Homecoming at Utah State!

So it's my senior year...yes, that means that I graduate this spring. Weird, I know. I've decided this year that I will not have any regrets. Most of my regrets from the past few years have to do with not being as involved as I would like to. For instance, I don't go to a lot of activities or volunteer for things on Ambassadors because of my school load. But I have decided that this year I am going to make up for it! Yes, that means that I'm really busy, but it's a great busyness! I'm so happy! I love being on cabinet for Ambassadors and being more involved. It's a good, healthy stress. :)

A couple of weeks ago was homecoming week. Every year homecoming week is super busy with school work and all, so this year I decided that I was going to go to all of the activities that I wanted to, no matter how busy I was. Little did I know just how busy I would be. But I did all of the things I wanted to (no regrets). I ended up pulling some really late nights studying for tests and preparing for presentations. But I lived and the tests went quite well! So here are some pictures from the fun week!

My wonderful friend, Kelsey, was Homecoming Queen!!














Street Painting




















Synchronized swimming in the parade. (Sadly, it was my first Homecoming Parade)

No regrets this year!

Top of Utah Marathon

So this past weekend I did something crazy...I ran a marathon. It's been one of my lifelong goals to run a marathon. So this summer I started training for the Top of Utah. I didn't know how it was going to go because I started training pretty late and then when school started I didn't get to run as much as I wanted to. Then...I think my body was just hating me...I rolled my ankle three weeks before the marathon doing gymnastics on the lawn (hehehe). So I couldn't run for like a week. Then the next week I got a nasty head cold. So I was still planning on running the marathon, but I really didn't know how it would go. I just wanted to finish. The night before I was so nervous! I started thinking I was crazy for wanting to do this!

Last Saturday was the big day! When we got up to Hardware Ranch at 6am it was 26 degrees! There were 2200 runners from around the world! It was such an amazing, intimidating, and exciting feeling. There were runners of every age, shape, and size. After the race began I took a moment to turn around about a half mile into the race. It was an unbelievable sight! There were about a thousand runners in front of me in a steady stream up around the bend of the mountain, and there were about a thousand more behind us. Wow.

Running a marathon was one of the most physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual things I have ever done! I ran the race with Emily Noorda. One of the best feelings was running up the road and seeing my mom and friends waving their arms and cheering for me. It gave me energy to go on! About mile 20 I started getting shooting pains up my leg from my foot. All of the sudden I could hardly walk. I was hobbling and jogging. I was nearly in tears while I ran. It was so painful! But I thought, "I have made it 20 miles, I didn't want to walk the rest." So I told Emily to pray. She was running and I was hobbling and we were both praying so hard. I called my mom and said, "Pray for my left foot!" and hung up. I was at a point where I could hardly walk, let along run. But then, somehow, I was able to run again. I finished out the last six miles running. It was a miracle to me! Come to find out, my mom prayed for the rest of the race for me (It was almost an hour). It strengthened my testimony that Heavenly Father is aware of our desires and our goals. He helped me accomplish something that I had set my heart on.