Christmas

Sheesh!!! I cannot believe how long it has been since I blogged, MEGA SLACKER. Not much has really happened, but the things that have I will try to throw down real quick.

Christmas.

I. Freaking. Love. Christmas.

Everything about. And I mean everything!! The two things I love the most about I think are 1. Family time and 2. just having a good excuse to spend time thinking about my Savior and all that He did for me. (Not that you need an excuse for that, but you know what I am saying.)

I actually enjoy Christmas Eve more than Christmas Day probably. We have a HUGE dinner. This year we only had about half the family there because the others were with their in-laws, but it was still good to have the siblings we did as well as Grandma Neiswender, plus...more food for us. I ate sooooooo much. And I didn't even get to everything that I wanted.

Dallin and Me at Dinner

EVERY kid does this instinctively. I think it's what olives

are really for, and Rylee excels at it

Christmas Eve dinner

We woke up early on Christmas morning and tapped in to our stashes of presents so we could be done before Travis called from Honduras. Kristi and I were the only kids there for Santa gifts which is slightly anti-climatic, but we had fun. I got an external hard drive (NEEDED this for my hoards of pictures) and then lots of nice exercise clothes to wear to my internship. Too bad they changed the dress code a week later and I can't wear any of them anymore, but that's beside the point. Then all the grandkids came over and we did more presents and had a blast as usual.

Rylee in her new princess dress

Melanie feels like she needs to dress up her

dog (if you can call it that), Zowie, for

any holiday

Dad with his new pop up book

My mom LOVES to buy him weird

things like this Santa shirt

And then...LITTLE BROTHER!!! He called and we got to talk to him for about an hour and a half. He sounded so great!! He honestly sounded so happy. They had a baptism that night, so we figured that was a good way for him to be spending Christmas since he couldn't be with us. It was so great to hear his voice and talk to him. It was especially great to hear his laugh. Geez I love that kid and I miss him like crazy. My little nephew Timmy was talking to Travis and just in the middle of the conversation says "Trav...are you comin' home?" It was so precious, such a sweet little boy. Trav just laughed it off and said not yet, he handled it much better than I did, that's for sure. But talking to him was easily the best part of my Christmas this year.

Kristi Josh and Dallin talking to Travis

Then we had our traditional breakfast, and I stuffed my face. Following breakfast, we had a break and then headed up to Heber to see Grandma and Grandpa Olpin.

Grandpa and Grandma Olpin

After Heber we headed over to Grandma Neiswender's house to see that side of the family. We don't see them very often so it was nice to hear what's new in everybody's life and how they are all doing.

Overall, Christmas day I just relaxed and kicked it with family all day long. It was so nice, I am lucky to have so many great people in my life to share this beautiful holiday with!

I caught mommy kissing Santa Clause!!

Roommate Christmas

So with finals and everything, I got a little behind on blogging. This event actually happened just over a week ago, on our last night as a full "roommate-ship". We all got each other little Christmas gifts and took some time to exchange them and to laugh hysterically together for one last night. It was so much fun. Katherine and I are really going to miss not having Kristen and Andrea around. We have had so much fun and I feel like it is the best all four people living in my apartment have gotten along. There were some where we got a long great and had fun, (Lindsey, Katie and Ale) but as a whole, this semester was just great. Anyways, Kristen is off to work at Disneyworld and Andrea is off to get married, so Katherine and I will stick it out with our two new roomies. Meanwhile, here are some pictures of our roommate Christmas. Don't mind the fact I had just got back from the gym so I am sporting my short running shorts. Don't judge.

Kristen, Andrea, and Katherine with their

gifts from me.

Gifts from Katherine: Cute hair accessories

Gifts from Andrea: "BEAUTIFUL" t-shirts

Gifts from Kristen...

Opening...Ligretto!!

I love Christmas time. More to follow on that. Meanwhile, it is 11:30 on Christmas Eve so I must say "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!!"

A Pre-Wedding Must

My roommate, well...old roommate now is getting married in January. This means it was necessary to have some pre-wedding celebrations. We went to her bridal shower which was really one of my favorite bridal showers ever, mostly because there were a bunch of BYU girls there that were well...very BYU. For example...some of them got her a scripture journal and highlighters, book, chocolate orange, and notebook. All lovely gifts yes, but for a bridal shower for your friend...no. Not so much. It was priceless. We went in as roommates and got her some nice little goodies.

Also, we went out for a "bachelorette party" as roommates. We went and got drinks at a restaurant in downtown Provo named Spark. They have food but are better known for their drinks because they are nice alcoholic drinks minus the alcohol, because it's Provo, but that's good, since none of us drink alcohol. We enjoyed our specialty drinks and then drove around looking at Christmas lights rocking out to some sweet tunes.

K-Dub outside the restaurant

All of our drinks

Kristen's Kiwi-Something

Katherine, Andrea, Me and Kristen

Group photo on the mirror of the ceiling

Temple Square

So last Sunday we had a roommate trip to Salt Lake. We went to Sunday dinner at my parents house which was a lot of fun. They were happy to have a real dinner in a home and I got to show off my awesome family some, it was a lot of fun. After dinner, we went to see the lights at temple square because Kristen had never seen them being from North Carolina. They were beautiful as always and it was a lot of fun, all except the part where this poor little girl fell into the little stream. Oops. It was nice (and somewhat irresponsible) to completely ignore the fact that I had a final 12 hours from the time we got to temple square and just play and enjoy time with my lovely roommates since two of them were moving out in the next couple days.

Andrea, Katherine, Me, Kristen

Me by a pretty tree

Andrea by the temple

Kristen by the star

K-dub by her favorite tree

Me, Kristen, K-dub, Andrea

Final Finals

Well folks...I've done it. I have finished college. All of my coursework for my undergraduate degree in Exercise Science with an emphasis on Fitness and Wellness is done. Complete. Finished. I took my last final exam this afternoon. I feel like this was by far my best bout of finals ever, so I am quite pleased. Now on to real life. Peace out undergrad...it's been real.

I will commence personal training in approximately 54 hours.

Sooooo Close

Holy smokes. I am so close to being done!! I finished almost everything I needed too last week amazingly enough, I'm still not sure how, but I did!! I am now in the midst of finals week. Today is day one of finals and I have 3 tests done already and only have 2 left. This is a new record in my world. I am usually the kid that still has two test left on the last day. One of my teacher's gave us the option to take the final last Thursday in the testing center or during a scheduled session in class tomorrow, I chose Thursday. Then this morning I had a test scheduled at 7am. On a Monday morning. Brutal. But I am secretly glad because it is over with, it only took an hour and I rocked it and then came home and slept since I have been averaging 5 hours of a sleep a night for the last two weeks. Then this afternoon I went to take a 3rd final. It was open book, note, etc. so I didn't really need to study for it. However, it still took AGES!!! I was in the testing center for 3 1/2 hours. The tv monitor at the end told me that I got 100% and said "Perfect Score!" I tried to take a picture but people were looking at me funny. Granted, there were only nine questions on that graded part, but still, I've always wanted the screen to tell me I got a perfect score and I finally got it!!! The rest of the test was 105 free response questions that required very specific answers and it was easily the most comprehensive exam I have ever had in my entire life, but I feel very confident about it, so I'm okay with it. That's all, I'll update you on everything else later.

I Think I Can

A wise little train engine was going up a bigger hill than he ever had before. Some were skeptical, but all he would say is "I think I can, I think I can!"

That is me. Right now. I have a week left. Period. That's it. I have 18 research articles to read, 2 group presentations, 2 lab reports, 3 training assignments, 1 test, 4 quizzes, and 1 semester project report, and an activity write-up. Then I am home free to finals. I have 6 days to finish all of this. When I am going to do all this? I have yet to figure that out, but I just keep telling myself "I think I can I think I can!!"