Mother's Day 2010

napping on Mother's Day with the sweetest little snuggler there is!
After Colton's Blessing on Mother's Day

Gentle Reminder

I was reminded today that Heavenly Father knows me, loves me and is with me. He gave me a blessing that was completely unexpected but perfectly timed. I had wanted for it to happen a few years ago, but in His wisdom, it came right when I needed to put it to use. Heavenly Father spoke my "love language" today and reminded me how much He absolutely loves me. I am eternally grateful.

Week of Gratefuls

I have to do this by the week.... So, here goes.

Saturday - I am thankful for the warm home that I have, the abundance of food on my shelves. I am thankful for a mindful Heavenly Father that blesses me even if I am not doing my very best...He knows my heart and my potential. I am thankful for that!

Sunday - I am grateful that Heavenly Father doesn't compare us to each other. I can't even explain how grateful I am for that. He loves me just as he loves you. Wow! I know that I am a special person with unique talents and gifts. I have a mission here on earth that is mine and mine alone. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are there every step of the way and they love me for me!!

Monday - I am grateful for chapstick! Yes, chapstick. It feels so good when your lips are dry and cracked to put a good ol' coating of chapstick on them!! Ahhhhh

Tuesday - Good books that inspire. The library has been my best friend. I LOVE reading and am such a book nerd. I thoroughly enjoy visiting the library and spending a lot of time there. Of course, the best book can be read at home, the Book of Mormon. :0)

Wednesday - I was glad to be able to exercise my right to vote. It was a great privilege. Even though my choice wasn't picked, my vote did count. Probably more on this later....

Thursday - Cozy...I love Cozi, the online organizer (thanks Heather). I love KOSY 106.5. And I love getting comfy, cozy as soon as I get home and snuggling up with my sweetie after a long hard day.

Friday - I am grateful for the feeling you get after a great workout. I went to the gym everyday this week and it feels GREAT! Not seeing the results I want yet, ;-) but it's great to be taking the steps towards a goal.

Saturday - (skipping a head a day...) I am thankful for giving people. I want to be more of a giving person. I do my best, but I could do a whole lot better. I am grateful for the example of my mother and mother-in-law and so many others around me who are exemplary people and who serve with all their hearts. (someone gave us BYU football tickets for tomorrow's game...and it sparked the thought...)

On the road again....

I am traveling once again. This is time I am in Indianapolis and then making my way to my Kentucky :-) Yay! I have been so blessed to go on so many trips this year. One day I promise I will catch up with cool pictures....

Anyway. One thing that sucks about traveling is that no matter where I go I loose sleep. I got 3 hours of sleep last night. I have to carry so many bags, typically by myself, and on the first day of travel I am so stressed and tension carries in my shoulders and I can't sleep. I got in the hot tub and took 2 hot showers to try and relax and it didn't work. If that is the price I have to pay to travel the world, so be it! :-) Just kidding.

I was just thinking that when I was little I used to want a job where I got to travel to neat places. This year has definitely been a fulfillment of that dream but there is still tons of cool places left I could go but I am so thankful for getting to see so many neat things. One day I will get around to telling you about them :-)

Exactly What I Needed...

This is exactly what I needed to help me stop feeling sorry for myself today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BODHsU3hDo4

Wogging, Thanks Heather!

One of my awesome friends, Heather, coined a phrase for me the other day -- Wogging. Ya know, when you walk and jog. You see I am not a runner. The 5K I "ran" was comical at best. As much as I would like to be I have to face hard facts that when I say I am going to jog a mile, it just doesn't happen, let alone 3.2 miles. I always have high hopes to get out there and run the whole thing and when I don't I get discouraged.

Well, for some reason knowing the phrase of wogging helped me to put things into perspective tonight. I knew I was going wogging and not jogging and it felt good to go out there and do it :-) I jogged the straights and walked the circles of the track and I was so focused. I ran good. And I went over a mile and didn't just go the mile and I could have even went for more. When you take it in little pieces like that, things come into perspective and it seems more manageable.

The power of the mind is amazing isn't it.

*as a side note, Dusty and I were laughing at the numerous fast food places and restaurants that surround the track across the street. As you try to take a deep breath and run you can smell over 12 food places and see them directly across the street! It's the closest track to our house but we may have to scout out a new spot...

Niagara Falls

This has been the year of travel for Miss Amy and I have had a lot of fun....and it's been a LOT of work. I have been promising to post pictures of my travels to London and Scotland but there were over 500 pictures to sort through!! I finally did it but I will probably post them in a series because there are so many pictures....Anyway, here are some pictures from my trip to New York and Canada this year. It was AMAZING to be there at the falls. So peaceful, and just intimidating looking at all of that water and those waterfalls. The sound was awesome. I actually enjoyed being there by myself for the short couple of hours that I had. There is something about the atmosphere that makes you just sit back and take it all in and think.At night time some buildings from across the canyon shine lights on the falls and it looks like a H-U-G-E amazing, beautiful and crazy rainbow. The spot I was at in at the Falls was called Rainbow Bridge and this is the view at night...WOW!

You could tell I had never been there before because lots of people brought coats, winter coats, umbrellas, gloves, hates etc. The falls are so massive and it just gets you soaking wet in certain spots. By nightfall I was freezing!Here are a few pics of many. It was so much fun. And I must say that I was proud of myself. I was driving from New York to Canada with directions but I didn't exactly have directions to the Falls. Eventually I found signs and I stopped off at huge canyon but when I got out to look over the edge there was no falls and I serisouly thought maybe they turned them off for maintenance or soemthing because I really drove forever and thought I was there. I found someone and asked them and I had to drive down another 10 miles or so and found them.This was at the very mouth of the falls. I was actually a little nervous to get so close. I saw idiots sitting on the rails to take pictures and they could have EASILY fallen in and died. It was so neat from this view...

The area and city of the falls is beautiful! It is so calming and trendy yet small town feeling.... Downtown area is really neat but I didn't visit anything else except the falls and they was great enough for me. They had the most gorgeous park areas I have ever seen and I was missing Dusty and wishing we had a few days to camp there or something....one day :-)

Turbo Kick w/ Chalene in the CA!

Well as most of you know I was off to California last week. I had another conference out in Burbank, CA and I was able to go down and take a Turbo Kick class with the Turbo Queen herself, Chalene. It was SO FUN! She is just as every bit of fun and energetic as I thought it would be and I learned so much of what being an awesome instructor is made of. The energy was insane in the room and everybody in class was feeling it. I felt so lucky to be able to go down and take a class from her. She was testing a new "routine" or Round on the class and that was a blast too. *Chalene is the creator of Turbo Kick, the kick boxing program I am certified in....*

After our TK class I got to take a hip hop class, Hip Hop Hustle. She created that program too. Wow. So much fun! It was my first hop hop class in a while and it left me wanting more :-) She is crazy good at hip hop too. Wow! What fun! I can't even describe to you how fun that was for me. It's crazy that the people in her home town just take 5-6 classes from her a week and it's just normal for them. That would be insane if she was just my regular teacher. They are lucky and I am lucky I got to go. After class she took some time to talk with me and take a picture with me. She was so kind and helpful. I asked her a few teaching questions etc. It was just a great experience and I can't believe I just got to go do it.

After those couple hours of working out I went down to Newport Beach to layout and walk up and down the beach. My mind was still going over and over what Chalene and I spoke about and I was thinking about our classes I had taken that morning and I just couldn't believe I was there on Newport Beach in CA after a couple of classes with Chalene. What a perfect day!


Me and Chalene after a couple hours of working out. Great fun!


Newport Beach


Newport Beach

Back from Canada / My Trip of "Firsts"

So I am back from another trip. This time it was from Canada and New York. I flew into New York and then drove into Ontario, Canada. All the while forgetting my passport and answering a question wrong at boarder patrol. I don't recommend doing that. It makes you really nervous even though you are completely legal and it ticks the people off behind you.

This was a trip of "firsts" in several ways.

New York

I have always wanted to go to New York but not necessarily NYC. This was perfect for me. I flew into Buffalo and saw some beautiful parts of New York during my drive.

Niagara Falls

I have always wanted to see Niagara Falls and I drove right through on my way to Canada so of course I stopped off for a few hours to see it. There are several pictures forthcoming. It was a beautiful area. The falls were amazing and the falls at night are spectacular.

cross Canadian border

I just thought this would be cool to do. It was cool going into Canada but not so much going back when I answered a wrong question :-)

go to Canada

I just wanted to add that I feel like such a big girl now that I have driven in New York and to Canada and back all by myself! I think dad might have another heart attack!

ate a cold meat wrap

OK. This one is really weird but I have never eaten a wrap with cold meat in it and I finally did and it wasn't so bad. I still prefer it to have hot meat in it. (and NO deli meat)

Air Force One

When I was sitting on the airport runway for over an hour waiting for our plane to get fixed at least I got a consolation prize...I got to see Air Force One right next to us! Then when we were ready to take off we had to wait for the Air Force One helicopters to take off.....and that made me miss my connecting flight, but hey that was kind of cool.

sleep number bed

• Dusty and I always talk about wanting to get one and I have to admit they are amazing. When I first got in the bed it was really firm and I held down the button to make them softer and it felt so nice. My sleep number is 20 think. I played around with it for a while and I think that is where I did best. It was so nice.
  

• First time I ever got an answer like this:

(You need to know this was the dumpiest hotel I have ever been it. It was dirty, scary and just awful)

• Amy: "Do you have a non-smoking room I can be moved in to?"
• Clerk: "Well you don't have to smoke."
• Amy: "I understand that. I just wanted a room that doesn't have the aroma of smoke. It is making me sick."
• Clerk: "I don't think we got any of those."

Sure enough, the sign outside just said "Smoking Rooms"!!!!!! I have never heard of that! Needless to say I switched hotels and that's how I got into the Radission with the nice sleep number beds.

A Blessing at Old Navy

So Dusty and I were in line buying jeans because we both need them badly...actually he bought his at Kohl's and I went to Old Navy... A lady behind us gave us one of her coupons. It was an employee discount coupon for 20% off our entire order. It was so nice. I had been debating on whether or not to get this jacket/coat that was marked down to $25 and with that discount it was like getting it for free! I was VERY thankful!

That reminded me of mom because she is always doing things like that for strangers and also giving us kids her 15% off at Kohl's.