"Start of Something New" - HSM

Well the year has just flown by. I haven't blogged in forever but I guess that isn't entirely my fault since I haven't had a computer this semester. But I decided to make my New Year's resolution to blog more. We'll just see how that goes.

These last couple of months have been filled lots of events. This summer we were able to go fishing up in Beaver. I got to go to California for a week to see Rachel graduate. Then we got to go to Lake Powell with some friends and had a blast!

Once the semester started things got really busy. Dallin returned home from Guatemala at the beginning of September and then Brandon and Anna were married four days later. During that week I was in four different states. It was a very crazy week but everything went so smooth!

In October we had the Open House for Brandon and Anna and that went really well too! It was so exciting to have so much family come. It almost felt like a reunion. Now I am so excited for next summer! Only 207 days left :)

I was lucky to be able to come home for Thanksgiving and Christmas and get away from the snow. We were lucky that we didn't have to worry about driving in it either. Hopefully this weekend that will be the same case.

We have this tradition every Christmas. We love getting Christmas cards in the mail and then reading them out loud. There are a couple of people every year that are very...creative with their cards. So this year I was in charge of writing our card and I decided to get a little creative.

Happy New Year from the Trout’s!
It’s been a very exciting year for us. We have been united once again for the first time in 4 years! Dallin returned from his mission in Guatemala in September. He survived living in the harsh jungle for 2 years learning an unwritten Myan language. Brandon and Anna got married 4 days later. Brandon is graduating in April from BYU with highest honors in just 7 semesters major in Business. Brandon scored amazingly high on is LSAT and is now being courted from Law Schools across the nation. Dallin is excited to return to school at BYU starting at the beginning of January focusing on Pre-Med. Lauren is also attending BYU and is happy to have both of her big brothers up there to take care of her. Kaleen is a sophomore in high school and is on the JV Dance team. She is excited for her competition season to start as they will be competing in a Varsity category. She is excited to her 2 week trip to New York this next summer to tour Julliard and audition in hopes to pursue a career in dance. Meghan is in 6th grade attending middle school. She loves being able to have different classes and is at the top of her class and is racking in the New Year with straight A’s. We expect her to graduate from high school as a Valedictorian and pursue BYU just like her other siblings. Rick is still bishop and we are counting down the days until he is released. He has loved his 36ft boat which we take out multiple times a week to Lake Mead. Lauren was just awarded Wakeboard Champion of Las Vegas this summer (on the Wii). Linda has been handling everything with homecomings and weddings while juggling 3 different callings! She can’t wait for grandkids to arrive! We hope your lives are a little less hectic than ours! Love you all!

Just a reminder that this is not the real thing. The truth has been exaggerated and bent. But we still think it's funny.

So tomorrow the New Year begins. I hope this next year brings has many happy memories that 2009 has.

"Ever Ever After" - Carrie Underwood

Brandon wanted me to just let everyone know that he and Anna have started their own blog! Check it out!

http://www.brandonandannatrout.blogspot.com

"Livin' On The Edge" - Aerosmith

The adventures in March grew bigger and better. A couple of friends, Diane and Liz, and I made a trip to Cedar City for a friend's bridal shower. It was nice to get away from Provo for a little while. We threw a little party for ourselves and also went to the bridal shower. We had tons of fun!

Me, Liz, Rachel (the one getting married) and Diane, chilling at our "Bachelorette Pary" aka talking, drinking Martinelle's, taking lots of pictures and watching a chick flick :)


The light house in Cedar City against the mountains.

One night Diane, Kristie and I were sitting around and wondering what we could do to entertain ourselves. It was about midnight and we were all throwing ideas out. Then I mentioned how fun it would be to like bury one of us in sand. Diane volunteered to be buried and so we then started to prepare for our little adventure.

Kristie carrying the water

The three of us getting excited
Starting to bury
Diane, just a head in the sand. Multiple times while we were burying and such people would walk by and see us. At one point we wanted so bad to like cover her head in the trashcan and just walk away and see if someone would come along. It would have been so funny. But we would just be loud so people would notice us burying people.

Woo group picture! I don't know why Diane looks scared. :)

Me and Diane

Putting on some more sand

Trying to get all the sand off. It was really cold that night and windy and the sand was really cold. We probably ran back to the dorms because we were so cold, but Diane was colder than the rest of us. Luckily no one suffered from hypothermia.

"We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet" - Hymn 19

Well I have finally finished my first year of college! And because I didn't post at all during the semester I now get it to it in a couple of posts all at once. I made it home last week only to come down with Bronchitis. I am on drugs and in the process of getting better so I can get a job for the summer.

In January we were so lucky to have the Prophet come and do a broadcast fireside from the Marriot Center on campus. We went and waited outside for about 3 hours in like 30 degree weather to get a good seat. People had been in line a lot longer than us but we were happy with our spot! Everyone had brought blankets to sit on and games to play. We had a good time entertaining ourselves. Elder Nelson came too, so we got to see him as well.

In February I went home for Valentine's Weekend. My friend Jacob was giving his farewell talk. He is now in Argentina serving his mission.

Other random things: going to Volleyball games, girl parties, tattoos, and masks. Oh and you can't forget taking all of those 30+ pieces of chocolate chip Banana bread from the Cannon :)

"Stayin Alive" - Bee Gees

Well I am super far behind on posting but that's just the life of a college student. It will soon be on hold in 34 days...possibly 33 :)

Here at school we use this server where the professors can upload things like assignments and grades for the students. There are is a way for the students to send out mass emails to all of the members of the class. I probably get 2-3 a day from different classes with people asking for notes because they got sick. Recently I got an email that made me laugh so hard.

Fellow Students-

Monday morning I woke up, felt fine and went to all my classes, but by the end of my school day I had bad flu symptoms (headache, body/backache, sore throat, cough, light fever.) I rested well on Tuesday, but Wednesday morning I woke up in the middle of the night shaking uncontrollably, apparently freezing cold, after about an hour of trying to warm up with my brother helping me, I stabilized and was able to go back to sleep. Then I woke up around 6:30 and lay in bed scorching hot. I fear I am definitely not healthy and probably will miss the next couple of days of class resting.

Is there anyone out there who can kindly take notes for me Wednesday and Friday and email them to me?

I was very amused. In one of my classes my professor had to add to the syllabus that you could not email the whole class for notes. Of course people still go on using it which then is proceeded by these kinds of emails.

Please stop harassing your fellow classmates with your spam emails. Dr. H has made it very clear that using Blackboard to ask for notes is inappropriate, so how exactly any of you get off thinking that it's okay to advertise your Sudoku championship or other ridiculous things is beyond me. Knock it off.

Yes, only 34 more days of this :) And I am pretty sure that is being hypocritical to complain about mass emailing in a mass email...

"Viva la Vida" - Coldplay

I have survived my first week of winter semester! I was really excited for my classes this semester and I hope not to have the same experience that I did last semester. As of right now, I was done with classes at 11, had lunch and now I am done with all of my homework for the weekend. How sweet is that?!

These are my classes for the semester:

Music 202 Civilization Music 2 Dr. Howard is from Australia so he has an awesome accent. So far all we do in class is listen to music and talk about the different styles and characteristics about the time of composer. Dr. Howard is also super funny. I am loving this class.

Music 101 Introduction to Music Dr. Hinckley is nice. The class is set up really easy. I get to go to concerts for a grade. Pretty awesome if you ask me. Right now we are learning about stuff that I learned when I started piano many years ago. So me and my friend pretty much just have fun in that class messing around.

Religion 212 The second part of New Testament. Bro. Johnson is great. He is now the third religion professor that I have had. I guess the ones in the past weren't amazing but still good. We have only covered one chapter from Acts but he breaks it down verse by verse and we have some really good discussions. I am one of the youngest in the class because most freshmen are taking the second part of Book of Mormon right now.

Biology 100 Well Dr. Nelson....is kind of like one of those scientists that you would find in a little kid science movie. He looks crazy and he really is nuts. He is definitely very entertaining to say the least. He has lots of good stories about when he has traveled. So far so good.

Human Development 210 Dr. Nelson (different Nelson) is amazing. He really knows his stuff and everything is sooo interesting. Come do find out on Thursday my cousin Hilary is in my class. Who knew? I am really excited for this class. We have really good discussions about how children grow and how different types of parenting can basically scar them for life...okay so maybe that not serious but still.

Music 311R University Chorale Dr. Broomhead is an interesting director. I signed up to take choir this semester and it was an non-audition choir. We sound pretty much amazing for not being auditioned. He really focuses on habits to help us sing well. We are singing a couple of German pieces which I just totally love because for some reason I am totally drawn to German.

Those are all of my classes! I am really enjoying all of them. I think this semester is going to be pretty much awesome...as long as I stay caught up on my homework :)

"Thankful" - Josh Groban

Thanksgiving break was sooo awesome. I am so grateful that I was able to come home and spend it with family. So many of my friends live to far from home and it was too expensive to fly home for them. We spent the break chilling with Aunt Jill playing Settlers of Catan, eating lots of food and hanging out. on friday we went on a short hike (which was really just a walk) through these railroad tunnels that were used when they were building Hoover Dam. It was a great to be home!

"Time of My Life" - David Cook

Fall semester is over. The grades have been posted. The new semester starts in a couple of days. And I am way behind on blogging. Oh the life of a college student. I think a little picture and caption from the last couple of months with have to be all for now.

Kristie and I partying for Halloween
(don't worry it's only ibc rootbeer)

This was taken in my very first corn maze which was shaped as David Archuleta. buuut it was kind of trampled on so it was kind of like go wherever you want. Oh and the entrance and exit where the same place :P

This was also taken at the same place that the maze was at. From left to right: Shelby, Kristie and me

Our first snow! (sometime in October I think?? no idea)

ooo pretty mountains from my window!

late night walk on campus!
Chilling after doing homework

too much homework is a bad thing
having fun with cotton candy. it looks like a duck foot!

color pop! it even caught her tongue!

On the 12th day of Christmas

On the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
We had a tradition that we started when we were all very young, but it seems to have died now that we are older. I find that kind of ironic because you would think that when we got older it would be easier. Turned out it wasn't. We kind of did what I imitated. On the 12 days counting down to Christmas we would act as secret santas. Every kid would pick one family and then every night we would all pile into the cars and then take turns leaving the stuff on the doorstep without getting caught. Oh some nights we got some really great laughs. I think I could have done the 12 day posts of just memories of doing this.

On the 11th day of Christmas

On the 11th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
When we open presents Christmas morning we like to focus on giving instead of receiving. So when it's our turn we get to choose one present to someone else to open instead of picking out a gift to open. It really does help you to remember the true meaning of Christmas of giving instead of receiving. And it's cool to think that after all these years we kind of argue over who gets to give first. I think it is a great tradition to carry onto my kids.

On the 10th Day of Christmas

So I am a little late trying to finish these up...[smiles] but....I still want to finish.

On the 10th day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
My mom has a friend named Marta who used to live a couple of streets down from us when we lived in our first house. Every Christmas Eve they would have tons of people over and eat tons of amazing food. They always made the most amazing tamales. My mom says that they had to start making mild ones just so she could handle them. They dried their chilies on their driveway and everything. Ooooo so good.