Little Things that make Me SMILE

No matter what is going on in life, there are always some things that just make me smile. It doesn't matter if other things in life are not so good, or even if some things just suck; there are still those simple things that make me happy and just make me smile. You know...those things that no matter how good or bad the day has been they just seem to make you feel better. Whether it is something that is new or something that is old and just brings comfort. Somedays it is those little things that make it all worth while. Those little things that make you grateful for living the life you lead. Those things that just make living worth it. Here are some of my little things that just make me smile:

*Driving with the windows down
*Sunsets

*The smell of clean clothes right out of the wash
*Dancing in the rain
*When your favorite song comes on the radio
*Seeing the temple lit up on the hill
*Going on vacations no matter how big or small
*My brothers letters and pictures from his mission

*Reading books that I relate too
*Thinking of my friends and our many adventures


*Clean sheets
*Finding what I was looking for
*Baseballs games in the park
*U of U football

*Waking up to the sun shining in through the window
*Late night ice cream
*A full moon and the stars
*Songs played on the guitar

Fear vs. Faith

Recently in my life I have come across a few things to fear. At least they are a few things that I fear. Some of them scare me more then I would like to admit, and some are just something that I worried about for a moment and then decided that they weren't worth worrying about. But the main point is, that sometimes in life there comes a time when you fear something. If you are anything like me, you probably will fear more then one thing throughout your life.

This thing you fear could be that you are afraid that something won't happen, or even afraid that something will. It could be that you are afraid of tangible things or things that no one can really hold. It could even just be a fear of the unknown. Whatever it is, it is a fear. A very real fear.

One thing with fear though is that it inhibits your ability to act. No matter how big or small the fear is it makes you stumble and lose your way. It tends to either root you in one spot or make you back up, but either way, you are no longer able to proceed forward. You are no longer able to walk on the path you were on.

Life is funny though. No matter how much you believe that you have conquered your fears or think that you have nothing to fear, it always throws something in your life that scares you out of your mind. Whether you recognized it as a fear before or not, there it is. Right in your path of life, waiting for you to decide what to do about it. At this point you have some decisions to make. You can stop where you are at and stare at it hoping it will go away. You can turn around and run in the opposite direction. Or you can move forward, praying that you will be strong enough to overcome it. At times, all of these are good options. If you sit there long enough the spider will crawl away. If you are hiking up a trail and see it gets really steep, turning around and moving back down the mountain will let you avoid the height on the edge of the cliff. But there are other times when moving forward is the only way for you get to the path you need to be at.

One of my favorite quotes says this "When you come to the edge of darkness and the next step is into the great unknown, you must believe in one of two things; you will step onto solid ground, or you will be taught to fly." I love this quote because it helps keeps me grounded in life. It helps me to remember to trust in God and keep moving forward. For you see, it occurred to me some years back that God does not want us to fail. He is not up there hoping we quit and turn around. He is not hoping that we give up and join Satan and his forces. He does not want us to get thrust into outer darkness. What he does want, however, is for us to succeed. He wants us to stay strong. He wants us to fulfill our mission and conquer our fears. He wants us to get back to him and have everlasting life. God does not want to destroy us, he wants to lift us. I don't think God gives us trials because he wants to make us crumble. He gives them to us because he wants to make us into something. Something far greater then we could ever imagine.

Therefore, I also know that God will provide a way. He will not give us a trail that we can not get through. He will not give us a trial that we can not overcome. And whatever trial we are given, He will also provide a way for us. God is not one who is going to leave us stranded. He is one who is there if we but turn to him and put our trust in him. This is where Faith comes in. Not only faith in God, but faith that God knows you, loves you, and is there for you. Trials require a Faith in Gods words and deeds. You must believe that he will be there for you. You must believe that He knows who you are and will only give you trials in life for your benefit. You must have faith that there is a way to get through whatever life hands you and whatever you get yourself into. And with having faith, you just might find that your fear is not so scary anymore. It might even go away.

I recently learned a new word, Certitude. Certitude means a total certainty or greater certainty than circumstances warrant. Faith is having certitude in God. It is knowing for certain that He will be there, no matter what is going on, even if the circumstances you are in make it seem unbelievable. So go forward living your life, but live it with certitude and faith; not with fear.

The 24th of July

Otherwise know as Pioneer Day for the people who live in Utah. This is a day that has been celebrated for only the past 150 years or so. And is a day that is only seen as a holiday in Utah. For this is the day that the pioneers entered into the great state and decided to call it home. It is a day where pioneers should be honored for there hard work and determination. A day where one should rejoice that they are able to live here in this great state because people fought for it. In essence, this day is a day that should be celebrated.

In my family we have always started our celebrating by going to the 24th of July parade that is held in downtown Salt Lake City. In all my years I have only missed the parade twice. No, we do not camp out over night. Although, my moms family used to when they were kids. Now days, we all just get up at the crack of dawn and head on down to the city. Over the years of going we have found are favorite spot to park and to sit. We tend to park on second south and then walk down the street to the parade route. We have found that we like to sit by the police families. One, because they sit in the street and they don't block of the road until about 7am, which is when we arrive, which also guarantees us that we get pretty close to front row seats. Two, since the police families are sitting there all of the motorcycle cops in the parade do their shows right in front of us. And three, they set up the radio stand right across the street, so we hear all of the announcements and stories about each entry.

This year was no different. We got up bright and early and left the house by 6:30am. We drove downtown and meandered our way over to our favorite parking spot. From there we walked the three blocks to the parade route and set our chairs up in the street right next to the police. Since we get there so early, we always have time to just hang out and read, play cards, eat breakfast...or my personal favorite...people watch. And lets just say that you can find some very interesting people at the parade. You can also find some interesting people in the parade as well. They themselves make the parade entertaining to watch. Plus, I do like to see the floats and the cop shows(favorite!)


Wendi and Ben dub him my future husband.....






After our fun at the parade Wendi and I decided to go run some errands. Our first stop of the day turned out to be Kinko's. I had been put in charge of making the Whiting family directory and needed to make copies of it to hand out that night at the family BBQ. Then we went to Costco and got free Cremmies, the raspberry ones were amazing! From there we headed up to Layton where we made a stop at Downeast. Once inside this store we found out that they sell furniture as well as clothes. They had the cutest red couches that were so comfy. Plus I also got a new swimsuit. It was a good stop. After that we decided that we should probably go and get ready so we could be to the BBQ on time.

Every year my grandparents hold a BBQ at their house on the 24th of July. After dinner it is tradition to go over to the school field where they hold Butler Days. In all my years. I don't really ever remember going. I know we went when we were younger, but in recent years we have just never gone. We have always gone and done our own thing. But, this year we happened to go and it was a blast. It was so much fun partly because of the food, the park games, the concert, and the fireworks but, mostly it was so much fun because it was my family. When we are together we always find things to laugh about and just have fun in each others company. It doesn't really matter what we do as long as we do it together. Granted, we do do some fun things, but most of the time I think they are only fun because of who I am doing them with.

This family get together turned out to be no different. Upon arriving we were put right to work husking corn and getting chairs set up. Even then, we still found things to laugh about like how the corn was soaking wet (we have no idea why), how Joe had never husked corn before and didn't know what to do, how we would put the chairs down and then grandpa would just go and move them again, and much much more. From there we all just hung out, ate yummy food, told stories, and laughed some more.





Once dinner was over and cleaned up we decided that we should head over to the school grounds to get a spot for the fireworks. Here we met up with the Brown family and quickly claimed our seats. Upon arriving, we found out that Eclipse was preforming. Therefore, after a few moments of hellos and hugs some of us were quickly off to the front of the stage. For you see, we wanted to dance. And not only dance, but dance right up front like we have at their concerts before. I am glad to report that we not only danced at this concert, but we started the dance party right up by the stage. It was such a blast! If you have never run and danced at a concert I highly recommend it. After our song was over we started to head back to join the family when to our surprise they started to sing another one that we could dance to. So what do we do?? We turn right around and go running back to dance once again. And let me tell you, running back in the dark to the stage is not that easy when you take into consideration that half of us were in heels, we were jumping over people and weaving through blankets. I am pretty sure that we didn't step on anyone. After the last song we headed back to the family and made it just in time to sit and watch the fireworks. We love the ones where you can feel the boom and luckily for us there were a lot of them. We did decide that they played some very entertaining songs though..we had the ants go marching in, Yankee doodle, and a variation of primary songs. They also had some interesting fireworks that kept shooting off into a different area. Once the last song was played and the last firework shot we headed back to the grandparents house to do a firework show of our own where we lit the fuses in the dark, almost had one go off on a person, and danced in the street with sparklers to end the night. All in all, I think it was a pretty darn good day, one that will just have to be celebrated again next year. :)

Friday Fun

What do five girls, who happen to the best of friends, do when they realize that they all have the same Friday off of work? I will tell you....they go to the zoo. At least that is what we choose to do, and boy did we have fun.

The day started with meeting at the Hogel Zoo at ten in the morning. Since we all live in different places we figured we would just meet up there. Wendi was the smart one and brought the sunblock so we wouldn't look like lobsters by the end of the day. Once we were all covered and protected we headed off to buy tickets. We ended up getting the adventure passes which include a ride on the train and the carousel. And yes, we were quite excited about this and no, we did not have any little children with us. We were just excited to be hanging out and going to the zoo.

From there we spent the day walking around looking at the all of the animals and laughing along the way. We went to all of are favorite childhood spots and relived the memories that had been made at each while making new ones along the way. We saw the baby animals and the older animals. We saw the elephant show with baby Zuri and the rhinos that blended in with the rocks. We saw the camels with there shedding fur and limp humps. We saw the sleeping grapes (giant apes) and the jumping monkeys. We saw the lions, tigers and humans in a cage. We stuck our heads into the mouth of a lion and sat on an elephants trunk. We saw the black tongues of the giraffes and the inside of the gofers home. We walked through the humid lands of the frogs, lizards, and snakes. We saw the inside of an egg and the stripes on the backs of the caterpillars. We went through a giant snake and dark bat caves. We let ourselves get blown away by air and water. We saw natures nightmares and natures beauties. We saw the highlands of Asia and the dry lands of the mountain dessert. We saw and rode exotic animals around in circles. We rode a train to different lands. We saw Indian tepees and the miners graves. We saw the world through the eyes of kids and the eyes of animals. In essence, one could say we experienced the zoo.
The Lions Mouth

Caged Human

An Elephants trunk

A Giraffes tongue

Getting Blown Away

Asian Highlands

Riding Exotic Animals

Natures Nightmares

Gofers Home

A Caterpillars Back

Inside of an egg

Going through a giant snake

Train Ride to Different Lands


Seeing Through the Eyes of Animals

When we had accomplished all of our adventures we walked through the spinning jail and landed back in reality. A reality where it was after one in the afternoon and above 90*. A reality in which we were all hot, sweaty, and hungry. After some discussion we concluded that the only way to make this reality better was to go to lunch together. So we headed off to Red Robin for chicken wraps, fries, melon, flavored lemonades, and much more laughter. Reality ended up being pretty sweet.
Sweet Reality

Cedar City

Last Monday I left the valley of Salt Lake to travel to another known as Cedar City. I was headed down to the Shakespeare Festival, and was excited to be going. I was also excited because about 50 of the students that I worked with were going as well. My first stop was at my site teachers house. We had decided earlier that we were going to carpool down with some other people. Once at her place I found out what we would be riding in. I will have you know that we took a limo the whole way down. For you see, her dad just happens to own one and wanted to drive it. It was a very nice drive.

Once we got to Cedar City we stopped at the hotel and checked in. From there we ran through the agenda with the students and there parents. We also went through all of the dances that they would be preforming in the plays the next day. Once that was accomplished our limo picked us up and we went over the the campus to see the shows. The first show we watched was the Greenshow that is put on before the main plays. It was full and singing, dancing, and jokes, and just fun to watch. After that show we headed over to the Randall Theater to watch Great Expectations. The students were excited to see a real play and even more excited to all be going together. The show was done really well and we all had a great time.



The next morning we got up bright and early to get to the Adams Theater by 7:15 in the am. Our students were granted the opportunity to preform their plays on stage at the Adams Theater that morning. They were to start the show at 9:00. Therefore, we needed to get stage props ready, costumes in order, sound hooked up, and all of the students in hair and makeup ready to go on stage. It was a crazy morning where everyone was just running around trying to get things accomplished. I helped unload props, set up costumes, run through dance numbers, and was just making sure that all of the students were accounted for.



All of the students were really excited to be putting on their show somewhere beside the school gym. They were especially excited when they saw that it wasn't just their parents that were coming to watch them. We had a lot of the college students on campus and other people who were there for the festival come and watch the students preform. They heard something was going on and came to check it out. Overall, the students did a really great job with their shows. Some where a bit nervous and missed a line here or there, but for the most part they all did an amazing job. I spent most of my time back stage helping them change costumes, fix makeup, cuing them when they needed to get on stage, and just trying to keep things in order. It was fun to be a part of it all and see how much these students had accomplished.

After the shows, the owner of the theater took all of the kids on a backstage tour. He took them down to the tunnels and showed them all of the actor rooms and trap doors to the stage. He also took them to through the tunnels to the theater across the street and to the prop storage area. The students thought that is was really cool to see how everything worked and how it could all come together. After the tour we served them lunch and then handed out awards to all of the cast members. They all did such a great job with their parts that we had to give one to everyone.

Once every award had been given out and all of the lunch stuff had been cleaned up we decided to go and get our own lunch(it always seems to be the case that when you are the one serving lunch you never eat). We went to the place called the Pastry Pub. It is this dry Irish pub that has amazing food. My favorite part was the Italian sodas. I got a strawberry coconut mint one. It truly was delicious. From there we just went back to the hotel and crashed for a couple of hours. After running around all morning it was nice just to hang out and relax for a little bit.



That night we went to the Green show once again. This time they had a Scottish themed show. They did some funny songs and some great dancing including Irish and tap. It was so much fun to watch them preform. After the Greenshow we went and saw Macbeth. We were lucky enough to get tickets from my site teachers parents. These ticket just happened to be on the second row in priority seating. It was such a neat experience to be that close to the stage and to really see the expressions on the actors faces. The not so cool part was getting spit on when they talked, but it was worth it. The show was soooo good. The actors did an amazing job and most of the time you felt like you were actually there with them. It was also really cool to watch because Macbeth is one of the shows that my students put on. It was fun to compare the two and to see the students reactions to watching a show that they preformed as well.




The next morning we just packed up and headed home. It was such a fun trip and I am really glad that I was able to go and be involved with the students once again. They all did such great work and I am really proud of them. If you have not been to the Shakespeare festival I highly snuggest that you go. It is a truly great experience.