Merry Christmas!

Here is a Christmas card from me to you! I'm not sending a card out, but here's a little review of what I've been up to this year. With a lot of pictures. Maybe. I'm not sure what I've going to say yet.

Well, at 11pm Christmas eve (2008) I started packing for college, and at 4:30 am Christmas day, I left home forever for college. We drove to Logan and I cried for about the first 6 hours, but was happy when we got there since I was going to be with my family, who I love :)

At the beginning of January (I think the 4th or 5th?) I got to Rexburg and got all moved in to my apartment. I think the first night was the very hardest for me. For various reasons, none of my roommates were there and I was all alone for the first time. I felt like my parents were abandoning me. I cried for about the first 20 minutes, found the presents they left tucked under my covers, read my scriptures, and fell asleep. After the initial shock, I think I realized that I was ready to start on my new, big adventure.



even though I didn't know any of my roommates prior to this semester, we all got along great! I really lucked out and couldn't have been happier if I had hand picked five other girls to live with.

First semester ended great. I had never been a "straight-A" student in high school, but out of the six classes I took, I ended up with five A's and one B. This was amazing to me and should be to you too :)

Second semester was a little more eventful. I'd been having pretty bad stomach aches for as long as I could remember, but for the 18 months prior to this time they were pretty awful. I'd had upwards of seven doctors in CDA but got nothing better than "you pulled a muscle" and "here's some birth control pills" but nothing conclusive or even a little bit helpful. One day, around June I think, during sacrament meeting I started feeling like my time on earth was limited and I needed someone to read me my last rights. I literally was bawling my eyes out in the middle of church. The way I was holding my side and crying the bishopric thought I might have appendicitis so they gave me a beautiful blessing, promising that I would find out what's wrong and be healed, and my roommates carted me off to the emergency room at madison memorial hospital. They didn't really do anything but give me some monster shot in the behind (Amanda was holding my hand, she could tell you how the nurse rammed that thing into my hip. It was brutal!), took some blood samples, and sent me home, but it didn't really help. This is getting longer than I meant it to, so I'll try to condense the rest. I had to go to the health center on campus to get the results of the blood tests and the doctor there told me he'd like to figure out what's wrong (Hallelujah! A doctor who cares!!). He did a bunch of test and thought I have celiac disease. An endoscopy confirmed it and now I cry every time I go grocery shopping, but I'm getting better at eating gluten free.
To counteract the anemia caused by my celiac disease, I had to have an iron infusion which was the pits. The hospital in rexburg is a joke and something that took four hours took about eight. It took about two hours waiting with a needle in my arm that wasn't actually hooked up to anything. It was actually pretty painful but my wonderful, beautiful roommate Amanda read stories to me and entertained me and shoved smarties in my mouth whenever I started crying.





gross. It looked like they were infusing me with espresso. And it made me throw up the sonic cheeseburger that Amanda and Luke smuggled into my hospital room :)

Well, then second semester ended and, considering that I was in the hospital for half the semester AND taking 18 credits (!!!) I passed with six A's and two B's. I was not expecting that and was very proud of myself!

School ended and I moved to Logan to work at my parent's new car wash. In August one of my biggest dreams came true and I got to be an EFY (Especially for Youth) counselor! I counseled (ha) for one week with my cousin Madi in Ogden. It was different than I expected but SO AMAZING! Such a spiritual high and I got to love "my girls" so SO much! They were all so beautiful and so full of the spirit and I am so blessed that the Lord sent them to me to bless my life.



Me with my girls. We're all being goofy but it's the only one where you can see all of our faces :)



Me and Madi one night at "EFC" (Especially for Counselors. The party we had after the kidlets went home for the night)



Kjarinda, Me, and Katy. We were EFY participants all the way back in 2005 and I hadn't seen either of them since, so it was crazy fun that we all got to be counselors together :)



Me, Sean, And Lauren. We taught FSOY (for the strength of youth) in the same room. We were being cool and put our name tags in our hair



A few weeks later my roommate Kim got married, so Luke and I went to Rexburg for her open house






And...well, nothing too eventful has happened since August. I just work at about 6:30 every morning and then go home and hang out with my mom until it's time to go to sleep. Then repeat. Sometimes I get to hang out just me and Lexi, which I love. I like to think that I'm her favorite aunt, but that may have something to do with the fact that I'm the aunt that lives closest and the only one she sees on a regular basis.



So now I'm getting ready to go back and start round two of college and I can't wait! I'm rooming with Amanda again and one of my good friends from high school, Lizzy. It's going to be so nice to have a church calling and classes and something to keep me busy again. SO that's my year in review.

Merry Christmas, everyone :)