Here's why:
1. I took two midterms today, and.... performed exceptionally well :)
2. I got to shoot hoops with a dear friend and I'm getting my shots down very nicely. I rock that three pointer!
3. We threw a super fun surprise going away party for our roommate Steve!
Do I have the best relief society or what?
4. I had a very interactive leadership training meeting with President Clark and Uncle Kevin (The president and vice president of BYU-I) and about 20 other student leaders. I learned so much, and I just love those two men immensely!
5. Costa Vida with the roommates and Nelson and James and Talmedge!
I realize that this doesn't look super appealing, but it was so good!
6. Teton Dam Marathon meeting. I'm pretty excited about that.
7. We had all seven roommates all together today. This is a rare, but fabulous occurrence.
8. I saw Daniel playing tennis right outside my window and I saw Travis at the gym!
9. Oh I almost forgot, I had my aerobics class today. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE that class!
However, this is a sad day because it was our last full day with Steve. She is only here for the 1st block, and since it's over, she's leaving tomorrow afternoon for an internship in California. But we've loved getting to know her and have enjoyed every minute with this fabulous lady.So here is my Ode to Steve, the seventh roommate.
One of my favorite things about Steve is how accepting she is of everyone! She's so kind and generous and loving and sweet and I could go on and on and on. But seriously folks she's amazing... and single :) hint hint boys
Bye STEVEEEEE we'll miss you :) Have fun with all them boy scouts!
This morning, while I was running, Last Kiss by Taylor Swift came onto my ipod. I have mixed feelings about this song, but we won't go into that right now :) Look it up. You probably won't love it, but you probably won't hate it. It is Taylor Swift after all.
Anyways, it got me thinking about first kisses. A quote from the movie Hitch came to mind. "Eight out of ten women believe that the first kiss will tell them everything they need to know about the relationship." I'm sure that that statistic was probably made up for the sake of the movie, but I decided that I am probably not one of those eight women. A whole relationship based on one (very potentially awkward) kiss? I don't think so.
QuickSideNote: I do however love to hear stories of couples first kisses. It's one of my favorite questions to ask aside from, "What is your absolute favorite thing about him/her?" I've heard some pretty gosh darn adorable answers. Claire can testify of this.
Anyways.....
I remembered a time when my dear friend and roommate Emily got engaged, about a year ago. At that time I had just gotten out of a relationship and was back in the dating world, starting from scratch. I remember being so envious of the fact that Emily had gotten her last first kiss. Never again would she be on a date with a boy wondering whether or not they were going to try and kiss her goodnight. Never again would she be in that awkward situation, waiting for an even more awkward kiss. Awwww how fortunate for her. The idea of a last first kiss just sounded so.... blissful to me. Still does.
Ok, so those of you who made it down to the end of this post, congratulations. You have succeeded in my study. Normally, I probably wouldn't blog about something like kissing, but this was purely for the research' sake. Allow me to explain.
Being at BYU-I, all we ever talk about is dating and relationships and what not right? Ok maybe that's not ALL we talk about, but for the most part. It's even integrated into our homework and assignments. So we're doing a little experiment to see if people are more apt to read something about relationships/dating/romance etc. vs a normal blog post. For those of you who are blogger-literate, you know that you have a stats tool on here. This shows you how many people view each of your posts each day/week/month etc. So we'll compare the stats and voila, our research will be complete.
So in the meantime, try not to judge me for writing a post of this sort, it probably won't happen again. Well... maybe. We'll see about when I get my last first kiss. That might just be something to blog about... but probably not :)
And I'm not talking about these tasty little treats.
I'm talking about the up-down exercise we've been doing since elementary school.
Please allow me to share with you why I love them so much.
Last semester I had a roommate who was way into them. Her mom (who has had 9 children) can do 30 man push-ups without stopping. THIRTY! That right there was all the inspiration I needed. So I got down on my hands and knees and pathetically pushed out one... ok like half of one. It was hard! But from then on I decided that I was going to be able to top Mrs. Laufenburg and get up to at least 35 push-ups.
Also, check this out. A push-up works the following parts of your body.
1. Chest
2. Hands, forearms, biceps, triceps
3. Shoulders, traps, upper back, lower back
4. Abs
5. Glutes
6. Hamstrings, quads, calf, feet
7. Your heart muscle gets stronger and your mind get more 'clear', too
Wait, there's more. You can do push-ups anywhere, anytime, by yourself, or with others. You don't have to go to the gym. You don't have to go outside. You don't need other people. You don't need any equipment. You can do as many or as few as you'd like.
The more you practice them, the more you'll be able to do. It's so exciting when you can get more and more reps in each set.
So here's your golden opportunity. Like they say in the movies, "Drop and give me twenty!" Or ten. Or five. Get down there and do one for goodness sakes. Just try it out and keep it up!
This is my niece Molly. Check out that perfect form!
So here's the thing... I love my bike. Love it. I'm so happy with this little beauty and here's why.
I didn't plan on having a bike up at school with me. Yeah it would have been nice, but I didn't have one and didn't want to spend the money on one. So I drove up to school without. I was only in Rexburg for two days before this picture perfect pink bike made it's way to my doorstep. I can't remember where I was or what I was doing, but I met a nice boy named Brandon who said, "Hey, I have a bike you might like. Want me to bring it by?"
Day 2 of college and a boy is offering me a free bike? How could I not love this place! So of course I said yes and later that day, this happened:
I knew I was getting a bike, but I had no idea that it would be this stinking cute! It was brand new and pink and just adorable... not to mention free! I actually didn't use it a whole lot that semester, or the next. However, come spring, I was cruising on that thing everywhere! Here are some memories with my bike :)
So I can't figure out how to flip the pictures the right way... so this mess'll have to do for now :) These were all taken last spring. Holly and Hannah came up for a visit and took a spin on it. The next couple of pictures are from when I needed to replace my tire and Fongo (the kind gentleman you see pictured) was trying to woo my roommate Shae by helping me out with my bike. What a nice guy! After he helped me fix it and sent me happily away on my bike, I gave Shae the go-ahead to fall in love with this boy cause he was a lifesaver. And guess what, they're happily married now! I like to think that my bike as well as myself had something to do with that.
After a grueling game of 8-on-8 wallyball for FHE tonight, Claire, Hannah and I decided to go on a run. It was a lovely night and I hadn't done any cardio for the day, so I was down. I knew it wouldn't be easy though because those Salmon sisters are beasts when it comes to sports or fitness.
(I don't like calling them beasts, because when they run they're more gazelle like than boar-ish, but beast implies that they can go and go and go and not even be phased)
So off we went, starting at the bottom of temple hill. We ran all the way up to the temple, down along campus, to Walgreens and then took a left and kept on running until we ran out of Rexburg. We ran for about an hour. We got back to our apartments and walked a couple laps around the apartment complex to cool down. As we were walking, Claire made mention that we looked like a bunch of drowned rats. I can't think of a better mental picture for us. When we started running it was sprinkling outside and the rain only picked up as we ran. Before I knew it, this desert rat was running through Rexburg in the pouring rain.
(Ok, maybe not pouring by Seattle's definition, but definitely pouring in Moapa terms)
Our hair had been slicked down and frizzed out with the rain, our make-up was running down our faces and our clothes and shoes were wet. Underneath all that we were sweaty and smelled like....roses. I'm sure we were quite a sight to see.
No this isn't us after our run, but these are the lovely ladies in today's story :)
Yet, tonight as we gathered for apartment prayer and took turns saying our favorite parts of the day. All three of us agreed that that run was by far the favorite part of the day. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) I don't have a picture of us after the run to show you, but I can guarantee that if I did we'd all have giant smiles on our faces despite our drowned rat appearances. That endorphin thing that I've learned about all these years is pretty legit. I'm a believer. I was so proud of myself for finishing that run. I was so happy to be with Claire and Hannah. I'm not a fan of the rain, but in that hour, I absolutely loved it. Mostly, I was in awe of my body.
I had the pleasure of going to the Bodies exhibit in Idaho Falls on Saturday. It's an exhibit full of human bodies... dead ones, but real ones. Wierd? Yes. Gross? Kind of. Fascinating? For sure. They show the different systems in the body and how they all work together. It was incredible. As I was running, I kept thinking about all the different things my body was doing right at that moment. My heart, my lungs, my legs, my hips, my...spleen? Just everything all working together to keep moving me forward!
"The human body is a marvelous manifestation of the Divine Creator’s art, worthy of our deepest gratitude." -Russell M.Nelson
Deep gratitude for that marvelous manifestation of God's art is definitely what I felt tonight.
I had the pleasure of attending a Paul Cardall concert last Friday. Let's just say it was amazing! If you haven't heard of him or don't know his story... this is a good place to start. Or just take a listen to the following masterpiece and fall in love.
He was born with essentially half of a heart and has struggled with that his entire life. He has a pretty cool story. While he was playing last night, there was a slide show in the back ground that had pictures or quotes on it. Lot's of them were about the heart, or hearts in general. One that stuck out to me was, "God is close to the brokenhearted." I also liked this one by JFK, "We need men who can dream of things that never were and ask "why not?"
Claire and I ran over to a friends house the other day and on their door was a sign that said, "Why not?" I really liked that and decided to add it to my list of mottos.
I feel like I have the greatest piece of knowledge and I can't go another day without sharing this with the world... or at least my six followers :) Here we go:
MAY is National EGG MONTH
If you've ever lived with me, and even if you haven't, you should know that I love, love, love eggs. So I am so incredibly happy that May is national egg month. You can guarantee that I have faithfully and joyfully celebrated this holiday every single day this month! I have eaten eggs in some form everyday :)
Lately, my favorite way of consuming this proteiny goodness is the following:
Scramble two eggs with lots of pepper. Throw some cubed ham in there and then transfer the mixture to a twenty-second-microwaved tortilla. Throw some salsa or fresh tomatoes on there and eat while smiling super big and constantly saying, "I am so satisfied with my life right now."
MMMMM I actually just finished one. Here's my other favorite way of eating my eggs:
Egg in a Frame: Cooked just like this. yum yum yum.
Here's the thing. There are only 11 days left of national egg month. For quite some time I've been wanting to cook and eat eggs in every and any way possible. Fried, scrambled, boiled, poached, deviled, benedict, omelet... ok I need 4 more ways to cook/eat eggs, :) help me out?
One of my favorite things about Steve is how accepting she is of everyone! She's so kind and generous and loving and sweet and I could go on and on and on. But seriously folks she's amazing... and single :) hint hint boys
