Reverence

I've always had a sort of proud spirit for our Armed Forces. Both of my grandfathers, and many other members in my family served in the Air Force. And after living in a country where national security is not one of our top priorities, you become much more grateful for it. In fact, I think i'm just a proud American. I've always felt a sort of reverence for things of this country. Not everything, ha. I don't agree with everything that goes on here. But for the most part, our ideals and basic principles and things like the American Dream have always had a special place in my heart. I cry like a baby every year at the Stadium of Fire when they sing the National Anthem in such a grandious way.


Anyway, I wanted to blog about something we did last week. We were in Denver, visiting two of our best friends Blake and Nellie and they took us to the Air Force Academy. It's in Fort Collins, about 30 minutes south of Denver. It's a beautiful valley and even prettier campus. If you could pick somewhere to go to school, it would definitely be there. We went first to the visitor's center. It had a neat little hallway with posters and information about the academy.

Me and Nellie and Blakey next to one of the posters. :)

This one is about the Seniors. They had one for every year they're in the academy explaining they're primary focus and duties. I LOVE that pic of the seniors on graduation day of them throwing their hats with the fly over by the F-16s.  

After that we watched a little video about the life of the cadets and it was really neat. They had me wishing I had gone there! I was very impressed with the way the cadets handled themselves and presented themselves and the respect they had for their peers and supervising officers. It means a lot to them that they're there. It was also noted that they give up a lot to be there. most ppl their age are excited to go to college, get away from mom and dad, party it up and live the college life. But they go to do drills and work hard and become an officer in the United States Air Force. It's something to be commended for sure.

The other really neat thing we saw was the church they have built there. We went on a little walk from the visitors center so we could see it. It was seriously incredible! It's one of the focal points on the campus and a beautiful building. 

Justin and I in front of the church.

Blake, Nellie and Blakey!

Isn't that a cool building?? You can tell how HUGE it is from how little we, and the ppl behind us, are.

This is the inside of the church. It was so beautiful!!! I wish we had a picture that could really do it justice. The stained glass windows were incredible.

     There were also other chapels located donstairs. None were quite this grandious but they were still beautiful. And no, there wasn't an LDS chapel, but we don't really need a chapel to worship, right?

Outside the church we could see the whole campus, which honestly wasn't that big. And I mean the number of buildings wasn't very large. There were huge facilities to do training and stuff, but there's only 4,400 cadets at the academy at any one time, so they don't need much room for housing and classes and such. It was also neat to see all the planes they had displayed on the campus, some of which we were told ares till in Air Force Inventory, meaning they're still functional planes.

Here's two of them! Blake knew what they were, but I don't remember. ha. Anyone know??

This is prolly my favorite pic of us. Love you Justin!! :)

These were taken out the car window. Ha. So they're not the best, but I think they're cool! I wish the pic showed how enormous that plane was. It was incredible.

Sweet pic! Again, out the car window. Sorry the mirror had to make a cameo. ha. Still a cool pic. :)

So that was our little visit. I hope you feel some of the same reverence that I feel for these people that give so much of themselves for our safety. Our country wouldn't run with out them and we literally owe our lives and freedom to them. I want to say thank you to every service man and woman that ever has and ever will serve in that capacity. For those of us that don't get to do that, we need to make sure this is a country worth protecting and do our own civil duty to keep it that way.

Throw up and Back Scratches?

.. DISCLAIMER!! This could be definied as a TMI post, so be warned. ha....

     Wanna know how I knew Justin was a definite keeper? Well, let me tell you a story. It has to start with a little back story though. Since I was 17 ish, I've had TERRIBLE monthly girl times. ha. I get so sick that i throw up everything, and I do mean everything, including bright yellow stomach bile. It's SO disgusting. I'm keeled over on the bathroom floor for atleast 2 hours and I feel like my stomach is being stabbed a million times over again. It's the only pain in the world that brings me to tears. (except  maybe getting poked in the eye.) Anyways, it's horrible. The good (and sometimes bad) thing about it is that it's not very consistent. Good because it doesn't happen every month, bad cuz i can't plan on knowing wether or not it's going to come. My monthly cycles are never very predictable either. I know around when it'll come, but never for sure. And again, sometimes it comes (the sickness, not my period) and sometimes it doesn't. So.. Back to my Justin story.

     When we were dating, about 2 months in, I was at home by myself and I started getting sick. I knew it was happening, so I called him and asked if he could give me a blessing. (I've never been through this without a blessing, and I never plan to.) He asked what was wrong, so I told him and he came to get me. He took me to his house and called his friend to help him with the blessing. When it was done, his friend left, and I went to the bathroom to throw up. Here's the kicker.. He followed me to the bathroom and sat on the floor with me and rubbed my back while I threw up! I couldn't believe it. And for 2 reasons... 1, I couldn't believe I was letting my new boyfriend watch me in that kind of state. It's not a pretty sight to watch some one throw up. Let's be honest. 2, I couldn't believe he was there scratching my back. Most people's reaction to throw up is gagging. (Mine is!) Just the smell revolts me. But there he was.

This is about what I looked like. Sad day. ha.

(tip, don't google "girl throwing up." It's kinda gross.)

     I'll be honest, I wasn't thinking in that moment that he would be my hubby cuz of how sweet he is. I was probably cursing my stomach and uterus, which is usually what I do during that time of the month. But thinking back, after the hell passes, and I was laying on his bed, watching "Ratatouille" (I only like to watch Disney movies when I'm sick. I don't know why. ha.) I was thanking my lucky stars to be with some one so incredible.

     The reason I'm telling this story now is cuz it happened again yesterday. I was about to die, and there was Justin, sitting on the bathroom floor with me. He was also making me walk around the house to try to get me to throw up sooner. (The sooner I get it all out, the sooner I can fall asleep and have it be over) And he knows this, so he's making me get up and walk around to make it come. He rubs my back and my head and lets me squeeze his hand and leg when I'm in pain. This time, as I'm cursing my woman parts, I'm also thanking Justin for being so amazing, and my Heavenly Father for letting me have him. I'm the luckiest girl in the world to be blessed with such an amazing Husband. He really is the perfect man for me and I'm so grateful for him!

This is me and my amazing hubby. I LOVE YOU BABY!

I am a Mormon!

Remember my daily scripture texts? Well, I made them into a blog! You can subscribe to it with e-mail, or just see it, or nothing at all, ha. Just thought I'd let you know! :)


http://iamamormon6.blogspot.com

Dissapointed

I haven't posted in a LONG time, and for that I'm sorry. I really like using this as a journal of sorts, but i've never been good at writing in journals. I take that back, when I was in high school, I wrote ALL the time. But it's been a long time since high school. ha. And sadly enough, a lot more important things have happened since then, but i chose to record the less important things. ha. Oh well. I guess it's all important.

ANYWAY, so this morning I had A LOT on my mind. ha. There are a lot of feelings associated with all of it and I'm trying to make sense of it all. I'm not even sure how to define all these feelings so I figure if I write them down, in a place where some one else might read them, I can be honest with myself, and see how silly some of my feelings might be. Ha. I don't mean they're wrong, because no feelings are ever wrong. They may be misplaced, but they're never wrong. So let's see if I can make any sense of this.

How do you deal with dissapointment? Or should I even be dissapointed? I'm the first one to say don't get offended if offense isn't meant, but some how I find myself offended, and dissapointed. There are a few people in my life that I look up to, and when they aren't perfect, I get upset. Unnecessarily upset. Maybe some back story would help...

Last year, my favorite couple in the world got divorced. It was very randomly sprung on me and a complete shock. I had no idea this couple even had problems! I mean, everyone has problems, but I never, in a million years, thought this couple would get divorced. And it came after my brother had just barely been divorced. I had a HARD time dealing with that cuz of a lot of issues I have with my brother, ha, but it got a lot worse when this couple decided it was time to be done. The thing is, I know they would never do it unless they really believed it was the right thing to do, but I always thought there were very, very, very few reason why it would ever be right to get divorced. Anyway, my little world was shattered last summer and I cried to my favorite aunt and uncle and I realized it was really my fault for being upset. I hardly ever get truely angry. Upset? All the time. ha. But angry? Not really. However, in this case, I think i was truely angry. And why?! I should be loving these people, not judging them for their mistakes. But I  had put all my trust in Happily Ever After on them, and now it was ruined. But that's not fair of me to say of them, is it?! I just don't know! It was so confusing. And it still kind of is. I don't make a whole lot of sense to even myself. ha

So what does this have to do with now? Well, the passed few months, I've been sending out a little scripture/spritual thought in a text message every day. I send it to a lot of people, like 40, and most of them really like it. In fact, most of them thank me for it. I don't do it for that though. I do it because at Education week, some one suggested that we do things like that, and we were reminded that the General Authorities have been pushing us to share the gospel in our multimedia outlets in any way we can, so here's my way of doing it. So last weekend, a friend of mine (one of those people I used to look up to) told me she didn't want me to send those messages anymore. She said it was distracting to  her and her efforts to raise her children, and that she felt I was being pushy and nto allowing her to worship the way she wanted to. She said she wanted to worship her own way, with her family, in private and that she didn't need me to tell her what to do or how to worship. I got really upset by this. Probably a lot more than I should have, and if you're reading this, I apologize for getting upset.

But let me explain why I was so upset. I never meant to be pushy on anyone. I was just trying to fulfill a request from the prophets, do my part in spreading the gospel and maybe I could say something one day that some one else needed to hear. Not to mention, it's a way for me to explore the scriptures and get a good thought in for myself. I guess I felt like since she was saying No I don't want your daily spriritual thought she was saying she doesn't want me. And I was hurt by that! And then, yesterday, I was told that one member of my favorite couple (see above paragraph :) ) didn't want them either. So that brought all those feelings of almost rejection swelling to the top and nearly brought tears. I know I shouldn't feel this way, because I know these two people don't hate me, but I don't understand why they don't want to participate with my daily thoughts. It's not like i'm preaching repentance, or giving a whole talk every day. It's just one scripture! I guess it's because I expect more out of these people and they've been giving me less than i want.. but that's not fair of me to say. Who am I to judge them? Maybe they do have legitimate reasons for not wanting to participate, and who I am to say their reasons aren't good. I'm not there in their life to know what's really going on. I should be there no matter what and be able to respect their wishes.

But somehow, I'm hurt. And I bring up all the old thoughts of everything i can remember that went wrong and then i'm even more upset. So, I guess my question is how do you not do that? How can you seperate what someone did in the past to what they're doing right now? And how do I follow my own advice of not getting offended when offense isn't really meant?  I think it has something to do with true forgiveness. I need to forgive this perfect couple for making that mistake, and stop thinking that it had anything to do with me. I don't think I ever thought they even thought about me even for one second when they made this choice, ha. But somehow I was personally offended by their actions and I need to not be. So here I am, trying to get over things that aren't even my problems! ha. Sad day, right?