My Kids

I only have three more weeks left of teaching this semester. 

Three weeks!

What?!!!! Where did the last five months go?

I am both extremely excited for the end of the semester and sad at the same time. 

I desperately need a break from my classes and I got to hand pick my classes for next semester so I am pretty stoked about that, but I am also going to cry my eyes out because I won't be teaching all of them next semester. Yes, some of my students have been extremely hard to deal with, but I love them. 

All of them.

These kids are amazing. I could never do what they do. They basically spend all day at various different schools. For me, elementary school was done when the bell rang to let me out of class. For them it is almost never ending. My first graders come straight from school and are with me until 4:00 then they go to their Chinese teacher to do their homework. Most of the kids don't go home until after 7 or 8 at night. 

I wish I could express to you how much I have come to love these kids. 

They are the reason I am here, and they are the reason that I am staying.

For some reason all of my older students don't like having their pictures taken but I am going to make them take at least one picture before the semester ends. As for my KE class, they love having their pictures taken. So take a look, and see why I love my job!

Caleb and Gabriel, My twins:)

Jana and Aison

Wesley, Eliza, Lara, and Jaelyn

Arvin, Ivan and Terry

Alia and Nicole

My youngest group all under 2 years old.

Terry, Ivan, Wade, Gigi, Alia, Alen, Cherry, Gabriel, Caleb and Arvin

It can get cold in Taiwan

This is what I'd been told, but it was really hard to believe when I was still wearing shorts and flip flops... in November. Then this weekend happened. It was cold. 

Okay, so technically it was about 66 degrees Fahrenheit, but I was cold. I slept in sweatpants and a long sleeved shirt. I wore a sweatshirt, a coat, and winter gloves and boots to drive on my scooter to Taichung.

Good thing I am not coming back until summer because if I went back to Utah right now I would probably die.

I'm going to have a hard time in January and February when the "real" cold weather kicks in. 

Why oh why didn't I bring more cold weather clothes? 

My hair

My hair has a strange fascintation for my students. They love to touch it and play with it.

I do not love this so much.

My first grade class is the worst. I finally had to tell them that for every time they touch my hair they would loose a minute of their break. 

Drastic? Yes. 

Did it work?

Mostly. Now they at least try to be sneaky about it. 

Only four more weeks of classes this semester.

I can do it!

I'm real bad at this blogging thing

True statement.

Three Months

I have officially been living in Taiwan for the past three months! I can hardly believe how fast the time has gone by. Since I have been living here school has been canceled once because of a typhoon warning, I have experienced some of the worst heat and humidity I have ever felt, I have seen far too many cockroaches, I  rescued an escaped turtle, I learned to ride a scooter and am now a proud renter, I have taken a trip to Kenting, I have been to numerous night markets, I have made cupcakes and peanut butter frosting from scratch, I have come to love my students, and so much more. In a nutshell, my life has been pretty great since I moved here.
Teaching has its ups and downs of course, but overall I really couldn't ask for more from this experience. I enjoy the classes that teach I have been truly blessed with the girls that I get to work and live with.
I haven't gotten to travel as much as I thought I would but the few trips I have been on have been amazing. I truly love the culture and the people here.

Blissful Weekends

Weekends are not only wonderful, they are in fact blissful. This blissfulness comes from the many wonderful things that I get to do that I can not do during the week. I get to sleep in, I get to rest my voice (which fyi has never fully recovered since I started teaching and is still on the verge of being lost), I don't have to correct Chinglish mistakes all day long,  I can travel to other cities and see new things, I get to go church in Taichung, and I get to spend time with the great girls that I work with. LOVE!

I can hardly believe that I am almost at the beginning of another weekend, and I still haven't posted about hardly any of my previous weekends.So here it goes,

The weekend after my trip to the Taipei temple, we planned a day in Taichung. We started with a the botanical gardens. They were beautiful!

We probably would have spent more time there but it was incredibly hot. A few of us decided to also go to the science museum as well. It ended up being a great choice. The air conditioning probably saved my life. The heat had really drained my energy so it was nice to just relax and wander around the museum. They didn't have a ton in English but it still really interesting. Definitely different than other science museums Ive been to.
Our next stop is what made made my weekend:

tortilla chips, tortillas, salsa, granola bars, and peanut butter were a few of the wonderful things that I bought. We also ate lunch there and I enjoyed a very American hot dog:)

Me + Costco = a very happy me.
We ended our day by attending a baptism of a lady in our branch. It was a good but long day.
Then on Sunday I gave a talk in church. I don't think I will be getting much of a break in our branch because there are so few people I will have plenty of opportunities to teach and to give talks.
The past couple of weekends have been good relaxing weekends. I didn't do too much traveling.
Last weekend I went out to eat on Friday with a couple of the teachers from school and then we wandered around the night market before heading off to see Cowboys and Aliens. For those that know me well, you know that I hate most alien movies, especially they throw it in as a twist. I hate it. Why ruin a good movie with stupid aliens (aka the last Indiana Jones movie). Surprisingly, I really liked Cowboys and Aliens. I was prepared for the alien-ness and having Daniel Craig as a cowboy helped too. It was a fun night. Saturday morning four of us headed out for scooter lessons with two of the Chinese teachers. I was terrified at first and it was more intimidated than you might think but by the end I felt more confident and after a week of practice I am feeling even more confident. Taiwan is about to have another scooter driver on the road.
On Saturday I also went to Tiger City (a mall in Taichung) with Sara, Kylie and Nice to meet our friends Cam and Lauren. It was Cam's birthday and so we went out to eat at Chili's. It was wonderful! 
The only bad thing about weekends is that they never last nearly long enough. I am looking forward to tomorrow and the start of another weekend. I'm still not sure what this weekend will bring but I'm ready for another adventure. Wish me luck.

Taipei

I love the temple! I love that no matter where you go the spirit is still the same. 

July 23 I had the amazing opportunity to travel up to Taipei with my branch and attend the temple. It was a great experience, one which I am planning on repeating in the near future.

The Taipei temple is one of the smallest temples that I have been and it doesn't have much as far as the grounds go, but the feeling is the same and I am so grateful for that. 

The distribution center is right next door and I was debating on buying a Book of Mormon is Chinese but decided instead on an hymn book in Chinese with the pinyin spelling so that I can actually attempt to pronounce the words. I am so excited! I am actually learning to sing "The Iron Rod" in Chinese right now. One of the Chinese wards that meets in our building invited us to sing with them at our stake conference in October. It is a great experience to interact with these wonderful people and I am so excited to sing in October.

Back to Taipei, after attending the temple and going to the distribution center we went and got some food while we waited for those going through a session and of course took lots of pictures at the temple.

 Kylie, Sara, and Me

Then we headed off to Taipei 101. This is the second tallest  building in the world, at least that is what I have been told. On the bottom levels is a gigantic shopping mall, and you can also go up to the very top. I chose not to go to the top on this trip but I still have a ton of fun walking around with some of the other girls. 

 There are so many things that I want to go see in Taipei and I was only able to get a small glance at it today. I am excited to come back and to see more. I don't want to miss a thing!

Catching Up

I am perfectly aware that I have a lot of catching up to do. I can't believe how fast time is flying by. It seems so incredibly crazy that I have already been in this beautiful country for over 6 weeks. I already feel so at home here and have had so many wonderful experiences. I feel so blessed to have this opportunity to live is a different country, to have a good job, and nice place to live, and to meet new and wonderful people. I seriously feel like the luckiest girl alive. 

Now on to the updating.

Sunday Storm and So Much More

Typhoon season has officially started. It has rained every day this week. It usually starts raining pretty hard around 2 in the afternoon and then continues to rain on and off for the rest of the evening. Today it actually started raining around 9am. I love the rain! The sound, the smell, I love it all. I'll admit that the rain here is a little more than I'm used to, okay, a lot more than I am used to but it's great. The majority of the rains comes while I am inside teaching so I am still able to get out and about without getting too wet after I finish teaching for the day.

This past week was my first full week of teaching and I was looking forward to the weekend but unfortunately I ended up spending most of my time working on my lesson plans for this week, then I was also asked to teach the relief society lesson for Sunday. Sigh, so it wasn't the fun filled weekend I was hoping for. It was ridiculous and stressful, but luckily there were a few things during the week and on Sunday that made up for it:

Gnome roommates

Teaching Relief Society(I actually do love teaching)

New calling in the branch, I am now the 2nd counselor in the Relief Society presidency

Afternoon rainstorm
 Cooking dinner with the roommates

Watching Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

 FHE with the Listons

Coconut Mango Rice (Yes, rice can be a dessert!)

 Not too bad for a crazy weekend. Stay tuned for news from my next weekend.....
Temple trip to Taipei! 

I love my life.

Giant Buddha

It's been a while since I last posted and it is definitely time for an update. Two Sundays ago I had the chance to visit Chnaghua, which is about an hour south of where I live, but since we decided to go right  after church it only took about 30 minutes. Why go to Changhua? To see the Giant Buddha of course! I was told this is one of the largest Buddhas is Asia. It was huge, like you can walk inside of it three stories huge.  Inside there were diorama displays of events in the life of Buddha. I love learning about different religions so it was really interesting to read about it, thankfully it was in English.

What I didn't realize before going is that it wasn't just the giant Buddha that I would get to see,there was also a Confucianism temple, a koi pond with the fattest fish I have ever seen, and a great overlook of the city among many other things. The grounds of the temple were beautiful. The architecture was incredible, it's so different than European and American architecture. I love it! It was definitely worth the trip. Take a look.

Entrance

 Statues like this lined the path all the way up.

 L to R: Sara, Me, Kendra, Kaylee, Kylie, Veronica, and Sara

Thoroughly Exhausted

Thoroughly exhausted, perfectly describes how I feel right now.

I can't complain though, I love my teaching schedule. I don't start too early, I don't work late and I don't work on Saturday mornings. I like the classes that I teach too, although they will definitely be challenging at times. I teach emergent kindergarten (ages 2-5), first grade, and third grade. Emergent kindergarten is pretty tough because some of the kids have NEVER spoken English before, this is their first experience (no pressure). The kids are absolutely adorable! The hard part is coming up with activities and vocabulary that is both useful and age appropriate. It's a lot harder than you would think and it is super repetitive. I think I probably said "roll the ball" at least 50 times in a 15 minute period.

My first grade class is fantastic. I have 5 students in the class and I work with them on reading, writing, spelling, and speaking. They are all well behaved and they all work hard, though towards the end they sometimes have a hard time paying attention and I have one girl who is completely lost when it comes to spelling. It's harder than I thought it would be; letters, sounds, spelling, inflection, everything is different from what they have grown up with.

My last class is a 3rd grade class. It is pretty much the same deal as my 1st grade class. We work on all the same things just at a different level. I have 9 students in this class, 8 boys and one girl. They are a handful, but I was warned before hand so I went into my first day being as firm as I could be. I think it helped but with 8 boys you never know what is going to happen. Luckily I only have this class 3 times a week.

I honestly forgot how hard teaching is. Working with kids, especially younger kids, really takes it out of you. Working with kids who are learning English as a second language is even harder.

The most important part is to make sure they get every opportunity to use English, and that is what I will be working on for the next 6 months:)

A Week in Feng Yuan

It's hard to believe that I've already been in Feng Yuan for over a week, and at the same time I can't believe that it's only been a week. I feel so comfortable here. The school I'm working for, Berhan Language Institute, is amazing and the staff is so helpful, I love the girls that I am living and working with, the Taiwanese people here are so nice, the food is amazing, and I'm having so much fun exploring the city.

It's been a busy week! There has been a lot of paper work, culture training, and preparation for teaching. I had to fill out an application for a work permit and as a part of getting a work permit I was also required to get blood drawn, get x-rays taken and have a physical examination at the local hospital. The hospital was quite the experience. It actually wasn't bad, just different. Haha and the looks that we got were priceless! Tourism isn't too big here so seeing 10 foreigners walk into a hospital is definitely not a normal occurence. 

We got a lot of stares.

Even though I've been busy with training I've also had plenty of time to explore and see some fun sights in the city. We went to a couple of parks and a Taoist temple. It was really pretty and there were tons of lanterns. It was really interesting to see another way that people worship. It's a little hard to relate when they have so many gods that they worship. They pray and leave offerings to each one for different purposes, they even have gods for specific that watch over specific neighborhoods. 

 The school provided each of the teachers with their own bike so I have been able to ride around the city and explore and to the store to buy groceries. I'm surprised at how comfortable I feel riding a bike around in the city, especially with how much traffic there is here, but drivers are considerate and as long as I don't hesitate and I'm careful I feel safe.

Here are a few highlights from the past week and some interesting facts about FengYuan:  

Scooters are everywhere and pretty much park wherever they can find space. There are a lot of cars as well and it goes the same for them, you park anywhere you can find. 

Traffic laws are kind of optional, or at least not followed or enforced like they are in the United States. So you have to be careful and aggressive. On the upside though road rage is non existent. Cars know you are there and they drive around you if you are in their way.

 There are no sidewalks so even if you walk some where you are on the street.

Being a foreigner means that you will get stared at. They do it openly and don't try to hide it and because there are so many of us together we get stared at even more.

Garbage trucks pick up the garbage every day and they play music just like our ice cream trucks do. Weird.

Mattresses here are not soft. I sleep on a mattress that feels more like a box spring, surprising though I've been sleeping really well.

 Attending the morning market. It was fun to see some foods that I recognized and a lot that I didn't. There was also some pretty crazy stuff, mostly fish, but they also had frogs! 

 I went on a bike ride with a couple of the girls which ended with a small jungle hike. There were so many bugs, but luckily no spiders. Although, we did meet a guy named Spiderman. Hahaha at first we thought he was kidding but nope, that's the English name he picked for himself. How fantastic is that? Kids here choose their own English names so they can get pretty creative.
 Finding a cockroach in our fridge. I have no idea how it got inside the fridge especially considering they deep cleaned our whole floor before we moved in. It was so gross. Luckily we've got some tough girls in our group who got up the courage to kill that beast and smash the crap out of it. 

The night market in Taichung. So crowded and so many things to buy, see and smell. We ended up going to a novelty restaurant for dinner. Apparently this is something very Taiwanese and it made me laugh my head off.  The restaurant was called the Modern Toilet. All of your food is served in dishes that look like toilets or bathtubs and your drinks come in urinals shaped glasses. Then to top it all off your table is a glass covered sink and your chairs are toilets. It was absolutely ridiculous and hilarious. The food was surprisingly pretty good. The sides they give you are usually pretty weird but I at least tried everything. 

 Attending the English branch in Taichung.The branch president asked all of us teachers to get up and introduce ourselves and bear our testimonies since it was fast and testimony meeting. It was a great opportunity and I think that I'm going to like it.

I Finally Made It

I finally made it. The journey was an incredibly long one, and not without it's challenges, but I'm here safe and sound.
My total travel time including getting to the airport, layovers, flight time, and the bus ride to Fengyuan was around 26 hours!! 

My flight arrived in Taipei around 6:30 am on Wednesday morning, but with the bus ride and more wait time I didn't get to the school until around 11. I was pretty tired, I was able to sleep a fair amount on the plane so that helped a bit, but when you jump forward 15 hours it's kind of hard to adjust. 

When we arrived at the school we promptly carried our luggage up four flight of stairs to where we will be staying. No rest for us. We then went our right away and got our pictures taken for our work permits. Pretty! I was pretty much ready to crash by this point, but they were having our rooms repainted so that wasn't really an option. We did get to go out to lunch. We went out to a place just around the corner form the school. It was wonderful, I got fried noodles and some pork dumplings. Yum. It wasn't a bad price either. It cost me  NT$90, which is about $3. Then we all went a little further up the street and ordered a bing sha. Which a pure fruit smoothie. No additives, all natural, and mine was all mango:) 

The afternoon continued with a tour of the school and the city. We strolled around a local park and viewed the local elementary school. The elementary school was huge! We were told they have a couple of thousand students enrolled. A couple of thousand!! That is insane. 

I can't say how we passed all the hours without one of us falling asleep but we returned to the school around 6pm and went directly our to dinner.

We were finally able to move into our rooms around 8 pm. After moving in and taking a shower I was finally able to sleep.  It was a long day and full of news sights, smells, and noises. Fengyuan is a pretty big city and adjusting to the culture and the humidity will take a while, but it's going to be great.

Back to the Airport

Back at the airport and apparently my bad luck with flights continues. Not only was my flight home from Hawaii delayed and we had to change flights and then had a layover in San Fransico for over 6 hours, but here I am again at the airport and my flight has been delayed. So instead of leaving at 8 pm I will be leaving at 10 pm. Not too bad considering, and it doesn't cause me to miss my connecting flight to Taiwan-thank goodness- but it does mean less time at LAX to check in my bags and get through security. I'm hoping that everything will go smoothly and that my flight to Taiwan won't be too bad even though it is more than a 13 hour flight. I'm both excited and a little nervous and am ready to be on my way. 

I'll let you all know when I arrive in Taiwan and I'm sure I will have some stories to share and maybe some pictures too.

Hawaii, I Think I Love You

Beautiful weather

Snorkeling at Hanauma Bay

Hike to Diamond Head

Polynesian Cultural Center

Amazing luau and local food

Swap meet at Aloha Stadium

Pearl Harbor

Baptisms at the Laie Hawaii Temple

Jungle/waterfall hike

Kailua beach

We crammed a lot in to 5 days and it was wonderful. Of course, there were the typical family vacation arguments but overall it was a wonderful vacation. We were worried that with our flights delays (see previous post) that we wouldn't be able to do everything that we wanted to do but it ended up working out almost perfectly. 

One of the highlights for me was definitely snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. The water was beautiful and warm and there were fish everywhere. It really was incredible. Haha I also found out that being underwater freaks me out. It took almost all of my concentration to breath at a regular pace. It took me a bit but I was still able to have a great experience. If you ever go to Hawaii, this is a must.

Loved the Polynesian Cultural Center!  Such a fun place and the entertainment was absolutely fantastic. The whole environment was impressive and the different shows and demonstrations were great as well. Definitely another favorite.

Okay, so I could probably go on about everything I did because there literally wasn't one thing that we did that I didn't like. 

 

Hanauma Bay

 

PCC

The trial on our waterfall hike.

Guaranteed I will be planning another trip to Hawaii sometime in my future.

Vacation (Mis)Adventures

For those of you that know my family well you may have heard some of our interesting vacation stories. We definitely don't have the best of luck. Car troubles make up the majority of our vacation misadventures. This includes broken air conditioning in 114 degree weather, a broken passenger window due to drifting off the road, a van totaled in a flash flood, blown tires, missing exits, and other fun stuff associated with road-tripping. All in all these experiences have resulted in some memorable vacations.

Today my family left on our annual summer trip. This vacation is a little bit different than most because it is the first time the whole family has been together in over 4 years. It's kind of a big deal. Plus, it might be a while before we get to go on another family trip together since I leave for Taiwan and who knows where we will all be a year from now. So, we decided to go all out and booked our trip to Hawaii!!

I feel like the initial packing and getting ready for the trip was fairly stress free...

and then we got to the airport and the memorable vacation experiences began.

Our flight out of Salt Lake was delayed, which meant we would miss our connecting flight to Honolulu. We preceded to work with the airlines to find any flight to Hawaii as soon as possible. It looked like we would have to wait until Sunday evening or Monday morning. Needless to say everyone was in low spirits and we were all a little frustrated. I mean this is the biggest vacation that we have ever gone on, and probably ever will go on. I tried to stay positive and my Mom and I worked with an airline attendant and were finally relieved when we found an overnight flight from Las Vegas to Honolulu. Yay! Our vacation was saved!! Unfortunately this didn't mean we wouldn't have any more problems. We all had to exit the terminal and check in and go through security again(fun stuff). It was rather hectic but we were feeling better as we started boarding our flight to Las Vegas, until we discovered that they double booked my brother Rob and my Dad, because they have the same name. 

Are you kidding me?

Seriously, this would happen to my family. Luckily there was room on the plane and everything worked out. We all made it to Las Vegas. I can tell that the stresses of this vacation are already wearing on us but I think we'll pull through. We are now waiting to check in for our flight to Honolulu, which leaves at 1:55 am. We've had our share of troubles so I'm hoping that we will be fortunate enough not to experience any more. 

Wish us luck.

Yes, it's Happening

For the past the past six months I have known that I would be going to Taiwan. For the last two months I have been stressing about my school purchasing my plane ticket in time for me to get my visa. After all that waiting I finally have my plane ticket! I leave June 27!! That is less than a month away people! I'm still waiting to get my visa, but from what I've heard there shouldn't be any problems(I'm crossing my fingers that I'm not the exception). 

Now that I can stop stressing about getting my plane ticket, it is finally starting to sink in that I'm really going. I am moving to a different country, with a whole new culture and language and climate. I'm not going to lie I'm getting a little nervous but I know that this is what I'm supposed to do. Honestly though, the thing I am most nervous or scared about is the bugs. I'm aware of how silly that is, but do you know how big bugs grow in humid climates? HUGE, that's how big. I don't even want to think about it. I haven't even asked and I don't even want to know, because that is possibly the one thing that could change my mind about this whole thing.

Despite the nervousness I am really looking forward to this experience. Will it be hard, most likely. Do I think I'll regret it? No way! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I wouldn't miss out on for the world. I'll make sure to keep the blog updated as much as possible so make sure you check in from time to time, because I'm sure I'll have some interesting things to share.

I'm going to Taiwan!

Drilled, Filled, and Billed

 Oh the joys of going to the dentist. Now I don't have anything against dentists but I just hate that no matter how much I care for my teeth I always end up having cavities, no fun. Then because I have cavities I have to have my teeth drilled and then filled, doubly not fun, especially since I hate needles. Haha and the worst part about getting the numbing shots is that the numbing sensation only gets stronger as the day goes on. By the time I went to work, 3 hours after I got home from the dentist, the numbness was still in full swing. My smile, or half smile was absolutely enchanting I'm sure. 

Okay, but the absolute worst part is the bill. My parent's insurance (yes I am still on their insurance and can be until I'm 26, so there) changed and so the bill was even bigger than usual. So, with a little less money in the bank my cavities are fixed, my mouth is no longer numb, and I am going to try even harder to not have any cavities the next time I go in to the dentist.

If I sound like I am complaining I'm not,  I really am grateful for dentists. I am so glad that I have a dentist that can fix my teeth so that they aren't horrible looking and rotting out of my mouth, because that really would be something to complain about.

Design Catastrophe

Today I took it upon myself to update the look of my blog.  I can assure you that my intentions were good. Unfortunately for me, my blog designing abilities are dismal and I have no idea how to undo what I've done.

I spent way too much time trying to choose a design that I like and am completely happy with. I'm still not satisfied with the results so don't be surprised if you see it changing off and on for the next little bit.

If any of you have any advice on how to improve the design please share your knowledge. I think I have proven that if left to my own devices I have no idea what I'm doing. 

Happy Sunday!
*After writing the above, I made some changes on the blog and can now say that I'm liking the way it looks. There probably will be a few small changes that I may decide to make, but for now I'm pretty happy.

Short but Sweet

 I love Arches National Park, so when Lauren suggested that we go on a camping trip to Moab I was all for it. It couldn't be a long trip and the weather forecast wasn't in our favor but we didn't let that change our minds.  Monday morning Lauren, Ashlee, Jacque, and I along with our friend Chris Alphin (a brave guy to willingly go on a camping trip with four girls) packed up our things in Lauren's car and headed out. 

It was raining pretty much the entire car ride down there, so I was a little worried that our trip would be a little bit of a letdown but it ended up being very near perfect weather for hiking. The skies were clear when we drove in Arches and we set about seeing the sites. We went to a lot of the smaller arches and took our time to enjoy each one.

After sightseeing we had to decide where we were going to camp, being the great planners we are we did not pick a place or reserve a place anywhere beforehand. We knew it was a long shot but we decided to check out the campground in the park and see if there were any spots available. There was one spot available. The camp hosts had a little laugh about how much stuff we had for one night but it couldn't have worked out any better. 

We definitely had an adventure with our food and the night was cold but we woke up the next day with the sun shining and we were ready to hike. We went to Landscape Arch first and then hiked to Delicate Arch. I have been to Arches plenty of times but I have never actually hiked up to Delicate Arch. It is absolutely beautiful. It is amazing that something like that was created naturally. The whole park was just an inspiration to me and a reminder of the existence of a loving Father in Heaven who loves me. All in all it was a wonderful trip.

My Mother

More Than a Mother

By Kari Keshmiry

When God set the world in place,
when He hung the stars up in space,
when He made the land and the sea,
then He made you and me.

He sat back and saw all that was good,
He saw things to be as they should.
Just one more blessing He had in store;
He created a mother, but whatever for?

He knew a mother would have a special place
to shine His reflection on her child's face.
A mother will walk the extra mile
just to see her children smile.

She'll work her fingers to the bone
to make a house into a home.
A mother is there to teach and guide,
a mother will stay right by your side.

She'll be there through your pain and strife,
she'll stay constant in your life.
A mother will lend a helping hand
until you have the strength to stand.

She'll pick you up when you are down,
when you need a friend she'll stick around.
A mother is one who listens well,
will keep her word; will never tell.

A mother never pokes or pries
but stands quietly by your side,
giving you the strength you need,
encouraging you to succeed.

A mother is one who can be strong
when you need someone to lean on.
You're more than a mother to me;
a reflection of Him in your face I see,
a love that knows no boundaries.

I'm glad that you chose to be
all this and more to me.
You share a love that knows no end,
you're more than my mother,
you are my friend.

I know this is a little late to be posting about Mother's Day but I want everyone to know how awesome my Mom is and how much I love her. Is it ever too late to do that?

My Mom is the greatest. She has always been there for me; to support, to listen, to cry with me, to offer me hugs when I need them the most, to pick me up when I am down, to give advice and so much more. 

I'm going to admit that I was probably not the easiest child or teenager to get along with. I definitely had my growing up moments. Throughout it all my Mom was a constant source of support and encouragement. She wants me to do my best and, most of all, she wants me to be happy. I am so grateful for her example in her role as a mother and in her church callings. I look up to her in so many ways and I can't even begin to describe how much I love her and appreciate all that she has done for me.

The past few years I have felt that my relationship with my Mom has grown. She is one of my best friends and I am so grateful for her in my life.

I am also grateful for the opportunity I have to be a friend to my Mom and to be there to support and encourage her. I love talking to her and I am so blessed to be able to call her my Mom.

Thoughts of Change

I have been thinking about change a lot lately, partly because I am waiting for the big change that I will be taking on at the end of June. I have to say that I am definitely ready for the change and to take on some new challenges.
I have been pretty frustrated recently and I think it is partly because I have had friends graduating and it reminded me that I graduated 2 years ago and have still not had the opportunity to use my degree. I am pretty much in the same position as I was 2 years ago. It seems like this is the pattern to my life. I have periods of accomplishment and progression, I take on new adventures and then.... I hit a lull. I don't move forward, or at least I don't feel like I do.

But I've come to realize that I need to not focus on those things that are frustrating me and to see the positive in my every day life. So, although I won't be leaving for Taiwan for almost another 2 months-which seems like an eternity away- I am going to start the change in my life now by appreciating the everyday and recording it (Re commitment to updating the blog, check). 

I want the change in my life to not only be my location in the world, because change comes from within oneself and not determined by where one lives right? So here's to the change. To appreciating life as it comes; it's ups and downs, it's unpredictability and it's daily routine. I am going to enjoy every minute of each day.  It would be silly to not enjoy the now because I am looking forward to what I'm going to do tomorrow.

Real Salt Lake

Last night I went to my first Real Salt Lake soccer game. It was awesome and absolutely freezing! It rained and snowed during the majority of the game. Thank goodness I brought two jackets, one with a hood. If only I had remembered to bring gloves. My hands were so frozen by the end I literally couldn't get them to work right. Weird sensation, by the way, and now I know that gloves and hand warmers are a must if you are going to a sporting event when the weather is as good as it was last night.

Despite the cold and wet weather, I had a fantastic time. I played soccer when I was younger and it is one of my favorite sports. My younger brother Erik plays and I love to go to his games.Fun fact: It is the only sport that I can watch on t.v. and not get bored, but going to an actual game is so much better.

I cheered the team on, booed the ref on bad calls and jumped up and yelled when Real scored the only and winning goal in the last 3 minutes of the game vs. Colorado Rapids. Good times. I would definitely go again.

Riverwoods

 It was another good weekend. My "twin" brother Rob is always great to invite me to events that are going on in Provo but it seems like I always have plans when he calls.
This time when he called me I was ready and able to go.

Saturday night at the Riverwoods mall in Provo they were having their grand reopening after some major reconstruction. It is such a fun mall and I love the new look and the atmosphere it creates. They had street vendors and live performances going on all day.

We went for the live music and it was amazing!! Ficitonist, a local band, played and I was pleasantly surprised. I really liked their music and they were great performers too. Oh, and we may or may not have been front and center.

After Fictionist played they had a comedian come out and entertain us and Jimmer Fredette even made an appearance, and yes I did get a high five.

We ended the night listening to a memory from my elementary years...Sugar Ray. How Riverwoods got them to come I'm not sure but it was fantastic. It was strangely ridiculous how many of theirs songs I could sing along with after not listening to them in years. It was also my first experience of being pushed and completely smashed during a concert, apparently this is normal if you are in the front.  Oddly enough the pushing and being smashed didn't take away from my enjoyment of the performance.

 The night ended with fireworks. All in all a great night. I just love hanging out with my brother.