A Couple of Heros

Sundays really are the best days of the week. Today was even better because I didn't have to drive back down to Salt Lake for class tomorrow. Sitting in church today my mind began to wander a little bit. Big Sam was conducting sacrament meeting today and I got to thinking about how much I love that man and how amazing he really is.

I don't know how well any of you know my Papa Sam but even those who have only had the opportunity meet him for a few minutes can tell you just how warm and kind he is. I have never met a man who thinks more about others and less about himself than Sam. He is the most genuinely generous and giving man I've ever met. He is always looking for ways to help everyone around him and never expects anything in return. He gives of his time, means, and spirit like it is the only option there is. December 2nd was my parents 6th wedding anniversary and while parents' anniversaries are not something that it's necessarily normal for a 19 year old girl to get excited about I did have a second to think to myself about how wonderful my Papa Sam has been to me, all 6 of my siblings, and my sweet mother for the past 6 years. I can't recall a single sporting event of mine, Perri's, Zach's, or Miles' that he hasn't made it to over the years. The number of times I forgot something for school and the big guy dropped everything to make the 20 minute drive out to Hyrum to bring it to me is ridiculous. I know I give the big guy a hard time.... most of the time, but I really am so thankful to have this amazing man as a role model in my life. 

After Sacrament at my parents home ward my mom informed me that my big brother Zachary was going to speak with his friend from the high counsel in another ward yet again. He was speaking in my parent's building so I decided I was just going to stay and listen to him.

If you don't know how much I adore my big brother it's either because you don't know me that well or are just a little bit oblivious. If you ask me, Zachary Clyde hung the stars and can basically do no wrong. I absolutely idolize my big brother and I look up to him like no one else in this world. When my parents were married 6 years ago I was in a place in my life where I needed someone to look after me, to love me, and to be my hero; Zach became that instantly. Part of it could be the closeness in age and part of it could be the way our personalities connect but, to me, Zach and I have a bond that is different from the relationship that I share with any of my other siblings. He can calm me down when I'm in the middle of a panic attack like no one else can. He makes me laugh constantly, and has a way of assuring me that everything is going to be ok. Zach makes me want to be better in every way. In everything from sports, to friends, to church I always want to be like him. His senior year of high school was my sophmore year and I will always remember the goofy random times and memories we shared that year. He may have felt like I was his annoying tag a long little sister, that might very well still be how he feels, but nothing meant more to me than when he'd invite me to hangout with him and his friends, or his given girlfriend of the week, or just us two.

 During high school when Zach was still trying to decide if he would serve a mission I fasted every fast Sunday for 6 months hoping he would decided to go. When he actually did decide to turn his papers in I realized that I was going to be without my brother for 2 years and quickly began to have second thoughts about what I had been praying for. It all turned out for the best even if I did bawl my eyes out every time someone asked how he was for those two years. I admire my brother so much for all that he has accomplished throughout these past few years. Zach has been monumental in helping Waylon and myself with Waylon's conversion and baptism and I will owe Zach for his help with that forever.

As we grow up, things change. We both have different things going on in our lives. I live far away and don't get to see Zach, or anyone in my family, as much as I would like. We're both busy working, going to school and dating. I'm coming to the harsh realization that someday as we both continue to grow up we are going to have our own families, spouses, jobs, and lives. No matter where our lives take us Zach will always be one of my best friends and hero.

I'm amazed at all the ways the Lord's hand is in our lives that we don't even notice until we look back days, weeks, months, or years later. I've had an interesting 19 years here on this earth; filled with tremendous joys, terrible heartbreaks, seemingly insurmountable hardships, and innumerable blessings. With all the things I've encountered on this journey we call life I've learned at least two valuable lessons. 1. The Lord will never abandon his children. While it may be difficult to find the Savior when you are in the middle of trials it is important to remember that he is probably the only thing keeping you afloat even if it is by such a narrow margin. 2. Everything happens for a reason. I am a firm believe in this. I am not saying we will know the reasons in this life but every trial and blessing we face in this life are brought to us with a purpose. I know you can't change the past but even if I could, I wouldn't. The trials, however menial they may seem, that I have faced have led me to the person I am today and the person I am today is a stepping stone on the way to the person my Heavenly Father wants me to become. 

I am so very thankful for the time I had today to think about these two amazing men in my life. They have shaped and molded me for the better during the time they've spent with me and I am eternally grateful to have been blessed with their presence in my life.

Love always

Dan 

Staying alive, Staying alive, Ah-ah-ah-ah Staying alive

I'm not sure what prompted the 70s disco themed title to this post. I'm sure it's just the strangeness of finals week working its way out of me. However, the point is that I made it!! It was touch and go there for just a bit but I did actually make it. I had 2 finals to take during finals week, one was schedule the other one I got to decide. My hatred for finals week prompted me to opt for taking them the same day. The best thing I can say about how the finals went is that they are over. They weren't that bad but they were definitely not enjoyable. At least they're over. I think the awfulness of Finals Week is part of the ploy. It's so miserable that by the time you are done with your last tests you don't even really care how they went you just want to be done.

Also on the up side, It's almost Christmas!! I love Christmas time, I can't put my finger on what it is about this time of the year it just makes me happy inside. I love trying to find the perfect gift for everyone and I get so excited to see the look on their face when they open them.

So for this week I'm just working and waiting to go home. I'm headed back after work on Friday night until next Wednesday then I'll come back down to Salt Lake to work a few more days before I head back home again for Christmas.

My week down here will probably consist of some online "Paper-work" too. Now that I'm done stressing about this semester I can start to work on my application  to.... USU. That's right, the cat is out of the bag. After  this spring semester I'm coming back home to Logan. It was a tough decision and a very easy decision  at the same time. I love it here. I love the University of Utah, My job, My house, My friends, and My roommate but my family and cute boy are in Logan and it's just too far away. I'm driving back and forth so much lately and it's just not worth it. I will miss Salt Lake and the life I've made here very much but I'm also pretty excited to get back home to my family.

I may not blog again until after Christmas, I'm not sure what craziness these next few weeks are going to bring but I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and also a Happy New Year! I hope we can all remember the Reason for the Season and feel the true Christmas spirit during this great time of year :)

Loves,
Dan

Some Thursday Night Thoughts

So I was supposed to be going to St. George for a softball tournament this week to help coach the high school girls because it's moratorium and the coach isn't allowed to coach. But we couldn't get enough girls at the last minute so we had to drop out :( The upside to this story is that I got work covered and now I have tonight and tomorrow off with little to nothing to do :)

So I thought I'd catch up on some blogging! It's been awhile. That mean's I dunno what to say so I guess I'll just pull a full out mental download!

1. Per-Dogg turned 16 and got her drivers license!! I was able to sneak home on her birthday and help my mom with a little surprise party we through with a bunch of her friends it was great.

2. My cute Waylon is getting ready to move out and I'm so very excited for him.

3. So many of my friends are leaving on mission and I'm just sitting here like "Guys, I am going to have no friends"

4. I love to see the temple especially the Salt Lake Temple! I had the opportunity to go to the temple with a couple of friends early last Friday morning and it was amazing! I'm so glad to live so close to the house of the lord.

5. Mountain Crest is good at football again this year! Who knew? They play down here at Rice Eccles tomorrow and I'm pretty pumped that I get to go.

6. Per and 6 of her friends are coming down here to spend the night with me tonight because their mommas didn't want them driving in the snow that is supposed to be on the ground tomorrow. Wish me luck! Just kidding, my bedroom door locks; I should be fine.

7. The past couple of weeks I've been coming back and forth to Logan a lot lately which leaves a lot of time for contemplating and lousy car singing. The past few times I've been thinking about how lucky I am to be from such an awesome place like Cache Valley. I went to a homecoming a few weekends back for one of Zach's teammates and I was so amazed at the sense of family that was there with all these people that hadn't seen each other in approximately 2 years. It's amazing how well you can know all these people from small towns and care about them. It's like one big giant family! I think it's funny how that is something that I absolutely despised when I was going to high school. I wanted to move out and be where no one knew me. Now, it's like a breath of fresh air when I get to go home and see all these people that I know just at Macey's on a Saturday night.

8. I sure do love and miss my family especially my sweet momma bear!

I think that's it for my little mental download. I hope all is well with any and all of you that should happen across this little blog.

Lots of loves

Dan

"How Shall I Bear So Much Happiness"

Jane Austen once said "How shall I bear so much happiness!" I read that quote and it spoke to the deepest, most personal cavity of my heart. It made me realize how very blessed I am in my little life and how unbelievably happy I should always be because of that.

I seriously don't know how I could ever be more blessed than I am right now. I have my amazing, strong, supportive family. I have parents that love and would do absolutely anything for me; and siblings that are the best role models and greatest friends I could ever ask for. My sweet boyfriend is the greatest man I could have ever found; hardworking, kind, smart, funny, spiritual, compassionate, and loving. I have The Gospel of Jesus Christ to help guide me through my life. I live in the greatest country on earth where I have all the freedoms I could ever desire. I am blessed with the means I need to go to school at an amazing university and to live in such a comfortable manner. I am lucky enough to have a job; one that works with my student schedule and one that I enjoy! Lastly but most certainly not least I have the most amazing friends on the face of this earth. It's amazing the impact that a few people who you at one time didn't even know can have on your life. I am so grateful to be able to claim these people as my second spectacular family. "When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching - they are your family." - Jim Butcher. I have to say that there are very few feelings greater then when you realize someone knows you well enough to recognize your many flaws and they still claim you as a friend and love you all the more in spite of those flaws. Growing up, especially in high school, I always tried to remember that it was not the quantity of friends you had that mattered but rather the quality. I was fairly well convinced that I only needed 1 maybe 2 friends and I'd be just fine. I'm still sure that that's all that I NEED, but I am blessed with many more true and great friends than I will ever deserve.

I know that I have the rest of my life ahead of me and I like to think that I am destined to enjoy many more happy moments but I'm hoping to be more observant in my life so that I may notice all the reasons I have to be the happiest person out there! One last quote and then I'm outta here! "Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want." - E. James Rohn.  This is my motto for the next... however it long it takes to get it through my thick skull!

-Dan

Homework? Nah... I'm going to blog

So I'm sitting here in the library... unable to focus on the O-Chem lab I should be preparing for so I'll catch up on my blogging. I have a lot of random thoughts so this is your fair warning that I'm going to be jumping all over the place.

This past Saturday Per went to her first high school dance. She didn't tell me that she had been asked to homecoming until Thursday when I had called her for a different reason entirely and it just kinda slipped out. Last week was one of those weeks that I was absolutely freaking out about living in Salt Lake because I felt clueless and helpless about my family's life. I texted Perri for some reason while I was in class assuming she'd answer me later but she answered right back and kept talking to me for about a half hour. I finally told her she needed to pay attention in class and that I'd talk to her later but she responded telling me she was at home not at class. I asked her why she wasn't at school and she said it was because she had a heart condition and she'd been at the hospital all night. I told her she was a dirty rotten liar and asked why she really wasn't at school. Then she sent me a picture of her hospital bracelet. I began the freak out. I told her I'd call her as soon as I got out of class and that was probably the longest 10 minutes I've had in a very long time. I finally got her on the phone and she was being the basic vague Per that she usually is. I tried to pry as much information as I could out of her but she'd been up at the hospital all night so she was sleep on top of her indifferent attitude. As I was finishing up the conversation with her I mentioned that she probably wasn't going to be coming down to spend the weekend with me like we had discussed before because of the fact that she was on a portable heart monitor. She said "Yeah, and I got asked to homecoming so I guess I've got to go to that" I probably burst her little ear drum when I screamed at her for not telling me sooner! So I decided that even if she didn't care if I was there or not I was not going to miss my little sister getting ready to go to her first dance.

 I worked Friday night and then got up Saturday morning and headed home. When I got there Per was getting ready for her day-date where they were going to go paint-balling and the rest of the family was getting ready to head out to Miles' last regular season football game. We sent Per off with her date and then me and Mom went out in search of shoes for her to wear to the dance. We found a pair and headed back out to Hyrum for Miles' game. They won and when it was over we headed back so I could pick Perri up and take her to get her hair done. When we got back from getting her hair all done we went to work on the large red splotches that were left all over Perri's neck and chest from the stick tabs and tape from the heart monitor. We used some odd remedies that I'd heard friends had used to get rid of hickies because that's what these kinda looked like and then in the end we wound of covering what we couldn't get rid of with make-up. All in all it turned out pretty well and she looked absolutely breath taking when Trevor came to pick her up!  You'd swear I was her mother with how emotional and how excited I got overt this whole endeavor.

I went to church with Waylon and Zach on Sunday and then of course hung around long enough for my parents to feed me dinner before I headed back to Salt Lake for a fireside I was planning on going to with a friend. I picked her up and we headed to the Institute building to hear Elder Paul V. Johnson from the first quorum of the seventy. I was so impressed with the talk he gave. One of the first things he asked was how many of us in the audience were married so I was worried it was going to be one of those "Get married and have babies other wise your life is incomplete" sort of talks but it definitely wasn't. He talked about adversity and trials and things we can use to help us get through those things. He talked about how we can be doing everything right and trials still come up; sometimes again and again and again until we just don't think we can stand it any more. We think that we've just barely made it over one trial, that we're doing life just great and then the next one is there waiting and glaring down at you. Then he said one thing that I really loved, he said, "Life is not a theory class, it's a lab class." Granted this probably meant a whole lot more to us students than it would to someone who's been out of school for a while but it struck home with me. Sometimes you're doing everything right, you know exactly what you should be doing in life and how and why you should be doing those things and that's the theory part which everyone has to figure out at some point. But then you have to go to the lab where you actually have to get your hands dirty. You have to act on the things that you know. And sometimes that means trying the same thing over and over again until you get the right result that you have read about in the literature but everyone has to figure it out. Now my best friend that is a sociology major didn't really love this because she hasn't taken a lab in the 2 and 1/2 years she's been here going to school (Pretty sure they don't exist in the sociology major's world) but for me as an ESS-Phys kid that just basically spends my whole life in the chemistry building it just made so much sense and I loved it!

So now I've rambled on her for a while I still don't know what I'm doing in my Chem Lab that starts in just over an hour. Moral of the story.... I don't know :( Haha All in all it really was a fantastic weekend. I'm super pumped for the USC vs Utah football game on Thursday. Per has softball game in South Jordan on Saturday and then I'm headed home for General Conference and the first part of Fall Break before I have to come back and work :) Well... I hope you all have a fantastic week! Laters!

Love Dan

3 Weeks Down!

So 3 weeks later I think I'm about as back in to the swing of things as I'm going to get. There has been a lot going on but I love it. It helps the time I'm in school go by faster. 

Classes are going well. I've been doing better at balancing my time thus far, I don't know what it was about last semester but I did a terrible job of it. This semester is going a lot better. 

I'm still spending a fair amount of time driving back forth from Logan, It's hard not to when most of my family and Waylon are there.  I've been back for Farewells, football games, and Labor Day. I'm not complaining, the drive isn't that bad, I think my car and my wallet are getting a little sick of all the miles I'm putting in though :/  Oh well, it's worth it.

Right now I'm just living one day at a time and loving it, life's good for now. We'll see what tomorrow brings :) 

U of U Take Two!!!

Well it happened, as much as I begged, and hoped and pleaded for it not to, it did. Today was the first day of school for  us Utes down here. I really don't dislike school as much as it might seem that I do, I just got so comfortable in my routine this summer that it's hard for me to let go. All things considered I am pumped for a new school year. I only have 2 classes on Monday so it wasn't a terrible first day. This semester I only have a 7:30 class on Thursday's which is a nice change from having one every day of the week last year. I started my morning at 8:30 in my familiar old chemistry building... I have not missed that place since May! The first day is never that bad, My professor seems okay. Last semester the professor was so bad that I feel like there is nowhere to go but up! I did however totally space the fact that when you go to school sometimes you are supposed to take pens, pencils, and paper : / talk about embarrassing! Luckily I didn't have to write much and everything that I did need to write I just typed into my phone and copied it down once I got home.

My other class, besides O-Chem, on Mondays is Institute. My first semester last year I didn't take an institute class. I figured that I needed to keep my schedule empty for all my classes. I couldn't have been more wrong. Last spring Zach was just getting home from the mission and he told me how I needed to get my butt to institute. I humored him because I also learned that if you take a class from them you can park in the parking lot which saved me from riding the bus all the time. I eventually learned that I actually enjoyed my class. I adored the teacher and he had such great things to say. So much so, That I decided to take another class from Brother Marshall this semester! I'm taking gospel doctrines and after just today I can tell it's going to be great.

So Mondays and Wednesdays aren't bad at all and Fridays I only have Chemistry which will be nice. Tomorrow I only have one class its ESS 2500 I have no idea what that means so I guess we'll see tomorrow. I usually will have a lab that lasts from, get this, 12:55 until 5:00!! That is a whole lot of Chemistry! Thursday's are similar except that I have a 7:30 Chemistry class and I later Chem Lab discussion. I also took 3 online classes this semester. I'm hoping that I can stay motivated and on top of them so wish me luck!!

I'm excited to get this year rolling! Happy Back-to-School everyone!!