YAY For Halloween!

I love Halloween! It's right up there as one of my favorite holidays along with Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my Birthday (yes it counts).We had our ward Halloween party this past Saturday. It was soooo much fun! My two roommates, my brother, and myself went as care bears. The fact that my brother went as grumpy bear really made the group terrific. We even won the "most creative costume" award. I made felt tummies for us all and cute little ears. And then don't forget the trademark hearts on the hip. It was a very exciting evening. The only thing that could have made it better was if my roommate Shiloh could have come with us. Then we could have had a Funshine bear. :)
Well, here are some pictures for you to check out.

I was Bedtime Bear.

Here's Grumpy Bear...but doesn't look so grumpy.

Ah, that's better.
(He's grumpy cause his ear is falling off.)

There was also Good Luck Bear (Mary) and
Tender Heart Bear (Katherine).

Syndrome (From the movie The Incredibles)

Awww...my Hero!...I mean, ugh, my villain.

Scary Eyes! (This picture is worth zooming in on.)

Decorating Cupcakes...Yum!

We thought this was the happiest picture on earth...I mean a Care Bear and Mr. Rogers! So much joy and happiness there. Enough to make you sick. Haha

Opposites Attract :) This is my good friend, Matt. But I almost didn't recognize him, he looked really scary!

Go team!!!

The nightmare before Christmas
made a pretty awesome costume.

Water, Fire, Wind, and Earth

Taking a shower

A funny Leprecon and the a big happy Bunny.

We got to carve pumpkins too!









And I won the cupcake decorating contest.
I used a chocolate cupcake to make a bat on top of a tombstone.





Well, that's all for now. We'll see what costume I can come up with for this Wednesday. I love Halloween!!And for anyone that is interested a Bedtime Bear costume is probably the most comfortable costume ever. (I felt like I was wearing pj's all night and I wanted to cuddle up and take a nap. Plus I got to wear slippers!)

A Perfect Moment

So, I want to tell you about a little experience I had last night. And to preface this story I would like to say that these circumstances may seem small and inconsequential, but for me, at the time, it felt like everything fell into place and happened like it should.

Tender little mercies.

Last night my ward had a Temple trip that I attended. There were so many people there that between the five of us ladies that drove up in my car, two of us made it into one session while the other three had to wait for the next. So, afterward I spent a lot of time sitting and waiting on my four passengers to come down ready to go. After about half and hour of waiting I saw my friend Dallin. He sat down to chat for a bit and found out I was waiting on my friends. He then volunteered to give the girls a ride home if I wanted to go ahead and leave. I had guest coming to my house at 10 and it was about 20 minutes till at this point. I told him I had 20 minutes and should be fine but then while I was sitting there I began to think that if I left now I could go see Monte for a brief moment before I had to meet my friends and I had not seen him at all that day and of course really wanted to. But I felt bad leaving the girls to go find a boy. Dallin then reiterated his previous proposal to give the girls a ride home for me. I took him up on it and left.

I was leaving the parking lot when I saw a car on the side of the road with it's hood up and three people, a young lady, a gentleman, and a very old woman standing near the vehicle. I thought possibly they needed to jump their car or something. As I got closer, instead of just driving by like I normally would do when it's late at night and I'm alone in my car, I rolled down the passenger window and asked them if they needed help. As I was doing this I thought to myself, Why am I doing this...I don't have a cell phone to call for help...I don't have jumper cables...in fact I'm in a rental car I don't even know much about...how can I possibly help them...why am I offering to do so. Then the old woman explained to me that these two had just been in a little accident (at this point I noticed the other car and the bumper laying on the ground) and that she (the old woman) was being given a ride home by the young women in the accident. She went on to say, however, that she had been at the Temple all evening but had forgotten to bring her medicine and that she was feeling faint and really worried about getting home to take her medicine. I told her to hop in and I would give her a ride.

She did so and then told me that she lived in Orem across the street from the Walmart. Oh, I thought to myself, that's a good ways out there from where we were in Provo and there is definitely no way I would be able to see Monte this evening and I would probably be late meeting my friends. But this old lady needed to get home to take her medicine...it was right thing to do...so even if I would not get to see Monte today I was going to drive her home!

We started out towards the Walmart in Orem. She talked to me about her life and about art. She was a really interesting woman. Her grandson was studying art and getting his masters in ceramics. Things were pleasant. At one point there was a lull in the conversation and I slowed down to a stop in a long row of cars at a stoplight nearing Walmart. I looked in front of me and I started laughing. The old woman asked me what was funny. I told her. "I know that car in front of us...that's my boyfriend's car...Go Figure." I then caught Monte's eye when he looked in his rear view mirror and I waved. He smiled and waved back. I continued to follow Monte the rest of the way to Walmart cause apparently that's where he was headed and I was headed just across the street from there. He told me later, he was confused why I was following and because it was dark he did not see the elderly woman in the passenger seat beside me.

So, I took the old woman home and she thanked me profusely and then added..."he probably went to Walmart...you should go fine him...goodluck". We both got a big laugh out of that. And I went on my way. And I decided to turn into the Walmart parking lot, as silly as that sounds, cause it's a big place and there is no way I could find Monte...but low and behold he pulled up to the parking space next to me. I got out. We had a big laugh. I told what had happened and that I had not been stalking him. Haha. He gave me a hug. And then he went to Walmart and I went home to meet my friends.

As I was driving home, I thought to myself how perfectly all that had worked out. I wanted to see Monte and if I had gone straight home I would have missed him but because I did what I was supposed to do I was able to see him anyhow. Everything fell into place.

If Dallin had not offered right then to give the girls a ride home then I would not have been right there when the old lady needed a ride and if I had not followed the prompting I had to stop and offer help right then even though that was totally out of character for me then I would not have been right there at the stoplight when Monte was there and I would not been able to see him.

I felt blessed. And I felt happy for helping someone. And I felt, as sappy as it may sound, that the Lord blessed me for doing what needed to be done and that he had orchestrated the entire events of the evening so that in the end everyone was taken care of. A small train of events. And huge boost of happiness and love. And that's what I wanted to share with you all. Take care my friends.

I'm so happy!
That's all. I hope you all are having a great week.
:)

Blog Number 50!
Let's celebrate. . . . . Okay, too tired, maybe next time.

. . .

Well, it's Saturday and today is a BYU home football game. I can't tell how excited I am about that...and how not excited about the fact that the sun from yesterday is gone and it looks bitterly cold and rainy outside. Oh well. True fans will still be at the game. I hope I can scream and cheer. My throat feels terribly soar...probably from last night's activity.


I went to a haunted forest. SCAREY! I thought to myself...I haven't been to a haunted house since I was 17 (8 years ago) and possibly I won't be as scared as I was then. Well...the haunted forest was like walking through every scarey movie ever made and ten haunted houses put together. I will never go to one of those again. I started off laughing from fear and then it turned into quiet whimpering and then I was screaming and it was not much fun anymore. Not much...maybe just a little.

I was with Monte. That part was fun. And the fact that he was such a "man". By that, I mean, when he saw how afraid I was he did everything he could to protect me. Human body shield. He would put his hand up to the monsters, that's enough, and the other arm was wrapped securely around me. I don't like being scared. I will not go back to the haunted forest. But oh how I love being protected. Strange how the moments when I feel the weakest, when I feel like such a "girl", could be the most special. It was just a fake haunted forest. But it was real fear. And it was a real moment. He was great. And I am so happy. Go figure.

Hey Friends!

Thought I'd drop you all a little letter to let you know what's going on in my life. Well...Life is extremely terrific right now. That's pretty much the gist of it all. The End. :)

Top ten reasons why life is so good:

10. We have a pet snake named Elphaba and she's pretty.
9. My family is doing well - brother is happy - dad got a promotion - and mom is healthy enough to go back to work.
8. There's a home football game this weekend. Yeah!
7. My volleyball team has won our last 4 tournament games. (Another game tonight:)
6. My roommates and I are planning some really awesome Halloween costumes!
5. My calling at church gives me lots of chances to serve and that fills me with joy.
4. Being graduated I have no homework so instead I get to read lots of books I've been putting on hold. (Has anyone read "The Princess and the Goblins"? It's a children's book but really interesting.)
3. I'm working, and I love my job at the art gallery and giclee printing shop.
2. I get to go to the Temple to do family history and learn and feel close to the Lord.
1. And I met someone...go figure...after being single for more than 3 and half years...I met someone that's really wonderful...some how he just appeared when I least expected it and he's terrific!

Life is good. I'm trying not to get too excited about anything. But life is very good. And that is nice. I've enjoyed all your emails and comments and I love reading your blogs too. My friends, you make me happy and I wish you all wonderful, uplifting lives.

Take care my friends.
Love always
~ME

Where did my Southern Charm go?

I just took an online quiz and officially found out that I do not have an accent, haha, according to the response below...the truth is that I come from a very small southern town about 3 hours from Charleston or anything big enough to be worth anything. But seeing as how I've lived in Utah for 7 years now maybe I've confused everything.
My favorite, however, is that it says I have a good voice for Television. That's good, right? Generally people on TV (generally) sound intelligent. That's all I really ever wanted. :)

Here's my results:
(If you would like to try it yourself there's 13 quick questions just click here.)



What American accent do you have?

Your Result: The Midland

You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.

Today was good. I woke up happy. I thought I had just had a very nice dream about a date with a boy. It took a good ten minutes or so for me to realize that I was not remembering a dream but an actual date I had the night before. It was late when we got home and I was sleepy so it's a bit of a blur from the end of the night to the morning. But still, I woke up just feeling happy. It's nice to know that someone else can still make you feel that way.

It had been a really fun evening.

The reason I was woken up this morning was not my alarm either. That was nice. Instead my roommate brought a letter in for me that was left at the door. It was a letter from a neighbor friend of mine. I had written a letter to tell her what a great job she had done planning a particular activity and what a super person she was. Not a big deal. But she wrote me back the most heartfelt letter about how much it had meant to her and how lonely she had been feeling. I had no idea that she had felt that way. I was so happy I followed that prompting...that little inkling in my mind to write her that letter.

It was a very good morning.

At work I discovered how much I love working in an art gallery. I was truly enjoying myself. I even smiled while doing some of the more mundane tasks that I normally do at work. I helped set up an art show and met with the artist. She was a fun, very expressive woman. I went back later after work to attend her artist reception. They had wonderful chocolate truffles and the artist was so friendly to me. It felt funny to make friends with someone that I will probably never see again. Then again...the art world is smaller than I probably think it is so we could cross paths again.

It was a pleasant afternoon.

It rained all day...but I didn't mind. After the art reception I went out to eat with some good old friends of mine. It made me extremely happy to spend time with the two of them again. They are a hilarious sibling pair, and I was quite entertained. We all ended up watching Funniest Home Video's 300th show together with my roommates. There was a lot of laughing going on. I felt so wonderful. I love to laugh. And I love friends. And I love that tomorrow is conference weekend and will be wonderful too.

It was a really great evening.

Yeah, so there is not much to this blog this evening. I was just so pleasantly happy that I needed to do something before I went to bed. So many little things can come together to make the most perfect day. And just so you know, the picture at the beginning of the blog is a picture I took while on my eleven hour hike up and down Mt. Timpanogos. I thought...this is how I would picture a pleasantly perfect day. So, there you go. :) Take care my friends.