Canada Day

Canada Day is kind of like the equivalent to the United States Fourth of July. The birth of their country. I like having a best friend from a different country. I get to celebrate more holidays, which means even more delicious food. I borrowed a Canada shirt from Heather and wore it in honor of the holiday. It was fun. We made cookies decorated with symbols of Canada and Heather made us a Canadian delicacy called poutine which is fries and mozzarella cheese curds covered in beef gravy, also known as a heart attack. Sounds revolting right? It was delicious. Then we finished the night off with lighting off fireworks. Heather had never had the delighful opportunity so we invested 20 dollars in some fireworks. The truck was my favorite. I really liked Canada Day. Maybe I will celebrate it every year.

Just some of my favorite people. No big deal.

8 older blessings

I have a big family. And I love it. I am the youngest of 8 kids. Some of the time I hate it, being the youngest, I have had to deal with my siblings teasing and joking, and listen to them complain about how I get everything I want, they think I was sooo spoiled. That had nothing to do with where I came in the family guys, I was just the favorite. Just kidding! Even though I hated being teased, I loved them a lot. I watched them all graduate, go to college, go on missions and get on with their own lives, while I was stuck at home, just me and the parentals. I don't know if you guys know how much I love and look up to you. I know sometimes I am not the greatest little sister, and that I am overly dramatic sometimes but you guys still stuck with me. Amy is my oldest living sister. She being the oldest was always the responsible one, she was my basketball coach, and has always been there for me, and has given me support in every part of my life. Matt comes next, he is the oldest boy. Matt was the one who baptised me, he was about to leave on his mission when I turned 8, so in a way I was his first convert. I have always looked up to him. After Matt is Becky, she runs fast. It was her that made me want to get involved in track, and I am grateful for the times she let me visit her at college, and then when she moved far away. She has always been the person I wanted to be when I grow up. That brings us to Brittany, the middle child, I wish I was dedicated to my schooling like she was, she is the one that encourages me to keep going and do great things with my education. Jenny is next, we didn't always get along, we fought often, but now that we are older, we have become very close, I love that she chose to live her own life, I wish she could see she has the potential to do so many things, I think she is so beautiful, and I like that I have a personal hair stylist. Jason is the youngest boy, the one next to me in age. He always pushed me to do sports, and I am so grateful for that. We definitely have our differences and don't always see eye to eye, but I am sure glad he is there to protect me if I ever need it. Now if you counted that is only 6 siblings, the seventh, my oldest sister Heather died a year after she was born. I never met her in this life but, because of the father's plan I know she is there, and I will see her again. She is special to me. While I love all of my other siblings so very much they have continued on with their lives, and have kids, and they cannot be there for me every second of my life, Heather is the one that can. She knows what is going on in my life, she sees daily the person I am becoming. Thinking of her has kept me from making some decisions in my life that would have taken me down the road I had no desire to be on, anytime I thought I could get away with something, I thought twice because I knew she was watching. I owe her a lot, I feel her love everyday, especially when I have my bad days, I love her so much and I am so very excited to meet her again, so I can give her a HUGE hug. My eighth blessing is that of my Eldest brother and friend, Jesus Christ. We have had our differences this semester, however through these differences I have come to love and trust in his guidance so much more. He knows me so well, he has cried and laughed with me on many occasions, and I will be forever grateful for his sacrifice, his is also a hug that I look forward to. I love my older blessings in my life, they are truly wonderful. I am grateful that I get to be with them forever.

A visit

My mom had an eye appointment in Rexburg today so she came over to visit and take me out to lunch. We walked to the I-center and I showed her the auditorium, I love watching peoples face the first time they see it. So amazing. We went out to Gator Jack's Sandwhich Shack for food. It is one of my favorites. Then she came to meet all of my friends on council. I love that I have friends for her to meet. It is a good feeling. I love that I was excited for her to visit even though home is only a half an hour away and I can see her anytime I want. It was just great.

Rexburg Rapids

Rexburg has a water park! Complete with a lazy river, two water slides, a fun area for the kids to play, and a climbing wall in one of the pools. It opened last Friday, so that is what we did in order to celebrate Alli's 20th birthday. It was freezing, and they have an insane amount of rules, but it was still so fun. Also what is a birthday without a cake? We did not have time to bake one and the one we found was cheap, it was an ice cream cake on sale at DQ because it was made for Fathers day. We just had to improvise a little. Good thing Alli understands our humor.

Geriatrics

It was senior citizen day in the office for our night shift. This is me and my council partner Eddie in say the next 50 years. I sure do love my life.

Lookin good.

Little Gifts

I like to think that I am strong. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and well I am working on spiritually. I like to think that I can withstand huge amounts of pressure and not even crack. I can pretend I am fine when I am not, I can pretend everything is okay when really there is a huge cloud blocking my sunshine. I am okay with pretending to be happy when really I feel like crying, however even the infamous Achilles had his breaking point. Mine just happened to be a little farther north than my heel. Lately I have been having a lot of bad days. I just cannot seem to get a grip on life. It's like everytime I progress a little I also go 3 steps backwards. Unfortunately there comes a day when one to many cherries are put on the sundae, my "heel" was hit. I went into a test feeling fairly confident, however coming out and seeing my score was a completely different story. My score was far below what it needed to be in order to raise my grade. Without even knowing what was going on I felt tears pouring down my face I put on my hood, and walked to council, I had myself mostly under control when I walked into the office, and my voice only cracked a little as I shared my good moment of the day. I made it half way through the prayer before the tears started to fall again. I kept my head down and waited for them to dry. Someone addressed a question to me, so naturally I looked up and answered, I saw the same look of worry on every face. My council knows my personality well enough to know that when I cry something is wrong. It is not something that happens often in public. They kept there cool, only Heather approached me after to ask what was up, I told her it had just been one of those days. Everyone else on my council simply gave me a hug. I went about my day, worked on homework, and went and played games with some of my friends, all in all I wast starting to feel better. I came home and found a boquet of flowers and a note that says "we love you Chelsey" I have no idea who it was, nor do I want to know. Little acts of love, that go really far. It made my day a little brighter. I love Rexburg. I love the people that I get the opportunity to work with everyday.

Water Wonders

Egian Lake is a little beach located at the base of the St. Anthony sand dunes. One fine summery day we were feeling extremely hot, and so instead of doing the looming mounds of homework in which I had accumulated from the week previous, we hit up the watery oasis 20 miles north of town. It was the best worst idea ever. So very fun, with the water only being waste deep at the deepest part, it is not much for swimming as it is for playing around splashing, jumping, builidng sand castles, or playing frisbee or football in the water. It was such a nice way to spend a warm summery June day in Rexburg. Life is perfect.