Happiness

True happiness. I don't know what it is lately, but I'm getting better. I know some people will say that nothing was ever wrong with me in the first place, but I just get in these funks sometimes. If you don't believe me, or like it, or think I'm being melodramatic.. I don't care. Sorry if that's a little blunt and a tad rude, but I'm tired of feeling like I have to change who I am around certain people. I am me. Sure, that's as cliche as it gets, but it's true.

I've been doing things on my own terms lately. Eating healthy and being more positive is helping to put me in a better mood most days (and I'm feeling like I have more energy too!) I've even gotten to hang out with friends more :) I met up with a friend the other day between classes, and another mutual friend of mine and Nick's rode with us to his indoor game, which led to a whole other good time! (ahem, singing ridiculous songs as loud as we can ;) Loved. It! I've even been able to stay focused on school and be productive every day.

It's also helping a lot to see other people post about the rough times they are having. Alyson over at The Average Girl's Guide along with Lindsay over at From the Aisle to Aloha are the most recent posts I've read, and it's super inspiring to see how they are dealing with it (especially since I'm sure they have more complicated problems). I think it's awesome that the girls I look up to on blogger are so honest, even when it's not the happiest post you'll ever read.

Anyways, I just felt like writing about this. It's nice to realize that you haven't been as stressed lately, and even more organized, without really realizing that it's happening! But hey, I'm definitely not complaining!

Lifestyle Changes + Some Massive Goals!

So as I was browsing some new blogs today, I came across a post on Miss Indie's blog! It definitely inspired me to write about the new plan Nick and I are going on. A good friend of ours recently went on a health food kick, so we're trying it out too! Here's sort of a quick run down of what I came up with (I even borrowed some ideas from Miss Indie too!) --

- We're cutting out all processed foods (minus cheese!) Everything will be as fresh and healthy as possible.
- Fruits and vegetables will become a HUGE part of our diet. Protein is important still too, though.
- I've definitely cut down on my soda intake lately, but now I'm going to attempt to cut it out entirely! I need to get better about drinking more water, so hopefully this will help!
- Nick takes his vitamins religiously, so now I'm going to try too! Fish Oil, Vitamin C + whatever else I need!
- I need to start working out or getting exercise daily; I think I'm going to try some yoga DVD's!
- Bedtime will be by 12:00 every night, and up by 8:00 every morning (earlier for school!)
- I am going to take more time to hang out with friends and have fun. Try new things and not hold back!
- I am going to stop putting things off. I procrastinate like no other and then nothing gets done.
- I'm going to have a better outlook on life. Be more positive, and have that I-can-do-anything attitude! I too often think that I can't do things simply because I'm not good enough at them, or I might mess up.
- Relaxing time is going to become a must. I get too stressed too much, and it's not healthy. I'm determined to find a me-time activity!

This is just a quick list that I came up with/edited! As more ideas come to me, I'll definitely put them up but I thought it would help me get started on things if I made it possible for everyone else to read my current goals!

Hoppy Easter!

I didn't spend much time looking for one of these pictures, but I saw this one and thought it was precious! As you know from a previous post, I celebrated Easter early this year. Lucky for me though, my boyfriend's family didn't. Meaning -- I got to have two Easters! Lucky, right? :) well anways. We woke up early this morning and found a trail of jelly beans from the Easter Bunny! They lead from everyone's room all the way down to the living room where there were Easter baskets galore! I sadly didn't get any pictures, but it was fun to just enjoy everyone's company this morning. We had a lazy day and lounged in pajamas all day, and around lunch time enjoyed a nice hearty brunch. All of this was a lot of fun, but I sometimes don't pay as much attention as I should to why we are truly celebrating today. We are celebrating Jesus and what he did for us, making it possible for us to be here today. I am truly thankful for that, and really appreciate everyone who helped remind me that this is what today is all about!

I hope you all had a fantanstic Easter!

What do you do to celebrate? :)

Little sister's prom!

Last night, my younger sister Chelsey had her Senior Prom! It's so crazy to see her do all of the things that I just did last year, yet it all seems so different and far away! She looked gorgeous though, and told me that she had a wonderful time :) (she even called me last night after the dance was over to see if she could stop by and tell me all about it!)

Gorgeous, right? :) I'm so glad I was able to take as many pictures as I did! (trust me, this is only the highlights of it all!) It's so crazy to see how fast she is growing up, even though I just went through all of this last year! I can't wait until graduation, it's such a big deal! To say the least, I'm very proud of my little sis <3

Calling all Star Wars fans!

So I'm not a huge Star Wars fan or anything, but my boyfriend's little brothers absolutely love it! And guess what? There just happened to be an exhibit in town featuring everything used in all of the movies! Awesome, right? So we all played hookie from school (the boys were thrilled!) and spent the day in Seattle!

This was just the start of our trip! We took some silly and cute pictures on the ferry, and once we were off, Nick took over and started playing "tour guide" for the boyos, since it was their first real trip to Seattle! (at least wandering around during the day!)

But then the boys (including Nick!) started to get anxious, and bored with the wandering. They wanted to go to the exhibit already! So we trekked our way up to the Pacific Science Center, and wa-lah! The Star Wars Exhibit!
















 These are just some of the pictures I took in the 
exhibit!

Annnd, of course some pictures in front of the sign! We just couldn't resist ;)

There are tonns more pictures on my laptop from that day, but it would just bombard you ;) haha. I hope you enjoy this little sneak peek though! It was really such a fun day, and an awesome experience for the little ones!

Happy Easter!

If anyone knows my mom, they know that she has a thing about celebrating holidays on the wrong days. Not because she gets the dates mixed up, but because she likes to avoid the pressure of making sure she gets everything on time. But the funny thing is, we usually celebrate a week early. Like with Easter. This was partially because we won't have Isabelle this weekend, but that's besides the point.

Oh, and my mom and I are trying to eat a lot better lately too, so instead of the traditional candy filled Easter baskets, she filled it with different things we've been looking at lately, and will be more useful! Clever, right? :)

Yellow -- Mine | Pink -- Chelsey's | Green -- Isabelle's

I was so beyond excited! The past few times we've gone to Target, I've seen these awesome box-y wall shelf things (the big boxes next to my basket) but I've been trying to save money so I've resisted buying them (much harder done than said!) but my mom surprised me with them! Same with the cardigans too :) Probably one of my favorite things though? The Something Borrowed book! I saw a trailer for the movie the other day, and it turns out she has like four other books! So my mom got me those saying I can finish this one soon, but still have the rest of Emily Giffin's books for this summer when I go to Cape Cod!

Anyways, enough about what I got.. We went out to Chad's (my mom's boyfriend) parents place on Saturday for a little Easter egg hunt for Isabelle! It was so much fun to watch her search all around for the eggs!

These are just a few of the million pictures I took that day -- but as you can see, I tried to capture as much of the day as possible! It was really a lot of fun to watch her get so excited over the little plastic eggs and the cool things inside of them. It reminded me of when I was little and would go out with my sister and cousins on a huge Easter egg hunt!

What do you usually do for Easter?

Do you celebrate early like my mom does?

I've been Wiggled!

I've been meaning to post about this for the past few days, but I've been WIGGLED! I was browsing Twitter the other day, and I realized that there was a mention (which is odd for me, since I didn't really realize that I had followers who actually read my blog, or tweets for that matter. ha!) Seriously though, go check out this girl's blog! Blair, from Wild and Precious, is awesome! She's got some suhh-weet pictures, too!

Oh, and the Wiggle page (where there's a list of others who have been wiggled!) has this amazing playlist going on! She adds to it all the time, and it's fabulous!

Go check it out! You won't be disappointed :)

Welcome Home!

As you've kind of been hearing (I guess reading is more appropriate :p) that I moved into a new place! I'm still living with my mom and her boyfriend for now, and my sister is moving in with us after graduation! I'm excited, but honestly a tad bummed that I won't have my own room anymore ;\ but oh well, it'll be good bonding!

I've been meaning to take pictures and post them here, but by the time I'm done unpacking and organizing, and reorganizing, I'm pooped! I'll be sure to get on that soon though :)

Something else is different lately too! I'm not really sure what it is, or even why it's changing now.. But there's definitely another change going on other than with the weather! I know that probably doesn't make much sense, but I just feel better. Happier. Confident. Maybe it's the new place, or maybe something great is coming up. Who knows. I just know I'm going with it, it's too good to fight.

Holy Tollito!

I'm not even sure if I spelled that right :P anywho..

I've been SUPER busy since Nick and I came back from Arizona! It seems like I'm never going to be able to get caught up either. Until tonight, that is.

Once I was back in Home Sweet Washington, Nick and I got to play grown-ups-living-on-our-own for a whole week :) we went grocery shopping and bought a whole bunch of healthy food, cleaned the entire house, made sure to keep up with daily chores, went to school for a brand new quarter, and Nick of course, went to work! And we even squeezed in some time for a trip to Seattle <3 it's never really a big deal to go to Seattle, but I absolutely love it there, and it's nice to walk around a city every now and again!

While Nick was away at work, I had the pleasure of moving. I hate moving. Sometimes. Ah, what am I saying. The whole packing everything up and actually moving it part sucks, but I enjoy getting to buy new room furniture and figure out how I'm going to decorate everything! Let me tell you, this is taking forever!

That's all kinda why I haven't been posting as much (like I promised, ahem!) eep. Plus I got a really nasty flu this past weekend, but it was thankfully only one of those 24-hour flubugs. But now that it's a brand new week, everyone is home again and I'm getting back into the swing of school after my wonderfully amazing spring break trip to AZ!