Wrapping Up the Year

4.0. That is correct. Four. Point. Zero. I think this is my first semester ever in college to get a 4.0!!! I can't believe it. I figured I would get an A in Organizational Behavior, but never would I have hoped to get an A in Economics! I thought maybe a B+ or even an A-. But not an A. Pretty sweet accomplishment if I don't say so myself. All while working full-time, still taking piano lessons (for the most part), and going through dating disappointment #3. 

Christmas was wonderful. Sometimes it is just so wonderful to go home, be anonymous, and not have to put yourself out there. And that is exactly what I did for Christmas: just spent time with my family. The only picture I took was when we went to the Garden-a-Glow at the Idaho Botanical Gardens. 

 

I came home from Christmas in Idaho Tuesday night - just in the nick of time to beat the mess of weather we've had yesterday and today. We got several inches of new snow Tuesday night into Wednesday morning and then it rained most of Wednesday. During the little bit of driving I did Wednesday, I think I hydro-planed on the freeway several times. And then the real cold front hit last night just as everyone was getting off work (except for me since I took the day off). We had a little blizzard or something because we had quite the white-out for about 30 minutes while it dropped another several inches of snow. And then all the water from the rain and slush froze solid. And today, the roads are pure ice and the temperatures freezing cold! I'm talking 20 degrees. Tomorrow the high temperature is going to fall to 11 degrees with the wind chill taking it down to -2 degrees. So what is a girl to do with all this cold weather and time off?

Oh my goodness. There are so many things that one can get done when she has four full days at home with no plans .... well very minimal plans.

• Cleaned out my old, nasty tupperwares and replaced them with new ones I just bought
• Organized my tupperware cupboard, complete with little baskets for my lids
• Cleaned out all of my old chocolate and candy in my stash and replaced them with all the new treats I got for Christmas
• Cleaned out and organized my pantry
• Organized a few shelves in my laundry room
• Put away my Christmas decorations
• Cleaned out my Christmas decorations to make room for my new, full Willow Tree nativity set (thanks Jill!)
• Cleaned my house
• Re-organized my hobby room closet - I made a super easy-to-access stationary drawer and some drawers for my little outdoorsy supplies (you know ... flashlights, headlamps, batteries, my spork, bug repellent, sunblock, backpacking towel, etc.) it's all so easy to find and access now!
• Created a little tote for gifts to so it's all together and easy to get something to give
• Organized my random crafty stuff: all my crocheting stuff is together, my cross-stitch and stitchery stuff is together, my gift-wrapping and ribbons are all together now... so lovely. 
• Cleaned out all of my old coloring stuff that I haven't used in ages
• Finished and ordered my first blog book!
• Found a place that I can take my recyclables to since my HOA won't get a recycling bin for us. Now I just need to figure out a way to organize the recyclables and where in my house to do it until I can drop them off at the compost station - the recyclables have to be separated. Maybe organize them in my trunk?
• Went to spin class every day
• Went grocery shopping
• Delivered a meal to my visiting teachee that just had a baby (thanks Mom! for helping me make the meal and telling me to not make chili!) :)
• Had my two newest tires rotated back to my front so I can actually have traction in all this snow we have been getting

And things I still hope to do:

• Start another baby quilt
• Go snowshoeing
• Paint my empty frames and hang them 
• Read the book I'm currently reading: The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
• Call the lady that is restoring my great-grandmother's quilt to see how it's coming - she said it might be done by Christmas (that is another blog entry to come)
• Make sure my quilt journal is up to date
• Make a butternut bisque soup 
• Dabble on the piano with my new piano book: Piano Solos Film Music The Costume Drama Collection. I finally got it! I ordered it on November 21st! It has pieces from Little Women, Becoming Jane, Sense & Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice and other movies.

Okay. So you are probably sick of reading about everything I've done over that past couple of days. So I'll finish. :)

Here is my Willow Tree nativity that I got for Christmas from my sister, Jill! (Correction, she got me parts of it.)

 

Christmas Letter 2010

Merry Christmas!

Well, I’ve completed my first year as a homeowner without any major incidents. Only two more years until I’m free of the new homeowner credit commitment, but I’m not counting down (note the sarcasm). I’ll be here at least until August 2013 when I graduate with my masters degree. Yes! That’s right! I started an evening masters degree program this fall and I’m still working full-time for BYU’s Human Resource Development. I’m in the Master of Public Administration program and I’m loving it! I just finished two classes: Organizational Behavior and Economic Decision-Making for Managers.

Here are some of the other highlights from my year:

• The year’s travels included a trip to Blackfoot, Idaho to visit my dad, several trips to St. George for some biking, a business trip to Washington DC with my mom, a hiking trip to Zions and Moab, Jackson Hole for a mountain bike race, California for the 30-50-70 party with my sisters and mom to celebrate some milestone birthdays! Oregon to reconnect with some distant cousins, and Boise for a little get-out-of-dodge weekend.
• Tried my hand at refinishing some furniture and definitely need some help from those with experience! :)
• Joined the mountain bike racing team again and actually won 2nd place at the Deer Valley race! I also rode the Little Red Riding Hood 100-mile Century ride again with my sister Teri in beautiful Cache Valley.
• Went on a couple backpacking trips to beautiful Grand Gulch and  White Pine Hollow. We really tested the filtering capabilities of my water filter when we drank from a pothole that had tadpoles in it! 
• I even went snow skiing at Snowbird on JUNE 19TH!! That was a first and fulfilled all of my wildest skiing dreams. 
• Received an employee recognition award at work which came with a fancy clock, some cash, and a dinner to The Roof in Salt Lake City
• A couple camping and fishing trips in the fall - one to Calf Creek which I highly recommend! 
• Two epic days of skiing within a week of Christmas - 39 inches of powder is hard to ski in!

Well, like usual it’s been a busy, busy year! I love keeping my life full and fun and packed. But I really love that life has slowed down this past week so I can do what this season is all about - visit family and friends and ponder the birth of the Savior and His atoning sacrifice for each and every one of us. I hope all is well with you and your loved ones and that this letter finds you well and happy! Take care and keep the emails, blog posts, and Christmas letters coming!

Epic Skiing!

Oh my heaven!! I have had two awesome days of epic skiing in the past few days. Once on December 18th with Braden* at Brighton and then yesterday with my sister and brother-in-law at Snowbird. I skied in 39 inches of powder at the Bird yesterday. It was so hard! My skis would submarine into the snow and then the next thing I'd know I'd be kneeling in the snow and had a hecka workout ahead of me to dig out my skis. Wowser. We had a great time!

This is what I woke up to: 1 foot of snow at my house

And this is how happy Teri and I were at the end of the epic ski day:

As soon as I get some pictures from Braden, I'll add those.

*And just so you don't think I'm two-timing Dave.... we actually broke up back in the beginning of November. Kind of sad, but ... such is life. I look at this way: I have more time to do my homework now! :)

Lindsey Got Married!

So my dear friend Lindsey got married December 17th! I'm so excited for her... but I begged her to still invite me to all her and Rob's outdoor adventures - I don't mind being a third-wheel with them. :)

Me and friends outside of the temple waiting for the happy couple:

The happy couple:

First Semester in Review

I finished my first semester of my graduate program. I survived! Not only did I survive, but I'm pretty sure I excelled! At least, I think I did, but everything is relative to my undergrad where I was happy to get Cs in my classes.

I really loved my Organizational Behavior class. So much of it came naturally for me because it's all the stuff that I and we, the BYU Human Resources personnel, have been trying to get our managers across campus to do for ages now! Dr. Thompson was a fabulous teacher. I think I'm going to end up with an A in the class.

And then my Economics class. It was a beast. Dr. Walters is a great man, very helpful, and personable. I can tell he is very smart. But I think he is still ironing out the kinks in his teaching style and method... because we had some struggles with his assignments and exams. The final exam was take-home and it took me 6.5 hours to complete it - I had to do a cost-benefit analysis and do all the calculations and then make a recommendation. While it was a difficult class, I really learned a lot and my confidence in economics as a topic has been boosted, which is good! One of our text books, Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan, was a fascinating! I recommend it for anyone to read. He writes with a lot of personality and with a lot of interesting examples. Unless I bombed the final, I think I'll come out with a B or B+.

So I love my program! And I really think I made the right choice in choosing the Master of Public Administration program. My classmates are wonderful and have a lot of good insights from their work experience. I definitely think the vast array and amount of work experience we all have adds so much to my learning and makes it mean so much more. Sadly, we did lose one of our classmates to a tragic death. She was a part-time flight instructor for Utah Valley University. She and a student both died in a plane crash in Payson, Utah. It was so sad. It just shows, once again, how fragile life is and how Heavenly Father can bring anyone home at anytime.

As for my team - everyone is great! I really lucked out. Everyone works really hard and does their fair share. Dr. Thompson was always docking us points on our team papers because he wanted us to tell him about our conflicts and how we handle them... but we never really had any conflict! We get along great and we did some great work! We'll remain as a team through the next semester and term. But until then, I'm going to enjoy this Christmas break and get some pleasure reading in! And quilting. :)

Boise for the Weekend

I had a serious need to get out of Dodge this weekend, and when I received the wedding invitation for a good friend's little brother's wedding in Boise that was my ticket! And it happened to be the weekend that my sister Robyn and her husband were moving into their cabin! They aren't literally moving in, meaning abandoning their home in Meridian - they were just moving getting settled into their new cabin from their old cabin. It's beautiful! I'm so excited for them. :) Check out the pictures.

View From My Office!!

Let the season begin!

Imageless Update

I might not have any images to break up this boring post, but at least I'll put the past six weeks in bullet form for you. Ha! I like minimizing my reading lately so I assume others are the same.

• Survived my first economics midterm two weeks ago... I think I maybe passed it. 
• Partied it up at my mountain bike racing team end of season party
• Finally bought a nightstand for my bedroom and it's worthy of a "Glory Hallelujah!"
• Attended my first HOA owners' meeting and found out why I pay such a high HOA fee each month
• Went to St. George with Dave and his family and enjoyed some road bike rides, tennis, two Cedar City Shakespeare Festival plays, two days of sleeping in and lounging in my pajamas, and generally a wonderful time
• Endured three weeks of no internet at home while my internet provider failed to really do anything about it, so I joined the Comcast bandwagon and I'm loving being online at home again
• Discovered that my furnace would not put out any heat, which I think was broken when I had some heating guy come look at my furnace over the summer to make sure it wouldn't kill me via carbon monoxide. Good grief. I try to be a good homeowner and have some things checked out and maintained and then they start giving me trouble! Thankfully, my house was holding some heat during these last few Indian summer days and even more thankfully the heating guy was able to fix it before the cool weather set in this weekend. 
• With Dave this weekend: Played frisbee golf, ate dinner at Magleby's, watched the 12 Angry Men movie - all on Friday night. And then went to The Roof for dinner Saturday night to celebrate the SAERA (Staff & Administrative Employee Recognition Award) I received earlier this year followed by a Temple Square Orchestra concert. 
• This week I have an organizational behavior midterm and an economics presentation.
• And I'm speaking in my ward on Sunday the 31st - about overcoming challenges

Life has been pretty busy. I tell most people that my life consists of work, sleep, school, and spending time with Dave. Four things doesn't seem like much, but they add up and it's worth it!  Hopefully the next post will have some photos and more interesting things to talk about. :)

Oregon, Hydrangeas & Blackberries

My mom and I went to Oregon to visit some extended family and had a wonderful time! I got to meet some of her cousins that I had never met before and also some of their children.

We went a day early to stay with Jodi and see her darling house and it was indeed darling! I follow her blog and she posts pictures of her house so that is how I knew it was darling.

The next day we drove to Seaside, Oregon, and stayed in a darling little beach house a couple blocks away from the beach. Mom was off and on for crying because she was so happy to see and catch up with her cousins. We certainly had our fill of delicious seafood - you have to! You just don't get fresh seafood in Utah like you do on the coast.

We walked along the promenade in Seaside a decent amount. I loved all the houses with the shakes and hydrangeas. And I really loved Cannon Beach, Oregon, which we got to see on our last day on our way to the airport.

Oh and the blackberries.... yeah, I could love Oregon for the wild blackberries. I pay $5 for a cup of blackberries in Utah... whereas in Oregon, I could pick them by the bucketfuls for free! Mmmmm.

Calf Creek

Dave and I, and my friends Jen and Tim, went down to Calf Creek this past weekend. We had heard that Lower Calf Creek was beautiful! And indeed it is!! 

We stopped in Boulder for dinner at Hell's Backbone Grill. The dinner was spendy, but divine! Dave and I shared a crooked squash and corn chowder and a meatloaf dinner. So so good. They cook everything from their own garden. And then we camped just off the highway and had the most amazing views of the milky way and stars I've seen in a long time.   

 

We hiked to Upper Calf Creek falls first thing in the morning and we are so glad we did since it was quite hot and exposed to the sun. And while we hiked, it was only in the 70s and still felt hot during the hike.  The falls was very pretty and worth the hike. 

But I'll say that the Lower Calf Creek Falls was much more spectacular than the Upper. The hike sure seemed longer than 3 miles though - maybe it's because we had to hike through sand the whole time. 

Then we stopped in the Boulder Mountains for an hour and fished at Pleasant Creek. Jen, Tim and I all caught cute little brook trouts but released them as well. And we stopped in Torrey for another spendy and delish dinner at Cafe Diablo.

We had beautiful weather! Couldn't have asked for a better weekend. And! I got my homework done ahead of time. Nice, huh? :)

Oh yeah, and we went a little crazy messing with the Loa, Utah dummy cop and car. Ha! 

 

Labor Day Weekend

Dave and I had a wonderful and very busy Labor Day weekend. I almost titled this post "Labor Day o' Love" but thought that might be a little cheesy. But I think I'm safe to say that we really are together and dating and having a great time at it. 

Friday night we cooked up the trout that we caught earlier that week up in American Fork Canyon and then we walked around the Downtown Gallery Stroll.

On Saturday, I drove up to his house and we joined his friends for a day at the lake - of boating, swimming, eating and jet-skiing. It was so fun! His friends were super nice. Afterward we went to his parent's house to have pizza and watch the BYU football game. His mom is a hoot!

Then Monday, we drove down to the Fairview area of Utah and drove around in the tops of the mountains there. We hiked up a beautiful little trail and fished along the way (Dave loves to fly-fish - loooooves it) and I would read my text books while he fished. He was so prepared! He had a super yummy lunch of sandwiches, string cheeses and dried fruit. He didn't have any luck catching fish at the river along our hike, so we stopped by a lake off the highway. That's where he began to teach me how to fly-fish. And on my first cast of my very own I caught the humongous cutthroat trout in the picture! Can you believe it?

Back to School

This past week was my first week back to school in 7 years. And I think I'm going to like it... a lot. I was worried about being in class for 5 hours straight and only being split between 2 classes, but the professors do a great job keeping class interesting and discussion-based ... at least so far. 

Orientation the week before was a little on the excessive side - three nights of 5-9! But it was better than expected. I really got excited for school because of it. Maybe that is its purpose?

A Rainy but Awesome Camping Trip

Some friends and I enjoyed a camping trip up American Fork Canyon. It rained most of the evening - just while we were trying to roast hot dogs and make some dutch oven dessert, but Dave and David rigged a sweet tarp shelter for us.

And then in the morning we cooked up a dutch oven breakfast and went on a drive up a jeep road to an old mine. It was so awesome! Pretty narrow and very bumpy-rocky, but awesome.

Here is Dave, me and Ashlee in the backseat on the jeep road.

The TFS Party

I just realized that I never blogged about my family's TFS party! TFS stands for "thirty, fifty, seventy". Yeah. That's right: 30, 50, 70. Those are the 3 big birthdays that occurred over the past year among my sisters, mom and I. I turned 30. My oldest sister turned 50. And my mom turned 70. 

So like years past, when any of my sisters turned 40 years old... we girls got together! All of my sisters and my mom and I. At the end of July. We went to my sister, Joni's, cabin near Truckee/Tahoe area of Northern California. We window shopped in Truckee one day. And then hung out by the swimming hole the next day - read books, floated in the tubes, rafted the 20 feet of rapids that come into the swimming hole, and just enjoyed ourselves and the laziness. 

It is always so fun to get together with my sisters... I don't ever want that time to end!

My Own Version of FHE

Every now and then my friends will ask me if I go to FHE (Family Home Evening) on Mondays - since they are all still in the singles ward scene where they hold FHE. But I'm in a family ward with only a handful of singles. I always tell them that I do IHE, or Individual Home Evening, and love it. I love, love, love, not having a ward activity planned for every day of the week - FHE on Mondays, Ward temple night on Tuesdays, Institute on Wednesdays, and a ward activity on Thursday. Good grief! That's what it felt like there toward the end of my singles ward days. (I might have exagerated just a little bit.) But either way, it was overload. For sure. So I really, really love not having the guilt of not attending every activity planned. I love, love, love having a once per month ward activity and I love even more that they don't advertise it as: "come get your flirt on." Can you imagine that? Yes. My singles ward really used that as their hook to get people to come. 

But anyways!

Tonight it occurred to me that I really could do an FHE for myself: a Family History Evening!! Isn't that brilliant? And it couldn't be more timely. In the past few weeks, I have had several family history finds just fall into my lap - when I wasn't looking at all: my Great-Grandpa Jensen's mission postcards, a memory book of my Great-Grandma Halford's, and a member on Ancestry.com contacted me wanted to share her photos, stories and research with me on the White and Brooks lines. Oh my gosh! How many times does the Lord need to hit me over the head and say, "Get back into Family History! I don't care if you are about to start school." So I'm doing it. And I've dived in with a membership to Ancestry.com. I'm hooked. I was up until 12:30 am last night doing some research. So I've got a plan and I've got the means.... and hopefully I'll still have the time and the gumption to keep Monday nights reserved for my FHE. Watch my family history blog for what I'm up to and what I'm finding!

Falls & Furniture

My Saturday morning began with a hike to Battle Creek Falls: 

And ended with a trip to a furniture consignment shop with the purchase of these two darling pieces of furniture for my guest room: 

Now if only I can find a nightstand for my room or get the gumption to have a wall-shelf-type-nightstand made. I'm sick of using a desk chair for my nightstand.

Mini Backpacking

A new friend, Kari, and I went on a mini backpacking trip to White Pine Hollow this weekend. I love that trail. It is so beautiful, green, and full of wildflowers! It's also super close to home so we could get back in time to still have a lot of Saturday let to be responsible - hence the mini part to the backpacking trip. We loved it.