Raw

I've been crappy at blogging lately, but I've been rocking at emailing Tessa on her mission!  I figured I'd just copy and paste part of the letter I wrote to her.  It's a little more raw than my blogs normally are, more personable.  Life's so great :)  

  Tami came on Friday and it was so fun having her!  I just love her!  We had so much fun shopping and talking all evening Friday.  We went to dinner at Zupas and then to Cold Stone where we met up with Mary and Ryan.  When we got home we talked with Ashlee and her sister-in-law for quite a while and talked about how we wish we were as good as you at turning awkward situations onto the other people around you!  Haha!  Every time you get in an awkward situation, you are so good at getting out of it!  Example A: Your birth control shot and Toomer and Thompson.  Example B: When you farted on that date.  I literally have NO examples of getting myself out of humiliating situations.  I normally just make it worse.  haha! Anyways, we were talking and laughing our heads off!  I seriously haven't laughed that hard in quite some time!  Then Tam and I came into my room and talked for far too long!  I slept on the floor and her in my bed.  I love that us sisters all have such awesome relationships.  Seriously.  Taffy is 12 years older than me and Tami 10, and they both have come and had sleepovers with me this semester.  I'm so lucky to have my sisters as my best friends.  

  We shopped all day again Saturday.  It was so fun to shop with her because all I ever shop for is clothes, and I have done NONE of that this semester. (I'm so poor!)  We shopped for all of this fun home decor stuff and storage and home improvement stuff!  So fun!  I just dreamed of how I'm going to decorate my log cabin some day ;)  We left Provo around 3:00 and parted ways.  I went to Taffy's and she went home. 

 I went to Taf's to babysit her kids Sunday.  Her and Tone are in New Zealand and Mom was in charge of the kids.  Well Mom needed to go to Mya's blessing, so I went to get the kids up and dressed and to church and then took them to Angela's.  There's a reason why we have children one at a time.  Zero to 5 overnight probably isn't the best way.  haha!  They were really good though!  We had a little birthday party for Mariah (she turns 8 tomorrow?!)  It was fun and the kids were just so cute!  They were excited to see me, which always makes ya feel good ya know?  Us adults need to love more like kids do.  

  Anyways, I sure love ya Tess!  Sorry there's not much about school, but I figure it would be super boring to you.  My brain is going a million miles an hour about a million things right now though.  Boys, school, future teaching plans, January plans, my next trip, how I'm going to have $5 after I pay rent next month, ya know, all the things :)  I do know that my Savior loves me though.  He wants me to be happy, and he's trying to help me continue to love life!  I'm not sure what He's got up His sleeve on this next one, but it's gotta be good, I'm sure!  In Relief Society today it just really hit me that I need to just rely on him.  I'm just so dang independent that it's killing me to not feel good about what I WANT to do and that I actually NEED to do something else.  I'm going with it though Tess.  I'm taking a leap of faith!  Look out world!  Thanks for always walking by Faith.  Thanks for serving a mission.  I am just so proud of you!  You are definitely toppy on my list of awesome/best people and I feel so blessed that I get to be so close with someone as great as you!  Love you Sis!  Can't wait to hear from you!  Have the best week!!  

Love, Livi :)  

Student Teaching

Student teaching is well under way and I honestly just had to look at a calendar to tell you that there's only five weeks left.  It's going great! Since my last blog I've switched schools AND grades.  Now I'm at Art City Elementary School in Springville and I'm in 6th grade.  I love 6th graders!  I'm just having so much fun with them!  And what makes it even better is that I totally didn't expect it?!  My mentor teacher, Mrs. Bird, is amazing and we get along so well!  We're all just hitting it off so well!  I'm loving teaching and that's a good thing, cause at this time last year I was thinking the exact opposite!  I definitely needed this teaching experience.  

Along with student teaching comes this monster project that BYU requires you to do.  It's called your Teacher Work Sample.  I won't bore you with the details, but here's the project in all it's glory:

65 pages people.  I hope and pray to never have to do another assignment as long as this one.  Thursday night I finished it up, printed it off, and bought the folder.  Friday morning I turned it in.  Nothing like waiting til the last minute :)  True Livi fashion.  

Life continues to be charmed with multiple trips home, fun nights with friends, lots of time with family, good workouts, great students, fabulous mentors, and decent amounts of sleep.  

p.s.  I've always wondered how parents kept track of their babies exact ages until recently I realized that every time someone asks me how long Tessa's been gone I know the answer right down to the day.  I save myself the embarrassment and tell them the most accurate month count.  I think I need an intervention... 

The Amazon

We went to the Amazon at the start of our trip.  There was a group of 14 of us.  We got to go on jungle walks, fishing, visit a village, cruise along the Amazon River, and so much more!  We stayed at Heliconia Lodge about an hour and a half out of Iquitos, Peru via boat.  The accommodations were great!   We had the best time!  Here are some of my favorite pictures.  

Mom feeding a monkey.

So picturesque.  

You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy.  Their vine lassos were the best!  

The leaf fans were very needed!

 Some cows shading up. 

These kids.  So dang cute! 

 Dinner time! 

 Carol killed us all in sapo!

 Giant lily pad

 Lunch.  They always made it look so pretty. 

 Some homes up on stilts.  These were right where we were getting off the boat in Iquitos.  

The little wooden chair on the bike was my favorite! 

The rooftops, the greenery, the sky.  

And here's a fun little video of parts of the trip :)

I don't really know what to title this post, but I miss my sis.  

Some days I just need to talk to her.  Friday was one of those days.  My life really is so great and I'm so happy, but I have questions and I need her to answer them for me.  Or at least validate my crazy thinking?!  I'm not going to lie, I even cried.  Then I went in the mountains on a hike and just talked to my own dang self!  

haha.  Not the same, but as close as I'm probably going to get :)  Miss you Tess! 

Teaching School

Well, I've been learning about how to be a teacher for quite some time now, and here in the Philippines I was THE teacher.  The only one.  The head woman.  I messed up a lot, I did a lot of things well, and I learned a TON!  

We started school every morning (Monday-Friday) at 8:00 am.  The first few weeks start time was rough.  We were never starting on time and I was getting kind of frustrated about it when I remembered a promptness incentive that one of my high school teachers, Mr. Wilson, used.  If everyone was present and on time we would earn a letter to spell "Popcorn Party."  When we spelled the word out we got to have a party day.  So, I decided to tweek it a bit to fit our situation and I decided that if everyone was on time and had begun writing in their journals at 8:00 sharp we would earn a letter to write out Late Start.  

Once we earned all of the letters they got to start school at 9:00 the next morning.  They bought into it and promptness improved dramatically!  They earned 2 late starts in the last 5 weeks of school, and I was pretty proud of them.  

We held school down in the kitchen/dining/living room.  It worked out pretty well.  Here are "the guys" working hard in the other part of the room.  

So, the curriculum was basically just reading, writing, and math.  Rix and Lillian, the 8th and 7th graders, were signed up through BYU's Independent Study program for English and Math courses.  They were able to basically self run those.  I would make sure they were on track and tell them what they needed to accomplish each day.  I helped with concepts they didn't quite understand and quite a bit with their writing sections which was fun for me.  They have large vocabularies and write with great voice which makes it fun to read their work.  The finals for their courses have to be taken once we get home, so I will go down to Provo to help them get set up with that and get those classes finished up!

Reed and Faith, the 3rd and 4th graders, took more of my time, and it was so fun to be able to work one-on-one with them.  They had some morning work that they had to do together that worked on general Language Arts things like the difference between "it's" and "its," pronouns, adverbs, etc.  Then one of them would stay and do math with me while the other one went and did their individual reading.  Then they'd switch.  Math started out as coming straight from the book.  It was fairly boring, but they were doing pretty good at it, so I didn't worry too much about it.  Then I taught one lesson to Faith using the concept from the book, but I just put it in different, more real life context, and she did so much better with it!  So, I decided to do more of that the last few weeks and it made math much more fun!  

Their reading improved a lot just from reading to themselves for a good 30 minutes every day and then a mixture of them reading out loud to me and me reading out loud to them for about 10 minutes each day.  It was fun for me to see their improvement just from spending time reading.  It's so important.

  

After the first couple of days with the younger kids I knew that I was going to need some kind of incentive to get the younger two students to cooperate and stay focused.  Luckily, I had been taught about these awesome positive/negative charts by my CFA at the last elementary I did my practicum at.  Each morning during journals I would hand them their positive negative chart.  

They would write their goal and then they would get awarded positive or negative points based on their behavior and the work they got done.  It worked marvelously!  If they met their goal they got to do whatever our afternoon activities were, but if they didn't quite meet it, they didn't get to go.  Luckily we only had one or two days where they had to stay home.  

One of my favorite parts about school was science with Faith.  At the start we had to do the water cycle and measuring weather units to cover the standards, but after that we got to learn about whatever she wanted.  It was fun and we learned about many things from whale sharks to how rice is planted and harvested.  

Finally the two younger kids would end each day doing multiplication facts on Oswego.  At the start this was maybe the most dreaded part of their day, but as they got better at them they LOVED Oswego!  Most of the time they would do it more than their required number of times.  They are super good at their multiplication facts and have both passed of mixed multiple times.  I was so proud of them!  

Half way through our home school experience I had each of them write down things they liked and things they would like to see change.  One of the main things they liked was that they got to do school in their pajamas :)  I don't blame them one bit!  One of the things they didn't like was doing work with their sibling.  We talked about families and how sibling relationships are so important.  The partner work improved drastically afterwards, and I learned about how important it is to see how your students feel about how school is going. 

I will most likely never have another teaching experience like this.   I lived with my students.  I lived with my boss.  I lived with my student's parents.  It was interesting.  Some parts were hard, some parts were nice. I learned a lot about a lot, but I still have so much to learn!  Overall, it was a very good experience and I'm so glad I have it to look back on and learn from.  

The New Normal

I've been here about a month now, but it's crazy to me how quickly everything that was so new and shocking to me when I arrived has become so normal.  Today I decided to look through some pictures to try and find things that used to shock me.  That's right, I actually had to look for them?!  I think it's a good sign.  

Trips to the ocean literally take 3 minutes by scooter or 15 minutes walking. (This particular beach was actually about 30 minutes by scooter, but we live close, none the less!)

This is what construction looks like.  You couldn't pay me to climb up there and work! 

Roosters and chickens are constantly crowing.  I'm reminded of that every time I FaceTime anybody back home.  I've totally gotten used to them.  I guess it's kind of like living in Cokeville and never noticing the trains.  

Petty cabs don't look weird anymore. 

Cruising through the Philippines on a scooter with a passenger or two is now a regular occurrence! 

There are no stop signs, yet traffic moves pretty smoothly!  I figure about 50% of the vehicles on the road are motorcycles/scooters, 35% petty cabs, and 15% regular vehicles.  

Seeing a family of 5 on a motorcycle is not uncommon!

Anyone anywhere can cook and sell food, and it's some of the best! 

Exercising along the ocean is a daily thing.  

Trees near the ocean have this cool moss stuff growing on them.  

Grass is very rare.  There are mostly just dirt areas where I normally would expect grass to be.  

This makes the perfect "box" for step ups, box jumps, etc.  

Sharing a room with 4 other girls is actually not a bad deal! 

This is what cows look like here.  No wonder they don't prefer beef?!

Everyone smiles, waves, and says hi to me where ever I go!  It must have something to do with this exotic blonde hair?! 

 You smell fresh, warm bread everywhere! For 2 pesos (about 4 cents) you can buy yourself a delicious roll at a Bread Camp or some other bakery :)

The neighborhood volleyball courts come alive at 3:00 pm when all the petty cab drivers in the area meet to play.  The winning team gets 30 pesos.  

So, there ya have it!  Just a glimpse at my new normal :)

Letter to Tess

I wrote this email to Tess tonight and I decided it was actually a pretty fun recap of my last two days. It's kind of like my whole life--fun, weird, and a little crazy mixed in with some spiritual. Plus I really use my own voice when I write to Tess, so it's just more me :) 

Dear Tessa, 

  I ate duck embryo tonight. Seriously. It was actually a lot like an egg, but it was kind of like a soft boiled egg and kind of gross... I'm probably not going to eat that again... On the plus side, it involved a fun night at the boulevard. The boulevard is this brick laid path right by the ocean. On Friday nights there's live bands and everything and it's just so fun! I loved it! We also had some squid rolls and tempura there at the street stand, and they were very good! We ended the night with desert at an actual restaurant called Sans Rizal and I ordered this delicious lemon lime cake stuff. Not as good as I was hoping, but still very yummy! 

  While we're on the topic of food, there are these two drinks here that are to die for! Both of them are actually fairly healthy! One is a Buko shake which is a coconut shake. They just put in evaporated milk, a bunch of fresh coconut meat, ice, water, and wala! Deliciousness! My favorite though, which will be served at my wedding is called mixed fruit. It's a lot like that drink the Tonga's make, but instead of grating the fruit, you cut it into chunks and you put the watermelon, apples, bananas, and papaya all in the same drink. Then you just add some milk and cream. Seriously so good! I have one or the other of these drinks almost every day. 

   More food stuff...haha we eat shrimp a couple of times a week and I love it! It's SO cheap here! I think the last shrimp we bought was like 35 pesos per kilo, which is about 70 cents per kilo! It's a steal and it is SO fresh! Anyways, I'm eating delicious food here, and I can't wait to hear about all your fave Argentina foods :) Get the recipes! 

  Anyways, I just had to tell you about the duck embryo cause I'm still kind of freaked out about it?! Haha I hope you're having the best day, and when you're served something super sketch down there, just think about your brave sissy who is actually a sissy, but is trying to be brave and do cool stuff. 

  Anyways for reals this time! Haha I love you and I pray for you every day. I know prayer works and I know you're doing what's right. The Lord loves you. I went to an institute class here last night and we talked about the Atonement. I don't know what was different last night (maybe cause I was relying more on the spirit than the language), but I really realized how selfless Christ was. We made a list on the board of the reasons Christ preformed the Atonement and all of the reasons were for us. I was just filled with overwhelming gratitude and had a huge awakening at how I need to be SO much more selfless. I need to put others desires and needs first. I need to be more compassionate. I need to do what the Lord wants. (The list could go on and on and on...) On the way home I got to thinking about you and how selfless your choice to serve a mission was. You didn't necessarily want to go, but you wanted to do what the Lord needed you to do. So Christ-like. You decided to go and try to help others come closer to their Savior. So Christ-like.  You decided to leave the ordinary life and go into the unpredictable, putting your life in God's hands. Once again, so Christ-like. 

  Well Tess, you're my hero, and for reals this time, I'm ending this letter! Haha I love you a lot and I hope you're having the best day! If not, I hope this brightens it :) You're my best example and I love ya! Buena suerte con el español!! 

Con amor, Livi :)

The Farm Next Door

I've always wanted chickens, and living next door to some boisterous roosters hasn't changed my mind yet!  I actually kind of love sharing a front yard with these crazy animals.  

These animals are these people's pride and joy.  There is always someone there watching them, and so I asked what the purpose for these creatures was.  The roosters are trained to cock fight!  How fun is that?!  I have to go to one of the fights!

The pigs are just being fattened up to eat at the next party :)

Even though the roosters are SO noisy and never seem to stop, I still think they're pretty cool.  They're so pretty too, so that's redeeming.  

I took this video at 5:11 am.  I'm telling you, they are always squawking!  I recorded this in my room with the windows closed and our fan blowing.  

Life Near the Sea

So I've been here about two and a half days, and I've been doing so many sea-ish things!  The first night we went to a seafood restaurant called "Labas" which means fresh.  And fresh it was!  It was right next to the ocean and they had containers full of seafood.  You would go over and say what you wanted to try and they would get it out, cook it up, and bring it to you.  I've never had fresher!  

Rix (the dad) and some of the guys that work for him ordered it all, so I was at their mercy?! haha  Luckily, they did a great job!  I liked everything I tried.  My favorite was probably the shrimp because it was the most normal to me, but we had tuna, talabas (kind of like oysters), squid, and kinilew (kind of like ceviche).

Saturday morning Angie, Reed, Faith, Lillian, and I spent quite a bit of time down by the ocean.  We walked and it was less than a mile!  Where we went wasn't really a beachy-beach, but it had a lot of fun creatures and the water was really clear.  

Me, Faith, Angie, Reed, and Lillian

Sea Urchin!!!

The coolest starfish ever!

Faith inspecting the creature.

Reed was a lot more excited than he looks, I promise!  haha

This afternoon we went to a sandier beach called Silliman.  There were lots of families down there swimming and eating and having a good time.  It was fun to see so many families doing things together.  I'm sure we'll be spending more time down at that one.  It was just a short distance as well--maybe a mile or two.  

So, in the short time we've been here, I feel like I've taken pretty good advantage of being close to the ocean.  The water's warm, it's close, and the kids love going!  I have yet to go swimming, but I'm sure I'll cross that one off this week :)  

Another Adventure

Guys, I'm heading to the Philippines for 12 weeks. Crazy? Yes. Exciting? Very. In less than an hour I'm going to be getting on one of these planes that will take me to Seattle. 

Seattle>>Tokyo, Japan. 

Tokyo>>Manila, Philippines. 

Manila>>Dumaguete, Philippines.

I have no clue how long it will take me to get there. I think it's going to be Friday in Dumaguete by the time I get there with the time change and everything. Kind of crazy to think about!

Many of you are probably wondering what in the heck I'm going to be doing in the Philippines for 12 weeks?! Well, back in November a family that I tutor for while I'm down at school asked me to go with them on this trip to homeschool their kids. It only took me a few days to decide to do it :) Part of the dad's business is down there and he needs to go and work with his team down there. Instead of being split up for that long they decided to just move their whole family down. So, they asked me to come with them and homeschool their kids. I'm going to be teaching four kids--3rd, 4th, 7th, and 8th grades. They're great kids and it's not only going to be a great life experience down here, but a good experience for my teaching. I'm nervous and excited and grateful. Wish me luck!! 

I'll have wifi access while I'm down there, so stay tuned for some adventures in the Philippines :)

A Day in the Life

Yesterday was just a normal day in the life of Livi.  I decided I needed to document a normal college day.  Nothing too exciting.  Nothing terrible.  Just a normal day.  

     5:30     Woke up and headed to the temple with Tessa to do baptisms for the dead.
     7:10     Got back from the temple, ate breakfast, and got ready for school.
     7:45     Left my house and rode my bike up to campus.
     8:00     My practicum class.  I forgot to bring two assignments to turn in and was given 3 more assignments to be completed by next week.
     8:50     Went up to the student services office in the McKay building to talk to an advisor about changing the semester I student teach.  The appointment scheduler was the guy who baptized me this morning!  He worked some magic and got me in right then!  I met with my advisor, Kelly, and got the low down on what I needed to do.
     9:30     Pumped up my tire at Outdoors Unlimited (those darn flats!) and arrived at work.  At work I worked on giant pads for the walls in the gymnastics room on campus.
    11:30    I left work and headed up to campus to meet some friends to go and get free donuts :)
    11:45    Arrived at the location to receive free donuts with my friends, and they were out of donuts.  A little depressing, but honestly, I shouldn't have been eating a donut anyways!
    12:00    Had my literacy class with Brad Wilcox.  One of my favorite classes.  We talked about teaching speaking and listening.  Then he talked to us about being busy and having a lot of things to do in life.  He talked about prioritizing and how that never seems to work because we're supposed to put God first, but in a world where our jobs and school take up most of our time, that is often difficult.  Next he talked about balance and how that is another hard one, because can we really balance every single thing we need to do every single day?  It's nearly impossible.  Then he read us this awesome book, The Clown of God.  It was so good and it talked about this clown that juggled.  He would juggle all of these different balls, but the most important ball (which he never let drop) was a big, golden ball.  This ball represented our relationship with God.  I loved the moral this old folktale told.  Juggling life.  It's real and it's hard, but if we make sure we keep our golden ball up (our relationship with God), then it won't matter so much what other balls drop.  As we get a better handle on our lives, we can pick the other balls up again and keep trying.  This is one thing I love about BYU.  The opportunity the teachers have to teach us about spiritual topics.  Brother Wilcox is great!
     1:00    Class got out an hour early?!  I went and got everything done that I needed to to change my student teaching date.
     1:25     I ran into Andrew Petersen!  It's always fun to see people you know.
     1:40     I met up with an advisor to talk about my scholarship eligibility for next fall.
     2:00     Math class.  We had a fun lesson on teaching Place Value.  Very helpful.  I also ate my lunch during class.
     3:30     Rushed down from campus and hopped in my car to go and tutor out in Mapleton.
     4:00     Arrived at the first house I tutor at, and helped Kamae with math.
     4:30     Arrived at the Ryskamp's where I helped Faith write a fun persuasive paper and helped Reed with his math.
     6:25     Left the Ryskamp's.
     6:45     Arrived at the WILK for a 4H meeting that was supposed to go from 6-7.  I knew I was late, but I didn't want to miss the whole thing!  I forgot my phone at my apartment, so I didn't have any way to communicate that I was going to be late, and when I got there they were already cleaned up and gone.
     6:55     Went over to the HFAC for a minute to watch part of the dress rehearsal for a concert that a couple of my friends are in tomorrow and Saturday.  I would have just gone to the real thing, but it's sold out!  I just listened to one song, Oh Come All Ye Faithful.  Amazing.  I sat by and talked to a nice boy.
     7:25     I left campus and came home for some dinner!  Tess and I had creamed corn and chicken.  It was delicious.
     7:50     I put together some things for my calling as compassionate service committee member and delivered them to some girls in our ward.
     8:20     Returned from the deliveries (and chatting, let's be honest!) and did some homework.
     8:50     Tess and I headed to our intramural co-ed volleyball game, which we lost :(
     9:45     Faith, Tess, and I stopped by a dance party and shook it for a minute.  I'm a horrible dancer.  We ended up outside talking with Dillon and Andy.
    10:30    We went to a Christmas pie party at our friends' apartment.  Zach and Ty were awesome hosts, and it was really fun!  We got there at the tail end of the party, so we actually got to visit with friends and have a good time cause it wasn't so darn crowded.  I met some new people too.
    11:15    We left the pie party and I came home and did some more homework!  
    11:45     I finally crawled into bed.

Throughout the day I was texting planning a 4H activity, scheduling things for the weekend, etc.  Looking back on yesterday I'm reminded how blessed I am on a daily basis.  I am so lucky to be able to do all of the fun, educational, sometimes frustrating things that I do.  Life is busy and great, and I'm going to just keep on juggling my way through it :) 

     

The Cemetery Girls

This post is LONG overdue, but I just needed to write a post about three of the most influential girls in my life.  They all have something in common--they were all my work partner up at the cemetery :)  When you spend about 30 hours together every week, just you and them, you get to know each other pretty well!  

Holly and I worked together the first two years.  Boy was it fun!  Neither of us had any clue what we were doing, but we had fun figuring it out together!  We were pretty good friends all growing up, but in those two summers she became one of my best friends!  I was lucky enough to get to watch her fall in love and marry Ryan.  Now she has a baby and lives in Germany?!  Where has the time gone?!  I can't go too long without a good chat with Holly.  Since she's moved to Germany we've had some good skype chats.  I just love her and her little family!  Holly has taught me to never give up--even when there seems no way out.  She taught me to laugh when you want to cry.  She inspired me with her diligent training for her half marathon.  She's a great friend to all, and I'm so glad I was able to spend so many hours with such a great girl!  

She came home for a little bit to bless her baby, and I was lucky enough to get to visit with her and snap this picture :)

After Holly decided she wouldn't be coming back, I was devastated.  I didn't think that I would ever be able to find someone that great to work with.  Then along came Sierra!  In high school Sierra and I referred to each other as "church friends" cause we were besties in our ward, but we both had different best friends.  Well, we became more than church friends that summer.  We did literally everything together!!  The summer started out pretty rough, but we got it turned around.  At the start of each week we would plan all of the fun things we wanted to do, and then we would plan our work schedule around it.  We did so many fun things!  From fishing to shopping, we did it all!  Sierra has such a deep love for our Savior.  She knows that He knows what's best for her, even if it doesn't make sense to us.  Many of our conversations revolved around the Gospel, and she was so good about sharing her testimony with me.  She taught me to love our little valley more than I ever thought was possible.  All summer long we would say we were the same person because we thought so much alike.  Most days we laughed until we cried.  This last month I was lucky enough to be one of her bridesmaids.  I was so excited for her to meet and fall in love with Trevor.  All the heartbreaks were worth it--he's great!  I felt so honored, and I absolutely LOVED getting to spend some extra time with her and her family preparing for, and enjoying the day.  She was a stunning bride, and had the happiest, best attitude the whole day!  What an awesome, inspiring girl!  

Her wedding day was seriously the best!  She didn't seems stressed at all and was smiling to the last minute!  

When Sierra wasn't coming back, I really thought I was in trouble.  I had already lucked out twice, and there was no way I was going to find a third girl that I would get along with that well.  Then along came Kalbie!  I cannot even begin to tell you how much this girl has impacted my life.  When we started work up there in May we had only talked to each other like 3 times.  We were practically strangers.  After the first day, I knew we were going to be great friends!  She is so happy and outgoing and fun!  You can't help but like Kalbie Harmon.  She has that same love for the outdoors as me, and we had fun doing a few adventures together.  We were always thinking about the next place we wanted to go hiking or running.  It's also convenient that she married one of my best friends from high school, cause now I get to see both of them often!  Kalbie taught me about how important it is to constantly be progressing.  She is always trying to become the best person she can be whether it is spiritually, physically, or improving her relationships with others.  She greets everyone with a big smile, and she just makes you feel so loved!  It wasn't unusual to see Kalbie and I talking for another hour after work, because we never seemed to run out of things to talk about.  I'm glad she lives in Cokeville and that I get to see her, but I also love a good phone chat with Kalbie.  She's just so great!

We actually do have a photo of us in nice clothes, but I just like this one better :)  

When I started working at the Cokeville Cemetery in 2012 I had no idea it would have this large of an impact on my life!  I'm forever grateful for these girls and the things I've learned from them.