Livin The Dream

Hawaii was fabulous! I know I went a few weeks ago, but I haven't been able to figure out how to get my pictures off my camera. I was going to wait, but who knows how long that will take! So I'm going to post anyway with the few pics I took on my phone and then I'll post the pics when I figure it out.

Anyways, we started off our trip with a late short flight to Oakland, then spent the night in the airport. That was pretty rough, but we saved a lot of money so it was probably worth it. The flight to Hawaii was nice, I was able to nap a bit and we got some yummy breakfast stuff with guava jelly! it was so yummy I ended up buying a small jar to take home as a souvenir. When we got off the plane the warmth and humidity hit like a wall, it felt so good! My dad's suitcase got lost, ended going up to portland (?!) but we were told it would get there soon.The first day was pretty chill, we basically just slept and ate.

The second day we went to explore the town of Lahaina. We didn't rent a car, so we took the bus then walked about 15 minutes to the town. Lahaina is a pretty cute ocean front town, some really good history and lots of restaurants and shops. We  went to all the historic sites and learned about the town and the culture of hawaii. There was a really cool courtyard with a banyan tree, which is basically multiple trees that are all connected to make one big tree. All the branches were connected in a canopy overhead, it was really cool. I definitely got sunburned that day because I didn't anticipate being in the sun for that long.

The next day we took the road to Hana, which is a really curvy road along the coast with lots of beautiful hawaii scenery. The town of Hana itself isn't anything special, it's all about the journey! Before we even got to "the" road we were driving along the coast and saw a whale! At first it just looked like smoke on the water, which is what it looks like when they come up to breathe. We watched it for a bit, it was pretty far into the cove so we could see it's back and sometimes it's tail when it came up. It was a really cool experience, it made me feel really connected to the whales and their history. The road was absolutely gorgeous! My favorite part was a peninsula off the road. there was a really rocky coastline and the ocean was rough that day, which made it even more beautiful.The waves would break against the rocks and spray up, kindof like the little mermaid. I wish I could share the pictures because I think I got some good ones. We stopped to get some fresh made banana bread at a roadside stand, best decision ever! It was still warm when we got it! After that we stopped at the black sand beach. We walked around for a bit, saw a blowhole, forgot to see the petroglyphs (DUR!) and then headed down to the beach. I wanted to get in, but I didn't want to go by myself (I'm irrationally afraid of sharks...) so I managed to convince my dad to go with me! We went far enough out that we could just float on the waves and do some body surfing. We coaxed my mom in for a bit even though she really doesn't like the water. she didn't get past the wave breaks so she ended up getting knocked on her butt... kindof funny! I did feel bad though so we left soon after that. I was proud of myself because I am pretty nervous about being in the open ocean but I really had a good time! We continued on to the back side of the island where the lava flows are and the landscape is very arid. Then up into the mountains, which looked kindof like home! We ended the day with more whale watching and Panda express.

I can't really remember the rest of the trip day by day, I just kindof went with the flow. But we had a few dinners with the electrical association my dad is part of, ended up talking to some cool people. We went snorkeling, which wasn't that amazing, but I think I might have heard the whales. It was pretty eerie, it just sounded like a deep rushing sound. I though it was just the ocean because it came and went, but I didn't hear it at all after a while. Maybe it wasn't the whales, but I like to think it was them :) don't crush my delusional dreams. One day we got to go stand up paddle boarding, which was an absolute blast! I wanted to try surfing, but it involves being out in the open water more which I was still nervous about. I'm proud to say that I didn't fall once! It was really tiring though, the first few times I stood up my legs shook like a chihuahua and I could only stay up for a few minutes before I had to go back down to my knees. After a while my legs got used to it and I could stay up longer. I loved literally paddling circles around my parents and riding the waves. I wish I could have  gone again because I wanted to go out farther. My mom fell once, couldn't get back on the board without help, then stayed sitting down the rest of the time. My dad fell about 30 times! He doesn't have very good balance so he had a hard time, but it was entertaining for us! It was really cool though because he wouldn't give up and eventually he stood up and didn't fall! perseverance :) We also went to a luau where we watched the great dancers and had the best pork I've ever had.

I'm sure there's stuff I'm missing, but I'll come back and post again if there's anything else! Hopefully I'll be able to post again soon because my life is going pretty good right now and I'd like to share some of my experiences! Here are some pics!

Beautiful waterfall on the way to Hana

Random Marley quote, I thought it was fitting

Learning To Dance In The Rain

Sometimes it seems like everything bad happens all at once. This last week has definitely been like that for me. There's that saying "when it rains, it pours". More like "when it snows, there's an avalanche" lol. I'll try to keep this post from being a major rant, but I'll tell you a bit about what's been going on.

First off, my boy dog Turner is really sick. Long story short, he's been sick a couple times in the last few weeks but we just chalked it up to him eating something. Last Monday my parents took him onto the ER and we almost lost him then, but they were able to stabilize him and get a diagnosis. He has a hemangiosarcoma on his heart, which is a very aggressive cancer. Basically, we are keeping him at home and treating any symptoms that come up. Eventually, the tumor will burst and he will bleed out internally. He's doing pretty well right now, so we are just trying to enjoy the time we have with him. I think the worst part is that while he is nine year old (so technically a senior) we haven't had any problems with him and expected him to live for at least a few more years. I'm definitely going to miss him.

On top of that, I got stuck in a snow storm on my drive back up to school, got locked out of my motel room while trying to get to class, got stuck in a snow drift, my car broke down, and I've had three tests this week. I told you, it's been an avalanche. Just one thing on top of another.

Amazingly, my everlasting optimism has been able to shine through. Don't ask me how because I have absolutely no clue, but I'm actually happy with my life right now. Imma get a bit religious here... I know God has been looking out for me. There is no way I would have made it through that snow storm without help. Also, I feel a sense of peace about Turner. I know I'm going to miss him, but because of my personal beliefs I know he's going to be looked after when he leaves us. I have no doubt that he's going to be in a happy place. Anyway, I'm just thankful that I have been able to keep my positive outlook on life, even when it seems like everything is going wrong.

I'll leave you with some pictures :)

A day at the beach near San Fransisco.

Turner, begging for food.

Went target shooting with my dad over MLK weekend.

Beautiful day after the big snow storm

The first foal in my equine repro class!

 Sincerely,
          Me

We Made It to 2013!

I'm glad to report that my holidays were quite fantastic, not hampered at all by the rather anticlimactic Mayan apocalypse! But really, I did have a wonderful Christmas break. Here's a quick review: I got to spend a lot of time with my family and friends, worked a decent amount, had a great girl's night with my coworkers, watched an external fixation of a broken leg, went archery shooting (SO FUN!), went dancing at a bar for my cousin's 21st, made some freaking awesome christmas cookies, and saw Les Mis twice. I always enjoy my time at home and I'll admit that it was pretty hard to leave for school again. I've come to realize how amazing my parents are and how much they do for me. I really appreciate them and I actually think they are pretty fun to hang out with. Thankfully, a few of my Logan friends got together for a homemade dinner last night, which made everything much easier. I really am pretty lucky to have great friends in Logan and at home! I definitely wouldn't be as mentally stable without them.

I do want to update you on my vet school applications. I'm sad to say I've been rejected from Mississippi, Washington/Utah, and Oregon. I'm now only waiting to hear from Oklahoma, but I'm not holding out much hope. It's disappointing, but I've been surprisingly optimistic about the whole thing. I knew that with my terrible grades it was definitely a long shot and I know I'll be a better applicant for next cycle. I've been working on my plan B, which is taking 3-4 upper level bio classes at the university near home next fall and spring. This way I can be home and work at the clinic while still going to school and improving my grades. I'm also planning on getting more vet experience in the summer, probably from an equine vet. I'm retaking the GRE probably early July. Also, I'm planning a trip to Paris for the end of July!!! Everything is still in the conceptual phase, I haven't really figured anything out yet. I just decided that I need to go now before I get hung up on more responsibility. I'm sick of waiting for other people to go with me, so it looks as if I'll be going alone. Feel free to tell me how crazy or awesome this idea is! Anyways, with a plan B like this I'm actually ok with having to apply again. Like I said, I'll be a better applicant and hopefully a better person the second time around.

Classes start this week, which means I'm starting my last semester as an undergrad at USU. So crazy! It definitely doesn't seem like it's been five years. This semester I'm taking physics 2 (again :p), biochem and lab, a communication class, equine assisted therapy, and applied equine repro. I'm particularly excited about the equine classes. The repro class is supposed to be very hands on, we will get to do AI's, breeding soundness exams, preg checks, and hopefully get to help with foaling! The first six weeks is lecture, but after that it's all hands on! Watching a foal being born is definitely on my bucket list, so I'm really hoping for that opportunity. Physics is definitely going to be my hardest class, as usual. Everything else should be relatively easy, just maybe a bit time consuming.

Of course, I must post the quite cliched New Year's Resolutions! Most of these are specifically for this semester, but we can count them as New Year's Resolutions anyways :)
1. Don't skip classes. Especially physics.
2. Go to the physics tutor lab weekly to get help with the homework and prepare for exams.
3. Learn how to study at home. I have a hard time concentrating at home, but I need to learn how before I can get a dog!
4. Speak up in class. I have a bad habit of being too shy to answer a question, even if I know the answer.
5. Be more active. I'm planning on getting a pass to fitness classes from my school with a few girlfriends so hopefully this one won't be too hard. Can't wait to get back into yoga and weightlifting!
6. Get at least B's in all my classes. Need to get my GPA up!
7. Blog at least once a month. Blogging is a great way for me to de-stress and make sense of my feelings, so I should really do it more often! Plus, I'm sure my large gathering of followers are so sad when they don't hear from me ;) lol

I'll leave you with a few pics from the break! Stay sweet friends :)

Archery! 

A free kitty at work that I REALLY wanted...

My kick ass Christmas cookies! 

Sincerely,
          Me

Pictures from Fall

Since school started I've been crazy busy all the time. Between school, work, homework, and spending time with family and friends, blogging has fallen by the wayside. Every time I sit down to write a post something seems to come up. Sometimes that something is Grey's Anatomy lol. But I do have some pictures from fall that I've been meaning to share!

A beautiful fall day out at first dam.

The perfect setting to finish my personal statement!

After finishing my vet school applications!

Turner licking peanut butter from the jar.

Halloween! We were the avengers.

A singing bird outside my apartment.

Mrs. Pumpkin

Girl's night!

The saturday before last, nice and fall-like.

Last saturday, winter is here!

Sincerely,
          Me

Back To School!

Well, the third week of school starts tomorrow! Kindof crazy that it's already been two full weeks. First quiz of the semester is tomorrow in animal nutrition. Not too worried about it, but I should probably go over my study guides again. School is going good so far, got a few interesting ones, a reallly sucky one, and all hard ones. It'll be good though :) I'm looking into a few new opportunities, I'll let you know if anything comes up!

What better way to ring in the new school year than with computer problems?! The weekend before school starts I noticed my computer wasn't connecting to my apartment's wireless network. I didn't think too much of it because it can be a little sketchy. So I took it to school on monday planning to have all my notes and class resources on it. Turns out, it wouldn't connect anywhere. Ever. So it's being fixed right now. Kindof stinks because the first week's notes are on the computer, while the second's are all on paper (which I will have to type in because it would really bug me having inconsistent notes). But, my parents are bringing it up to me tomorrow! I'm really looking forward to it so I can have my computer back and because I get to go to dinner with my parents :) I already have a bunch to talk to them about, so it should be a good time.

I'm still working on my vet school apps. The personal statement is proving to be a major suckfest. Why is it so hard to talk about myself?! I wish I could just say "I'm freaking awesome and you should accept me." but I think that might come off as unproffesional... ugh. Hopefully I get some inspiration and motivation soon!

So, now that you're all caught up on the goings on of my life, I'd like to share some thoughts. Recently, I've been daydreaming a lot. Well, I do this quite a lot but it's been worse lately. I guess I'm not completely happy with where I am, so I dream. I think "I'd be happy if I had a dog" or "I wish I didn't have any roommates" or a billion of other things. "If only I had this, I'd be happy". Which of course isn't true. It's your attitude that determines whether you are happy, not what you have or don't have. This thinking usually leads to searching for apartments, jobs, or dogs online, which only makes me less  happy with the way things are. The grass always looks greener on the other side. Today, I was sitting in church thinking about all this and I realized that I just have to stop thiking like that. I'm new in this ward, but people still introduced themselves and I just felt like this was a good place for me to be, that I belonged there. If I moved into a new apartment, I would have to leave this ward. Why would I leave when I've just received a sense of belonging? "You just have to be happy with where you are" I thought to myself. And not just where I live or who I live with, but with my job, my social status, my life progression. I need to accept all of it and learn to be happy with it. Because this is where I have to be for at least the next 8 months, so I might as well be happy! Such a simple change in thinking, but I'm already feeling about a billion times better about everything :)

I'll leave you with some pictures from the last few weeks :)

Me and my family before going to see Wicked.





My silly girl dog. She likes to sniff the fresh air coming out of the vents when she rides in the car.

A dinosaur at the natural history museum.

A crazy cool double rainbow after a hail storm near my cousins house.

Home

There's no place like home. Really. I'm so glad to be back :) My birthday week has been amazing! Yes, I take a whole week lol mostly just because  parties and get-togethers end up being spaced out. Thursday night my parents took me out to a really fancy fondue restaurant. It's a tradition we started when I turned 18 and we've kept it up ever since. It's fun to enjoy such a nice and delicious meal with people you love! Saturday my parents took me to the zoo and then out to a super cute diner for dinner. The zoo is so much fun! They have a new exhibit with harbor seals, a sea lion, otters, brown bears, and a polar bear. We even got to see them do a training session with the seals and sea lion. They were adorable! I literally wanted to hop in and cuddle with one of the seals :D. And then of course there's the parade for the 24th. My family camps out over night and we start saving our spot at like 7 am on the 23rd. It's really such a fun tradition, we usually end up laughing and playing games all day and night.

Today was my first day back at my clinic for my abbreviated summer break! It was kindof strange to be back at first because I haven't worked there since christmas break, but everything comes back pretty quickly. I call it "my" clinic because it feels like home. I've worked there during school breaks for about two years and loved every minute of it! I love all of the staff there, they feel like another part of my family. The vet there always mentions something about me taking over the practice after I get out of vet school so he can retire. Although there are a few areas I want to explore and mess around with, I can honestly see myself working at and eventually owning the clinic someday. I would really love it :) being back today just cemented everything I've wanted and worked for for years. Got to watch a colonectopy, which was pretty cool. Basically, we took out the whole large intestine because the animal kept getting constipated. There is definitely nothing that would make me happier than working as a veterinarian. Except maybe digging up dinosaur bones and putting skeletons back together, but I still think vet med wins out ;)

Sincerely,
          Me

I Gotta Go My Own Way

It feels like my life is on the verge of some very big changes right now. I'm trying to follow my heart (and my head) and do what's best for me, but sometimes it's hard to figure that out. How am I supposed to know if I'm going to do well in a particular situation?! I can't tell the future!!! lol. Sometimes it can get pretty frustrating. But at the same time, it's all so exciting! There are so many things I could do with my life! I'm applying to vet school, how freaking cool is that?! Ha anyways, I just wanted to talk about a few of the things I'm thinking about. Maybe it'll help me figure a few things out :)

First off, figuring out where I want to apply has been a beast. There are 3 that I've known I wanted to apply to since the beginning, but other than that, I just keep changing my mind! Right now I've settled on a fourth, but still trying to figure out if I want to apply to one more... I still have a good amount of time to decide, applications aren't due until October! One scary/exciting alternative I've been considering has been applying to a caribbean school. They can be a bit "easier" to get into, since they tend to accept students with lower GPAs (which is me...) but their programs seem to be right on par with US schools. It seems like these schools have a very long list of pros with few cons that can be worked around. Every time I think about what other school I want to apply to, this caribbean school keeps popping up. It seems to have everything I want! I just hope I'm not being seduced by the prospect of going to school on a beach. I've mentioned it to my parents and they seem to be relatively ok with it. My dad, of course, would prefer that I lived at or near home for the rest of my life, but some things just can't be done lol. I'm probably going to think about it a lot more before I come to any sort of conclusion. One big factor is that I want to get accepted as soon as I can so I can start practicing and pay off my debt. This caribbean school may just be the perfect way to do that.

For the past four years of college, I've been a member of the USU Equestrian Team. I have loved it! It's helped my riding so much and I've made a lot of good friends through it. Now, you can only be a regular member for four years because of the IHSA (intercollegiate horse show association) rules. I could be an Alumni member, but I may not be able to compete because you need at least three alumni riders for a class. So, I don't think I'm going to be on the team this year :(. There are many reasons behind my decision, including time and money. The biggest reason is that I think my time on the team has ended. I think I have naturally progressed out of it, grown out of it in a way. I need to take my riding in a different direction. I need to slow down, do it just for the fun of it, not pressure myself, and build a relationship with the horses I ride. I don't know how I will accomplish this because I don't have a horse or money to pay for lessons, but I have faith that it will work itself out. It's sad to see something I've enjoyed so much for the past four years come to an end, but I know in my heart that this is what I need to do. I'm excited to see what comes next!

This Wednesday, I finally get to go home for my summer break! I can not tell you how much I am looking forward to this. I literally can not wait. I love being home with my family and friends and dogs. I love not battling with my roommates over the air conditioner. I love watching tv shows with my sister and hanging out with my cousins. I love working at my clinic. The list could go on and on, but I guess I will spare you everything I love about being home. I am taking a solid week off to spend time with family and celebrate my birthday on Sunday before picking up some hours at my clinic. I may even have the opportunity to shadow a vet at the zoo! It's gonna be a great five weeks before school starts again :)

     Sincerely,
          Me