Yes... I Am A Professional

I finally got around to getting a job. You'd think that I would have been more on top of that, considering I am in my second year of college and have never had a real job. But anyways... I am officially employed. I work at Mountain Star Blood Services as a phlebotomist. It's a blood donation center and as my job, I take the blood pressure, the temperature, do the blood sample where they stick you in the finger (I think that's worse than the donation) and ask all the questions about medications and travel and all that jazz. Then I do all the prep work and take blood also. Right now I am just in training, so it's A LOT of bookwork and paperwork before I can do the hands on. But I will get to start going on blood drives next Thursday, so I am way excited about it! We rotate being "in-house", which means we stay at the office, but for the most part, we load up the van and go do blood drives. So most days I will be out, and they said I'll probably be working about 20-30 hours a week, but only 2 days a week, so it makes for long days. But I am really looking forward to starting the REAL stuff soon!

The scrubs and the badge MIGHT be the coolest part!! :)

We Like to Party!

I'm a little behind, but last weekend 2 girls in our ward had their "golden birthdays". So they had a big party, which we had to dress up in black and white for. It was pretty fun. They rented out the clubhouse and had food, "mocktails", lots of balloons, dancing, and fun stuff. One of the girls' hair caught on fire when she was blowing out her candles... luckily it was put out quick. We didn't stay the whole time, but it was fun dressing up and getting out for a little bit!


Me, Kelsey and Tanna before the party

Girl's Night

It's been a while since the girl's have been able to get together, so we decided to have a little Halloween party. We decorated haunted houses, carved pumpkins, ate food, and just had girl talk. It was so fun and relaxing to just hang out and have fun.


The food table :)

Decorating haunted houses (L to R: me, Jessica, Becca, Amanda)

Carving pumpkins (L to R: Kelsey, Amanda)

Kelsey and her pumpkin

Kelsey and I had a little too much fun shopping for the party - we even bought Halloween pants...

Football, Firetrucks, and More Football...

Last weekend, my friend Ian, my aunt Kristine, and I all drove up to Boise, Idaho to visit my grandpa. We left Friday morning and got there in time for lunch. We then went and visited the cemetery to see my grandma's grave. I haven't been there since the headstone was put it, so it was nice to see it. It is up on a hill and has the most beautiful view of all of Boise. After that, we just hung out and visited for the rest of the day. Saturday was pretty much the same thing. We had a football game on from 10:30 in the morning til about 9:30 that night... Ian and I were able to get some studying in during halftimes, and that night we had our first attempt at making a cheesecake... it's not the easiest thing in the world, but it was still fun and super good!! My other aunt Carol, and my cousin and his wife and kids stopped by, and it was way fun to see them. Sunday was Grandpa's stake conference, so we went to that. Then we came home and got changed and Ian and I went to the Boise Fire Department to hang out. My cousin Jeff is a fireman and offered to let us go on a ride-along on Sunday. Nothing too exciting happened. They only got one call the whole time we were there, and someone had just accidentally pulled a fire alarm. It was cool to see them in action at the station, though.

Grandpa and I Sunday after church

In the fire truck in response to the call

The front of the fire truck

Today's activity for mentoring was a tour of the BYU football stadium. It was pretty cool. I've been there for games, but I've never seen the stuff we got to see today. We were able to go into the locker room and see how things work in there. Then we got to go onto the actual field, which they were painting for the game tomorrow. And last, we got to go up into the press box and see the view from up there. It was pretty neat. The kids seemed to have a blast - especially the boys who dream of playing football for BYU one day. It was pretty cute.


The view from field level

PYM Mentoring

Every Friday for an hour, Kelsey and I do something called PYM Mentoring. They bus in a bunch of sixth graders from Timpanogos Elementary School and we get to spend an hour with them. These kids are considered "at-risk" kids and some of them have behavior issues. We are each assigned to a kid that we are with each week for the rest of the school year. The girl I was paired up with is Charlie. She is the sweetest girl! It's been so fun talking to her and getting to know her. We actually have a lot in common and it has been so easy to get along with her. This week we did a scavenger hunt on the BYU campus. We went into different buildings and saw fun stuff and had to write a few sentences about what we saw. Each week something fun and new is planned. So far, it's been such a fun experience and I am so excited to spend an hour a week with her! :)

Music and the Spoken Word

This morning I went on kind of a double date (does it count if it's on Sunday??) up to Salt Lake to see Music and the Spoken Word. It was in the old Tabernacle, which I had never been in - we took a little tour through there when I was younger but I barely remember it. It was so pretty and it was amazing to think that it was built so long ago! I guess this program is the longest lasting program on the radio - it's been going on for almost 80 years and today was their 4,124th performance. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang and the Temple Square Bell Choir played with them. I think the bells were my favorite. I love the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, don't get me wrong, but watching them play the bells was incredible. They sang a few songs, including Somewhere Out There from the movie An American Tale. Then they read a little something about the importance of handmade gifts. I thought it was pretty cool. They had all been before, but it was my first time and I really enjoyed it. That might have to be something we do again!

Body World Exhibit

Some of you may have heard about the Body World Exhibit. It's been in Vegas for a while, but it just came to Salt Lake and it's in The Leonardo. One of my teachers was talking about it and said it was way neat, so I decided to give it a go. Kelsey and I got up this morning and drove up to Salt Lake. We had tickets for 11 AM, and it took us about an hour and a half to get through the whole exhibit. It was incredible. What they have done is they have taken cadavers and plasticized them. They have some of them positioned doing way cool things. There was a dancer, a guy jumping hurtles, and some other fun stuff. We weren't allowed to take anything in - no phones, cameras, not even purses. So I just found this picture online, but this gives a good idea of what the displays looked like. They had other things there too. They had hearts, brains, spleens, lungs, and all kinds of cool stuff. They even had a grown and baby camel there too. They had a baby section, which was kind of weird, but also really neat. They had fetuses from different stages of the pregnancies. The whole thing was such a cool experience. If any of you have the chance to see it, I highly recommend it. It gave me such a greater appreciation for the body and how intricate and perfect it is!

An example of a display