Movin' on Up

To the East Side....

So, this past weekend, I moved into a new apartment. No more ugly purple ghetto apartments! It was an incredibly tiring day. We were running on pretty much 4 hours of sleep and the day started about 8:30am and ended at 2am! It was quite a day. We were also without A/C for about 4 hours and Saturday was pretty warm. I am pretty proud of my roomie and I though. We had a couple of guys coming to help us move but by Saturday all of them had to back out except for one! So, poor Tyler was the only guy helping us move all of our junk! For the most part, it was just the three of us loading and unloading stuff. We were all pretty tired by the end, but I think Tyler definitely was more tired than me and Lindsay. He pretty much carried a couch and a heavy dining room table upstairs by himself. He's CRAZY! But we were definitely thankful for him and his superhuman strength on Saturday!

Our new apartment has a swimming pool, which I'm very thankful for! I don't know why this summer seems so much hotter than last summer but.... I went swimming this morning and it was GLORIOUS! There was no one at the pool and I loved it. I'll try and put up some pictures when we get everything unpacked. Right now it doesn't look too bad, but it's still not quite finished. We have this lovely stack of empty boxes by our front door that we have yet to take out!

Grateful

I know, I know, this is like my third post this week! Just bear with me, I'm sure I'll stop sometimes soon.

I'm not really sure how to start this post other than it's something I've been thinking about for awhile. Can I just say how truly blessed I have been in my life. Every day I am amazed at how much the Lord loves me. With that said, I've been thinking of the different ways I have been blessed and one of the most obvious is the people He has put in my life. I have an amazing family, I know that wasn't what I thought growing up but I have definitely learned to appreciate them in my life. I can't imagine having any other two people be my parents. They are amazing and I know that no other two people could've raised me the way they did, and taught me to be the person I am today. I love them for all that they've done and all the do in my life. I wish I had understood that as a kid! My sisters, four biological and numerous adopted, I can't even describe how grateful I am for them in my life. Again, I didn't understand how much they meant in my life until after we were older, but I'm very grateful for them. This is the second time I've lived in a city by myself, with no family. My parents are a lot closer this time but my schedule usually doesn't allow a lot of trips. So, once again I'm realizing just how much I need my family. My sister's mean a lot to me, they are amazing examples to me and I'm so grateful for them in my life. And even though my brothers came way later in my life, I'm so grateful for them. They are all such wonderful examples to me and even though they came later they are still great at being good older brothers. I always wanted one, and I was blessed with 3 awesome ones!

Both of my parents come from somewhat large families so I also have a ton of extended family which I'm also so grateful for. I've met people who don't know their cousins really well and it seems so weird to me. I grew up knowing all of my cousins and 2nd cousins and so on. I can't imagine not knowing them. It's a little different now that we're all grown up and moving and our lives are busy, but I still get to read about their families and hear about them from my parents. I'm just so grateful for the support system I have!

Lastly, I have been so blessed with great friends throughout my life. Sometimes those friendships are short and sometimes they last years and years. No matter what the time frame is, I have truly been blessed to have amazing friends. When I have been without family close by, I've had wonderful friends who let me be a part of theirs.

Sorry, I know this is long again, I just wanted to say Thank You to all those who have blessed my life by being a part of it. I hope you know how grateful I am for all of you. I'm sorry if I don't say it often enough. I'm so, so grateful for the people that the Lord has placed in my life at one time or another. Thank You so much for all of your examples to me.

Picture Time!

Ok, so here are some pics to go with the ridiculously long post a couple days ago! Most of them are self-explanatory. I didn't post any pics of the animals from the museum because there were a ton and it would've taken forever! Most of the pics on here are while we were at the zoo or leaving it though. We were really bad at taking pictures throughout the week. While we were leaving the zoo, we stopped at this pull-out area to take some pictures and we stepped out of the car and stuck to the tar! There were no signs saying it wasn't dry. I don't know if the heat was just too much but my poor little flip flops just stuck to the asphalt! At least is was a beautiful view. The other funny pic from the zoo was the ice-cream cones! I don't know if the guy making them was just dazzled by our beauty or what, but the things were huge!

Catchin up!

Well, I've gotten behind on this whole blogging thing. I'll have to play catch-up I guess. I can't believe that it's already July and how fast the summer is going. My vacation is over and I'm already ready for another one! My vacation was fun. I didn't go anywhere exciting but there was eleven blissful days where I didn't have to go to work. And seven of those days, I got to spend time with one of my best friends, Bethany! She flew down from Idaho to see me and it was awesome. We didn't plan a whole lot of stuff but just kind of took it easy and had fun. We did got the Sonoran Desert Museum which is basically a zoo of all desert animals. It was actually a lot of fun! I've lived in Tucson for two years and have never been there. I work at a hotel and I always recommend that people go there, I just hadn't gone yet. The drive out there was amazing. It reminded me why I love the desert so much. The view driving in and back out was just so gorgeous. We also had amazing Mexican food as much as we could! There just isn't anything in Idaho as good as in Tucson (at least in the way of good mexican food)!

I'm getting kind of out of order. So Bethany flew in on Monday at like 8am! I was going to drive to Mesa and stay with my parents on Sunday night so I wouldn't have to drive 2 hours that early on Monday. I didn't make it to Mesa however, I only got halfway there. So, I still woke up unbelievably early on Monday so i could get to the airport on time. I left way too early though and spent like 45 minutes in the cell phone parking lot waiting for her flight to land. I got a nice nap though! Anyways, we went to the temple on Monday just walked around and watched the Joseph Smith movie at the Visitor's Center. I always cry in that movie, it's just so amazing still! There was a sister missionary there from Guatemala, which is where Bethany served her mission so we talked to her for awhile. I mostly just listened, because I don't understand Spanish at all! I also introduced her to Bahama Bucks which, for all of you uneducated people out there, is the best shaved ice place EVER! I don't know why it is so amazing, but it truly is. Unfortunately, there are very few places that have them. Mesa is lucky and there are a couple there, I go there whenever I'm in Mesa. Bethany told me before she came that this trip had better result in a good tan for her, so Tuesday we went swimming to try and help her out! It worked out real well for me, I just got a darker brown, she and Lindsay on the other hand turned a nice shade of red! I found it funny, I don't think they did though. Wednesday, we did some shopping and then went to my new favorite restaurant, Guadalajara's Grill. It was even more amazing this time! Whe had DELICIOUS food, and we ordered virgin margarita's and usually they come in a pretty small glass, they're only $2, but the bartender was feeling generous that night and we got huge glasses! They were delicious though, so we didn't complain, and they still only cost us $2! Thursday and Friday we hung out with some friends in Tucson, we went and saw a new movie and played games and just had fun. I cut my hair, as you know from my last post. Then on Saturday we went to the Desert Museum and had more good Mexican food. Sunday, my stake had like an emergency stake conference. Elder Neil L. Anderson came down for this. I was in the stake choir so I had to sit up on stage while we were told that they were splitting our stake to create a new one and then they also re-did our boundaries. The choir couldn't hear like anything that was being said though. That kind of stunk, just bad acoustics in the building we were in. Oh well, I did get to meet Elder Anderson and shake his hand, that was cool. Bethany was a sport and sat with a couple friends of mine since I was in the choir as were all of my roommates. We had fun the rest of the day, it was weird being done with church that early, we are usually at church until 4:30pm. We mostly just enjoyed the afternoon we had free. Monday we had to drive back to Mesa so she could catch her flight back. We stopped at this restaurant there and they apparrently have this kids night every Monday where they have a guy that does balloon animals and stuff and this lady paints faces. We really didn't look like little kids but the guy still offered to make us balloon animals and I can't resist an offer like that. I didn't get an animal though, he made me a balloon hammer, which was pretty awesome, and Bethany got a love monkey, which is a monkey with a huge heart on the end of her tail!

Sorry to bore you all with those details but this has kind of taken the place of my journal so I wanted to remember what we did! It was a really great week! It went by too fast and I wish Bethany could've stayed longer. It's so nice to see old friends and just have fun! I'll post pics later. This is already too long!