recently

ok so this wasn't intended to be a long post, but i had pictures from the past few weekends i wanted to document and just threw in some other tid bits. so here it goes.

jeff just started his o.b. rotation in february and so far it hasn't been too bad. he's seen about 3 c-sections and 2 natural birth deliveries, which i think have been exciting for him. he even got to "scrub in" (or help out) on a couple of the c-section surgeries. he's also been spending more time figuring out which schools he wants to apply to for residency and setting up some of his audition rotations for 4th year. so so crazy how soon all of that is and how fast school has flown by.

a couple weekends ago i was lucky enough to watch (or play with) my favorite girls! these girls were a huge part of my life last year when i babysat them 2-3 times a week and i miss seeing them so much! while i was there, cali told me the sweetest thing i think i've ever heard a two year old say. i was making them lunch and they were sitting at their table waiting, when out of the blue i heard, "hihwayee?" (my name) me, "yes cali?" "i yuv you." (translation: i love you.) my heart seriously melted, it was so precious to hear that sweet little voice say those sweet words! it reminded me of just how pure their hearts are and how loving they are at that age. i hope some of that rubbed off on me while i was there. i was so glad they called me to babysit and i'm so glad i remembered to take a picture, too. these are the faces they gave me when i pulled out my camera!

so i joined them...

seriously so cute.

we went to the park, of course! one of our favorite places to go to when i come over.

i love this picture! such sweet sisters.

last weekend was also a hit. our beehive class had a sleepover/planning night. we planned all of our activities for the rest of the year and still had plenty of time for games (quelf... interesting game), movies and toilet papering. oh and was toilet papering the highlight of the year! the miamaids wanted to crash the party since it was a "beehive only" party and toilet papered and chalked us. but no worries, we were environmentally friendly and used the toilet paper they used to tp us to get them back with. did that make any sense? anywho. it was an exciting night to say the least! ah, i felt so young again.

in my car, getting ready to tp. notice the wad of tp in their laps...

here's one with everyone's full head in the picture. :)

the whole group, culprits and all. :) (miamaids with army paint)

the zombie leaders

this last picture is with most of my girlfriends from school. i spend alot of time with them since i pretty much have every class with almost all of them. i have gotten to know some of them pretty well and i love it because it makes it so much more fun to go to school! i told my husband that it's sad he doesn't know any of them, because i really do spend so much time with them... so i took this picture to show him (and you, blogging friends) who they are! some of them were laughing at me and one of my other friends because we said we were going to blog about it, but then they all asked me to email it to them! haha! everyone loves pictures, they just don't want to admit it! and i'm planning on taking more pictures just so they know...

it was at a conference put on by asu called the building healthy lifestyles conference and it was alot of fun! we all got extra credit for attending and listening to several different speakers talk about stress, healthy eating and what not. but the best speaker by far was the keynote speaker. i know this post is getting long, but i just have say a little about him because it really was so touching. his name was colonel edward l. hubbard, he was a prisoner of war and he wrote a book called escape from the box, which is top on my list of books to read now. also, man's search for meaning is a very similar book and very good read by viktor e. frankl. he was also a p.o.w. in a concentration camp during world war two. i read it about three years ago and really want to read it again now.

col. hubbard was a prisoner of war in the vietnam war for 6 and 1/2 years. he said he weighed 175 lbs before he was there and around 90 lbs after! they lived off of 300 calories a day, it was crazy. they also couldn't talk to anybody, so the prisoners would tap everything to each other. he learned the entire spanish language without even conversing with someone, just by tapping on the wall! it was so incredibly inspiring.

he told us some pretty amazing things i hope to never forget. his main focus was on perception. the first 150 days he was there, he felt so bad for himself and thought he would die there, until he decided he wanted to live and made a conscious decision to never have a bad day as long as he would live. at the end he made us close our eyes while he described what it was like living as a p.o.w. and we then sang "god bless america" which was so touching and patriotic. i got goose bumps and a little teary eyed knowing that so many fight for our freedoms and have made it possible for us to live in such a wonderful country. sorry i know this is beyond long, but here are a few of my favorite things he shared:

• perception drives our attitude and attitude drives our life.
• the ability to choose one's attitude is the only thing that people can't take from you.
• if your life has no purpose, you have no life.
• everything you've ever done in your life, you could have done better.
• the man who had no shoes complained until he met the man who had no feet.
• it's not what happens in your life that's critical, it's how you respond to it that's critical.

feeling like a failure yet? yeah, me too. j/k sorry for such a long post, it just made me think very differently and was so good to be reminded of how grateful i am for all of the many blessings i have. we really have nothing to complain about in life.