It's almost Thanksgiving!

In light of Thanksgiving, I wanted to share this quote that I love. I've been thinking about gratitude a lot, especially because church today was focused on it and it made me want to be a more grateful person. There is so much in my life to be thankful for, especially my incredible family.

As for updates on my life, I've mostly been busy with school stuff. There have been some fun activities going on in my ward, like hot chocolate parties, making gratitude journals (haha that was a Relief Society activity), Hawaiian haystacks/game night parties, and other random stuff. Life is fun as always here at the Y. I seriously love it here so much. And Monticello is a super fun apartment complex! I'm starting to get sad that the semester is almost over. I'll miss it here.

Also, one of my friends from the 3200 wing of Hinckley Hall got baptized last week! She is an exchange student from China and she is the sweetest thing. Most of the girls in my hall were there, so we took a little reunion picture:

Unfortunately, again, that is the only picture I have taken. I am so bad!

I can't wait to come home to Laramie on Tuesday for Thanksgiving break! After that, I have two weeks of classes and one week of finals, and then I'm home until March. So crazy! I am going to Brazil in 101 days, guys!!

I hope you are all doing well and remembering to be thankful for the beauty in your lives :)

Updates

Sorry I haven't posted in so long! My main updates are from this weekend, though, so I guess you haven't missed much. First of all, I dressed as Belle from Beauty and the Beast for my ward Halloween party on Friday night as well as a trunk-or-treat activity for Primary kids and our stake dance, which were last weekend. Mom, Dad, and Josh arrived in Provo late Friday night and I stayed in the hotel with them. Dad took a picture of me in my costume and Josh, who is such a handsome stud he doesn't even need to dress up :) Look how tall he is! I adore this guy.

On Saturday morning, we ate a delicious breakfast at Kneader's Bakery. At about noon, I met a girl at the Oquirrh Mountain temple. She and I are both part of a sister missionaries group on Facebook, and she volunteered to do free mission pictures for anyone. I thought it would be fun, so she took pictures of me. Unfortunately, there were literally 80 mph winds all day, and so my hair was somewhat unmanageable. But here is one of the pictures of me with my Portuguese Book of Mormon :) 

The reason Mom, Dad, and Josh came to visit me for the weekend was so that Mom and Dad could go through the temple with me. We went to the Bountiful temple, and Grandma and Grandpa were able to join us as well.

It was a wonderful weekend and I was so grateful to be with Mom, Dad, and Josh!

I GOT MY MISSION CALL

Dear Sister Weatherford:

You are hereby called to serve as a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Brazil Natal Mission. It is anticipated that you will serve for a period of 18 months.

You should report to the Brazil Missionary Training Center on Wednesday, March 4, 2015. You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Portuguese language.

I'M GOING TO BRAZIL! I'M GOING TO SPEAK FRICKIN PORTUGUESE!!

I opened my call late on Thursday night. It was honestly probably sitting in my mailbox since Wednesday, and I didn't even know it. I am so mad at myself! But I am truly so excited and humbled by this opportunity. I will miss you all very much, but I am grateful that I get to serve a mission. I cannot wait to go to Brazil. :)

Mission Papers Submitted! :)

Unfortunately, this is going to be a boring post, since I have not busted out my camera and taken a single picture since my last post. Sorry! But I still wanted to update anyone who actually reads this on what's new in my life.

The biggest update is that I submitted my mission papers a week ago today! I'm not sure how long it will be until I get my call. It's usually 2 or 3 weeks, but with General Conference going on, I anticipate that mine could take even longer. We will see. You can be sure that I will post when it comes, because I am super excited! :)

In other news, my classes are going well and my ward is great. In Monticello, they do this thing called "dinner groups" where you are put in a group of 12 people (if you want to -- it's not required haha) and you take turns cooking dinner for the whole group. It goes from Monday to Thursday every week, which means that you only have to cook dinner once every 3 weeks. On the other days, dinner is provided for you by another member of the group. It is a lot of fun, though it is difficult to come up with dinner ideas that can accommodate so many people and feed hungry college students!

I got to go see The Maze Runner with Amelia and Meredith on Friday night, which was a lot of fun. However, we were all less than satisfied with the movie. The book is so amazing, and the movie made too many changes to the plot and focused too much on the action. And since I am so protective of and passionate about the book, I wasn't completely thrilled. It was still enjoyable though, and we had a great girls' night out.

I think that's about all that's new for me, so I hope you are all doing well and know how much I love you!

First post of the semester

I'm finally back to blogging! Of course, by now, everyone has probably stopped reading my blog. Oh well.

However, after spending a wonderful summer in Laramie, I am now back in Provo and have finished one week of school! I'm taking Missionary Preparation, Basic Vocal Skills, World Civilization from 1500, Foundations of Education, Foundations of Multicultural Education, and Foundations of Literacy Development. I think all of my classes will be good, but then again, it is pretty early to tell for sure.

I really like my apartment. Amelia, Meredith, and I live together, and a fourth girl just moved in last night. It is a very charming little place, and it's actually been fun to be able to make food for myself instead of just eating at a cafeteria. Here are some pictures of it!

On Friday, Ben came to visit me. He arrived at around 8:30, and we went to get some authentic tacos al pastor and then went to a Comedy Sportz improv comedy show. The next day, I met him in Salt Lake, where he was staying in a hotel with his brother. We walked around, looking for a place to eat and watching all of the people who came for Comiccon. Then we drove to Provo, where we spent a while having fun at the nickel arcade, called Nickel City. After that, we stopped by my apartment, and then hiked Bridal Veil Falls. It was only a 1/2 mile hike round trip and it was beautiful! We took many "selfies" while we were there. :)

Afterwards, we cooked ourselves some delicious enchiladas and then bought 12 Krispy Kreme donuts and ate them in a beautiful park nearby. This morning, we both went to my new ward together, which was a first for both of us. People seem very nice and I'm excited to get to know everybody better. After church, we ate lunch and then he headed back to Laramie. It was a very fun weekend and I'm grateful he made the drive to Provo so we could spend time together.

I hope everyone had a wonderful week!

Finals Have Started and a Great Easter Sunday

Happy Easter! This past week has been really good. My last day of classes was on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were reading days, and finals started on Friday! I went to several reviews during reading days and spent most of my days studying, though I did get to take some breaks to hang out with Grant and do stuff with Amelia and Meredith.

On Friday morning, I took my Book of Mormon final. It was really easy and only took me about 15 minutes! That afternoon, I took my Physical Science final at the Smith Fieldhouse. It was not quite as easy...but it went really well. On Saturday morning, I took the Spanish 321 final, which went well. So three of my four finals (not including a Writing presentation) are successfully done! My last one is World Civilizations to 1500 and it is going to be a frickin' beast. I'm waiting to take that until Wednesday so I can study my brains out until then. And on Tuesday, I am turning in a paper for Writing and giving a group presentation. Finals are over on Wednesday, so I'll start packing and cleaning, and I will be back in Laramie on Saturday, April 26!

Today was such a great Easter Sunday. Church was incredible and I felt so uplifted by the testimonies and messages that were shared today. I'm grateful for the chance we have to remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the message of hope that it brings. I really like this video by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland and think it has a great message for this Easter Sunday: https://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?lang=eng#none-were-with-him
Here's a picture of us after church:

 Amber, me, Amelia, Meredith, and Natalie:

Also, Meredith, Amelia, and I decided to go for a walk after church because it is such a beautiful day. We walked down to the duck pond on campus by way of a gorgeous and charming stone pathway with a stream running by, small waterfalls, and beautiful flowers everywhere! I fell in love with it, and luckily, it is very close to where we'll be living in the fall. At the duck pond, we saw awkward mating turtles that we decided were breaking the Honor Code. But we also saw the most adorable baby ducklings ever! It was such a fun and relaxing walk. :)

I hope everyone is having a beautiful Easter! :)

Update -- sorry I'm such a slacker

I'm sorry I haven't written in so long! It's been a crazy and busy couple of weeks and I haven't taken any pictures, so I'm just going to briefly sum up recent events.

Last weekend, I met Mom, Dad, and Josh in Salt Lake, where we went to the Saturday afternoon session of conference together in the Conference Center. We had a great dinner together and then Mom and I had a girls' shopping spree while the boys went to the Priesthood session. Afterwards, we had pie at Village Inn. I said goodbye to them and drove to Murray (only about 15 minutes away) to stay at Grant's sister's house with him. We spent the night there and then watched both sessions of conference on Sunday with his sister Monica, her husband Thomas, his brother Brian and his wife Aubree. Thomas and Monica made us a delicious breakfast and dinner, and we had a good time with them. We headed back to Provo around 6:00 pm.

Other than that, things have been fairly normal in terms of classes and everything. My last day of classes is on Tuesday, and then I have Wednesday and Thursday off as "reading days." Final exams start on Friday and go until Wednesday, April 23. I'm planning on driving back to Laramie on Saturday, April 26 or maybe sooner, depending on how things work out.

I can't believe my freshman year is almost over! It has gone by so fast. It has been an amazing experience for me overall and I feel like I've grown a lot in so many ways. I'm very grateful that I decided to come to BYU; even though it was hard for me to move away from my family, it was definitely the right decision and Provo is the place I need to be. I am so thankful for the people I've met here and the friends I've made. However, I am also super excited to be coming home to Laramie for the summer, to spend time with the people I love most. :)

Fun week

On Wednesday this past week, Grant and I went to Spanish class in the afternoon as we always do. My teacher always asks for "juicy news," and on Wednesday she asked Grant if he had any. He said that he had two dates for Friday with the same girl. Pretty much the whole class knew he was talking about me, so they jokingly asked "Who is she?" Grant said "una chica muy especial." :) Then, two people who definitely know we're dating kept pressuring Grant and asking what "her" name was, but he managed to ignore them. Then Sister Deaton (our teacher) told him that he should bring "her" to class sometime, and he said "I already did!" She asked when, and he said "Every day." By then, everyone in the class was pointing at me, and Sister Deaton finally figured it out. She gasped and said "Amy! You lied to me! We need to talk!" She also said, "Amy, I have power over him. If he behaves badly, I can give him an F." It was super funny.

On Friday, Grant and I went to something called Comedy Sportz with his roommate Reuben and his date. It's basically a show with improv comedy, and there are two teams that compete against each other to be funnier. It was HILARIOUS. The show went until about 12:30, so we called it a night after that. 

On Saturday, Grant and I went to D.I. together to buy some old, cheap clothes that we could get ruined. We went to the Festival of Colors that afternoon with a few of Grant's friends from his ward. The festival takes place at the Hare Krishna temple in Spanish Fork (about a 20 minute drive away). We had to wear old clothes because the festival consists of tons of people throwing chalk at each other. At one point, we were part of a jumping and dancing mosh pit and we got owned by chalk -- you'll see in the pictures :)

 Rose and Taylor (a couple from Grant's ward) and Grant and me:

 Ash, Sarah, Amber, Maddie, Grant, and me (they are all in Grant's ward, too):

 Rose, Taylor, Grant, and me again:

We had tons of fun at the Festival of Colors (or FOC, as Grant called it :)

When we were walking back from the festival, a young boy told me "Stay beautiful, ma'am!" Haha I thought it was a cute compliment. When we got back around 6 pm, I watched the General Women's Meeting with Amelia and Meredith. They both stared at me like deer in the headlights when they saw how covered in chalk I was. 

Today I went to church, where we had a testimony meeting that was really uplifting. And tonight at midnight I register for my fall classes! Hope everyone had a great week!

Visit from the family!

Sorry I haven't posted anything in so long, but I had a good reason: Mom, Dad, and Josh came to visit me for their spring break! They got to Provo in the evening of March 14, so I met them at their hotel. We went to Krispy Kreme and got fresh donuts straight off the conveyor belt, went swimming, talked, and then I went back to my dorm to go to bed.
On Saturday, they picked me up and we went to take a tour of campus. We visited the Eyring Science Center, the library (Josh wanted to look at science books), and then we went to the Wilk to play pool in the basement. At 12, we left to pick up Grant from his apartment. We took him to lunch with us at Olive Garden and it was a lot of fun! He got along really well with everyone and we had a fun conversation. Plus, he told Mom and Dad that "Amy is a wonderful girl," which made me happy :) After lunch, we dropped him off and drove to Salt Lake to visit the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit. It sounded really cool, as it has a bunch of religious documents from 2000 BC, but it turned out to be pretty dang boring. Josh and I were counting the seconds until we could escape, and even Dad admitted that he was bored. We drove back to Provo afterwards and had a delicious dinner at Cafe Rio, then we played some more pool and ping-pong in the Wilk. After that, we swam at the hotel and then called it a night.
The next morning, I had to play the piano in sacrament meeting, so Mom, Dad, and Josh met me in the JKB for church. They came to Amelia's Sunday School lesson with me and went to Relief Society and Elders Quorum as well. After church, we had lunch in the Cannon center and then spent the afternoon relaxing on a blanket outside because the weather was beautiful. We read books and talked. We ate dinner at IHOP and then they dropped me off at the dorms so I could spend some time with Grant. Sadly, I forgot to take pictures the first weekend they were here, so stay tuned for pictures coming later in the post ;)

The next morning, they flew to Arizona to spend the week there while I was in classes. I had three midterms (Physical Science, World Civilizations, and Book of Mormon) that week, so I spent a lot of time studying and keeping up with my usual homework as well as spending time with Grant and my other friends! The week flew by. The highlight was Friday night: Grant and I drove down to Ogden around 6:30 in order to get there for a comedy show at 8. We decided to go to this show because it was featuring an absolutely hilarious LDS guy named Steve Soelberg who performed at a Humor U show we went to a few weeks ago. The show was so funny! Also, it was fun to be able to talk to Grant during the drive.
Here are Grant and I after the comedy show:

On Saturday around noon, Mom, Dad, and Josh got back in town, so I met them at the P.F. Chang's in the Orem mall, where we had a great lunch. It was fun to catch up with them about their week! After lunch, we went up on campus again to explore the library and play some more pool and ping-pong. Later that afternoon, we went to the Sacred Gifts exhibit at the MOA on campus, which has beautiful paintings of Jesus Christ's life by Carl Bloch and two other amazing artists. We ate dinner at Brick Oven that night, and we swung by Grant's apartment afterwards to donate our leftovers to poor, starving college students (him and his roommate Reuben). :)
Here we are at Brick Oven:

Here are some other pictures of the four of us from that day:

 After dinner, we went to BYU's production of Pride & Prejudice, the play. It was two and a half hours long, and I'll admit that it was slightly boring. Josh kept asking me in Spanish to kill him during the play. Poor Dad and Josh -- they were good sports to go see that with me and Mom. After the play, they headed back to the hotel and I hung out with Grant.

On Sunday, they picked me up and we went to my ward together. After church, we checked out of their hotel, ate at the Cannon center, and sat in my building's lobby, reading books and talking. We took a short drive around Provo to see the new temple that's being built and the apartment I'll be living at in the fall. At 4, I said goodbye to Mom, Dad, and Josh, and they drove to the airport. I am so grateful that they came to visit me! It is always so fun to spend time with them. They are three of the most incredible people in the whole world and I love them with all my heart :)

Another good week

Since I didn't blog last week, I should probably catch up. It was a fairly normal week for the most part. Here are some of my favorite parts:
When I went to buy some food at Taco Bell for lunch one day, I was waiting in line when I noticed one of the workers staring at me. We made eye contact and he raised his eyebrows at me, then he started walking over. I went up to the register because I thought he was going to ring me up, but he said "Oh, I'm not doing the register, I just wanted to tell you that you are beautiful!" I love getting random compliments and it totally made my day.
On Friday (Feb 28th), Grant and I went to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty at the dollar theater. We ended up hanging out until about 2 am, then he walked me home. It was POURING rain, so we ran around in the rain together and got soaked. It was like a dream come true for me since I love rain (plus rain happens to be super romantic). It was so fun. :)

As for this past week, it's been pretty normal too. For FHE on Monday, we played volleyball on some sand courts here at Helaman halls, but the sand was absolutely freezing. We all thought our feet would go numb at some point but they never did, so we were in pain the whole time. It was fun though. That night, Amelia, Meredith, and I made fools out of ourselves by going to the Creamery in pajamas and buying french toast at 10 pm. We had a blast but we also got some weird looks!

Here we are with our french toast:

On Tuesday, we went to Cold Stone for dessert and it was super delicious! The rest of the week mostly consisted of studying Spanish with Grant every night, doing homework, and other random stuff. On Friday night, Grant and I had a "date night" that included studying for our Spanish test with Martinellis (the sparkling apple cider stuff) and strawberry puffs. I took the test on Saturday and it went super well.

On Saturday night, Grant and I went on a double date with his buddy from back home and a girl he works with (he set the two of them up on a blind date). The four of us went to a Humor U show and then got some ice cream. Then Grant and I said goodbye to them and watched a movie called Rudy. Amelia and Meredith had gone to a dance that night and Amelia met a cute boy there. He invited her to hike the Y after the dance, so she was gone super late and I had to stay up to let her into the building (she had left her ID card in our room and you need it to get into Hinckley after midnight). So we didn't go to sleep until 3:30 am (stupid daylight savings) and had to wake up 4 hours later for church. We're exhausted! But we both had a good weekend.

Since I spend the majority of my time with Grant, I figured I should probably post some pictures of us.

Here's what we do when we get bored of studying in the library:

I hope everyone has a great week! :)

Schoolwork, housing, and a Jazz game

This week has been pretty normal for the most part, and I've been busy with a lot of schoolwork. We had our second midterm in Spanish, which Grant and I studied a lot for. It went really well for both of us (though I did beat him on the test ;). I went to the basketball game on Thursday night with Lauren and Amelia, but I didn't take any pictures. However, the Cougars played Gonzaga (the #25 team in the nation) and won! It was a great game! We had to get there two hours early to get seats in the student section. The whole Marriott center was packed and riled up :)

On Saturday morning, I woke up at 4:20 am to get to Monticello apartments by 5 am with my friends. We decided that we want to live there, and the new tenant signings were at 9 am. It's very competitive to get into Monticello, which is why we decided to get there so early. Lots of people even camped out! I went with Amelia, Meredith, Mikayla, and Lauren. We waited in the cold for four hours until they started the signings, then finally signed our contracts by 11. Amelia, Meredith, and I are sharing an apartment with one other random girl in the fall, and Mikayla and Lauren are sharing the apartment next door, since they are staying for spring and summer also. Monticello seems like a great place to live, and we're really excited about it! It's also a relief to have that huge decision made and out of the way for a while.

When we got back from Monticello, we took a 3-hour nap, due to the fact that we had gotten 4 hours of sleep the night before. After my nap, I showered and got ready, then went to pick up Grant. We drove to Salt Lake, where we went to his older sister Monica's house and I met her and her husband, Thomas, for the first time. Grant's brother Brian and sister-in-law Aubree were also there, but I had met them before. We ate dinner together and then went to the Jazz game, which we unfortunately lost. It was a fun time even though I was really nervous :) We got back to Provo by about 10:30.

This is Aubree, Brian (Grant's brother), Thomas, Monica (Grant's sister), Grant, and me at the Jazz game:

It's been a fun week! I have a couple of midterms coming up and some papers due, so this week will be pretty busy. I hope everyone's doing well! :)

Pictures, as promised

Here are the pictures of me and Grant at Big Band Night :)

(I don't like this one as much because I didn't realize how awkward my hand looked)

Valentine's Day ♥

Sorry I'm a week behind on posting! I've been super busy because...I have a boyfriend now! (as you all already know) :) Grant and I made it official! We spend a lot of time together, and when we're not together, I'm doing homework or hanging out with other friends. Since Friday was Valentine's Day, Grant gave me a beautiful rose and some chocolates. Here it is:

Grant had been planning a surprise for Saturday, so we didn't do anything particularly special on Friday. We played some pool, had dinner together, went to a fun arcade called Nickel City, and watched a movie. At the arcade, we won tons of tickets and Grant let me pick out a prize. I got this cute bear (or is it a mouse...?):

On Saturday, Maria, Clark, Will, Rosie, and Addie came to visit me in Provo! We went swimming at the rec center and then we picked up Grant and went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch. It was so nice of them to come visit and it meant the world to me :) Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures.

On Saturday night for his big surprise, Grant took me to an on-campus event called Big Band Night. It was a fancy thing where they served us dinner and then had the BYU Synthesis band perform 1940's-style music that was kind of like jazz/swing. Everyone was dressed up nice and danced to the band's live music. We had a really good time and we somehow ended up being the only ones at our table even though each one seated about 10 people! We got pretty lucky :)

Funny story: Grant and I are in the same Spanish class, and our teacher always starts class off by asking if anyone has "juicy news." On Friday, I showed her the flower Grant gave me. However, she doesn't know we're dating and I didn't tell her that it was from him, so when I showed her the rose and told her that a boy gave it to me, she said "tell him I'm very proud of him!" Grant and I were trying not to laugh, and he was tempted to say "gracias!"

I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day! :)

Oh, and by the way, they did take some photos of us at Big Band Night, but they're not up on Facebook yet. Once they are, I'll post them on here!

Fourth week down

This post is going to be short and sweet! I have already finished four weeks of winter semester. This week, I had my first Physical Science test, which went really well! I have a couple more tests coming up during the beginning of this week, so I need to do some studying.

This week, I haven't been up to anything very out of the ordinary. I've been on a few dates with Grant, the guy from my Spanish class. On Friday, we watched a movie and on Saturday, we had an 8-hour date that consisted of pool, shakes, running in the freezing cold from Center Street to the Maeser building, a Humor U show (hence the Maeser building), piano playing, goofing around on Facebook, and watching Sherlock. It was a fun date :) Also, before my date yesterday, Amelia, Meredith, and I toured two different apartment complexes. We'll probably tour a few more during this week so we can start finalizing our options and hopefully sign a contract soon!

So, since my last post had no pictures, I figured I had to put one in this post. Grant did take a terrible picture of us on our date, and as this is the only picture I've been in all week, I guess I have to include it:

I don't know why he decided to make such a weird face, but there we are! 

I hope everyone has a wonderful week :)

Picture-less post

I realized that I was totally lame this week and did not take a single picture! So I will just briefly recap my week and call it good. This week has felt super busy, mostly because I've started to think about and look into housing for next year. They had a housing fair in the Wilk, and though it was helpful, the amount of off-campus apartments and condos is overwhelming and I'm kind of stressed out by this looming decision. I'm planning on living with Amelia and our closest friend, Meredith, but we need to do a lot more research before coming to a decision about where to live. If anyone has advice for me about what to look for in finding a place, I would really appreciate it!

Also, this week has been strange because I was asked out on dates by 5 different guys. Yes, all in one week! I had to turn two of them down, because three of them wanted to go out with me on Friday night and I had already said yes to the first one. So on Tuesday night, I had a swing dancing date with a guy from my Spanish class, on Friday night I had a bowling date with a guy in my ward, and on Saturday night I had an art museum/ice cream/Mario Kart/movie date with a different guy in my Spanish class. They were all very fun :)

Other than that, I've just been busy with my homework, housing hunts, and hanging out with friends! I hope you have all had a great week, and sorry for the briefness and boringness of this post! I love you all! ♥

Ice Skating, movies, and other fun stuff!

It's been a great week! It was my second week of classes, and they're going really well. I don't think they'll be overly stressful, which is nice. I also found that I really enjoy my Elementary Skills & Activities class! It is from 12:00-1:50 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we spend those two hours playing elementary PE games and doing fitness stuff. It is a great workout, way fun, and we never get homework. I really enjoy it. This week we've done hula hooping, jump roping, and animal walks. My teacher always tells us to let out our inner child and not to be embarrassed!

On Friday, Amelia left for Colorado to go to her grandpa's funeral. I was worried that I would be lonely and super bored this weekend, but it has been so fun! On Friday night, I went to a Divine Comedy show at the Cannon with some friends (Divine Comedy is a funny group that does sketches, and the members of Studio C came from Divine Comedy). Afterwards, I put on pajamas and watched The Notebook in my room (because Laura was so nice to send me a package with that movie and chocolate!). While I was watching it, one of my friends (Meredith) knocked on my door and then somehow we ended up sitting in the hallway with several of our other friends (Hayley, Lauren, Camille, and Amber), talking for hours! At around midnight, we decided to finally go to bed, but I wanted to finish my movie so I stayed up until 2.

I slept in the next morning, worked on homework for most of the day, then went ice skating with my ward that evening!

 Natalie, Meredith, me and Amber:

 Meredith (she lives right across the hall from me and Amelia) and me:

 Lauren, Hannah, Lindsey, Camille, Suzanna, Jess, Natalie, Amber, and me:

After ice skating, Camille, Lauren, Meredith and I decided to go to the small Creamery by the Cannon center because they serve French toast and buttermilk syrup at 10 pm! It was delicious and only cost $2, which was a great deal. After that, we watched Monsters University together in Meredith's room.

Today, I conducted the music in sacrament meeting and ate lunch in the Cannon center with a group of girlfriends. It was really fun to talk and laugh with them! I just feel grateful that I've had so many great friends to hang out with this weekend even though Amelia is gone. It's been so fun and I love the friends I've made here! :)

Christmas Break and First Week of Winter Semester!

I have successfully finished my second first week of classes (in other words, my first week of my second semester of college). However, before that, I finished finals and then got to spend two weeks with my wonderful family for Christmas break! My finals went well and I was really happy with how my grades ended up. It was a great semester, but I was so happy to be home with my family again. It was a relaxing break and we did lots of fun things, like play Just Dance, have reading parties, play games, and just enjoy each other's company. Josh, Bob, and I also had many dance parties to "Popular Song" by Mika and Ariana Grande.

Christmas was very fun. We did our usual Christmas Eve traditions: looking at lights around town, acting out the story of Jesus' birth, playing Oink Oink and Truth or Dare, and sleeping in sleeping bags downstairs. On Christmas day, a small group of us watched the One Direction movie together after unwrapping presents. :)

Maria, Clark, Will, Rosie, and Addy came to visit us for a few days over the break and while they were visiting, we drove to Denver to see an Avalanche hockey game. It was very fun!

We also played games with them, like matching:

Here we are after breakfast on Maria's family's last day in Laramie. We made delicious crepes!

It was great to spend time with them, and we were sad to see them leave! For the rest of break, we did random things. For example, Josh, Bob, and I watched all three of the Lord of the Rings movies! They are so amazing. After the last one ended, Bob and I were emotionally overwhelmed and had to sit there for a while and process those beautifully done movies. :) Josh also went to his first dance on New Year's Eve! He danced with 22 girls and had a great time. I was also able to spend some time with friends over the break, as well as go on a date with a nice boy in Ridge View, my home ward. However, being with family was by far the highlight, as much as I love my friends. 

I came back to Provo on Sunday, January 5, after some flight delays because of crazy storms everywhere. On Monday, I went to my new classes, picked up textbooks, unpacked, did laundry, and re-settled in. The first week of classes went really well, and I think I will enjoy all of them! I've met a lot of nice people already and I'm excited for this new semester. 

On Thursday, January 9, Meredith, Amelia, and I went to the basketball game (we accidentally all wore stripes, and we thought we looked so cute!):

On Friday night, Lauren, Camille, Amelia and I went to the men's volleyball game, and on Saturday, Lauren, Camille, and I went to another basketball game! We had a great time being with friends and enjoying the athletics....ahem....not the attractive boys that play them ;) Also on Saturday, Amelia and I went to the temple to do baptisms. It was a nice way to start off the semester. Unfortunately, later that day, Amelia found out that her grandfather died, which is why she didn't come to the game with us. It's been hard for her to lose him, but she was grateful that we had gone to the temple earlier that day, as it reminded her that families are eternal and she will see him again. 

Today, I taught the Relief Society lesson with Camille (a different one than the one I went to basketball with) and it went well. We were both nervous and are relieved to be done. :) I also played the piano in sacrament meeting! There are a few new people in my ward, but it's mostly the same (except for the fact that it is missing guys who left on missions). 

I miss my family so much, but I'm excited to be back at BYU for another semester! :)