Orlando, Florida

This is a very exciting post, with some very exciting news. This week my parents told my sister Amber and I that for Amber's birthday this year (May 21st) they are sending us on a trip to Orlando, FL! This is where it pays to be besties with your sister because I was lucky enough to get to go with her. We'll be going from June 9-13th, so it's just sort of short and sweet but we are sooo excited. Talk about freaking-out-excited.:)

My mom actually told me before we told Amber. I suspected something was up when my mom started asking me very strange detailed questions about the month of June. It was harder than I thought to keep in a secret from Amber, because we are pretty much the same person in that we don't keep anything from each other. Well, I lasted a whole day and it was pure torture because I was so tempted to just blurt out, "We're going to ORLANDO FLORIDA!!!" Ultimately my parents decided to just tell Amber early so that way we could plan details and she could have some advanced notice for work, etc. I made her a little card that told her about the suprise vacay and then put it in an envelope and addressed it to her from a lady named "Penny Pinkerton." At dinner I said, "Oh, Am, I forgot...this card came in the mail for you today..." She was like, "Who the heck is Penny Pinkerton?" And we all acted like we didn't know what was going on. It took her reading through it like 3 times before she finally figured out what it was saying!!! She was totally shocked. It was a total hoot.:)

More to follow on details about our sweet florida tripie!

Lactic acid burns me up

True doctrine. Seriously. Let me elaborate. In an effort to become more "cardiovascularly advantaged" my sister Amber and I have been going to the gym more regularly and even invested in a personal trainer. Looking back on it we feel like we may have been somewhat conned into it, but not all is lost because it is actually quite beneficial. One thing we've learned from the experience is that when a personal trainer is working you out, you CANNOT and I repeat CANNOT take yourself too seriously. In fact my mantra is "pride stays at the door." Let's face it, you are clearly not your most flattering when you're sweating and flalling about. But then again who really cares??? (Actually, that's not a very good question to place here since secretly we all really do care...but you get my drift.) Calories are being burned and in the long run you're the better for it, so it's definitely worth the increase in embarassing moments. Believe me. I've had my fair share of them. :)

Last week amber and I had a workout where our PT (my sweet abrev for personal trainer) focused on upper body and arms. I was secretly relieved because I figured it would be an easier workout. WRONG. We were both in significant discomfort (that is basically an understatement) and the lactic acid I'd accumulated after working out made my arms feel like they were on fire....literally....for 4 days. Finally relief came yesterday and I was able to resume full function of my arms. (i.e. actually wash my hair with relative ease and scratching my nose). I learned that you use your triceps for a lot more than you think you do. And THAT is true doctrine.

As a side note: I've been using that phrase quite a lot lately ("true doctrine.")...definitely one of the sayings I brought home from my mission. Not too many non-LDS people actually know what it means (which is most people around here). Ocassionally in class it will slip out. I had to laugh when a girl in my class looked at me and said, "true doctrine" in reference to a comment the professor made in class. Did she even know what/where that originated from?! World domination is just around the corner. Well, in my small sphere that is...

My new obsession

I'm on spring break this week. Sad to say I don't have any earth-shattering fun plans other than to hopefully secure a summer job for myself. But then again, that's not really "fun" so technically I don't have any plans. In an effort to update my blog, however, I thought I would share something I really really love. Welcome to the world of digital scrapbooking....

I've never loved the idea of old fashioned scrapbooking because the thought of sitting down and cutting, pasting, and working on tedious little details sort of stresses me out. I DO however love to organize pictures in a clean, stream-lined way. In high school I was the photo-editor for the yearbook my senior year. I think that's when I started to love to work with digital pictures and create things. Now they have all of these free programs that let you make digital photo books. My sister-in-law Lisa made a wedding book on blurb.com and it turned out amazing! I love how something so personal can look so professional. When I got home from my mission I decided I wanted to make a book of all my mission pictures, and digital scrapbooking sounded like the perfect route! Plus, I couldn't imagine doing everything by hand the old fashioned way. I have literally thousands of mission pictures and I think I not only saved time and money, but also a lot of stress and hair pulling. I'm almost done with my book and it's 200 pages long! I'm so excited and can't wait for it to be finished.:)

When my dear sweet nephew Jack was born my mom asked me to print off some of the pictures from the day he was born. I thought it would be way cuter to just make a quick little photo book instead! Here are some pictures of the book, called "Baby Jack." Lisa and Jim, we made one for you too!

Some of the websites you can use to make photo books are:

blurb.com (my favorite...thanks to Lisa for finding it!!!)

photobucket.com

shutterfly.com

He's good...

One of my last gen-ed classes that I'm taking this semester is actually turning out to be my favorite. It's called American Popular Music. Obviously my like towards it shouldn't come as a huge suprise seeing how I naturally love music anyway, but I'm learning a lot about music that I didn't know before. My prof is an amazing improv jazz pianist and we're lucky enough to have a baby grand piano in the classroom that we meet in...so as he's describing a certain principle he'll often just sit down on the piano and play a song for us...totally by ear! He's kind of a music genious.:) Anyway, taking this class has helped me sort of analyze why I like certain types of music and artists over others. One musician that I really love right now is Michael Buble. He's got that 50's throw-back voice that many have compared to Frank Sinatra. He can really sing. I've always loved that time period for it's music and Michael Buble is the modernized version. Love him.:) His newest album is quite good. It's called "Crazy Love." It still is a scoash weird for me to be able to listen to any music I want to because I have only been allowed to listen to church music for the last 18 months...but I really like his stuff and taking this class is teaching me to listen and recognize truly good music. Who would have guessed?! I guess gen-ed's are good for some things...

Barrettes and things

I was feeling particularly crafty today so I found some of my mom's old fabric scraps and decided I was going to sew! I love how the new trend is to wear big flowers on barrettes and headbands, so I thought I'd try to recreate the look with fabric. Definitely not perfect, but I think they turned out pretty cute! Amber said she'd buy one if she saw it at J.Crew...so maybe I have a future in barrette and headband making...?
Super easy and very "home spun." Now just trying to think of a cute name for my little home spun handi-crafts...

Two Feet

From friday night to Saturday we got 2 feet of snow here in PA. This means we've pretty much been stuck inside for the past two days. Church was even canceled, which for an RM is the hugest bummer of the week. I decided to take some time today and redo my blog...what do you think?

Other things that I've been engaged in is going back to school...I realized that it was a harder transition going back to school than it was coming home. I think it's really setting in that my mission is over, behind me, and the more time I am home the more it dawns on me that there's no turning back. I know that the transition is completely normal but there are days when I just wish I could be back in Utah wearing my tag. Thank goodness for old companions who've answered my phone calls and cheered me up.

I think I'm going to put my focus on learning a new skill, like sewing! My mom is the ultimate sewing master, so I think it's time I learned from her... Hopefully I don't sew my finger off...

Home again

This won't be a long post, just saying I'm back! I got home from my mission December 23rd and am enjoying being home. I miss my mission a lot, but know that there are other exciting things ahead of me. Serving a mission was the best thing I've ever done. It was the happiest I've ever been, and the hardest I've ever worked. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I once heard the phrase, "It wasn't the best 2 years OF my life, but the best 2 years FOR my life." It's true...except adapt that to my case where I served 18 months. It was definitely the best experience for my life. I loved every minute of it...even the hard times. Missions are the best idea in the world!