Trans-Siberian Orchestra!

Tanner and I went to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert last night! It was PHENOMENAL!! I absolutely loved it! Here's just a glimpse of what we got to experience... (you should be jealous)

Essays and Pneumonia

College is so hard sometimes - and that's even before you get sick. My goal this year has been to not procrastinate, and I haven't, I just don't have time until the last minute.... I had three essays due today, one of them was 7-8 pages. I planned my weekend around these essays and I knew I was going to get them done... until I got sick. No, I don't have pneumonia. As of right now I just have a viral infection in my lungs that could become pneumonia. Could this virus have hit me at a worse time? I guess during finals would have been worse... I'm still not very happy though.

You know those Puffs tissue commericals? There's always one character with a red nose because of the rough tissues they've been using and then they get Puffs tissues and they feel better. Well that's what I feel like. My nose hurts :( I may go through this whole box of Kleenex in just a couple of days with all the coughing and sneezing I do. And last week I almost used an entire bag of cough drops to avoid getting a sore throat I felt coming on - didn't help obviously. Sigh.... I though complaining a little would help me feel better, but I'm still sick, and I've got homework to do. Hello college....

Delicious and Nutritious!

Doesn't this look delicious?! Well it was :) I eat a salad probably every day here at college. It's fast, easy, and nutritious, It combines my daily veggies, meat, fruit - usually dried but sometimes fresh, little bit of oil from the dressing, and nuts all into one meal! For the first couples weeks all I had was a chicken salad with ranch dressing and I got bored pretty fast. So I've decided to create and try new salad recipies every so often. Today it was this delicious combination of craisens, shredded chicken, pecans, and crutons covered in a delicious poppyseed dressing. (I wish I had taken this pictures, mostly because I wish I had square plates like that, but I was too hungry to go find my camera. But after seeing this, maybe next time I'll add apple slices...)

Tender Mercies

"Provo may seem like a safe haven, but a young woman's experience last week proved otherwise. The Provo Police Department dispatch center received a call from a young woman who had been assaulted while running on the Provo River Trail. She said a man attacked her from behind as she was running on the trail, forced her to the ground and thrust a piece of cloth with an unidentified chemical substances over her mouth. After the young woman screamed, the suspect let her go. Following the attack, a man was at the scene and assisted the young woman. He indicated he chased the suspect away.

The police took both the young woman and the witness to the police station for interviewing and found out that Micheal Workman, the purported witness, was in fact the alleged suspect. He told police he intended to sexually assult the victim, but desisted. Police arrested him and charged Workman with one count aggrivated kidnapping, as well as one count of attempted rape."

I read this in the newspaper today and was absolutely shocked. Before I left for BYU my dad made sure I knew that just because I was at a "mormon school" surrounded by "good mormon kids" didn't mean it was a safe place. He told me it was the perfect place for preditors to attack girls because they got too comfortable with their environment. I've always made sure I'm safe though. When I'm walking on campus after dark I always call Tanner and make sure I stay on main sidewalks.

The scariest part of this story is that I often contemplated running on Provo River Trail. When it was warmer I would go running a couple times a week and that trail was right next to my apartment. It seems like a beautiful trail, but for some reason every time I went running I felt like I should just stay on University Avenue... So I did.

I'm so grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord and the guidance of the Spirit and that this time I was willing to listen. I just pray that I will be in tune more often...

One Year Down

Halloween was Tanner and my 1 year aniversary! I can't believe it's been an entire year... although some days just seem to drag on, the year as a whole went so fast! Anyways, Tanner planned the date and it was the best! The focus was our past, present, and future. I'll try and keep the details to a minumum so I can explain the whole thing. He made a CD and every song had one word that related to a date we had been on in the past year (I was suppose to figure out the word and guess the date...and with my memory I'm sure you can guess how well that went). The first two songs had to do with the hiking and tandem bike ride we went on, and the run in the rain. So I got to choose which of the two I wanted to do - I chose the second. We went to the Lagoon Trail and took some fantastic pictures in the leaves - in the present time.

This one of Tanner and me in the leaves is my favorite :)

The next two songs had to do with the dates that we went ice skating, and when we went to Salt Lake and pretended to be tourists. I chose ice skating, but when we got there a hockey team was on the rink :( So we went to "5 Guys" instead. We then drove to Salt Lake (after a failed attempt to ride the front runner) and walked around temple square - playing around with Tanner's new wide-angle lense and enjoying how absolutely empty it was.

After that, the next two songs had to do with hot chocolate, and our Christmas date (when we were suppose to go to the library but it was closed). We headed to this quaint little coffee place, drank hot chocolate, and Tanner had us write letters to ourselves 3 years in the future since that's when I'll be getting back from my mission...

After that we headed to the library, and ironically enough, it was closed. We just headed back to Tanner's house, and when we got there, he took me downstairs by the fire and said he wanted to read a story (which we did last Christmas). The story was titled "One Year Down" and it was the story that Tanner wrote of how we met and got together. It was SO cute!! He said he'd post the whole story on his blog, it's kinda long but you can read it there.

We ate dinner (soup and bread bowls) with Tanner's family and then enjoyed the movie "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken" with them. After the movie, we put all the pictures we took on the computer in a slideshow mode, and looked at them as we sat by the fire... can you imagine a more perfect date? I sure can't....