A Fulfilling Saturday

Ah, the scent of the great outdoors, campfire and cobbler in the Dutch Oven. I couldn't ask for anything better on a Saturday night. My good friend Ashlee and I had plans to hang out last night--go to dinner watch the movie The Holiday, but then I got a call from Nate. He invited me and whoever else to join them for a night of Dutch Oven cobbler and a campfire. It was absolutely last minute, but I loved it! Originally, Ashlee and I were going to meet them out at Utah Lake, but ended up riding with them and boy am I glad. The dirt road they said would be good was good, but the beach we were going to be on was covered in water. So we drove down a little side road that my car would have surely bottomed-out on. I seriously think I would have gotten stuck on one of the hills in the road. It was so fun to be up there playing in the great outdoors, enjoying a little fire, and riding on a dirt bike!! Yeah, Nate brought his dirt bike and I boldly asked if he was offering rides and he said Yes! So off we went (after I figured out how to put the helmet on--adventure by itself). We drove down a little road in between some grass that had grown to be like 8 feet tall. And there was so much mud on the road. At one point we had to inch by a huge mud puddle so we wouldn't slip into it. It was super fun.

The other attendees (besides me, Ashlee, Nate & Jon, Sam and Jake) were interesting and entertaining. They were super young and silly. Some girls showed up in t-shirts, sandals and capris! Talk about naivety. We (those listed previously) got a good laugh from all of them.

My other fun for the Saturday consisted of a Stake Enrichment activity to celebrate the birth of the Relief Society, having my tires rotated, changing the air filter in my car, and going shopping. Oh man. I actually found some capris that look cute on me and so I bought them. I swear 9 in 10 capris look awful on me so when I find a pair that look good on me, I buy them and a second pair too!! :o) And then I bought some beautiful shoes. I tried to find a picture of them on the internet, but I was unsuccessful. They are a peep toe pump with sexy skinny heels and they are black patent leather! So beautiful.

So yeah. That was my Saturday. Sorry for the lame internet pictures. Next time I will bring my camera to our big night of Dutch Oven dinner and dessert. Jake and I (and maybe Juls) will all bring our Dutch Ovens and do a big meal one night. Hopefully soon. And my camera will be present for that night. :o)

Evidence of a Delinquent Writer

You might wonder if my lack of entry in the past month is evident of how well I write in my actual journal. Well, you are right. Except writing in my journal is worse. I haven't written in my journal since December 10, 2006 and I even have my pretty journal! Oh well.

Well this weekend was an exciting one. My nephew, Nick, returned from his mission to San Diego and therefore spoke in church on Sunday. Most of my family from Boise came down to Logan for it and of course I came up. He did a really good job in his talk and did us family proud! We ate like royalty. My sister, Teri, in Logan, really does take care of her guests even if we are just family. We had pulled pork tacos, cowboy salsa and like 8 different kinds of cookies! It was all delectable.

This past Monday was also my dad's 68th birthday!! He is getting so old. I can't believe it. But his is a life well-lived and he looks good for his age doesn't he? All but one daughter, Joni, is here in this pic with Dad. Happy Birthday Dad!

Hmmm. What else? I have been skiing a couple of times in the past few weeks. And all have been awesome. A week and a half ago, some friends and I went to Snowbird and they had just received 16 inches the day before and the weather the day we went was sunny and clear skies! So beautiful. It was kind of wild. We went everywhere looking for fresh powder and even boot-packed it across some rocks with our skis on our shoulders to get there. It was kind of scary. Ski boots are not easy to hike in and especially across some rocks. But it was worth it. Have I said in an earlier blog entry how much I love my new skis? I love them!!! They are so awesome. I can plow through crud and everything. I am even better in the powder by virtue of those skis. Yes!

Upcoming vacations:
Many of you know me and you know me well. I plan my summer vacations well in advance. As of right now:
1. LA to visit my good, London-buddy friend, Jesse, at the end of April
2. Boise in May to celebrate my sister's, Jill, 40th birthday party at my other sister's, Robyn, cabin
3. Backpacking 10 miles into Havasu Falls in Arizona with a bunch of friends at the beginning of June
4. Las Vegas at the end of June (yuck, hot! I am too white for that kind of heat) for a business conference
5. The annual Strong Family vacation to somewhere but it always include a massive amount of hiking and heckling of me and my wannabe outdoor equipment :o)
6. A 9-day Church History Tour in the middle of October. Won't that be the most beautiful time to be back East?

That is it for now. Hopefully, somewhere in there I will be able to go up to Idaho and hike into Bear Lake with my dad. Bear Lake was our favorite fishing spot when we still had the cabin in Warren, Idaho. You can get some really yummy trout from there. Mmm.

Right now, I am reading Snowflower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. Very fascinating. For some reason, Chinese culture really fascinates me maybe because it is so different. Lisa even goes into detail describing the footbinding process. So awful! I will let you know how it goes--if I like it when I have read it all the way through.

Getting Techno-Savvy, I am!

So I opened an account on Youtube tonight and uploaded my first video: the one of Chandler opening up the mistaken gift of kitchen towels on Christmas Eve. I am really quite excited because I also figured out how to add the video to my blog! So, after Youtube has finished whatever it is they have to do when you upload a video then you will be able to watch the video here on my blog! Aren't you so excited? I am.

When I loaded it onto Youtube, they gave me the html code to add it to my website or blog. I thought I was going to have to email the url link to everyone to view it from Youtube's website, but when I saw that I was super excited. I love the copy and paste feature on computers, because I copied and pasted the html code from Youtube and then pasted it into the edit html portion of my post!

So your homework assignment is to check out the post called "Christmas Wishes" from December 2006 and watch the video! Enjoy!!

I am Famous...Again!

I am famous again! Again? Yes. Last summer, I was quoted in a little snippet article in the BYU Magazine. The little article was talking about the weekly job list email that I helped put together for BYU Employment Services. Well, I am famous again. This time with respect to any Career, Job, and Internship Fairs that BYU Employment Services may take part in.

One day, while enjoying my lunch in the peace of my own office, one of the interns from Employment Services (my old office) came and begged me to be a model for the back drop and fliers they were putting together for the Career Fairs. I resisted as long as I could because I was not in my best appearance. I had forgotten to wear earrings, I was only wearing my "work" amount of make-up (almost make-up, blush and mascara) and I was not wearing one of my wonderful business suits. And it was my lunch hour! Well, the intern promised me that it would only take 10 minutes. I told him if it took longer than 10 minutes then he would owe me a Blue Bunny Cookies 'n Cream ice cream sandwich. It took longer and I got my ice cream sandwich.

The photographer was a trip. I could hear him talking to and taking pictures of Nancy (from the Student Employment Office) and he was telling her to give him the "powerful woman pose." I could have gagged right there in the hall. The one and only time he gave me that phrase I busted up laughing. Ha!

Anyway, enjoy the attached Career Fair flier. (If you click on it, it will show you a larger image of it.)

A Snow Shoeing Weekend!

Hey all! So my birthday snow shoeing was just as fun as I expected it would be. So much fun that we did it again on Saturday!

Thursday night was pretty chilly, but not too chilly for our awesome down coats! I became hot hiking up to the meadow and then stayed plenty warm hiking downhill back to the car. The company was me, Lindsey, Jen, and Dan. We brought the ever fun Potter with us. Potter is Lindsey's adorable Great Dane dog. He played with us and even barked at me when I would tackle his momma (Lindsey) in the snow. Ha!





Here I am blowing out my candles on my birthday cookie! We had hot chocolate and cookies after the snow shoeing extravaganza the night of my birthday.

Saturday was a beautiful day. Camille, Lindsey and I hiked the same trail but went much further--all the way to Big Springs. That was probably a couple miles. We got up there, ate our lunch for 5 minutes and then headed back down as it was still quite chilly and it is especially chilly to sit there in your sweaty clothes, not moving, and have the cool weather cool you off via evaporation of your sweat. Think of getting out of the shower on a cold morning. Brrr. So we headed down. When we got to the road, which was snow covered and closed to vehicles, we sat on the little light-weight sleds we brought along and sled the whole way down! It took us 10 minutes to sled the distance it took us 2 and a half hours to hike up. So fun! Absolute riot! Potter ran along and would bark at us as we sledded down. Funny dog. At one point he pulled Lindsey off the sled and started pulling her away from the sled by her Camelback. We think maybe he was scared, thought she was scared and in trouble, so he saved her. So cute. Enjoy the pics!

The Birthday Girl!!

Happy Birthday to me! Yes, I am still up at this absurd hour of 12 midnight. I made the mistake of staying up to talk to my roommate and have now hit my second wind. I have been thinking for a while what I might write on this, the 27th anniversary of my introduction to the world. Unfortunately, nothing profound comes to mind. Sorry. At the age of 27, I am now on a steep double-black diamond slope to 30. But... I still have 3 years. I don't know why 30 worries me so. I have plenty of friends that are 30, and I admire them so much! They have lives worthy to emulate. Maybe it is because 30 is the cutoff I gave myself--to decide if I should still be in Provo, and especially if I should still be renting as opposed to owning. So that means I have 3 years to figure out what I am going to do when I turn 30. Move back to my hometown? Move somewhere big and exciting like San Francisco, New York, DC or.... Salt Lake City? Ha! Buy a house? Well, some words of wisdom come to mind (and probably the only ones that will come at this hour): I will cross that bridge when I come to it. Until then, save, save, save. Any of the above options will be expensive.Here are some photos to enjoy from a birthday of mine, many years ago. That is my beautiful mother with me in the picture with the cake and the candle. The other picture is with 3 of my fabulous sisters--from left to right--Robyn, Joni and Jill. They will probably love that I added this picture and put it on the internet for all to see. Ha!Today is going to be a good day. I can feel it already. Work is going to be exciting. Last weekend I left on Friday wishing that Saturday was actually Monday and I could go back to work. I love my job! And then tonight will be so much fun. Some friends and I are going snowshoeing up the canyon and then we will come back to enjoy some hot chocolate and cookies. My favorite! Seriously, hot chocolate is my favorite. I think I probably have at least 8 different cans of Stephen's Hot Chocolate. Yum.

And then here is a little update since my last entry: I had my Lasik surgery and I can see!! It is a little blurry in the mornings but I think that is due to dryness when I first wake up. But by 8 or so I can see just fine! Getting that surgery was quite the adventure. I will give the short version: My mom came down to give me a ride back from my appointment and then to take care of me afterwards. We took her car up to Salt Lake City for my surgery. When we were seriously only 5 minutes away from my vision center, we hit a metal rod in the road--it flattened a tire, wound itself in the wheel-well and then also tore up the bottom of my mom's car. The rod was 5 feet long and about a half inch in diameter--we did not see it until we hit it. And there was no way to dodge it--we were in the middle lane of the freeway with traffic on either side of us. As soon as we pulled over to the side of the freeway, mom called AAA and I called my vision center. Luckily, some other patient of my doctor's overheard my conversation with the receptionist and volunteered her dad to come pick me up so I could make it for my appointment.

I felt rotten leaving my poor mom on the side of the freeway with a broken down car in a strange and wild town. But people were super nice to her--a good Samaritan stopped and stayed with her until the tow truck came and then when the tow truck came, the tow truck guy gave her a ride to the vision center even though he wasn't supposed to. And then my mom called my friend Lindsey and she drove up to come and get us and bring us back home. My mom arrived at the vision center just as I came out of surgery. I burst into tears when I saw her! I am not overly emotional--I think the Valium did it to me. Laughing Gas makes me cry too so I guess all relaxants will make me cry. Go figure. My surgery went well and my doctor was very pleased. Not to mention me!! I am super pleased. It is so wild to go to bed without taking out contacts. The story ends with my mom being stuck here with me for a week more than she planned, as it took a week and a half for the mechanic to fix her car. Very upsetting--tell me about it! I thought it was a sign of divine intervention that I was not supposed to have this surgery. But so far it wasn't. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Year in Review

Happy New Year’s Everyone!!

Sampler of how 2006 treated me. Pretty decent if I might add.

1. Celebrated my 26th birthday. I am officially on the downhill slope to 30. Yikes!
2. Certified in SCUBA, although I have not yet been able to go scuba diving.
3. Bought a digital camera, which then required the purchase of a computer—a beautiful iMac. I am officially dependant on technology.
4. Returned to London! It was an adrenaline trip of only 4 days actually spent in the city and not an ounce of jet lag was to be had.
5. Tragic loss of my step-dad. That is the one sad bit of news of the year. It has been a difficult time for all of us and he will be missed. Consequently, my mom has moved back to Boise to be closer to family and friends.
6. Started two blogs: www.skierjess.blogspot.com and www.walkergenerations.blogspot.com. The first is one that I use to post pictures and happenings in my life—check it out today! It took a couple of my friends to inspire me and I thought you all might enjoy it as much as I enjoy my friends’ blogs. The second is a blog I use to post family history stories so that all of my family can have access to the stories I continue to find about my ancestors.
7. First expedition to Glacier National Park. I joined my sister for their family vacation for the 3rd year in a row. We hiked 30 miles, gained 3,000 feet in elevation, on 3 hikes in 3 days. Yup.
8. Sang my heart out at the Soul2Soul II tour with Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. Not on stage though—only in the audience.
9. Hiked the 11,749 feet of Mount Timpanogos for the first time. Nearly killed me too. Boy that thin air can wipe you out. Next on the list: Everest—from my living room.
10. Discovered the beauties of canyoneering. Canyoneering is the sport of down climbing and rappelling through slot canyons in southern Utah. My friend, Lindsey, has introduced me to the sport by canyoneering through Key Hole canyon in Zions National Park.
11. Promotion time! This is the best news of all: I got a promotion!! I am now an Area HR Consultant on campus and therefore the one-stop-HR-contact for 1/4th of campus. It will be an awesome growth opportunity for me and will open many doors. Plus—I moved up to the second floor from the basement. I am no longer a mole!

Thank you all for being such dear friends and family. I love you all and think a lot of you. I hope you will keep in touch with me as I love to hear what is going on with you and your loved ones. Best wishes for the new year!!