Perfection in our eyes

I have been thinking a lot about what married life will be like for me. I never thought that I would have a wonderful man like Chad. I never thought I would find "perfect", and honestly, I would still feel that way about a marriage if it didn't work out. That is until I read a wonderful post by my friend Elsha Rae. She posted about how someone thought that she tried to seem perfect when she wasn't.

How hurtful. Elsha is a person. I loved reading her post today in regards to that comment. She took it and made people see what "perfect" meant to her. That is the perfect I know I have found. Here is a little of what she says in her blog:

...That is what is perfect to me. Perfect is making a dinner for two, burning it to pieces and ending up getting Chinese take out. Perfect is sometimes having a messy house because of the hard work and the hustle and bustle of it all... Perfect is having an argument and realizing buried beneath the squirmy tummy and flushed cheeks that you can be naive and wrong, and then laughing about it... And falling in love is beyond perfect.

...Perfection is in so many things that are not noticed... Everyone always says "Its about the little things." I could not agree with that more. 

So a million thanks to Elsha. Thank you for being honest. Thank you for having fun. Thank you for caring enough to say what perfect meant for you, because soon, I will have that perfect. 

I strongly suggest you read the blog post I took excerpts out from. She wrote it all so well and came from a very loving place.

Updates and CAW info

I haven't updated for a long time.

Sorry.

Life is life. School is almost done for the semester. Work is going well. My relationship is amazing and in a mere 10 days (!!) I get to see him and meet his parents. What a lucky girl I am!

I have a test this week. Do I feel ready? haha nope. I need to do some more studying and hope for the best. Wish me luck!

I have decided to be done with my Folk Dancing career at the end of this semester. Christmas Around the World is my last hurrah as a folk dancer! I will be moving on in my major by doing other genres.

Speaking of Christmas Around the World, for the first time ever, it will be in the ROUND!! All of the seats in the Marriott Center will be open. All the way around the stage. I am in three numbers. A Russian and Serbian number with my team and then I am tapping as a special guest in a BRAND SPANKIN NEW percussion piece. In this piece there are six different types of footwork. Tap, American Clogging, Irish, French Canadian, Welsh Clogging, and English Clogging. Wooden shoes will be worn and all that jazz. This is going to be awesome. They are all going to be SAWEET! Also, to sweeten the deal.... We have a lot of special guests this year. One of them being the Utah Aerialists! That is right, we have aerialists in our show! I open the show with the girls on my team.

You can get tickets three ways: The HFAC ticket office, the Marriott Center ticket office, and online at arts.byu.edu! If you use the code Dance112 it gives me credit as to who sold the tickets and if you use the code CHRISTMAS2012 (You can redeem it online at this site: http://ev9.evenue.net/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/EVExecMacro?linkID=byu&evm=prmo&RSRC&RDAT&caller=PR or tell the ticket office about it) for a $2 discount off of tickets!

I would love you all to come. The dates are November 30-December 1. There are two night shows at 7:30p and on the 1st there is a mat. performance at 2:00p. Please come! It will not be a performance you will want to miss!

The Flood Begins

Holy smokes! Two years.... I can't believe it. Joseph Mohrman is home. I have had some messages back and forth with him through Facebook and I am just going a little crazy inside knowing that he is HOME and I can see him soon. Two years. Man. I feel so weirded out today.

And so the flood of missionaries coming home begin.....

Long Awaited Update

Oh dear blog. I have neglected you so much and I am sorry about that.

Here is a little update on life.

School has finally started! I have a good semester course load. I am taking German 101, Methods of Teaching World Dance, Beginning Irish, Advanced Percussive Footwork I am on the Back-Up Folk Dance team again, and I am retaking Statistics. I am also a TA for my friend Kellianne's beginning clogging class. 

I have not had a lot of homework yet but it has only been the first week of school. I am excited to see how things play out for me. 

I got a raise at work! I am way excited about that! I have been working there for just over a year now and I love it there. I just hate that it is so far a way from the rest of the world on campus and at my apartment. :( What a shame. haha

Chad Lanham came home. He came home because of a back injury. He served a very full mission. The stories I have heard from him and the comments and posts that friends from Brasil have said on his Facebook definitely show that he was a great missionary.

Well Chad and I are now dating. We have been since he came home pretty much. However last night we made it official in a lot of peoples eyes and opinions. We posted it on.... gasp... Facebook. haha I didn't care either way, if we did or didn't, but we decided to do it so he could get it over with and let it out to his friends in New York. He told the ones that really would care rather in person or called them before we posted it.

Isn't he just the bees knees?

Prepared to meet God

"If we are well prepared, death brings no terror. From an eternal perspective, death is premature only for those who are not prepared to meet God." -Elder Russell M. Nelson.

Morgan Meservy was prepared to meet God. Morgan graduated a year before me. He had gotten home from his mission in May, just after his brother Blake (who graduated with me) left on his, and just in time for McKenna to graduate from high school. 

Last night, he was driving his scooter and a car hit him. He passed away. When I get more information I will post it. 

My  heart goes out to the Meservy family. Morgan's influence has left a mark on my heart, even though I didn't know him nearly as well as I know McKenna. Kenna is like a sister to me so this is hard for me to not know what to say really. 

Morgan, watch over those you love and continue the work. Thank you for the great and strong example you have left in this world. Your service as a missionary will always be felt.

Blake and Morgan before Morgan goes into the MTC.

Morgan at the MTC

Morgan and McKenna before the MTC

Morgan with his newly graduated sister McKenna

I got the pictures from McKenna's Facebook.

Thinking about the quote from Elder Nelson, I really started to think about why so many things like this have been going on in my life. Friends have gotten cancer, people have died, people have gotten in bad situations. I got kind of annoyed last night. I just cried and said, "Why?! This kind of stuff isn't supposed to be happening to me and my friends. This is only supposed to happen to other people. People I don't know." but that is just it; it does. It happens to everyone. Morgan was ready to meet his Father in Heaven. Not saying that I want to die or anything, but I cannot wait until I can face death in the face and say, "I am prepared to meet my Father in Heaven and Savior Jesus Christ." The thought of being prepared for anything to happen really is magnificent. how may people could say that they would be ready to meet God? I don't think many people know they are.

So what can I do to be more prepared?

Believe, Obey, and Endure

That is what we can do. Thomas S. Monson puts it so plainly.

Believe:

Through the winds of change

Encircled by the clouds of pain

I guard it with my life

I need the warmth—I need the light

Though the storm will rage

I stand against the pounding rain

I remain

A keeper of the flame. 1

May you believe and then may you keep the flame of your testimony burning brightly, come what may.

Obey:

My beloved young sisters, you have the precious gift of agency. I plead with you to choose to obey.

Endure:

Finally, may you endure. What does it mean to endure? I love this definition: to withstand with courage. Courage may be necessary for you to believe; it will at times be necessary as you obey. It will most certainly be required as you endure until that day when you will leave this mortal existence.

I love these words. I need to believe, obey, and endure and I will be prepared to meet my Father.

So remember,

"If we are well prepared, death brings no terror. From an eternal perspective, death is premature only for those who are not prepared to meet God." 

-Elder Russell M. Nelson

Food Glorious Food

I started a food blog today. I had started one with my friend Kayla but that didn't really take off since we didn't see each other as much as we wanted to winter semester. Take a look at my experiments turned success!

Politics Anyone?

Guess who did their duty as a citizen and voted yesterday?

Oh that's right. I did! I hope you all did as well.

Keep Calm and Carry On: Part 1 - beginning the blog series

I am finally starting to read the books that Craig Call gave me to read back before SPAC tour. I have been pretty busy and then I couldn't get myself to actually read for a while, but I am finally doing it.

The first one I am reading is called Finding Peace, Happiness, and Joy By Richard G. Scott of the Quarm of the 12 Apostles.

If it was my book I would mark it all up and then write about it later, combining all of my thoughts and spiritual feelings/experiences into one big l o n g post. However, it isn't my book. It's Craig's book. I can't really do that. So what to do? Write it all down in my journal like I would have the book and more? I am almost out of room in my journal and I need a new one. Soon. I know that I am going to have a lot of things that I will want to read back on and remember how this or that made me feel so I had to come up with something before I started reading.

That is when it hit me. A brrrrrrrilliant idea! I have a blog. Why not use that? Duh.

So, I decided that I am going to start a blog series that have thoughts concerning this book; things I have thought about, learned, realized, or just thought were interesting. 

I guess I will start with the first thought right here and right now. For the rest of the series that will come, you can go to the {keep calm and carry on: the series} page of this blog.

Elder Scott says on the subject of having a settled/unsettled conscience, "The ability to have an unsettled conscience is a gift of God to help you succeed in this mortal life by being motivated to make needed change."

Wow. I never realized that an unsettled conscience was a sign from God that meant that something needed to be improved or changed. Thinking back on all of the things that happened this past year and all of the times that I had an unsettled mind I realize that it is so true. 

For example. Back in November of 2011, right around my birthday, I was in a ton of debt. I was so worried. I was working but I couldn't seem to figure things out. I couldn't register. I hadn't received my scholarship because I couldn't register as well. This was the lowest I have ever felt. The smallest I have ever been. I was scared out of my mind and didn't know what to do. 

The idea of only working during the Winter semester was planted in my mind. People do that all of the time. You can take a semester off no problem. Two semesters? Don't even think about it because it is like you are giving up on school since you took off a year. I strongly considered it. I would have done it. I was planning on it.

I still thought about doing SPAC (the back up folk dance team that tours to elementary schools) however. I wanted it and I had worked hard for it. I would be giving up pretty much all of my chances of ever getting on PAC if I took off the semester to work. But I needed the money.

Conflicted feelings about what to do were driving me nuts. I went to the temple and I could have sworn that I had gotten my answer to drop out for the semester and give up SPAC. Yet, I was told that I needed to at least audition for SPAC. It would be a good opportunity for me and a fun experience.

I auditioned.

I got in. Wait. WHAT?!

Now what do I do? I prayed and got told that this was what I needed. I needed to be on this team. I knew I would grow a lot. I knew that school was not something that I want to end.

I had been thinking about dropping out completely. Altogether. done. Finito. Audios to getting a Bachelors of Arts in Dance. If only I had seen and knew earlier that my unsettled and conflicting thoughts were a sign to me saying that I needed to change. My work ethic needed to change.

My work ethic has definitely changed. I am currently working full time at BYU, the same positions that I did during the school year. I need this and I actually quite enjoy it. The people are fun to be around and we joke with each other all of the time. 

Something told me it wasn't right. I took that to the Lord. I am definitely going to keep an eye on an unsettled mind a lot closer than I have been.

Look for peace and clarity. You will be calm and you will carry on.

have they really come?

Oh the joys of summer.

The joys of walking around... sometimes even barefoot... in the water.

The joys of having beautiful flowers and clear blue skies.

The joys of being just a little bit more on the odd side of life.

The joys of getting ready and excited for school in the fall.

{my dance major council picture for the coming year}

The joys of having a little more time to celebrate birthdays and holidays.

The joys of getting to see your siblings really grow.

to be a missionary or not... that is/was the question

I have been rethinking a mission. I fasted for a while the other day to try and really get an answer. I figured that it would be a no but I had a feeling that I needed to ask again. I didn't know why but I needed to at least ask. I didn't want to give up on that prompting. Well. I gave up after a while feeling that I didn't need to ask again just yet. duh. I didn't need to ask at all about going. I just needed to feel like it would be okay that I didn't go. I do feel okay now. I know that there is something better for me to do. Even though I would like to go and serve the Lord to help bring joy and eternity to those that may be needing it, I feel like I can still do that through my dancing. I can do that through my service in my major or in my church callings. I can be more of an influence through my community and to others that if I were to go on a mission I wouldn't be able to do just that. 

I feel okay about this now. Excited almost.

SPAC pics

Check out my Google+ page for some pictures of SPAC.

Coming Soon:

I am going to post some pictures (when I get home from work of course) of SPAC. I just have to say that they are going to be amazing. I will share some little stories of each week with the pictures. So expect about four new posts tonight (one for each week). Get excited.

Battle Wounds

On Thursday, SPAC was in Tabiona (the middle of no where Utah) just about 30 minutes away from Duchesne which is 2 hours north-east of Provo. Well we got to the school in Tabby 30 minutes earlier than we needed to be. We decided to go play on the playground that they had. It was so legit. It had like the merry go rounds that you try and stay on and all of the guys spun us around, there were teeter totters and more jungle gym equipment like there used to be in the good ole days. Well I got on the teeter totter with Katelynn Reed, my roommate. We were having fun and getting some height. The teeter totters were metal and were pretty strong. Well, I got popped off of the teeter totter, nothing was touching it. I was scrambling to stay safe so nothing would happen to me but as I tried to grab back on my momentum was moving forward and my face had a collision with the huge metal bar. I have a bump and a pretty nasty bruise on my chin from it. The scary part is that when I hit the teeter totter with my legs my left leg hit the seat pretty hard.... hard enough that it left a ginormous bruise on my leg... yes in the picture that is my bruise with a quarter next to it. My hand is the same size as the bruise. Given I don't have very big hands but that is still a huge bruise. I wasn't sure which pain to concentrate on when I got off of the teeter totter. I kind of focused on the one that I figured needed more attention to so my jaw was what I focused on. When we started to dance and as the day went on dancing got harder and harder to do with my chin getting a bigger bump and a darker bruise and my leg getting a way darker bruise by the second. It is finally starting to chill and not get any worse. It is finally getting a little better because I can now walk and it almost doesn't hurt anymore. I am pretty sure my jaw is a little jammed though. It hurts still. It doesn't kill me but it is irritating at times. 

So there you have it. My battle wounds for the week. One more week of tour!

SPAC Tour: Weeks 1-2 Rewind Time

Okay I have not been very good about posting everyday. I do realize that. So here are some funny things that I have remembered from the past two weeks.

Week one:
Traveling. We were in the vans way more the first week than we were the second week. Well, maybe not but it definitely feels like we have been traveling a lot closer to Provo or that the schools are closer together during this second week of performing than it did the first week. I may have just gotten used to it too. The first week had us performing at 11 schools. We had three every day except for Thursday, which was a huge blessing for us. We were so tired and beat because we were not used to performing that much that only doing 2 performances on Thursday (4/27/2012) was good.

Friday (4/28/2012) was a fun day. We felt more excitement as we danced. We had a school up in Daybreak and then we were in Orem for the last two shows of the day. They were such great audiences. In the first school in Orem (Hillcrest) one of the teachers was on PAC last year. Her name is Mckenzie. She is a wonderful dancer and she grew up doing Scottish dancing her whole life. The principle was not there so she was in charge of the assembly since she knew what it was like (she had been on SPAC once upon a time too). It was good to see her and she gave us a very good introduction. The first school in Daybreak was crazy. We had so much fun! The school is conjoined with their city's community center. The room where we performed had the best floor (even though our clogging sounds were pretty muffled because of how open this space was) but it was open up top, meaning that there was a gym and a track that surrounded the place on the second level while we danced on the first. It was so cool! People were running on the treadmills or on the elliptical while we were dancing. Enough said.

Week two:
We finally got to perform twice at one school. I love that. We don't have to worry about picking everything up all at once so it gives us a good break in between shows but we still are able to stay warm for the next show. We did that at three different schools this week. We did it at Tolman Elementary (4/30/2012), Brookwood Elementary (5/1/2012), and at Midvale Elementary (5/4/2012).  The second week also brought new narrations for the whole week! I was switched from Moldovan to Yemenite. It was not to bad to remember.

May 1, 2012 was Will Farnbach's birthday. He turned 22. We all sang him happy birthday and had donuts to celebrate. I was scared all day though. We have this tradition in Folk dance that on your birthday you get thrown in the air by all of the guys. I ran away before they could do it to me during the Fall semester. I was out of the waters as far as I was concerned right? False. Craig Call and Will Farnbach had been trying to get me thrown all semester. I never did get thrown during winter semester. I just never let it happen. No one thought about it until after they had passed a birthday so they said they would wait until the next one, and then the next one, and the next one, ect. I never got thrown. Rewind to April 23, 2012. The day we moved in for SPAC I was with Craig all day and we were just hanging out. Well, I saw something that I wanted to know the story behind it and he would not tell me. I finally gave in and said, "What if I said that I would be thrown on Will's birthday if you told me?" That got his attention. Long story short, I got thrown. UGH! It was so scary!! However, I didn't get thrown until the day after Will's birthday. We didn't have any time to do it on his birthday so both of us were thrown on May 2, 2012. I was terrified. I also hit Jay in the face. I felt bad about that.

Amber Moon also had something terrifying happen to her during our first show on the first. She does the flying girl with Wesley Valdez in Hopak. She holds onto his neck and they just spin around in a circle with her being the only thing holding her on. It looked so great! It was the best one they have ever done. When they came down something happened and she ended up flat on her back hitting her head hard on the tile floor that was not forgiving for our feet let alone a head. She hit hard enough that she couldn't see for a few seconds and her whole left side went paralyzed for a few minutes. They carried her off but she ended up being fine. Nothing bad really came from it other than a humongous bump on her head. When she showed us the bump, Kaitlyn Gourley just bust up laughing and says, "It's true! Mormons do have horns!" hahahaha! It was the best quote anyone could have ever had! The best thing too is that Amber had the history for the day. That will go down in infamy.

May 2, 2012 was just a bad day for me all together.Other than being thrown at the end of the day, I had something scary happen to me at the beginning of the day. During the first show I got hurt. I had hurt my foot during our Moldovan number (the second number of the day for me). We were doing AAB as our line up so I was able to only have to do Hopak at the second school since we have alternates for every dance in the A show line up on 9 couple. I just sat out and chilled with Delynne during the second show to let my foot just relax. I danced all of the numbers at our third show though along with doing my narration. It was scary for me. Yemenite is a lot of bouncing up and down on our feet so I was very cautious dancing. I didn't do toe stands on my right foot during clogging either. It was a hard show for me to do but I got through it. The next day I felt better but we had a lot of shows to do.

Thursday (5/3/2012) we had our only four show days. I was really scared considering that I was injured and didn't really know what was wrong with my foot. I had it wrapped for the first show but then it just hurt more to have it wrapped so I took it off and danced with no support. Yeah I know... I am an idiot for doing that. I could have made it a lot worse. Well I was very careful the rest of the day. The crazy thing though is that I didn't really need to be. I felt great. My foot was not really hurting at all. I wonder why... oh wait it was because we had the BEST audiences we have ever had. Every single school was amazing. At the first school we had kids that were from all over the world. There were 32 different countries represented at their elementary school. At every single school on Thursday, Caucasian was the obvious minority. It was so much fun to perform for those schools. After our performances we went to the training room to get worked on or to use the whirlpool to ice our aching bodies. I was worked on by Bridget and she told me that what had happened to my foot was that I had pulled my Peroneal muscles and tore some tissue at the insertion point on my foot. Great! Not. There goes one of my tour goals. Not getting injured is a bust. She worked on it, had me do exercises, and then she put me in the whirlpool for 15 minutes making sure that I was constantly moving my foot the whole time. She taped me afterwards as well. I feel better but I still hurt every now and then. I have to be careful still.

Friday the fourth I had history. It was such a great day! We performed at two schools but had three shows. Our first school was at Midvale. We performed two shows there. The first audience was for the older kids so they didn't really respond outwardly and it felt really dead for us. We all kept saying that we felt really dead. We felt a lot more exhausted than we usually would have been. It was a hard show because we were trying so hard to make them happy and get them excited but they were not giving us anything so it was sucking the energy out of us. We kept wondering why it was so hard compared to the day before where we had so much energy the whole day.Audience is the key. The second audience were the younger grades. They were so great!! They clapped through the whole show and reacted so well to everything. Afterwards we sat down in the audience and the second graders danced for us. They did a Line dance and a dance from Mexico. It was the cutest thing ever!

The girls that I was sitting by were so mesmerized by the ribbons on my head piece and they wanted to play with them. They kept braiding them over and over again. It was so adorable. I said goodbye to them and thanked them for being so cute after I took pictures with them. I went up to Craig afterwards and told him how the little girls were braiding my ribbons. He then decided to do the same thing and took three of the ribbons and started braiding. He moved away from me and I was so confused as to why at first (he was trying to get a little tension to make a good braid haha) and so I followed him so he wouldn't rip out the head piece and ruin my braid. He kept walking away backwards and I kept following him. Apparently there were some little boys that were observing us and thought we were flirting. They proceeded to yell out, "KISS HER! KISS KISS KISS!!"

EMBARRASSING! I took the ribbons out of Craig's hands and walked out. I had the history for Friday so I am for sure going to include that. The kids in the second audience were just so excited about us being there. They had climbed up and jumped up on all of the boys at the end as well. I loved being there.

The third show was not as memorable. The third show was a lot of fun as well. We decided to use real bread for Bread and Salt in Hopak. It was cool. My van ate part of it after the show. This school had a dance class after our performance and we decided to all join in! Garrett Jacobson started it all but we all just came in and dance with them. It was a lot of fun.

Friday night had SPAC being volunteers at the Edgemont Extravaganza. I was on the Princess Bean Bag Toss all night long. It was fun to see all of the little girls get so excited to see a girl who was dressed up as Snow White. It was a lot of fun. We got free food at the end of the night. They had a ton of food left so it was nice. :)

Yesterday was super chill. I had a visit from Brent and Chelsey in the morning. It was good to see them. There was a Nacho Libre party that SPAC has been planning for a long time.

Today I had church at 1:30pm. Ugh. Gag me. I am not a fan of church that starts past 11am. I like morning church a lot. It is nice and way chill. We just got done with a breakfast for dinner break the fast as a team. It was a lot of fun and we had SO MUCH food!! I am just so excited for this week. It will be a great week!

SPAC Tour: Day 1- A Tad Rusty Don't You Think?

SPAC started our tour today and how much fun I had! I may be a little sore and pretty tired but overall I had a lot of fun. The people I am around make all the difference. 

We had three shows today. They were all in different schools too so we were traveling around quite a bit. We went to East Sandy, Midvalley, and Early Light Academy today. For me the best show was the one in MIdvalley. I felt like the kids really responded well and we were all so pumped up and ready to go that the energy was really high. 

There were some really funny moments today. I got a video on Craig's phone of the boys in my van singing Son's of Provo today. Wow. Who knew right? They knew like all of the words and were just having a blast! I am so happy that it was recorded. Another one was during our break in between Midvalley and Early Light Academy (ELA). We had gone to Jason Allen's home for lunch because he lived about one minute from MIdvalley. He had gone to that elementary school so his family was right around the corner. While we were there we had a game of missionary tag going and Craig picked up Lauren Askew (LA) in a cradle hold. While he was holding her like that Brodie Fish came plowing into them. I was taking pictures. I got right before, and right after. It was great!! I wish I had gotten it on video though. That would have been better. At the first show there was a pretty good moment with Dallin Neilson. After the seven couple guys did their dance from Austria (I can't spell it and I won't even try... haha it would be bad so we will leave it at that) they all bowed, except for Dallin. He then realized that he needed to bow and did so. When he bowed, everyone else came up so then it was just him bowing. It was funny to see it all go down especially since we had not done any of the dances for a week and a half. We were pretty rusty.

The day ended with me going with Craig to fill up the van we had been in (he drove and I was his navigator) with gas and clean it all out. He dropped me off at the RB to go into the training room with a few other members of SPAC. I had called Richie (the assistant trainer) about a half an hour out from Provo to let him know that I had some people (including myself) that wanted to use rather him or the whirlpool. So we went in. I sat in the ice cold water of the whirlpool for a bit and then went and got my toenail taken off. It had cracked at the base and needed to be ripped off. It would have gotten worse and would not have been pretty at all if I hadn't taken care of it. I grabbed some bags of ice to ice my calves and I will use them on my back tomorrow if I need to, which I probably will.

And so ended the first day of SPAC tour. I have been kind of a bum the rest of the night. I iced here while watching Make It or Break It as well as made dinner. Other than that I haven't done much of anything. It has been great. I would keep writing about some random stuff, maybe about how finals went (ew we won't go there at all, ever) or how everyone is getting engaged (pronounce en-gage-ed, ed being separate like blessed or learned in some hymns and/or scriptures) and/or married but I am tuckered out and am really wanting to go to bed. So until tomorrow,

Good night world.

Thankful for a dead bolt

This weekend was fun up until about 6:30pm.

I had my auditions for PAC today and those were a blast! You can read all about it here. After the auditions I crashed. I fell asleep at about 2:30. Jasmine was home with me when I went to sleep. I heard when our other roommate Lauren came home. I don't know what time it was exactly when she was home but when I woke up at 6:30 I was all alone... and have been since. I will be home alone for the rest of the weekend too. I took a shower and have been just relaxing but I am so bored. Can you tell? I have made three blog posts. I am about to start an email to Chad and I am all alone.... great. Good thing we have a dead bolt on our door right?

Happy thoughts, stressful days

Senior Projects is this week. I am in two of the numbers, a hula and a contemporary piece.

Here is the information:

RB Theater (164 RB)

Friday, March 23 @ 7:30p

Saturday, March 24 @ 2:00p

The tickets are $6.

Shows are starting to wind down for the semester before tour. I am starting to lose myself to all of the stress however. I have a lot to do before the end of the semester. I have a test and a paper this week. ouch.

Pray for me and send me happy thoughts!

Sunday Memories

Craig Call and I had dinner last night. He picked me up at four from my stake conference and we headed up north to the town of Salt Lake.

On Friday we had been texting while he was at work. I asked him what his plans were for the three day weekend and he said that his mom was coming into town, so he was going to see her and have some family time. I said that it must be nice to have his mom in town since he is from Arizona and he doesn't get to see her that often, like I do being from Utah and working in the same building as my mother. He agreed. Then I got asked the question. haha He simply said, ":) Do you want to meet my family?"

Oh wow. I was not expecting that. We are not even officially dating. We just really like each other and want to take things one day at a time, and maybe officially date down the road. So, that question kind of threw me off guard. I simply answered with a, "Sure. If you want me to, I would love to." Which I would love too and did yesterday. I went up to his Grandpa Scott's house for dinner and met his mom. His Grandpa was not feeling well so he did not join us. They did invite me to go up in March to their big family home evening they have up at his (Grandpa Scott's) house. I am excited for that. Craig really wanted him to meet me I think since he asked a few times if he really wasn't feeling that well to even come and say hi. He wasn't but it is alright. I just hope he gets to feeling better.

I learned a lot about Craig last night. Craig and his family that is. Craig's mother is Elder Scott's daughter, but she is not Craig's biological mother. His biological mother got in a car accident when Craig was four and passed away six days later. Craig was in the car. Craig's dad remarried about three years later, after some enlightening things happened to him. So I met his step mother who raised him. I love her. She was so open and welcoming to me. I did not feel out of place at all. We talked about his first mother a lot as well. I was glad to get to know about her as well. She danced too. So did Craig's Grandma Scott.

After dinner, which was just Craig, his mom, and I, we took some food over to his Grandma Foux's house (Craig's 1st mom's mom). She is 88 years old and was so incredible. I found out that she was from Spanish Fork. So we had a good conversation about a lot of things. She recognized the Ashby name Dad. haha I didn't really know who she would know or who would have been around when she was living there but she recognized the name. We stayed and visited her for a few hours and then left to go and drop by his sister Camille's.

Camille is married and has one little boy who is obsessed with the movie Up. Cutest thing ever from what they told me about him and the pictures I saw. He was asleep by the time we got there so I didn't get to meet him. He is 1 1/2 years old. I would love to actually interact with him. Camille is expecting a girl in March, the end of March though. I told her about Gillian expecting in March as well with a little girl and she got excited for her. Her husband is very nice and personable as well.

I am glad I got to meet them. I am thankful I got to spend a day with Craig to get to know him better. I think I like him a lot. In the long run, I don't know what is going to happen. However, life is about having experiences and learning from them. This is a very different experience that I am having, and I am learning a lot from it. It is so different than what I had with Gabe and/or Spencer. He treats me like an equal, not like I am a child. I treat him like an equal. I don't feel like I have to stoop down to his level. It is a nice feeling. I love Sunday's. Some more than others, but I love them nonetheless. This Sunday will be with me in my memories for a very long time.

{Wish I had a picture to show you of Craig and I. I will have to work on that.}

Upcoming performances

Here is a list of my upcoming performances for you all! I would love to see you at one of them.

Festival of Nations (All of the Folk Dance teams):
March 10, 2012 @7 in the Wilk, about $3

Senior Projects (Contemporary and a Hula):
March  23-24, 2012 @7 in the RB theatre, about $6

SPAC Showcase (Folk Dance team -Our whole team):
April 4, 2012 @7 in the Wilk, about $3

I hope you can find one of them to come to! If you have any questions, let me know! I will put up information as time gets closer, BUT start planing now so you can come okay?

Love you.

Dating or not dating

TO DATE:

a. An engagement to go out socially with another person, often out of romantic interest.

b. One's companion on such an outing.

Dating. Why does it have to be so complicated? Why can't people just date without questions? Without hesitation? My mother asked me these questions. I now ask the same questions. Why can't the questions come afterwards? 

Schooling to me is a great relationship. I am pretty happy with it right now. I love the relationship I am in. School and I get along with each other very very well. That is something I can live with.

I would love to date someone right now but I am done looking for it. Done. I can wait for things to fall into place. However, I do go on dates every now and then. I have been making steps to date, but whatever happens in the end of the whole dating scene will end up with me married... eventually.

So in conclusion... 

To dating -stop being complicated already.

Happy times are here again

I went on a date last night.

I had an absolute blast. We went to JCW's for dinner, went rock climbing at the Quarry, then watched the movie Rio. Good food, good activities, and good company all come together for a good Friday night. I found out a few things about myself on this date as well.

Yes, it is as scary as it looks. The Quarry in Provo.

1. I love the Hawaiian Hamburger at JCW's. So good! Who would have thought to put grilled pineapple rings and grilled ham on a hamburger? Well, whoever it was is good in my book. I know it is a little weird that I got it in the first place but it sounded good. I didn't know what was going to be on it but I was hungry and when I bit into it, it was nice to have a sweet and juicy flavor with the zesty and hearty flavor of the ham and hamburger. I definitely recommend it if you ever go eat there.
2. I am horrible rock climber. Ask my date Craig Call. He would say other wise to be nice (that being his personality), but I know that I am horrible because I got so tired extremely fast. I got a little over half way up the wall (not too shabby right?) on every course we did. I would have kept going on the last course we took but my size kind of lacks in the big department lending to the hindering of continuing on. Craig is very tall. He has both long arms and legs making any course a piece of cake in reality. For me being small in the department of arm and leg length could not get any higher on the last course. I would have kept going but I didn't trust myself to leap to the next hand hold since it was only my first time rock climbing ever. 
3. I am happy. I am actually truly happy for more than one day at a time now. It has been a while since I have felt that. I got that comment from both Craig and a long lost friend of mine that my date and I ran into -Sydney Bowen. Man it has been son long since I had seen her let alone talked to her. We got talking about what we were both up to with school and I found out that she is now at UVU and is involved in their Culinary Arts program. I have seen a lot of pictures of cupcakes that she has made and can see why she would fit into the Culinary Arts program. She is fantastic at them. I would love to try some of them. I would like to go and visit her sometime soon. Catch up. Even though we live completely different lives and live different life styles from the other, I still think about her a lot. She asked me about my life and said that she had looked through my pictures on Facebook just recently. The comment that she made about them was that I looked completely happy. Which when she said that, it dawned on me. Yes, I am very happy. Life is going well. Things are falling in place. I feel close to the Lord, secure in my job, loving my school work as well as being on top of my homework, and am going in the right field of study. I am actually truly happy. Craig made the same comment a number of times on the date. He kept saying, "You look so happy, which makes me happy."

Isn't  it weird how one date can teach you so much?

Happy Sabbath everyone! Hope this post finds you as happy as I am.

Weddings and School

Today I went dress shopping with my two friends Katelyn and Michelle. Katelyn is getting married on May 26, 2012 and Michelle and I are her bridesmaids so we went with her to look at dresses today.

We went to three places today; Alysse's Bridal, David's Bridal, and Sweetheart Bridal. She didn't really find anything at David's Bridal and I figured she wouldn't. She found two dresses at Alysse's Bridal and two at Sweetheart Bridal. She actually looked in the mirror for one of the dresses from Sweetheart Bridal and flat out said, "Wow. Wow, I look great."

I think she will get that dress or the last one she tried on at Alysse's Bridal. Both of them have a rouged bodice with lace and beading that fit her in a modified mermaid styled (meaning it doesn't go as low, only to about mid-upper thigh).

She looked so happy in those dresses. I wish I could find a picture of them to put on here but I cannot find any of them. :(

All in all it has been a great weekend so far. Last night I was with them as well and we watched a movie and snacked on a butt load of random food that we had. We also looked at wedding stuff. I am excited to be able to help her with her wedding. I love Katelyn and Michelle! I am happy that I have made such good friends this year. I needed this a lot.

In other news, SPAC is going so great! I am in a lift part for Hopak as well as doing a little turning trio. I am excited! It is going to be such a great number. We got our semester and tour assignments yesterday and I am very pleased to say that I get a taste of what I want to do for the rest of my life this semester... I am the trainer for SPAC! My friend Lauren Spurgen and I both got the honor of being the trainers for SPAC this year; meaning we get to hand out ice, rub out tight calves, give them medicine, and do the taping jobs if anyone needs any of that stuff. I am so happy about that.

School is going well. I am on top of things and finding out that I have a lot more free time to do what ever I please as I stay on track with my classes. I am ahead in my New Testament class, on track for STATS, and all I need to do is get tickets for two dance shows for my dance classes. I taught my first choreographed Ukrainian dance yesterday and it went really well. I got a lot of pointers. The cool thing too is that I noticed the same things that she did as we filmed it and actually saw it being done. I am enjoying my semester a lot so far. I am not as stressed as I was and I am finally feeling happy, truly happy for more than one day at a time.

Now all I need to do is find a good place to live for next year. :)

Annoyance and Excitement.

I don't think that my Achilles Tendon is very happy with me.

Ever since I performed up in Kingsburry Hall at the beginning of November it has been killing me. I have had it taken care of so many times it is ridiculous. I am so annoyed that I am always in so much pain. It just bugs me.

I am currently taped up and I have an appointment to go back in to the trainer on Tuesday and Wednesday and Friday of next week. Yippee.

On a brighter note, SPAC has almost finished Hopak! We are so close to being done. I love it so much. We started our clogging number today as well. It has some hip-hop in it. I must say, I have swagger! Who would have known? Mark April 4th on your calenders alright? That is my show! And as far as I know.... It is.... FREE!! free..... the magic word. It is going to be amazing.

Hope everyone has had such a great week! Enjoy the three day weekend! I know I am going to.

Let the year begin right

Winter Semester has begun and it is super fantastic already.

SPAC started off with a bang and I am very sore. It didn't really matter how active I had been during the break because I was still very out of it at the end of the rehearsal. Yesterday was a full day of classes and some work. Today was a full day of work and classes. I thoroughly enjoyed today. Here is what my schedule is like for classes not including work: Mondays: SPAC, Dance and Technology, TA for beginning World Dance, Clogging, and then STATS. Tuesdays: World Dance Composition, New Testament, and STATS lab Wednesdays: Just like Monday. Thursdays: Wold Dance Composition, New Testament, and Dance Productions. Fridays: SPAC, Wold Dance Composition, Clogging, and STATS. It is such a great schedule and it makes up fourteen credits. I am excited to see what awaits me this year. My goal is to do well enough to possibly get on the deans list, which seems very impossible, but I am wanting to try and refocus on school this year. I need to since my plan is to go to Physical Therapy school after I graduate with a BFA in Dance Performance and a minor in Nutrition. I would like to do well this semester. Well, I am off to bed now. Waking up for seven am class (SPAC) is going to be interesting. Goodnight world! Until tomorrow.