Happy Birthday!

On Sunday evening we invited some of our neighbors over for cake and my mom's delicious home-made ice cream and a few founds of the "name game." I had a great time celebrating my birthday with my neighborhood family! It has been a wonderful blessing to move into this neigborhood and become friends with such amazing people.

JENNIFER GARRARD

Here is a little shout out to one of my best friends who is getting married in 4 DAYS!

It is hard to believe that it has almost been five years since my family moved to the Burley area. I remember the first Sunday I was home I went to church with the attitude that I didn't need to make friends because I already had friends in American Falls. Well, it didn't take very long for that to change. I quickly made friends of all ages and they have been a huge blessing in my life. Lucky for me Jenni was "assigned" to be my friend. She didn't tell me this until a few years ago :) Jenni and I have been best friends ever since! With birthdays just 11 days apart we have had a special birthday celebration together every year which. We have enjoyed time on the river, summer bike rides, late night movies, double dates, long talks, family game nights, and plenty of popcorn! I just love this girl and I am so excited for her and Scott. He is a lucky man!My mom, Jenni, Julie Gararrd, Julie Breshears, and Me at Jenni's bridal shower

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

It has been so fun to be home for the Christmas break. I love the holiday season. I have found much joy in being with family and friends. On Monday Dec. 21 we had Andersen Family Christmas Party #2. We celebrated on Thanksgiving while Katie and Eric were here but Holly's family wasn't able to come so we just had another party. Santa made a special visit, we had a program, sang, ate great food, and went caroling! One of my favorite memories of Christmas growing up is when we would invite the neighbors over and we would all pile into the back of suburbans and go caroling. It is a little different now that we can just walk around the neighborhood but I still love it!

Favorite Christmas tradition #2...going to Grandma Robert's house for Christmas Eve and then driving around to see Christmas lights before going home to wait for Santa to come. This year we went and visited Grandma in the afternoon and then went out to Greg and Gwen's for the evening. Wyatt and Lydia love grandma's rocking horse.It was fun to be with Greg's family for Christmas Eve. We had a great dinner and then Lydia sang for us, we acted out the nativity, and we sang with candles (a Christensen tradition that Katie and Eric have shared with us). We played a few games of "don't eat Pete" and Lydia and I played dominos. By then it was time for magic coco to help the kids sleep through the night. It kicked in pretty fast! As soon as Lydia finished her coco she was so sleepy she could hardly stand up on her own :) Now that is what I call MAGIC! Christmas Morning...
In the past 21 years that I have experienced Christmas I believe that this is the quietest Christmas morning I have ever experienced! This was the first time that it was just Joelle and I with our parents. There was no rush and we did all we could to drag out the unwrapping. It was kind of fun to only have to share the spotlight with one other person ;) Greg and Gwen came over for lunch and we spent the afternoon playing games, just as every Christmas day should be spent!

Sledding...
Despite the fact that I had not yet finished all of my finals, I took a break on Thursday night to enjoy the snow. Brian Hoyt and I doubled with Jeff and Tammy and we headed up Provo Canyon. I think this picture is so funny because it makes Brian and I look really short. In reality Jeff and Tammy are just tall :)

Elise is finally married! On Thursday night I went to Elise and Dustin Call's reception. Elise got engaged just before spending 4 months in Jerusalem with me. I am so happy for her and I had a great time getting together with so many of my Jerusalem friends. Below (Monica, Katie, Elise, and Heather)



Women in Business Dinner: This past Thursday we had a big dinner that was sponsored by the Undergraduate Advisory Board. I conducted the meeting and wore my purple suit! I love being in the business program and it has been really fun to get involved this year.

We had about 120 female students come for a nice dinner and then we had a member of the advisory board speak to us. Her name in Michelle Linford. She spoke on the important role we have as women. We are needed and we can do great things. As she shared her story she made the point that no matter how hard we try to plan out our lives, things are not going to go exactly like we want them to. We need to rely on the Lord and trust that the He can plan our lives better than we can. What a great reminder!

It was so fun to see so many women gathered together in the Marriott school and be reminded that we are not alone in the program. We had about 20 people sign up for the club and I talked to a lot of students that want to get involved. I am so excited for this club and as I talked to people following the event I started to see how much this club is needed and the great impact it can have on individuals.

More Flag Football Pictures...

David and Brad were our coaches our freshman year. They were happy to be back this year and even more happy to see that we had improved by great measures in the past two years.

With Kristen and Emily

With Stacie and Tammy.

I know I haven't been really good at updating my blog. Here are a few things that I have done in the past couple of weeks.


BYU FOOTBALL vs Air Force
If you watched the BYU game on TV you may have been lucky enough to see us cheering and dancing. We had front row tickets and it was awesome! Here are some pictures from the game:

We were trying to show that we were cold but it turned out that we just looked scared.




Lovin' life on the front row!

Brent and David where getting really excited. "That's another Cougar FIRST DOWN!"

Me and Katie Cooper


Brent, David, Me, and Emily

Cookie Dough and 101 Cookie cutters! Katie Cooper (friend from Jerusalem) and I made sugar cookies last Friday afternoon. I forgot how long it takes to make them. Katie had a new box of 101 cookie cutters and we wanted to try them out. It was a blast!

One year ago I ran my first 5K. I ran it with Eliza and Kristen for a Make a Wish fundraiser. This year I went back and did it again with Melanie and Amy. It was a beautiful day and I love what Make a Wish does!

Blue Lightning! It seems that playing flag football became more fun each year we played. That may be due to the fact that we all got better but either way I had a great time playing with my team this year.

This past Wednesday on of my childhood dreams (ok...well at least my college dreams) came true. We won our flag football championship game and I got the most coveted t-shirt on campus! It would be difficult to describe my college career to anyone without including all of my intramural teams. My first intramural experience was flag football my freshman year. I recruited the girls on my floor to play and we showed up to the first game and got humiliated. Even the refs were laughing at us. From that day I have been determined to win a t-shirt for flag football. 4 years and many games later we won the Championship. Go BLUE LIGHTNING!

Happy Halloween!
This weekend I went to Logan for Halloween. We had a wonderful dinner (thanks to Jenni) and carved pumpkins. As seen below, there was a little rivalry between schools. The pumpkins didn't last long. Sunday morning the street in front of Jenni's apartment was covered with pumpkins.

Logan Canyon

BYU Football

General Conference:
Saturday afternoon Caroline, Abbey, Clint, and I went down to Salt Lake for conference. We had great seat about 20 rows from the front and sat right in front of my cousins (Brant, Katie, and Broady, Derrick and Erica, and Camie). It was fun to see them and as always it was wonderful to be in the Conference Center.
I am currently taking a Living Prophets class from Brother Llyde Newel. Conference is what our class is all about! It is wonderful to see and hear from the men that we are studying. How grateful I am for living prophets on the earth.

BYU vs. Utah State

Despite Clint's prayers for the last month, BYU still beat Utah State. Caroline and Gracie came to the game and we sat with Brandon and Lindsay. At half time, Tyler Driscoll, Tyler Batt (Tyler's friend), Austin Hayden and Clint showed up and sat with us for the second half. It was so fun to see all of them. Sitting in the middle of the BYU student section didn't seem to keep Clint from cheering for the Aggies. I am sure that Garrick and Kyle would be happy to know that he is a loyal fan.

Petting Zoo and Showing Cows

Rodney Atkins Concert at EISF

Utah State Fair with my Jerusalem Friends