G & G

G & G is the Fab Four's slang for Grandma and Grandpa. (Meaning Grandma and Grandpa Olpin, since that is where the Fab Four came from, and also the ones that named us that.) Well, today, I had the opportunity to go and visit said grandparents up in Heber. It is always so great to have one on one time with them. They were so excited when I called yesterday to tell them I was coming up. We had time to just sit and talk and catch up. They love hearing all about their grandkids lives and they REALLY love hearing about our school. They decided that they wanted to help their grandchildren get a college education, without just handing them money like so many people do these days. They make us work for it. So they set up a scholarship program to help us out. They don't pay our full tuition, but they give us a check each semester as long as we have good enough grades. If you have really really good grades, you get the bonus, which means your check is an extra hundred and fifty dollars. It's kind of a big deal. They always tell us how grateful they are for us as their grandkids, and how proud they are of us. And I always think to myself, "No, I am pretty sure I am more grateful that you are my grandparents, and that I am so proud of you guys for all you have done with your lives." Not joking, they are amazing. I couldn't ask for better examples from any of my grandparents on the Olpin side or the Neiswender side. I have been so blessed to have these four people influence my life so greatly and teach me so much.

The Story of a Sabbath

So this is one of those posts that is done for the sake of journaling, not necessarily for the reader's entertainment, sorry friends.

This is what happens on my Sundays. Day of rest? Psh...right. Ok, I still make sure to plan time for a small nap, but it is SUCH a nice day of rest from work and school, I always love Sundays for that reason. And because it is such a good day to re-tune yourself with the Spirit and what's really important, so here is what usually goes down.

I wake up around seven-ish, get to church by eight so that I can be there on time for ward council/stewardship meeting/welfare meeting. Which ever one it may be that week. Right after those meetings happen we start church with Sacrament Meeting, then Sunday School, then Relief Society. That's all fairly standard. Then after church, I usually wind up talking to people for about half an hour or so regarding people's concerns, callings, and anything else I need to talk to the bishopric about. As soon as I got home my Visiting Teachers came over, yay visiting teaching!! Then, on days like today, we have break the fast, since it was fast Sunday. Following break the fast, I met with my visiting teaching supervisors for a while to go over their callings and what they need to be doing. Following that, I met with my teachers to discuss their duty. Some Sundays I meet with groups like this, my various committees, etc. Other Sundays it's presidency meeting, just depends on what's going on, hopefully it will settle down some into a regular thing as the semester goes on. I finished with all of this around four o clock (church gets out at noon) and so I was able to lay down for a bit of a nap. However, lately naps on Sunday have not been up to par and I think it's a guilt complex telling me that there are other things I need to be doing still for my calling, so I should probably work on that. I got up around six thirty so that I could get some spiritual thoughts ready for visits. Then at seven, we left as a presidency to go out on visits to various apartments. We usually try to do 4 a week so we can get to know people and be involved with them. Visits went til around 8:15 and then at 8:30 we had ward prayer. That ended around 9:15, then my old friend Peter came over to visit, I like having visitors on Sunday nights. And then finally, the Home Teachers came over to end our night. Also included in a typical Sunday is lots of singing around the piano with my roommates and anybody that hears and comes to join us.

Sundays are so busy. So so so busy, but I love every minute of it. I love my calling and being able to be so involved in the ward. Today for our closing hymn we sang "Nearer My God To Thee". We recently called a new pianist for R.S. that said she played piano at a 7 out of 10. However, she didn't realize that it would get a her a calling with it. She struggled on the first Sunday and asked why I called her. I explained and she was shocked that she had marked herself so high for some reason. I told her that if she wasn't comfortable with it, then I could release her and call someone else. She instantly said no, that she wanted to keep her calling and just practice at it. Katherine and I were discussing it earlier this week and she brought up the point that callings are there for us to learn and grow sometimes and we so much appreciated this sister and her attitude towards doing her calling. As she struggled through the song today, I was so proud of her. Being a piano player, I usually would cringe, but each wrong note she hit reminded me that she is trying so hard to magnify her calling and I admired her so much. It is my constant prayer, that I can always try that hard to magnify my calling. There are days when I don't know what I can do or how I can help a sister, but the more I pray for my girls and get to know them, the more I feel an overwhelming feeling of our Heavenly Father's love for each and everyone of them. It brought tears to my eyes today as we sang this song and I looked out of their faces, praying that they would feel the Spirit and draw near to our Heavenly Father. I love serving in this calling and the opportunity it gives me to help these sisters feel of our Heavenly Father's love for each of them, because if they know that, and can have a solid testimony of that, the rest can just fall in to place.

They DO Exist

Ok....so I make it a point to not really blog about relationships/dating life, it causes too much drama unless you're married, but today, I am making a slight exception. Tonight I went on a date. And it was fantastic. 1. Boy told me that he really liked my natural curl and thought it was so pretty. (Boys NEVER say that, they are all about my hair straight. This actually happened on Monday, but it earned him A LOT of points, the curly hair is me, thus, Frizz.) 2. He told me that I had such a great complexion and beautiful skin. (What guy even takes time to notice that and then has the courage to compliment on it?) 3. Had a laugh that just makes you melt and was just absolutely adorable. Maybe he'll ask me on a second date, maybe he won't, but we had a lot of fun and it was so great to go on a date with someone so genuine, it made me remember that great guys (still single) do exist at BYU. The end.

Momma Love

I love my mother. I'm not one of those kids that moves out and then calls her everyday to talk (which there is nothing wrong with that, I just don't do it) because I still usually see her once a week or so, so we usually just talk then. However, I realized yesterday that I haven't talked to her for a while. The more I thought about it, I realized that I have only been home once since school started, and then my parents came down for about an hour one night so my dad could give me a back to school blessing.

So I wound up calling my mom last night to let her know that I am still alive and to see how she was doing. She didn't answer, which is pretty usual in our world, it typically takes us trying to contact each other a few times before we connect. But she called me back this morning and I was already on campus with some down time so I just got to talk to her for about 15 minutes and I loved it. It kind of makes me laugh because our lives are so similar right now. I'm in school full time, she's in school full time (except her's is grad school, so it's a little more intense). I work full time, she works full time (but her job is waaaaaaaaay more important than mine, haha). I am in the Relief Society Presidency in my ward, she is in the Relief Society Presidency in her ward. So we are two very busy people with lots to catch up on. And today, she took my side on an issue that I completely DID NOT expect her too, for which I was very pleased, I always like it when people are on my side.

I am fairly convinced that my mom is Wonder Woman, she does EVERYTHING. I mean really, ask me, I'm pretty sure she does it. And if by some chance she doesn't, she'll love learning it, she always picks things up quick. I am always so thankful to have her around and I try to never take her for granted, because I know how lucky I am . I love my mom and hope to be as great as she is one day.

She loves this picture of us. NOT.

But I framed it for her office anyway. :D

Hijacked Life

Ok....who hijacked my life? Oh ya, school.

This morning I woke up and thought "man, it felt so good to sleep in!" What time was it? 8:30 am. In my world, 8:30 is NOT sleeping in. That is getting up early, and is typically a drag.

Now a days, I usually wake up just before eight to take my roommate to work (this way we can make sure the other one gets up for work/school) if not earlier to take my car down to school to snag a parking spot. She was finishing a paper this morning and was going to work late so I didn't have to get up til 8:30 for class at nine. It felt so good to "sleep in" but also made me realize that even though I do love sleeping in til ten on occasion, I actually enjoy getting up early everyday and getting going on stuff. I feel like this semester is going exceptionally well, I have done all my reading assignments, I have done great on all my quizzes and I am learning a lot. Glad I am figuring all of this out during my last semester of college.

Also, I don't have to be to work til 4:15 today and I got out of class at 10. All this free time, I don't know what to do with myself!!

It still amazes me that I woke up at 5:00 am every day during high school and was at school by 6:30. Weird.

Zion - Family Trip

Ok, so this is a continuation of the Friends Trip. They all left on Wednesday and I went to St. George for the night. Then Thursday I went BACK to the park, and reserved campsites for the fam. They slowly made it down group by group for our three day camp out. That night we set up camp and got everything settled and had dinner of roasted hot dogs and burgers and then side dishes. My mom goes all out with food while camping. I'm pretty sure that at least 3/4 of my dads truck was filled with food. Granted she was feeding 16 people for three days, but still...there was a PLETHORA.

Friday morning we had fruit and yogurt parfaits, I had never even considered buying one, let alone making one, but they were so good!! Then we hit the trails. We hiked up to Emerald Pools which is beautiful. The hike to the first pool is really easy and we were able to take the little kids, even in the strollers, but the two upper pools are a little more difficult, so the little kids stayed back with Troy and Danielle, and we took Davy and Jami (the older kids) up to the other two pools.

Jami and Me at the upper pool

Dad, Mom, Jami, Davy and Josh by the

Middle Pool

The waterfall from the Middle Pool

to the Lower Pool.

It got really really hot after that hike so we just kicked it at camp, went to the visitor center, etc. Then had dinner, Josh made Mac and Cheese in the dutch oven. It started as a joke between me and him, but then he thought it would be funny so he really did it, made mac and cheese from scratch in the dutch oven and it was PHENOMENAL. Once we were done with dinner we did something kinda different, we went and did a night hike so that the babies could come because it isn't smart to take a 3 month old and a 10 day old out in 100 degree heat. So around seven thirty, we hopped on the tram and went up to Weeping Rock. It is half a mile round trip so really easy and short. It was nice to go at night because it is typically such a busy, popular trail, but there was nobody!! Plus, we got a good view of the park at dusk, it was beautiful.

Melanie with Dallin and Vicki with Addie on

our night hike

View of the cliffs at dusk with the moon

Danielle with Timmy, Davy

and Jami at Weeping Rock

Ok...so next...Saturday, that's it. Um, Dad made breakfast that morning...mountain man. Freak I love camping food. Then we went up to go to the narrows. We didn't really hike it this time, we mostly just let the kids play in the water, some of them liked it, some of them didn't. It was fun though. Timmy was my hiking buddy that time, man he is such a cute little boy, I adore him. He is going to be such a heart breaker one day, he has blonde hair and blue blue eyes. Davy and Jamie wanted to go up the river a little ways so I took them up about 200 yards. It took a while, but they were really good and enjoyed it. It started getting too deep for me to be comfortable with them continuing, plus I didn't have shoes on and the rocks were starting to hurt, haha.

Kristi and Rylee and Timmy and Me

Jami

Hiking buddies!!!

The rest of the day we just did whatever, it was great. Then Sunday morning we woke up and broke camp and headed back up to home sweet home. I love camping, but I also really really love the post-camping shower. Such a feeling of complete cleanliness, so great. :D

Here are some random pics from the rest of the trip:

This sums up Mikey for the whole trip

Me with Dallin and Addie

Addie rockin' Kristi's shades

The group at the Lower Emerald Pools

Rylee wearing my camo bandanna with her dad

The group of us that went to Checkerboad

mesa on Saturday night

Rylee and Tim on the rock that served as a rocket ship,

a bus, a train, and many others

Kristi and Me

Troy and Davy on the tram

Rylee and Mikey. Yes she is twice his age and he is

her same size pretty much

The whole fam eating ice cream, thanks Dad!

Okay, on a bit of a side note: I rushed home on Sunday morning from the trip so I could be there for this boy's welcome home. This is my twin Robert. You would be amazed at how many people we had fooled into believing that we really were twins in high school. He just got back from his mish in Australia and it was so fun to see him! One more friend, Coley, and then all my favorite boys are back! (Other than Travis, but he is a different category.)

And that's the end of my summer vacation. :D

Birthday-ness

Confession. I love birthdays. As most of you know. Well, it turns out that this last Monday, I had one!! 22, here I come whether I'm ready or not. I'm not gonna lie, it wasn't the most eventful birthday I've ever had, but I kind of expect that from here on out since I'm old now.

Sunday night we had a big family dinner with the traditional ribs, potato salad, fruit salad, corn on the cob and german chocolate cake made from scratch. Delish.

Monday (the actual birthday) I treated myself to sleeping in through my first two classes, justifying it because all the slides will be posted online and there were no quizzes, but then I went to my last two classes because there were quizzes involved, and they weren't early in the morning. Then I pretty much just kicked it at my apartment for the rest of the day, went to FHE, and had fun with my roommates. It was nice to just have a day to relax and not do anything important, I enjoyed it.

Tuesday, the roomies and I went to "The Chocolate". So good. Such a cute little place, please go there with your girl friends, you won't regret it. A boy took me on a date there a couple weeks ago, good call on his part.

Anyways, that's about it for the birthday festivities, there aren't any pics because there wasn't much to take pictures of. Well, there's one from The Chocolate but I'm using it on another post that you'll see soon. That's all!!