It's a little bit stressful...

For the past few months my schedule has been pretty simple. I finished my on-campus classes in April. I had an online Humanities 202 course that took me a year to finish, which I finally did in June. Now I am in the process of getting ready for the GRE. Ick! I started a class at the beginning of June, thinking that the middle of July was forever away and that I would have all the time in the world to get as close as possible to a perfect (for me) score. Well, turns out it was actually only a month and a half from the beginning of my class until my test and now my test is tomorrow and I couldn't be more nervous. I started out with a certain score on my practice test at the beginning of June and come the end of it all (after vocabulary flash cards and math quizzes and all of that) I scored 40 points LESS on the verbal section and 120 points better. Huh? How is it possible that after a what felt like 12 years of studying vocabulary did I possibly do worse that in the beginning. Talk about no satisfaction guaranteed! Needless to say, rather than butterflies in my stomach, I am experiencing what feels more like squirrels or maybe even a couple of wombats or koalas.

Other than that stress life has been actually quite wonderful. John and I bought Seven Peaks Passes and we go to the water park at least once a week. My freckles have quadrupled and I don't burn as easily as I used to. That is a good summer for a redhead! My parents also came to visit which was oodles of fun! We ate great food, which was a big change from the rice and mac and cheese that John is used to me cooking. We also went to Harry Potter 7.2 with a big group of friends, my parents, and my brother and two of his brother-in-laws. It was a party! When we get pictures back I will share the love. John and I dressed up as house elves. John was Kreacher, the grouchy one that lives at Grimauld Place (Sirius' old digs) and I was Winky (Barty Crouch's old house elf that he let go for setting of the dark mark at the quidditch World Cup. We may be nerds, but we at least we celebrate our nerdyness (word?) in style! It was a ton of fun!

John is working his little tooshie off near SLC. That means that he is gone for a very large part of the day. I have to admit that I miss that boy quite a bit, but I am sure that life is easier for me, sitting at home, watching friends and eating freezies all day, rather than for John, where he sits on his exercise ball for about 10 hours every day helping people figure out their finances.

For now, we are where we are. We love our little hobbit hole (as I like to call our basement apartment) and we are having a lot of fun with our friends and the sunshine. The future is still kind of a big question mark (bold font, helvetica 65 pt font). That makes it all more exciting though. Will we move? Who knows! Will I go to grad school to be a PA? Who knows!

Happy April Fool's Day. Did I mention that I am pregnant, dying, lost a leg, lost an eyeball, won the lottery, and bought 14 cats? Cause I totally did. All those things have nothing to do with the fact that it is April 1.

In about 21 days I am going to be finished attending BYU. I can't believe it. I have to admit, I am getting a little sad about it. The prospect of being finished with papers and finals and assignments is very very exciting for me. I have to be honest though, I am going to miss all of it. I would love if I got paid to go to school and all I had to do was go to classes and learn as much as I could. I would LOVE that. The break from all of the studying stress is going to be much appreciated, but come next Fall I am sure I am going to notice a void in my life.

I am so happy that I have been able to study here at BYU. I have made some amazing friends. I found the love of my life. And during all of that I learned a lot. I took an oral proficiency exam to finish off my French major and guess what.... I did great! I am in a conversation class with one of my favorite French teachers of all time, Madame Thompson, and she said that by the time I finish I could be at Advanced High. There is only one step higher. It may sound like I am bragging and I apologize, but I just never thought I would get to this point and I couldn't be happier!

Now all that is left to do is figure out what to do with the rest of my life career wise. Chiropractic? Naturopathic Medicine? Teaching? Who knows! For now I am just enjoying the fact that I am almost a BYU graduate and my whole future is ahead of me. Plus... I have my best friend to share it with.

Kate O'Farrell

I have a new name and a wonderful husband.

Marriage

Turns out I fell in love with the man of my dreams and he wants me to be his wifey! I am so happy. We are officially engaged and I thought I should tell the story to the world.

I came down to Utah 2 days earlier than John thought and surprised him! He was so shocked, even though the whole time I thought he was in on my secret. The next morning we went to watch the sunrise at about 5h00. At this point I still thought he would be proposing on my birthday, which was 2 days later, so I thought this was just a cute gesture. He "made" me a delicious breakfast (with a little help from Macey's). It was so cute. We were just goofing off and having a fun time in a grove of trees up Provo Canyon and he said that he had a blanket in the truck. He went down to the truck, which was just out of sight, and about 5 minutes later came up in a suit with a dozen roses. I had no idea that he had the suit on under his sweater and sweats. He had to keep his runners on though, cause it's not like he could have warn dress shoes with his sweats. So he came walking up toward me. So attractive. He said some of the cutest stuff to me and got down on one knee and popped the question. The ring is amazing and I couldn't be happier. I can honestly say that it was perfect. After I said yes (obviously) John brought out some fireworks and we lit them off while we celebrated, screaming and such. It was so fun!

Well now I am home in Canada and trying to plan this wedding. I think I have the cake. I am working on the invites. Now all I have to do is design a dress, pick my flowers, design my reception, find outfits for groomsmen/bridesmaids, pick the food, find a tent for a garden party themed reception, send out the invites, figure out my hair....etc. It is going to be a lot of fun though. Maybe it is a good thing that it is so fast, less stress time. ha.

Well, that is the big update for now. Happy day!

Weekday Vegetarian

I was looking through my friend's blog and I stumbled upon a clip from a man explaining the weekday vegetarian plan. Check it out: http://theweekdayvegetarian.blogspot.com. I think I am going to try it. It just makes sense. Not only is it healthier for my body and waistline, it is also an effort to help out the environment. Can't get better than that can it?

I bought a canvas today. I am still lacking paints, but a visit to my grandparents will remedy that. They used to make ceramics and sell them so they have thousands of paints. I love this painting that I found for some reason. Maybe I will try an abstract this time around...

Summer

Summer is getting here and I want this bathing suit!