Hello Life and its Many Changes!!!

Life has officially taken hold and change has definitely been in the air. I can officially say I have never experienced as much change in my life as I have in the past 4 months. Now I am not talking about minuscule changes I am talking multiple life altering changes all occurring at once. Starting with Thanksgiving Break! Which is the most exciting change of all.. I am engaged and officially getting married on March 20, 2010 in the Utah Logan Temple!!!!! Jimbo purposed while we were in Divide, Colorado surprising his parents for Thanksgiving! We arrived on Tuesday night and Jim's Dad hide us in the basement so we could surprise the family in the morning. It was great to see everyone's responses one on one as they found out that we were there. Later on that day we went for a walk around Jim's neighborhood where he purposed! Day full of surprises and definitely one of the bests day ever!



Life altering change number two: On December 19, 2009 I officially graduated with a Bachelor's in social work from BYU-Idaho. It took 4 1/2ish long years but I finally finished. Towards the end I had a brief moment with so much going on and a really tricky abnormal psychology were I thought
I wasn't going to make it, but I did and I am so grateful. All that is left is to get licensed in the state of Idaho as an official social worker which involves a $60 application fee and a nice $263 license fee, and a brutal 170 question test. I am scheduled to take the test March 8th. I am way nervous but hopefully will have good news!

Graduating leads into my next change. The day of graduation I received my first real grown up person job. I have been working at Club Inc. in Idaho Falls since the 1st week of January as a housing case manager. Club Inc. is an organization that focuses in treatment for those with mental illness and substance abuse. I specifically am working with the housing program and those that would be homeless otherwise. There are brief moments that make me realize why I went into social work and there are already moments that make me think I must be completely crazy. The job will be challenging and already has been but I am beyond grateful to be working and having a job.

The wedding plans are coming swimmingly. We get really excited when we get to mark something off the to do list. The nicest thing is the to do list isn't to awfully long since we aren't doing anything to extravagant. The plan is to get married in the Logan Utah Temple with a small luncheon after for parents and siblings and I wouldn't imagine it being any other way!

As of plans after the wedding sadly we will be remaining in Rexburg for a little while longer but as soon as Jim finishes school we will escape as fast as possible to Colorado. For the time being we have officially placed a deposit on our first apartment. Its a nice little two bedroom apartment and I get to move in March 1st and will then wait patiently til Jimbo gets join me on the 20th.

Life is definitely crazy at the moment and March will be a way crazy month with my bridal shower on the 6th, licensure test on the 8th, receive my endowments on the 13th, my birthday on the 14th and then married on the 20th plus maintaining my full time job. Although crazy busy I am excited for it all. If there is one thing I have learned is life can change in an instance and its important to appreciate life as you experience it before life passes you by.

Europe has Come and Gone!

It is official I have been back from Europe A little over a month. I am back in school and already almost half way through my last semester in College. Europe was beyond amazing! Thinking back on everything I got to experience in the two weeks in Europe it all feels like a distant dream. Everything went very smoothly. I think the only real hitch was us forgetting our power converter in one of our Hostels, but we even were able to get it back. It just meant no internet or straightening my hair for a couple days and a little extra traveling. Other then that we were super lucky.

Here is a really brief recap of the funnest Europe trip ever!!!
We stayed in the Czech Republic for the full two weeks. The main cities: Prague, Plzen, Olomouc, and Zlin. We went to a lot of smaller cities along the way, which I can say were by far my favorite. The smaller cities had less tourists, slower pace, and were really just beautiful. We stayed in Hostels for almost the entire time, with the exception of a couple days in Plzen when we got the chance to stay with Sister Markova, a member that Jimbo knew when he was on his mission, which was a great experience being able to stay with someone that was from there, plus she was the only . The hostels were not as bad as I thought they were going to be. Besides a not so good experience with some mystery bugs (bed bugs... Yuck!!!) and a one night stay at a really ghetto hostel, it was overall really fun.

We really got to do a lot of things: seeing castles, going to the zoo: hold an owl, attend a baptism, go to a street fair in Plzen, visit Charles Bridge, visit crystal factory town, ride on trains, and whole bunch more (Which I would write if I wasn't so lazy). Either way Europe was great and I hope that one day I will get the chance to go back there.

EUROPE!!!!

It is official I leave for Europe on August 15, 2o09. The plane ticket has already been bought and I am officially waiting for my passport to come in the mail but I am for sure going. I am so excited! I never thought that I would ever get this chance and now look at me I can't contain my excitment and I am counting down the days til I leave...YAY!

The trip may seem pretty out of no where but it originated with my friend Jimbo here up at BYU-Idaho. He served his mission in the Czech Republic and wanted to go back. I just so happen to think it was a great idea and decided to join him.

The Details:
We don't have the agenda set in stone yet but the plan is to fly into Prague, Czech Republic on the 15th of August We will possibly be staying with some of church members he knew from his mission, all the rest of the time we will stay in hostels in Czech Republic or possibly Germany. The majority of our stay we will be site seeing the Czech Republic but we have plans to venture out to Germany: to see the Berlin Wall and the Temple; Austria: because its supposed to be beautiful; and Poland: to see a concentration camp thing that I don't remember the name of. I will know more exact details as it gets closer and we sit and plan our trip more in depth.

Tea Party Protest

On tax day April 15th: Me, Jimbo, Paul, Lacey, and Ashley all went to Boise, Idaho to participate in the Tea Party Protest. The main idea of the protest was against Governments lack of skills when it comes to spending...example: the tax rebates. Although other issues were mentioned as well like gun control, religion, and that kind of stuff.

It was a five hour drive to Boise in rain/snow, but we made it their alive no problem. We joined the protest at a park somewhere in Boise. Then marched to the capital with our home-made protest signs. :)

The day was filled with a lot of speakers, and alot of yelling on our part! Which was really fun. At one point it was announced that there was an estimated 3,000 people in attendance at the park. There was a lot of police everywhere and we even got a nifty police escort as we marched to the capital. I even got flipped off on our way back to the park as we were walking to our car, which was hilarious needless to say.

Girls Night Out- Wendover Trip

This last weekend my family had a Girls night out where we all went to Wendover for the weekend. The roads on the way up were pretty crazy with some major wind and dust action going on but the trip up wasn't to bad at all. We went to all of the Casinos and had a lot of fun, some of us did a lot of drinking, some a lot of gambling, and some both.






On our last day in Wendover the power went out throughout Wendover. What a place to be in, in a power outage. It was actually pretty funny at least for me who didn't have any money stuck in a slot machine. The whole town was going crazy really: they couldn't gamble because the genterators failed and the casinos were completed black, the gas pumps were down so getting gas was out of the question, people even had trouble getting into hotel rooms because the doors were electronic. Thank goodness we had filled up on gas before we left, checked out before the power went out, and lost all our money the night before or we would have been stuck there longer then we wanted. All in all though it was kinda cool seeing how the Casinos looked without any lights. We all came home with our pockets a little lighter, which is the nice way of saying we just wasted a lot of money on some pretty machines that make cool coin noises when you push a botton but all in all even with all of the drama it was fun and we all enjoyed a much needed break from our everyday hectic lives.

Weekend in Rexburg!

Once again I had to make the five hour ride on the shuttle back to the Burg for a one hour mandatory meeting for my internship. It was kinda frustrating to make such a long trip for such a short meeting, but it was good to see old friends.

So far the trip has been fun. On Friday it was my roomate Christie's 21st birthday. We went to Fort Hall Casino, we were the youngest ones in the entire Casino, and came out a whole 27 cents ahead. We couldn't resist taking a picture with the buffalo outside the Casino...two random guys took our picture for us.

School Break

At the moment my life requires me to move every 4-8 months, as I travel between Utah and Idaho to go to school. I am excited to say that as of December 2009 this will no longer be the case. I will finally graduate with a bachelors in Social Work... YAY! It has been a long three years.
Anyways as of right now I am in Utah until April 19 ish. Then it will be back to Rexburg again for the final time.... Wow that is kinda crazy saying that.

I have been in Utah since December 08. Trying to keep busy with a numerous of things so I don't go crazy.


We had a chance to go bowling for Daniels B-day. It was actually a lot of fun. Although I have taken two classes in Bowling I still majorly stink at playing... you would think I am supposed to get better but nope...still suck!
Daniel might be better at bowling then me but I can still kick his butt when push comes to shove:) Even though I lost it was still a lot of fun.