I have seen the moon do this before with a ring of light around it but never the sun. It was amazing and I really like the two spots of rainbow at each side. This was taken in the Walmart parking lot before I went in. Just a sprinkling of love from God I call it. :)Well I was going to begin with a title but I think I'll put that at the end when I see what I write about. I think I should update everyone on my life. Still much the same as the last time I wrote. I am skimping out an A in almost every class, except for two but one is really close. I have a feeling by the time the semester is really over, I won't be loving all the As cause I'll probably only have one. And that will probably will be in accounting. Good thing I'm majoring in that class. And work is getting more strict on doing work cause of the budget cuts. Oh this darn economy. I have been wanting to write for a while though on how grateful I am to be alive during this time and to be in the point of life that I'm in. I am interested in a lot of things and like to learn about this wonderful and diverse world but don't have the time to learn on my own. So I'm glad I'm in college where the events of the world are discussed in classes, church, and then even brought to my apartment to be discussed between us roommates. I am grateful to have roommates that I can talk to about the spiritual as well as worldly side of life.
The usual scene in our apartment, everyone on their laptops, the new age of college life.And we all learn from each other and our different backgrounds, perspectives and even ways of thinking.
At our combined 2nd ward FHE, we had to make the best turkey on our tables with coloring pencils. Happy Thanksgiving!Tonight we were all in the car, except Whitney, but we had another friend along and I had said something that was a little flowing and clever I guess and one of my roommates said, that's a good sentence, and then she laughed and said, I always think of the world in sentences, when I hear words put together, I'm like wow, that's a really good sentence. She's an english secondary education major. And then my biology major roommate pops up and says that she thinks about things in the word as if in hypotheses, making theories and such about things. And me, being an accounting major pipes up and I say that I am always adding or subtracting numbers when I see them, seeing how I can do a math equation when I look at the time or whatever.
Each of us with our stockings that we decorated, l-r: Whitney Hansen, Cari Chapman, Shelby Fisher, Kelsey McRae, and me, Margo Anderson. Jon, Whitney's boyfriend is useful for something, taking pictures of all of us.And our other roommate who is in marching band and really involved with drumline and such, even though she's an elementary education major, we asked her how she "views" the things of the world and she said she sees it in the way things flow together and is analyzing the different instruments she hears when she listens to music. She said she can't study with music on cause she just gets too engrossed in it instead of her studies. By the way, I have 4 roommates so that's only 3 of them. The other roommate is a music education major and she is also very involved with drumline. Our apartment brings quite the diversity, covering almost all subjects and its fun with accounting, biology, music, english, and education majors. We have our laughs and our bonding times and its fun.
We also had a small thanksgiving dinner for our apartment, it was really good!!
I was finishing the leftover potatoes with the serving spoon.
Jon, Whitney's boyfriend, with the pecan pie she made. Thanks Grandma for the pecans, they made the pie delicious. I guess he's sad cause he can't have any, probably doesn't like it.I went on a double date last Friday, my date was my home teacher. haha, he's a fun guy and I've known him for year now...it was good to get out and to feel like I'm attractive to someone. But he goes on dates every weekend so its not like he's interested in me and I'm perfectly fine with that. I'm still not ready for marriage and kids and even a boyfriend right now. I can barely take care of my own self with my busy schedule, to have to think about someone else would definitely not go so well right now. So for the date we went geocaching and out to dinner. But before that I went to NAU's annual Christmas tree lighting and sang carols to the audience there with the institute choir. It was enjoyable.
My roommate Kelsey and I before caroling at the Christmas tree lighting.Randon, my date, along with the other couple picked me up from that and we went to Granny's Closet, a neat restaurant even though the nachos I ordered weren't the best. We had one of those curtain type booths, where you're in the corner and you can pull the curtain and be all secluded. We didn't but the thought of it is cool. After that we headed out in Randon's truck to find at least one geocache. What an adventure!! So we were going on this dirt road forever, Andrew (the other guy), his GPS only had the major highways and interstates loaded onto it so we had to look on a physical map to find little roads we could take. To make a long story short, we finally got out of the truck when the road was too rough to traverse and though the GPS said the geocache was only 1 mile away, ha as the crow flies, we actually hiked 2.8 miles to get to it.
The double date: Me, Randon, Andrew and Alex. Surprised a timed picture turned out so well.And get this, we didn't get out of the truck and start hiking till 10 PM. And this is in Flagstaff, meaning cold AZ weather. His truck thermometor read 27 degrees when we got out. I can only imagine it got colder.
There was snow up here!! It had snowed the weekend of Michael's wedding, the first snow of the season and I was at home. :( Plenty more to come though. 
This is IT!! Its like an old army ammo case or something, you can see how it was hidden well in the boulders/rocks.
Here's the log book, we wrote: Went on a date and hiked up the mountain. Got here at 11 PM. I'm not sure what else it says, Andrew wrote it.We finally found it, and it was neatly hidden in some rocks. There were some cute things in there, liking coloring books, a little children's book...we left 3 sugar packets and a little box of matches I had from eating at Josephine's restaurant with my friend Alyce about two or more months ago. We didn't get to the geocache until 11 PM and we had to hike back too. Come to find out, we probably could have driven to it cause it was in a camp site called Lockett Meadow. The hike was a good time though. And we even saw an old man bicyclist at about 8 PM when we were driving down a remote dirt road, talk about dedicated. I wonder if he has a wife or if he's that lonely. I hope not, old couples are so cute. And we also got pulled over when we were getting onto highway 89. We were stopped too long before turning right onto the highway and somehow this police car with blinding red and blue lights was behind us. Oh the adventures of life.
So I'm just trying my darndest to enjoy the little moments of life. I'm grateful to be healthy, to eat so healthy. I've been eating lots of fruits and as many as the small variety of vegetables I like. I wash my hands often, especially before eating, and try to drink lots of water. So far I have not gotten sick, thank goodness. I'm also grateful that my family is healthy, especially dad. Me and mom were talking and I was saying that her and dad were so blessed to have Dad's well paying job and to have all the long term sick leave hours that he has that they've had an income while he has been recovering and not able to work. And you know, the greatest thing happened, I was saying my prayers one night and all I did was say how grateful I was for every little thing I have, naming as many as I could. I am in a better mood and better attitude. Elder Bednar in last General Conference talked about prayer and he said to regularly give prayers of only gratitude and it will bless your life. Elder Bednar, you speak the truth, as well as all the other general authorities.
I'm also grateful for the gospel I have been committed to and baptized into. I looked up gospel in the bible dictionary and it states that gospel means good news. The good news is that Jesus Christ has made a perfect atonement for mankind that will redeem all mankind from the grave and reward each individual according to his/her works. The gospel truly is that. The gospel is full of knowledge that can be attained by diligent searching. And now we even have LDS.org to go to as another resource, that's like having a general authority constantly in your home. I am grateful to slowly understand and be tried and tested again and again to see if what I know and have learned is really ingrained into my soul. Some lessons have to be relearned but its marvelous to see the difference in myself from fully embracing what I learn.
I'm grateful for the scriptures. I'm still falling in love with them. If I was in love with them, I would wake up early to read them in the morning and make time during the day or at night to study them again. But I have learned that the stories and lessons in them are so interesting and beneficial to my life. I'm studying the Old Testament and actually understanding how all the random pieces of information I've heard all my growing up years, are now fitting perfectly together. I'm glad to have other resources to help, like the Institute Old Testament Manual, that is pretty much attached to my Bible. It is also amazing to me how all the subjects I am attending at school and my scripture and now/today revelation are bouncing off one another. I learn something in one class then two weeks later a different class discusses or brings up the same topic. Its marvelous, I love learning. And that is also what I have learned, I love to learn things, I don't necessarily like to learn many many things all at once and be tested on my memory skills. I'm glad I have eternity cause I'm looking forward to learning all that I want at my own pace...AFTER I graduate college that is. :D
Its about darn time to wrap this thing up. Work and school tomorrow like always, the day starting before 8 AM...and oh my, I have an extremely difficult math test tomorrow, how am I preparing...I'm not. I'll go over my notes a little tomorrow before class but I don't think I would acquire any more knowledge if I did more than that. Best of luck to that strategy. Hope you enjoy the pictures and the thoughts on my trying-to-be-optimistic mind.
