Austin, TX!

About a week ago, I went out to Austin to visit my brother, Jonathan, and his wife, Wendy. They were super nice and flew me out there and let me stay at their sweet place! I left Windsor on Thursday night and headed to the airport. My mother was kind enough to drive me down there. Check-In was fine, security was fine, but when I got to my gate, I found out my plane was delayed. No big deal, right? They then informed us that it was due to mechanical problems on the plane. WHAT? FREAK OUT! Ok, I'm fine now.

Since I had about 2.5 hours to wait and was hungry, I stopped by the McDonalds (believe me, it was the only choice I had besides Einstein Bagels...if you know me...then you will understand my hatred for anything associated with cream cheese). I ate a snack wrap, but that definitely didn't cut it. So I decided to get a smoothie at TCBY since that would fix the hunger and thirst problem. I went up to the counter to place my order. The cashier asked me where I was from. I told him that I was from the Fort Collins area. Then he said, "You're beautiful." Of course, being me, I said, "Huh?" He repeated it and I said, "Oh, thank you," in a very grateful yet mysterious voice....just kidding....but not really. :) I got my smoothie and went on my way. It only took me about 30 minutes to realize there was a sticky note on my cup with a number on it. His name is Dominque and his number is (303) 342-3402. You should call him. FOR REALS. (It's actually the number for the TCBY at DIA, so you could order a smoothie as well).

I headed off to Austin and got there about eleven o'clock that night. The next day Wendy and I went to The Domain to window shop and watched Charade in the afternoon while Jonathan was at work. It was a good movie. It seemed familiar. Both Wendy and I fell asleep during the movie. Surprised? Nope, that's what I do!

Later in the evening, Jonathan, Wendy and I went to a restaurant. I don't remember the name. It was a TexMex restaurant. I had enchiladas. Before we went to the restaurant, we stopped by a little park to feed the ducks. There are some weird looking ducks in Texas, I must say.

The picture just looks like a normal duck, but let me assure you, there is something in that Texas water. I am telling the truth. After feeding the ducks, fish, and the lone turtle for a few minutes, it started pouring. The second picture above is of the little park and all the rain. You can't really see the rain, but I was soaked!

The next day we went to the botanical gardens. It was very pretty and very lush. Having grown up in the West, mostly in the CO, where the weathermen tell you to beware of the humidity at 20%, I basically died. It was hot! It was humid! AND I am a wimp. Do you ever get used to the humidity? I am basically sure I never want to live anywhere that is humid...at all...for my entire life! That might be a slight exaggeration, but I'll let you figure out how much of an exaggeration it actually is :).

Here is a picture of the Japanese part of the Botanical Gardens. It's pretty, and it's currently the background on my desktop.

After the botanical gardens, we went to Whole Foods. Now, my friends, this is not just any Whole Foods. This was THE Whole Foods. Whole Foods is based out of Austin. This is where you see many different kinds of people and can eat organic fried chicken. This store is 80,000 square feet and was PACKED with people. We ate calzones there and had some gelato. (Actually I had sorbet, but I did sample the gelato. It was my first time!).

I hear you can go ice-skating there, but only during winter. Maybe next time?

We headed home after Whole Foods, drove past the capital (at least Jonathan told us we drove past it...or told us to look at it...I don't quite remember...and I didn't see it), and headed home. We took a nap, went swimming, and ate some delicious home-made Cafe Rio Burritos. It was delicious. Our burritos looked nothing like this, but they were still good.

Later in the evening, we headed out to go on a drive. We drove up into the hills of Austin to see the place where the founder of National Instruments lives (Jonathan works at National Instruments. I'm sure he feels he'll get to go inside someday, but until then he will just have to resort to creeping up on the house and shining his lights on it just to get a glimpse inside.) Then we headed to downtown Austin and onto the campus of UT. It's very impressive. The buildings are very cool. (Sorry BYU, but your buildings are ugly. There, I said it.)

Sunday, we went to church and lounged the rest of the day. Monday, I flew home. I had two stops: one in Dallas (definitely dumb. It took all of 15 minutes to fly there), and one in Amarillo. It was a good trip. I am definitely grateful to Jonathan and Wendy for flying me down there and letting me stay at their place. It was good to get away. Oh! Before I forget, I saw an armadillo. This was a first! Too bad it was dead. :(

Grandma Higley

My cute grandma on her baptism day.

My grandma, Sybil Gibson Higley, passed away on July 24, 2010 after a short, yet very intense battle with cancer. It all started back in February when my grandma was visiting my parents in Colorado. She bumped her leg and started experiencing extreme pain. The doctors told her that she had irritated her Sciatic nerve and that she would have to wait until it was better. Fast forward to April. After going to the doctor yet again, the doctor discovered that reason why her sciatic nerve was bothering her, there was a tumor sitting on it. There was five cancerous tumors in my grandma's spine, the largest one being the size of a quarter. 

So they began radiation while trying to figure out where the cancer was coming. After numerous body scans, blood tests, and poking around, they finally decided it was coming from her uterus. Apparently this is very rare for uterine cancer to spread. So, my grandma had a hysterectomy, all the while being in extreme pain from the tumors sitting on her sciatic nerve. After the surgery, the doctors explained to my family that her prognosis was not good. Her uterus had gone from being walnut to the size of a cantaloupe in a matter of weeks. The cancer was in her blood and was spreading all over her body. The diagnosis was stage 4B uterine sarcoma. The failure rate is 100%. 

Three weeks later, my grandmother passed away; three months and three days after being diagnosed with cancer. She was in a lot of pain; an extreme amount of pain. My mom was with her when she passed and had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with her this summer taking care of her. My mom was an absolute superstar. She did everything for my grandma. 

The funeral was a few days later and was a fantastic service. My grandma was a genealogy SUPERSTAR and the talks were focused on the importance of genealogy and the importance of the temple. My grandma worked in the temple and she loved it. I will always look up to her. It was good to see family. I haven't seen a lot of my cousins for many, many years. It is interesting to see how people deal with death, especially those who do not have a complete understanding of the gospel and eternal families. 

I love my grandma and she will be missed. 

 

It's been a while!

So I'm back to blogging! This time, since it's no longer an assignment, it will be more interesting. We'll see how this goes.

Finals

Finals are finally over! Well, not really. I still have MCOM in about an hour. I hope it will go smoothly. I finished my STATS final. It was really hard, but I am glad it is over. After my final this afternoon, I am going to drive home. Hopefully the final won't take that long because I want to get on the road. I am ready to leave. I am ready to have a break from the whole roommate thing. I am super excited to go where Christmas actually exists.

I passed my cleaning check yesterday. My job was to clean out the fridge. There were things in that fridge that expired a year and a half ago. None of my roommates or I have even lived in this apartment more than four months. So I have no idea where that food came from. The cleaning lady is really strict, but she said we all did a good job on our cleaning. My apartment isn't that nice, so you can't expect the expectation to be too high. Anyways, this is probably the most boring blog post ever.

I'm blogging so I don't have to study....

Finals week is upon us. I took two finals today. I took my World Religion final as well as my Family Finance final. Both of them were relatively easy, although they both required a good amount of studying just to memorize all the random stuff. I don't have to take my business finance final because my teacher will drop your lowest test grade. All my other test grades have been high enough that I don't have to take the final. This is a huge relief. I am super grateful. All that is left is my stats final and my mcom final. My stats final is tomorrow afternoon and is going to be really hard. They are always really hard for me. It is my last stats class. After tomorrow afternoon, I will have completely finished up my entire major. Hooray! This is so exciting and slightly terrifying at the same time. I am finishing up school. I am getting ready to enter the real world (because the world I live in now is apparently not real....or so they tell me). My mcom final is on Friday afternoon, which I think is completely lame because I have to wait three days just to take it when I could be going home and spending time with family. Off to study some more...:)

Sarah Elizabeth

I got to meet my new cousin, Sarah Elizabeth today. My aunt and uncle adopted her a couple weeks ago from a young mother in Mississippi. Sarah is a blessing from God. My aunt and uncle have been trying to have another baby for many years. My aunt and uncle found out they were going to get the baby on a Thursday, and Sarah was born the following Tuesday. She is adorable, granted she hasn't quite woken up from her "newborn sleep." She has incredible dark hair. She was completely out when I was there, so I didn't get to see much of her personality. She is very precious and a joy to my aunt and uncle. I am very happy for them. My aunt says she feels like she was meant to be in her family. They are very happy to finally get a little girl. She has four older brothers who are excited to have a new baby in family....as well as someone to tease.

It's Christmas Time!

It's finally December! Thanksgiving is over. Black Friday has passed (thank goodness, I really don't like shopping...at all)

I love Christmas. There is not any snow on the ground, but it is definitely cold enough outside. Campus is nicely decorated in random spots. I bought a poinsettia for Christmas to decorate my apartment (yes, that plant is the only Christmas decoration we have, and it's wilting. In fact, it's almost dead). I am really excited to go home to Colorado in a couple weeks to actually get into the Christmas spirit with the decorations, the baking, and the movies. I feel like I really need to be grateful for all the things that I have, especially this Christmas. I don't know, I just feel like things are changing and that I am really blessed. I am blessed to be in school. I am blessed to be almost done with school. I am blessed to live in this country and have the freedoms that I have.