Grateful

Last year, my old institute teacher, Brother Hilton, published a small article in the Ensign for the youth and children called "Take the Gratitude Challenge." He suggested that they should write 100 things they are grateful for. One hundred sounds like a lot, but when I did it, I felt like I could write another 100 things. What made it easier was that he had different categories in units of 10. I loved it so much, that I'm doing it again this year. Once you get started, it's hard to stop because you realize how much you have to be grateful for! It's definitely a good way to count your blessings!

10 physical abilities I am grateful for:

• running
• sleeping
• eating
• smiling
• laughing
• hearing
• seeing
• smelling
• talking
• reading

10 SILLY physical abilities I am grateful for - I decided to skip this category and just add some more to other categories, but it's definitely a fun one for kids!

10 material possessions I am grateful for:

• iPhones
• Yankee candles
• All books
• my wedding ring
• Downeast basics wonder tees
• shoes
• clothes
• watches
• chapstick
• my trusty agenda

10 living people I am grateful for:

• Jesus Christ, the Savior
• Blaine
• Damaris
• Mami
• Tia
• Rue (we treat her like a person, it counts!)
• Papo
• Ulises
• Abuelo
• Eileen
• Keith
• Stacey, Chris, Miles, Tyson, Trey & their future siblings
• Uli & Yuyo
• Bruce
• Poppy & Grandma Sepulveda
• Grandmom & PopPop
• Aunt Jan & Uncle Lynn
• Kristin
• Kimberly & Jonathan
• Mechaella
• Nina & Matt (Luna, too)
• Claudia
• Michele
• Kailyn & Ryan
Do I have to stop? I've been so blessed with so many good friends and family! There are 48 people in total in Blaine's family. So I'm grateful for each and every one of them!

10 deceased people I am grateful for

• Abuela
• Joseph Smith
• George Washington & the rest of the Founding Fathers
• Steve Jobs
• Abinadi
• Pioneers who sacrificed so much for the gospel
• Soldiers who have served our country
• Gordon B. Hinckley
• Isabel Armas Cruz (great grandmother)
• Christopher Columbus
• Jose Marti

Write 10 things about nature you are grateful for

• the warm sun
• sandy beaches with clear blue water
• autumn leaves
• ocean breeze
• flowers of all kinds
• green grass
• butterflies
• majestic mountains
• pine trees
• palm trees

10 things about today I am grateful for

• our upcoming graduation in April
• job offers
• getting new tires on our car
• sleeping-in
• clean drinking water
• I hit my head on a sharp edge and didn't need stitches! (Just have a big bump on my forehead).
• the end of the semester fast-approaching
• Redskins win against the Cowboys! Hail to the Redskins!
• Having family close in Idaho to spend Thanksgiving with
• Phone calls and text messages from friends and family
• double-ovens
• music

10 places on earth I am grateful for

• Miami
• Delaware
• Spain
• Temples
• The Sacred Grove
• Gethsemane
• Cuba
• New York City
• Disney World!
• BYU 
• Provo
• Declo Idaho
• libraries

10 modern inventions I am grateful for

• FaceTime & Skype
• cars
• central air & heating
• computers
• vaccinations
• cellphones
• e-readers
• cameras
• electricity
• modern farming equipment
• dishwashers
• washer & dryer

10 foods I am grateful for

• pastelitos & other bakery goods
• coconut cream pies
• all Cuban food
• Madagascar vanilla bean paste
• CHOCOLATE
• Sonic slushes
• bananas
• cauliflower
• Philly cheesesteaks
• BYU chocolate milk
• arepas
• soup

10 things about the gospel I am grateful for

• the scriptures
• General Conference
• President Monson, our living prophet
• temples
• covenants
• patriarchal blessings
• the priesthood
• eternal families
• service
• the Atonement
• missionary work & those young men and women who serve
• the Holy Ghost
• hymns

How grateful am I for the wonderful life that I have. I feel so blessed on this Thanksgiving Day!

Our Weekend

This weekend was tons of fun. Friday after a taking a test that I was really not looking forward to, Nina and I went to watch Breaking Dawn Part II. She had free tickets that her company gave her. We had assigned seating and we went in the afternoon, so we didn't have to worry about getting there super early and tons of people being there. So I'm not crazy about Twilight, but I read all the books and have watched all the movies. When we were first roommates, Nina made fun of me for reading Twilight. A year ago, she read them and was converted. In Utah, I didn't have any Twilight friends to go watch the movies with, so I'd drag Blaine with me. So I was really happy to finally have a girlfriend to watch it with! I really enjoyed the movie. I hated the last book and I thought they did a much better job in the movie, even though they didn't change the plot.

After the movie, we decided to go to dinner at CPK with Matt and Blaine. Blaine and I love CPK. We had a good time with Matt and Nina. We haven't gone to sit-down restaurants with them as much recently since Nina is pregnant, but she's feeling better and did fine at the restaurant. They were so sweet and treated us to dinner, even though we had a gift card to CPK! We have the best of friends.

After dinner, we headed over to the Riverwoods for their lighting Christmas event. We met up with Jessica and Seth Dunham and walked around looking at all the pretty Christmas lights. We went last year and really enjoyed ourselves. This year was just as nice, but there were so many people there that you could barely walk around without bumping into someone! We stayed for a little white and finally headed home.

Saturday morning, I ran another 5k. It was the Cold Turkey Run hosted by Utah County's Health Department. It was free! They gave us a little bag with a bunch of goodies, but they didn't give us a bib! I care about the bib more than anything else. But anyway, the race was fun. I felt good the entire time, ran the whole way, but did worse than my last 5k. When I saw the time, I was so disappointed. I did 34:42. Lame! But oh well. Next time I'll do better. I don't really train to improve my pace/time, which is probably the reason why my times fluctuate so much. I'm going to start training better this week. Caitlin ran this 5k with us and she did great! It was her first 5k in a while. She kept talking to us the whole time and didn't stop. She has the cutest baby girl, a husband who works like crazy, and now has a little aussie-border collie. She found the time to train and run. Go Cait! Kailyn did great too and her knee seems to be doing just fine. 

These are some pictures that they took of us getting to the finish line. They're not great, but they're worth sharing!  

When we were done, we went to the car because it started raining (perfect timing). We decided to wait for the raffle just in case. Cait won BYU football tickets, I won the gift card to The Roll Up earlier in the week, so we all decided it was time for Kailyn to win something. When we left the car to go hear the raffle, we heard Kailyn's name over the speakers right when we were walking up to the podium area. She won a $25 iTunes gift card! So I guess we all had a pretty lucky week. 

Blaine got an iPhone 5 later than afternoon. I'm SO happy. I've been trying to convert him to Apple for some time now, and he finally made the switch. He is loving it. I don't think he'll ever go back :) He also changed his data plan and now we can use the iPhone as a mobile hot spot. I'm actually writing this while we're on the road to Idaho. Love it! 

Saturday night, we went to SLC to watch Disney On Ice at the Energy Solutions Arena with Jocelyn and Alec. We had tons of fun! It was so magical, like all things Disney. Jocelyn is a fellow Disney enthusiast (or Disney cray cray how she likes to call it). We sang along to all the songs like we were kids. I couldn't get great pictures, but this is one of the It's a Small World segment.

With the nearlyweds!

After Disney On Ice, we went to the Cocoa Bean Cafe for some cupcakes. It was delicious (as always). The Cocoa Bean Cafe will forever remind me of Jocelyn. She had a goal last year to try all of the flavors...and she did! I'm glad that we got to go on a double date with Jocelyn and Alec. Jocelyn is a co-worker but she's become a good friend! I'm so glad we ended up working at Off-Campus Hosing together. And I'm so happy that she found her Mr. Right. I hope we can go on more double dates in the future! 

Sunday, we went to church and had lunch at the Stevenons after. They made yummy fondue! It was SO good. We've been meaning to have a fondue night for a while and never have. The cheese fondue was delicious and so was the steak. We were in charge of bringing different sauces to dip the steak pieces in. It was so much fun. We were so full. We will definitely be doing it again soon and maybe have a chocolate dessert fondue, too! 

Sunday for dinner, Mechaella invited us over to her place for her mom's famous taquitos. Now I understand why they're so famous because they were DELICIOUS. We had a great time with Mechaella, Steve, her brother Mario and sister-in-law Kelly. We played Monopoly Deal, Apples to Apples and Catchphrase after dinner. We laughed so much. It was a fun night and a great Sunday. We were fed twice by our friends! We are so lucky to have them in our lives! I wish I would've taken pictures that day! 

Weekday Tidbits

On Tuesday, I received the great news that I won a $50 gift card to a crepe restaurant called The Roll Up. I never win anything. Never. Ever. So this was so surprising and so cool to me. Around October, The Roll Up had a competition to find new names for some new crepes on their menu. They wanted love-themed names. Blaine & I (mainly Blaine though) came up with a ton of names and submitted them via Facebook. We really had no expectation of winning, even though I thought some of our names were pretty great. I got a Facebook message notifying me that we won and that the name "Nuts for You" was chosen for their peanut butter crepe creation. We love The Roll Up but their crepes are a little pricey for being, well, crepes. But now, we have enough cash to go there until we move at the end of next semester!

On Thursday night, Blaine and I went to our branch's Thanksgiving dinner party with Nina (Matt had a group project to work on at school). We have been attending a Spanish branch since we've moved into our new place. It has been a different experience since it's a branch and it's in Spanish, but we've been enjoying ourselves. The Thanksgiving dinner (or Sanksgiving day cena as our cute branch president says) was a lot nicer than we expected since the majority of the ward is pretty poor, modest, and humble. It was nice to see members come together with their resources, time, and money for this branch activity. Being in the branch helps us practice our Spanish a lot more than we usually would. Having Matt & Nina there was a big incentive for us to go, too. I think we're planning on attending a family English ward once we graduate, but we're enjoying our time in the  Pionero Quinto Rama :)

On Friday at work, we finished our display board. Since we've started working here (Chris, Jocelyn & I were all hired at the same time), we've had a lot of fun designing and putting together this board. This time, we decided to do a Wreck-It Ralph theme. This is probably one of the things I'll miss the most about my job when I graduate (besides my awesome co-workers). We get so into it and it's always a lot of fun. You can't really tell much in this picture, but we tried doing most of the figures pixelated like in the game. I'm dying to see the movie!

Registered

On Tuesday, my sister & I registered for Disney's Princess Half Marathon in February. Crazy. I start training for it the week after Thanksgiving. We are so excited. Our friend Kimberly is running it, too! It's a week after my birthday and we're going to make a small Disney trip out of it with my family. Did I already say how excited we are? I want to be able to run it in like 2 hours-ish so that the day of, we can take (a few) minutes off of our time to take some pictures with the characters along the way and still finish with a decent time. Since I've barely ran 10 minute miles, I need to train a lot harder now. But I'm confident that we can do it! I'm so excited. Disney + running + family = one unforgettable trip.

Can't wait for this beauty to hang on my bib and medal display! 

Dinner at The Chef's Table

Last Monday, we went to The Chef's Table in Orem. I bought a livingsocial deal over the summer for this restaurant and planned on using it for Blaine's birthday. But since he was sick, he didn't want to go. The deal expired this Tuesday so we HAD to go. It was a lot of fun to go out to dinner and get dressed up on a Monday night. We had a great time. We talked a lot, but not about bills or things to do around our place. So it was a nice change because that's what our day-to-day conversation is about (most of the time). 

The view was gorgeous, even though this picture doesn't do it justice. 

All of the food was delicious. I don't remember the names cause it was all fancy. So good.

Our lemon sorbet palette cleanser.
Wish there was more. It was so good. 

Corn chowder

My entree. Some crazy French crab & salmon dish.

Blaine's entree. Pork tenderloins. 

Creme brulee

We had a wonderful time. I told Blaine that this was his birthday dinner, so happy late birthday Blaine! 

This Week

This week seemed to take forever. Kinda. A lot of things happened, both good, not-so-great and just different.

First things first, Obama was re-elected as President. That's all I'm going to say. I might write more on this later. Still debating whether it's a good idea or not...

I also started doing a Lazy Man Ironman through BYU's Wellness program. I have to complete a regular Ironman by November 30th. I'm already falling behind on the amount of miles I should do each week to complete it, but I'm enjoying it a ton! And I will get it done :)

We bought our flights to Miami on Tuesday. YAY! We're so excited to visit warm and sunny Florida for almost 2 weeks, see family, and spend New Year's with them. It's going to be great. 1 month and 14 days till we take off!

Wednesday, Blaine and I went to the temple to do sealings. This was my first time doing sealings and we had the opportunity to seal some of my great-great-grandparents children to them. I actually met one of the people we sealed. He was my great-grandmother's brother. So it was a really nice experience. After the temple, my mom gave me 7 more names of the children in that family. There were 10 in total! I'm excited to work more on my genealogy.

On Friday, Blaine left to San Clemente California for a final interview with a company called Dealersocket. He has been going to a good amount of interviews this semester, mostly for companies in the west (egh :/). But that's understandable since BYU recruits are usually from the area. Anyway, I dropped him off at the airport early Friday morning. It was a weird feeling. Blaine and I are never away from each other and we haven't been on flights without each other since we've been engaged. I almost felt like crying even though I was super excited for him. Maybe I was jealous that he'd be in sunny California and I'd stay in Utah during a crazy snowstorm. But anyway, I didn't hear from him all day. I took the opportunity to deep clean part of our place (it's crazy how much more time it takes me to clean now that we have a bigger home) and that took up most of my day. He came home around 10:30 PM. I couldn't wait to hear all about his interview.

I told Blaine to take pictures and this is the best he could do :)
Waiting to take off in SLC.

He flew into the tiny Long Beach Airport where he was picked up.
San Clemente was about a 40 minute drive away. 

Meanwhile, Rue and I were dealing with the snow. 

A HUGE branch/limb fell in our backyard from the weight of the snow!

Basically, he got a job offer. He had a blast. He was so worried about this interview and he basically hung out with the founders, CEO, COO, and administration of the company. They played a game of PIG in the company's basketball court (and took 2nd place), ate yummy Thai food at a cool restaurant, and toured the building. He also got to ride in a brand new Range Rover and brand new Mercedes ML 63 AMG. It all sounds really stressful, right? I wish all job interviews were like this. Blaine was in corporate heaven.

So this is all very exciting. But the biggest downside of this job is that it's a traveling consulting position. He'd be gone anywhere from 50 to 75% of the time. Yah. Crazy. So he'd train in California for a week. Then, we could live for 6 months anywhere we want and he'd just fly out from there. And then they'd assign him to a region (most likely) in the northeast. Specifically, they're looking to place people in Philadelphia, Boston and New York City. Philly would be cool cause Blaine's parents are close by. Boston would be cool because Brian and Kim are an hour and 45 minutes away and Boston is just cool. And New York City is New York City. Come on. But really, I'm still not excited about Blaine traveling all the time. No matter how cool a city is, it can't replace Blaine. Also, even though all these cities are happening and I love them, it is no secret that I would move to Florida in a heart beat if we could. So we have some time to think about it. Lots of prayers are needed!

Saturday was a good day. I spent the day cleaning some more and Blaine caught up on homework. It snowed a ton Friday and even more Saturday so we stayed indoors most of the day. At night, we went to Texas Roadhouse with Ryan and Kailyn for dinner. After, we went to Comedy Sportz. It was so much fun. We have only been there once before and it was with the Slaughs. Basically, its an improv show much like Who's Line is it Anyway?. I was laughing the whole time. And when you're laughing all the time, there was no room in my brain to think about anything else. It was such a stress-reliever. My throat, stomach and face hurt from laughing so much. We love hanging out with the Slaughs. It was a great night. We definitely want to go back again soon!

Love these guys!

So that was our week. Now that I look at it, there was a lot more good than bad happen. It's just that a lot of changes will be happening soon and it's crazy scary at times! Anyway. This week looks pretty busy, too. We have some midterms and papers due, but we're also busy with cool date nights and activities planned! We have 5 weeks of school left (4 of classes and finals week). I have to get through this week and then next Monday afternoon, we'll be off to Idaho for Thanksgiving! So technically, one of our school weeks is while we're on vacation. The semester is almost, practically over. Even though I'm doing well in my classes (possibly the best I've done at BYU), I'm tired! But the end is near! Thank goodness!

Run for Rachel

 Last Saturday, I ran another 5k with Kailyn. She was supposed to run Operation Smile with me and Mechaella, but her knee was hurting really bad since our 1st 5k in September. She invited me to run this 5k with her, regardless of how her knee was feeling. This 5k was for Rachel Stratton, a 17 year-old senior at Orem High that has been recently diagnosed with a brain tumor, specifically a tumor on her brain stem. She has been best friends with Kailyn's little sister forever. I had been slacking on running for 2 weeks and really wasn't up for it, but how can you say no? Also, if Kailyn was going to be running it with her messed-up knee, I knew I could do it too.

It was pretty chilly Saturday morning. When we arrived at the high school, it was in the 30s. Crazy. But once we started running, it wasn't that bad. This was the first 5k that I really didn't walk any of it. I stopped a couple of seconds to check on Kailyn or to get back on pace together, but that was about it. Also, this was my first 5k where I felt that I could've continued running once it was over. I wasn't exhausted and felt great. And Kailyn did great, too! Her knee did much better than she thought. I guess this means that we can run more 5ks together! :)

I finally beat my best time: my first 5k I ran it in 32:08, second 5k - 36:14, third 5k - 35:40 and now I ran this 5k in 30:57! Now I have a new time to beat! I'm finally getting closer to that 10-minute mile. It definitely helped that Rachel was running the 5k and was ahead of us the whole time. It also helped that Kailyn's mom ran it, too, and kept a steady pace in front of me. I can only hope to be running at her age!

We forgot to take a picture together,
so a picture of my bib will have to do. 

Afterwards, Kailyn treated me to a yummy french toast breakfast at Kneaders! I hadn't been since we've been back. Kneaders is one of those places that I'll definitely miss if/when we leave Utah. Since Blaine was working and Ryan was studying for the LSAT, it was the perfect opportunity to have some girl time. I'm so glad that Ryan married a girl that I can actually be friends with. Since we've been married and since I've been in Utah, it has been hard to find couples to hang out with. Sometimes, I like the girl but Blaine doesn't like the boy and vice versa. To find a couple that we each get along with is great. But when one of Blaine's friends marries a girl that actually becomes my good friend, it's a blessing. I'm so grateful for my friendship with Kailyn! Unfortunately, I know that law school and life after graduation will probably pull us in different directions. I'll miss her more than I''ll miss Kneaders!

It was a great Saturday morning. Even though this is ambitious, I'm going to try to improve my time on my next 5k (Provo's Cold Turkey Run against smoking) on November 17th. It's free and you can still sign up!