Oh Snap!

Disneyland

2010-06-21T22:29:00.011-06:00

Oh what a magical place! So it all started when about a month ago my sister asked me if there was anything I wanted to do before my mission. Jokingly I laughed and said, go to Disneyland. Later that day Aubrey text me and asked if I wanted to go to Disneyworld....it seemed like fate. Well after trying to plan Disneyworld we decided it would be cheaper to just go to Disneyland, espeically since Aubrey had realtives that we could stay with. The next few weeks were spent researching hotels, getting ticket prices, and just being super stoked to go. We decided to invite our friend Theresa and my car was voted the vehicle to take. Just to warn you this is a long post and I don't blame you for not reading it all. Here is the breakdown:

Day 1: Sunday our adventure begins at 11:00 as we head out on the road with lots of good tunes in hand, oh and mountain dew for the girls.

We hit rain, traffic, and bathrooms. Overall it was a fun time but we were all sick of driving.

California was perfect temperature and Aubrey's aunt was super funny. She stayed up and chatted with us even though it was late there. DaisyMay their dog was a big lovable dog, one of the most well behaved dogs I have ever met.

Day 2: The first day in the land of happiness.

Seriously Disneyland is so great: music all the time, people cleaning up after you, characters, fun rides, and smiling children.

First family we met were from Heber and they were super fun and had beautiful children we got to talk to them for half an hour as we waited for the new toy story ride which I thought was pretty awesome.

We are hard core Disneylanders and stayed in the park until 11:00 p.m. (over 12 hours) we even ate at a pretty nice Mexican restraunt in Frontierland.

Some highlights....tower of terror, splash mountain at night, T driving us in Indiana Jones, Screamin, the haunted mansion "That is awful"and big thunder mountain.

Day 3: Best day, so much goodness!

We got up super early even though we were tired and made it to the park by 8:30. This is so we could get in line to get our tickets for the new World of Color show.

Space Mountain was the first destination....man I love that ride.

Then we headed back to California Adventure to wait in line, luckily Theresa got in a fast line and was able to make it in line quickly. We only had to wait for about 45 minutes to get our tickets, but the end of the line wait was probably about 2 hours.

Man did we ever work the fast passes today. Bouncing between parks to optimize on our fast passes. I bet we crossed back and forth between parks at least 15 times.

There are just so many highlights from this day...seeing T so happy about getting a few pictures at Angels stadium, The worker at Tower of Terror....he was super creepy and wouldn't smile but as we waited he finally cracked and everyone started cheering, once he shut the doors we know he busted out laughing, The world of color. WOW. I have never seen anything quite like it a must see, and the best part of probably our whole trip.

Yesterday we had spotted these delicious ice cream cones around the park. We all knew that we had to have one and so we got one (cookies and cream for me, yum!) and headed to a spot to sit and chill. We sat by the rapids ride in the shade it was perfect. People watching is one of my favorite things and it doesn't get much better than watching in Disneyland. Our first encounters were with the young ones who I just about gave my ice cream to because their faces were so heartbroken. Next came an Asian man who walked by and said, "Beautiful, beautiful." We didn't know if he meant the ice cream or us ;) This was not to be our only encounter with the Asian tourists. Another group came by and one of the lady's came and sat down on our bench and since there was already three of us there she was sitting pretty close. She searched through her backpack and I thought she was just organizing her stuff until she pulled out a camera and said, "Picture, picture." We laughed and said yes. Then she quickly jumped up and a man jumped right into her place....placing his hand on my leg we took another picture. The next lady held my hand. By this point I think I was just in shock that we had now become the attraction. They started to walk away and we noticed that the faithful picture taker had not gotten his own picture so we said, "Do you want one too?" He got so excited and said, "Yes, Yes!" He sat down smack dab in the middle of us and was just thrilled. As soon as they walked off we couldn't contain it anymore and we burst out into laughter. I had tears rolling down my cheeks. We did fill a touch bad as they passed by us again and we were still kind of laughing.

Day 4: Sea World

This day was a bit more chill in going to sea world, which was good because we were all pretty exhausted.

T was navigating us to lunch and she was sure she had found a McDonalds. Aubrey and I were kind of sceptical about if we were really going to find this place. We turned a corner and instead of McDonalds we found Wendy's haha it was super great.

Shamu was pretty fantastic and the seal show was very funny. We also watched this acrobatic show which was pretty cool. I then made Aubrey and T go on a water ride and they both got soaked...oops!

Dinner was fantastic and then we had some adventures. The hot tub was broken so as we sat in luke warm gross water we were all shocked when a light just magically came on. Yet that was not to be the only unexplainable mystery. We went to McDonalds for late night ice cream and as we were waiting the ice machine just magically turned on and poured out ice haha it was a funny night.

I went to bed while Aubrey and T stayed up into the wee hours of the night watching youtube and the bachelorette :)

Day 5: Lucky lucky lucky

This was the day to go home, which is always bittersweet. I did a lot of the driving in the morning so Aubrey could get a little shut eye.

The pit stop we decided on was at Buffalo Bills in Primm, Nevada and man did it treat me well. I did end up putting a dollar in the penny slots and walked away with 16 dollars in my pocket. The good luck didn't stop there though because as we were waiting in line to ride Elderado, which is intensly fast, a lady just gave us these passes for free all day rides that were each worth 30 bucks. Let's just say I walked away feeling pretty fantastic.

We finally made it home and had our final jam out to some of our favorite tunes from the trip!

Happy Birthday!

2010-06-08T21:48:00.006-06:00

It has almost been a year since my mom passed away and I miss her every day!

Happy Birthday Mom

Thank you for teaching me how to be a more patient, kind, loving, and positive person

Oh the joys....

2010-05-17T11:31:00.029-06:00

Today I am going to post some of the joys I have experienced since I have received my call.....

The joy of weekly mission prep classes
The joy of being done with student teaching but missing all of the wonderful friends made there
The joy of GRADUATING (well almost I technically don't graduate until the summer)
The joy of mission shopping and a sister who keeps me focused
The joy of sleep! :)
The joy of close call driving experiences that I actually survived! (running into a street sign, having a deer hit me, brake lights out, registration expired, fun times!)

But the greatest JOY which I could ever hope to experience has come from here....

I hope they call me on a mission....

2010-03-27T10:29:00.006-06:00

Wow this has been quite the journey, it was only about a month ago that I decided that I was going to move forward with my decision to serve a mission. I met with my Bishop and the papers started. The first night my sister and I sat down and had them all filled out so then I just had to schedule doctor and dentist visits. Those fell into place so quickly and I knew that I was being blessed. There were a couple of bumps in the road but then the papers were in. After talking to my stake president about the process of the papers I thought that I had it down to the day it should come. I thought that it would be no sooner than the 31st or if I was lucky April Fool's Day. So when I got a call Friday afternoon saying that I had a big package from the church my heart started racing. My call had come a week and a half after submitting my papers! I had already planned to get ice cream with some friends and so I decided to stick with the plan. The whole time I was a bit anxious to get home and open it. In my mind I had decided that it was probably stateside and I was very comfortable with that. As I was driving home different places started popping in my head. Sitting down to open it I pulled it out and started reading. Now it takes a lot to bring me to tears but I did start to cry a bit as I read these words. "You are assigned to labor in the Denmark Copenhagen Mission." And then this, "You will prepare to preach the gospel in the Danish language." I am overwhelmed and extrememly excited! I have ancestors from Denmark and Iceland is included in the Denmark Copenhagen Mission. Although I don't think they will start sending sister missionaries to Iceland this was as close as I could get to my ancestors homeland :) Here are just a few things I have to look forward to:

Time

2010-01-06T21:36:00.005-07:00

Well blogging every three months is not horrible, and at least I am pretty consistent at it. Now I could say that I made a New Years resolution to write on my blog better, but well I didn't! But I do hope to post more....I am trying to come up with an idea of some weekly post that stays the same. So any suggestions are welcome! So about time...why is that we can have a hundred things on our to-do lists and we know we must get them done but we end up just wasting the time. Such as how I have a stack of laundry on my bed, emails I need to write, to-do lists to make, and what have I done for the past half hour? Oh you know I just worked on my blog and created a new header thanks to my sister. Ironic isn't it?

Student teaching starts in a week and for some reason I am nervous. I have been having dreams about these huge classrooms and rowdy children. Hopefully my dreams do not come true! I am back down in Utah County now to try and avoid some of the frigidness of Cache Valley. Before I left though we ended the semester right with a wonderful ugly sweater dance party! This is Wendi and I feeling a bit, awkward should I say? :)

Go Team GB2!

2009-10-23T16:23:00.007-06:00

Wow I guess I must not have really been meant for the blogging world because I am not very good at keeping my blog current. But finding myself with some extra time (rare occurrence) I decided I might as well post something. This semester has been going really well so far and while there have been a few ups and downs everything seems to be playing out. One of the things I have been most grateful for are my awesome roommates. We have adopted the title of Team GB2 standing for Gray Brick #2 where we live. Our adventures have consisted from dance parties, roommate dinners, random singing while studying, burning crushed red pepper, game nights, and many more exciting things. We are particularly good at clapping and we bank on any opportunity to practice. A clapping band may be in order, I think we could be famous. I also have to give a shout out to our lava lamp, which has been introduced in lieu of a TV. We occasionally sit and watch it while adding in beautiful sound effects, it is a great source of entertainment. Our living room has also been dubbed as an art gallery we have many fond admirers, unfortunately I have not contributed yet but I am working on it. On Monday I head back to Kindergarten....for all I know I may never step back in a formal college class again, that is a little crazy. I am excited to start my practicum, and I can't wait for student teaching. It just amazes me how quickly life can speed by. Now I am trying to sort out what to do after graduation but I guess I will cross that bridge when I come to it. I have included a few pictures from our roommate photos which were quite fun. I also put one up from a fiesta we went to! Anyway I may try to keep my blog more current but I can't make any promises :)

When it rains, it pours!!!

2009-06-11T21:13:00.003-06:00

\Well sometimes no matter how long it has been since you have blogged (and mind you it has been a VERY long time) there is a story that just must be shared!

Background: For the summer I have been trying to get in better shape, and since I am fortunate to have time on my hands it seemed like it should really work out. Luckily I also have a very motivated 15 year old niece that has helped keep me on track. We have been running around 3-4 times a week. Well this week she was leaving for a family reunion but told me that I needed to still keep running or she would be better than me.

Experience: So being a good aunt and deciding to not be lazy I thought it was time to really challenge myself. I had already committed to taking care of their dog by putting it in each night and taking it out each morning. Since there house is a couple of miles away I decided I would run up, put the dog in and then run home. I talked myself into it, telling myself that if I got tired I could walk. Stepping outside I saw a large gray cloud in the sky and tiny little sprinkles of rain coming down. I figured it would be ok though and it wouldn't start pouring for a while....boy was I wrong! At about 1/2 a mile it started to rain and by 1 mile it was POURING! I decided that my only option was try to run faster so that I could make it to their house sooner. A nice man pulled over on the side of the road and asked me if I wanted a ride, it sounded really nice but I just couldn't give up my run. After I declined I realized I was in for quite the final mile. It just kept pouring and pouring and pouring. I just had to laugh. Finally I made it to the house and into the garage. Everything was dripping wet. I went to check the clock and was happy to see that I had actually ran at a decent pace for me. After finding a towel to dry off with I decided to see what the weather was like now and of course it had stopped raining, just my luck. While I knew that I could probably run I decided to take a bit safer route and ride one of their bikes. Yet my troubles weren't quite over I still had to battle puddles and tree limbs that I thought were high enough to duck under. Nope they weren't and I got a nice wet tree limb in the face hahaha!

Conclusion: Of course as they say "if you want to see the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain." Fortunately there was a beautiful full rainbow in the sky that I was able to run towards as I was getting poured on. Then as I road home on the bike I was able to splash through the puddles like a little kid with no worry about getting wet. There was also a beautiful sunset to marvel at. Also it gave me new resolve to reach out to others as I thought of that kind man who took a minute out of his day to offer me a ride. Overall it was a great experience that will give me a few chuckles in the years too come, and hey one more positive it may have brought me back into the blogging world!

This is sort or what it looked like :)

Back into the Swing

2009-01-12T16:12:00.002-07:00

How to start off....Merry Christmas? Happy New Year? Welcome to January? Hahaha it is now 2009 and the start of a new semester. Christmas was excellent as I was able to enjoy being with family and I got to be very lazy! The New Year came around and I am excited for the year but not necessarily for 2009 because I am not a huge fan of odd numbers, weird I know. Anyway I am back to the reality of school and it hit me pretty hard. This semester I am doing a student teaching in a preschool lab and it is going to be intense. Even though I know that it is a lot of work I am still very excited! I enjoy planning and working with the kids is very rewarding. This semester is really going to challenge me and force me to manage my time well. This first week I have had a lot of doubts and things that I have worried about. Then yesterday I went to a devotional given by President Thomas S. Monson and it was exactly what I needed to hear. I am now planning on incorporating Formula W into my life. "Work will win when wishy washy wishing won't!" Overall though I am happy and trying to enjoy every moment of my life as a college student. It is also worth mentioning that my roomate Jenni turns 21 this week and she is very excited! I seriously have some of the best roomates around. Well I can't guarantee I will be posting a lot this semester but I will try to post a few preschool stories because I know there will be some good ones!

Finals Are Final!

2008-12-16T09:37:00.003-07:00

Yes I have neglected this blog and I apologize! Finals and school just took over and left me with very little time to do much else. I had procrastinated planning a preschool week on pumpkins and had to rush to complete it. Overall though my semester went great and I was very pleased with my grades. I am also so happy that the snow decided to hold off until I made it back home. I love Christmas but winter really isn't my favorite season but I would much rather watch the snow fall from the comfort of my house than while walking up an icy hill of death. It is great being home and now I get to spend my time exercising on the Wii Fit! It actually can be a fairly good workout. I am also thrilled to announce that I will be going to NEW YORK this summer to participate in the Hill Cumorah Pageant! I found out last week and couldn't be more excited for this incredible opportunity. Well this is about it for now, I promise that I am going to try and be better at up keeping the blog. Especially as next semester I embark on my preschool experience in college! How great is that?

Roommate Christmas 2008

Pumpkins, Paint, and Punting!

2008-10-27T21:33:00.005-06:00

Lots of "P" activities in my life recently! I have been having a lot of fun lately, I can't really remember everything that has gone on. But my very kind roommate let me put some pictures on here computer so now I can actually have pictures :) We went street painting for Homecoming and that was a blast, not so fun to clean up after but fun during the moment. Later that week me and my roomate had a hay day with pumpkins. I am doing a "virtual" preschool lesson plan on pumpkins but it has got me excited about them. So we carved a pumpkin, cooked a pumpkin to make pumpkin puree, roasted the seeds, and painted a pumpkin all in one night. The next morning I made some pumpkin pancakes it was fun! Then on Saturday we went to a very depressing football game. The Aggies had done SO well and we thought they had pulled off a comeback but then to depress the whole crowd the other team kicked a 57 yard field goal in the LAST 2 SECONDS! It was crazy but still fun and a beautiful day. The last picture is an old one from Peach Days in Brigham City with 1/2 of the roomates! Overall things are busy but still going well....I am just trying to figure out what I am going to be doing in the next few months to next year, there are so many possibilities. Oh and a couple other points of great interest I just fell in love with an amazing shake from Charlie's in Logan--chocolate mint, it is divine, our family now owns a wii very fun and I am going to get wii fit except it is in Spanish Fork and I am not, and that is about all!!!

Come what may, and love it!

2008-10-08T20:36:00.003-06:00

Well I decided to write a new blog because it has been a little while and I found myself with some extra hours in the night, a rare occurrence! First off I have to mention conference because it was incredible. I know that Heavenly Father directs what He wants us to hear by His prophets. The message that stuck out to me is that He knows we are all going through hard times and that it is challenging but that He loves and won't leave us alone, what a comfort that is. In other aspects of my life things are going really well. I have found that college for me is an isolation/socialization battle. Many of the activities that take most of my time are all in isolation studying, working, exercising [which doesn't take most of my time unfortunately :)] Yet I have to try and remain connected and have a "social life" just interesting. Also I have had this weird occurrence lately with bugs flying in my face/mouth. It has been really strange like I have had 3 in the past few weeks just a random little thing. Wow this is all really random, oh well such is life! I am going to go prepare myself for midnight margaritas with the roommates don't worry no real alcohol involved.

Mafia to the Extreme!

2008-09-29T07:55:00.004-06:00

I figure that this little game deserves it's own post on my blog because it has been in my life a lot lately. On Friday I got invited to play extreme mafia, I didn't really know what that was but I was excited. I have always enjoyed the game of mafia but this sounded even more intense. We drove out to this house that was somewhat older and began the journey. We started out meeting some really cool new people. As they started explaining the game to us I realized that it was a lot like murder in the dark, which I had played just last weekend and quite frankly it really scares me, I don't really like the dark. All of the windows were covered and we were given a tour of the house. You start out drawing cards with one or two people being the murders. Then all of the lights go off and the murder has to wait at least 5 seconds and then they can start killing. They then use their hand to slit your throat (I know kind of graphic). You were then officially dead and had to just sit there. If you manage to stay alive you have to go around finding people and asking them if they are dead or not. If you find a dead person you get to a light switch as fast as possible and yell dead body but you can be killed in the process. Then if the lights go on everyone comes together for a town meeting and votes another person off, just like real mafia. We played this for like 2 hours!!! It was a blast, and I wasn't as scared because there were so many people that there was almost always at least someone else in the room, oh and to top it all off they had somewhat scary music playing during the whole game. Then I went to a Sunday dessert night and while there we played regular old mafia which was also fun but not quite as exciting. All in all I probably died like 8 times this weekend :) It was a FANTASTIC weekend in Logan!

Drip Drip Drop

2008-09-22T17:24:00.003-06:00

Well I decided that I would write about the weather, kind of lame but exciting to me. I love the rain and so when I woke up this morning and saw the clouded over day it made me very happy. The only down thing about it was that I couldn't just stay home in my pajamas watch a good movie, take a nap, and then read a good book instead I had to hike the hill at 7:30 a.m. I really think they should require that you must stay home on rainy days. Then to make it even better the sun came out in the afternoon and it was just beautiful. Nature is awesome and I am amazed how much God loves us to display such beauty. As far as the lightening picture goes it doesn't really relate other than the fact that I like lightening and felt that my blog needed a picture and since I am having a hard time adding one of my own, because they are all at home, I decided this was pretty cool. I found it using cooliris which you should all download and try, it is way sweet! As far as school goes it is doing just that, going. I have reached the lesson plan phase in my life it feels like I have some sort of lesson plan due in every class which is to be expected I suppose.

Everyday Heros

2008-09-10T00:12:00.002-06:00

Cheesy I know, but so true! Well I have wanted to blog about something today but just haven't been able to think of anything. I have spent way too much time checking the blog thinking of something to post about and then of course it hit me at what better time than---midnight! Oh the life of a college student....anyway so then I started to write about this topic and the computer killed three times, I really must not be meant to write, oh well here it goes. I was able to spend some great bonding time with a friend today and we ended up talking about some trials I have gone through and she just listened and then didn't pity me or act differently towards me, that sounds weird but really it meant so much. When people listen, care, and just accept you as yourself with no stipulations and they let the friendship just run how it should it makes such a difference. I don't know maybe it is late and that doesn't make sense but I just felt like I couldn't go without saying something. There are so many awesome people in this world and I feel that my bucket is overflowing with them, honestly. It is also always incredible to me to how people come into my life that just fit perfectly like that they were always supposed to be there and that I knew them before. Crazy cool if you ask me. So this is my shoutout to all of those everyday heros, those people that keep me sane and love me for who I am no matter what! THANK YOU!

Oops!

2008-09-08T16:12:00.000-06:00

To all of my Instructional Technology friends I switched my blog address for this class so if you would please remove this one from your google reader that would be awesome! To do this just go to where everyone's blogs are listed and there is a place at the bottom that says manage subscriptions, click on that and it should take you to a yellow list where you can click on this blog, http://whit-anne.blogspot.com and delete it by clicking on the garbage can. Then go back to google reader and add this new address http://whitsinst4010.blogspot.com. Sorry about the hassle but I really appreciate it!