I'm an Intern!

Remember when I told you my life was stressful and boring and I'd need your prayers?  Well folks... the prayers have been answered:

I am the new 

Intern 

at the 

Craig Hospital

in 

Denver, CO.

So I'll be spending my summer in Denver, Colorado at this place:

And I'll be doing things like:

and

and

and so much more with people with spinal cord and traumatic brain injuries.

I have so blessed to get this opportunity, and I am so excited to learn to become the best Recreation Therapist in the world! 

Chronicles of Christmas

I'm a senior and it feels like it! I'm so busy busy busy! Which is why I have not been documenting my life here on this blog.  If I was busy with interesting things... I may have let you all hear about it, but at the moment all my business is rather lame and stressful: just know I would love getting an extra prayers you sent my way!

But I still wanted to update my blog with something so I thought I'd throw up some pictures with short descriptions about Christmas Break. (graphic pictures included at the bottom!)

Our cute Christmas Tree!

I got Miss Aubrey some nail-polish for Christmas!

In an effort to recreate effectively, we decided to do what everyone wanted to do.  That meant we went on a winter time drive/picnic.  It was so fun, we drove for a few hours and then pulled over for our picnic.  We never got out of the car once! 

Miss Aubrey so excited for the picnic!

One of the sights of our picnic!

 We took pictures of our cute-o parents, which turned out to be funny, because Aubrey was walking by and thought the picture was of her.. So funny!

 We also decided to go to Burlington and find the Brumbies! (Man from Snowy River reference anyone?) Or rather the wild mustangs! I didn't even know there were any till we packed up our car and headed out to the wide open spaces of Wyoming! We drove forever on a crappy rode, and I thought we'd never find them. Just as we started to give up hope, my fearless father spotted them while he was glassing around!

They kept getting closer and closer!

 We also did a lot of things surrounding the great elk hunt of 2012! Including:

• Ty and Dad glassing around, hunting, and killing an elk!
• My mom dad and I processing said elk for consumption.
• And a family walk-about to recreate the hunting experience for those of us who didn't go:

You know I love to include shocking pictures from my real life so here's a bunch from the processing:

The elk sits in our garage for about a week!

Then we bring it in...

Sit it down on the counter!

and start cutting it up...

to make steaks, roasts, and hamburger!

Pictures from our walk about:

We made our way up to the exact spot the elk was shot, killed, and gutted!

The stomach contents (pictured here) was all that was left!

The camera fell so we adjusted!

My cute family!!

This is just what I've got time for right now-- but you can probably expect another post on Christmas or from my birthday real soon-- so stay close!! 

I have a brand new hobby!

I KNIT!

That's my new skill. And it's not really that developed, but no worries -- I've got BIG dreams! 

HUGE even. Someday.. I'll even be fast! I'll knit blankets. It'll be awesome!  

Anyway.. I thought I'd show off my projects!

My Scarf For Aubrey:

This girl know how to work it!

My Identical Scarf for Camilla

This girl also knows how to work it!

I sort of feel bad about the color of the scarf, but I thought it would work for my sweet nieces.  Of course the girls apparently only wear the scarfs with their pajamas (see pictures above) so no one really cares about the color! 

My sister Toni is crocheting master and she has taken it upon herself to crochet baby-blankets for the newly arriving babies in our family.  She asked me the other day if she's that weird aunt who's always making unwanted things.  I told her of course not -- she's making useful things.  No 1 or 3 year old really NEEDS a scarf so apparently I'm that THAT aunt. 

But each scarf I make makes me feel great and crafty, so I'll keep purling along. And the more I practice the closer I get to knitting even cooler things. So in 5 years when all you ever get from me is something knitted -- just know it was made with love and it brought me joy to give it to you. 

I apologize in advance!

Also.. a quick display of my other crafting talents (A PINTEREST PROJECT no less):

I made these headbands for my nieces for Christmas -- Camilla got one too, but it's not pictured.

Unfortunately this was also an unwanted gift because none of nieces really like to wear headbands.. Too bad.. Someday I'll make them something they love! 

I will say that one day over Christmas break Miss Aubrey was saying goodbye and of her one accord said: "Thank you for making me a scarf.  You're a great aunt!" And gave me a giant (as giant as her little arms can give) hug! I felt so valued! So maybe they do like them after all! :) 

I do feel like I've prepared myself well for spinsterhood though - every Friday night I spend at home with a rom-com playing while I knit makes me feel a little old, but to be honest I super love getting a chance to hang-out in p.j.'s AND do something productive at the same time! 

So here's to elite-crafting!

Dorm Chronicles

One of those right-of-passage type things we pass through in college is living with somebody you've never even met... and sometimes wouldn't want to.  Sometimes the differences are minimal.. other times differences are extreme.

For example, Todd has some friends on his hall that are extremely different.

Roommate One is a member of ROTC.

Roommate Two, a thespian from Ohio, is a hipster at his core.

You can imagine how well they get along. Their relationship has grown even stronger since Christmas because Mr. Hipster got a didgeridoo.

Yes. Folks a didgeridoo. As in:

(This is not roommate two in case there was any confusion)

Mr. Hipster is very proud of his didgeridoo (click here for a Youtube clip of how great you can become on this thing), and he practices it often.  During the day, during ward prayer, and of course, while his roommate is trying to sleep.

Yup. Match made in heaven.

LAST SEMESTER

Hey folks! My last semester at college has started off and in true TR form... we've started off with a bang! Today in class my professor walked in and said: We're going to take a field trip!!!! .. of the mind.   He proceeded to take the class back to third grade by telling us to make two hats out of paper, tape, staples, and markers.

We spent at least 50 minutes making and explaining these beauties:

Administration Bonnet

Therapist Crown

The discussion that went with the hats was good, but still my inner hard-core student thought it was a little ridiculous to spend soooo much time on the hats.  I kept reminding myself -- "It's all about the process -- you learn more through EXPERIENCING than just talking...." So hopefully I'll never forget about my multiple roles as a recreation therapist and administrator!

So basically it's been a great year so far ---  I hope this New Year is going great for all of you as well! 

Finals Blessings

This week was finals.  I could complain about how stressful it was and whatnot, but in a shocking twist these last three weeks have been some super great weeks. I've never felt so overwhelmingly content for this long before! Everyone has been nice to me and I've been getting some great blessings! It's awesome.

The most recent blessing was just this afternoon! I needed to take my Family Finance final before tomorrow and I didn't have to work at all today.  So I got to the library around 7:30 and I only left to go to lunch and to run an errand to my job.  But all my studying did not seem to yielding many results.  As the time crept closer and closer to when I wanted to take my test, I got a little more testy.  I finally realized that I wan't getting it. For some reason mutual funds and bonds just weren't clicking.  Ty left to take his final and he said he'd pray for me. Which got me thinking about prayer, so in desperation I threw up a prayer, more like a plea for help.  You know those humble, last-ditch-effort kind, where you just say  -- I can't do this on my own, please help.

Well let me tell you ladies and gents, that prayer (or rather those prayers) made all the difference. I calmed down a bit, and things suddenly started clicking a little more.  Right before I left the library, I decided to look over one last powerpoint slide.  It had some formulas that I hadn't covered yet, but I felt like they were important.  So I spent an extra 10 minutes memorizing them enough to be able to write them down as soon as I got into the JSB.  So I went in, wrote down my formula's and got started.  I ended up using the majority of the formulas I had quickly memorized. (BLESSING.)

Later on, I was working on this after tax, after inflation interest problem.  As I was doing the practice tests earlier in the day,  this was the type of problem that tripped me up the most! It was just so strange to me, but on the test I was able to breeze right through it! The thought came to me: "my strengths are my weaknesses." (Ether 12 anyone?)

Let me tell you as the test went on my pleas were quickly changed into gratitude! I felt like I was so helped on that test -- it was amazing.  This is why I'm so glad I'm a member of the Church! I know where to to turn to when my mind isn't working, and I know who to thank when things work out so well!

So.. there it is guys.  For the moment life is great! My finals are done. I have the best friends. My family is great. I'm going home for three whole weeks. And I'm very blessed!!!!

Welcome to Williamsburg (Brooklyn)

Pop-Culture Fact of the Day: Williamsburg Brooklyn is known for being a hub of indie rock, hipster culture, and local art community.  We channeled a little bit of that hipsterism for Stacey's most birthday party.  (Remember the video invite I shared a few posts back? -- This was the blessed event we were inviting everyone to!)

Stacey and I were at a total loss as to what to do for her fantastic 22nd birthday! The original idea was so go to a bar--a real bar--and do some karaoking.  After visiting the 'family friendly' cafe attached to the bar and getting (possibly) leered at by oldish men, we scrapped that idea and came up with a far superior one! A party based on Taylor Swift's song 22 -- which involved dressing up like hipsters and having breakfast at midnight. 

This was a little hard for the party-goers, because being a hipster is kind of ambiguous. I'm still not even sure if there is one solid way to describe it -- but we all did our best and I believe we did the hipster community proud!

Happy Hipster and Full Body Hipster Shot!

Full on Hipster Stacey

We had a great turn-out for a party starting at mid-night in the middle of a the first snow-storm.  I'm very impressed by the dedication people have to hipster parties!  We all crowded around the entrance being stared at by people that just don't get the hipster appeal until they called for "the Kelli Party" -- what an ego boost --I put the reservation in my name and so they kept calling it "the Kelli Party" -- so fun!

Here's pictures of our super-hip guests:

Some of the Group

Roommates and Boyfriend -- doing their hipster pose!

Cute Hipsters!

My table of super legit hipsters! 

My neighbors to the north being all hip! 

These are some of my favorite ladies!!!!!!

Hipsters getting punched in the face!!

The best part of the night was getting to celebrate Stacey!!! She's been such a wonderful roommate for the past 3 years and I don't know what life will be like without her constant encouragement and enthusiasm! She's definitely as weird as I am and I love that I get to be myself so easily around her! You would all be so lucky to have a roommate like this girl -- she's as fun as she is pretty!!!!

So quick summary: cool birthday girl + cool clothes + cool invite = PARTY SUCCESS!