mi padre

Today is Father's Day. This is me with my dad last year:

My dad's pretty fabulous. He's a great example of a hard worker and a good, strong, reliable, and generous man who I look up to a lot. In the recent years, I've grown to realize really how impressive my dad is because of his willingness to do the right thing even when he may not want to or even when he definitely won't get credit for it. He's very admirable.

Happy Father's Day, Dad! I love you!

turns out not where but who you're with that really matters

 I've mentioned it before, but it's worth repeating. I have the greatest friends ever. Story:

A little over two years ago, I was apartment hunting with my best friend and roommate Jaime and our good friend Leah, who we met in the MTC. Our group started out as five but over time, it had come down to just the three of us, which was fine with me since I didn't know the other two girls anyway. We'd narrowed our options down to two and Leah came over one day so we could all go look at the two apartments and decide. She got to our house and said something along the lines of "Have either of you looked at the Omni? I just drove past it on my here and it looks nice." We hadn't thought about it or looked at it so we decided to go by and check it out before going to see the other two. It was a cold, rainy February day and as the three of us stepped into that first apartment at the Omni, we were sold. It was a nice place and we all just felt really, really good about it. We called the next day and snagged the last few open spots.

A couple of months later, Leah announced that she was engaged and getting married in August. We were supposed to move in in August. Read: she's not moving in. So it was back to just Jaime and me. By the end of the summer, Jaime had an opportunity to go play basketball at a college in Wyoming (pretty much her life dream....except not the Wyoming part) and she finally decided to go up there for the year. That left me. For whatever reason, Heavenly Father wanted me in this ward, in this apartment so badly that he gave all three of us a for sure yes to ensure that I'd be here. I always assumed it was because I'd meet me husband here. I was wrong. But I did meet these incredible, life-changing friends. I realized recently that this is the longest time that I've been actively friends with a group of people since high school. Did that sentence make sense? I mean, we've been friends now for almost two years and that hasn't happened to me in a long time. I usually move or things change somehow. But these girls have pulled me out of some pretty dark places without even realizing it and have made my life an absolute delight. I don't have a boyfriend, but I never feel unloved thanks to these ladies. I'm so grateful for a Heavenly Father who loved me enough to send me to a place where I would find some of the best friends I've ever had. And I'm grateful to the incredible women who rose to the challenge and continue to impress me every day.

This is what we do all the time.

This is what we do when Jason takes our picture.

Everybody!

This young boy inspires me for a variety of reasons:

1. He saw the challenge and took care of it like no one's business.
2. He cares about others and seeks their happiness and success.

3. He is a fat little boy with a lisp. Those are my favorite kind of little boys. He could only be improved if he had glasses. I'm choosing to believe that he does but took them off for the bike lesson so as to not damage them should he fall off the bike.

4. He wears a helmet for safety. I think thousands of other cyclists and motorcyclists should follow suit. In fact, I think it should be a law. As my good friend Jaime argued, if it's a law to wear a seat belt, it should be a law to wear a helmet.

Young sir, I, too, am very happy of yourself.

Rock and roll.

my beloved alma mater

I'm warning you now: this is a complaining post. And it's about BYU. If that hurts your feelings, stop reading.

I am so sick of BYU. Two weeks from yesterday, I will be done with classes there forever. Today I told Jaime on the phone that after I graduate, I refuse to step foot on that campus ever again. If someone has some kind of event there, I won't go. So all you Provo friends, if you love me and you want  me at your wedding reception, don't have it at BYU.

To be fair, I should specify the things that I'm sick of. Because it's not everything. I guess it's a fine school. I've had several years there and I actually have had one or two (or more...fine.) good experiences there. But lately the bad is outweighing the good. Allow me to elaborate.

1. Parking
Parking during fall and winter semesters is impossible. If you don't get there before 8, you should go ahead and expect to be following pedestrians very slowly as they walk out to their car so you can take their parking spot. The most glorious part of taking spring classes (because there's not very much that's glorious about taking classes when you should be out enjoying the summer) is that parking is so much better. There's a fraction of the people on campus so you can find a pretty decent spot at any time of day.

NOT TODAY. (If you were wondering, I just pounded that into my keyboard. Good thing my computer's young and new and can take that kind of abuse.)

I got to school today at 9:45. My class is at 10. I've gotten to school later than that this term and found a spot without a problem and still made it to class on time. Not today. The last couple of weeks, they've had about 3/4 of the parking lot blocked off so they can redo the tree planters in the parking lot. Umm...first of all, just take the tree planters out. They take up space that could be another much-needed parking spot. I don't need greenery in my parking lot. Second of all, I do not believe that you need to block off a couple hundred (that may be an exaggeration, but if it is, it's only a slight one) spots to work on maybe 10 planters which are about the size of half of one spot. When I got there today, it was as bad as it has ever been. Not only did they have 3/4 of the main lot blocked off, two of the three smaller side lots were completely blocked. No pasar. And if you were wondering...I saw three construction men working on one planter. The other 199 spots they'd blocked off? Totally necessary. Obviously.

So I spent about ten minutes driving around, with the other hopeless drivers in my position, hoping I'd happen upon someone who was leaving. No such luck. So I left and went to the parking lot on the other side of campus next to the Marriot Center which is never full. Not today. I don't know what was going on there today but it was competely full. And I was completely livid. So I drove back to the other spot and was able to catch someone who was leaving. Of course I did--my class had already started by that point. So my earliness this morning was for naught. I was still late. That'll teach me to try to be a good, punctual student. Or maybe that will just teach me to expect BYU to do something logical, such as only block off the needed spots or wait to do it until later in the day when everyone's gone. Silly me.

2. Umm..I can't remember. I got so worked up about the parking situation today that I just lumped it in with the other things I hate about BYU but now I can't remember what they are. I guess that's better. Maybe I should try to do a gratitude post so I can improve my very negative attitude about my school.

Not today.