Life as a Cougar!!!!

So...for those of you who don't know, I just recently switched my Major to Public Health. I'm still doing pre-dental, just doing something else on the way there. Anyway, I'm really loving it. I'm going to start getting into my major classes next semester and I'm sooo excited!!!

Anyways, here's my latest Public Health campaign.

Have any of you heard of TOMS shoes?? Just in case you haven't, I'll tell you about them. TOMS is a shoe company that for every pair of shoes you buy, they send a pair of new shoes to a child in need. It's called one-for-one. Here's the website for TOMS.

http://www.toms.com/

So, TOMS is sponsoring a campaign called One Day Without Shoes. They are encouraging people all over the world to go the day, a couple hours, or even a couple minutes, without shoes. They're doing this to raise awareness of all the people in the world who go without shoes, to raise awareness of the good a simple pair of shoes can do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vlz3QKHJBac

Take a minute to watch this video. It is amazing.

So, on April 8th, I'm going barefoot.

Are you???

So, I made some New Years Resolutions at the beginning of the year, and as the year goes on, I seem to keep adding more to my list. So, for now, here is the list that I have.

1.) Get better PJ'S (Pray, Journal, Scriptures)
(As a side note, this semester as RA's we're working on increasing faith within our residents. I'm thinking about having a PJ'S Party. I'll have the girls come and say we're going to have a PJ'S party so they should wear their cutest PJ'S, and then we'll have some activities on how to strengthen you Personal Prayer, Journal writing, and Scriptures. What do you think?)
2.) Be nicer to myself and learn to love myself.
I tend to put myself done a lot, so I'm working on not doing that. It's a slow process, but it's working. In a CES fireside by President Utchdorf he said quite a few things of meaning to me, however, I'm only going to write a few. "Do not wait for someone else to make your life complete." "Stop wondering if you are defective."
3.) Do well in school, and LOVE what I'm doing.
So far this semester I've been going to the library at least every other day, if not more than that, and I love it!! I'll usually go with some friends but I feel like I'm getting a lot better with my school work.
4.) Go to the temple more often.
Here in Provo I am sooo blessed to have the temple 5 minutes away and to have them allow walk-ins to do baptisms. I'm trying to go once a week. So far, I've only gone twice, but I love being there, so it is going to happen!!!
5.) Keep in contact with my family and have them be a part of my life.
This is one of my newer resolutions. I realize that although I feel that I have a very good relationship with my family, it can easily go south. So, I'm going to call home more often, go to Salt Lake to see my Brother and his family more, plan more cousin dinners, and just keep my family updated with my life. I've learned recently of the immense love my family has for me and that I can't do anything without them. I'm so grateful I have such a big family to take care of me!!!
6.) Be the friend I want in my life.
A couple of weeks ago I attended 2 sacrament meetings. One was because one of my very good friends was giving a talk, and the other was my actual meeting. In both of these meetings there was a talk on being a good friend to others. I know how important it is to have a good friend in my life so I want to be that friend to others. "A good friend makes compromises, but not with their values." "Mean the world to someone and don't stop at that someone. Mean the world to many people." President Uchtdorf also said, "If someone is willing to accept me, imperfect as I am, I should be patient with others imperfections."

I'm sure as I keep going, I'll come up with more resolutions, but as for now, this is all I have time for!!! I love you all!!

Love,
Rachel

Well, I'm sitting outside while the movers pack our house so I can stay out of the way. And, since I have nothing better to do, besides mosey around facebook, I thought maybe I'd try to update my blog.

Well, I finished out the rest of the semester, and I'd try to tell you about that, but I don't really remember and of the big stuff. Ooh, I do remember something. For anyone who doesn't know, I got a job as a RA for next fall and winter semesters. So, I'm trying to get ready for that. So, after the semester, I came "home" to Boise and Rikki and I decided to take a road trip. We left on a Sunday and got back on a Saturday. We left Boise, drove through Oregon and Nevada, and ended up at our first stop. Sacramento to see Christy and Shawn. We spent the rest of the night there and then had breakfast in the morning before heading out. We then drove a couple more hours where we stopped and had lunch at In-N-Out with my friend David from this last semester of school.We then finished our 1/2 hour more drive to Stanford where we got to see Donnie!! The campus is amazing!! Donnie (or should I say Donald, since that's what he insists on being called) gave us a tour of the campus, fed us dinner and dessert, introduced us to a bunch of his friends, and then gave us a place to sleep. The next morning he fed us breakfast before he had to head to class and then we were on our way. I LOVE Stanford and can't wait to go back and visit again.So, previously we had decided that we were going to drive down the coast of California and go swimming on the beach, but the weather wasn't good, so instead we took David's advice and took I-5 all the way to LA. My advice to you, DON'T TAKE THE I-5!! It is not pretty. There is nothing on it. Occassionly a farm here and there, nothing else. It was sooo boring. Rikki drove, and I am not a good passenger, and it wasn't pretty, so I slept a lot of it. Once we got to LA we hopped over the other direction toward Arizona. It was getting late and we hadn't camped yet, so we stopped, pitched our tent (just for Uncle Tom!! well, and because we wanted to) and stayed over night at Joshua Tree National Park. We almost slept on a fire ant hill. We had the tent all sent up, everything was in it, and just as Rikki was crawling in, she saw them and started freaking out. They were crawling around everywhere around us, and all over us. Well, we moved the tent and found a place where we don't think there were anymore.
In the morning we drove the rest of the way to Mesa, where we stopped at a park in Cynthia's neighborhood, got hit on by some 10 year olds, and then decided to go swimming with one of Rikki's friends. Once Cynthia was home we just stayed at her place. It was so fun to just be able to relax and spend time with the family. Camden is such a chunker, he's super cute. And it was nice to finally meet Creston.
The next morning we took our time getting ready, went and had lunch with Aunt Marilyn, saw Kim, and then headed up towards Page, AZ to see Rikki's friend Joe. It was so fun to see family that I haven't seen in forever! The drive up to Page was very pretty since we got to drive through the Canyons. Once we were in Page we spent the night and the next morning got to go repelling with Joe into one of the canyons. That was soooo cool. I'm still waiting to get the pictures from Joe. Rikki kept saying how she could do this all day. It was amazing. We left later that night and instead of driving all the way to Provo like we planned, we stopped in Cedar City and stayed with Vivian because we were exhausted.

The next morning we headed up to Provo, where 30 minutes away, I managed to get my first speeding ticket. It was the first time the whole trip I hadn't used my cruise control, so yes, I was speeding. It's very annoying. Stinking Nephi police, have nothing better to do. Well, then we got to Provo, had delicious lunch with Kali at Zupas, and then saw some of my friends from school. We thought about staying the night, but we were both exhausted so after stopping at Daniel's in Salt Lake we headed back home and got home at about 11pm. The trip was amazing. We had so much fun, and suprisingly, didn't even get on eachothers nerves.

Since being back in Boise, I've managed to get a pretty much full time job at Subway, I've been going to the single's ward, and just been hanging out. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do for the rest of the summer since the whole family is ditching me, but whatever it is, it'll be alright. I might actually end up going to Metlakatla for the last month.

Oh, after we got back from our trip, for mother's day weekend, the whole family was here. It was soo much fun!! Everybody came for the weekend and we all went and saw Star Trek, Wolverine, had family pictures taken, and ate lots of food. It was so fun to have the whole family together.
Last week we also had Kenny and Amylynn sealed to the family. It was really cool because it was jsut nice and small, and this time, instead of only having the kids getting sealed in white, we were all in white. It was beautiful, and I'm so happy they're finally a part of our eternal family. Well, that's about it.

So I'm finally on to my second year at BYU.  It's kind of hard to believe I've been here a whole year.  Well, last semester I was still living in Helamen Halls, but for this semester I moved to Heritage.  That means I'm in more of an apartment style with 2 girls per room, 3 rooms per apartment, with a kitchen and a bathroom with 2 showers.  I got here last week and met my new roommates but I'll talk more about that later.  First I'll start with a little bit on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years but I will just skim over them, because there was a lot.

For Thanksgiving I went up to Boise and the whole family was there.  It was so good to see everyone.  I love having the whole family home.  On Thanksgiving day we had the blessing of Daniel Eugene Long III.  He's probably the best nephew ever (I can say that since he's the only one so far).  Then we had LOTS of people over for dinner.  First off there was The Long Family consisting of Mom and Dad;Daniel, Alice, and Little D; Erin and Kevin (Erin's now fiancce and soon to be husband); and then Michael, me, Trevor, Amylynn, Kenny, and Xander.  Then there was my mother, Lynn, Grandma Betty and Grandma Joan, Uncle Jim, Darrah, Luke and Kelsey, Jon Michael, Aunt Nancy, Christy, and Flora, Matt, and Jacob.  I think that was it.  As you can imagine, it was a party.  We had tons of food, but then again, what gathering in our family doesn't?  I supplied some of the pies, which turned out GREAT!!!  Well, other than a lot of fun with family, I think that's about it for Thanksgiving.

The 3 generations of Daniel Eugene

My Cherry Pie!!

Family picture on Thanksgiving!

For Christmas I also went up to Boise and we still had lots of people over for Christmas Eve chinese dinner, but not as many people for Christmas.  Just me and the 4 little kids, mom, and dad.  Since mom had to work at 7:00, we got the kids up at 5:30 and had Christmas for about an hour, and then all went back to sleep.  I got a new duffle bag (HOORAY!!!), and crock pot (and have already used it in my new dorm to make roast), some clothes, legos, and some other things here and there.  Then we had Christmas dinner at Grandma's.

Picking out our tree!!

The kids by the tree!!

Christmas morning!

The 27th I got to Kotzebue and had lots of fun in the freezing cold.  I got to see lots of friends that I hadn't seen in awhile as well as go snow-machining and see the Northern Lights, both of which I hadn't done for at least a year.

Well, I was going to be up in Kotzebue for New Years, but sometimes you have to rearrange you schedule.  So, I did this and made it back down to Boise for a fun New Years Eve, and Amylynn's baptism on New Years Day.  For New Years Eve, mom, Trevor, Aunt Carol, Christy and Shawn picked me up from the airport with all of their noise makers.  I'm surprised they didn't get pulled over by the police, because I'm sure more than one person thought they were drunk.  Then we got to wake up all the kids for the countdown.  They were all very excited and as you can imagine, maybe still a little asleep.  Amylynn's baptism was great and I am so proud of her decision and so glad that I made it back down for it.

Everyone on New Years!!!!

Amylynn and I at her baptism

Here is everyone that made it to the baptism

Well, I think that about wraps up break.  Now back to school.  I got here last Sunday and met all of the girls in my apartment except for my actual roommate.  Her name is Krysten, she's from Texas, and she's on the gymnastics team (and she's amazing) so she was having fun in Cancun.  My other roommates are also great.  There are Erika, from California, Meg, from Canada, Ann, from New York, and Becca, from Utah.  They are all so much fun and I love living here.  We've already spent lots of times going places like Krysten's first home meet, the international cinema to watch French movies, and waiting outside the Marriot center for 2 hours so we could get a good seat to watch the Prophet speak.  I don't have any pictures with my roommates yet but I'm sure that will soon change.  My ward is also great and I've met lots of amazing people that I'm excited to get to know better.

Well, this semester is going to be full of fun.  Not only with my roommates but with my classes as well.  I'm taking Chem 106 and 107 which is the 2nd half of inorganic chem and the lab that goes with it, Human Anatomy, Music Civilization, New Testament, and then a piano lesson and a choir class.  I also just got a job at Subway and had my first day today.  It was very hectic, Subway is the busiest food place in the Cougar Eat and they had me working on veggies, but that made it go by fast and it was a lot of fun.  So, this semester is going to be crazy but I'm looking forward to it.  I'll try to get a picture of me in my uniform to post soon.

I'm planning on going to Stanford sometime this semester to see Donnie, Virginia next week for Erin's wedding, and anywhere else I can and i can't wait to do it all.  I'll try to keep you posted!

So, I'm kind of into saying Mon, and I wish I could find a way to insert it into my daily talk, but I have to admit, I sound kind of funny when I'm saying it.  Maybe it's because I'm a whitey (what the Jamaicans call white people).