He Is My Protector!

Please look and read this picture.......

How many times do I have trials and hardships and feel like this, like God has abandoned me, but He never does, he never does.

Forget Me Not- This is a talk given by President Uchtdorf of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is all about how we are not forgotten and the % main things to not forget while we are here trying to get through this tough life. I encourage everyone to read it, I try and read it every few weeks because I constantly need that reminder in my life of how much I matter to my Heavenly Father.

Weekend in Rexburg

This was really last weekend but I just never blogged about it even though I told Laura that I would because I love blogging, so here it is a week late.

Can I just start by saying how much I miss the college life now that I am not apart of it anymore! I love coming back to visit my crazy roommates and to just be with friends again and have that time where all we do is laugh for the entire weekend. It starts right away with the sarcastic comments and then stories from the time we have been apart.

Kamala and I wanted to see The Vow so bad so we mad plans to see it on Friday night. We were so so excited even though people had told us to not expect much. I was planning on not listening to what everyone told me and to make sure and form my own opinion, and that I did. I ended up enjoying the movie a lot! If you are planning on seeing it, it helps if you know that it is a true story. I love true stories that are made into movies because they are real life and some crazy story that actually happened. My opinion of why people did not like the movie is because it wasn't a perfect happily ever after and most of the movie is rather sad. I mean the main character can't remember her own husband and he loves her so much and is willing to do anything, even let her go if that will make her happy. I am not going to ruin anything if you haven't seen it but it is a movie that I would recommend. BEWARE: Channing Tatum wears some interesting sweaters in the movie!

Laura and I have wanted to go ice skating for awhile up here, so on Saturday night we decided to go. It had started snowing in the morning and pretty much kept going all day. We walked up the wretched hill of Rexburg to the outside rink. It was snowing pretty hard core when we got there but we wanted to skate, even though there was about 2 inches of snow on top of the ice. It took me back to the good old days of the McLaughlin skating rink in Ligonier. Shoveling off the ice just so we could skate. I have so many memories from that rink, I love that we put in the work to set it up each winter. Laura and I ended not staying too long because we were so cold and wet from the snow.

On our walk to ice skating Laura mentioned that Pond Skimming was next week. If you don't know what pond skimming is here is a quick description. At BYU-I they build a big steep hill of snow. You wear a costume of some sort. Show up on a night in February were it is normally between 10 and 20 degrees. You ski/snowboard/sled down big steep hill into a pond of water. Water is only not frozen because it is kept moving around.The goal is to make it to the end of the pond and not get wet and freeze to death. If you are crazy enough to sign up then chances are no matter what you will end up in the water. The reason I state all of this is because my freshman year I signed up for this wonderful event and it was the craziest thing I have done (until I rode a bull in a rodeo!)

 POND SKIMMING 2009

 This is the highlight video from the night that I did it. If by chance you wanted to see the awesome bump I hit that sent me flying through the air and crashing into the ground, then it is at about 13 seconds in. But look fast because it doesn't last very long. :)

 

Above: Winter 2012 Senior thinking back to my days that I was crazy enough to do this

Below: Winter 2009 I was in the pond skimming event with my friend Karlee and this other girl that I cant remember her name (whoops!) And if you are wondering we all had to wear costumes and I was recycle woman. Mainly because we believed in recycling in our apartment and had alot of bottles and things so I didnt have to buy a costume. I turned a white tshirt inside out and wrote Recycle woman, Go Green! I had a sweet water bottle crown, but on my massive bumpy ride I lost my crown forever. I think someone took it to remember me by!

 Roommates Erika and Christina

 Karlee and I

Daily Affirmations

One day my roommate Laura showed myself and my roommates this video. She thought it was so funny and something that we needed to do. If you haven't ever seen it please watch below, it is a good one!

Daily Affirmations

Courtesy of YouTube

We did love watching this video and it became a daily saying...I can do anything good, yeah, yeah, yeah!

Whenever anyone was discouraged or feeling overwhelmed someone usually starting singing it and then we would all join in.

One day this winter I was down in Utah now student teaching and my wonderful roommates Laura, Kamala, and Ashley were still up at school living together. They decided to cheer me up they would make their own version of little Jessica's video, in dedication of our semester living together. Can I just say that it might not make much sense to you because most of them are inside jokes....but I laughed and watched it probably 5 times when they first sent it to me. It cheers me up every time I watch it. You girls are the BOMB.

Daily Affirmation APT 318 style!

Lat semester at school Fall 2011

I wanted to write about some of the awesome people that I met and fun times I had during my last semester at college. These are some of the memories that I want to remember for the rest of forever! I wish I could include everything funny that happened but that would not be possible because with this group that was like every 5 minutes!

Have I mentioned that I had some crazy roommates my last semester at BYU-Idaho! Up until this point I had lived with most of the same girls because we had become such good friends. I loved living with Erika, Erin, Jenny, Megan, Rosana, Maria, and Tricia. Over time these ladies became good friends to me. Through missions, graduating, and moving my last semester I had to start almost completely over. It was hard for me but I still at least had Tricia to make me feel comfortable. So Fall 2011 I had to move in with 4 new roommates and I begged my apartment manager to not put me with any freshman girls. She was considerate of my request and found the 4 craziest girls I have met and stuck me with them. At first I was worried because Kamala, Ashley, and Sarah all knew each other and I was afraid that they might be clicky and not want to make friends with the rest of us. And then there was Laura who I had spent a semester working with in the Toddler Lab on campus. Overall I would say that we became friends rather quickly and it was great to have such a nice apartment full of girls. We ended up getting along great, I don't think there was a fight ever in our apartment or much contention either, and everyone helped out and did their part.

Here is a recap of the semester...

 Bonfire out at the Sand Dunes: Bonfire built with Martin's awesome skills. We enjoyed lovely s'mores (my favorite). We also ventured out to a sand hill and went jumping. It is a lot more fun than it sounds. I had a hard time sticking in the sand and rolled down and down the steep hill! We had sand everywhere. It also was a beautiful clear night to look and enjoy the stars.

Temple to Temple Relay: We decided to be crazies and run a 38 mile relay race. From the Rexburg Temple to the Idaho Falls Temple. Luckily the weather turned out to be nice and it was a very fun day spent getting to know my new roomies better.There were supposed to be 8 of us but one of the guys bailed out and we had to split up his leg of the race and we all ran an extra mile. I didn't think I could do it but luckily I had a team relying on me so I ran the whole time even when I felt like my legs wouldn't carry me any farther.

 One day I had to go on a home visit with one of my preschoolers. While there his dad was trying to get rid of this painting. He could not throw it away because his friend's mom had painted it, but his wife no longer wanted it in the house. So I took it and figured it could hang in my apartment and add some color. My roommates enjoy it and we make up all kinds of stories about it.

 Sarah rented a tandem bike for the weekend and we enjoyed playing around on it. I think the only ones to crash were Tricia and I :)

 Tricia and I were both to short to get on by ourselves :( Laura had to hold the bike and push when we got on. It is a no wonder we crashed into a small tree.

 Crazy fits us better than normal, because normal is something these girls are not!

 Laura's middle name is careful. She was the only one that really wanted to wear the helmet.

 So there was this sale on Oreo's after Halloween.....the last package was successfully finished last week on February 13. Sarah got us all hooked on Oreo's throughout the semester. But we also made a few batches of Truffles which my roommates loved!

 Kamala always threatens to stick a curling iron up your nose! Better watch out for her.

 Ugly Christmas sweater party! We had a talent show and we sang Alvin the Chipmunk Christmas song...with helium balloons. It was alot of fun! Ashley lost her balloon before the song even started but she made up for it by dancing during the instrumental part in the middle of the song.

 The right-handers in the apartment.

 The left-handers in the apartment. We segregate when eating together so no one is bumping each other.

I have wanted to ride in the school sponsored rodeo for a couple of years now but they only have it on certain semesters and I kept missing it. Well this year I did not miss it and while I was terrified to sign up I got in the day before the Rexburg Rodeo. This will be something that I definitely don't forget for a long time. I have friends Ryan and Branden that I first saw participate a few years ago. They helped me a lot by preparing myself mentally. Branden gave me tips on how to stay on longer and what to do when I fell off. I will say that it helped calm my nerves a little but not that I remembered any of it when it came time. I didn't last very long and when I fell off I smashed my head into the ground (I was wearing a helmet) and I fell on my right side which felt like I had broken ribs but mainly the wind was knocked out of me. It was a once in a lifetime experience.

I am reminded of all these good times as I went to visit Tricia, Laura, Ashley, and Kamala this weekend! You sure did make it a memorable last semester.

Valentine's Day

This last week was Valentine's Day as everyone knows. I have spent all of my Valentine's over the last 21 years, the same...in school and classes every year. This year was no different as I am student teaching with a classroom of 24 first graders. I had a few of my student tell me that they had a valentine for me, which I thought was so sweet! But when I got to class I was not expecting what I found. I had 4 heart shaped boxes of chocolates, a chocolate bear, a bag of candy heart, a hand written note, a roll of stickers, and a bag of Lindor white chocolate truffles, plus a variety of cards and smaller candy bars and stickers. I had my own little bag that had Miss. M. on it that I had decorated and they happily filled it up with joy and excitement. I do not think I will be able to get through all of it by myself and gave some to my friends.

 All the stuff I got in my awesome bag!

NO joke this is what I got from one of my students! Half eaten chocolate.

It's the thought that counts right?! lol I love my students.

I wanted to make creative cards or something for my students and one day I was talking to my best friend ERICA on the phone and she told me about these crayons that she saw to make for valentines. I was immediately sold on the idea and started collecting old crayons from my teacher. The process did not look too complicated and it was going to be my first Pinterest craft that I tried.

Crayon Hearts 

Well this is what I was hoping it would look like and what I was aiming for...

The first time I totally missed the concept and thought I could use cookie cutters, and well that didn't work.

My next attempt I realized that what went wrong was the fact that I needed to use heart shaped muffin tins. I did not have any heart shaped ones so I settled with circles in a mini muffin tin. #2 mistake is that you cant use the metal kind...

They turned out like colorful blobs but I decided to use them anyway. And that is what I love about 1st graders, they thought they were the coolest things ever. Although they did not turn out as I had hoped it was still a successful Valentine's day with my 24 little valentines :)

Green Light Girl

No one really pays attention to how many green lights and red lights they get when they are driving...except my family. My parents are always pointing out how all they ever get are red lights and red lights and more red lights. It takes twice as long to get home and lets be honest no one likes getting red lights, too bad they are necessary. When I got my license when I was 18 I only ever drove to church and it was a 20 minutes 9 lights there and 8 lights back home. I had this way of getting all of them green when driving. At first I thought it was that I drove so slow (because I hated driving and did not ever want to, hence the permit for 2 years and forced to get my license at 18). But then I thought that I was just lucky, but then I realized that there are 2 kinds of people in the world, red light people and green light people. I think it is more like the patient and inpatient people. The patient ones don't really care that a light is red and accepts is, whereas red light people tend to get angry and it just builds with every red light they get. I really have no idea why I think this hard about meaningless things but I do occasionally. I have loved the reactions I get in the car when people are surprised that I really do get the majority of lights green, or when my roommates used to say "Megan should drive it will take less time and we will get a good place to park." That is the other thing that I am good at, getting the prime parking spots! I have to laugh that my girl Ashley Ellis is red light girl and our whole apartment knew the difference and we found it ridiculously funny.

My point for even writing about this is that since moving to Utah to student teach, I go through 14 lights on my way to school and then on my way home. I was nervous that this was going to affect how I thought of myself as a green light girl, but overall I am still lucky! I have my bad days and my timing is completely off and I get most of the red, but the thing is I always make it to school on time either way and always at the same time which is weird sometimes. My one exception has been a light that I do not get along with and that is the light on 7000 south. When I am driving to school each day there is usually a lot of traffic which is also new to me, but this light has been testing my patience.  The other day I got that light at 7000 South red 5 TIMES! Can you imagine sitting at a light and moving up ever so slightly enough to watch the light change 5 different times before finally successfully getting through it! Crazy I tell you. A few days later I sat and waited 4 different times, lets hope this is not going to be a new trend starting. I will try and keep my patience better.

 Round 4 here we come. It's a good thing I had my camera to 

keep me occupied while I sat at the light

And dad or Ashley if you are reading this you are probably laughing and thinking, "Man I am glad that I have never sat at a light for 5 rounds! Serves you right Megan!"

Word of the weekend= LOST

FRIDAY
For my birthday last June my wonderful grandparents bought me GPS because I got lost alot especially in this new land in the west. I have used it alot to cross the country and just get to the grocery store, it has saved me so many times. Well Utah is set up on a grid system and the first thing everyone tells me is how easy it is to get around. The numbers go up or down but then you have to know your north east south and west. It has not been the easiest for me to pick up on, although lately I feel like I have understood it better, so I went to an activity around Murray. I thought I could do it all on my own, but this map shows how confused I really was! The light blue line in my trip there and the dark blue is on my way home. I must say that it was an adventure and while trying to get there I just kept laughing at myself, I mean it is better to laugh at your misfortunes then to really worry all that much. The one thing I was worried about was running out of gas, stopping to fill up was an option but I was in some pretty sketchy parts of town and didn't really want to pull over and get out of my car. I mean it was 1am on a Friday night.

SATURDAY

Morning: I was sitting doing homework and I looked at the temperature and it was 55 degrees! I could not stand to be inside sitting around working on homework. So I decided I wanted to explore Utah more and go hiking. I looked up a place at the bottom of a mountain called Little Cottonwood Canyon which seemed like a nice hike that I could accomplish in a few hours time. Well this time I took my GPS but I couldn't plug in the exact address so I tried a round about area. Needless to say I never found it, but I went up into the mountain and had the chance to see Snowbird Ski Resort which was pretty neat. If I was dressed right I would have stayed and learned how to ski, but I wasn't prepared for that. Instead I drove back down the mountain and found a place called Dimple Dell (which I laughed alot when reading the name), but it was a neat place to walk around. When I thought I was going hiking I was thinking back to hiking in Pennsylvania where it is green and lots of trees, Utah is not like that. I miss that part of PA, but I still was able to get out of the house and enjoy the great outdoors on this beautiful day in February.

 I love the Utah mountains! I will never get over how beautiful they are to me. Not like the rolling hills of PA

Saturday Night: I was with my friend Jake tonight and we wanted to see if Daybreak Lake was frozen or not. I didn't expect it to be since it has been in the 50's the last couple of days but regardless it was frozen. I figured that it was a thin layer of ice on top and not solid enough to stand on, but of course we had to test it out. We started by throwing rocks on the ice to see if they would break it, some places did so we moved to another area. We were at the end of a dock and rocks weren't going through so I sat on the end and started stomping on the ice. Nothing happened.  We both had a slight fear that once we fully stepped on it we were going in so I let Jake go first. The area that we were in ended up being about 3 inches thick so after Jake was skating around I figured I was alright to try it out too. We slid around for a few minutes until Jake was testing out a different part and we heard CRACK! I have never seen anyone move so fast! We got off that ice instantly and made it safe and dry to the dock. Then we decided to walk around the lake and for some reason they are doing work around one of the bridges and had it fenced off. We took a detour and walked across anyway, but after that the lake seemed to never end. We kept walking and walking and walking, oh and it had started to rain not long after we had been there but now it was raining a bit harder. Since it was so dark out we really couldn't figure out where we had started and where the car was. We came to another bridge and thought it was where we started but it turns out there are 3 or 4 that look exactly the same! Once we realized we were lost I just had to laugh because that was exactly how my weekend was going. Jake wanted to pull out his phone and google map where we were and how to get back, but I didn't want to because I hate how reliant people have become to these new smart phones. We could figure this out by continuing to walk. We eventually found that car after being soaked from the rain. We knew we were going to right way when the rain was finally hitting our backs instead of our faces, which was a lot more comfortable.

 

Ariel view of the lake. Can you see how we got lost!?

One of many bridges, but it is so beautiful!

Side note: Funny story. We were throwing rocks on the lake and I tried to softball pitch a smaller rock and I let go way to late and sent the rock flying backwards. I screamed a little fearing that it was going to hit Jake but luckily it didn't. When I went to turn around to see where it landed I tripped backwards on another rock and landed on my back. I was laughing and when Jake turned around he was laughing and confused as to how I ended up there! It's a no wonder I left the pitching up to Nichole and Christine!


I once had someone ask me how my sense of direction was and I did not lie and told them it was horrible, but when you get lost it is always an adventure (as long as you aren't on a strict time limit). I have found it better to just laugh and go with it. 3 time in one weekend was a little much for me but it made my weekend more entertaining that's for sure!