last two days that we couldn't feel sad. We were just excited for me to come back in two months, and this time I won't leave again. I don't think I could leave him again, it has been so hard without him, loving him and missing him more and more every day. And that weekend with him was truly the happiest I have ever been! It was so wonderful :-) 

I am so blessed to have such a wonderful man in my life, who makes me want to be even better, and makes me so happy! :-)

Still going...

So basically this summer has been crazier than I had anticipated. I work almost full-time at Chick-fil-A, where I was recently promoted to Supervisor. My new position obviously comes with added responsibilities, and added stresses. But I love it! And I am so grateful to know that I can always work here, so I will never need to job hunt again. My boss has literally begged me to stay here and go to ASU instead of going back to BYU, saying that if I did she would make me a full manager. But there are a few good reasons why I won't do that. First, the atmosphere at BYU is infinitely better than at any other college, with students with much higher standards and better lifestyles. Second, I have a scholarship to BYU, and can't afford to go anywhere else (student loans are not an option, I don't want to go into debt). Third, I have a great job at BYU in the Theater, making props for the shows. Fourth, and probably the most important reason, my very best friend lives in Utah. I couldn't possibly stay here and not see Trevor for that long, it would be way too hard, for both of us.

Besides work, I'm currently taking a Statistics class at Chandler-Gilbert Community College, just half a mile away from my house. My dad works for the Maricopa County Community College district, so I get free tuition. So why don't I just go there for free, you may ask? My first day on that campus explains why. I couldn't breathe because of the cigarette smoke, I couldn't look anywhere because the girls barely wear anything (yes, it's hot, but wearing less clothing actually makes more skin exposed to the sun, therefore making you hotter-duh!), and I had to force myself to not listen to anything because of the terrible language. There is not as much respect for the teachers, and people don't take their education as seriously. That is why I go to BYU.

The class isn't that hard, it's just kind of confusing because much of it feels like the same kind of problem over and over again, just slightly different variables changing which formula you use. It gets really frustrating when I'm taking a quiz or test, looking over my notes, and everything looks the same, so I don't know which formula or test or method to use to solve the problem. And it's also difficult because the term is only 5 weeks long, so the whole semester-long class is crunched into only 5 weeks. That means every day is equal to about a week of class, so I can't miss a day of class lecture, and I have to keep up on homework and quizzes and tests, which are all online. My days are long, with class from 9:20am to 11:30, then I go straight to work till 7:30 or 8, then home to do homework, then repeat the next day. It's long, but I'm getting this class out of the way, so I don't have to worry about it at BYU, and I'm earning lots of good money for my tuition and rent for the upcoming semesters. I'm counting my blessings, and there are so many.

My class ends next week on the 7th, when my summer break will really begin. But until then I'm doing homework every available minute and trying to keep my A in the class. And just counting down the days until I go back to Provo, and back to Trevor... :-)

I haven't forgotten!

It has been exactly 4 months since I last posted. Yeah, I'm a lazy bum. I haven't forgotten to post, I have just been busy. BYU's semester ended about 2 1/2 weeks ago, and I have never been so relieved to end a semester!  It was a hard one, with more work than I had anticipated. But also many wonderful and fun things that I hadn't anticipated either. :-)

So now I'm back in sunny, warm Arizona, working at the Chick-fil-A I worked at during my Senior year of high school and up until I left for BYU. My boss Kim said she would love to have me come back and work whenever I can, so I took her up on that offer during Christmas break and am working there again for the summer. I can tell she and the other managers like me, because I get almost 40 hours a week, paid above minimum wage, and often give me more responsibilities than my coworkers. What good blessings to have such a great job with fantastic hours and pay, and to not have to go job hunting when I got back from school! I am so grateful.

My boss has also made me her personal babysitter. I have babysat for her a couple times in the last few days, and I'm actually waiting for her to pick me up right now to babysit for the rest of today. She has two cute little kids, a 2-year-old named Gabe, who loves basketball and watching Caillou on TV, and a 9-month-old named Brooklyn, who just loves being held and playing on my lap. Since Kim is my boss and makes my work schedule, she actually put babysitting on my work schedule for this week! It made me laugh when I saw "Call Kim" (about babysitting) instead of hours to work that day. I will work well over 40 hours this week, nearly 30 of them at Chick-fil-A and the rest playing with Kim's kids. I love it! :-)

Yesterday when Kim picked me up to babysit she mentioned a couple of my coworkers who have left on missions recently, and that she wishes they could have stayed because they are such great, hard workers. She is not LDS, so she doesn't quite understand how important missions are to young men. We started talking about the Church, and I was quite surprised how many questions she had! We talked all the way to her house, and in the evening we talked again all the way back to drop me off at my house. When we drove by the Gilbert Temple construction site she asked if there was any way non-members can go inside the Temple. I got very excited, and told her about the Open House before the Dedication, and that anyone, LDS or not, can go inside and see how beautiful it is. She seemed excited too, so I will make sure I let her know when the Open House will be. It was great talking to her about the Church! And kind of ironic, because the lesson in Relief Society the day before was about Missionary work, and in Sunday School we talked about sharing the Light of Christ. I was so grateful to be able to share my testimony and what I know about the Church to my boss, and that she seems interested. She said she is very open to other faiths, and since there are so many LDS people working at our Chick-fil-A she has many good examples of Latter-Day Saints.

I'll try to be better with updating my blog during the summer, since I'll have more time than I did during the school year. But at least I finally got around to it :-P

Of feet and things...

It has been a long time since I last posted so I thought I would just upload a couple of pictures I took in the last few days. Funny thing is that I just realized both of those pictures are of my feet. Haha!

See that hole in my skin? That's what happens when you are ballroom dancing for almost 2 1/2 hours straight! My good friend Logan Palmer is on BYU's International Championship winning Ballroom touring team, so I asked him if he would help me work on my technique for Cha Cha for my Social Dance 280 class. What had originally been planned as a 1 hour practice session ended up as nearly 2 1/2 hours of some of the most fun dancing I have ever done!! We worked on Cha Cha, and he taught me really advanced technique and steps, way above my current class level, but since I have danced so much before I really wanted to learn more. Then another couple came in and started playing Samba music. It has been months since I have danced Samba, so we did, and he taught me the whole routine that the beginning Latin ballroom class learns, and more fun stuff! Then that other couple turned on Rumba music, and I told Logan I have never danced Rumba but wanted to learn, so he taught me the whole routine for Rumba from the beginning Latin class as well! In just over 2 hours I learned two whole routines, lots of advanced technique, and many fast, complicated steps. He was impressed with how fast I picked everything up. He said that since I learned both the Samba and the Rumba routines, I can skip that Latin class and go on to the next level up! And he recommended that I try out for one of the teams next semester! Sweet!! :-)

So what you see in the picture is where one of the straps on my Latin ballroom heels rubs on my foot. It was rather painful, but I was having so much fun I barely noticed. Today in my dance class, however, it still hurt, even through the bandaid I put on it. Gotta toughen up my feet! 

After we practiced, I opened a fortune cookie Logan had given me from when he ate at a Chinese restaurant earlier that day. My fortune said, "All your hard work will soon be paid off." I said, "That means I'll make Touring Team, right??" Haha, I wish!!

This was taken a few hours ago when I went to take the trash out. I thought I was crazy for wearing flip flops, since it's only 15 degrees outside with quite a bit of snow on the ground, but apparently someone else is even crazier and went outside without any shoes at all!

There are many more pictures I could add, but I gotta finish this up. FHE starts soon. This is going to be a crazy week with school, homework, my job, preparing a talk for Sunday, getting my planning committee together to help me plan a week-long ward activity (every day we apply different parts of our "Personal Plan to Become Like Christ", which we were all given at Stake Conference last September), begin applying for scholarships for next year, hopefully go to the Temple with my cousin, and somewhere in there do my laundry and dishes, and maybe sleep if I can get around to it.

On another note, Happy Half-Birthday to me tomorrow!! On July 11th, 6 months from tomorrow, I will be 19! :-)