Thanksgiving Breeeeaaak!

Thanksgiving break was wonderful! Good food, good company, good weather :) It was just fantastic! We spent most of the week out at Jared's parents house and Keri, Josh and Paisley came up. It was really nice to see everybody and to get to play with my Paiser! She is such a funny kid! Thanksgiving day was spent hanging out and slowly getting dinner ready throughout the day.

 Here's Jared cutting the turkey! He doesn't like pictures so he just grimaces in most of them :) What a stud.

 The Dinner Table- all set and ready for food! Unfortunately, I was too excited to eat and I forgot to get a picture of the table full of food haha so just imagine it I guess :) It was delicious!

Georgia cooking like crazy! There was so much food for only 6 people (and a kid haha)!

Paisley just loves smiling for the camera! She is such a cutie! It was a lot of fun being able to play with her all week. I miss little kids a lot.

Keri and I went to see Breaking Dawn Part 1 the day after Thanksgiving. It was sooo good! Haha I know I may sound lame to some people, but I really do like the Twilight series. It was really fun seeing it with someone else that appreciates it :) I tried to get Jared to go with me but he said it would be better to wait for Keri. And he was right! It was fun to spend some girl time together!

Well, Thanksgiving was a success! I wrote in my journal the extended list of things I am thankful for but I ought to at least put my top 3 on here. I am thankful for my husband- he does so much for me and is always so calm and wonderful :), my family- they are always so supportive, loving and thoughtful, I couldn't get by without the wonderufl family that I have, and third is my faith- I am so grateful for the experiences in my life that have lead me closer to my Savior.

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was wonderful and you can all think of what you're most thankful for!

The Week in Review

It's almost Thanksgiving! One more day of classes then I am free for a week! Wahoo!  Here's the most recent goings on:

 Bart drove a four wheeler haha It was pretty scary/awesome! You can see that he is in his back brace and can see the top of his foot brace on the one foot and he has another on the other. He stayed in first gear and just rolled down the hill haha it was pretty awesome. I would have been way too scared to do that a month after my back surgery! Then again, four wheelers freak me out now already sooo... :D Ya, that was pretty sweet.

Jared had a project for his Outdoor Rec class yesterday. This is his group! They put on a 5K run called "Race at a Pilgrim's Pace". The runners were supposed to dress up like pilgrims but nobody did. To be fair, it was extremely windy and cold. There were 11 runners though! It was a pretty good turnout. The first one done won a $30 gift card to Lin's for Thanksgiving. I went and took pictures of the event for them to put in their presentation. It was pretty fun! While I was out, I found something for my photography project!

Isn't she a beaut? Haha for my project, I'm taking macro shots of decaying/peeling yellow things. It started out as wanting to take happy, fun yellow pictures but since it is fall, there are few happy bright colors around so I went the decaying route. I've found a lot of awesome old equipment though! Here's one of my faves from this machine.

The rust is beaded and looks really cool. I probably looked pretty funny taking close up pictures of this machine on the side of the road haha oh well! It was pretty fun and I got some good ones.

And Jared took me to "In Time" last night! I've been wanting to see that for a long time and we finally went! It was a really good movie! Maybe it's because I've been in need of a good escape but I just got so sucked into that movie, I even cried at one point! It was such a cool idea and I really enjoyed it. Kudos to Jared for taking me out :) It was just what I needed!

The rest of this week was taken up with classes, work and staring at a blank page trying to be inspired which resulted in me just getting onto pinterest and finding other projects I want to do... hmmm, I can't wait 'til I'm done with school and get to create what I want to :) Well, that was the week! I'll try to be better with posting this week since there will actually be events to report on. Happy Early Thanksgiving!

Welcome to the Family, Autumn Judy Young!

Aaaw!!! :DDDD That's my gigantic smile! She is so adorable! Her full name is Autumn Judy Young. She was born earlier today. She weighs 7 lbs 8 oz and is 19.5 inches long. What a lucky little girl! She has the best parents and the best four older sisters who are going to take such good care of her and love her so much! I'm so happy she is finally here! I haven't talked to anyone up there yet but I'm sure all went well and everyone's doing fine. I'll have more updates on it tomorrow! I'm just gonna dream of holding my sweet little niece tonight :) I can't wait to see her!

My Morning Post

I'm not sure what it was, if it was DST or the fact that Thanksgiving and it's pumpkiny gloriousness is right around the corner, but last week just felt... odd. I had artists block bad, which was covered by a poetry writing frenzy but that didn't help me with my drawing... It made things difficult since I had a big project due today but THANK GOODNESS my professor believes in 'Mercy Moments' and I now have until Dec. 5 to finish that project, along with the next project. But still, usually my writers/artists block ends with crazy amounts of creativity oozing out of my pores so hopefully my brain keeps following it's cycle.

My sister is having her baby today! I am so excited! I'm always nervous when someone's having a baby because there are so many crazy things that can happen but I just keep praying for her and I know she's going to be okay. I can't wait to meet my new little niece! The last I heard they hadn't settled on a name so I'm anticipating the Name Reveal haha it's one of my favorite things about new babies. I loooove names and everything that is attached to them. I think names are so important. So, by this afternoon I should have another niece! So much fun.

Mom is on her way up today so I get to see her for a few minutes which I'm really excited for too. I feel like it's been forever but that's because I'm used to going down there every other weekend. We haven't had the time or resources to go down for awhile which bums me out but what do you do? I'll write later tonight!

Feeling... Unfocused

Today has been full of all sorts of strange emotions. I have been craving creativity lately and wanting badly to paint and write and create but I don't seem to have any good ideas... It's kind of driving me crazy! Especially because I have projects where I have to do something in particular and I am having noooo good ideas for it but I keep having good ideas for other projects! Haha isn't that the way it goes? Well here are a couple self-portraits I took for my photography class. I played with them on befunky.com because I like the look better. Maybe I'll post the originals later :)

This is my favorite of the two. I loooove my handed down typewriter :) Thank you Grandpa! And Mom and Dad haha

And this was Mom's camera that she found in storage. Thanks for letting me have this Mom! I love old cameras soooo much! I wish I had more money to devote to collecting them because there are some awesome ones out there.

 Check out my handsome man! He just got this coat and is loving it! He's such a stud! Pardon the messy background haha we cleaned later.

I'm trying desperately to keep myself awake right now. Daylights Saving Time is kicking my trash! I wanna go to bed at like 8 o'clock! Well, I hope you all have a Happy Wiiindsday tomorrow! Tout mon amour!

Lovely Randomness

So these pictures didn't have enough story to have their own entry so I figured I'd throw them all together and share the little quips!

This is my Grandpa Seely's old typewriter that Dad brought back from Canada for me. I just love it and decided to do a painting of a typewriter.











This is my first sketch. I really liked it and my friend Rachel also really liked it so I gave it to her haha. It was pretty fun!

And this is my final project! I'm not in love with it but the colors are fun haha :)

The yummy olives we picked a little bit ago! They're sooo good and Mom gave us a whole gallon! Wahoo! Homemade/grown olives are perhaps one of the greatest things on earth, right next to pomegranates and pumpkin pie :)

Took this tonight! It has been snowing for the last few days and has been so beautiful! I wish that I could have had more time to get out and get some good pictures but we'll have snow for a quite a while longer so I'll get my chance! So much fun and I'm just loving life!

Trick or Treat, Smell My Feet!

Happy Halloween! This Halloween has been pretty dang fun, despite the fact that we didn't dress up, go trick-or-treating or even carve a pumpkin! Ha that's ok, we got to see our nieces dressed up and watched some videos and saw pictures of our other niece and nephew for Halloween and that was enough to make our Halloween holiday a success! We did get to spend the weekend at Aunt Kathy and Uncle Bruce's house in Orem, which was such a blast! It is always fun to stay with them! Especially at Halloween. Uncle Bruce is a Halloween fanatic! His house looked awesome and kind of freaked Jared and I out when we first got there, although we'd never admit it. When we drove up at about 10:00 pm, there were at least 15 people on the sidewalk outside their house pointing and looking at everything. And no wonder! Bruce is a spooky genius!

It's hard to really see everything but it was pretty awesome! He had an intercom set up too so he could talk to people outside haha it was pretty dang sweet!

Saturday morning, Jared and I went to Kneaders for breakfast! It is one of our favorite places to eat! YUM! Jared got their unlimited french toast:

and I got an egg and bacon sandwich:

They were both sooooo delicious!! I'm so glad that we finally have a Kneaders at least in St. George! Orem is so long to drive, but now that Willow and Jay are up in Provo we'll probably be up there more.

Later Saturday we went to the park by Riverwoods and cheered Mom and Aunt Kathy on at the end of their race! They ran in the Halloween Half Marathon in Orem. Their costumes were super cute! I don't remember their individual times but they both made it under 2 and a half hours.

The sign on their backs says "Sisters Finish Together". Pretty awesome! It was nippy most of the day, I wore a jacket all day which is unusual. Winter is almost here! There were a lot of people in the race with some pretty crazy costumes! There was a guy dressed as Bender the robot from Futurama and his costume was made entirely of cardboard! He ran 13 miles dressed in cardboard! Haha amazing.

Mom and Kathy in front of the Halloween Hearse!

My Marmee and me! I'm so proud of her!

After the run was over, Jared and I walked with Willow and the girls to their car. One the way there, we found this beautiful tree/bush! It's like dandelions on steroids! The girls loved it and picked little bouquets to take home. So adorable!

Isn't it beautiful?! I don't know what it is, and it's probably a weed haha but I still love it and would grow bunches of it at my house.

Later Saturday we went shopping and I went to Hobby Lobby for the first time! It is the most amazing store ever! I got a couple sketchbooks, watercolor sketchbooks, some paintbrushes, a couple adorable boxes to hold my art supplies, a Christmas stocking for each of us and Abby, and an old school metal airplane that I've always wanted haha it was really fun :)

Then we went and spent some time at the Young's and played with the kids and chatted with Willow and Jay. It was really nice! I really miss them! Those girls are such smart and creative kids I am just amazed every time I see them how much they change and grow and improve. I love them all so much!

Sunday we went to church with Willow and Jay. It was the Primary Program and the girls were amazing! They remembered their parts and joined in the singing and were just wonderful! It was so much fun to watch them. Jared and I were just beaming with pride for our little nieces and are getting more and more excited for having little ones of our own some day (not super soon yet but ya know,decently soon :D) After church we went back to Kathy's and helped with dinner and hung out.

Grandma, Uncle Don and Aunt Joan and Aunt Nan all came over for dinner too so we had a big family dinner. It was so nice of Kathy and Bruce to have everyone over! And the food was excellent, as always. We got to play with the girls some more after dinner and gave them a little Halloween gift!

Haha I thought it was too adorable to pass up! It's a Mr. Potato head for your pumpkin, I thought it might be a nice no-mess pumpkin decoration for Halloween :) I think they liked it! They went crazy unwrapping it haha then Jay went crazy stabbing holes in it with a chopstick! It was such a fun night!

Overall it was a spectacular weekend! We were really sad we had to go and are looking forward to heading back soon! It's always wonderful visiting family and since we have an amazing family it makes it that much better. Thank you everyone for such a great weekend! We love you!

Picking Olives in Overton! Yum!

This weekend we went down to Overton to visit my family. I love going home. When I walk in the house, I feel like all my troubles are gone and I can just relax and enjoy myself. And it is wonderful to be with family. There is something to be said about being close to family. It just makes life so much more enjoyable when you know that there are people who will love you no matter what happens in life and who genuinely are interested in your life. It's happy :) On Saturday morning, we went and picked olives at Dr. Fleming's house. It was such a blast! I love home grown olives! He had some pretty big trees too, for Overton, so it was nice to see we got so many!

Jared up on the ladder. We picked soooo many olives, it was glorious!!

Me looking dorky haha

The olives closeup! They kind of look like grapes but sure don't taste like 'em! We picked 7 lbs I believe.

Other than that we mostly hung out together, laughed, ate scrumptious food and recalled good times :) It was a blast! Mom has the cutest Autumn table set-

Haha I just love it! Adorable! Well, that was everything for this weekend. Tune in next time!

Fall Break Weekend!

It has been SOO nice having some days off from life's responsibility! We have actually had time to eat together and get the house a little cleaner :) Sunday morning breakfast was so much fun to make and soo yummy!

Yummy French Toast, bacon, with yogurt and frozen berries (haha they were still a  little frozen) and apple cranberry juice!

I loved time to make breakfast together and actually eat together without having to run out the door as quick as the last bite is in our mouths. Sunday passed nicely and we got a day to relax and not feel pressure to go out and do something fun because we have a day off. You know how that is, no matter how much I want to just sleep in and spend all day in bed, I can't because I don't feel like it's a good use of my time. But it is suuuch a refresher to just do it every once in a while. 

We stayed Sunday night at Jared's parents house. His dad is recovering well but getting really sick of laying in bed all day. It's always fun going to visit, we end up watching some of the strangest things on TV! The best thing we watched was the Batman TV show from the '70s! We were all practically rolling on the floor with laughter! It was an episode where The Joker stole some guys awesome surfing abilities so he could beat Batman in a surfing competition. What the?? Haha it was the most random and ridiculous thing I've ever seen! I want to own the episodes though, they were just too funny!

 Batman was super feminine and Robin looks like a 12 year old.

Ha, that image of the Joker surfing in front of a green screen is just the best thing ever!

Monday morning we went down to St. George to some fun shopping! I've been wanting to go thrifting for clothes and shoes :) A few of my favorite places to shop in St. George- Urban Renewal (We perused for over an hour and I only ended up getting 2 things but I looove them!), Ross (Always have loved Ross and we found our new bed spread there! Yay!) and Coyote Exchange! I went there for the first time Monday and LOVED it! I've been to Plato's Closet up north and in Vegas and I had heard of Buffalo Exchange in Vegas so when I saw Coyote Exchange we went by to see what it was and it was indeed a second hand exchange store! I found so many cute clothes! Here's everything we found on the trip...

I'm very happy with my finds! The shoes are Madden Girl from Ross- $15, the belt has little swans on it- vintage $6, the bird is just ADORABLE and I had to buy him! $5, and all the clothes from Coyote Exchange.

I just love my bird. I don't know why, but he is my favorite thing I've bought in awhile.

All my clothes. Pretty stoked!

I'm wanting to dress more feminine so this shopping trip was perfectly timed! I found some really cute, girly things that I am really excited to wear! 

 Our new bed spread! I just love it! And it's reversible haha I always thought reversible things were just going to be super chintzy but it is actually incredibly warm and very soft :) I love having a nice bed spread. 

Well other than that we just hung out, ate food and enjoyed some breathing time! Wonderful!

I DID IT!!

I beat my fear! At 8 o'clock this morning, Jared and I headed out to T-Bird Gardens, a place by the golf course in Cedar City with a bunch of big red rocks ya know? So ya we met up with our class out there and started off slow. We did just 20-25 foot high boulders for a little bit then practiced making anchors. I thought that the first time I walked off backwards I would be terrrrrified, but I wasn't! I was more nervous about tipping over when I got to the top of the rock haha.

 We're so legit! It was a long day and our hands were streaked with black rope marks but it was soo worth it! Hopefully we'll be able to get back out soon! I'm so excited I finally got back on the horse, 5 years later haha :) Better now than never!

Beating My Fears

So this one might start out a little negative but I promise it will end happy. I have just encountered so many ornery and rude people today that it astounds me. I don't know if it's because I have really been trying to focus on being a peaceful person recently but other people's negativity just hurts me. I feel like the world has become so extremely desensitized to other people's feelings. Today I heard someone just snap at another person because they didn't know the rules of something. Ignorance is no reason to snap at someone. Really, there is no reason to ever snap at anyone. Impatience is just anger in a different form. I must know a lot of people with pent up anger issues because I am astounded at how many of them just let negativity brew inside of them.

Okay, being honest, yes I was once one of those people. But I recognized it, hated it, and changed it. I don't understand how people don't see how unhappy they really are. I wonder sometimes what kind of effect I have on other people. Are people happier after an encounter with me? Discouraged? Enlightened? Depressed? I want to have a positive effect on people, but in order to do that, I must be positive. I spoke with someone today, just asking how they were, they replied with an indifferent and exhausted "great" without even looking at me. I figured they were having a bad day and decided to just leave them alone (for this person, it's better that way). Then not two minutes later another person walked by my friend and they asked that other person how they were and yadda ya for a few minutes... Is it me? Did they just not want to talk to me? Or am I close enough that they know they don't have to put on a show and can say how they really feel? I was left befuddled. I didn't dwell on it too long because that will just get me down but it really got me thinking. Do I make the world and the people in it better? Do I contribute, even just a little bit, every day to the happiness of society? Something to think about.

Now onto something light and friendly :) It is Fall Break this weekend and I am extremely excited! Jared and I are going canyoneering with our Canyoneering class tomorrow for most of the day and I am terrified/stoked. The terrified part comes in part because I broke my back falling off a cliff similar to the ones I will be walking off backwards tomorrow, and partly because, well, I'm going to be walking off a cliff backwards. :) But I am incredibly excited to beat this fear of heights that I have carried around with me for 5 years. I have no doubt I will probably feel nauseous and dizzy until I'm out on the wall but it is going to be worth it. I can't wait for the triumphant feeling of beating a fear into the ground and never letting it back in my life.

Photo courtesy of pinterest.com

This is my motto for the week and I am going to be as curious as I can be! I'm really excited to have a break and maybe get caught up some crafty projects and just play around with fun ideas :) I am going to try thrifting for shoes. A girl in my art class always has the most adorable shoes and she's found them all at thrift stores here in town! So I am determined to at least go searching. It is going to be an adventure, and I could really use an adventure to get my mind off of school ;)

A Short Observation

I haven't watched a new movie in quite awhile. If you know me, you know that I am a huge movie buff and pretty much watch anything new that comes out on Redbox in the first week that it comes out. So I didn't have much time for a movie tonight but I thought I would check Redbox because Jared is sick and thought it might cheer him up. Do you know what I found??

X-Men First Class is out. Holy moly I was so excited! The X-Men  are my favorite superheroes and I saw First Class in theatres and just loved it! So I absolutely had to get it :) I just love this movie.

Other than that the day's been pretty uneventful... Midterms are almost over, so that's a relief! Projects are all due Friday and I will have 4 days of doing whatever I want! Yay! Well, that's all I have today. I'm too tired to think up much else :) Bonne Nuit!

October Surprise!

Whew! What a day! This is what I woke up to...

SNOW! Well, not very much of it, but still! It is amazing to me that I could be wearing shorts last week and be bundled in a coat, hat and scarf (and still freezing) today. I do love fall though, don't get me wrong. I just wasn't expecting winter to creep in so quickly! I was born and raised in a small town in Southern Nevada. Therefore I was not raised in snow or even very chilly weather. My idea of winter was a light jacket with my sandals. But I am a huuuge fan of winter clothes!!

Scarves and hats are my weaknesses. I seriously own probably 15 scarves and at least that many hats, if not more. I just loooove them! I am- excited for chilly weather, hot chocolate with double chocolate Milano's, and snuggling with my hubby while it howls and snows outside :) It is going to be a good winter! I can feel it!

Introductions- Always say Hello, not Hi, it's more inviting!

Hello! And welcome to my newest and hopefully longest lasting blog! I have realized over the last couple months that for a Creative Writing major, I have not written hardly anything since May. I was devastated once I realized it and upon telling Jared that I thought I ought to start writing again he said, "That'll be good, maybe you'll be less stressed out then." Well ain't that the truth! And as fate would have it, I am taking a stress management course in which we have to choose one positive behavior that will help us reduce our stress. Voila! Journaling was chosen but since I want to add photos to, to give my camera some practice outside of class, I figured a blog would be the best medium of choice. 

I want this blog to be full of positive and uplifting events, ideas and comments. There will be sad moments, as there are in life, but that can't be helped and we will just laugh our way through them! It may take me a few tries at blogging to really get the hang of it so I apologize in advance to anyone who may stumble upon this rough work of art :)

Let me just update a little, at least on the current goings-on. At the moment, Jared and I are finishing up our final year of college- Wahoo! He is getting his BS in Integrated Engineering with a Minor in Outdoor Recreation, Parks and Tourism and I am getting my BA in English: Creative Writing with a Minor is Photography. They may sound like strange combinations, but trust me, we've got big plans for the future! We are currently pretty busy with work, school, and visiting Jared's dad in the hospital. A week ago he fell off a ladder and broke his back and shattered both of his heels. It was horrific. He had surgery on his first heel yesterday and his second today and hopefully, if all goes well, no surgery will have to be done on his back. If any of you knew, I broke my back in a similar fashion although I did have to have surgery, about 5 years ago. Seeing him go through all of this is an intense flashback that never seems to leave my head. We pray for him throughout the day and he continues to get better so we just keep praying! (See, that was the serious part, but it's over now, you can breathe easy again) So without much time for playing, and winter right around the corner, I have decided to do more writing because it is portable and all in my head anyway! 

I've always been wary of blogs, sharing information about yourself and your life to complete strangers? It seems way too New Age for my old soul but I am going to try it and hopefully will not feel too exposed. Who knows, maybe some day I'll just start sharing secrets right and left? One thing I have learned in life- the future will astound you. I do things now I never dreamed of doing, and my dreams of yesterday seem not worth doing today. It's funny how things turn around. 

Since I only had this idea at the end of the day, I will end with one of my favorite pictures I have taken for my photography class this semester.

I took this in Kanarraville, UT. I was shooting some horses grazing and this one walked right up to me and just stared at me like, "what? You gonna pay me for modeling for you?" So I pulled some grass that was out of his reach and paid him. Hey, fair is fair. My favorite part of the photo is probably his white eyelashes. So cool.

Well thanks for reading! Hopefully there will be more soon and I will have more interesting things to say! Bonne Nuit!