Visits and Vacations

Finally, I have interesting things to talk about besides the same-old same-old!

This past week, Stephen's family visited from Boise. His mom's parents and her siblings live in the Salt Lake Valley, so the Rollins spent their spring break in Utah. I spent Thursday with them while Stephen was at work. I get along with his family very well, and it was so nice to spend time with them. I'm very grateful that I don't have to be with Stephen in order to fit in with his family. They are all so accepting, welcoming, and loving. We went to the mall and to an arcade. Stephen joined us for dinner and we stayed up late playing games.

On Saturday, I had a Relief Society activity. Because of my new calling as the weekday meeting coordinator person, I was in charge of the swap meet. It was very successful. We had a large turnout and an even larger donation pile. People were really excited to get rid of things they didn't need anymore and to take home other things. I got some new games and decorations in my odds and ends. We needed three tables just for women's clothing, and a lot of sisters benefited from that as well. We had an awesome lesson about service and I was so grateful for all that helped me make this activity a success; their actions added to the lesson of service. It really couldn't have gone any better.

After the morning activity, Stephen and I went back to the Salt Lake area to visit with his family. We played games and I helped cook dinner. I then attended the General Women's Meeting with my mother-in-law and her mom, sisters, and two nieces. It was such a fun night! I felt like one of the girls and it was great to have the bonding time. I was touched at the meeting by the speakers, songs, and videos. If you didn't watch it (male or female), I recommend viewing it. The speakers did a wonderful job at addressing both young and old. I felt inspired, and I was grateful to share that with my family around me. 

After the meeting, the women went home and took over the upper floor to continue our girl time. We sat and talked for hours and I loved it. I really enjoy conversations like that. It was so neat to talk about both temporal and spiritual things with these women. I look forward to going to Women's Conference with them in a few weeks. It helps me a lot to feel this sisterhood while my own sisters and family are farther away. 

This morning, Stephen and I woke up 15 minutes before we were suppose to be at his cousin's baby blessing, but somehow managed to walk in during the opening hymn. We complemented each other on our ability to get out of the door quickly when needed, though we also agreed to not make it a habit. The blessing was for the other side of Stephen's family--his dad's niece's baby was being blessed--so we were able to see more extended family. They are also just as loving, welcoming, and accepting. Baby William was passed around for a while, and I held him for a bit before he became fussy. Newborns are so cute!

After church, we gathered at Melissa's (the mom of the baby) house for lunch. I brought some cute appetizers I was proud of.  It was fun to visit with family and friends. I wasn't directly related to many of the people there, but you wouldn't have been able to tell from the way we all interacted. The women talked about babies and the men talked about programming, so Stephen and I both felt satisfied in our separate circles. I had a lot of fun and was grateful to meet friendly new people and eat good food.

So there you go! Our last few days have been busy with family, but I wouldn't rather do anything else. I'm glad I married into such a loving family. It reminds me of my side of the extended family and the memories I have of times with them. I'm excited to continue getting to know people better and feeling the love and strength that comes from a family who cares about each other and supports each other. I hope to carry on this feeling with my own future family. (Which, by the way, is still in the future, despite everyone's not-so-subtle hinting).

Moving on to other things, there are only 25 more days until I graduate. Two weeks from tomorrow is the last day of class. Can you believe that? This semester has gone by fast. It's been helpful that my classes haven't been too stressful. In fact, one class in specific has been anything but stressful--my capstone course. I believe I've mentioned before how we're studying classic Hollywood movies in that class. For the first half of the semester, we spent most of our time watching movies, which I will not complain about. For the second half, we've been working on a research paper, and to provide us with more time to work on it, our professor has canceled class seven times in the past five weeks. But wait...it get's better!

My professor wants us to experience Hollywood, and, in order to do that, he pulled some strings and planned a trip for our class to fly to California and spend a few days in Hollywood! I'll be leaving Provo very early Wednesday morning of this upcoming week and spending three days visiting major sites like the Walk of Fame, Universal Studios, and the beach. While there will be educational things within the trip, it basically is a graduation vacation. I have friends in this class, so, while it'll be the first time Stephen and I are apart since we've been married, I will still have fun. Stephen told me I better not spend my time in California missing him and to have as much fun as I can. I'm grateful I married someone who is supportive instead of jealous or controlling.

Speaking of Stephen, there are exciting things happening for him too! He has officially applied for graduation for December of this year rather than April of 2015. We looked at the requirements he still had left and realized the 17 credit deficit could be completed in one semester. After a family counsel, we felt it was best for us to make that our plan. He will be taking solely computer programming courses, which makes it a heavy load. In order to make this doable, Stephen won't be working that semester, which will free up a lot of time for him. I'm wanting to get a full-time job after I graduate, which should carry over into the Fall and give us the income we'll need. And then we'll both be done with school! I am so excited to not spend our evenings together doing homework!

So it's an exciting time in our lives right now. A lot of family activities, a trip to California, General Conference, ending my last semester, finals, graduating, and more family activities. I have a feeling that April is going to be a good month!

Recap of my kneecap

I know, I know, It's been half a month since I've written. I wish I could tell you we were off doing exciting things and were too enthralled in adventure to write. But honestly, I didn't write because I didn't have anything new to say. Stephen and I have found a good routine for our lives and we comfortably go about normal day-to-day activities. There have finally been enough happenings that I feel justified in writing a post, though, so yay you.

First off, I got a new calling! I'm now the Relief Society Weekday Meetings Leader. Or something like that. Basically, I'm in charge of the activities formally known as Enrichment. I'm very excited for this calling. I grew up planning parties and I enjoy being in charge in order to move plans forward and get things done. In fact, I've already started organizing the first activity. We're going to have a ward swap meet. I've been wanting to do this for a while, and I tried to get things going before, but it was hard to coordinate. But now that I'm in charge, I can take on the responsibility of putting it together. It's in less than two weeks, so there's plenty to do between now and then, but I have a committee to help me, and it's really not too hard to prepare for. I'm mostly just excited. I look forward to organizing more activities in the future.

There are 38 more days until I graduate. That's less than six weeks! But there's a lot packed into those few weeks. However, I've been able to get a lot of things done this past week. Two and a half of my four major papers are already done or at least have a solid draft. It's nice to get things done in advance--I don't know why I waited until my last semester to get my academic act together and be on top of things. Not that I was a bad student before; I just lost a lot of sleep the nights before assignments were due.

Speaking of losing sleep, I don't know what's been wrong with me and sleeping lately, but I've completely thrown off my body's sleeping schedule. I was having trouble falling asleep, and thus spent the majority of the night awake. I use that time to do my extra homework, but the hours between midnight and seven are scheduled for my sleeping time, not for homework. I would be awake for several hours at a time with very little sleep. I would maybe take a quick nap, but besides that, I was awake for days. In order to make up for it, my body decided three times last week that it needed to sleep for 12 hours at a time. I missed some classes one day because I was far too tired to function, even though I had slept a lot. But considering the lack of sleep the other nights, I guess it balances out. Stephen gave me a priesthood blessing last night, and I slept very well. Hopefully I can get my body back into a normal sleeping pattern.

So story time. Anyone who knows me well enough will know I am not a graceful person. I've lost track of how many times I've had to use crutches in my life. I've been hit by a car twice. I sprained both of my ankles at the same time once (yes, I'm THAT talented). So don't be surprised when I say I tripped down the stairs last week. I was going to get the laundry, but tripped on my shoe and tumbled down the concrete stairs. Luckily, I only rolled one ankle and got a rug burn/scratch on my knee and a bruise on my leg. It could have been much, much worse. There wasn't even blood.

I climbed back upstairs where Stephen rescued me and took care of me for the rest of the night. I went into shock a bit and sobbed for a while, even though I wasn't really in pain. He just held me and got me ice packs and sang to me until I calmed down. He's the best husband ever. My ankle healed after a few days, and my knee has a scab and the yellow remnants of a bruise, but I'm fine. Stuff like that happens in life--especially in my life--and it helps to remind me to be grateful for the functioning, healthy body I have.

So once, I posted on facebook the idea to do a Q&A blog post. But I only got two questions. So I'll wait to answer those and ask for more. Send me a message with a question and I'll make a blog post about it! For now, I have to go to class, so I'll wrap this up. Life is good. We are happy. Trials happen and we handle them. We love each other. Gospel is true. Amen!