Update!

Hey Ya'll! I suppose it's time for an update, it's been, what, two months!? Geesh, I promise to try to be better. I feel a little selfish because I love reading everyone else's blogs and I feel like your lives are so exciting, what with babies and engagements and newlywededness and a big out of state move, my life seems a little mundane. So here goes with the boring and mundane ;P

Update #1 I'M MOVING! Yay! In about a month, so mid-April, I'll be moving to Eagle Mountain, Utah. I'm stoked about it. My new roomate is Heather, a friend that I've had for about 5 years. We met when we were roomates in the MTC (Missionary Training Center) right before our missions, and just kept in touch from there. The summer after I came home from my mission I came on my very first vacation ever, to visit Heather here in Utah. It was wonderful! So Heather bought a condo out in EM and asked me to be her roomate! At first the answer was obvious, who wouldn't want to live in a sweet condo with one of their best friends? But there was more to weigh, like work, commute and money. I will still keep both my jobs in Orem and Provo, which means about a 30 minute commute, but remember how I'm from a rural town, 30 minutes is nothing :) So I'm pretty excited and hopefully everything will work out perfectly. I'm working on getting all my stuff together and de-junking before I move-that's a task in itself. But I'll keep ya'll posted

Update #2 KAYLA! Ha Ha. Kayla is my new work buddy and I just had to give a shout out to her. :) In all seriousness though, I'm so glad that I work with her and since she has come to our office, I've been suprised how working with good people who you enjoy being around can make a huge difference in your life. Not that our work environment was horrible before, we just had people who made it a little more difficult to get through the day with...I'm sure everyone has those kind of co-workers. But we recently had a lot of moves and transfers and in our office, we got two new people. They are so much fun and nice to be around too. And, to add to Kayla's awesomeness, she just got home from her mission in Tennessee, so we sit and talk all day about missions and the south :) And, I have to announce, she just got engaged too. So, being the silly girls that we are, we've been pseudo-planning her wedding! Yay!

Update #3 KICKBOXING So since I posted my New Year's resolution blog, I decided that I needed to give an update on the working out. Bottom line: It's hard! Lol. I think it's a much harder long term goal than short term. It's easy to say 'ok, I'm going to work out three times this week' and do it, but much harder to turn that goal into a monthly one. Time is a huge deficit in this too. But fortunately I have amazing friends! One of which, Kelly, just had a baby and now wants to lose her baby weight. So we have teamed up and started doing Turbo Kickboxing at the gym. I'm not gonna lie, when she told me about it I though 'there's no way'. But really it's not that bad, soooo much fun and very empowering. It's an interval class so it starts off slow and works up to a faster pace and it's kickboxing so you pretend to hit like your smashing someone's face in :) It's an hour class and a great workout, I was sweating in places I didn't think I could sweat in :S We were doing it about once a week and then I would do my own "low key" workout the rest of the week. Fun stuff. My next fun thing I want to try now that the weather is getting better is to hike the Y. For those of you outside of Utah, I did a little research :D The Y, or Y Mountain is at 8520 feet and is a 1.2 mile hike from the parking lot to the Y. It's a pretty popular place to hike especially in Provo and since its not the most vigorous but still a pretty good workout, I'm adding it to my list. :)

Update #4 MY BAPTISMAVERSARY! On March 4, I celebrated my "baptismaversary". I'm pretty proud of myself for making that word up :) But even more excited that it was my nine year mark as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Wow! Who knew that my simple small baptism nine years ago would bring about such great blessings and life experiences for me. I was thinking a lot about my life now and how it would be different if I had never joined the church. It was almost unfathomable to me. I would have never served a mission, never moved to Utah, all of the friends that I have now I probably would have never met. It's amazing what the gospel can do for you. And the knowledge that I have now is irreplaceable. I can now say that I know that I have a Heavenly Father who knows me and loves me. I know that His Son, Jesus Christ is my Savior and my friend. He is the light that should guide our lives. I know that families can be together forever through the ordinances of the Priesthood. I know that we can have a little piece of heaven here on earth through the House of the Lord, the temple. And actually, I had the coolest experience- the day of my baptismaversary we went to the Draper Temple Open House. Before temples are dedicated, we get the opportunity to tour them and see how beautiful they are. I went with my ward and it was an amazing time! The temple is such a beautiful place and as soon as you step on the grounds you can't help but feel peace. It was sooo wonderful!

Update #5 I'M GOING HOME!!!! This is the biggest update of all for me because it is soo exciting. After a year of not being home, not seeing my mom or my sisters or my family, I will be flying home on May 9 (my dad's birthday) and staying a week. Ahh, a week in Southern Illinois with the people I love the most. Yay!!! I'm super stoked. Luckily, I was able to get a week off work, which is a pretty tough thing to do, and plan and book my flight. It feels like a miracle because it's something that I've wanted so badly. It's hard to believe that it's been a whole year that I've not been home! I had planned on coming last October but had to work, then maybe for the holidays, but again, had to work. But now it is finally happening! Wahoo! I have started a list of things that I want to do at home....*take a picture in a cornfield :) *eat at numerous southern illinois places like quatros pizza, tequillas, south side ribs..... *go to my sister, Ali's softball games *Workout with my other sister, Michelle *hug my mom ♥ *visit with my grandma (she was recently diagnosed with cancer and is going through treatments now) *Visit with numerous cousins and extended family members *take pictures of gravesites for family history *visit old high school friends ...there's probably more but I can't remember them :) But, to say the least, I'm excited!

Okay, I think that's it. Whew, that was a lot. I will try to be better! Until then-Happy March!