...she had a great 21st birthday and her little brother got a special call!

Ok so I know I just posted something but these needed their own post. I promise it's worth it! Yesterday I turned 21 and spent it with some of my favorite people :) I stayed with my bff roomie Ashley at her home in Sandy. Erwin, Ash, the Babcock family, and myself had a great night playing in the snow, drinking some great cocoa-motion made by the one and only Char, and playing some Christmas Yahtzee. Zac stopped by to say hi and play for a bit before he, "the blessed son of God had to go out and provide for the family." hahaha that was just an awesome Zacism from Mr. Wonderful himself. In his defense he had been up and working about the past 24 hours.

We slumbered and then Ash made pancakes for me and even had a "D" and a "G" pancake in which we put candles. We then spent much of the day being quite lazy and watching movies and TV shows. I enjoyed not having anyplace to be or anything to worry about doing. All day I received great phone calls, texts,  and facebook comments from many people I enjoyed hearing from.  Ash made birthday cupcakes and I was sung to again :) then later in the afternoon Zac came and he took me to a yummy dinner at Asian Star. He's so amazing to sacrifice his tastebuds for an evening and allow me to have some sushi :) He gave me roses and a beautiful necklace that I havn't yet taken off. We then went to a movie and returned to Ashley's casa. Zac soon dozed off with me on the couch and then went home. Ashley and I then fell asleep to The Sound of Music. Overall... BEST birthday! :D and I LOVED it! and i'll post pictures of things mentioned soon....


Part 2 of one of my favorite posts:
My little brother Ronnie who I love and miss very much received his mission call today. Drum roll please...... he's going to the ITALY,ROME mission spreading the gospel in Italian!!!!!!!!!!! I was VERY sad to have missed the wonderful event of him opening the call, but in honor of this momentous occasion i'd like to look back at our time spent together :) Ronnie is only 15 months younger than me, so for much of our lives we were pretty much like twins. He was my first roommate, best friend, dress up doll, and trouble making buddy. We spent much of our time together and here are just a few of my favorite pictures of us:

Ronnie you're the bestest! and I love you so much! I hope you know how much I wish I was there today to see you open your call. You're gonna be the best missionary and I'm soooooo excited for you! LOOOOVE YOU! 

love,

your sister

Today you make me smile...and cry haha but mostly smile :)

...she had a wonderful Christmas in California

As usual my life has been pretty busy and full of exciting events :) My road trip with Mr. Wonderful was just that; WONDERFUL! We woke up bright and early and began the trek to southern California. My yellow bug was excited to be back in the warm climate...but PSYCH! It rained the whole trip! We didn't let this damper the vacation. We spent one evening in Redlands where we got to go to dinner with my Dad and Melinda and some of the Carlson crew. We were then able to spend a day in San Marcos and attend Alexa and Christians wedding! :)  I got to show Zac the beach and where I spent my last two years. It was great to see everyone from my old ward! It was fun to have the partial TEAM together too!

We then headed over to Cathedral City where we had an early Christmas with my Mom, John, and the rest of the Green/Rawlings fam bam. It was so nice to be home! We then returned to Redlands where we spent another day there relaxing and playing Just Dance with my brother Brandon. Way fun game! We had a great trip and I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with my driving buddy :) I was so excited I got to show him where I come from and he could meet all of my family. Let me just say...they all love him! But who wouldn't? ;)

I returned to Provo only to turn around and fly back a day and a half later and of course the rain had cleared and it was quite warm and sunny. I spent Christmas eve in Rancho Mirage at my Grandma and Grandpas house. The Green and Hernandez families converged for bread bowls, caroling in our red and whites, and Grandpa reading the nativity story to us all :) 

Christmas day was in Redlands and everyone was in attendance except for Brooke and the Dunns, and Brett and Ali. GUESS WHAT? We got a family trip to Hawaii for Christmas and i'm super duper excited! It'll be our last trip all together before Ronnie leaves on his mission! The Carlson family came over and spent the rest of Christmas day with us. It's fun having all the cousins together :) The trip ended at the Carlson's where we spent Sunday evening playing the name game, speed scrabble, pool, and riding in the Go-Kart. I flew back to Utah on Monday after a long delay of my flight. I was happy to see Zac again :) 

I had an amazing Christmas holiday and hope you all did as well. I loved being with family and celebrating the birth of Christ. I'm SOOOO grateful for my forever family and LOVED my holiday spent with them. My family makes me smile :)

...finals are over and her Christmas vacation is beginning tomorrow

You heard me right...fall 2010 semester has officially ended! I may have sacrificed seeing the sun (whatever there was to see in Utah on Dec 15th) and stayed indoors..in Ashley's room specifically and wrote a research paper from 10:30 am until 6 pm. I was actually quite pleased with the end result and practically sprinted in excitement to my teacher to turn it in. So there you have it...I have survived a semester in Utah and pretty darn well too if I might add :)

Let me back track just for a moment...I can't go without talking about the last weekend the TEAM had all together. This past weekend was one for the books! I'll only mention it briefly because Cortnee and Ash did a great job in explaining it! To see go here or here! I'll just summarize:

Event 1: tumble gym with all (we missed you Cort and Todd)

- zac and I may or my not have eaten it and hit a wall hahahhahaha  This image captures us almost immediately after in deep conversation about how it didn't quite go as planned. ** Thanks Ash for providing this pic!

Event 2: dinner at the Babcock's, flannel TEAM pictures, and Christmas lights at Temple Square :)

-yummy yummy dinner provided by Mama Char :)

-I LOVE OUR TEAM

- I also love my wonderful roommates! Thanks for all the wonderful memories at The Bunker :D

-Temple Square: beautiful as always :) and OF COURSE i love him!

Event 3: attended Zac's awesome talk in his ward on Sunday and then went to Sandy and spent the evening with the Rigby family :) They're the greatest!

That last picture also brings me to my wonderful Christmas vacation that I get to look forward to!! EEEEEEE!! To get it all started, tomorrow Mr. Wonderful and I get to road trip it together down to southern California where we get the eat yummy sushi for dinner with my Dad and Melinda, attend Alexa and Christian's wedding (EEEE!!!!!), have an early Christmas with the Green/Rawlings Clan, and do whatever the heck we wanna do in California for a couple days! I am OH SO EXCITED!! 

As for today, I smile because I have a great TEAM who I love OH SO MUCH, finals are finally OVER, California is only about 22 hours away, and Christmas is right around the corner!!!!!!!! Can you tell i'm happy? Can you tell I have the best life ever? I sure hope so :)

...she got to spend Thanksgiving in sunny California

Yes this is a little late but I wanted to wait until I got the pictures  to share with you all. As you know I did get to go home for Thanksgiving! I was a day late due to the dumb blizzard that cancelled my flight, but I eventually made it there. I was so antsy landing in Long Beach just wanting to be in Cathedral City already! The two hour drive couldn't go fast enough but it was great one-on-one time I got to spend with John :) Thanksgiving morning the family took pictures: 

I LOVE my family SOOOOOO much and i'm so so so SO Thankful for them and all their many quirks. Taking these pictures was pretty funny. We had John who was trying to hurry and get back to a football game, Alicia and Michelle were being teenage girls, and Ronnie and Cameron were just being their hilarious selfs when they get together. Getting everyone together is pretty entertaining to say the least. Crazy to think this was probably the last family picture we'll take just the 8 of us! Thanksgiving was a great time to be out of the snow, with family and friends, and filling my tummy with my moms yummy food. Four days came and went and I got to come back to a brilliantly wonderful boy who was waiting at the airport with a big smile on his face and beautiful flowers in hand :D he's THE GREATEST and I LOVE him :D eeeeee! Thanksgiving was a great opportunity to show me just how lucky I am to have such amazing people in my life and it was a good sneak peak for my Christmas trip coming in T-minus 13 days and I can't wait to have Zac with me in California!! :D I smile because i'm the luckiest!