2012 in Review...

I feel that 2012 was VERY good to me. New Years is a great time to look back on the year you had. So here I go, month by month.

JANUARY was good. I honestly don't remember anything significant happening, other that starting the worst semester of my life. I was only a few months in my relationship with Chris, but at this point we both knew we wanted to marry each other. :)

FEBRUARY was fun! I always hated Valentines Day, but this year it was really good!! Chris's birthday is the day after Valentines Day so it was two days of gift giving and keeping him happy. I loved it! It was also the month I went to Las Vegas with his family for a soccer tournament. I got to meet a lot more of his relatives and truly get to know his brothers and parents.

MARCH was exciting! In college, March was always busy for me because of the San Diego trip I take with the USU Ballroom Dance Team. That trip is always so fun though. (even when our team sucks and gets last place in the competition...)

APRIL was... well I really can't remember. April is my best friend's birthday month, but unfortunately  now that I go to USU I don't usually see her on her birthday. I will this year though!!

MAY was relaxing. The worst semester of my life ended (with all failing grades) so I was able to relax a bit. I moved into the worst apartment of my life for the summer, but it was nice because Chris lived in the same building.

JUNE was boring. Sorry to my sister whose birthday is in June, but I really didn't do anything in June except hang out with Chris, work, and eat. We tried to start running together to train for our 5k for Independence Day, but, please, I don't run. And I started a dance camp, but it made me wake up too early and I was way older than everyone else there. It was weird.

JULY was sad. I love Independence Day and Pioneer Day (which I'm told is just a Utah holiday) but this year I didn't get to do the fun, crazy things I usually do and it made me sad! I walked a 5k with Chris's mom, would have been better if I wasn't sick. It was the first time in many, many years, pretty much since I was like 4 or 5, that I hadn't been with my best friend Lauren on the 24th of July. It killed me.

AUGUST was super hot and fun! We went on our family trip to Jackson Hole, Chris got to come for a few days. It was a blast!! I love Jackson because I get to see lots of family, more specifically my amazing cousin who lives in Austria. Because without Jackson Hole and Facebook, I may never see her. I also started this blog with 50 Things About Me!

SEPTEMBER was weird. I had decided to move back home to find a better job and earn money for school. But I didn't realize how hard it would be to be away from Chris. It was also strangely weird to not be going back to school. It didn't feel right, a clear indication that I need to go back to school soon.

OCTOBER was happy! I started working more at the daycare and I absolutely (still) love it!! Those kids are so much fun and amazing! October is also my favorite holiday, Halloween! And I got to decorate the house and I made an awesome Halloween craft!

NOVEMBER held the greatest moment of my life:

I don't think any other words are necessary. :)

DECEMBER was merry! I had the best Christmas of my life this month!! I loved every minute leading up to it! My parents spoiled me rotten! I love Christmas!

I'm so excited for January to come again! This year (the year I get married) will be the best year yet!! :)

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVE!!

Hey blogging world! I hope you're as excited for 2013 as I am... because I'M GETTING MARRIED THIS YEAR!!! :)

Anyways, as is customary, I have a few New Years Resolutions to start out 2013. I hope you have all thought up so new resolutions, and if not, (if you're in Utah like me) then you still have a couple hours. And actually, I think it's acceptable to still be thinking of resolution on New Years Day. I'll allow it.

So, without any further ado, here are my 2013 New Years Resolutions:

1. To limit my income of sugar and salt. (when I die, they doctors will say "Woah!! She ate way too much salt!" because I do, daily. I just eat it. It's delicious and a horrible addiction. So my goal is to stop that and only use it when necessary (like on everything... just kidding))

2. To learn to love cooking. (I'm getting married this year and for Christmas this year I got a binder to hold recipes (that is adorable!) so I really want to start cooking more. Besides, I have a million recipes on my Pinterest page just waiting to be tried!!)

3. To become more flexible. (I've been taking a flexibility class... so here's hoping!)

4. To become a better friend. (Yeah... I don't have a lot of friends it seems so I figure if I work harder to be a better friend it will help. But, the friends I do have are the greatest in the world! I love them all so much!!)

5. To work harder for my education. (The past three years I've been in college feel like a waste considering I have to retake like 4 or 5 classes. I need to push myself harder! This is my year to be a better student!!)

6. To learn ways to spend less money. (I've been a little addicted to Extreme Couponing lately. They spend like $8 on $500 worth of groceries!! It's ridiculous! I don't want to be quite that extreme, but I do want to save money anyway I can. Money will be really tight once I get married in May, but Chris and I are both willing to work hard and save wherever we can.)

7. To (finally) get my six-pack. (I know I can do it!!! For Christmas I got Jillian Michaels' Six Weeks to Six Pack workout video and I fully intend to make it work. I will have a six-pack by May for my wedding. I will!!!)

8. To be more organized and clean. (It's not that I'm a terribly messy person, and I do like this organized, but if anyone were to walk in my room right now... it's kind of impossible to walk in my room right now. I just have too much stuff! I need to de-clutter and organize what I have so that when I move in with Chris he isn't appalled by my mass amount of junk (yes I have a very large collection of clothes, but that is not going out... ever))

9. To blog more!!! (I really love writing on this blog! It makes me happy and I love sharing my thoughts and ideas with you! I also really want this blog to be helpful for others. So please leave your comments and tell me what you think. Also, remember that any proceeds I get from this blog go to charity, so spread the word. The more followers I get, the more money I'll have to send to charities! (by way of Charity of the Month, which doesn't currently exist because I don't have enough followers, please share this page with others!))

10. To love Chris more each and every day! (I'm so excited to get married this year!! Chris really is my soulmate, and he deserves for me to show it to him every single day! Love you Christopher!)

Things I Wanted to Write About On or Before Christmas

This post is brought to you by LAZINESS! It gets you far in life... not.

1. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Yes, I seriously didn't even get on my blog long enough to write Merry Christmas. That's pure laziness right there. Yes, I did work 24 hours this week, which isn't too far off from my normal week, but seriously, I can't even write Merry Christmas? I'm pathetic. Anyways, I hope you all had a very merry Christmas! Mine was FANTASTIC!!

2. I made a Star Wars Clone Trooper Snowflake!!!

It was pretty awesome if I do say so myself. I found how to do it here and the example snowflake looks like this:

And I say I did pretty darn well. We looked at the other ones but seriously I don't think anyone could make this:

I love you Princess Leia, but that's not happening.

3. I didn't divulge in the extended version of my shopping trip with my brother. I will now share just a few things with you.

This book... what? Okay sure I want a "low stress, high success, LDS wedding" but do I really want a wedding planner book with a slightly creepy winking bride on it? No, no I do not. Thank you, but I'll find something else. Like THIS!!

A South Pole Water Tribe nativity scene!! With an adorable penguin and seal!! I love it! I wanted to buy it. I apologize for the horrible quality photo, it was taken with my phone. My phone camera shouldn't really deserve to be called a camera. But doesn't the above picture look like this:

Same outfits, same dog, I NEED THIS NATIVITY SCENE!! PS, I've been watching way too much Avatar lately, but I'm not ashamed about it. In fact, I'm proud of it. It makes me happy. :)

Also while shopping I found something out. If the fire alarm starts going off in the Hallmark store at the mall, what do people do??? Complain. Not try to evacuate the store, don't even think about asking the store workers on what to do, no, just complain. "That's loud!" "Turn that off!" You know if it was going off because of a real fire I wonder if people would still react the same way "Curse you fire for ruining my Christmas shopping!!"

4. I'm the best girlfriend/fiance in the world. Yep. Because only I would spend $80+ on my fiance's fishing related gift on this:

And this:

And a $50 gift card to Cabela's for fishing related gifts. Granted, this gift could have been much cooler (if I had gotten to the store an hour earlier John Bytheway would have been there to sign the book and the gummy worms in the candy fish tackle box were like rocks) but he loved it anyways.

5. K-Mart already started selling Valentines. Before Christmas.

So I guess the real question is why; Why do K-Mart employees want to cause husband/boyfriends searching for the perfect Christmas gift to start stressing out over Valentines Day??? I believe that if this gets kept up, the divorce rate will keep going up as well. Too much holiday gift stress isn't good for relationships.

6. I had a lovely ward-y girls dinner on Saturday! They were girls I had grown up with and we haven't seen each other in forever! It was so much fun eating, catching up, and sharing Christmas gifts! I love you Kelsey for setting that up! And I miss all my E3 girls!!

7. I bought some really great gifts this year!!

• My dad received a jar full of Peanut M&M's with a tag saying "To my nutty but sweet dad". (I did not come up with this myself, see HERE) I also got him a Utah State hat! It's about time he started to support my school more!! :) 
• My mom received a box of hand and feet warmers (the little pack things), a silver shimmery scarf, and two sets of earrings. 
• My sister's was my favorite!! I bought her Harry Potter Kindle Fire covers!! Found on Etsy HERE!! I also got her a Ron one. They are super cute and so perfect for my sister!! :) 
• I went to six different store just to find Lego Pirates of the Carribean Video Game for Wii for my brother. I'm glad I did too because I was playing it last night and I love it!!! :) 

8. (and the last one) My parent know their kids so very very well...

Merry Christmas everyone!!! 

Why Scheels Is Sort of Evil

So a Scheels opened up near my house in September. At first I was excited! It has a cool aquarium, tons of incredible clothes and a Ferris Wheel!! 

It's even where I got my favorite pair of boots!! 

See? I hugged them when I got them for my birthday! I'm wearing them right now! Favorite boots right there. 

So Scheels is a great store. It has a little bit of everything and it's huge. But here's the problem... If you want to drive anywhere near Scheels... it's nearly impossible. Scheels is constantly packed and it causes traffic problems on State Street, which lately, since I've been doing all my Christmas shopping last minute, that's been a huge problem!! 

My brother and I sat in traffic FOREVER just trying to get past Scheels. Because everyone was trying to turn into the Scheels parking lot, and they were blocking the road. Awful. Simply awful. 

So despite it's awesome aquarium...

Stuffed animal mountain...

Airplane in a sea of fishing supplies...

Indoor bowling alley...

Presidential salute...

Ferris Wheel...

... it's kind of evil...

Okay, let's face it, I still love the darn place. I just hate how busy it always is.