My 21st Summer Comes to a Close

Summer always seems to go by so quickly! It feels like there isn't any time between the professor handing out a final and handing out a syllabus! My summer was, however, very great! The past couple of weeks have been busy but so much fun! Hours and hours were spent at the county fair this year-running ribbons to the exhibitors of the Junior Livestock show, weighing in pigs, lambs and steers, taking money from generous people donating to the Jr. Livestock program and a few other responsibilities. All in all it was a great time, as it always is at the fair. I was able to go up to the Franklin and Rich County Fairs as well, which were both a lot smaller than Cache's, but still a lot of fun. My new roommate, Shelly, was the judge for all 3 shows at Rich, and her brother was the judge for the pigs and sheep in Franklin so we went up to watch them. They're talented livestock judgers and I think the kids learned a lot from them.

Earlier this week I had the opportunity of joining the Sky View FFA Chapter Officers on their summer leadership retreat to Bear Lake. It brought back memories of my own time as an officer at Sky View and how fun of a time it was. The 2009-2010 team is going to do a great job and I'm so excited for them to get the year started and "Lead out Loud".

I was checking out Mandy's blog today and watched a couple of videos that she posted. The church has a little thing called "Mormon Messages" on Youtube and I think they're great ways to share messages of the gospel. I really appreciated those videos today and with school starting in less than a week it's good to be reminded of the things that help us become who we want to be.

Each day we have a million little choices to make. Hopefully we are directing our lives in a manner in which we can be led to make the right choices. I feel like I have a few big things coming up in my life right now and it gives me so much comfort to know that I'm being watched over as long as I'm doing all I can to be the best that I can be.

What are you grateful for?

A couple of days ago I was thinking about how many things that I have going on in my life that give me reason to be a very happy and content person. So I thought I'd list a few.

1. An amazing family.
I would venture to guess that most people are pretty satisfied with their family. I for one definitely am! I really can't ask for a better set of parents or siblings. I am so grateful for the memories that I've been able to make and continue to make with my younger brother and 3 older sisters, along with their great hubbies. I also have a hilarious nephew and an adorable niece. What a blessing it is to have family! Although half of them are spread out across the world (literally) I still love the phone conversations, random facebook chats and the occasional email.

2. Great friends.
Some people get pretty lucky when it comes to the friends that they have and I can happily say that I am one of them! I really do have the best friends in the world and I am so grateful for the examples they continuously set for me. Happy times, funny times, hilarious times, sad times, stressful times...you name it, we've had them.

3. The Church.
I love that each Sunday I can leave the cares of the world outside and focus on the things that are really important for a few hours with no distractions. I have the wonderful opportunity to be serving in the Relief Society presidency and it has been such a blessing. The love that is there for each of the sisters is incredible and I love the camaraderie between each of us. I love that I have a family who is strong in the gospel and a father and brother who hold the priesthood. We are truly blessed to have such an amazing church in our lives.

4. Being apart of the National FFA Organization.
I can honestly say that without the guidance that I have received from being apart of this organization I would not be the person I am today. I have learned so much about myself and others through the experiences and trainings that I have had. I have spent hundreds of hours dedicating my life to it and it has truly been a rewarding 5 years. I truly hope that I will be able to serve the organization for another year as a national officer, however I do know that whatever the Lord has in store for me is the right thing. I am working as hard as I can and will do so all the way until the week of interviews and that is all I can do. If I do my best and still don't make it, then I will know that it isn't where I am supposed to be at that time. If nothing else, I have grown so much as a person solely from the preparation.

5. Living in a BEAUTIFUL place.
I live in such an amazing valley. Utah State, beautiful canyons, rivers to float down and fish on, mountains to ride horses in, all the necessities...it really is a great place to live. Not to mention that there are so many great people everywhere you go.

These are only 5 things that make me so ridiculously happy. But I hope that you try to find the things that make you happy each day. Remember back to President Eyerings talk in General Conference when he challenged us to find the hand of God in each day and to write it down. You'd be surprised how many things you're grateful for when you have to really think about it. Try it, I dare you!

Publish Post

Help!

So I know how to do posts and how to leave comments, but I have no idea how to add followers or become a follower or any of that stuff for other people's blogs...and I would love to know how! If anyone could help me out in this department, it would be greatly appreciated :) Thanks!

Megs

Lanae's Farewell Party

One of my best friends, Lanae, is leaving for her mission to Scotland in just over a week. A couple Sundays ago we had a goodbye party for her before she moved back home to Idaho. Lanae is going to be an awesome missionary and we're all so excited for her, even though it will be sad not to have her around!
Amy and I thought we'd be clever and make our own ice cream cake. It was so easy and everyone loved it!
The all-time best part of the night was probably the prank that the kids across the street played on us. They were just kidding but it sure gave us a good laugh!


Good luck to Lanae! We know the people of Scotland will love that little dairy farmer from Idaho!

Manti Weekend

A couple of weeks ago some friends and I headed down to Manti to watch the Pageant and just play for the weekend. Our friend Amy is from the area so we stayed at her house. It was quite the campout we had! Her brother goes to BYU and brought along some friends as well, so all together there were 20 people staying at her house! The Washburn family was so generous to let so many college kids take over their home! Not only were they happy to cook us meals, they kept us entertained by letting us use their horses and four wheelers all day Saturday!


The Pageant is quite the little experience, to say the least. Hehe. Considering the script was written in the 60's I guess I'll give them some slack. :) Words like "eutopia" and "interum" were commonplace and although the play was even humorous in parts, it was still a fun time with the friends. We were able to get excellent parking thanks to my gimp-ness on crutches! They let us right in to the handi capped parking which was only 100 yards or so away from the chairs!

I was looking down at this newspaper they handed out and saw this little girl in the picture. When I looked up and over, I saw the very same girl standing up on a chair in the very same hoodie! So we got a couple of the boys to go get her autograph. It made her night!



We went back to Wales to spend the night and woke up the next morning ready for some fun! We spent almost all day Saturday playing outside, which is just fine by me!



We rode the 4-wheelers for a good couple of hours and just kept going and going up this mountain. It's just an area that people summer their cattle so there are trails everywhere but no one to bother you. We finally stopped and took a picture at the top overlooking three different vallies. It was such a pretty ride.


Amy's family has a small herd of hereford cattle (which the Peterson family is a little partial to I'd say) so they keep a few horses around. I was lucky enough to be put on the crazy one since I was the only one who had done much riding. It was a fun challenge! By the time we were out of the corrall the horse and I were buds and he was great for me the rest of the time...well most of the time :)
We had an awesome time riding horses and 4-wheeling and none of us wanted to leave, but all good weekends must come to an end!

A Little Catching Up To Do!

The past little while has been pretty busy for me, so I haven't spent time updating my blog at all! Since my last post was about running for National Office, I guess I better share the news! I was able to receive the candidacy as Utah's Candidate, which means I will be representing the state at the National Convention in Indianapolis in October. It's a pretty rigorous process but I'll keep you updated! I'm going to post about the 4th of July but stay in tuned for more posts on my other fun weekend adventures so far this summer!

I love the month of July. I love the fireworks, picnics and warm weather! This past 4th of July weekend was especially fun, and I don't think I could have topped Friday. It started out by going fishing with a good friend first thing in the morning. Afterwords we had a fun family picnic at Mack Park.

It's such a fun park and days like that make me so grateful to live where I do. We spent quite a few hours just sitting around and chatting, playing a little baseball, and watching Landon and Clay wrestle :) I think it surprised Clay that Landon could almost take him! It used to be that Clay could flip him around in 2 seconds flat! I think we can all agree that Landon is turning into quite the strong, and handsome, I might add, young man.



Ella and Dylan are such fun little kids to be around. I never get bored when I'm with them, that's for sure! It's been such a fun summer getting to know their little personalities more and more. Grandma is so fun with them too. She just loves her little grandkids!!




After a fun time with the family at the park, I headed off to a BBQ with a bunch of friends. We had a good time watching the fireworks at Romney Stadium.



After the fireworks 3 of my friends and I headed up High Creek Canyon for a campout. My friend and I set up camp the night before so we had a nice place reserved and ready to go! I'm pretty sure it's the nicest little campspot in the whole valley! We were very proud :)

Our friend Kyle had a very clever little way to cook breakfast. Toaster's Strudel in a Coleman Toaster. Who'd of thought?

We woke up the next morning and went on a drive to the trailhead of the High Creek Lake hike, which is SO beautiful. Angela used to take me up there when I was in Jr. High and let me tell you, it is gorgeous!

Smelling like campfire, looking like hobos, and wearing really cute clothes, we headed over to the little fair at Lewiston. They've always had a fun 4th celebration. That night we went out again for the fireworks and then the weekend was over! All in all it was one of the funnest 4th holidays I've had yet!

Having a Destination AND the Drive to get there

In preparation of running for National Office, I've been doing a little bit of soul searching to really find out what makes me happy, why I want to serve the FFA for another year, and what skills I can develop to help me do so. At one of our conferences this past year our trainer, Andrew McCrea, was a past national officer who is now a well known public speaker and radio show host for "American Countryside". He gave each of us a book that he wrote, entitled, "Making Molehills out of Mountains". I've had it since December but came upon it a week ago and began reading it. I had been missing out! This book has a lot of really neat insights on how to learn leadership strategies that reduce your work without reducing your goal, how to inspire individuals to personal and team success, and getting more out of life by making "quality investments" in family, faith, work, and friends.

I came across a section that really struck me for some reason, so I thought I'd share it. He started out with a story about accidentally taking the wrong road and heading miles and miles in the wrong direction in his upgraded rental Mustang. When he realized he was going the wrong way, he knew he had to turn around. It didn't matter how pretty the day was or how fast he could go in the convertible, the only thing he would accomplish would be heading farther in the wrong direction if he didn't stop and get his bearings.

He says, "Yet, in real life, we sometimes don't give as much thought to our destination. We might fail to turn around.

The destination and the drive must go together. If you have a destination without the drive, you will have goals to achieve, but you will never see those dreams fulfilled. If life were about just the drive, you would develop skills that would make you an effective and efficient leader, but you would never be headed toward achieving any specific goal.

Think about it: If life were about just the drive, you would have been given the tools to move as fast as possible in the exact opposite direction you needed to go!"

I think this is so true. So many times we have goals that we want to achieve, and have so much drive inside of us to do it, but if we don't sit down and think about how we are going to achieve them, we could very well be headed in the wrong direction.

Moral of the story: Set high goals AND give them direction!