Sun, fun, fish, and food. :)

So I have not blogged in quite some time. I have been super duper busy! My time....and life has been handed over to Ancestry.com. Kidding. I love my job, but I feel as if my life has been dedicated to Ancestry.com. It has become my home away from home. Good news though, I start school this week so my routine will be switched up a little bit, which I am incredibly excited about.
Well, I just got back from a week long vacation with the fam. It was....well it was great, to put it simply. We went on a cruise and had the unbelievable opportunity to stop in Haiti, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel. We did some of the coolest things ever! We got to climb a waterfall in Jamaica, snorkel in Grand Cayman in some of the bluest water I have ever seen, just kicked back in Haiti, and in Cozumel we got to swim with dolphins—and a shark!!! Coolest and most amazing experience ever. It was insane! My baby sister has wanted to swim with dolphins forever so watching her face was just priceless. We were both a tad bit nervous before we got in the water, so knowing we can turn to our Heavenly Father for anything—including needing help to be able to swim with Dolphins Hahaha, we said a quick prayer before we got in the water and were just fine. We realized that our Heavenly Father created these beautiful animals and we were getting the opportunity to enjoy His beautiful creations. Since that experience, I think I finally know what I want to major in: Dolphin training.
This trip was such an eye opener for me. I feel like I learned so much about life and about myself and oddly enough had a lot of my prayers answered. Abby Lou, my little other half, was with me all week. I don’t think she left my side the whole trip. I love that little girl more than literally anything in this world. She is the most beautiful girl, inside and out. She is just pure goodness. I look up to her so much, and I just pray that I set a good example for her. She lives in North Carolina so I only get to see her every couple of months. Spending this week with her made me realize how powerful love and family is. I didn’t know it was possible to love someone so much. I would truly do anything for her. It gave me a teeny tiny glimpse of the love our Heavenly Father has and feels for us. It physically pains me to see her hurt and I would take any pain she feels in a heartbeat if I could. This is what our Heavenly Father does for us. And just as I want my baby sister to feel nothing but joy, confidence, and happiness, so does our Heavenly Father. Ahhh, it’s just so amazing!!
We met some really cool people on our trip. Our waiters were from Jamaica, The Dominican Republic (of course any person I met from the Dominican Republic I had to tell them my best friend was going there, as if they cared.... Haha!), and a place I had never heard of M-----. The man from there was named Magen, and he looked just like an Indian Aladdin. I’m not even joking. He was the coolest guy—EVER. They were awesome and made our trip a lot of fun! On the boat they had a Flowrider which I most definitely took advantage of. They asked me to be in The Best of the Best competition that they had on the last day. So it was me and 5 other guy riders competing. I was the only female rider, and in honor of that I asked them to play Taylor Swift while I was riding. They did. Hahaha! My family....oh wow my family. They are just great!!! They were all just as nervous as I was. Abby Lou was screaming and cheering louder than anyone (she ended up getting a sore throat because of it. Haha!) My brothers were all cheering me on and giving me pep talks and my sister-in-law.... Hahahaha! As I’m riding she gets up and runs across the audience and gets everyone to do the wave and cheer and then grabs the microphone from the announcer and starts yelling my name. Needless to say, I won. I got to sign the Best of the Best Flowboard, and take a picture with a giant trophy. Haha! It was a really fun experience.
This whole week was the best of the best. But the Airport...the airport always has such a bittersweet feel to it. You’ve got the energy of being excited to go on vacation or to pick up a loved one, and you’ve got the miserable energy of goodbyes. Goodbyes are always hard. No matter how positive or happy you try to be about it they just suck. You know that quote? “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened”. Well that is much easier to quote than it is to live by. Haha! But I’m trying my hardest. And I had the best 7 days ever! I love my family so much!! I am so blessed. ☺

A thought I've had....

Okay so I used to be this avid jounal writer, right? Never did I miss a single day. I loved writing in my always adorable journal. It was part of my everyday routine, until life sort of caught up to me and I couldn’t possibly write everything that was happening or what I was feeling-nor did I really want to, so I just stopped. I’m hoping this blogging will help me get back into the habit and help me get all my thoughts out of my brain. I just feel that all day long I am consumed with thoughts, thoughts, and more thoughts; thoughts about life, perspective, random ideas, and life’s incredible and often times puzzling events.

            Well, I feel lately as if life has been this rollercoaster moving at speeds of 100 mph and at other times 0mph. It’s kind of a strange feeling. I feel as if things are so crazy, scary, exciting, and overwhelming and then all of a sudden in the midst of everything someone presses the pause button for me.—Sometimes it’s pressed when I don’t want it to be, but then realize it was pressed just when I needed it to be. When this pause button is pressed I’m able to soak up, take in, and evaluate my thoughts and actions towards my life’s events.

 For those of you who don’t know, I just transferred from Utah State University where I was as an Ambassador for the University and moved back home. It’s unbelievable how much I’ve learned in these last few weeks. Like for reals. It’s kind of been an overload of learning. I’ll go into the nitty gritty of that another time. But considering everyone is in school right now and I’m not, I’ve had a lot of time to myself to have these pause button experiences.

My view on life has totally changed. Thanks to an incredibly good friend of mine, my understanding of life and of myself has been completely altered. He has helped me unlock my soul and my brain. I feel like I’ve been set free and it’s unbelievably invigorating and refreshing!! Everything is so much clearer these days. Before a few a weeks ago, I used to describe this fog over my brain that kept me bogged down and confused. I would get lost and buried in my often times unreasonable thoughts. This fog was affecting my heart and my relationships with friends and family in a negative way. I needed an answer to getting rid of this fog.

Step One-I needed to ask for help. So I did. I had many long conversations with my Heavenly Father, who then directed me to three people who have literally changed my life.

Step Two-Ask for more help. Which I did. (It’s hard asking for help..... Haha!)

Step Three- Go to the temple. When I was at the temple I was able to experience that peace and feeling of a clear mind and heart. It gave me hope that this feeling was achievable in my every day life.

Step Four-I needed to feel how I was truly feeling. Schedule time in your day to cry if you’re sad, yell if your mad, laugh if you’re happy. It’s key and absolutely vital to feel your emotions. I've started scheduling time to cry, to worry, and to laugh and it has made me feel much better.  

Step Five- After a nice chat with who I view as the neatest lady I’ve ever met, I realized I needed to take a step back and become vulnerable. This is hard. So, so, so, so, so, so, hard. (Me telling everyone this stuff is just a step in my process of becoming vulnerable. Haha!)

I think the majority of us do this; we put up a wall. That invisible, yet completely visible wall. Whether it be because of lack of trust, lack of confidence, you’re scared, you just have a hard time letting people in, you want to hide, you have a hard time showing people who you really are, you want to protect yourself, you’re scared you’re going to get hurt, or whatever it might be, we all do it. And boy, was my wall thick.....

I wanted to take this wall down and be set free. Let me rephrase that, I WANT to take that wall down. It’s still there but goodness, it’s coming down!!!! When I try to think back on how I was able to take pieces of it down, it really came down to just making a decision. I had to decide I wanted it to come down. You can’t be afraid of letting people see who you really are. You can’t be so afraid of what people think that you never let them see who you really are. (Cause who you really are is pretty awesome. I promise.) You can’t be so afraid of someone bailing on you that you never let them in. You can’t live afraid.

 I realized if you take that wall down, you have all the power. Which is totally backwards because I think we all put that wall up to feel like we have all the power and control. To be in control of not getting hurt, or whatever it might be. But if you take that wall down, you have the power to not live afraid of your fears. And now that my friends, is having all the power.

The fog in my mind is fading fast and my wall is coming down. My sweet friends, take that wall down. It makes life absolutely exciting—and real. I wish I could better describe why I used the word real. But just try taking that wall down--and I promise you’ll get it!!

Love, Meg