Washington D.C.: Day 1

Wednesday morning, June 1, I boarded the plane to go on my very first trip to D.C.! This was my first trip by myself to a place I was unfamiliar with. I had a map, and my phone has GPS so I was feeling pretty ok with the situation. I wasn't scared, I was excited! I was excited to be able to figure things out for myself. At first, my plane was delayed for about 30 minutes, it made me a little anxious because I was so so so excited to get out of Utah. Finally we were all boarded and ready to go! Four hours later, we were landing in the nations capital :) We landed and I got off the plane with a huge grin on my face, I probably looked silly because I seriously could not stop smiling. Now I hadn't really planned how I would get from the airport to the University of Maryland, where I was going to stay, I figured I would just 'wing it' and figure it out as I went. I did know that I would have to take the Metro (the subway) for part of the trip, but I didn't even know if there was a stop close to where I needed to go.

I stepped outside of the terminal and nearly died. It was 97 degrees and there was almost 100% humidity and I could not breathe. I stopped to catch my breath and then realized that I was already soaked in my own sweat...gross. I looked around at the craziness around me and tried to figure out how to buy my Metro pass, talk about confusing. I went over to the main desk thing and with a smile on my face I told the man, "I have no idea what I'm doing, I need to get to the University of Maryland and I need some help" He laughed at me, I laughed at myself. He explained to me how to find my route and how much money to put in the machine. He said, "Now go over there and buy your ticket and come back here and I will explain to you what to do". So I went over, bought the ticket and came back. The kind man explained to me what I needed to do next, which turned out to be extremely simple, and I was on my way, sweat, luggage, smile and all. :)

I rode the Metro, did everything I was told to do, followed all the stops along the way with my map. It came to my stop and I got off. I was thinking that I would walk off the Metro, go upstairs and BAM! the college would be right there!!!.....boy was I in for a surprise.

This is what I saw, not a college in sight. Not to mention, it had started to pour rain while I had been riding underground. I almost started laughing out loud, all the while I'm thinking to myself, "silly Heather, it's not going to be THAT easy" so I pulled the phone out, and put "Queen Anne's Park" into the map/GPS thing because I was pretty sure that is the place I needed to be to check in. I also told it that I would be walking because I figured it couldn't be too far away because the stop I got off at was named "College Park/University of Maryland"... HA! GPS answer: Walking Dstance 123.3 miles, Time: 1 Day 16 Hours. I'm sure you can all see my eyes bulge out at this point haha, surely this can't be right. My mind starts going through all of the scenarios of how I could possibly get to where I'm going, I surely could not afford a cab ride for that long, so I trekked back down the stairs to talk to another man at the help desk. He informed me that I just needed to go back up the stairs and catch the Shuttle Bus, and it would take me to the University. Thank goodness for the help desk men!! I thought for sure I had messed up on something. I boarded the right bus(at first I almost got on the wrong one) and off we went! As I was riding along, I realized I had no clue what stop to get off at, so I kept riding, waiting for a sign (from God). We passed through some gates that said "University of Maryland" so I figured any stop withing this vicinity would be close. I waited and when the bus stopped and a decent amount of people got off, I followed, hoping this was a good choice. I went in the nearest building to find out where the heck I was, I found a little convenience store and went inside to ask the guys in there how I could get to where I was going. I told them I needed help finding Queen Anne's Park, and with a puzzled look on their faces said "Queen Anne's Park? I've never even heard of that" REALLY!? I said, "let me find my paperwork and check but I'm pretty sure that's where I'm supposed to be" They pulled out a map of the campus and I pulled out my papers and said "Oh it's actually Queen Anne's Hall" "Ohhh, ok, that is just up the hill a little bit. Here it is, take this map" I'm thinking, SERIOUSLY? you couldn't connect the dots between Queen Anne's Park and Queen Anne's Hall? Oh well... at least I'm in the right spot. So I ventured back outside, back into the nasty hot humidity, away from the air conditioning :( I walked and walked, toting my rolling bag behind me, starting to feel a little lost with all the curvy roads and sidewalks, just when I think I'm in the wrong spot, I find this:

HALLELUJAH! I'm almost there. I finally found the famous Queen Anne's Hall and checked in and got my keys and found my room. Just as I was walking into my room, I get a panicked text from my mom "Are you ok?" She hadn't heard from me since I landed and she knew I had that "No Fear" attitude, and that I could possibly be very lost. The rest of the evening is relatively uneventful, other than a quick run to McDonalds before they closed to get some food because I hadn't eaten all day and they were the only thing open and close.
I met my roommate Carly, who is awesome! After we both showered the nastiness off, we both climbed into bed and fell asleep quickly, trying to get some sleep before the early morning adventures began....
To Be Continued



*peace out girl scout*

San Diego Trip

For Memorial Day weekend, I was able to go visit my dad in San Diego! I arrived early afternoon on Saturday, and as soon as we got some lunch to eat, we were off to the lake for a bike ride. It was such a beautiful day, we rode around the entire lake, which was about 5 miles. As much as I enjoyed the bike ride, my rear end didn't appreciate it that much. The next day was the big softball game. Guys vs. Girls. It was a lot of fun, I even hit the ball a couple of times, which was a big accomplishment :) Once again, the weather was beautiful (but then again, we were in San Diego, where everyday is beautiful, I was just happy that I didn't have to deal with the snow my family recieved while I was gone). Final score: 31 to 12...I will let you guess who won...

On Monday, the main events occurred. I woke up to this right outside the house:

A GIANT WATERSLIDE!!!!

This was pretty much my favorite thing ever! It was huge! I went down this slide more times than I can count, and the best part was, the weather was just right, not too hot, not too cold and I was able to spend the whole day in my swimming suit. I went forwards, backwards, on my stomach and screaming all the way down this slide. I want one of these... The rest of the days festivities were also enjoyable. There was a taco man with delicious street tacos and there was a live band which was fun.

I had a super funny video of a guy that came along with the band, I call him "The Groupie that nobody wanted" He stood in the middle of the culdesac the whole time and danced and played air guitar....by himself, he was certainly enjoying the band. (unfortunately the video wouldn't upload :( ) We ended the evening by sitting around the fire and making s'mores and enjoying each others company. It was such a good, fun, relaxing weekend and I was sad to leave the next morning but....I was leaving for DC in 2 days so my excitement continued to build. :)

Picture of the full view of the culdesac and all the craziness and people that were there.

*peace out girl scout*

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

I got the scholarship!!! I am so extremely excited to announce that I recieved a scholarship that will send me to the NCCWSL conference (National Conference for College Women Student Leaders). The conference is in Washington D.C. during June 2-4. I am flying out there on the 1st a day early so that I can have time to figure out the city. It will be my first time going to D.C. and it will be my first trip by myself, so it will be an adventure!! Don't worry, I'll take my knife ;) I was very shocked to get this scholarship. I had applied for it at the beginning of March and the winner would be announced at the end of March. I recieved an email at the end of March saying that they were unable to give me a scholarship at this time. So I thought nothing of it. I was still planning on going anyway, with or without the scholarship. My grandma really wanted me to go. On the 14th I decided to check my email because I hadn't checked it in a few days (which is routine, I only check it every 3-4 days). And BAM! first email there was one saying Congratulations! You have been rewarded with a scholarship to attend the conference! It also said I had to respond by the 15th at midnight with confirmation of my travel plans or they would give the scholarship to someone else. Talk about lucky! I am so so so so lucky and blessed to have recieved this scholarship. I'm excited for all of the young women and wonderful people I will get to meet! I'm also excited for the adventure I will have navigating myself around D.C.!!!
*peace out girl scout*

Healthy Wolverine

I first of all have to say that I have been very unhappy, and to be honest a little bit depressed about how my body looks, and I don't remember a time when I was ever confident in the way I looked. I have always been very self-conscious and felt like I was a bit overweight or a bit chubby. I am starting to change that attitude I have about myself. I figure that sitting on my butt and thinking about it and getting down on myself isn't going to make the weight go away. Last summer I started doing something about it and I lost like 30 pounds! Then I was happy for awhile and slowly...some of the weight has come back. The last few months I have started excercising regularly and eating a lot better and guess what? I FEEL GREAT! Yeah sure I am still a bit dissatisfied with the way my body looks but it's looking better every day ;) I am noticing a difference! Today I started a program that I heard about from my boss, it is called "The Couch-to 5k Running Program" and combined with my Turbo Jams (my absolute favorite workout dvd) I am excited for the resluts I am seeing and will see! Seriously though...Turbo Jams kicks my butt...there are many days when I feel like staying in bed, or I feel like I am going to die because I am so freaking sore but I love it! I don't own a scale and I have no set weight I want to lose or set inches to shed, I am going to keep doing this hopefully for the rest of my life. Why? because it's good for me! It's never too late to start good habits!

Now I don't want this post to seem like a "poor Heather" or a pity party for me because I know that there are many people (probably the majority of people) who aren't happy with the way they look, but guess what? YOU CAN CHANGE THAT! I'm getting to where I want to be, and that makes me happy. I'm not doing this in hopes that I can get the attention of males...although that would be nice haha...I'm doing this for myself because it makes me feel good!

If any of you want to see what the program is like, here is the link: http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml

Be a Healthy Wolverine! (don't mind sweaty ol' me after a nice workout!)

*peace out girl scout*

*CAUTION: AWKWARD CONTENT*

Ok, so on Friday in my Human Sexuality class we had a guest speaker. I was pretty excited, not gonna lie. The guest speaker was a cross-dresser. In this class we are starting to get into all of the icky stuff like sexual addictions and all the sad/weird stuff like that. This guest speaker doesn't know he/she is a part of this curriculum, in his/her (whatever) eyes, this is a normal educational lecture. Ok, back to the story....I was really excited...until he walked in, dressed in drag basically. I was immediately weirded out! It was one of the most bizarre things I have ever experienced. Then he started talking...not even trying to disguise his man voice. I don't think I blinked the entire class, all I could do was stare at him. He had more curves than I did. I couldn't help but stare at his cleavage...now normally, I don't go around staring at peoples cleavage but I figured because under all of his makeup and dress, he was actually a man, it wouldn't be too wrong of me to stare. I kept thinking to myself, how in the world does he get cleavage like that?! He is a man. Later we found out that he wears a super tight girdle and a pushup bra with little chicken cutlets(they are actually called silicone pieces, but I call them chicken cutlets because that is what they look like). The whole thing was amazing to me...and not in a good way. This man, woman, person...whatever you want to call it is married, with 4 children. He says that when he is a man, he is comfortable being a man, and he is comfortable with his man parts. He compares his crossdressing with men who play golf. He does it occasionally for fun. Whatever...it was just plain weird. *peace out girl scout*

My ducks

These happy little guys sit in my windowsill. My friend Chrissy gave them to me, and I love them. They go along with everything else that is covered in airplanes in my room...I have a slight obsession I think.

St. Patrick's Day Festivities

Yesterday was St. Patty's Day and I have spent the entire last week trying to plan our little "Relief Society Birthday/St. Patrick's Day Party". It's been quite the task actually, especially when nobody from the entire committee did really anything. I made delicious sugar cookies though, they are to die for. Just this morning I had 3 for breakfast! Shhhh don't tell anyone!!(guess I will have to incorporate more crunches into my work-out today).

I had originally planned on making them shamrock shaped but I could not, for the life of me, find a cookie cutter in the shape of a shamrock! So I made round cookies and cut a little stencil out of paper and laid it on top of the cookie and sprinkled the green sugar on it! Up close it just looks like a blob of green sprinkles in the middle but amazingly, you can actually tell they are shamrocks in this picture!!

I'm really quite upset about the whole party thing, it was last night and only 4 girls came, FOUR! For crying out loud I put a lot of work into this activity! There was a chocolate fountain, come on girls, CHOCOLATE! and all sorts of things to drown in chocolate such as: cinnamon bears, marshmallows, bananas, strawberries, and pretzels. I even had green kool-aid! Anyway...enough venting, I have a lot of extra cookies and I'm going to have to take some into work so that I don't end up eating them all myself.

This picture makes me happy, I also had all this stuff for us to paint our nails green at the party. Aren't these colors just fun? I thought they were. My nails are a pretty shocking green color now :)

So as I was cutting up strawberries for the party, these two huge berries were in the bottom of the container, I should rephrase that, these two MONSTER berries were at the bottom. Look at how huge they are!!! I could not believe that they actually grew that big! And boy were they delish!!! I've been on a strawberry kick lately, I eat them all the time, it's wonderful, it makes me happy :)

*peace out girl scout*

What I've been up to...

Well, for starters, I have been sewing like a crazy woman. My school work has been seriously neglected. I finally finished my Sailboat quilt which I think is presh! (that's for you Kira) It was a LOT of work but I learned something new and it was fun. I made a small baby quilt for a display at work and it turned out super cute as well.

I feel like people who read my blog are expecting a fabulous story about a recent flight I've had or something like that, but the truth is, I haven't flown for over a month, and it makes me sad. It's not because I can't, or haven't wanted to, but because right now I am gearing up to finish my instrument rating, which makes for A LOT of ground work and studying. My next phase of flying will contain mostly cross-country flights which I am super excited about!! ...but my instructor has a job interview with SkyWest this week, which means he may be leaving...and I will have to find another flight instructor...again! It makes me mad. Those of you who know the story about my previous instructor, and how bad he was, you know how excited and happy I have been with my current instructor. Hopefully he will be able to stay with me until I finish!

At the end of February, I went to Reno to the Women in Aviation International Conference and OH MY GOODNESS was it amazing! I was so inspired and uplifted with all of the women that were around me, there were flight attendants, human resource people, mechanics and pilots. And all of them were WOMEN!!! It was an incredible experience, seriously, I'm already planning on going to next year's conference in Dallas. I was able to take my resume around to different airlines and have them critique it and let me know what I can do to improve it. Delta took my resume actually, and hopefully they consider me for an internship. As of now, I'm working on applying for several internships. My ideal airline for an internship would probably be either JetBlue or Alaska Airlines....I'm not gonna lie, it's mainly because they are paid and they have nice flight benefits ;)

As for now, I'm just busy all the time with online classes, work, church callings, sewing, trying to keep my room clean (that is quite the task) and keeping the rest of the apartment clean.

One last sneak peek on my current sewing project that is almost complete....

*peace out girl scout*

Topless and Hotdogs

This week, on that one really warm day we had I saw people driving around in a convertible with the top down and windows rolled up. I don't know why, but that absolutely BUGS the crap out of me! Yeah the weather was nice, probably nice enough to put the top down and cruise around Provo but seriously....roll your windows down! I understand that with the windows up it probably cuts down on the wind blowing through your hair, but isn't that why you bought a convertible in the first place, to feel the wind blowing through your hair? If you don't want your hair to get messed up then 1) put the top up or 2) don't buy a convertible, buy a regular car that has a roof, I'm pretty sure they are a bit cheaper anyway. Enough venting....convertible drivers beware.
Today I had the weirdest and most intense craving for a hotdog. If anyone reading this knows me, you know that I HATE hotdogs. I eat on average 0-1 hotdogs a year, and I like to keep it that way. But tonight, something weird occured and the craving hit, so at almost 8pm, I was driving around to find a hotdog. I went to JDawgs because I've heard great things about it. I went in, got a Polish dawg with saurkraut (spelling?), banana peppers, and the "special sauce" which was sweet but kinda spicy at the same time. That dawg was DELISH!! It definately satisfied my craving and I think it changed my views towards hotdogs. I can see myself eating them more in the future. So, a big shout-out to JDawgs, you made my night!!

*peace out girl scout*

Boot Camp

This is me and one of the newest Marines! Looking sharp Jonny! My handsome cousin Private Spendlove graduated from boot camp on Friday, January 28th, 2011. I went on a roadtrip with my grandparents down to San Diego for a couple of days, and I was able to visit with my dad while I was there. We went to MCRD to watch the graduation on Friday morning, and it was a really cool experience. Afterwards, we went and got the starving Marine some food, and boy could that guy eat!! Two foot long sandwiches later, he was practically ready to eat again. We were all able to sit down with him and listen to all his many stories from his past 3 months of hell he endured. He said it was the most difficult thing he has ever done, but he is very proud of himself. My whole family is proud of him, this is quite the accomplishment. I am grateful for all of our service men and women and the hard job they have of protecting us and our country. I am grateful of anyone who is willing to give up their life so that my life is safer, and I live in a better place. I am grateful to my cousin for the sacrifice he has made and the sacrifices he will continually make. I feel blessed to live in this country where we can be free.

*peace out girl scout*

Let's Go Sailing!

They call me Noah cuz I'm building a boat! Well actually it's a sailboat, and actually it's a quilt I just started. I've been really intimidated with this particular type of quilt, it's a Buggy Barn quilt, and for those who have made them, they can be a bit challenging. I've actually been putting it off since August, but now I'm putting my big girl panties on and attempting it. So far it hasn't been as hard as I thought, just more work than the usual square pieces I'm used to sewing with.
Today I have been feeling quite domestic, and when these moods hit me, I tend to get a lot done. I woke up and immediately started putting away all of the Christmas decorations (it's about time!) I proceeded to clean the kitchen, and the living room, and get the grocery shopping done. There was even time for me to work on my quilt, make some homemade chicken tortilla soup (delish), and chocolate cake (yummy)!!
As for homework? It might have to wait a couple of days, like I told my co-workers, sewing is my priority this weekend. Oh how I have missed it, I feel so much more stressed out when I don't get a chance to get some sewing done. Luckily, it's a 3 day weekend so I will have more time than usual to get things done, which makes me happy! :)

Peace Out Girl Scout!