Heather & Dan

3 Days Away!

2008-08-16T17:56:00.000-07:00

Well now that the wedding is three days away I figure I should update this so that after the wedding I won't have a million pictures to post! Dan and I took our engagements, which turned out really cute. My cousin Loren's wife, Erika Reid took our engagements, my bridals, and she will be taking all the pictures at the wedding and reception. This one is on the front of our announcements.

They all turned out absolutely beautiful! We were very happy with them. The only problem was trying to choose which ones we wanted to use in the announcement.

My friend Brittany Bacon helped us design our announcements. Dan and I had a particular design in mind and decided to design them ourselves. Brittany helped us put everything together and we made the final edits before it went to the printers. They turned out great and we love how original they are!

Almost everything is done to get ready for the reception. We spent most of this morning over at Diane's house (she offered for us to have our reception on her beautiful backyard) setting up chairs, cleaning off tables, and power-washing everything in sight. The place is going to look great! We will finish the last decorations on Monday and last minute touches on Tuesday. My mom's friends have been a big help in setting up, cleaning, and decorating. Good thing too since my mom has been going nonstop like a crazy woman helping me get everything done! She's had less meltdowns now that Lisa is in town and Dan and I don't need to drive up and back from Logan two to three times a week.

Last night I went through the temple for the first time to receive my endowments. Thanks to all the family who came and supported me. It was a very special experience and I was glad to have family there. Now that it's past, Dan and I can focus on Tuesday when we will be sealed together in the Bountiful Temple! I love him so much and I'm very excited to spend my life with him!

I'm finally engaged!

2008-07-15T14:15:00.000-07:00

So I've decided that this whole catching up business is a pain so I'm just going to start off new. Unfortunately, I still need to back up just a little bit, but only to the 4th of July.

My family has this tradition of going up to our cabin in Oakley, UT every year for the 4th of July. We usually hang out at the cabin and have a big BBQ before heading down the canyon to the Annual Oakley Independence Day Rodeo. This year was a little more memorable then past years--because this year I was engaged!

Dan proposed to me on top of the mountain behind our cabin. We had ridden up there on horseback and once at the top, where we had the most beautiful view of the surrounding mountain ranges, the canyon, and the valley--he proposed!

I'll have to admit that I was very surprised! I had been under the impression (with a little help from Dan) that the ring was still being resized, but nope! So we came down the mountain and showed it off to the rest of the family!

My grandpa, several of my cousins, and my aunt and uncle were also at the cabin to celebrate the 4th with us, so they all got to see it as soon as we got off the mountain. What a great 4th of July! We spent the rest of the day riding horses, driving around my grandpa's old tractor and John Deere Gator, and going to the Oakley rodeo.

The rodeo was a blast and my nieces and nephews loved sitting on Dan's lap to watch the rodeo. I think my nephew Parker made a new buddy out of "Uncle Dan."

Spring Break and Easter

2008-03-25T23:43:00.001-07:00

These are all kind of old, but I never posted them for some odd reason, so I'm just trying to catch up!

Well, first off my friend Ciara left on her mission and is currently in the MTC. I can't believe its almost been two months since she left for her mission. I hope the time goes by fast, but she and I keep in touch and she's doing great! These pictures are from when I went down to her farewell in Feb. It was the week after we got from St. George and Vegas.

Ciara and Me

Heather Thompson, Ciara, and I--I knew Heather at school last year and we all lived in Jackson over the summer. Heather and I hang out a lot now!

So skip ahead a few months were nothing really happened but school and work. I did get a job as a copywriter/copyeditor for a local marketing company, Advent Creative. I really like working there and having the opportunity to explore a more creative side to technical writing, which is marketing and multimedia. Technical writing tends to be a little dry sometimes and it has been a challenge to break out of that trend and learn to be a little more creative in my writing. It's becoming something I really enjoy.

I also attended an Open House for the Professional Communications Master's Program at Westminster in SLC. I am considering applying for Fall 2009 and getting my masters in a marketing and multimedia emphasis. I've discovered that I like working with the more creative side of technical writing a lot better then the dry instruction manual/working with engineers (sorry Kevin) side of technical writing. I still enjoy the writing portion of all of it but the subject matter doesn't interest me.

This is a picture from Easter. My roommates and I all got sidewalk chalk and chalked the sidewalk in front of our apartment. In the end, we had chalk wars and everyone who walked past our apartment could see the chalk for days.

St. George and Las Vegas Girls Weekend

2008-02-04T21:56:00.000-08:00

My friend Ciara is leaving on her mission to Argentina next week, so for our last weekend together we went down to St. George and Las Vegas. We stayed at Ciara's house in St. George on Friday and hung out with some of her friends, then on Saturday morning we drove down to Vegas with her parents. Her family had friends that had recently moved there, so we went and saw their new house and then made plans to meet up with them on the Strip. We went to eat at In-N-Out Burger and had lunch, then headed downtown.

Megan, Me, and Ciara

Since all three of us has been to the Strip before, we decided to go shopping at the Las Vegas Outlet Malls on the south end of the Strip. We were only able to visit maybe a 1/15th of the outlets, but we still had fun and found some cute clothes.

We met up with Ciara's families' friends at the New York, New York because they wanted to go on the roller coaster. We didn't want to pay $14 to go on one ride, so we hung out in the Arcade and took pictures. We actually took some really cute pictures of the three of us in one of those outrageously priced photobooths. I will scan those in later.

After the New York, New York, we went over to the M&M factory and went to town with the wall of M&M's. We all got bags of candy--peanut and peanut butter for me! After that we went over to the Coca-Cola Factory and got some Coke.

Good times in the Coke Factory! These pictures are for the Foster side of the family!

I'm a dark-drink drinker! My dad trained me well!

After that we left the Strip and went to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner and it was amazing. I still have leftovers and they are still good! Overall, we had a blast spending time together before Ciara left, and now Megan and I are good friend too. She was one of Ciara's best friends from Alpine and now we are friends too. We are planning a farewell party for Ciara this weekend with all of her friends. It will give everyone a change to hang out and party with her one more time before she leaves.

Other than my eventful weekend, things are going good! School is not bad this semester--surprising since it is my last--and I am currently looking for another internship. My love life is a work-in-progress but no news on that front. I'll put the other Vegas pictures up when I get them from Ciara and Megan.

Long-Awaited Christmas Break

2007-12-08T00:24:00.000-08:00

This has been the first chance I have had to update this blog. Ever since Halloween, I have been extremely busy with school. It seems my professors tried to make all of my final projects coincide with one another and keep my as busy as possible, but somehow I managed and finished yet another semester.

I'll give you a quick update of the projects I have been working on. The first, Synopsis, is self-imposed. I published the last two monthly issues of my newsletter, Synopsis, and I have been getting ready to send it into the national STC competition. Synopsis has won national and international awards in the past and I hope to keep up the tradition. With Synopsis done with for the semester, I focused the rest of my time on final projects, which included, a complete visual redesign of a Customer Care training packet for ICON Health & Fitness. This was before..

This is after...I also worked on editing the ICON Training Manual (this is available to all their employees through a company intranet--I only edited the first ten out of one hundred pages and it took me about 10-15 hours or more.) I also redesigned the training manual for visual design.

Before...

And after...

Other projects included redesigning 15 pages of my own previous work, writing a recommendation report for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and creating a electronic portfolio.

Between all of this, my normal daily homework, and my peer tutoring job, I didn't have much time for anything except homework and dance. I think most of my friends thought I had dropped off the face of the planet, but in reality, I just became a hermit in the library. The week before Thanksgiving and the two weeks after were the worst. On average, I was working from 9:30 am until whenever they kicked me out of the library, which was usually around 12 am. It was a good thing I bought the new Adobe CS3 or else I would never have been able to get through this semester. I did, however, manage to avoid a complete meltdown during my finals. I finished Friday and I am so glad to be done with this semester. One more down, one more to go!! So close to finishing!

I was lucky because I finished on the 7th and the rest of the school doesn't finish until the 14th. English majors don't have finals, so I had a whole week to catch up on sleep, exercising, eating, and having a normal social life again before coming home for the holidays.

Halloween

2007-11-10T19:09:00.001-08:00

I saw everyone else's Halloween pictures up and decided to put up mine as well. Can you guess what I am?? haha probably not.

I went as a box elder bug! I made my costume--cause I am poor college student--and it turned out great!

It was actually a really funny costume because box elder bugs infest Logan every year, and everyone hates them...with a passion. The majority of the reactions I got all night were about how people hated me because I was everywhere in their apartments, cars, and classes. It was hilarious!

This is a real Box Elder bug. I hate them so bad! They infest the English building on campus in the thousands. It is the worst to be working on a computer and to look up and see bugs crawling on the walls and windos above your computer or crawling over the edge of your monitors. It freaks me out everytime! I can't wait for snow, so that they all disappear.

My friend Ciara and I went to the Institutes Halloween dance but it ended at 11pm so we went party-hopping for the rest of the night. We had a blast! I met Ciara up in Jackson over the summer and we have become really good friends. We hang out all the time!

These guys are some of my friends that we ran into at one of the parties. As always, I am the center of attention!

I know, I know, I am really bad at keeping this updated...

2007-10-12T16:08:00.000-07:00

I think I am probably shocking some of my family by actually updating this, so sit on the edge of your seat and pay attention because I put in a ton of pictures!

Okay, so summer was awesome!! Jackson Hole was absolutely amazing! I loved it there and can't wait to go back and visit! My singles branch was so much fun. There was always something fun going on everyday of the week. So even if I didn't get to do everything I was hoping to after I got mono, I still got to do a lot of fun stuff. I never got to hike the Grand but I did hike Sleeping Indian. It was a beautiful hike and I loved it.
We got to see the most amazing sunset while we were up there.

We also went up into the mountains and played in the mud, by the end of the night, we were all caked in mud and freezing, but we had a good time!

We had a "Worse Mistake Ever" dance and had to dress in the worst thing we could find.

We also had a watermelon eating contest, where yours truly came in a close second! I beat all the girls and all but one guy, it was great, but I haven't had the stomache to eat watermelon since then.

But all good things come to an end, and I moved back down to Utah State. Of course, the fun didn't stop there. I went up to the cabn with some friends before school started and we went horseback riding and rode the Gator.

I went wakeboarding with some friends the first weekend I was home. It was a blast, even though I ate hard a couple of times.

Then its just been school, homework and dance since school started. The Synopsis is going well, we had a few problems with corrupted files but are working through them. Being an editor is a lot of work, but I am really enjoying myself. I really love it.

Then last weekend I went up to the cabin with my roommate Shawna and we watched conference and relaxed all weekend long. It was great! She is a senior too and we didn't know each other before this semester but we have become really good friends.

Jackson is so much fun...even with mono!

2007-06-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody,
I am trying to get some pictures on this thing but I have to go to the library when I want to use the Internet so it is very limiting. Not to mention most of the pictures are on my friends camera's cause I always forget to bring mine. I will really try to upload some this weekend.

I am feeling much better these days from the mono. I just get tired really easily and take a lot of naps. I am back at work part time, I usually work 4-6 hours and then go home and take long naps. But I am feeling like I am on the upward climb to getting better.

Despite the mono I have still been able to go and do a lot of fun things here in Jackson. Last weekend I went river rafting down the Snake River for the first time in about 6 or 7 years. It was great! I went down with a whole bunch of people in my singles branch. I paddled the whole time (although I probably shouldn't have) and I didn't fall out once. I did get a really good looking bruise on the back of my leg. I will take a picture and try and post it. Also, yesterday I went and floated down Flat Creek, which is a small river that runs through Jackson. IT was really fun. We got $5 tubes from Smiths and had a blast. There were mini rapids and we all got scraped up a bit but still had fun. I am trying to enjoy my time here in Jackson even though it can be limiting. I came home from my first day of working 6 hours after getting sick and slept for 14 hours. And I still woke up tired. Oh well such is life. I will get better eventually... Well until next time!

Summer, Jackson and Mono

2007-06-06T22:55:00.000-07:00

Its been awhile since I have updated this, but there are several excellent reasons why I haven't. First, I moved to Jackson Hole, WY to work for the summer and its absolutely amazing. Second, my new apartment doesn't have Internet so I have to go to the Jackson County Library if I want to use the Internet (or really nice friends let me use their laptops), and the last reason is because two weeks ago I got mono.

Summers in Jackson are amazing if you can enjoy them. I work from about 9:30 to about 7 or 8 at night and then I would usually go hang out with people from my singles branch. I seemed doomed to not be able to enjoy Jackson this summer though. The first hike we went on as a ward I rolled my ankle pretty bad and had to be carried back up and down the mountain. I am very accident prone these days.

Then my birthday came and I turned 22 yrs old. The best part of the day was when my boyfriend Dan, drove up from Texas to surprise me. He wasn't planning on coming up until later the next week to go back to Logan but he came up early and at 5 am in the morning rang my doorbell and surprised me. So we got to spend the day together since I had the day off. It was great!

That's where the good news ends, two days later I went to the doctor because I had been feeling really sick and extremely tired. I had blood work done and discovered that I had mono and strep throat. I think that this combination is honestly the worst that can ever happen. First of all you are exhausted all the time and all you ever want to do is sleep, but then your throat hurts, so you wake up to take more drugs and to eat but the food is downstairs and it takes all your energy just to get there. So you stay there for awhile before you want to sleep in your bed, and then the cycle starts all over again. And contrary to what most people believe, I did not get mono from Dan, I was afraid that I gave it to him and made him go to a doctor to check just in case. I had a roommate when I first moved to Jackson who had recently had it and was recovering from it. She moved to another apartment about a week after I moved in. I thought I had been so careful to keep our apartment clean and not get sick but lo and behold, I got mono.

So I haven't been able to go to work for the last 2 weeks and depending on how I feel this weekend I may be out for a little longer. Even when I do start working again I can only work part-time. I just hope I can stay awake and on my feet for work.

I have received several calls concerning my Clogging Club and have had quite a few people interested in when I will be starting classes. Its hard to choreograph dances when you have mono. I have to think it out in my head, but its coming although slowly. I am really excited about this fall, I think we are going to have an awesome group.

Well that's all for now, until I borrow a laptop or go to the library. I'll try to put in some pictures next time.

End of School Update

2007-05-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

School is finally over! The last few weeks have been both busy and slow. But now that they are over, I can have a little bit of a break before I move up to Jackson for the summer. Then I will get to see mountains like this everyday!

My finals went well, I only had two real finals. The rest of my finals were projects, presentations, and papers that were due the week before finals. It's nice being an English major when it comes to taking tests, because we don't take tests, we just write papers about them. I would much rather write a paper then take a test.

I am recovering from my concussion very well. I was dizzy with headaches for the first week and a half after it happened but now, over two weeks since the accident and a lot of Jamba Juices, I am feeling much better and the headache has lessened to a slight buzz. As long as I get enough sleep at night and drink lots of water I am usually ok. Next week I will be able to start working out again, which will be a relief. I am getting tired of not being able to run or walk long distances.

My dance girls and I went out to dinner on Tuesday night at Chili's to talk and hang out for the last time this semester. I got to share our judgesheets with them, we did really well at competition and I am so proud of them! Most of them are returning next year and are excited to start dancing again. We are hoping to have 3 maybe 4 classes next year for different levels. As a competing team, we are hoping to have 3 new dances next year. I have a lot of plans for the club and I am excited for the next school year to start so I can start teaching again. I will be busy choreographing over the summer!

This is my roommate Mindy and I when we were on Spring Break in Vegas.

Dance Competition and Concussion

2007-04-24T13:48:00.000-07:00

My team and I went to the Springfest Dance Competition in Taylorsville, UT on Saturday and we had a lot of fun! We only did one dance in Championship and we won first place on it. The biggest surprise was when we won Grand Champion Overall in the Small Open Team category. We danced against 6 or 7 other teams so I was very pleased. Our judge sheets came back with very good scores and I was really excited. It was the first time we had ever competed together and we did great. I am glad I was able to dance!

For those of you who don't know, I got a concussion last week when I went country dancing. My friend was dipping me at the end of the last dance and another couple behind us kicked me pretty hard in the head. I ended up going to the hospital in an ambulance and having to get x-rays because they were worried I had hurt my neck, but everything ended up fine. I don't remember a whole lot of what happened after I got kicked until about the time I got to the hospital but apparently I passed out, forgot my name, where I was from, what day of the week it was, and when my birthday was. My friends said that if the situation hadn't been sort of scary then my reactions and what I said was pretty funny. I left the hospital with a mild-moderate concussion and a headache that the doctor said would last for the next couple of weeks. I wasn't supposed to do any strenuous activity for 48 hours so when Saturday came around I had to decide if I would be able to dance, and I did!

Who has my name?

2007-04-24T13:47:00.000-07:00

HowManyOfMe.com

There are
463
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

I thought this was pretty fun and interesting!

Stake Talent Show

2007-04-14T16:47:00.000-07:00

Ok I think I finally figured this thing out!
This is the video clip of my team performing at our Stake Talent Show.
https://www.google.com/video/upload/Status?rf=1&hl=en

Family, School, and Dance News

2007-04-10T15:28:00.000-07:00

hey everybody!

I finally found some time to update this thing. Sorry there isn't very many pictures on it. But I am at the school library so maybe I will be able to post some later.First of all, I have another cute little niece! Aubrey Calderwood was born last Friday. She has tons of hair and is absolutely adorable. I wish I could go to Maryland and see her but I will have to wait until Lisa and Cody come into town later this summer.

Next, School is still going... I found out on Friday that I got the job that I was interested in as an Rhetoric Associate. So I had to add a class to my fall schedule for that. I will be taking 18 credits next fall. More then I planned on, but my work schedule isn't as hard so I think I will be ok.

My team and I performed Monday night at our Stake Talent show. We did really well I think, considering it was the first time 3 of the dancers had performed the dance. It was a good practice before competition. My team and I have decided to go to competition in two weeks in Taylorsville, UT. We are only competing with one dance and I will do my Acappella so its going to be small, but I think it will be good practice. I hope it goes well. I will try and post the video clip of us dancing when I get home tonight as well as some pictures of the team.

My dance club held elections and I was nominated President of the USU Clogging Club. I am excited for this club to start. I am ready to get the paperwork off my desk and start organizing instructors for next fall. I have found even more people who want to join the club. I plan on spending my summer choreographing 2 or 3 new dances for various levels.

The New Editor!

2007-03-28T18:24:00.000-07:00

Guess what!
Tonight, I was elected to be an editor of the Society of Technical Communicators newsletter--Synopsis! I will be the editor for the 2007-2008 school year! I am officially a member of the USU student chapter STC presidency. I just wanted to share the good news!

School, School, School

2007-03-27T20:10:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody! I guess it's time to update my blog spot! Cody keeps on harassing me to update it, so here it is...

I am working feverishly on homework this week, just trying to keep afloat. I have a 10 page single-spaced research paper due on Tuesday and it has been consuming all of my time. But it is coming along and I am hoping to have it finished on Saturday so I can relax a little before my final editing session. I also have an article for the Synopsis due on Monday.

So this week is a busy one! Tomorrow night is elections for the presidency of Society of Technical Communicators. It is a student chapter for a national society. I was asked to run for editor of the monthly newsletter and I accepted. I will find out tomorrow if I have been elected editor of the Synopsis. If I am elected then I will be the editor for my entire senior year and it will open a lot of doors for me. It would be a great opportunity to get my work published.

Also, I applied to be a Rhetoric Associate through the English department. An R.A. is basically a teacher assistant who reviews students papers and meets with them to suggest how to improve their writing style. I have an interview on Monday. If all goes well then I will be able to do that all next year too. It's a fairly good job and it will give me a lot of great experience editing.

Another fun fact is that the Clogging Club that I am starting here at Utah State is almost off the ground. I need to find a professor who will endorse the club and then I can turn in the last of the paperwork. That is my project for next week. My team and I are very excited and I have already had a number of people approach me about joining the club . It probably won't be official until next fall but it looks promising.

Speaking of clogging, my team danced in my ward talent show 3 weeks ago, and last week a member of my bishopric told me that my team was one of the two groups chosen to go to the Stake Talent Show in 2 more weeks. I was very excited about that. Our dance still needs some work and the 3 new girls are almost done learning it, but I think we will be awesome. We will definitely be attending competitions next year.

My weekend was pretty fun. I taught dance on Saturday morning , then I went 4-wheeling with some friends up to Hardware Ranch. We got stuck in the snow a few times, got covered in mud, and had a blast! After that, I went to go see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with about half of my ward at the theater, then we all went up Logan Canyon and had a campfire. On Sunday, Mom, Dad, and Spencer came up to school for Parents Day. My ward had a dinner after the block for all the families and Mom and Dad ran into people they knew. But now that the weekend is over I have been stuck in the library until late every night working on my homework. Hopefully I will have more time to breathe next week.

Spring Break

2007-03-18T20:37:00.000-07:00

I just returned from Spring Break down in southern Utah. 5 of my friends in my ward at Utah State and I decided to go on a southern Utah road trip for Spring Break so Me, Chris, Mindy, Matt, Scott and Jamie all camped in Goblin Valley, the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas for the last week.

We spent 2 days in Goblin Valley, playing on the Goblins and hiking the cliffs. We camped about 5 minutes away from Valley of the Goblins so it was a short drive to go and play. We had a ton of fun playing Hide ans seek and climbing through all of the canyons and arroyos. It was really windy at our campground though. We had a fire and in the morning the fire pit was completely empty. The wind had blown all the ashes away.

After that we drove down to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and camped at Mather Point. We were able to hike down into the canyon on the South Kaibab Trail. We only went about half way because we weren't sure if we would have enough water and you need a special permit to camp at the bottom. But we did hike down to Skeleton point which is about halfway I think. From there we were able to see Phantom Ranch and the Colorado River. It was really cool. We ate a small lunch there and hung out before heading back up the mountain. The trail was really steep in some places coming down so going back up was killer. It took us about twice as long to get out of the canyon and on the last of the switchbacks we ran out of water. It was a really good hike though and I differently recommend it. The next day we hiked along the South Rim and took a million pictures at the lookout points. We get to watch the sunset from one of the ledges over Bright Angel Canyon on the South Rim. It was absolutely beautiful. We hung out back at our campsite for the rest of the night playing games and watching movies on portable DVD players. Usually we all fell asleep before we ever finished the movies though.

The next morning we packed up and drove to Vegas. We stopped and took pictures at the Hoover Dam, but it really wasn't that impressive. Then we pushed on to Vegas. We were staying with Lindsey, another girl from our ward and also Jamie's roommate because she lives in Vegas. Her family was kind enough to let all 6 of us smelly, unwashed college students stay at their house. When we arrived in Vegas the first thing we did was eat dinner at In-N-Out which quite possibly could have been one of the best burgers I have had in a long time. Afterwards we went swimming at one of Lindsey's friends houses and rinsed off a lot of the dust and grit we had accumulated in the last 5 days of camping. After swimming we showered and watched movies at Lindsey's. The next day Lindsey took us down to the Strip and we got to walk through and see the Bellagio and Caesar's Palace. Both of which were pretty cool. I had never been to Vegas before so It was awesome to see everything. We went back and played with Lindsey's nieces and nephews before heading back to the Strip to see more of the sights. We were able to see the MGM Grand, the M&M factory, the Venetian, the Paris Restaurant , the New York, New York, and the fountain show at the Bellagio. It was really cool . Vegas is not very family friendly and you had to be careful where you looked but overall it wasn't too bad. we got back to Lindsey's about 12:30 am and packed the cars for our trip home the next morning. After a few hours sleep we headed back to Salt Lake. It was sad to have our vacation end but we had so much fun. It really was awesome just hanging out and playing with my friends for a week without thinking about school, work, or homework.

So now I am back at Utah State just trying to soak up the last few hours of Spring Break and still trying not to think about homework, work or school.