It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!!

Yea!!! The Christmastime holiday is almost upon us!!!! :) I think that I love Christmas most of all, because it is a time to be with family and friends, and to enjoy the gift of our Savior's birth. Christmastime always puts me in mind of fragrant Christmas trees, and our old record player singing out the old Perry Como (I don't know if I spelled that right or not...) tunes, and the songs from the King family. Ahhh, good old Christmas! :) I remember when I was little, looking forward to Christmas eve, and thinking about what Santa might leave me. I loved the light-looking tradition every Christmas eve, and especially the family tradition of reenacting the Christmas story with Kristie playing piano afterwards and all of us singing the Christmas carols, gathered around the piano, with only the Christmas tree lights on.

Times have changed; I'm not that little girl anymore, and little nieces and nephews have been added to the Christmas scene, but it only makes me think even more happily on this time of year. I love singing an playing all the Christmas carols, and smelling the great Christmas morning breakfast that Momma still makes for everyone. :) Seeing all the Christmas wreaths up here, and the Christmas lights beginning to go up, and seeing the remnants of the last time it snowed on the ground make me wish for the Christmas season to always be here. But I guess then it wouldn't be as special, huh?

Well, I wish everyone the best of the Christmas season!!! Merry Christmas! A new year is just around the corner!! :)

My Thanksgiving

So this year I was all settled, ready to make myself a yummy roast for my thanksgiving dinner, and a fruit salad to boot. :) However, my FHE brother had other ideas. He invited me over to his family's thanksgiving day, despite my assurances that I would be just fine on my own. After his 117th insistence that I come with him (slight exaggeration, but you get the point), I finally gave in with a smile and told him that I would come. (By the way, I should probably mention that my FHE brother's name is Aaron.)
So Aaron and his dad picked me up around noonish on Thursday, and headed over to the junior high for a day of thanksgiving with his family. His family was all really nice, and there were only a few "interesting" comments made (by his grandpa, who is actually really funny). :) I played some basketball, dodge ball, and volleyball (I played volleyball with his younger sister, who is nine, and who stuck to me for the rest of the day...she's really cute). After that, we went over to his aunt's house in Rexburg, and played a game and then watched a movie. It was so fun!!!! All in all, I would have to say that I had a FANTASTIC Thanksgiving day!!!!!! I hope that everyone else's was as good as mine was (I didn't get home till around eight or nine), and that everyone is doing well! Love you!!!

The Nicest Guys Ever :)

Hey guys!! I know that I haven't been blogging for a while, but Momma told me that I should blog about this. I still can't get my computer to put the pictures on anything, so I'll put my shopping backpack picture up when that happens.

But that's not actually what I was going to blog about. So, here in Rexburg I would have to say that I don't think I have actually opened a single door (well, except for my apartment door, of course) since I've been here. Guys here do everything for you!! :) I feel like I don't even have to lift a finger to do anything. Going to classes they open doors for me. Going to church they open doors for me. It doesn't matter if I know them or they know me...they just open the doors! (I must admit, I like this version of getting spoiled, haha.) I feel like I'm gonna be soft when I finally get back home!!!

It's not just doors though. Last night I went to the Galley (the school cafeteria) to eat dinner. I didn't know anyone there, so I sat down by myself and was planning on eating quickly. Then this guy came over to my table and said, "Hey, you looked kinda lonely, would you like to come and sit with me?" He then proceeded to help me put my dishes of food back on my tray, and then carried it for me over to his table when I agreed. He was really nice, and from Hong Kong, China! Wow! Talk about a long ways from home!! But he was genuine and nice, just like what seems to be the general standard for all the guys that are here at BYU-Idaho. :) I must admit, it's a nice thing that a girl can get used to VERY easily. :)

Well, all my roomies have left for home, and now I have the nice, big apartment to myself. It's actually kinda nice. I took the best-ever nap today, and I'm gonna go to bed early tonight. :) I hope everyone enjoys their Thanksgiving break!! :)

Shopping Backpack

Hey! This post is so Amanda and all you guys can see what my super-amazing shopping backpack looks like! J Here is a picture that Mandi took of me today to display for the blog. Sorry that I don’t look all that great, because I felt really sick today, but I’m sure I’ll get better soon. I hope everyone had a great week! Love ya!

...Hey, I actually can't post the picture, so if you want, I will send you the pic that Mandi took of me. Sorry! I seem to be having a lot of technical difficulties with my computer tonight. Love ya though!

Some Favorite Quotes

I am compiling a list of quotes that I really liked, and I thought---well--why not share them? I'm sure everyone would like at least ONE of them, so I thought that I would post some good quotes out here for anyone to see if they wanted to read them:

"Friendship isn't a big thing - it's a million little things." ~Author Unknown

"Soul-mates are people who bring out the best in you. They are not perfect but are always perfect for you." ~Author Unknown

"If you're alone, I'll be your shadow. If you want to cry, I'll be your shoulder. If you want a hug, I'll be your pillow. If you need to be happy, I'll be your smile. But anytime you need a friend, I'll just be me." ~Author Unknown

"Friends are kisses blown to us by angels." ~Author Unknown

"What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies." ~Aristotle

"Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same." ~Flavia Weedn

"A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world." ~Lois Wyse

"A friend accepts us as we are yet helps us to be what we should." ~Author Unknown

"The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart." ~Elisabeth Foley

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares." ~Henri Nouwen

"Nothing but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend." ~Plautus

"Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts." ~Margaret Lee Runbeck, Answer Without Ceasing

"It takes a long time to grow an old friend." ~John Leonard

"The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship." ~William Blake

"I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing." ~Katherine Mansfield

"Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend." ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"In my friend, I find a second self." ~Isabel Norton

"Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow." ~Swedish Proverb

"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away." ~Dinah Craik

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." ~Marcel Proust

"If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up." ~J.M. Power

"Life's problems wouldn't be called "hurdles" if there wasn't a way to get over them." ~Author Unknown

"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." ~Author Unknown

"Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude." ~Ralph Marston

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." ~e.e. cummings, 1955

"Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else." ~Judy Garland

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." ~Dr. Seuss

"It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves." ~Edmund Hillary

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
You are the guy who'll decide where to go."
~Dr. Seuss

"Whether you think you can or think you can't - you are right." ~Henry Ford

"Plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers." ~Veronica A. Shoffstall

"The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary."

"The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher." ~Thomas Henry Huxley

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal." ~Henry Ford

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." ~e.e. cummings

"The drops of rain make a hole in the stone not by violence but by oft falling." ~Lucretius

"Don't be discouraged. It's often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock." ~Author Unknown

"I may not be there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday." ~Author Unknown

"Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use." ~Earl Nightingale

The highlighted quotes were ones that I really liked. I hope that you liked them as much as I did (if you actually read this long quote-post...). Have a great day!! :)

Oh, and I forgot to add one of my favorite quote of all (it's a poem). Here it is:

"When gospel truth is gently sown
in my unlearned heart,
I hope it finds no hardened crust
on wayside paths apart.

Nor even drops on softer spot
with hardness just below,
Where faithless, poorly rooted sprouts
are doomed to never grow.

I pray it shall not fall in dirt
where thorns have made their bed.
Where choking plants, 'mid worldly cares,
grow fruitless, nearly dead.

But let that seed find fertile soil
in deep and clean abode,
And drawing life, yield true and full
to Him who gently sowed.

~Anonymous

Belated Halloween!! :)

This belated Halloween post is dedicated to Amanda--here's your post!! You asked for it, and here it is! :) Darci and I carved pumpkins the Sunday night before Halloween (which was also Darci's 18th birthday, by the way). We had such a good time! Here is the picture Darci took of my pumpkin and me.
Here is my jack-o-lantern! Scary, huh? Ok, so maybe not, but I sure enjoyed carving it...
Ok, I just had to post this picture. I had Darci take this one for me to post because I was reminiscing on my last Halloween when I made my pumpkin facial masque, and pretended to eat the slimy, gooey stuff. Haha, I love this pic! Although the pumpkin guts look more like cheese than the actual slimy stuff it really was...
Here is me carving my Halloween jack-o-lantern!! Yea for Halloween! Oh, and I forgot to mention that while we were carving our scary pumpkins, Darci played some cute Halloween music!
Here were the pumpkins pre-scary mode! :)
Here was what the inside of my pumpkin looked like. I don't ever think I have carved a skinnier pumpkin than the one that I did this year...
It's almost cleaned out! I LOVE carving Halloween pumpkins!
I hoped that you like the Halloween stuff! Momma also sent me a care package a while back, which I meant to post about but never quite got around to it...sorry! :( I finally got my beautiful shopping backpack, which DEFINITELY will help when carrying groceries, and she sent me a New Era, and my favorite type of gum. Yum! I would have to say that Halloween and Darci's birthday went great, and that even though our pumpkins have gone the way of the world (a.k.a. the trashcan), we had a great time this year!