About time to get some thoughts out

I have felt for awhile now that I wanted to make a post, but I have neglected it because most of the time when I feel like I need to get my feelings out it's because I'm having a "bad night". Meaning an evening spent down memory lane, feeling very sad and wondering why the start of 2012 had to get off so rotten. I mean, New Year's is supposed to be a happy thing, right?? My last tough night I had was when Lindy posted her poem she wrote for school. And then right after that mom posted about the apples. Earlier in the afternoon I had visited Chandler's facebook page, and read some of the continuing thoughts of his schoolmates and friends. Instead of posting on my blog, I just write in my journal and get all my emotions down on paper. It feels very much like a releasing of pent up emotions and sadness and helps me to talk myself through things. But I also feel that is something you don't all really want to read :) So tonight, I am feeling a surge of emotion at the other end of the spectrum, and I feel this is something I can and would like to share with everyone.

Life has not been all roses and sunshine thus far into the year. But neither has it been all gray and gloomy. While I have experienced the most intense heart-ache I have ever felt, so too have I come to know my Savior in a way I never could have before. Many of the plain and simple truths I have been taught all my life became real to me all of a sudden. The simplest and most important thing I have learned is that God loves Me. With everything going on in the world, all the billions of people going through tougher times than I, He took the time to show me His love and heal my heart. I learned truly what it means to turn my sorrows over to Him who has born it already. Christ has been through it all and more, so that I wouldn't have to suffer alone. At my lowest moment, I was given a blessing through the priesthood and from that moment my burden has been lightened. I have felt a closeness to the Spirit that used to be absent in my day to day life. It's not as hard to remember to read my scriptures every day, and I have found myself quicker to count my blessings and to thank my Father. Just yesterday my visiting teachers came, and she read the scripture
Helaman 5:12 -- And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall.

I would have to say that the devil himself has given our family a pretty good row this year, but Christ is my rock and my foundation! Through all that has happened, I can't help but feeling a little triumphant at the victory I have won! I know there are still going to be hard times for a very long time, the family reunion this year is going to be difficult, as will Thanksgiving and Christmas, and next New Year's. But the testimony I have gained is engraven on my heart as deeply as was my love for Chandler. At the same time I feel sad, I also feel a little assurance, my family is forever and death itself cannot break that bond. My thoughts have been turned to grandma Koyle lately as well, and I have been recording some of my memories with her so they too can be cherished throughout my life until I see her again. How grateful I am to know the things I know!!

It's On!

So last night I pull into my driveway only to discover that IT SNOWED!! but only in my yard. 30 feet away in my landlords yard there was not a drop. Awesome. I decided to clean most of it up last night just so I didn't have to worry about it this morning, but I took some pictures for all your enjoyments. I don't know exactly who did it, but I have my suspicions. I saved all the toilet paper, so once I find out for sure....IT'S ON!!! hahaha, they have no idea they just messed with the toilet papering Queen! Oh, it brings back lots of good memories!!!!

Little Bit of This, and a Little Bit of That

Ok Missy...this is for you!! I'm not going to update you all on my entire summer, that would take way too long. Suffice it to say that my summer and early fall has consisted of work, playing, working more and lots of playing!! with sleeping and eating occasionally thrown in there. I have made friends with a great group of kids from my singles branch, and we just have a blast. Throwing parties, having sunday dinners together, milkshake parties, bonfires, ultimate frisbee, glow-in-the-dark hide-n-seek at the caves, chasing the kamima lights, shaving cream or whipcream fights....basically LiViN the LiFe!

Work is great also, I get to see so much stuff that I just think is fascinating! I love being able to continually learn, and see the benefits that come from modern medicine. I have recently gotten to see a few c-section surgeries....and I just love it!! It is just another testament to the miracle of life and creation. It just warms my heart watching their little bodies coming to life! So much fun!! Not to mention I love that I get to play with the puppies afterwards.

Speaking of C-sections though...I can't even begin to imagine what it was like for Carissa. I just can't wait to welcome baby Koyle into our family, and to see how he's going to grow up. What his personality is going to be like, his likes and dislikes, how handsome he will be, and most of all I can't wait to be his FAVORITE aunt!

All-in-all, life is just fantastic. It has its speed bumps here and there, but as a whole I can't complain one bit. I'm so grateful for my grandparents and Rick and Amber, for all the help they give me. I have loved living so close to them and getting to know my cousins better; even though I look at them more like nieces and nephews than cousins.

Here are some pictures to highlight the fun I have been having lately.

Buddy the dog...he's only 6 months old!

The 10 puppies we had left on our doorstep one night. They were so adorable!!! but talk about holy pooping machines!

Playing with Eli and Becca while I babysit them every Tuesday

I love her smiles!

Trying to decide whether or not she should go down the slide....

Who needs snow for sledding??

The product of one of our c-sections...the puppy is about 20 minutes old.

Me with baby Nahrii, one of Tahj and Dane's nieces. She is so sweet :)

Baby Koyle!!!! Look at that big head and red hair! I can't wait to meet him!!!!

Sam and I in Rexburg last weekend, after we got done playing frisbee.

The quilt I made for Koyle!! Tahj spent 2 hours at Walmart with me picking out fabric for my quilt, and then her mom helped me all along the way to make it. She let me use her big quilting machine to put patterns all over it, it looks wonderful! All I have left to do is bind it. I guess I better get going on that!

One of the above mentioned whip cream fights....lets just say it didn't end well for me :)

Tahj, Eliza, and myself worked so hard on the presentation for this milkshake party! it turned out fantastic. A lot of people showed up, and we had a great time eating everything!

Life as I know it is about to CHANGE!

I can't believe that after 3 years of blood, sweat, and tears it is finally coming to an end!! Though I will be more than glad to be done with school in one week, I am definitely going to miss all the friendships I have made here. The things I will miss the most: spending the night at Juliana's apartment just cuz I feel like it - taking naps on the couch in the lobby - getting to spend time with all our different animals here - the inside jokes, and laughing at all of Dr. Rockett's random sayings - and last hanging out in the lobby with my classmates, watching youtube videos, laughing, studying, joking, or venting. So many good memories were made in this last two years, I couldn't have asked for a better group of people to spend it with. Hardly a class or lab went by that we weren't laughing over some joke or another. All of the silly ways we came up with to memorize things often have me laughing to myself at work. Us girls have gotten along so well, we never had any major drama issues! And that's saying a lot for 13 girls having all the same classes and spending nearly every day of the last two school years together!! No, I will not miss the homework, nor the tests, nor the stress that came from both. But yes, I will dearly miss the classtime and companionship that I have found here. What a wonderful adventure this has been!

On a lighter note however, I am more than ready to embrace the next phase in my life. I have a good job lined up at the clinic I have been working at this past year. The vet there has been so good to me, working with my school schedule and really letting me learn and practice different things. I really look forward to staying there this next year. What is going to happen after that year….I don’t know yet. Maybe I will stay here, maybe I will be ready for a change. I have thought about a couple of different options, and working at a research facility is top of the list right now. But that will be a huge commitment and also a huge move, because there aren’t any that interest me in Idaho. I’m not quite ready for a commitment that big yet, so I’m just gonna think on that one for a while longer. I have found a little one bedroom house here that I am going to be renting from one of my stake's high councilmen. It is a cute little house right on their property, and I will be able to stay in my ward. That's a big plus. They offered to let me use their yard and their fire-pit with my friends on occasion when I wanted. Double plus! But the biggest PLUS that I am so excited for is they said that I could have a dog! And how convenient that one of our program dogs still needed a home! I know that most of you reading this will probably roll your eyes, but I have wanted a dog for so long. Pretty much ever since I moved out after high school and didn’t have Zeke around anymore. His name is Scotch and here are a couple pictures of him. He’s such a good boy, I am so tickled to bring him home!!!

Me and Julie - Easter Sunday

Me and all of Julie's roomates. They all thought it was pretty funny

that i couldn't reach the rafters.....

I had to have at least one picture to prove I really was at college.... :D

CHECK OUT MY SHOES!! Aren't those things the coolest? Neon

green jellies, I got them at D.I. for $1.00. Doesn't get any better than that!

Helping Tahj and Dane dig post holes for their new fence. This picture

was taken right before I realized I was stuck in the hole. Dane had to rescue me :)

This is one of those days that I really, truly LOVE my job!

My latest and greatest Adventures

So, to give a quick update on my life lately. Work, school, school, family, work, friends. I absolutely loved getting to go home last weekend to see all my family and a couple old friends. Even if it was only two days. We had a surprise birthday for dad's big 5-0 and boy was he surprised :D Sadly I don't have any pictures of the party, but we had a great turn out with lots of friends and family that came. These are some more pictures of my life lately. Most of them are of school stuff that I thought was particularly memorable, but not all of them. If you don't want to read everything that's fine, because this is a rather long post, but for those that find it entertaining, here they are :) And I have even added a couple fun videos at the end of one of the girls in my class, Molly, dehorning a giant cow with rather large horns. And just for you mom, I made the pictures larger like you requested.

Scrubbing in for surgery

We had a guy come to AI our goats that is an internationally known reproduction specialist. He gets hired by people in other countries to come and AI their animals, and we got lucky enough to have him come give us a demonstration. He gave a very good presentation about general reproduction, and how the AI works and everything. This is a picture of the laparoscope in place. He used a camera to look inside the abdomen and actually inject directly into the ovaries. I thought it was very fascinating....and I'm sure you all agree with me :) JK.

I love pictures of sleeping babies....especially when the baby is my nephew!

Haha, such dorks :)

This was at our large animal anesthesia lab, we got to put our pony Astro to sleep for a few minutes, and roll him around on the ground a little bit, and practice different positioning techniques. It was kind of nerve racking at first to be so close to his legs when he was on his back, because being around an awake horse like this would probably be death....or at least a few broken bones.

floating teeth...say "AAAHh"

Gretchen a little loopy from the sedative...I sure do love my classmates :)

Doing blood draws on a pig...just be glad you can't hear this picture.

So Dr. Rockett (standing on the table with a camera) and one of the other Ag teachers has a my-horse-is-bigger-than-your-horse competition going on at the moment, and Dr. Pate (the guy in the purple gloves) told Rockett that he could milk anything with teats. So she took him up on the challenge and brought our mice to class one day. He won.

This was a sign we passed at the caft fair...me and Richelle stopped told vendor what we thought about this sign. Haha, he said that he actually is a BSU fan, but signs like those sell like crazy, so he makes them. That guy needs to have a little more moral courage I think.

This is our new adventure at breeding mice. We are trying to raise them instead of buying them already dead to feed to our red-tailed hawk. We have about 14 babies at the moment and 3 adult females. They all like to spend most of their time in this little tube in the cage, and here is a picture of about 7 of them trying to all come out at once. One of the moms is on top of the tube. It actually is pretty cute, they're so small, I wouldn't mind them if they didn't stink so darn bad. To give you an idea of size, the babies are only about as long as my middle finger from nose to the tip of their tail, and the mom is only as big as my palm from tip to tip.

So the truth finally comes out....this is really what our program is all about....slavery. Haha, jk. We are trying to clean everything up because we have people from AVMA coming next week to renew our accredidation. So everything has to be cleaned up and ship-shape. This chariot needed moved and we didn't have anything to hook it up to a truck. So we pulled it :) AFter this picture, Allie got out and helped me pull while Kelsey got in and took more pictures.

We had to bring some buckets full of dirt to try and dry up the horse pen where there was standing water by the trough. I got to drive the tractor for a few loads and then I switched with Ally. This is where I rode on our way to the dirt pile. I love tractors :) And I do have to say that I'm a natural at driving those things.

So here are the videos I told you about, they were taken less than 1 min apart, and the horn came off about 3 sec. after the second video ends. Glad it was her and not me.

Behind the Waterfall

So...you should all feel extremely lucky because you are getting 2 posts from me in the same weekend! Haha, jk but I thought I should share this with you all before I forgot and didn't get around to it for another 3 months. So these are some pictures I had of my adventure to the waterfall with my friends Juliana and Cecil. I have spent the weekend with Juliana in Twin because of animal care this week, so I didn't have to drive back and forth between Twin and Rupert twice a day. So we decided to have an adventure because we were bored. We're going to come back sometime soon in swimsuits and play in the water below the waterfalll, but it was too late today to play, and a little chilly cuz there was a storm coming. There are a few other pictures that I liked better, but I'm having technical difficulties getting them from my camera to the computer.

This picture was taken right behind the waterfall.
Here's all of us hiding from the spray. It was pretty wet down there.

Directly above Cecil's head, there is a cave that I am going to explore some day.

A gorgeous view over looking the canyon from where we were.

Hiding from Cecil to try and scare him.....it didn't work. This was right before we discovered a patch of stinging nettle.