Wonders of this Winter-Land!

So, I really think MAYBE, just maybe I should have taken my english class last year a bit more seriously.  I took English 213, Writting for the Social and Natural Sciences, but my hippie Teacher turned it into "Envirowriters" or a writting for the environment class.  And we had to reasearch and write about things like Global warming and the vegetarian movement as a means to save the planet.  I thought she was crazy, still do, but on the topic of Global warming-Maybe I should look into it more.  I was convinced it was a hoax, I had my Chemistry teacher on my side, but then, winters like this kinda make me wonder.  Usually, we spend the week leading up to Thanksgiving with negative temps, like, 30 below and colder-I remember!  Every year the week before thanksgiving in the middle of november we would have a whole week of seminary cancelled.  Church cold weather policy cancels the extra meetings and seminary at -30.  Anyways, so when I walked outside for the first time since Sunday today, and was walking through puddles of standing water 2 inches deep-I was slightly alarmed.

Anyways, here's to my first school cancelling because of weather.  The only time this ever happened to me before was on a Sunday in highschool, it rained, so they cancelled Church.  That was weird.  Anywho-hope everyone out there is staying warm and safe!

As of late

here's an Update:

Went to Anchorage last weekend for a wonderful temple trip :)  Enjoyed every min of it, and the weather was perfect from Fairbanks to abt Trapper Creek (just before the road construction) on both days of driving!  Also, the unperfect weather in the southern part of our great state still wasn't that bad.  :)  In Denali Nat'l Park, we saw the Great One-our beautiful mountain Denali/Mt Mckinley-Heres some pictures from the trip:

This I know (a special list of Loves, Loves #7)

Fall is my favorite time of year!

Christ is my Saviour, my redeemer, and my bestest best friend

When we do hard things-we get blessings we don't expect.

Tender mercies are all around us.

Families are forever.

People are beautiful.

I'm gonna be an aunt real soon!

To be anxiously engaged in a good cause is good for the soul-yeah Heavenly Father said to do it, but if you do it, you will be happier.  The more you give of yourself for this good cause, the more you lose yourself in it, the happier you will be.

Gods plan is perfect, God plan is complete, God plan is THE plan of happiness.

My September 11, 2010

Today was beautiful.  I woke up, got dressed (which I really didn't feel like getting out of my jammies, so it was a big deal, thus it gets to be listed in the days activities), got a haircut, then spent a glorious fall afternoon in Nature with my darling Travis.  I've been saying every weekend, "We need to go outside while the weather is still good" And so finally, the weather was PERFECT and the leaves are a beautiful golden.  So we went to Chena Lakes-but past where you turn off to go to the lakes but farther down the main road to where theres a beautiful river campsite and a few walking trails.  Oh, I just can't say enough, but it was beautiful.  There, we threw rocks in the water like little kids-Travis can throw then reallly high and really far (hit the sign on the other side of the river, or threw them really high so they would make cool sounds when the fell into the water, like "THWOOPM") and he's really good at skipping rocks-I've said it once and I'll say it again, I'm easy to please!  I loved it!

Other than that, he made me some dinner, and we watched a movie.  It was a great day.

Kinda Ironic given the anniversary of today, 9/11.......but I think its a perfect example of how God gives us tender mercies.  Beautiful weather and sunshine to light up the shadows and open our eyes to all the beauties and blessings still extended and offered to us.

3 Day Weekends

Remember how I said I couldn't wait for Tuesday-well, now I can wait, except Tuesday is here.  I worked hard to try and get my homework done, and its not done.  :P  LAME.  But, on the plus side, I have more done than I would have had I been in the state of mind I was a year ago-being that I wasn't driven and motivated, and so even though I didn't complete it, my confidence and my ambition to get it done are not shot.  Usually at this point I figure I'm too behind and I'm not going to ever get caught up, this time, I beleive I will get caught up, and I will be successful, and I want to put forth that effort because this is my future.   I love this program-and I've only had two days of classes so far!  I have to go ti bed now, but tomorrow, I will catch up, and be on top of the days tasks because its all so worth it right now, never have I felt more like theres a purpose to it all!  Goals are wonderful things.

Also, in recap of the wonderful labor day weekend:
Steak and twice baked potatoes.  Yum.   And beautiful sunshine and golden leaves, red bushes, fading greens-its soooo beautiful out there!

Not ready for cold and dark, but lovin the moment.

Also, I saw eat pray love with Momma and Kimmie, LOVED it.  I wanna go to Italy and Bali now.  India wasn't as apealing, but still, good movie!

Yellow Leaves

Soooooo Its fall.  If you didn't get the hint from my new background.  I love fall though, except now that I've been spoiled (in Cali weather) I'm not so excited about what follows fall (winter).  Really though, Summer and Fall are probably the best.  In Alaska-fall is full of golden green and reds and the aurora usually starts to light up the sky when the sun goes down, and though the days are getting shorter they're still a little longer than in other parts of the country.  The rain smells wonderful and yet as the earth is beggining to decay theres this freshness about the season changing and the crisper winter weather coming in that is just beautiful and sweet.

I'm excited about classes that start this Thursday, and getting into the Medical Assisting courses.  I'm pumped about teaching dance (and a bit nervous) and WAY happy that my schedule will become more regular (which also means more full).  And, maybe, just maybe, I look forward a bit to making a snowman, I did get some pretty cute/comfy warm mittens recently (2nd hand so they're already broken in).

We made it!

So, I have this habit of not packing till the day I leave (or in some cases the night I leave), so Wednesday morning came around and what did I have to do-everything!  But, long boring story short, I managed, with some time to spare. At 8 Travis and his mom came and picked me up and I had to say goodbye to Elyse and Liam and mommy, that was kinda hard.  I feel like I'm missing such a big chunk of time, like they'll be all grown up when I see them at the end of the summer-so that was kinda hard.  What I didn't expect to have a hard time with, was wanting to go see Robin.  I mean, she's just half an hour away!!!!  I think i'd be better handling it except her mission home called Wednesday morning asking if they could test her for Celiac's disease (inability to really digest gluten)-GAH!  My sister is just half an hour away and sick and I can't go see her and make it better.  :P  Bleh, thats what I think about that.


Anyways, coming into San Fransico was awesome, the weather was bright, warm and clear and we saw the golden gate bridge from the airplane.  I guess part of me wanted to see it because people have said its so cool, but from pictures, to be honest, I wasn't that impressed.  However, flying past it, and then driving past it later, I decided its actually really cool-its a big arrangement of the red steel and cables, but it just has this charm to it....I like it, and want to go see it up close again.  Travis lives practically at the bottom of it, and his front window has a veiw of the bridge, the bay and the big beautiful trees.  Alot of them are eucalyptus and so it smells really nice there too.  Saturday the plan is to figure out the busses back into the presidio and then to explore the City with him and Uncle Sid.


So excited, and loving the sunshine, can't wait till my cousin Alex is here so I can take him around with me to explore-for the meantime, I'm just enjoying the down time.  Its a strange feeling, I havn't had this much down time in ages, theres no chores nagging at the back of my head, no homework pressure on my mind, no appointments or meetings scheduled-its pretty sweet.  It probably won't happen again for a while, so-soaking it up now while I can!  YAY!