Happy Mothers Day!

I can't begin to explain how much I love and appreciate my Mom.  I miss her everyday and the longer I have been away, I realize all the things I took for granted growing up.  

My Mom has taught piano my whole life.  Sometimes before or after lessons she would play just for fun.  I never thought anything of it until I wasn't able to hear her play as often anymore.  There are definitely some days when my apartment is all quite and I miss listening to her play. I actually downloaded some piano music a couple months ago because I missed it so much.  It's beautiful music but it's really not the same.  

I miss having someone who will do projects with me.  My Mom is so creative and she's always thinking of new things to do.  When Lauryn and I were little we really got into the whole Beanie Babies craze.  We both tried to collect as many animals as we could get our hands on.  We each had our own set so there were two of each.  On one of the walls in our room my Mom painted a huge mural of Noah's Arc and nailed wooden boxes to the wall to display each of our Beanie Babies "two by two".  I wish I had a picture of it because my description doesn't even come close to how cool it was.  She was asked to paint a mural on an even bigger wall in Taylor's elementary school.  Needless to say it's amazing and I hope stays there forever.  

I couldn't be home for Mothers Day.  It's so hard to be away from her especially today but I hope she knows how much I love her and appreciate her.  She's so loving, caring, creative, funny, supportive, thoughtful, beautiful, compassionate, and everything else I could ever ask for.  I love her and miss her so much.  

Happy Mothers Day!

Twenty Three

 23!  Yes I have survived a whole 23 years of life!  I'm starting to get nervous because I'm starting to realized how fast time really does go by.  I was having a discussion with my friend, who is also turning 23 soon, about when people ask me how old I am I just say 23.  I don't really think about it.  It's almost like word vomit.  "Twenty Three".  In my mind I think I really want to say 21 because I feel like I'm in Neverland where no one gets older.  No one is allowed to be older then 21.  I'm not sure why that's the rule but in my head anything over 21 just isn't allowed.  Rachel and I discussed how 23 is still so young, and I know when I'm 50 I'll wish I could just say I'm 23.  I am really happy with my age.  I feel very comfortable here.  I think my mind still wants to believe I'm 21 still because if I believe I'm younger then I am I wont have to get older?  I don't know but I'm really happy where I'm at right now.  

      

(Disclaimer: There are more the 23 candles on both of those cakes. I got them all in one breath! Does that mean I get extra wishes?!)

  ANYWAY!  I had a great birthday!  The birthday miracle happened when my package from my family showed up on my door!  This was a miracle because it wasn't expected to come until after my birthday.  I can't express how much I love and miss my family.  They sent the cutest cards.  I got the sweater and skirt I wanted, ribbon and a flower to make a belt, shoes, treats and lots more!  Courtney stopped by the night before and brought me a ceramic hello kitty paint set and a gift card to Red Mango!  ( OH how I love that place! 80 calories of Heaven!!!!)  Lindsay and Nicole took me to lunch at the Tai Kitchen where our friend Sun works and got us free Mango Sticky rice!  Also SO good!  At one point I went out to my car and it was covered in toilet paper and a paper chain!  My friend Brian confessed it was him when he brought me a drink, Butterfingers, and a bamboo plant.  Whitney and her roommates came by with a huge candy poster card, that so funny and I loved it! Later the Dyers and Nicole, made some cake and invited all my friends over for cake and ice cream.  I feel like I have different friends all over the place so I love when everyone can meet and have fun!  I had a really great day.  I really do have the best family and friends ever!  I miss my family SO much all the time but I have great friends who are always here for me and take me in as their own family.

    

           (Eric and Benj, Rachel and Tammy, Dean, Brian and Dustin)

  

(Julia, Mikkel, and Larissa)

Thank you everyone who made it to my birthday celebration!  For those who's pictures didn't make it up I am incredibly sorry.  I still love you and am so glad you came! 

Thank you everyone else for a phone calls, text messages, treats, surprises, love and wishes!  I wish I could have celebrated with everyone, especially all of my family!  I love you all!

Happy Easter! another late holiday update

Here is a summary of how I celebrated my Easter.  For the pictures I will let you decide the professional from mine and Courtney's. 

First and most important I attended church.

Martha inspired us to make these 

"simple" eggs.  I'm sure they are so easy to make when you have a team of 100 other professional egg decorators, unlimited amounts of glue and sparkles. Finding the sparkles should have been our first clue.  We went to approximately 4 stores before finally finding some good tubes of glitter.  If you ever plan on making these eggs I would block out a good couple days for a carton of eggs.

Bakerella makes all of these cute guys.  I got sad and threw in the towl after I burnt the chocolate.  I know my mom will read this and laugh because I ALWAYS burn the chocolate.  You think I would figure it out by now.  Obviously I haven't.  We ended up with a few asteroids and a few chicks.  I had a small moment and was really disappointed.  At this point all of my attempts at making holiday crafts weren't quite the perfection I was hoping.  Some girls struggle with their self image because they want to look exactly like the celebrities.  I struggle with my artistic ability because all the crafts in the magazines look so perfect and easy.  I know my mom would have just whipped out all of these like they were break-n-bake cookies.  One day right?!  I hope one day I will have an ounce of my Mom's artistic talent.  (I currently don't have any photos of my attempt... this might be a good thing.) 

On another egg note.  My mom bought me an easter egg kit that was supposed to make my eggs look like they were made of gold.  Here are my golden eggs.  They were still a fun attempt.  Thanks mom! 

All in all Easter was great.  I really did enjoy all of my craft attempts. It was a beautiful day.  Clear and sunny!  I had a delicious meal from my good friend Jen!  She takes great care of me and I really appreciate her and the rest of her family.  I am satisfied.

Rain

When I was little I was little I went through a period of time where I was convinced I was a magnet to rain.  Eventually the thought faded, until lately.  Today was sort of cloudy all day.  After I got home and finished with school and work, I was waiting for the storm to come and go so that I could go running.  I finally got tired of waiting and the minute I started my run it started to rain/snow.   Perfect.  I decided to cut my run short when pellets of snow started sticking to my skin.  Once I ended my short run at my house the rain slowed down.  Later I needed to go to the store to purchase more eggs for me and Courtney's little egg decorating extravaganza (if things go well you might see pictures).  As I pulled out of my parking stall it started raining again!  I had to laugh at myself because my 8 year old thoughts were coming back!  I am a rain magnet!  I'm just happy it's not snowing 6 inches (knock on wood).  I decided that I'm going to call it a day and just stay inside and enjoy the rain from the inside while attempting to decorate eggs.  Wish me luck!

Another Belated Birthday

It seems my blog and I have horrible timing and I always miss birthdays.  While I was in California my Mom celebrated her birthday!  Because of my lack of internet access I was unable to make the birthday tribute I would have liked.  So here it is... late.   

I love my Mom  for endless reasons and I miss her everyday.  She is the most caring person I know.  She's always looking out for her family, friends and people she doesn't even know.  Whenever I talk to her she is always helping someone new.  Every holiday she tries to make me feel as much as home as possible and still sends me a package in the mail.  

Taylor amazes me everyday, with some new sport or some new activity she has joined but I am secretly even more amazed by my Mom and her ability to keep up with everyones schedule.  Between volleyball tournaments, soccer games, track meets, practices for all sports, church, school and everything else somehow my Mom finds time in her schedule for everything and still stay just as involved with me and Lauryn.  Now seeing the other side of everything I think back when all of us were at home.  Lauryn and I had our cheerleading, theater, student counsel, school, and all of our friends always at the house and then she was always volunteering for our schools or being the room mom.  Some how the house was always spotless and she always made sure we had fun as a family.  

I am in awe of how amazing my Mom is.  I love her so much and I am so happy I was able to spend so much time with her the past couple of weeks.  Living so far away I don't get to see her a lot, so seeing her and just hanging out with her again was just what I have been needing.  I am already looking forward to the next time I get to see my Mom.  

Thanks for everything you do Mom.  I love you so much!  Happy Be-lated Birthday!

Blast Off

At approximately 6:30 am I will be headed to the airport for California! This weekend I will be cheering on the cheer team at Nationals in Anaheim.  It's going to be so weird not being on the mat and sitting right on the edge making sure the music works and "play" gets pressed when it's supposed to but I'm excited.  After all the fun competition I get to go play at Disneyland!  I love Disneyland!  I'm am having major flashbacks of going to Nationals at Disneyworld.  This is going to be a great way to end a great month.  This whole month has been sort of crazy but the good kind of crazy.  Especially since I have been able to see my family.  

I think I'm going to make my next trip be to Spokane.  Lauryn get my bed ready and I'll bring The Best of Tracy Morgan.  Maybe by the time I get there you'll have a furry friend.  Hopefully he loves me as much as Scout does.  Sorry if he goes missing.  You might want to check my house first.  woops.

Hopefully I will come back with lots of fun stories and pictures!  I wish everyone could come!

Exceptions

Remember how just 3 minutes ago I stated "I was born in Southern California and raised in Central Texas, so maybe I was spoiled when it comes to warmth.... with the occasional exception of a freeze in Texas"?  I forgot to mention the occasional hail storm too.  Mom just sent me this picture from outside our house.  Currently home is about 10 degrees warmer then Provo, I still think I'm spoiled.