quote of the week.

 

Your heart is the size of an ocean.
Go find yourself in its hidden depths.

~ Rumi

unexplainable stories.

 

my heart has been heavy all morning.

i woke up yesterday to a phone call from my papa, saying my sweet aunt geneal has stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

most people know, that's one of the worst kinds to get. she's decided chemo would do more harm than good.. & i don't blame her.

this song has been circling my thoughts, & i think it's very appropriate. give it a listen when you have some time.

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mon anniversaire!

ignore how gross i look in this..

i had been sweaty all night. & so my hair is huge. anyway.

my "golden birthday" (24 on the 24th) was a huge success! i had such a great day that i will never forget. luke & i woke up early & headed to criddle's cafe for some breakfast, where i facetimed with my brother's families! it was a great way to start off my day, thank you guys so much for calling! i miss my little stinkies.

after breakfast we headed out to celebrate SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY! it happened to fall on my bday which was perfect since i'm an avid walmart hater & love to shop locally.

i found some awesome incubus vinyls leftover from black friday, which was so relieving! these albums go online for 100 bucks & they were only 25 bucks each at graywhale! i did a happy dance.

we got all of our christmas shopping done (i did at least) on 25th street.. where i accidentally gave away what i am giving luke for xmas.

you see, we were in an antique store when i saw a bunch of nintendo 64 games... i browsed through them (i've been trying to find mario kart for MONTHS ever since i bought luke the 64).. well, since i'm not much of a video gamer, luke said, "hey, i think youre giving away what my xmas present is."

dangit.

we went home & busted it out early & played DK & tony hawk for a few hours.

then we headed down to my parents.

gathered eggs, ate a couple, & fed the dogs.

then we headed back to our house so i could take a nap before the nighttime festivities:

other randoms throughout the day, including the stars vinyl luke got me that i have been trying to find for over 2 years.

so needless to say it was a GREAT DAY!

thank you everyone who came out to slackwater for pizza & nachos, & everyone who came over after for nintendo! it was such a good bday. i'll truly never forget it!

turkey day!

 

me with luke's cousins & sister.

this turkey day was more of a turkey week, as we've had lots of family parties all on different days.

wednesday we got together with my side of the fam.. which only consisted of my 2 littlest sisters & my grandparents on my dad's first wife's side.

the biddulphs are adorable, except my grandma is crazy. it makes for fun holiday dinner conversation.

thursday we went to morgan to go to luke's aunt's dinner. there was easily 100 people there. i thought i knew what a big family was but.. luke's family easily defeats us gardner's. i had a headache by the end of the day trying to know everyone's names.

all in all it was lots of good food & family... i have been so stuffed the past 2 days but been saving room all day as luke is taking me to sushi tonight for my birthday.

tomorrow is my birthday party at slackwater...pizza yay! it's going to be a fun weekend. 

 

the drive home from morgan was gorgeous.

 

luke captured a photo of me mid-food coma.. glasses still on, feet dangling off the coach.. i was so full & SO TIRED. successful, i daresay.

 

turkey cookies.

 

my grandpa carving the turkey, like a boss.

hope everyone's holiday was fantastic! i missed my texas family but it was nice to see both sides. happy thanksgiving! 

quote of the week.

 

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”  -Rumi

grateful.

 

i am so grateful to have the family that i do...and the good friends.

i've grown so much this past year and it's all because of the amazing people i've surrounded myself with.

i'm so grateful for my nephews & niece... everyday they give me a reason to smile. when i'm having a bad day i look at pictures i have of them saved on my phone & i can't help but feel better.

i'm grateful for my parents, always supporting & loving me even when i put them through hell & back.

my siblings & sisters-in-law for being amazing & becoming more my friends than family over the years.

for all of them putting up with my feisty temper, my potty mouth & my tendency to overreact to...everything.

i am so lucky!

happy thanksgiving, friends. i hope it's a great day for you all!

cheese.

tomorrow is thanksgiving, & while i plan on posting a plethora of things i am grateful for, i wanted to dedicate an entire post to this boy.

in case you guys hadn't heard, we are in love.

he does everything in his power to ensure i am happy. he tells me he loves me every single day & he makes sure to get at least one kiss a day (which is hard to do during the week when we never see each other). 

he randomly surprises me...with a guitar, with concert tickets, & by growing out his facial hair for no shave november solely because he knows how much i like facial hair.

it's really the little things that make me realize how much he loves me.

we joke together, laugh together, fight, cry, smile & more.

he's seen every side of me & has been there for me through it all.

 

here's just one instance of his surprising me... i woke up the other night around 6pm to find these sitting on my dresser.

luke came in the bedroom & i said "what are these for??" he said "well, it's the week of your  birthday. so happy early birthday."

seriously!?! my smile was humongous. 

i am so grateful for the experiences that led me up to my first day working at starbucks.

if none of those crappy things wouldn't have happened, none of this would have happened.

it just goes to show you have to weather a few storms in order to get to the rainbow.

a good read.

if you're feeling rather bored, & perhaps wanting to get inside my head a bit, check out this blog post i stumbled across the other day, that made me feel a lot better about how different i am.
so while my friends are busy saying things like, "when in the world are you getting engaged?" or "how come you & luke never want to have kids?" i'm thinking "why do people feel the need to ask? why do i have to explain myself?"
& yes, unless there's a SERIOUS accident, there will be no babies.

weekend (if you could call it that)

it's that time of year...where my weekends feel no different than my weekdays.

i spent a total of 10 hours on campus this weekend writing papers & getting ready for exams.

also trying to pass math as i've fallen behind in recent weeks & can't seem to get above a 50 on my quizzes. with two tests left until the end of the class...le sigh. we're cutting it close, folks.

but here are a few peeks at the weekend anyway, since i know you're all DYING to see photos of my pretty face. :P

walking home from campus in my brand new coat (sale at H&M!)

eating away my finals week preparation sorrows by having copious amounts of ice cream.

enjoying the tv comcast forced me to get (long story...seriously) & mostly catching up on the daily show.

the last of the fall colors outside my window.

i made delicious crockpot mac & cheese for luke & i on saturday & it was a smashing success. i'll post the recipe soon. (sometimes i can cook yay!)

HAPPY DANCE!

i've told y'all about the event i'm in the middle of planning that takes place in approximately 2 and a half weeks.

it's really coming together & i'd just like to take a moment to brag about how awesome it's going to be! using my PR skills (& with the help of a lot of others) here is what we've come up with for the awards party so far:

-31 awards, all announced by ben winslow, with awards passed out by ogden's junction city roller derby girls (on ROLLERSKATES! so cool!)

-appetizers provided by beehive cheese, desert magnolia BBQ, & slackwater pub & pizzeria

-main course & alcohol catered by roosters (ROOSTERS GUYS!!! that's so awesome!)

-dessert provided by crepes etc & lucy's heavenly bites..cupcakes for ALL

-a photo booth for everyone in attendance to take silly pictures in

-sponsors: city weekly, union station, the front climbing club, lucy's heavenly bites cupcakes, rovalis, local first ogden, wildlife rehabilitation center, junior league of ogden, nurture the creative mind, ogden breakfast exchange, ogden-weber community action partnership, ogden book, nicholson photography, universal reiki light, & local artist chris bodily (who designed the rad poster you see above).

i can hardly contain my excitement...seriously! if any of my family and friends will be in the area on the night of december 7th...i'd really love & appreciate if you'd buy tickets & come support me. it's all for a great cause (promoting local!) & it's the first event i've put on in my career... it would mean a lot to me. buy tickets here! i hope to see your pretty faces!

quote of the week.

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
-Desiderata

mikki's baby shower.

over the weekend my friend mikki had a baby shower to celebrate the birth of her third daughter, who is coming in january (or sooner, depending on how baby scout feels.) it was such a fun baby shower... the first i've been to that wasn't a family one, so it was very different than other baby showers. either way, everything was adorable & it was so fun!! congrats mikki, bryan, paikea & hunter! i bet paikea is up in heaven keeping an eye on baby scout until she gets here.

 

the adorable decorations & nomz.

 

chit chattin' with friends.

(it was a boy & girl  baby shower...totally never heard of a baby shower where boys were invited.) 

 

we played a game where you had to chug a beer out of a sippy cup, first one to finish wins.

as you can tell by my face, i was NOT pleased. & got my butt kicked.

my friend jenny, sitting next to me, won!

 

pretty pregnant mikki.

 

spiderman was our mascot for the day. he even wrote his wishes for baby.

 

all of the presents for scout!

 

mikki's daughter hunter...taking full advantage of unlimited cupcakes.

 

hunter greeting kristin's son micah at the door. they're the cutest little kids.

all in all a very unique baby shower...so excited to meet the little one! 

 

 

other weekend randoms

 

the highlight of the weekends are when i get the chance to facetime with my family in texas. matthew showed me his missing teeth (he's got such a holey smile now... it's the cutest!) although it also made me kinda sad cuz nothing says "i'm growing up too fast" like losing all your baby teeth.

grace was also ecstatic to show me she had gotten the present luke & i sent her... i'm so glad she likes it. the disney store in city creek is awesome, & as long as grace keeps loving princesses, i'll keep finding awesome things for her for bdays/christmas. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOMORROW GRACE COSETTE! it seems like just yesterday i was holding her little body in my arms. 

 

i also got to see my wittle redhead preston...he thought facetime was pretty much the coolest thing ever.

also, i love alex in the background of this...trying to eat grace's belle doll that i got her for her birthday. 

  

the rest of the weekend was spent being lazy with this little brat...who has been especially cuddly lately. probably because we're both hating this weather:

 

the view just outside my house.yuck yuck yuck.

my birthday present.

 

luke gave me the other half of my birthday present over the weekend, & what a lovely present it was.

for those who don't remember, i accidentally found the first part of my present a couple weeks ago while cleaning... two vinyls by the xx. it was a great surprise, even if it came a little early.

on saturday, luke took me & his sister marti to the pie for some delicious pizza nomz, & then we headed over to kilby court to see milo greene play. 

 

we first saw milo greene when they opened for the civil wars back in may. we were amazed at how incredible these guys are.

we wanted to go see them in august but it fell on the same day as our family triathlon...we were kinda bummed about that.

but luckily these guys show utah some love more than twice a year...& we were very excited about that.

luke bought me their vinyl & we even got the band to sign it... all in all it was a seriously awesome day...despite the snow storm we had to drive home through.

 

random art on the bathroom door.

 

so fun!

word vomit.

sometimes i think there's seriously something wrong with me...i CAN'T shut my mouth when it comes to politics.

it's not even that i think "i'm right you're wrong" it's just... so hard to see how some people truly think the things they do. & why they seem to think THEIR IDEAS and THEIR PERSPECTIVES and THEIR RELIGION work for everyone.

so bear with me, as i begin my once a year solicited rant on this blog (& please read, as i promise it gets nice at the end):

i recently stumbled across this blog post [thanks nicole!] that brought tears to my eyes. EVERYONE needs to read this, no matter what you think about politics. after i read it i felt like the most selfish girl in the world..not because i'd said anything talked about in the post, but because i spent so much of my time nitpicking people about why they were voting for romney or obama...tearing people apart for trying to force their beliefs on others.

when really, terrorists did that same thing to us 11 years ago.

but i still feel the need to try to understand why people seem to think ONE person can solve our nation's many problems...& why that person has to be either EXTREMELY DEMOCRAT or EXTREMELY REPUBLICAN. (or, in mitt's case, claim to be bipartisan but pick a vice president who is....the opposite of that.)

[for those who aren't FB friends with me, i made it clear on there i voted for a third party candidate.]

the night of the election it's safe to say i was relieved romney didn't win...but i wasn't really stoked obama was reelected. my political beliefs have changed a LOT in the past 4 years.

but i do not believe it should ever come to this.

here are a few examples of facebook comments i saw the day after the election:

"well we're ****ed, obama is a muslim he's going to bomb us & slowly take us over & in the meantime take away our civil liberties & rights. he is the epitome of pure evil. who else is hoping for an assassination?" (posted by a friend who quoted thomas s monson in his previous post..i about died.)

"it's all the welfare people who are clueless as to what is going on in this country...they are just looking for a free handout and obama will give that to them." (a friend of my cousin said this about the HALF OF AMERICANS who reelected him...many people you & i know & love...who hold jobs & work hard.)

"great 4 more years of the world's biggest douche who does nothing in the white house all day"

"RIP america, it's over, we've lost, we're screwed"

"well i'll be ignoring politics for the next 4 years until we can vote a republican back who actually knows what the hell he is doing."

"i can't believe how many women are in the senate, & one of them is gay, i mean what is this world coming to."

i saw photos such as these (that made the rounds in the '08 election but i most definitely thought we had grown up a little since then):

& it brought me to tears.

first of all, i had no idea our country had stooped to such a level of racism. half of my friends at utah state were practicing muslims, & were some of the most peaceful people i have ever met.

it's like comparing LDS people to F-LDS people. are they the same? no. does the F-LDS try to use the LDS name to gain acceptance, meanwhile using it as a cover so some of them can rape & abuse women? yes.

no president is the perfect president. no matter what y'all think, romney would have screwed up in office..he would have screwed up bad. what president do we know that was perfect? that wasn't dealt a crappy hand? that didn't have the weight of millions of people on their shoulders?

this is pathetic.

none of us can do the job that president obama has been reelected to do. none of us could even withstand the pressure of running for president the way romney, obama, jill stein, gary johnson, & all the other candidates did.

this has to stop.

on the other end of things, here are some inspiring words i saw...okay, not saw but had to look up since 90% of my feed was people crying over "the terrorist president": 

" ..we MUST NOT be paralyzed just because that event and the events surrounding it are ahead of us somewhere. We CANNOT stop living life. Indeed, we should live life more fully than we have ever lived it. After all, this is the dispensation of the fulness of times....we must never let fear a

nd the father of fear (Satan himself) divert ...us from our faith and faithful living. Every person in every era has had to walk by faith into what has always been some uncertainty....This is the plan. Just be faithful. God is in charge. He knows your name and He knows your need. We must go forward. God expects you to have enough faith, determination, and trust in Him to keep moving, keep living, keep rejoicing. He expects you not simply to face the future; He expects you to embrace and shape the future".

-Jeffrey R. Holland

what better way to embrace & shape the future than by writing your congressmen & asking for compromise? there is such thing as middle ground. 

what better way to shape the future than to cease the hate speech that is teaching our children the president of the united states does not deserve any respect unless he is on your personal agenda?

next on my list of uplifting things:

this video of obama addressing his campaign staff, & being moved to tears. [gets me every time.]

"God isn’t into democracy. Jesus said, “Follow me,” not, “vote for me.” Though we might feel that our prayers for the election weren’t heard, God is bigger than an election. He’s about saving souls and changing hearts."

-Unknown (just saw on a comment feed on the Dalai Llama's Facebook page.)

"The people of our country have again entrusted you with a great responsibility. The Catholic bishops of the United States offer our prayers that God will give you strength and wisdom to meet the difficult challenges that face America."

-Cardinal Timothy Dolan, in his letter congratulating President Obama on reelection.

President Obama gave a great speech today concerning bipartisanship. if you haven't read/watched it yet, i highly recommend you do. 

in a way, the haters/racists on my page were right: nothing is going to change in the next 4 years. however, blaming it on president obama is not the right thing to do. if it weren't for the GOP blocking EVERY legislation obama handed to them...we wouldn't be here. if it weren't for liberals pursuing an agenda that makes some religious people feel their beliefs are attacked, we wouldn't be here. if it weren't for the highly conservative literally buying elections, sitting around buying expensive cigars & going on 6-week vacations, all the while ignoring the constituents they were elected to represent, we wouldn't be here. if it weren't for the gay bashing, hate crimes, racism, attacks on women's freedoms, we wouldn't be here.

obama reiterated one word several times today...a word that each & every one of us, including me, ought to think about:

compromise.

there is no way we will survive if we do not accept each other as human beings, with different beliefs. what does this mean? perhaps it means homosexuals won't get to use the word "married," but will instead use "civil unions." in exchange for that, however, wouldn't it be a nice change for atheists & agnostics not to have to hear what your God says is right every other day? wouldn't it be a true free society if a country founded on embracing religious freedom stopped using religion to persecute freedoms? perhaps it means we'll all have to pay the same amount of taxes. some things will be harder on people than others. but if we unite, if we strive to be accepting, if we strive to seek understanding of the sides we don't understand, if we strive to consider perspectives other than our own....change will happen. & it will come.

lastly, i'm sorry to all my friends/family that truly wanted romney to win. i wrote in gary johnson, though i really was rooting for jon huntsman the whole time. so..i don't really know what it's like to lose something that meant so much to you.

also, i wrote my representatives the house/senate today concerning my thoughts, & asking them to work for compromise that will best represent both parties. if you feel so inclined, you should do the same. :)

& that is all... until 2016! (unless people keep bashing our president who has the hardest job in the world. then you'll hear much more from me.)