A Dream Come True

Normally after coming home from Maine, I get bored within a few days, especially while Ashton is at work. Most of the boredom comes from not having a set schedule anymore. I do enjoy being able to have some time to myself, but there comes a point when too much alone time is just as bad as not having any. I've been fortunate this time that I only had to spend one day where I was sitting around wondering what I was going to do.

One of the first things I usually do when I get home is sleep in. It's easy to do when you don't have someone waking you up and when you're a bit jet lagged. Although it felt like sleeping in, considering the time difference, I actually got up at 7:30 the first morning. To some of you, this really is sleeping in, but when I'm home, I've been known to not get up until at least 8 - 8:30. I was a little worried how long it would take for me to go back to my old ways, but fortunately a solution was provided.

My friend Tiff got back into Provo a little while ago after serving a mission in Puerto Rico. We were talking and she was saying that she needed someone who would be willing to go running with her in the mornings. Well, I've been wanting to go running for a while now, but not having a running buddy hurt my motivation to get up and do it. I could see all kinds of light bulbs going off, arrows pointing straight at Tiff saying, "Helloooo running buddy!" So, I said that I'd go running with her. The catch: we go running at 6:00 in the morning. Now, this wouldn't be bad if we lived in the same town, but since I live a 15-20 minute drive away (if there was no traffic it'd take maybe 10 minutes), I get up at 5:30 to get to her house by 6. I'm actually quite proud of myself because I have been doing it. I find that if I get up right when the alarm goes off, I mumble a whole lot less. It makes the whole morning so much better. Not to mention, it feels nice to exercise. So, my goal of getting in shape and getting up in the morning is taken care of. I'm a little worried about what'll happen when it gets cold and snowy, but I'm also hoping that I won't have to worry about that for a while. Call it wishful thinking.

The other thing that I was worried about when I came home was having enough stuff to do during the day. Thanks again to Tiff I have a big project to accomplish. Like I said, Tiff just came home from her mission and she has a lot of pictures that she wanted to scrapbook, but neither had the time nor felt that she had the creativity to do it. Although she's creative enough to do it, she's entrusted me to scrapbook her mission experience. Like I said, this is a big job. There are about 500 pictures to go in this scrapbook so it'll take me a while to do, but I'm excited.

Another thing that I've been doing is a photo session with Lance and Stacy! They wanted to take some family pictures, but didn't want to spend too much money on them so they asked me if I'd take the pictures. Can I just say that I was thrilled about the idea! A tad nervous, but thrilled. I love taking pictures, if you couldn't tell, and I am happy that they trusted me to do them. So Saturday we found some cute places to take pictures and spent maybe an hour or so taking pictures. They were fun to photograph! I spent the next few days touching up pictures and playing around with them. I had so much fun! I would love to do this every day. I can't put all of them on here, no matter how proud I am of them, but here are a few!