I live for days like these

while i know, and fully agree, that huge ground-breaking days containing huge milestones and miraculous events are wonderful and bring lots of happiness, they are not my favorite. I know what it feels like to pass a huge test, or accomplish something you have been working on forever. I have experienced days where the world seems to comply to my every whim and my life seems like it will become something amazing. but to me, they don't compare with a simple, family day outside on a regular Saturday summer day.
we usually all gather at our house. But this time we decided to go Lauren's house. i should have realized how wonderful the day was going to be as i walked up the driveway and saw Matti running as fast as her little legs would carry her, in her adorable little way. she looked like the cutest thing you could imagine in her bathing suit, with her blond wavy hair in her face. She was so excited to see us all, even papa, at her house! she could barely contain herself as she ran back and forth between us, showing papa her awesome blow-up pool and telling me where to put everything, as if she planned the whole dinner. there is something about my niece that gives me such happiness. i love her so much. so we sat around, soaking in the warm California sun rays. ill admit it may have been a smidge to hot, but just sitting around in regular lawn chairs, talking and laughing. admiring Matti's skills of being able to go down a slide, it made the heat bearable, no, enjoyable. then we got to play with adorable Clark. He had his own baby pool, shaped like a whale. We all sat around and laughed at how it was was to short for him, and how he couldn't stay still, yet when he climbed out on the grass he freaked out and crawled on his tippy toes to reduce the contact with the grass. Now i have an undeniable love for games. This being said, i sent Matti on a secret telephone mission. in our family we love to do this "Matti, go tell mommy to do this". to hear her variations and to hear her try to say the complicated words makes us all laugh. so i told her "Go tell mom to get a game and bring it outside" so she sprints into the house and can barely contain her excitement as she yells "mom!! get catch phrase!" so then the game began. we all circled around, some on the blanket that was partially wet from soaking bathing suit butts, some in lawn chairs, some in beach chairs, and some (well one) in toy cars. with our family, whenever we play games we all start cracking up, and by the end we had a few more inside jokes to add to our list. something unique this time, no fights. it was destined to be a beautiful night. amidst the laughter and talking, and trying to guess words, i realized something. i could never ever stop loving my family. after the game, Matti forced me to race her around in the toy car. i made it a little interesting with going down steps, hitting walls and circling trees at top speed. the bad thing about making things fun: they never want you to stop. but then dinner was ready and i had an excuse to quit. we made foil dinners and cooked them over our fire pits on red hot coals. something about foil dinners brings back memories of countless family beach trips, coming back from bonfires smelling of smoke and having sunburned skin. they remind me of camping trips, everyone gathered around the campfire, exhausted and enjoying nature. these foil dinners did not disappoint. we all sat outside as the night air started to cool, talking about life and stories we had experienced lately, and catching skunks and opossums in traps that the city refuses to give you. the conversations and jokes flowed, not a face was unhappy and everyone just sat under the umbrellas enjoying a summer night where we could all be together. a night where we could sit outside and see the stars as our family shined as a beautiful thing. of course, since we used the fire pits for dinner we had to make smores. Lauren bought some cool new marshmallows, we had Reese's and graham crackers that were already broken in half. we roasted marshmallows for each other and all ate one more than we should have. the sugar of the marshmallows and chocolate made everyone happy. we sat around and talked by the light of the perfect roasting wood. we listed to Lauren's garden skunk rustle in the bushes, and surprise surprise talked and laughed some more. then Matti came and whispered to me that this fire business should be done and we really needed to go inside to watch some of her shows. so i went inside with her and got to watch mickey mouse clubhouse with her. it was so adorable to see her answer all their questions and smile so much at everything that was happening. eventually everyone else came inside, and we all combined onto the couches and sat there for a bit. when it was bedtime, a certain little girl in her terrible twos threw he usual bedtime fit. but after she went to bed and we got in the car to drive home i realized something else. not once during our whole day did we fight. not one of us started an argument or got angry. there was not at point in time when i was annoyed by something someone did. in a family with 4 girls that doesn't always happen. i love my family so much, but sometimes i forget just how amazing every singe member of my family is. Family is so essential to God's plan, and sometimes i just need nights like these to make me realize how wonder my family as a unit is, and how much Heavenly Father influences everything we do. i would not be able to feel such joy with out my family by my side. whether we are separated by state boundaries or simply a argument blown out of proportion, my family will always be there for me and will support me through every obstacle of life. My parents have been amazing examples to me, and my sisters have been amazing friends. i love them all. i hope life holds millions of these days in store for me.

sometimes...

(occasionally all the time)
i stay up till insanely late hours doing nothing at all even though im tired and need sleep
i lay in bed for at least 30 minutes wishing my mind would just turn off and i could sleep
i read a new persons blog. and then spend over 2 hours reading every post they ever wrote
i watch kyle xy episodes for a whole afternoon and love it just as much as when i saw them for the first time
i write out blog post in my mind, complete with pictures and what punctuation i should use. but then i never write them, and the posts i do write are infinity worse.
i check the mail box starting on monday every few hours even though i know a letter couldn't possibly come till wednesday or thursday
i think about my little garden as i water it and feel really proud. also feel somewhat like a middle-aged woman but that's ok.
i leave my phone somewhere for a few hours on purpose and hope that when i come back and check it i will have a few surprise texts.
i hug my pets really close to my face even though i have allergies and they make me die of lack of oxygen
i facebook stalk random people...haha i admit it!
i imagine myself being an awesome musician who can play the guitar and piano like nothing you've ever heard before. and then i sit down and try to teach myself and remember that will never ever happen
i wish i could be a 3 year old again. just because they say really funny things and make everyone laugh and just plain adorable
i don't do laundry for about a month and a half and wait till it overflows and takes over my whole floor
i do one load of laundry then leave it on my bed or other various locations for as long as possible to postpone the worst part: putting it all away.
i sleep so crazy the bottom sheet comes off so i'm just sleeping on a mattress and i leave it that way for a few days because i just don't care
i make my self laugh just by thinking funny things. and by laugh i mean out loud cracking up.
i obsess about wedding details. like my ring (which is beautiful) or dress or my flowers, and i'm not anywhere near getting married and don't want to be any time in the near future.
i speak in such poor grammar i might as well have skipped second grade.
i just love life and take it day by day!!!!

its called snail mail for a reason

so as we speak, one of my best friends is gone and at the MTC and wont be back for 2 years. also, very soon some of my other good friends are going to the exact same place and also wont be back for 2 whole years. and the only way to contact any of them is through good old fashioned letters. i love letters, i really do. i love how excited i am to check the mail every thursday and i love being able to see peoples handwriting. to me they are so awesome and about 100000 times better than typed things. all this said, i'm just not patient! because they can only write on mondays, by the time me letter gets there and by the time they can write back and y the time it gets to me, im already way too impatient. but its ok, because its worth it. soon i will have lots o people to write, so the excitement will be even greater. i've never had people close to me leave to go on missions, and i have to say, i love it. i am so proud of them and i get letters. which i love. win win. i even made a little binder to keep all my letters together and have a tab for each of my people. hahha i just really love letters.

summer time

so summer time makes me not want to write blogs. but my sister has asked me a few times why i havent done a post in a while so i guess i could spend a few moment of my time...i guess :]

i feel like the summer could be described in one word, sleep. if you know me at all you know i love lots of things, but sleeping would definantly be almost number one on my list. i think ive only woken up before 10 maybe 5 times the whole summer so far. other things have happened, but nothing as important as my daily 9-12 hours of sleep. im banking up my beauty sleep for next year, that sounds plausible right?! basically im to lazy right now to think of all my many exciting and riviting stories ive compiled over the few months ive been home, so maybe another day. if you are really dying to hear my inresting summer life, well then thats too bad :]

wow this may have been the most boring post ever alive. i promise ill be more interesting next time around. promise.

life sometimes is unexpected.

((the title for this post was inspired by a show i love called life unexpected. if you haven't seen it, drop whatever you are doing at this moment and go watch it))

so just like countless other freshman at college i have changes my major more times that i hoped i would. and although this is no new feeling, and plenty of people have experienced it, its much different when you are actually living through it. i have no idea what major i want, and no idea how to achieve what i want in life. i went to a academic counselor to have some help with the direction i want to go with school...and it was the least helpful meeting of my life. He had nothing to say that helped me, and basically it just showed me how no one can pick my direction in life, its something i have to decide on my own. but it was frustrating to say the least. i walked out of that little room feeling more helpless than ever. i may have even started to feel as if i would never ever find a major, get a job, or basically be a successful human being. but of course that would be super over-dramatic, so i would never do that...Then just hours later, i walked into my ASL class, (which ended up being canceled because our teacher never showed up) and i was talking to one of my friends in that class, and she asked about what i wanted to major in. i confessed that i had no idea, but then told her what i eventually wanted to get a job in and do with my life. she then told me about her sister in law, who majored in accounting and does it for nonprofit organizations. it instantly sounded perfect. nothing i had encountered thus far made me excited, nothing sounded right of the bat. all the other majors i've considered have been something i try to force myself to accept, and eventually after enough convincing to myself that it will work, i try it out. but this just seemed like it would be perfect with me without any other thoughts. it is not set in stone yet, but i may just possibly major in accounting with a minor in international development. it will be a super intense program, but i know if its something i'm excited about and looking forward to, i can succeed in it. i may not end up doing it, but as of right now it makes me very anxious and happy for the future. let me just say, i'm thankful for the people Heavenly Father places by my that make my life as beautiful as it is.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."
— Douglas Adams

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go..."
— Dr. Seuss

"Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love."
— Mother Teresa