Life is Great

So I had another blog once. It was the blog of my single life. It was not this blog. But it was mine. Today I was going back through it, reminiscing on all the things I did and was back then. And I came across this post: Graduation. In it, I talk about how I will miss BYU now that I am graduated. Little did I know, I would get to spend another 4 years at this wonderful place!

Some people would think I'm crazy, I'm sure, for loving this place so much. I know many people who can't wait to get away from here and move on to the real world, outside "the bubble." Which is all fine and dandy; if we all stayed forever there just wouldn't be room for anyone else to come! But I am glad that God knows me. He knows what I need and what I enjoy. And He was merciful enough to let me stay twice as long as I had always assumed I would (assuming all goes the way I am now assuming it will...).

I had thought I was probably done with ballroom. But then I got to compete in at least 1 event in the next 4 Dancesports, I got asked to fill in for someone on the spring team at a performance just after I graduated, and I got to be in an awesome show piece for my dance-major friend. And, of course, I got to marry someone that I will hopefully always get to dance with, even if we forget all the "real" moves.

I had thought I was done having friends, essentially (I don't make friends easily, haha). But then I got to tag along with Chrisser to all his dance stuff, which is where all my friends were, and I even made a couple of new friends among the ever-changing group of dance people. And I got to marry my now best friend, so I don't have to be afraid of being completely friendless anymore!

And even though I hadn't thought I would be done with Gospel-related experiences, since those can be anywhere you bring them, I am glad I still get to have the Provo variety for now. I am especially glad that I get to be here to witness the renovation of the Provo Tabernacle into the Provo City Center Temple. I definitely had a soft spot for the tabernacle back when it was such. I was in a University Chorale concert there my freshman year, several of my stake conferences and firesides were held there, I loved the architecture, and I loved the pioneer heritage that it had. I was devastated when it burned down and elated when the renovation was announced. But even when it was announced, I thought I would be gone by the time they even started working on it. And now I might even still be here when it is completed!

Once again, I am so grateful that my Heavenly Father is watching out for me and is leading me where I need to go. I don't know where He will take me after Chrisser graduates, but I am confident that it will be somewhere where I can be happy.

Stuff I Forgot to Blog About

This morning I was giving my sister-in-law a hard time about not having updated her blog in forever, so I figured I should update mine so I wouldn't become a hypocrite :). So here are a few random things we have been doing.

A few weeks ago I went through a phase where I loved drying fruit. I don't have a dehydrator, so I just put them in the oven for several hours on the lowest temperature it would heat up to. I tried putting the slices on parchment paper on a baking sheet and turning them over after a couple hours, but it was annoying to have to turn them over, and I didn't want to use up all my parchment paper. So I tried putting them on cooling racks instead. That was much nicer.

Unfortunately, that phase didn't last too long because a) fruit can be kind of expensive (mostly strawberries), especially when I go through the dried stuff like candy (which I go through very quickly), b) I kept accidentally leaving them in too long and slightly burning them, which makes them not so tasty, and c) my favorites were the bananas, but Chrisser hated them. So much so that he wouldn't kiss me if I had eaten any that day. Somehow, he could still smell them on my breath like 8 hours after I had eaten them. Yeah, he's weird. Anyway, so that kind of killed that hobby.

On May the Fourth (Be With You Day), we made Star Wars sugar cookies. By that, I mean that I made the dough and Chrisser cut them into Star Wars shapes. I don't really know much about Star Wars, having only seen Episode IV and several episodes of the animated Clone Wars TV show.

The next day was Cinco de Mayo, but we didn't do much. We had taco salad for dinner because that seemed pretty Mexican, and Chrisser got a Jarritos soda. I was planning on getting one, too, but the Jumex nectar cans were like 2 shelves above them, they were cheaper, and they just seemed more delicious at the time, so I ended up getting one of those instead.

Then this last weekend we reorganized all the boxes in our storage closet. When we moved in I had just kind of tossed the empty boxes in there. Okay, I had stacked them relatively nicely, but I didn't put much effort into consolidating them and making the pile as small as possible. But lately we've been thinking a lot about how we have nowhere to put a baby when we have one, so we decided to start trying to make more room. And the storage closet seemed like a good place to start so that we would have more space in there to put things from other shelves around the apartment.

First we had to take all the boxes OUT of the closet.

It wasn't a miracle solution or anything, but I did manage to fit several more small boxes in there that were just clutter elsewhere before. All of the shoe boxes in the middle came from our bedroom closet and the desk, and that freed up a surprising amount of space in those locations. And we can actually get to the back of the storage room now :).

Oh, and a couple of weeks ago one of my friends from high school got married and invited us to the sealing, and then the next day my cousin and his wife had their newly adopted son sealed to them. So we got to go to 2 sealings in 2 days! Which I was pretty excited about because I hadn't been to a sealing since my own. Oh, unless you count the one time Chrisser and I did sealings for the dead in the Nauvoo temple last summer. But this was the first time I got to watch someone I know getting sealed. So that was a big deal for me. And it was just a neat experience going to a temple 2 days in a row. I'm so glad we have so many around here. They are definitely some of my favorite places on Earth.