The Holi Festival of Colors 2010

If you are in Utah Valley and haven't checked this out, put it on your calendar. It's a must experience event!

What A Blessing

We feel like we have been so blessed this week. Really blessed. You know when your heart is just so full of gratitude, you can't help but sing a hymn or two? That's how I've felt.

JOE GOT A JOB!!! Its a great job working as an accountant for the Salt Lake Police Department. Whew! What a blessing.

We were talking last night about how it's such a blessing that even though he has been out of a job for three months, we have yet to be late on a bill or payment. What a blessing.

I got an externship with a great firm in Salem, OR!! Since we want to end up there, this is wonderful. Its a great firm and going to help me get the experience I need. What a blessing.

I came home and Joe had made me a chocolate cake to celebrate getting the externship. How sweet is that? What a blessing.

My sister got into graduate school!! I am so happy for her. She is going to become an amazing museum curator. Smarty pants. Now she has to choose whether to live in NYC or LA. What a blessing.

My brother-in-law got into a Ph.D program!! He got into UCLA and Columbia and they both want to pay them to go there. Smarty pants #2. What a blessing.

We got to go to Las Vegas last weekend and see Joe's sister Julie win her volleyball tournament! Joe's mom was there too and it was so wonderful to spend time with her. What a blessing.

The Lord has been so good to us.

Oh Summer, Come to Me.

I canNOT wait for May. By then, my finals will be over, school will be out, and I will have a nice little break before staring my externship. Oh yes. It's going to be great. Then I can get back to the other things I love, and get back to a more well-rounded me. Here are my goals for the summer, so far:

Paint, draw, and photograph

Hike, Hike, Hike

Sleep under the stars

Take Joe to Zions

SKYDIVE (thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law)

Explore Arches National Park

Run the Alzheimer's Run in Sacramento in memory of Grandma

READ a book FOR FUN!!

Get tan from being outside

Swim, Swim, Swim

Visit Oregon, land that I love

Organize my life

Write a poem

Make Orange Sherbet (Grandma's recipe of course)

Practice the guitar

Sing daily

BBQ

Go blonde, again

Visit Yellowstone for the very first time

Finish all our Thank-You cards

Go rafting

Play in ocean waves

Have a picnic

Eat Popsicles

Oh yes, it's going to be fan-freaking-tastic!!

What I Learned Today . . .

"I give counsel to husbands and wives. Pray for the love which allows you to see the good in your companion. Pray for the love that makes weakness and mistakes seem small. Pray for the love to make your companion's joy your own. Pray for the love to want to lessen the load and soften the sorrows of your companion."

~ Henry B. Eyring

I want to implement this better into my life.

How do you serve your spouse?

Jury Duty

Found this funny cartoon here.

"The prohibition of women on juries was derived from the English common law which, according to Blackstone, rightfully excluded women from juries under "the doctrine of propter defectum sexus, literlally, the 'defect of sex."'

~United States v. De Gross

960 F.2d 1433, 1438 (9th Cir. 1992).

Tell me that's not a gross statement to you.

I won't take the right to be on a jury for granted again.

On another note, I finally called the Marion County, Oregon jury duty coordinator to clear up my little jury duty mishap. Turns out if you don't show up when you are summoned, they can put out a warrant for your arrest. They didn't do that to me because, as the nice lady said, "we don't jump on that." But hey, it's one more thing off my chest. I actually wish I could participate on a jury. Goodness knows once I graduate from law school, no attorney will ever let me on their jury. This might have been my only chance. Sad.

Love Where You Are

As a girl I hated going to the movies. Well, that's not true. I LOVED going to movies, I just hated how I felt when I walked out of the theater. After all the credits rolled, I was left feeling sorry for myself because the lives of the people in the movies were better than mine. It wasn't about the happy ending. I mean, that was great, but the thing that really bothered me was that my life wasn't ADVENTUROUS. The hum drum of school, homework, church, and family just seemed so dull compared to the glitzy stories on the big screen. Why couldn't I have a life like that?

When I got a bit older, high school say, I got a bit wiser. I wasn't jealous of the movies. I mean, those were just stories after all. By that time I realized NO ONE's life was like that. Even if people did have those sort of "moviesque" adventures, they were probably speckled between boring, dull, or common experiences too. Movie makers edited those out to keep our attention. Oh yes, I was much wiser.

So, instead of being depressed about the story of the movies, I became depressed about those that made movies. How wonderful was it that screenwriters, directors, actors, and musicians could come together to create something so awesome! They could take people out of their boring hum drum lives for an hour or two. They could create their own world. Oh how I wished I could create something like that! Oh, yes, I was much wiser. But I still walked out of movies depressed.

The problem with being a dreamer is that being happy where you are is a struggle. You are always hoping for bigger, better things. It's good to have goals and aspirations, but when looking to the future obscures the blessings of the present, I think something special is lost.

On my last day as a missionary for my church, I asked my friend if she had any advice for me. I was going home and leaving the beautiful Spanish people that I had come to love. She told me something that has stuck with me every since. She said, "LOVE WHERE YOU ARE." How powerful is that? We should learn from the past, and look toward the future, but HERE is where was ARE NOW and we should LOVE IT.

I can watch movies now without becoming sad. So what if my life isn't the glitzy adventure of the big screen. It is mine, and every day presents me with an opportunity to grow, learn, love, and explore. I am creating my own life story everyday.

I want to be better at enjoying the present and was wondering how you enjoyed your today?

What do you do to savor the moment?

Yesterday was the Worst

Have you ever had a REALLY bad day? The kind where you are just counting the hours until the day is done? Yeah, that was yesterday. My day consisted of:

-waking up with an earache

-waking up with a sore throat

-it had snowed a TON

-had to be at school at 8am to do an oral argument that I wasn't as prepared as I wanted to be

-I had a Quiz due by 8am and our power went out so for 20 minutes I was freaking out that I wouldn't be able to send it in in time for credit

-Joe was in a bad mood ALL DAY

-when I finally got to school, my laptop wouldn't turn on

-ten minutes before my oral argument I had to take it to the IT people to see if they could fix it

-they said that they had to wipe it clean and I could loose all my documents, pictures, etc.

-doing my oral argument with NO prep materials since I didn't have my laptop

-went to class and got a HAND CRAMP from trying to take pages of notes by hand

-was STARVING all day because didn't have any money to get a lunch

-couldn't really do my homework properly since I didn't have my laptop

-waited ALL day for it to be fixed

-the computer people told me they had lost all my class notes for the WHOLE SEMESTER (about had a panic attack right there)

-They eventually found my class notes

-had to re-install EVERYTHING back onto my computer

-ear still hurt

-throat still hurt

-Joe was still in a bad mood which made me in a bad mod

-came home to a trashed house

-we had no groceries

-I hadn't gotten a full night sleep in about a week

I know it could have been worse, but that was all my nerves could handle yesterday. So guess what I did. Around 7pm, I headed to bed FOR THE NIGHT. 12 hours of sleep and the next morning the world looks like a MUCH BETTER PLACE.

What do you do to get over a really bad day?

I Can't Think of Anyone Else

. . . I would rather spend my life with.

All Photos by Alyssa Jul Photography

Friendship is a Blessing

Kyle, Allie, Troy, Joe, Meg. Jason, Brittani, Aaron, Valorie, Tyler, and Cecily

The Fellas.

The Lovely Ladies.

We are so very very blessed.

All Photos by Alyssa Jul Photography

Walk Through That Door

. . . as husband and wife.

All Photos by Alyssa Jule Photography

We Love You All

Yup. Every. Single. One.

Photos by Alyssa Jule Photography

We Are Family

Me, my Brothers . . .

my Sisters and me!

We are family . . .

And together . . .

for eternity we'll be!

(OK, So I did some tweaking to the song. It's my blog, I'm allowed.)

All Photos by Alyssa Jul Photograpy