London day one

We are officially in London and I couldn't be more excited. The ten hour flight was long but we had unlimited movies and it was so hard to make myself go to sleep because there were so many I wanted to see. We rode on a huge double decker Airplane nicknamed "planezilla". After the ten hour flight we hopped in a cab to take us into London which actually turned out to be a 2 hour drive that we weren't anticipating. Oh well, more time to sleep. 

After checking into the hotel we went over to the London bridge and walked across that as well as the millennium bridge which is from the 5th Harry potter movie:) I am a nerd and can't wait

To see all the Harry potter stuff here. After that we walked around a bit more and then finally gave into our sleep deprivation and went to bed. 

London day 2

Today we visits Westminster abbey. It was pretty incredible. I loved seeing where William and Kate were married (everyone here calls them the duke and duchess so I guess it's pretty cool that I am on first name basis with them). After Westminster abbey we walked to the London tower and walked around there. Waiting in line to see the Crown Jewels took longer than a ride at Disney land;) I absolutely love British history and it was amazing to see everything. I can't believe how incredible the architecture is here as well as how immaculately built everything is. We also walked around trafalger square which was son fun to see as well. I love England! Can I just be British?

dream proposal

well, i fell like i will never ever get caught up on this blog, but i sure am going to try to be better ( i feel like i have said this before..oh wait, i have). what sparked this post you may ask? well, i got engaged on the 6th and it was one of the best moments of my life and i want to remember all of it.

the story: david and i had been ring shopping so i knew eventually a proposal was going to happen. he was talking to my sister about how and she sort of shot down all of his ideas (he tried so hard). well he finally decided that he was going to take me to one of my most favorite places in the entire world-disneyland. my sister, him and i drove down on a thursday night and stayed with his aunt. friday we woke up early and went to disney. i knew that it was most likely going to happen that day and he did a perfect job of faking me out over and over and over again. finally we went to the castle and meghan so conveniently "went to the bathroom" and we were talking and he was saying his sweet nice things and then we left to go on another ride. i was shocked that that wasn't it. however, i did later learn that chickened out a little at that moment because there were so many people around. after we went on another ride, meghan left again and we walked back over to the castle to go on the teacups. well most of it was blocked off because of the fireworks that night. i knew he a little disappointed because he wanted to do it there but he led me to this perfect little nook on the side of the castle and he asked there. i was laughing because i saw my sister trying to take pictures and lurking and then he got down on one knee and proposed. it was my perfect disney proposal.

i know some will think it is cheesy and lame, but it was exactly me. i couldn't have imagined or dreamed of anything better. this boy is seriously the best thing that has ever happened to me. i don't know how i got so lucky to get this amazing person, but i am sure glad i did.

time

this was shared on a friend's blog a while back. the writing is beautiful and i was drawn to it. i always have a hard time letting people go and not having good friends in my life after a while, this helps so much.

Why is it surprising that sometimes people fade or crash out of our lives as subtly or extraordinarily as they came in?

Why does it feel such a weighty idea that human beings cross our paths with a purpose, and when that purpose is served, our paths often divide?

I spent yesterday with my mom, my most favorite person on the face of the earth.

I made us lunch and we sat, chatting. She told me stories and I listened, feet curled beneath me, watching her smile, hearing her joy. It’s pretty rad to be grown up and able to hear stories from my mom like I’d hear from a girlfriend—and to learn the details of encounters and experiences that I vaguely remember from when I was a child and understand them with an adult mind.

She was telling about a relationship she had and we spent the better part of an hour reminiscing on a particular person. Over the phone the next morning, we revisited the conversation.

What we kept dancing on was a familiar topic, one that we have discussed many times and one that many great speakers, authors, philosophers and the like have delved into. Relationships—people—why things sometimes end.What is it about forever that makes us cling, cling like fuzz to fabric and children to parents’ legs? What is it about the concept that turns us into fools, seeing an end, a destination, rather than a journey? What’s so wrong with meeting someone, learning from them and they from you, and then parting ways?

It goes against our romantic grain, that’s what’s wrong with it. But the truth is there’s nothing wrong with the idea, what needs shifting is our perspective. Forever definitely happens, there are plenty of people who meet and know one another forever. Sometimes people mate for life, and there are real life “best friends forever.” But just as magical as those unions are the ones that are fleeting…like bursts of lights, meteors of human interaction. Relationships that last months, or even years, and which turn over unfathomable marvels and truths.

Connections that offer us solace, guidance, insight, safety, challenge and growth.

Partnerships can lift us up higher than we could have climbed on our own, sometimes they serve as a crutch, always they teach us about ourselves. But what the fairytales didn’t tell us as little kids is that “happily ever after” is not the only way.

What if I said that tomorrow you would meet the most exquisite human being you’ve ever met, and that you’d know them for eight months, create incredible memories, forge a beautiful bond, and then you would go your separate ways…how would you feel? Probably pretty wounded. Not even having had this experience yet, you might feel disappointment…set up for let down. You might feel afraid to even have this relationship at all. Or, perhaps you’d feel the opposite. Maybe we’d feel a tinge of relief, just knowing it’s not “forever.” Knowing you’re meant to take careful note of the lessons learned in this experience, and carry them with you into your future, with or without this other person.

The truth is, sometimes relationships end. Romances end; the candle burns down or the flame blows out.

Sometimes friendships unravel; the threads fray and get woven in elsewhere. Now and again we lose people we don’t want to lose. Sometimes we part ways mutually. Occasionally we do the leaving. Family members, friends, lovers, spouses…of the myriad of human connections we both build and are born into, only some last forever. And that’s how it’s supposed to be. Not every romance should last forever. If they did we’d all still be with our first love and, for many of us, our personal development would be significantly stunted by having missed out on all of the mistakes and masterpieces that were meant to follow.

We hurt so that we can grow.

The human body is an expert at healing and regenerating. As is the spirit. As is the heart. As is the mind. We fall in love on a daily basis…with people, sunsets, flavors, feelings, experiences. These little bursts of love are often topped the very next day, when we meet another person, see another sunset, taste another flavor…but does that take any of the brilliance from yesterday’s love? No.

Does meeting a new friend take away any of the meaning in a friendship you shared with someone ten years ago? No. Does getting remarried negate the passion and promise that you took into your first wedding? Of course not.

I’m not saying everything is meant to end. I’m a romantic and that’s a terribly pessimistic view. What I’m saying is that, at 25, I’m beginning to wrap my brain around the fact that some things are meant to end. It won’t always be signaled by smoke and flames, either, which can be the hardest part. A friend you’ve grown away from, no fights or toxicity, just a heavy sense that there’s no longer a common light by which to warm your palms. A lover who you know, deep down, is only really a ship in the night. Two souls on very different journeys, hunkered together in a pocket of warmth to weather a blissful little storm, before heading off on opposite paths.

There’s something deeply freeing about the admission that this is life. This is reality. Many of our greatest loves in life are old flames, childhood friends, pets, people to whom we are inexplicably tied for life.

I feel like I keep going in circles trying to explain this, but I guess the bottom line is idealized relationships don’t exist. Real relationships exist. Human beings share interactions for a reason and they end when they’re meant to end. The issue arises when we can’t let go, when we can’t accept that everything happened perfectly, divinely.

The only problem lies in the resistance that our beautiful, fragile, exquisite human hearts bring to the table…our unwillingness to surrender. Surrender to the Divine, to fate, to “what’s meant to be.” Why do we fight it? I don’t know why. I don’t know why I fight it. Because I can say, without a shred of doubt, that some of the greatest people I have ever known, and some of the greatest lessons I have ever learned, now live in perfectly suspended memories.

The relationships have gone on into space, circulating around, their magical little particles separating and recycling into new relationships between other human beings.

Sometimes no tangible person, no relationship right in front of you, can fill you with the same certainty as a memory; as the revisiting in your mind’s eye of experience long since had. When time is no barrier and your vision is crystal clear. When you can see a person’s purpose in your life, why your paths intersected, why their chapter overlapped with yours…when you can identify the authenticity and clarity you gathered from having been you while they were them, from having been those two people in that time, together…that’s when the sighing value sinks in. The moment when you know the puzzle of your life fits perfectly today for having spilled out and sorted your pieces then. 

source: http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/11/puzzle-pieces-letting-relationships-end-sara-courter/

moms.

this is one of the most incredible things i have ever seen. 

Bucket List

a teacher gave an assignment for one of my classes to set 150 goals. they couldn't just be go to paris, go to london, go to scotland. they had to be goals a little more thought consuming. i was able to come up with more that 150 as well as add in a few extra "go to" places. The formatting messed up a little but thats ok. And some of them are silly goals that will help no one but me but thats the beauty of a bucket list.

Life Goals

Spiritual

-Get married in the temple

-Raise children
-Go to the Philadelphia Temple open house
- Visit every temple in Utah
- Couples mission with husband
- Contribute something tangible to the building of a temple
- Read the Book of Mormon in a week
-Do work in 75 temples

-Go to the temple every week for a year
- Support 3 missionaries
- Raise my children in the Gospel
-Volunteer for something incredible

-Work in the temple
- Go to the Kirtland Temple

Fitness

- Run a 5k in under 30 minutes
- Hike mount timp

- Run a half marathon

- Climb to the U
- Do aerial yoga
- Eat healthy

-Home cook my meals every day for a month

Travel
-Visit all 50 states
-Visit Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH

-Go to the Space Needle
-Visit Australia

-Go to Europe

-Tour Asia
- Go to Jerusalem
- Go to India
- Visit all 7 Wonders of the World
- Rent a glass igloo in Finland to see the Northern Lights
- Disney Parks in all the countries –Honk Kong, Shanghai, Paris, California, Florida, Tokyo
-Kiss someone on top of the Eifel Tower
- Buy a plane ticket on the next plane out, no matter where it is going
- Spend a weekend in a tree house

-Listen to jazz in the French Quarters, New Orleans

-Hike the Grand Canyon

-Explore British Columbia
- Visit Niagara Falls
- Visit the four corners monument

-Put a lock on the love bridge
- Take my husband on an adventure around the world.
-Fenway Park

-Go to Greece

-Get into Club 33 at Disneyland

Life
- Have a fulfilling career
- Spend more time with my mom
-Forgive more
-Fall in love

-Smile daily
-Live the gospel till I die

-Find something to be happy about every day of my life.
-Live in the moment

-Be positive

-Find the good
-Say yes to opportunities

-Have a good set of married friends when I am married

Fun
-Hold Disneyland season passes

-Go to a movie premiere

-Stand outside during the Oscar red carpet
- Hot air balloon ride
- Attend the Olympics
-Cook and entire Thanksgiving Dinner from -Scratch

-Sew an entire outfit I would wear

-Do hair for a movie
-Street perform

-Spend a weekend at a spa

-Throw an incredible surprise party
-Backpack and camp somewhere for a weekend
-Ride an elephant

-Ride a camel

-See the Spiral Jetty
-Kiss on a 50 yard line

-Attend the college football playoff game
-Learn to sail
-Times Square on New Years Eve

-Attend the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade

-Have a garden
-Win a big prize out of luck

-Get kissed in the rain

-Be in the middle of a real live lantern festival (like tangled)
-Chop down my own Christmas tree

-Create a recipe
-Be able to play 10 hymns on the piano

-Learn graphic design

-Write in my journal everyday for a year

-Take one picture every day for a year (not a selfie)

-Make someone’s dream come true

-Zip line through the jungle

-Learn to ski

- Go zorbing
-Send a letter to a random address and see if they write back

-Meet Taylor Swift

-Go on a helicopter ride

-Swim with dolphins

-Have a paint fight

-Attend the festival of colors

-Attend a masquerade
- Scuba dive

-Read 50 books in a year

-Swim in a fountain
-Design and sew a wedding dress

-Attend church in another country
-Bungee Jump

-Work at a Disney Park

-Find something to smile about daily
-Work for an airline

-Watch every single Disney movie ever released

-Parasail
-Bake the perfect cupcake

-Paint a picture I would actually display

-Learn a song on the guitar

 -Take tap lessons
-Learn to play the bagpipes

-Go without Internet for a week
-Do a color run

-Play golf at St. Andrews

-Go to the Masters
-Learn Archery

-Ride a mechanical bull

-Have an etsy shop

-Plan a family reunion

-Camp on the beach

-Keep my room clean every single day

-Be the favorite aunt
-Have 500 instagram followers

-Go to the Ellen Degeneres Show
-Learn how to work my DSLR camera

-Make a quilt

-Jumbo-tron at Utah football game

-Make a perfect Macaron

-Give Christmas away to someone who needs it

-Take Golf lessons
-Learn to surf
- Sky dive
-Work in the financial district in NYC

-Live in NYC

-Study abroad
-Get a Bachelor’s degree

-Learn French

Finance
-Own a house

-Own an Audi

-Have a great retirement fund
- Have a 6 figure income
-Invest in something

-Have stock
- Donate to charity
-Have $20,000 in saving by 30
-Contribute to my family’s income

-Work in Human Resources

Blog

-Have a successful blog

-Guest on Studio 5
- Get 1000 views on blog in one day by the end of 2014

the best day yet

saturday night was by far the best day of 2014 so far. i do not know why but somehow my friends and i have found ourselves at nickel arcades more than a few times lately. they are fun, bring out the inner child and cheap hours of fun. 

luke came and hung out with us and meg's best friend trevin (who was visiting) came too. we all grew up in the same ward so it was a lot of fun. 

 there was a time in our lives for about 4 months straight me and my other best friend kristin would go to luke's house EVERY single day to play dance dance revolution. we of course were not passing up this opportunity when we saw it at the nickelcade. we played on hard and it kicked our butts. there was once a time when even expert was easy for us. 

 our prizes included a chinese finger trap, 2 deputy badges, a fake cockroach, rubber popper toys, and a million fruities. i would say a great waste of money. 

 after we decided a sparkling cider toast was a must. 

 we also got frozen yogurt facials

 and we ended the night with a paper lantern send off. i have an obsession with these suckers. best things ever. i am aware i look a little too happy to be lighting this thing up.