The Unexpected..

It’s funny how life always keeps us on our toes and always hands us the unexpected. I found love when I least expected to find it. After traveling across the world to “find myself”, my motives in life became based on me, and only me. After living a life focusing on others, and letting others make decisions for me, it was time for me to start etching my own rare and unique story. I wanted to live an exotic life with a job that allowed me to travel and experience culture. I wanted to take care of myself and rely on only me for a while. It seems that all my life I had lived in effect to my family situations, especially being the youngest of my 3 siblings. I had reached the time where I wanted to speak with my own voice and live for myself. It sounds selfish but I knew it was my turn to make something of myself. We all have to be a little selfish sometimes. After re-focusing my views in life and making goals for myself, I thought I had my life all planned out. It’s like I made checkpoints for each age in my life and had this pre-written story. As I forgot about dating and started spending my free time engaged in other activities and spending time with friends, I felt content and happy. As I spent time focusing on myself, little did I know I was actually preparing myself to meet the man of my dreams. I wanted to wait until at least twenty-five to settle down and get married but at twenty years old, I happened to meet a man that would change my life forever. Just when I thought love was something I didn’t need at that time, it came knocking on my heart. I came to find out that love, of all things, has set me free more than anything. I have a man by my side for eternity to be my best friend and to root for me, hold me, and support me. Love has motivated me to do more than I ever imagined doing. Dreams are becoming realities because love was a dream I never fathomed of becoming a reality for a very long time. It’s funny how life always keeps us on our toes and always hands us the unexpected. I found love when I least expected to find it, and love has truly set me free.

The Proposal..

December 27th, 2012 declared the best day of my life so far. I was asked to marry the love of my life and the man of my dreams. He kept it a great secret but in my heart I knew it was coming. We talk very openly about things like marriage and our thoughts and opinions so marriage and engagement was something we had been talking about for a while. After Chris moved away to California, I think we both really knew that we couldn’t live without each other. So this is where our story begins. Chris had been working on a Christmas present of mine for about 6 days. We would chat everyday and he’d always say, “oh just working on your big Christmas present”. The day came that I was getting my “big present”. Chris woke me up that morning and made me breakfast while I got ready for work. He drove me to work and then he left to plan the evening. The only things I knew were that we would be going to the mountains, he needed 4 of my favorite love songs, and that I needed to dress up a little bit. I had thirty minutes to get ready after work. I rushed home to throw on a cute outfit and some makeup. He came to my door wearing the most adorable red sweater with a dressy shirt and tie underneath. He looked so handsome and adorable. We walked outside hand in hand as we headed south to the mountain. We drove up Provo canyon near squaw peak but he put a blindfold on me so I couldn’t see. The sun was setting and he took the blindfold off. It was just he and I in the beautiful snowy mountains and he opened his laptop. Next came the tears. He made an eleven minute slideshow of pictures of us growing up and meeting each other and dating. It was so sweet and special, and I know he worked so hard on it. When I was watching that video I knew what was coming next. The video ended and the blindfold went back on. I was then guided by Chris’ youngest sister out of the car and took my blindfold off to find all of his family and all of my family lighting a pathway with candles and beautiful roses to Chris standing at the end with a big bouquet of red roses. The tears were busting out of me as I saw each person that I love so much standing in that pathway lighting my way. As I got to Chris he took my hand and spoke my full name. He told me that I complete him and that I am the love of his life and that he can’t see his life without me. He got on his knee and asked me to be his wife. With tears continuing to poor out of my eyes I said yes and gave him a long sweet kiss. He took my right hand and took off my traditional Irish ring that I wear and hold very dear to my heart. It has a lot of meaning to me. He placed the ring on my left hand with the heart facing outward showing that I am engaged from the traditional background of the ring. The symbolism that the Irish ring has in my heart means so much to me and that he chose to propose with that ring makes it even more dear to my heart. The day that every girl dreams of their entire life happened to me. I am engaged to the love of my life and I couldn’t be happier. I know that every single event in my life has led me to Chris and also prepared me to be all that I need to be for him. I cannot wait to truly start my life and live to love and laugh and cherish every growing moment that we have together.

Here is the slideshow that Chris prepared! Enjoy some awkward cuteness, I love it!

"All She Needs Is You"

She smiles to hide that she's unhappy, She does her makeup every morning to hide her emotional scars, She wears tall heels to feel noticed, She plays hard to get because she thinks that will give her worth, She pretends she's strong but cries from feeling weak, She holds on too tight because she is often alone, She calls too much to prove to herself that she has someone to rely on, She offers to talk out your problems just so she can forget her own. She has faults, everyone does. You get confused with what she needs and wants. You think it's difficult, but it's really simple.. All she needs and wants is you.. A man to make her smile unexpectedly, A man that loves her for her natural beauty, A man that stands tall and noticed next to her in a crowd, A man that will do anything to get her, A man that will wipe away her tears, A man that will hold her tight every night, A man that will call her unexpectedly to say I love you, And A man that will help her to forget all her problems. All she needs is you.

When You're Patient, Everything Works Out

So I have an android phone and it's about a year old but two of the buttons have officially broken and it still works but using it everyday is just a pain. So in my attempt to get a new phone I searched on KSL for a temporary one until my phone can upgrade with T-mobile. So I found myself an older iPhone and decided to purchase it on a whim. I get it home and I'm trying to figure out how to work it as a jail broken phone. In my attempt to waiting for my phone to connect I got impatient and started pushing buttons on my iTunes and long story short.. the iPhone got stuck in a restore state that I cannot get it out of. So of course by this time I am quite frustrated and I was just ready to go to bed. I took a deep breath and just told myself to go to bed and come back to it the next day. After that I wasn't worried, I wasn't stressed, I was calm and collected. I woke up the next day and had a great workout, I got ready for work feeling great and ready to take on the day. I just plopped the iPhone in my purse and had a great day! It was hitting 5 O'clock when a good friend popped into the office. We started chatting and I felt prompted to ask him if he knew much about iPhone's. He didn't know how to fix my phone but in his attempt to figure it out he turned to me and said, "you know what? I have at least one older iPhone sitting at home that I would love to give you." I was so relieved and said thank you a thousand times! Looking back on this story, I realize that staying calm after everything happened and knowing in my heart that patience makes everything work out for the better, everything had worked out! This story has another lesson to it as well; what you give is what you get. If you are frustrated and negative about events that happen in life, it is more likely that you'll find negativity and frustration within results. But if you are positive and calm and happy, the results are usually far greater! I love the little lessons I learn each day! The simplest of things can have the greatest outcomes on life!

Vision

I have learned am amazing lesson over some period of time. Vision defines what life will create for us. If we envision what we want, we will see it come alive right before our eyes. I was told a story tonight about a girl who wanted to test this in a very simple way. She chose her favorite flower, a Calla Lilly. She began by placing the photo of a Calla Lilly on her mirror so she could see it every morning. Next she put it as her background on her phone and then placed another photo in her car. Every where she looked she saw a Calla Lilly, she was envisioning what she wanted to become present in her life. One day she was at her friends house and she noticed a beautiful vase of Calla Lillies peering at her from the kitchen table. She saw them but still knew she needed to keep it a vision and it would come to her without her having to take physical action. She was heading for the front door when she heard a quiet voice. She looked behind her and came to find her friends daughter holding a calla lilly in her hand and saying, "have a beautiful flower". Something so simple had come to her by just envisioning it. She was amazed at how this worked and she started to envision everything she wanted in her life. Everything she wanted was rephrased from I want this to I will have this. She stayed focused on envisioning her goals and she had success in every area that she had envisioned. Vision is everything. If you see it, you will believe it. Faith goes along with this, even though it seems contradictory.. with faith, you don't have to see it to believe it. To explain how this goes together is envisioning all things through faith. If you have faith that you can achieve something, then faith becomes vision and vision becomes success. It is a beautiful lesson that we can all apply to our lives. Envision your dreams, breathe them, see them, and you can live them..

The simplicities in life...

I'm sitting in Salt Lake Brewing Co. waiting on a friend and watching people come and go. Oh coffee shops you must do something to my head because I always have the best moments and writing epiphany's while sitting in such places. I see an old man come in wearing a raccoon hat and take a seat. I see a fragile lady vigorously typing away at her laptop and snatching a bite of her veggie sandwich. People come and go, orders come and go, cars come and go. It is such a busy life we are all living in. Clocks ticking, things moving, invisible molecules sifting through the air. Things moving at fast speeds and never stopping. I keep my eyes busy glancing here and there then I look to the ground and fix my eyes on something shiny so I lean down to get a better look. It's a penny faced heads up. I get super excited and think to myself, Oooh a lucky penny! I pick up the penny and slide it into a little pocket in my zebra striped planner that has sticky notes piled out the sides. I keep my mind on this little lucky penny, something that was probably so insignificant to someone in which case they probably carelessly tossed it on the floor, then here I am thinking its lucky and letting something simple make my day. This just reminds me of a quote I wrote once. It said, "happiness is made by the simplicities in life." The smiles of a stranger, the kiss on the forehead, the whisper in an ear, the flower peeking up between cracks in a sidewalk, the laugh of a child, and even the heads up penny on the floor of a coffee shop. I am so grateful that I can notice these simple moments, I find such happiness within them. If you're ever lacking happiness in your life, take a look around you and pause the busy movements of this world to find the simple joys. You will start to realize how happy you truly are..<3

Hitting rock bottom..

A new friend of mine recently mentioned a quote about hitting rock bottom. I smiled really big when she mentioned that once you get there, the only direction left to go is up! Reflecting on this conversation I thought about the last year and how I unintentionally hit rock bottom, and man did I hit hard. I went through some rough times and I was on my knees more than a few times. I often wondered why me as I rolled out of bed early every morning either killing myself in the gym or going to early morning classes. I lost happiness and comfort in the simplicities of life and I was often hit with stressful situations. I just tried to keep my chin up. A change in this way of life started when I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Singapore! Singapore was probably one of the most amazing places I could have ever traveled to at that time in my life. The country was just pure and clean and the people were all so different but that didn't matter, they were all so beautifully nice and helpful in every way. Being in Singapore and away from my natural sense of the world was the perfect place to heal and listen to my heart and look into myself at who I am and what I want out of life. It was such a beautiful time of reflection and a fresh start on life. As my time in Singapore came to an end, I felt refreshed and ready to take on my life waiting for me back home. I walked off the plane with a smile on my face and a brave feeling of growth and accomplishment. I knew life could only get better than it had been. Taking this blog to reflect back on how my new life has turned out makes me amazed at how prayers are answered and gives me a firm testimony that if you patiently endure trials, they do in fact make you stronger and more able to take on the world. I have been back from Singapore for exactly one month and in the last month I have had more amazing opportunities than I can count on two hands. My first amazing opportunity was the chance to go back to my wonderful job working at Striders running store. Running is my relaxation and my way to cope with everything so being able to work around that atmosphere everyday is so amazing and I am so grateful for that job. My second amazing opportunity is the chance to start my certification process for personal training and deciding that working out is what makes me most happy and teaching others about health and fitness everyday will make me wake up every morning with a smile on my face excited to get to work! My next amazing opportunity was the chance to be contacted by Urban modeling agency and have faith and comfort by prayer to sign with them as a model. Through that I was also hired as a scout for them and it is a great opportunity for me to use my networking skills and open doors for young aspiring models and actors! I feel so privileged to be apart of that! The best opportunity I've had while being connected with Urban is making new friends that have opened many doors. But the biggest blessing I have received through all these amazing moments in the past couple months is the reassurance that Christ lives and loves us and has felt our pain. He has guided a path for us that we can humbly follow. This life is tough so we can gain the knowledge and understanding necessary to understand Him. I am full in my faith when I say that everything in fact does happen for a reason..