Have you heard?

My beautiful family

My brother Seth is on a mission in the California Los Angeles Mission!

I am dating this handsome man!

Why on earth are we up with smiles on our faces at 2:00am?
I have a niece!
Kyrah Lea Clements born on Jan. 17 2011 @ 12:35 am. 7.9 lbs. and 20 inches.
(She is 5 days old here.)
Doesn't this just warm your heart and make it smile. :)

Living in Anticipation!

Since the beginning of this year when I stated that this was going to be a grand year I have been living in anticipation of what each day and month would bring.

At the beginning of this year I wrote a post about how I was going to Choose to be Chosen.

In it I stated: "This year I am choosing to be chosen!! What does that mean?
It means at work I will make an extra effort to stay motivated despite the hardships that come from working in a manufacturing industry, I will be a better employee so as to be chosen by my employer. It means at school I will choose to excel a little more and find ways to apply the things that I am learning in my life. I will seek opportunity to further my career in health and fitness so I will be chosen for the things that I want to do. It means that I will be the right kind of girl so that I may eventually be chosen by the right kind of guy. It means that I will choose to serve the Lord more fully so that he may choose me. 3 Nephi 19:20"

I have been blessed with incredible opportunities this year. There have been ups and downs. My character and strength has been strengthened this year. It has been an incredible journey, a few of the lessons learned I have posted about. Others have just been thoughts in my head building my understanding of God and his works.

I said I wanted to be chosen as an employee, as a student, as a woman, and by the Lord.

As an employee I had some amazing blessings (raises, bonuses, work from home) come to me because of my work ethic which then opened up opportunities as a student.

As a student I created better relationships with my professors in my chosen field of study. As a result I was chosen to participate in an independent study with a professor for college credit. This allowed me to pursue more of my own personal goals, such as becoming Zumba instructor certified. I was also nominated for Major of the Year in the Texas Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine by my professor. I have a great internship lined up as well for the Spring semester with MediFit at Dell.

As a woman the right kind of guy chose to date me, which lets be honest was a pretty darn big highlight to my year! I won't get all sappy (I don't want to cause people to puke on their keyboards ;) but I am happy about it as well. Miracles do occur!

I have been blessed to serve the Lord in many different ways this year and honestly have felt that all of the above mentioned blessings have come from him. Yes I did work hard, because I did need to Take Action, but I have been greatly blessed in the actions that I have chosen. Which is great because I did seek the Lord's guidance as I made tough choices this year. I chose to move and that required some faith and hope on my part. I put aside my fears and decided to trust in what I felt in my heart and mind to be right and true and I have been greatly blessed as a result in many aspects of my life.

Basically this sums up my year: My joys are being fulfilled, my dreams are closer, and my prayers have been answered.

2010 was a grand year! I am excited for 2011 and the beauties and wonders I will behold.

Oh the fun of Halloween!

Phillip and I

My brother Nathan and I

When patience is required

"God's Promises are not always fulfilled as quickly or in the way we might hope. Patience means staying with something until the end, it means delaying immediate gratification for future blessings!" ~ President Dieter F Uchtdorf

This has been the lesson God has been teaching me over the past year and continues to teach me and remind me.

Ruth 3:18 Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall: for the man will not be in rest, until he have finished the thing this day.




Someday I will get my SMORE

Even when you're gone...

"Even when you're gone,

Somehow you come along just like

A flower pokin' through the sidewalk crack

And just like that

You steal away the rain, and just like that

You make me smile like the sun, fall out of bed

Sing like bird, dizzy in my head

Spin like a record, crazy on a Sunday night

You make me dance like a fool, forget how to breathe

Shine like gold, buzz like a bee

Just the thought of you can drive me wild

Oh, you make me smile

Don't know how I lived without you

'Cause every time that I get around you

I see the best of me inside your eyes

You make me smile

You make me dance like a fool, forget how to breathe

Shine like gold, buzz like a bee

Just the thought of you can drive me wild

You make me smile like the sun, fall out of bed

Sing like bird, dizzy in my head

Spin like a record, crazy on a Sunday night

Oh, you make me smile!"

Fishing

I have been going fishing for a; I mean with a very handsome man. ;)

Yep pretty much lucky me!

He also cooks yummy food! Shrimp Boil with my fam

Today the handsome man is away, but I bought a fishing license and just happened to catch a fish on one of his lines while I was out kayaking. 19" :) I was pretty proud!
This is the note I left for my room mate on the freezer :S Hopefully she doesn't mind.

A Second of Jealousy

I have many friends who walked the Halls and Hills/Mountains (?) of the BYU campus in Provo Utah. They are proud to call it their Alma Mater. They for a few years of their lives spent time in a place filled with spiritual and intellectual learning. I can understand the appeal of attending such a place and will admit that there have been a few times when I myself would have appreciated the environment that is provided by a school like BYU. But the truth is I am grateful for the education that I have received while not attending BYU. (Don't judge my school for my bad grammar. My grammar can be purely blamed on me.)* I am grateful for the experience that I have had with the many diverse individuals I am surrounded by. And I think that BYU was never the school for me to attend, I created my own spiritual University. That being said I found myself a tad Jealous when on the News the other day I heard about the World's Largest Balloon Fight being held at BYU in Provo.

120,000 Balloons

WOW

All I can say is I am glad that I am not the person that had to tie off all those balloons. For my birthday I had somewhere around 500 and my youngest brother and sister helped me out in filling and tying. My poor fingers! I can't imagine 120,000.

But what an awesome fight it would have been to attend!

*I have many friends who are wonderful writers and very articulate with words. I unfortunately am not as articulate as my friends and am sure many times I can hear my friends cringing as they read over my post. Possible run on sentences... random dots that don't mean anything... my use of ish... And my good Texas accent leavin off the g's in ing at the end of a word. I do try my best to at least read over what I wrote once.