The End of Nowhere...

Yesterday, I went to the end of nowhere.  I don't know if you've ever been to the middle of nowhere, but if you keep going passed the middle of nowhere, you reach the end of nowhere.  That's where I went yesterday.  I have a really fun job with the American Red Cross.  One thing I do, is I go all over our chapter and teach health and safety courses to businesses and organizations.  Yesterday, I went with 3 other instructors, and our location was seriously in the end of nowhere.  We drove for an hour to get to this place.  I'm not kidding, the one road that lead out to the location kept going, and going, and going.  I really wondered if we would ever actually get somewhere.  It was quite interesting.

The location we went to is a place that deals with a lot of hazardous material and nuclear crap or something like that.  Basically, it could potentially be a very dangerous workplace if workers are not careful.  I got a little scared by some of the things I saw.  At one point during our class, I got pretty freaked out.  All of the sudden a siren was blaring over the PA system in the complex.  I was about to jump up and book it outside.  But all the employees sat calmly in there chairs as if they had heard nothing at all.  Eventually a voice came over the system explaining that this was just a test of the emergency system.  Thank goodness!

The other thing that feaked me out were the guest day badges that we were given.  One side of them had emergency alert codes and what they meant.  It said what to do if you hear a yellow alert or what to do for some other types of alerts.  One of them was a red alert and it said if you hear that to run away from the location as quickly as possible!  I was scared!  But I guess it made our teaching experience just a little more interesting. 

The best part of the day was after our class was done.  We were teaching very close to where my friend Nate lives.  That means I got to hook up with Nater after class.  We had a little picnic in a park and then took off on a beautiful hike.  We hiked up a peak and was seriously 2.5 miles, straight up to the sky!  It was steep!  But it was great.  The higher we went, the more gorgeous the autumn leaves became.  We also had some amazing views of the valley.  We made it to the top, enjoyed the scenery and the reward of the steep climb up.  We headed back down the mountain, and met up with his family for dinner.  It was one exciting and awesome day!  I'm happy!  Here are some pictures of the hike.  These were taken only about half way up, so you can see how steep/high we climbed.

End of Summer Review

Summer time is over!  Fall is in the air.  I love summer.  Sometimes I wish it could be never-ending.  But this week, I'm feeling fall in the air, and I'm pretty excited.  Change always brings new things.  The chaning of seasons brings new sights, smells, temperatures.....etc.  But I feel pretty lame for not blogging all summer.  I guess I got pretty busy this summer, and I kind of forgot that I had a blog.  This summer was great.  I'm so thankful I came back home for summer.  I needed to be here this year.  I feel like I actually accomplished a lot this summer.  I have been working part time with aquatics at the pool, and I got hired at the American Red Cross part time.  Finally, I got my foot in the door with public health!  Don't know where it will take me next, but for now, I am content, and comfortable.  I also accomplished to huge goals of mine this summer!  I wanted to run a half marathon this year.  I ended up running 2 half marathons, and am training for my third which will be in October.  My other goal was to do an open water triathlon.  I've done a couple of pool tri's, but have been too scared to do open water.  I guard open water tri's all the time, and I finally braved up and did one!  And I loved it!  Way cooler than pool tri's!  Our summer ended by helping our mom and grandma get through total knee replacement surgery.  THAT, has been an adventure in itself.  Here are some pictures of my summer 2011 adventures.  The above was the summer kick-off team adventure.  We went to Las Vegas for the Glee concert!!!!  We spent about 3 hours pool side at our hotel, trying to get some sun and vitamin D.

 This was my fist time staying on the Las Vegas Strip that I can remember.  We chose the Excalabir.  We even hit up the hotel buffet.  Yeah, it was great.

 This is the Team.  Angie, Rachael, Natalie, and me. 

 Glee!

 I kind of started the summer with a crappy running accident.  I had to wear a wrist splint after this!

 Lagoon with one of our bff's, Shelley.

 My first Half!  Freedom Half on July 4th.

 Cole!  My cute little nephew.  We played with Cole ALOT all summer.

 4 of the Headguards at Fire Water Ice Festival.  We were in control of about 65 lifeguards for 4 hours!

 The annual Fire Water Ice Festival lifeguard tunnel run.  My friend and I started this a couple years ago.  I love to see that we still do it.

 Part of our first aid team at FWI.

 Yeah, these 2 paramedics were pretty easy on the eyes.  We got to play with them all day!

 Modeling the first aid table.

Oh yeah, I met a new friend at the end of summer.  This is my friend Nate.

Well, that's that I guess.  I have to go to work now.  Goodbye summer!  Hello fall!

New Comforter!

So, I decided to get a brand new comforter for my bed. I was so excited about it and it finally came today! It has palm leaves and flowers on it! Its so soft and fluffy and I can't wait to cuddle up under it and sleep. :) I've never had any bedding this nice before so I'm totally freaking out! Well, goodnight all!

Cole's First Birthday!

My little nephew, Cole, turned 1 year old this week! He is such a cute, funny little boy and I love him so much! During the week, Cole and him mom come over to our house to exercise. During this time, we get to play with Cole! It is a lot of fun. One day this week, Cole was playing with us while Maddie was working out, and he started barking at this little dog toy we have. It was the cutest bark! Maybe even cuter than the bark is the funny face Cole makes with his lips in order to do the bark sound. It was so cute! After hearing him bark, I decided to get Cole a puppy stuffed animal for his birthday. I went and found the cutest, softest puppy I could! When we gave it to Cole, he was all over it! Maddie said it makes him really hyper. Mission accomplished! He hugged the puppy, barked at it, shook it, and rolled on the ground with it! I think he likes it. It was even hard to get a picture because he wouldn't hold still with it. It was really cute! Here is our attempted picture: Anyways, I think we had a pretty fun birthday celebration for this little guy. I know I had fun. I love watching Cole and playing with him. His favorite thing to do lately is to headbutt us all. I don't know why he does it. It is funny, but you have to be careful or it really can hurt. He has also started walking, which is fun. Happy Birthday Cole! I love you!

To Haley:

31 years ago, on this day, April 8th, my cousin Haley was born. Haley Quinn. Haley is my idol. Her birthday is the one day I look forward to all year long. I celebrate her birthday more intense than I do my own. Haley said that I'm her favorite cousin. She also said that she is intimidated by me. But she still likes me alot.

Debbie

Debbie called me today. Debbie works for Oriental Trading. Debbie wanted to thank me for my recent purchase from Oriental Trading. Debbie wanted to ask how my experience was. Debbie wanted to make sure I had a good experience with Oriental Trading. Debbie was nice. I wish I had Debbie's phone number. I'd like to call Debbie back and thank her for thanking me.

Dear &%#$@:

For quite sometime you have been an idiot. You won't look at me or speak to me unless you need someone to blame something on. But you know what? I don't even care. I can just walk away, think of bad words in my head, and then blog about you, and you will never even know. I am good. I'm not playing your stupid, dumb game. If only you could see how rediculous you are being. I think that you need to go to an attitude change meeting.

Why this weekend has been great:

1. Get to see my family!

2. Went to "Just Running" water aerobics with Natalie and distracted her!

3. Got to tease Emily about another boy.

4. Got to plan my wedding with my mom. Its going to be great! One word: Butcher Paper!

5. Went to Sam's club.

6. Went to cycling with Natalie and the instructor was insane! She made us dance on our bikes. If she can get certified to teaching cycling, then I can get certified to teach it.

7. Watched my nephew smile and laugh when he saw me. That was fun!

WSI

Back in January, I went to the American Red Cross Safety school to become a certified Instructor Trainer. Well, I got to use that certification these past 3 weeks as I taught my first Water Safety Instructor class. It was great and best of all, everybody passed and is now certified! This is a picture of my cute little class doing the huddle, a water safety technique.

To Grandma, With Love

This may sound a little goofy, but a line from the song "To Sir, With Love" quotes best what I feel right now. It says, "But how do you thank someone, who has taken you from crayons to perfume? It isn't easy, but I'll try."

My grandma passed away yesterday, January 22nd, 2011 at 3:15 P.M. At 8:30 a.m., I was still snoozing away as I had sort of a rough week. Suddenly, I was being awakened by the sound of my phone ringing. It was my mom. She was crying and told me she had spent the night at the hospital. I thought something had happened to my mom, unil I heard the next two words "its grandma." My mom told me that in the night my grandma had been rushed to the hospital, and no body was certain she was going to make it. As my mom continutes to tell me everything that happened, all I could do was cry while I listened and hope I was dreaming. The pain of the thought of loosing my grandma made it clear that this was no dream. When my mom finished telling me everything, the only thing I could say through my tears was "can I please come home today?" Of course my mom pleaded that I do, but not to rush through all my emotions. Not long later my boss called me, not know what was hapenning in my family at the moment. I answered the phone. My boss didn't even say "hi," all he said was "are you okay?" It kind of stunned me and I wondered if he knew. He didn't. I told him about my grandma and all he said was "you do what you need to do." Feeling greatful to have his support and concern, I packed and began my 4 hour drive home. As I was pulling into the Salt Lake Valley, my dad called me and calmly said "Lauren, just go straight home. Grandma has passed." When he told me, as I felt the pain of loss, I was overwhelmed with a calming spirit. I realized that my grandma never has to suffer again. She is not coughing anymore. She can stand up straight. Her legs don't hurt. Her feet don't hurt. She is with her family, and with our Lord and our Savior. I have not doubt about that.

My grandma is an amazing woman. She took care of everyone, including her neighbors. She made me feel special for whatever I did. I have so many fun memories of her. I remember once when I was little, my parents dropped us off and Grandma and Grandpa's house to get tended. I threw a big, huge temper tantram and tried to run away from my grandma. But guess what? She caught me and brought me right back inside and calmed me down. She always came to grandparents' day at our elementary school and alwasy took us for french fries and ice cream afterwords. She showed us all how important family is. Somehow, she was always able to pull our massive extended family together at once! Grandma was our lifeguard at her pool. Once we became college students, she called us brats and whacked us with her cane if we teased her. She loved being teased, and I loved being whacked by my grandma. She took care of us all. I miss her allready. Its going to be hard without her on earth, but I know she is in a better place. I hope I can continue to learn from her example. I love you grandma! Thank you for being the best grandma ever!

I Have Alot To Say.....

.......so I'm going to blog again.

Yum!

Look at my beautiful banana cream pie I made......well, except for the little whipcream mishap on one side. No worries though, it still tasted delicious!

Turning a Negative into a Positive

I've had a really hard time lately looking for the positive in life. Lately I tend to focus on the negative, which is really easy to do. Well, with some recent stresses at work, my boss challenged me to look for the positive in what I've been doing. I basically told her I would try, but not to count on it. It turns out she proved me very wrong in my thinking, and I am glad she did. Here is the story:

One of my four jobs is a swim instructor. I've been teaching swim lessons for a couple of years now. I usually only have time to teach in the summer, but because I am now a college graduate seeking a job with my degree, I have some more time to put in more hours at my current workplace. I taught lessons this past summer and had an absolute blast doing so. I decided that I would make some time to continue teaching into the fall. Once in a while with swim lessons, you have to teach some classes that are a challenge. Usually, I embrace a challenge with full force and see what I can learn from it. Now, I have never really had a swim class that I could not handle or control until this set that just ended yesterday. All four of my classes were completely out of control. Kids were fighting me as I tried to control them, and parents were giving me nasty looks as I trid to tame their out of control children. (I feel like there are alot of parents these days that do not discipline their children. The way some kids act in public now days I never would have dared to act when I was a child.) I finally had it with my classes and had to turn to my boss. When I talked to her about it I was of course negative and told her I wanted to turn in my resignation notice for my swim instructor job. Honeslty, I really was going to do just that, but she actually told me I should not do so. Instead, she gave me some tips, gave me assistants to help control my classes, and actually sat on deck to ward of the nasty parents. She also gave me a challenge. Not only had I been negative about work, but I had been negative about life and the huge rock wall I feel like I have hit. My boss challenged me to find one positive thing about each one of my classes, and I had to report back to her. I told her I will try, but I probably won't be able to find anything. She basically told me I would be surprised and left it at that. Now, I'm not going to say that all my classes suddenly changed and were happier for me, but I did learn a huge lesson from one child in one of my classes that changed my attitude for the better.

I had the opportunity to have an autistic boy in one of my classes. At first I had to figure out how to work with this boy to teach him how to swim his strokes. It was very difficult. He had a really hard time comprehending my instructions, and I had to learn to change the way I teach in order for him to be able to have the same advantage and opportunity as every other child in the class. I worked hard and was able to succeed at that. As I came to work every day grouchy and mad at what I was being asked to do, this little autistic boy came to the pool with a huge smile on his face, yelling "hi teacher!" to me across the pool deck. Everything I asked him to do, he was so excited to try, even though some swim tasks were very difficult for him. Not once did he get discouraged or down because he couldn't do something. He practiced extra hard, and really did leave my class a better swimmer than he was just two weeks ago. This little boy taught me that yes, we all have our setbacks, but that doesn't mean we should hide from our challenges. We should work harder to conquer the challenges that arise in our lives. Looking for the positive things in my swim lessons did change my attitude, mostly because of this boy. He would often be doing a skill with me and when finished would yell "I did it!" Another experience I had with this boy was when he finished something that was pretty challenging, and as I started to swim to the other side of the pool to help another child he yelled after me "teacher, teacher! I give you hug!" I turned around to see him coming after me in the water to give me the biggest hug. His mom was so incredibly proud of him. I'm really greatful for people that the Lord puts into our lives at certain moments to make our lives better. I'm also so glad I finished out this swim lesson set. I really did learn a big lesson from both my boss, and the autistic boy I taught. I think I'm going start trying harder to change my attitude about life. I really am in a good place right now, and I am going to start recognizing that every day.

Summer 2010

I haven't been around the blog world all summer! Honeslty, I don't really know where I've been all summer. I kind of went everywhere. I've decided to post some pictures of what I did all throughout the summer. Hope you enjoy them! And thanks to Natalie Edge for helping me fix my blog font color. Now it is much easier to see the coloring! Have a great day everybody! We started our summer off with a really fun trip to Disneyland, L.A., and Santa Monica.
We also played in California Adventure.

My mom is so pretty!

We went to the Santa Monica Pier one night. It was so cool! We even saw a beach lifeguard, which for our family is a similar experience to seeing a celebrity.

Santa Monica Beach.

We visited UCLA!

We were pretty much like celebrities driving around L.A. in our California rental car.

Family picture in California Adventure Land.

Spent my birthday flying into LAX Airport, driving to Aneheim, and then partying at Disneyland all day! This is my birthday face.

Hooray!

I had a super bad breakout of my eye virus the last 3 weeks of August. Yeah, it lasted 3 whole weeks! I've never had to take so many different meds at once. I should have taken a picture of my lymph node that my virus lives in - it was just a little smaller than a golf ball, which is too big for a lymhp node to be.

I went biking a few times, but mostly ran my legs off this summer.

Modeled sexy bikinis.

Biking.

Played with my cute nephew, Cole! He's getting so big and sooooo cute!

I guess I want you to see this picture again?

Natalie and I are really cool when we go downtown.

We went to my cousin's wedding. This room we had the wedding lunch in is called the Empire Room at the Joseph Smith Building. This is the same room my parents had their wedding reception in 27 years ago.

Oh Cole, you are so cute! Red is your color. :)

Apparently I was on first aid duty at work this day. Yeah, I have a rough job...

Got to work with all my friends who come home from college every summer to party at the pool.

Emily didn't relly know how to spend her summer.

Finally, we of course spent many Saturday nights at Shavy Jones with our friends. What a fun summer!

I'm Back!

Dear anybody who reads my blog: I have been requested by a friend to update my blog, seeing as I haven't done it in a while. I've consented and want to start writing about my life again, because I have alot to say. This is just a small post to let ya'll know I'm back. Also, I am having some brain issues and need some help: How do I change the font color on my blog so it is easier to read on my dark background?

A long, long time ago...

I've been ripping my room apart this week. It is a huge project, but will hopefully be completed tomorrow! During the process, I came across some old CDs. I put them in my computer and they were all full of high school pictures. I thought it'd be fun to some of them on my blog and tell you about the friends I used to have. Natalie Edge is my idol. She is still tight with my family. She swims for the U, which is awesome! She is a math major. We got to take institute together this past semester.

First of all, this is my family. They are still my family today, and they will be my family forever. I like that. This is at my high school graduation.

This is Megan. She was one of my two best friends in highschool. I don't usually see her anymore, and she doesn't really talk to me. She is engaged now and will be married this summer. I miss her.

Natalie is in this picture. She is still my sister. Her eyes are still just as blue. Timbrell was rebellious towards swimming our senior year. She was an amazing goalie in water polo though! She's now married and has a baby.

My senior year of high school, our girls team took 2nd place in state.

This is Addy. Addy is awesome! She now swims for BYU. I get to see her all summer at work.

This is Chalece. She is my other best friend from high school. Chalece is amazing! She is currently serving her mission in Indonesia.

Not too fond of this boy anymore, but I have to say that my dress was awesome! This was senior ball.

Megan, me Chalece after we won state in water polo.

Me and Rachael are still way tight. She is hilarious!

This boy has not changed since high school. He is still a sweet talker, which doesn't really impress me as much as it did in high school...

This is Tree. He was a way cool friend! He's married now and that's about all I know. His mom is way cool!

These are all the girls I used to hang out with in high school. All of them are either married, or are planning a wedding except for me and two other girls.

This is my Grandma and Grandpa Stapley at my high school graduation. My grandpa passed away from leukemia last fall. I miss him so much. Grandma is doing well and we get to see her quite often which is good. I love them both!

This girl's name is Lauren. This was after she graduated from highschool. She just recently graduated from college with her Bachelor's degree. She's changed alot since high school, and hopes to keep changing for the better. She's trying to find where she needs to be right now, but is having a difficult time. She is learning patience and is learning how to be confident. She is happy.