Groovy

I bought myself a pair of bell bottoms yesterday and I looove them! I've always loved 70's style and have been wanting a pair of these forever. Flared jeans do things for your hips that skinny jeans could never accomplish.

Whenever I have a bad day, I just go to the Puppy Barn and it makes everything better. How can you not be happy while holding a St. Bernard puppy, I mean just look at that little guy! They are all so precious, fluffy and cute.

Shlebbbyy and Scott. Nathan and I went and hung out at their apartment last week and tried to walk across their new slack line. Or balancing strap as I like to call it, haha. I don't think I will be joining the tight rope walkers league anytime soon, needless to say. We did all have a handstand contest as well which is something I can at least somewhat compete in. Pretty much it looked like we had a circus going on their front lawn all night, it was fun.

In all my years of riding I have never been bucked off, I've had some close calls but have never actually been ejected from the saddle. This little son of a gun however thought he'd get wise and try to kick me off, but I am proud to say I held on for dear life and managed to stay in the saddle. My heart wouldn't stop pounding for about 10 minutes afterward. I don't know how those rodeo bronc riders do it.

Whelp. This post was mainly just a jumble of complete random thoughts, but I felt the urge to document. I'm about to start my three shifts for the week and so I'll be MIA from all human contact outside the rehab for a few days. Here's to hoping you all have a good week!

Kauai

My parents are obsessed with Kauai. They've probably been 7 times in the last 15 years. This summer my mom decided to rent a beach house and bring along the ENTIRE family. Like there was seriously 18 of us in one house, sharing two bathrooms and only four beds, hahaha. My uncle and sister's boyfriend slept outside in their hammocks strung between palm trees and my brothers slept on the couches and Nathan and I had an air mattress so it all worked out pretty good. Plus who the heck cares when you're in Kauai anyway, right?

The first thing we did upon arrival was stop at L&L for a little late night Hawaiian BBQ. This is my brother's favorite spot. It is kind of sketchy but we like it. There's actually an L&L in Provo, which is weird because seriously the only L&L's I know of are in Hawaii... and then Provo? Interesting. Fun fact, I ate Christmas Eve dinner here when I was 16 years old on our last trip.

Our beach house was on Anini Beach which is just BEAUTIFUL, and it was only like 100 steps away from the ocean.

Here it is, Anini Beach :) it is protected by a coral reef and so the waves break about 200 yards from the beach, so the water is always really calm.

And this, my friends, is the view from our bathroom. Isn't that incredible! It looks like a scene from Jurassic Park, or like the Garden of Eden. Probably more Jurassic Park though because they actually did film those movies on this island!

So many beautiful sights to see! Kauai is so diverse, one side of the island is completely tropical, and is one of the top ten wettest places on the planet. Then on the opposite side of the island it's like a desert, more hot, dry and brown. You can drive around the entire thing in 2.5 hours. I think I would get island fever really bad if I ever lived here. It may be paradise but I think I'd feel kind of trapped just driving around the same island around and around all day.

We boogie boarded all day, e'rrrry day. We went around to as many different beaches as possible. There's this one place called Polihale that has these incredible waves! In the winter time when the waves are bigger they seriously get to be like 20 feet high. In the summertime they're not quite as high but man they are powerful! I pretty much got eaten alive by this one wave and it dragged me across the ocean floor, filling my swimsuit with all this sand, and then it sucked my goggles off! Then as I washed onto shore, face down, legs all scraped up, another wave came and got me! I felt like I was in a washing machine, getting spun around out of control by the power of this wave.

Here's me after getting eaten by the ocean. My hair and swimsuit were soooo full of sand it was ridiculous. Don't mind my legs, apparently I only believe in applying sunscreen on like two spots on my legs, haha.

One day we went on this very muddy ATV adventure with my sister and her boyfriend! The tour was on this ranch where they filmed Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park, so we got to see some of those sites!

Here's one of those monster waves I was telling you about! Hahah this video cracks me up.

This was the view from our favorite smoothie stand! Can you imagine this being your view at work everyday?

No trip to Kauai would be complete without eating at Bubba's Burgers. I think we ate there like 5 times. It's too delicious to miss.

Me and Mo.

Boone on the plane ride home. All those hats have got to go somewhere, and they weren't all fitting in the suitcases, sooo....

Plumerias! Oh how I wish we could grow these trees in Utah, aren't they so beautiful? One thing about Kauai is there are flowers everywhere. It seems like everything has a flower on it.

My favorite part I think was the beach by our house! I loved just sitting in my Tommy Bahama chair, toes in the sand, reading a book and watching all the little crabs scurry around.

It was a shame we had to come home! I did miss our air conditioned apartment though, so in that regard, it is good to be back. Nobody in Kauai believes in air conditioning apparently.

And that concludes our Kauai adventures! Thank you and goodnight.

Vienna

I've always considered myself a 90 year old trapped in a much younger body. Which explains why I love being a gerontology nurse so much. Those old people are my crew. 

Anyway that paragraph was just a roundabout way of me saying I love oldies music.

And right now this song is really speaking to me.

This year has been very challenging and difficult for me. I wrote a while ago about how I've been struggling with anxiety and depression. It truly is the plague of our generation.

Mentally and physically I've been really worn out. Worn down to the last fraying threads. It's hard to keep up in today's society. There is a lot expected of us young people. Gone are the days where you married your high school sweetheart, got a job and settled down in a cute little home in a cute little neighborhood. Things are more complicated than that. 

I guess I've just got too caught up in all the complications of life. The competition of life. Maybe these struggles I've been facing are God's way of saying ....You gotta slow down.

What I really mean is every time I start to feel a little bit better I try to take on way too much, and then God has to tug at me a little bit and bring me back down to earth and say 'Hey, you're doing too much right now.'

Why can't I own a house, have a career, be pregnant, rich and have finished my college degree all at 23?

HA. I mean when I write it out in a sentence like that it sounds kind of ludicrous but when you compare yourself to everyone else it seriously seems like you have to be at that point in life in your early twenties.

At the beginning of the summer we were honestly shopping for a house, I was in school full time, both of us working full time (actually me working tons of overtime), and planning starting a family. Not to mention still going to the gym multiple times a week and continuing my barrel racing lessons. And of course there's church obligations, and social obligations.

I mean my goodness. That's too much for any one person to handle.

I've crashed and burned again and God has looked me square in the eye and made it obvious to me that my plans right now aren't his plans. In a loving way, of course.

Slow down, you crazy chid.

You're so ambitious for a juvenile

But then if you're so smart, then tell me

Why are you still so afraid?

Where's the fire, what's the hurry about?

You'd better cool it off before you burn it out

You've got so much to do

And only so many hours in a day

But you know that when the truth is told

That you can get what you want or you get old

You're gonna kick off before you even

Get halfway through

When will you realize, Vienna waits for you

Too bad, but it's the life you lead
You're so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need
Though you can see when you're wrong
You know you can't always see when you're right

Slow down you crazy child
Take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while
It's alright, you can afford to lose a day or two (oooh)
When will you realize... Vienna waits for you?

What's been happening this summer...

Unless you have simultaneously worked full time while also taking over 10 credits of class work then you have no idea what a terribly crappy situation that is.

My entire summer has pretty much consisted entirely of working and learning chemistry. It's been a real bore.

With that said I have found a few spare minutes to attend several fun engagements with friends and family.

For instance one of my best friends, Tara got married and had her reception in my parent's back yard! It was the cutest little backyard wedding there ever was. Cold Stone even showed up and fed us ice cream! How cool is that. There's something about white tents and glowing strings of yellow lights that speaks magic to my soul. Add some jazz music and BAM. That's a good time.

I had the privilege of doing the flowers for her wedding. Floral arranging is very therapeutic. I wish I could make a full time job of it, but for some reason I ended up being a nurse, whoops.

My BFF Shelby.

This is pretty much the crew we run around with these days - Tara & Clark and Shelby & Scott. Here we are on a sketchy hiking adventure up the Three Bears Trail at Wildwood. There used to be this elderly man who groomed and took care of the trail but he's now passed on and let's just say the trail has become REALLY run down since then. We still made it to the top however and had a jolly good time. 

We've gone to several rodeos and I finally fulfilled my lifelong dream of attending Spanish Fork's Fiesta Days. It did not disappoint.

And Strawberry Days is always a must. It just isn't summer without a cup of strawberries and cream while being crowded amongst hundreds of sweaty people to watch a rodeo.

I can always count on this girl for any type of country adventures! Be it the rodeo, a campfire or a horseback ride. Love ya Ash.

We also went to Hawaii back in July, but I felt that called for its own post. So more on those adventures soon.

Just writing this post has made me realize I've had more fun this summer than I've thought. The fact that it's coming to a close seems so crazy (but when does it not?). Nathan and I have a lot of changes in our lives happening soon and I'm trying to hold on to any last thread of normalcy that I can, but I'm afraid with the close of summer comes with it the close of life as I've known it for the past 3.5 years. 

More on that later. Peace out friends.

Poolside Chillin'

My lovely friend Tara is getting married this week and so last weekend we threw her a bachelorette party at the Little America in Salt Lake for her one last hoorah as a single woman.

Just look at this pool.

It was nice to relax and swim and then go order a bunch of room service and pig out on cheesecake and other various desserts with just the girls! Even though we were only a half an hour away from home it felt like we were on a legit vacation. 

Speaking of vacations I have quite a few things I want to go do this summer. I mean, I always have a list, but I'd really like to check some of the things off of it this year. For one, I've been dying to go camping at Goblin Valley. I also have this weird desire to go hang out in Las Vegas for a weekend, even though I don't gamble. But I DO enjoy a good buffet, so Las Vegas seems like a good place.

Only had to work half of a shift today! Nice to come home at a semi-decent hour. Too bad I don't get that set up every day.

Most days I show up to work and it's like this:

....and then I'm there until like midnight.

Good thing I like my job.

We have big news! We are moving. After three straight years of living in the exact same basement apartment we are looking for a new place. As much as I've loved our cute little neighborhood, it's time we found a bigger space with preferably some windows and a yard. Please and thank you.