family+friends+food+football = :)

This week ended up being superb. Yesterday was my 19th birthday, and I feel so privileged to have such an incredible family and friends.

On Wednesday my dad carried on a tradition of taking the son/daughter having a birthday out somewhere the night before their birthday. He traveled down to Provo that night and picked me up from my dorm. We were going to go to Olive Garden since I was craving Italian food, but then he said, "Why don't we get real Italian food? We googled restaurants in the area that are not chain-linked, and found one that received good reviews. We ended up going to a small, but fantastic restaurant named La Dolce Vita owned by a family that had lived in Napoli for a while. It was at the very end of a small road so not many people know about it. Mama mia the food was spectacular! I was able to try minestrone soup, cannellone (very much like a rolled up lasagna,and the noodles were homemade), and Italian soda (who knows if it really exists in Italy, but it was sooo good!) My dad and I felt as if we ate an elephant by the end of the night. 

Peach Italian Soda

My birthday was incredible on Thursday. In between my classes, my mom decided to drive down to Provo to take me to my absolute favorite restaurant-Tucanos!! We enjoyed a delicious salad bar and unlimited meat. Oh, and you know that humiliating feeling you get when the servers come up to you with instruments while they sing? Yep that happened. They came right up to our table playing bongos and singing loudly, and handed me a tambourine to shake. At least when it's your birthday they give you a dessert.

Once again, I was as full as ever, but I love my parents so much. It was very thoughtful of them to come down to Provo to wish me a happy birthday and take me out for a treat :) When I came home after some study time, girls from my ward were there to wish me a happy birthday with a  few treats. And after I came home from my 7 o clock class later that night, my fhe family was there making cards and had a chocolate cake that we all enjoyed. I know I just talked a lot about food, but nobody can argue that food is just so good! But it really was such an incredible birthday and I cannot even express my gratitude enough for such wonderful friends and family around.

As for tonight, BYU won against Utah State, and we were able to storm the field after. This weekend I am headed back to my good hometown to watch General Conference, which will most likely turn into another blog post on here. It's been grand and that's all for now :) 

What the September??!

Since when is September cold season? For some reason a whole bunch of sickness has flown around, and I'll admit I started to fear for what may come later this fall and in the winter.
Which is why I have already started to:

Use hand sanitizer every couple of minutes
Stock up on yogurt for the probiotics
Set a goal of eventually doing 3 treatments a day, and keep up with active cycles in between each 10 minutes
Set a goal to get more sleep
Run more often every week (I haven't been keeping up with exercise)
Taking in more vitamin C every day
Not touch my face so germs don't spread
And have my nurse and pharmacy on my contact list

Yes, This is what happens when a cf girl hears sniffles everywhere, blowing noses, coughing, and much more. I feel for those who are sick but am praying I don't end up in the hospital this fall or winter. This morning I read a scripture I had posted on my bulletin board earlier-Joshua 1:9:
Be strong and of a good courage, be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord God is with thee withersoever thou goest.
It was a simple answer. By reading this I was given the comfort and assurance that everything will be ok. There may be hard times coming, but it will only be temporary and the Lord will help out as long as I do my part. This can apply to anyone, so as long as we try our hardest, the Lord can help us when we need him.

It's been 5 years

Sept 17-the 5 year mark.
A day to remember the good times we had, whether it was dancing around in your basement to "I drove all night" by Celine Dion. There were times I would show up at your door and we would work on a craft or eat junk food until we about puked.
And then there was Beehive Camp when all the girls stayed in tents, but we stayed in a luxurious cabin, and we believed that were rattle snakes in the bushes in the back
I won't forget the time you made Alicia and I believe your elevator really shut down, so there we were, eating Doritos in your pitch black elevator for 2 hours, until you told us it never broke down...
And then we would play on the XBOX
And have debates over which was better-Harry Potter or A Series of Unfortunate Events
The times we talked about our trials and helped each other smile
And the many more times, but during these past 5 years you still have been one of the best friends I could ask for as I have felt your presence during hard times in my life.
Time has gone by and I have moved on, and I am definitely not the same person I was, but looking back at it, a lot of it was because of your influence in my life.
Shanna I still wear your necklace you gave me on my birthday that says Smile, which was the song you were known to sing.

So I am amazed how fast time has flown by. I am loving life but I still think of you Shanna and you will always be remembered :)

Love, Rach

Well, it is school after all

Lately I have realized that there really isn't much to write about while being in college. A lot of times college life pretty much looks and feels like this:

                                          

Yes there is a lot of work to do, with many trips to the library or quiet places while studying for classes. On the other hand, college can have moments like this:

Like watching football games. I am very excited for our first home game this Saturday-against Utah! It's going to be epic

 And then there are random dance parties, like if there are 6 guys in your ward who have one in their living room, where you can jump up and down to songs by Justin Bieber, Michael Jackson, Cascada, and more. There were strobe lights and music was blaring while a few girls and I ran down the hallways, knocking on doors and telling people to come. Unfortunately an RA came in later that night, glaring as it fell dead silent, and he said it had to end because students were outside the room in the hallway and the guys couldn't have their dining table standing up to hang a decoration on it. But at least we had a kick awesome time! (Sure, you may laugh because that's how we have parties at BYU) :)

Not to mention that on Monday, our ward got together at one of our leader's homes for a combined FHE activity. We were able to play volleyball and chicken (I've had bruises all week and our bishop was saying he was stiff as a board afterwards) in the pool, enjoyed soft serve ice cream while in a hot tub where the water changed colors, and roasted smokes over a fire as we got to know each other. It is a fantastic ward and it definitely wasn't a normal FHE activity :)

College is a lot of work (I promise) but it can also be fun! That's all for now folks

The life of a college girl

I guess I haven't posted in a while, huh? College has been great! It's definitely had its rough areas, though. I've learned that it requires reading many chapters a day and homework assignments that can be thrown at you before you know it. I am hoping that I will have time to also read over my notes and not just the 10-20 page chapters for each class every day. I am usually doing my vest treatment (that means I am shaking in a blue vest haha) while reading the small text in the Book of Mormon, which we are having to finish half of it by this Tuesday! Yikes that's not much time at all! But it's been great and I have learned so much from reading it. I love this precious book with all my heart and wish I had more time during this assignment to read half of it in two weeks so I could throughly study it. I may have mentioned this before, but I always have more energy every day that I read my Book of Mormon in the morning. And if I don't, they usually end up being worse days and I feel as if I am dragging my feet more.

Along with studying, I am having to remind myself to keep up with exercise. Yes, there are the many stairs to climb around campus, but it felt so good to go running last Saturday and this Wednesday before class. And not to mention I this last Sunday I was called to be 1st counselor for our Relief Society. I am so grateful that I have the chance to get to serve and get to know the girls in my ward and am loving my calling so far :)

Other than all of the fiasco for college life, I have learned the importance of having fun! I learned that your day can feel so imbalanced without more laughter or simple fun every day. It made me think of a quote by Mary Poppins "In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and snap! The job's a game!" Yes we wish this would always be the case but it's true that you need to have fun every day

On top of all this, here are a few highlights from the week:

I was able to go home over the weekend for labor day with Kara and Kasey. I enjoyed seeing my family and relaxing. My grandpa still didn't stop with his jokes and my grandma didn't stop offering food. Same as always :)

And on Monday I relaxed, did some homework, and then was able to go on a hike with my daddy. We decided to take a short hike, but ended up going for a little bit longer on a path that we discovered. It was beautiful! We are so grateful to be so close to the mountains

It was then time to go back to school. When I was in Book of Mormon class on Tuesday, I looked across the row and my jaw dropped. One of my best friends from my childhood in Arlington was sitting there! I couldn't focus as well during the rest of class because I knew it was her. She came up to me and asked if I was Rachel, and I asked if it was her, and it sure was! We caught up a little bit and it was weird because we hadn't seen each other in so long but it was really neat!!

Later in the week on Thursday, I was thrilled because I was able to help Kasey propose to my cousin Kara. He took her on a scavenger hunt so I was dropped off to I awkwardly sat on a bench at Trafalga with a rose and letter for Kara from Kasey. She finally came after being lost and I gave it to her. We got lost on the way back to BYU, but eventually made it. I walked back to my dorm as she continued with the clues. I will just say that I am soooo happy for her! (I love you Kara!)

So tonight I went with a couple of girls to a day care with children with disabilities. Haha yes it was a little chaotic as most of them had down syndrome or severe autism, but we had a lot of fun bouncing around in a bounce house, jumping around outside, and keeping an eye on them for a few hours. Yes most of the pics are blurry, but that's only because we were moving around a lot. They were so cute and we couldn't stop laughing because their smiles are contagious

First Day

A few tid bits on the first day:
-I learned that BYU students are everywhere on campus. I was hoping there would be some places for peace and quiet, but nope.
-And I learned that getting to classes doesn't take as long as you think, but some you have to almost run to and squeeze through people as you have 10 minutes between each class.

But other than it being very overwhelming at first, I was able to get to my classes. I believe there was a big note saying "FRESHMAN" written across my forehead because I looked like a deer in the headlights at first. The day started out with getting up and ready and heading off to physical science, and after that I rushed across campus to go to a class just for freshman called "surviving and thriving at BYU". I signed up for it because I needed 2 more credits to keep a scholarship. I did not think I would like it very much, but right as I walked in I decided it was the coolest class! I hadn't met the teacher before but she greeted me with a friendly "Hey Rachel!"The classroom was as small as a high school one (maybe even smaller) with about 18-20 students. Everyone was chatting and getting to know each other. The teacher started out the class by handing out papers telling about the class, and then she played a few youtube videos, two of which were already on my top ten (the mouse and cheese commercial and what old people do for fun). They were great! We had a small class discussion and she started off with tips about college and described a few assignments. You may ask what those assignments are like? Well, there is one that is required where you attend activities such as football games, go to restaurants, devotionals, and much more with different people every time. Right after the class a few students decided to go to In and Out for an assignment. How legit is that?!

After that class I decided to eat some lunch during my hour break. I felt awkward walking into the Wilk not knowing anyone, so I sat down to 2 random guys as we casually chatted haha

Then came American Heritage. I was glad that I saw a few people from my ward, Y Group from orientation, and Brighton. It wasn't as large of a class as I expected but was still large. Our professor seems awesome, I am a lil nervous because I heard it was a hard class, but I kept muttering under my breath "Thank you Hadfield!" because as we were going over the outline, it sounded a lot like the material we learned in Amerian Problems last year (and I talked to Hadfield and he said he takes a lot of his teaching material out of American Heritage). Thank goodness!

After then I went to the bookstore to get a couple of supplies and ran into a couple of more friends. Then there was a girl who accidentally knocked over a small shelf, and I did a double take and was glad to see she was my cousin Kara! We hung out afterwards and enjoyed Jamba Juices and we headed to her apartment.

Then, in quick summary, there was FHE and now I am here preparing for tomorrow. I guess I can say the first day was a success :)

Next Stop: College Classes

Well I am not the best with updating this blog, but luckily I just got my laptop so I can now (hopefully) do better at keeping up. So here is a short entry so I can briefly jump back from this past week:

I finally finished unloading earlier this week. There are still a couple of things to put on the walls, so I'll have pics once they are up. I also finally met my other roommates and I cannot even express how much I love them and how I am grateful for them. They are so fun to be around and we get along very well! We are all different in many ways, but Chelsey and I have enjoyed a couple of killer workouts already at the brand new weight room and we have gone to sports games already with our other roomies, a dance, and much more.

It has been very warm walking around campus and I believe my metabolism has sky rocketed. But not only that, this campus has an incredible feeling. Every building has a  particular feel about it, some make you feel uncomfortable (such as the management building) and most welcoming, but wherever you go you can feel the incredible spirit. We had our freshman orientation, which was very tiring but worthwhile in a few ways. We mostly learned about how BYU was started and the honor code. But what's better than free food and ice cream from the creamery?!

Today I also went to my first Single Adult Ward ahhh! I thought it would be a little interesting, but I loved it. It's cool to have students who are thrown into college life like you and don't know where to begin.

There is much more to come but it's time for me to snuggle in bed before my first day of classes tomorrow.

at the pep rally

roomies!