Happy Birthday K.C.!

January 23, 1986, Kenneth Christopher Bell was born. In commemoration of that great day, I decided to have some fun...

I picked K.C. up from next door for a date, and chauffeured him around town in his car. We went to Hamilton's Steak and Seafood Restaurant where we had a candle-lit dinner. Sadly, we forgot the camera for this portion of the night, but it was beautiful! K.C. had his first creme brulee, and I'm pretty sure he loved it! All of the food was delicious!

After dinner, we stopped by Deseret Book to look at CTR rings since K.C. was wanting a new one. We did not end up getting one, but there were lots of neat, new designs that we liked.

We came back to the dorm and I had him open his presents one-by-one. I had so much fun shopping for him throughout the week and tormenting him with my many secrets!

While he was at work, I got a little bored and decorated his room. I decided to be nice and hold off on the confetti though. Two of our friends hid in his roommates' closet and jumped out at him. Even though I knew they were there, I was more scared than K.C.!

His friend had sent him the bottom sticker to wear all day. Sadly, people would only ask where he got it instead of reading it. Instead of being ignored even more, I made him another sticker to go with the first.
We played a round of Rummikub as well since it is one of his favorite games and I had not ever played on my own before.
Let's just say I need to practice a bit more...
I eventually got it right though!
Happy Birthday K.C.! I hope you had a fabulous day!

Cuddle Buddy

Since K.C. and I aren't cuddle buddies anymore, I figured I should share a picture of the man I share my nights with! Isn't he just a stud?! ;) For future reference his name is C.J. (Calvin James) And NO, I do not have a thing with initials...at least I don't think I do :D He is the bear that K.C. and I created at Build-A-Bear together over Christmas break as part of my gift.

Best Friends!!!

Many of you know that K.C. and I have been dating for two months now. And most of you were extremely concerned about how fast our relationship had progressed and urged us to step back and not be too hasty. Well I'm here to say that K.C. and I have talked about things and we have decided to take that step back. Before we were open to dating other people if the opportunity arose, but we are very open to that option now. For now and the next long while we are just going to be friends- no kissing, no hand holding, no cuddling, none of that boyfriend/girlfriend stuff. It is going to be hard and such, but not impossible. Things actually have worked out really well the past couple days that we have tried it. We want to make sure that we have a strong foundation based on friendship before we completely commit for life and this seems to be the best way to do it. Both of us are extremely determined to make this work as friends and not simply give up, so believe in us and it will help! Funny thought though that K.C. had: many people have a relationship that is simply "Friends with benefits." K.C. and I are more like "Boyfriend and Girlfriend without benefits." I thought it was funny :D

P.S. Sorry about the picture! It isn't the best quality, but it is the one I had. Handsome, isn't he? It was taken the night of our first date.

Sacrament Meeting

One night this week I was just relaxing over at K.C.'s apartment with a couple of his friends and roommates when my phone started ringing. I checked the number and I had no idea who was calling me (it was a 435 number) but I figured I would answer it anyway. The man on the other end turned out to be Brother Kirkman, the 1st counselor in my bishopric. He greeted me warmly and I returned the salutation, mentioning his name so the guys I was with would know who I was speaking with. The moment I said his name though, all their heads turned and stared at me with looks of horror. I just laughed at them completely expecting he was calling about the next upcoming blood drive for the stake. After less than a minute on the phone with him, I understood their looks of horror. I had just been asked to speak in sacrament meeting on Sunday. In past circumstances this had never been a problem for me as they were only youth talks expected to last less than five minutes. I realized then that I was an adult and am expected to give adult length talks. My topic: repentance. My time: ten to thirteen minutes. Can you even imagine how excited I was? If you can't, that is good, because I wasn't excited. In fact, I was simply dreading it.

Well I kept the topic on my mind all week, pondering what I could say, scriptures I could read, and stories I could tell from conference talks. Each night I always had something better I could be doing rather than writing my talk despite knowing the Lord of the Rings marathon was going to occupy my entire Saturday. Friday I finally decided to start on something and looked up different talks and ideas listed on the "Prepare a Talk" feature on www.lds.org. (FYI: this option worked great! I highly suggest it!) The talks were insightful, but I was still not sure what I was going to say for ten whole minutes! Sunday morning rolled around and I still had not written anything concrete down. The night before I had pulled together some scriptures, but did not have any real organization to what I was going to say. Needless to say I did not get very much sleep Saturday night/Sunday morning.

K.C. was great to me this morning and made me breakfast so I could keep writing my talk instead of coming up with something to eat. It was delicious comprising pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage, and orange juice. Man, he is an amazing cook! Sacrament meeting came around and I delayed for so long going up and sitting on the stand. Luckily, K.C.'s roommate Dave was also speaking so I had a friend up there to sit with. Abby, Megan, Tessa, Rachel, and K.C. all sat near the back as we always do so I wasn't concerned. Halfway through the prelude music though, they all stood up and moved to the second row. Yah, that isn't intimidating at all. Surprisingly, I was not very nervous as the meeting started, but did not expect that feeling to last. Brother Kirkman was conducting and with it being the beginning of the semester, took up much more time than normal doing various announcements and ward business, which was awesome.

The songs were long, and with the passing of the sacrament, my nervousness did not increase at all. Emily first spoke on faith, and then it was my turn. I got up in front of the microphone and began. The words seemed to just flow from me and I hardly felt scared at all! It was wonderful!! Oddly enough now, I think I would rather give a normal talk instead of a youth one anytime! By the time we sang the intermediate hymn, Dave only had about 5 minutes left to speak which he was perfectly fine with. Anyways.....overall, this was not as bad of an experience as I was expecting. I think the best part of it is the fact that it is OVER!! Woohoo! I'm so excited to be done with that for the year! Woot Woot! And if you care, I just had an outline of my talk and I would be willing to send it to you if you would like. The Church is true!

Lord of the Rings

Ever since the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out on film I have always wanted to have a marathon watching all three extended editions of the movie in one day. Luckily for me, K.C. had the extended editions and also wanted to have a marathon. So last semester we spread the word that sometime in the spring semester we would do it! Yesterday turned out to be that day since we aren't very far in school and figured people wouldn't be too swamped with homework and studying yet and could waste the entire day up in the lounge. Well we started at 10:30 in the morning and dove into the adventure. With hour breaks in between each of the films, we finally finished them all around 12:30. Sadly once I ate lunch, I couldn't keep my eyes open for the first disc of the Two Towers. Determined to better, I sat up for the next disc and stayed awake. The Return of the King was started and I was so excited to watch my favorite movie of the three. Yet again, I got too comfortable and could not stay awake once the second disc was put into the DVD player. K.C. tried his hardest to keep me awake by pulling on my ears and tickling me, but nothing worked. I was out until the movie ended. Now I could say that I finally did the Lord of the Rings marathon challenge, but I simply would not be satisfied with myself, so sometime in the future I will have to pull out those movies again and waste another day all over again. It is worth it though, those movies are amazing!

Updating on the past forever

Wow I have been such a slacker! I didn't post anything new at the end of the semester because I was too preoccupied with studying for finals. Then I didn't post anything again during the three week winter break simply because I wanted to play. Well now I finally have some time on my hands and I figure it is time to write something new. Recap on fall semester: everything tied up really nicely. I was able to finish my seven page research paper on margarine and my grade was in the A- range. That was totally fine with me since I wrote 98% of it the night before. The last 2% I wrote an hour before the class started! :-D My finals went really well: I stayed up almost all night studying- got only three hours of sleep- and it paid off. I got an A and that kept my percentage in the class high enough for an A overall! Chemistry I did okay on and ended up getting an A-, but I did not mind. The rest of my classes were just easy credits so I was able to get A's in all those as well.

Winter Break was wonderful! The night I was studying for my biology final, Diane Poulton called me and asked if I was interested in working at all over the break. Was I ever!! Being a poor college student, I will take any opportunity to get a job and earn a little extra money, especially with having to buy Christmas presents and books for the new semester. K.C. and I spent a lot of time together, with his family, and also with mine. We had a great time going shopping together, playing, and simply enjoying our free time. I think of all I love his Christmas present the most! He took me to Build-a-Bear and we got to design something for me to cuddle with at night. Sadly though, we went on Thursday so I had to endure several days of knowing what my gift was, but not being able to have it. When I finally did get C.J. on Christmas, K.C. had attached a small bottle of his cologne (it smells SOOOO good) and a poem he wrote. It was so cute! I know I'm 18, but I've never had my own teddy bear, so this is lots of fun for me.

School has now started again and I am really enjoying this semester. I'm only taking 15 credits this time around instead of the 18 I had last semester. Biology and Chemistry are the same, then add in Stats for Scientists and English 2010. I haven't bought all my books yet, but luckily I didn't have to get one for Chemistry or English (she is posting the reading material online! wahoo!) and I'm debating on whether I should rent the Biology book again. Stats is the only book I have to get and it is sadly $150. Blah...oh well. Sacrifices must be made I guess.

The weather has been pretty crazy. Lots of snow and even more wind and too much cold to even consider! For FHE this week we went sledding and it was so much fun! It was snowing at the time so you would just get a face-full while zooming down the hill. I crashed a couple times, but it was okay. Life is just great being back here in Logan. I missed it a lot and it is really nice to have a schedule I can lean on when I don't know what to do. More to follow when something actually happens here in this frozen valley.

P.S. I was called last night by the 1st counselor in the Bishopric. Pretty much I'm speaking in sacrament meeting on Sunday....oh jolly. What a wonderful opportunity!

Delay

The semester is winding down and I am starting to panic. Finals are coming up, papers are coming due and I don't know how I am going to get it all done. Therefore I am going to take a break from blogging temporarily so I can focus on my studying and finish off this semester strong. I will be back right after finals are done on December 14th. Thanks for all those who read what I write. I love and miss you all!

New Developments

I figured I should give an update on my life here in Cache County before too much time passes by. School is going great: I am doing really well on my tests and getting ready for finals the second week in December. Time has flown by so fast! I can hardly believe I am almost done with my first semester as a college student. Mondays seem to last forever, but the rest of the week is gone in an instant, I hardly have a chance to enjoy everything going on.

Time for an update on the romantic side of my life. If you are regular reader of my blog you will recall I went on a date with KC Bell last weekend. (For those who don't know the story, see below). The entire evening was fabulous! Some details I omitted from my last entry are that he put his arm around me about halfway through the concert, and we ended up holding hands. Many of you will think this is way fast, but I wanted him to hold my hand so bad. We had spent a lot of time together prior to our date during Family Home Evening activities and other events sponsored through Housing and the Ward. For a while I did not think he was going to, so when he put my hand in his, my heart pretty much melted. I was so happy.

Sunday afternoon came along and I did not have much to do. My roommates and I were planning on having dinner together and I volunteered to make Chocolate Applesauce Cake (they loved it and all want the recipe!). Not wanting to work by myself, I asked if KC wanted to come over and help me, which he gladly did. Many guys I know are scared of the kitchen and refuse to have anything to do with preparing food. Not KC though. He jumped right in measuring out the ingredients, chopping the nuts,etc. Any guy that likes being in the kitchen as much as I do gets major brownie points. Saturday night we made Buttermilk Brownies too. :)

To make a long story short, we have spent almost every hour of the day together when we are not in class. Even when he is at work at the library, I go over there and keep him company, maybe even do some studying on the side. We always have so much to talk about that we often find ourselves deep in conversation and it is three or four in the morning, yet neither of us is tired and wants to end the discussion. When we finally do decide that it is time to go to bed, we text each other for another half hour or so. He is always going to the gym to run and lift weights so we have also been going down to the Fieldhouse two or three times a week to get some exercise in. It is awesome having a guy who is dedicated to being fit and can help motivate you get fit too.

All this time we have spent together does not seem to have been wasted at all. Sadly, I was in a deep predicament whether I should continue my open-relationship with Chad or go forward with KC. I did not want to hurt either guy, so I was really tormented all week long. Thankfully Heavenly Father is there for us in our toughest decisions. I made a decision, prayed about it and proceeded with what I thought to be right. I broke up with Chad, and now KC and I are dating. I believe the hardest thing for me during all this is that time moves by so quickly, yet at a snail's pace. It has only been ten days since that Friday night when we all hung out, yet so much has happened. I have fallen, and fallen hard. (That is a good thing. A very good thing.) Now time will only tell how things will play out, but with how things are happening, I have an inkling of an idea of where my future is headed.

If you have questions, feel free to email me, or just write a comment. I would love to get your input! KC really is a great guy. I just cannot believe he likes me in return. Yay! X is happy!

The Piano Man

After coming home weekend after weekend, I promised myself (and Meredith, Tyson, Mom...everyone pretty much) that I would stay at school for once. Honestly I was worried that I would have the most boring weekend ever! Around 5 pm on Friday my belief was almost confirmed. Making a bold move, I texted this guy in my ward named KC (more about him to follow...) asking what he was up to. He was likewise bored, but had friends from West Jordan coming up in a while. He came over and the rest of the guys ended up joining us! We played with the "Human Rubber Band," Mafia, Signs, Spoons for a while then decided to get some pizza at FireHouse pizza on the south end of town (11 pm). After stocking up our energy stores, the nine of us grabbed a soccer ball and headed down to the Quad for a exciting, yet freezing cold game of soccer (12:30 am)! We needed goal indicators for one end of the field so Abby and I "volunteered" our blue jackets since no one had anything brighter. Man! It was SO cold! I think I will do that more often as a sort of therapy to get me more used to the ensuing cold. I cannot decide if it is a good thing or not, but I am too competitive and was injured a couple times. Ran straight into a guy and got a carpet burn sort of injury on chin. Then less than ten minutes later, I went to steal the ball-from the same guy- and he accidentally stepped on my ankle so I have another nice scrape there too. Once again we were not tired (2 am) so we turned on Finding Nemo in the 2 1/2 floor lounge. After that we were all pretty beat and most hit the hay (4 am). KC, his friend Andrew, and myself saw the stars above though and decided we needed to go star gazing before it got much colder (as if it is not cold enough already). Eventually, I made it to bed around 6 am. I think I finally know what it is like to be in college. Party, party, party! No sleep, no sleep, no sleep! Party some more!

On Saturday night I went on my first date at USU. Not just any date though, my first date with an RM. His name is KC (Kenneth Christopher) Bell. His apartment is literally right next to mine, putting us in the same ward where he serves as 1st counselor in the Elder's Quorum Presidency. We are also in the same Family Home Evening group (Go Monkeys!) so we get to play at least once a week together. We left for the Olive Garden at 5:30, and were seated, yet had not ordered our food yet. The problem is that the Jon Schmidt and Jake White concert started at 7. Thankfully KC knew our server and was able to pull a couple strings. Our appetizer and main dishes were brought out at the same time, but it was all very enjoyable. There was so much food that we have gotten together a second time to dine since we were so pressed for time. Neither of us finished our food on the second round, so maybe a third is in store. Sweet! Three dates while only paying for one!

We rushed over to the Kent Concert hall and found our seats just a few minutes before Jake White came out on stage. He is a guitarist and has composed a couple songs for EFY CDs. After an hour of his awesome playing including "One Chord Song" and "Memory Lane," Jon Schmidt replaced him and amazed us for another two hours! KC had seen Jon a couple other times in concert and said he never played for that long. We also had the treat of hearing one of his new songs. Saturday night was the first time he had played it in front of a large audience, and even asked for suggestions for the title. For those who know the song "All of Me" he uses his elbows to play again. It was all very entertaining between the head banging in "Dumb Song" and other classic Jon Schmidt compositions.

I am so glad to be making more friends here at school and actually finding things to do to pass the time instead of studying. I mean, c'mon! Who would want to learn at school? ME!! :D

Saving Lives One Drop At A Time

A couple weeks ago I was called at the Ward Coordinator for the USU 1st Stake Blood Drives. The coolest part is that the Bishopric did not know me at the time. When they prayed though, they received the prompting I should be assigned to something medical. That shows the Lord knows me personally- where I would be able to serve and enjoy my experience the most. Anyway, that is not the point of this blog....

Today was the Stake Blood Drive here at USU. For several weeks now I had been collecting names, phone numbers, and times for when people could come in to donate. After much perseverance, I was able to completely fill up my schedule. After stressing about it this morning, making sure to fulfill my calling to the utmost all the while having class scheduled until 5:30, I was successful with the help of a couple friends and roommates. Abby and Megan were able to deliver the schedule at the start of the drive (I was in class, and had tried earlier, yet no one was there). I think the best part is my Chemistry lab lasted only one hour instead of the scheduled three hours it is supposed to take. That definitely relieved my worried mind.

I took my turn at the check-in table signing people in and giving them instructions for the first part (reading the book of information mainly). When four of my greatest friends came in to donate, I was there to be a support group. Tessa was donating for the first time and I promised to be there to hold her hand through it. My only favor I asked of them though was that they come be my support group as well. I absolutely hate needles. Just the thought creeps me out, so I figure the only time I will allow them into my body is if I need to be saved, or if I can save someone else.

Abby decided to play a mean prank on me though. The lady was about to insert the needle, I was freaking out, looking the other way and squeezing Abby's hand as hard as I could. Out of no where she screams, "OH MY GOSH!!!!" I wanted to take her blood right then. It was mine! That scared me, and the needle really hurt. After that though, my blood was just racing to get out of my body: the flow rate was a 9 the entire time, and I finished in only 5 minutes and 19 seconds. I felt pretty powerful. I laughed really hard after though- we all were, even the lady drawing my blood. I was pretty embarrassed.

Donating blood is a really awesome thing to do. I was thinking about it, and I was reminded of another service we are asked to give if we keep our bodies clean. It is a completely selfless act of service. You can provide something for someone that they cannot do for themself. I can save someone's life physically with a blood donation, but with going to the temple I can save someone spiritually. The body can accept or reject the service in each situation. Let's pray for only acceptance.

If I am this happy after donating a unit of blood, how euphoric will I be when I can go through the temple and perform other saving ordinances beside Baptisms? I bet it will be a lot better because I won't be scared, and nothing will cause me pain in the temple.

I don't know if my analogy made any sense, but I thought it was really cool :D Give Blood, Save Lives!