Somewhat Fabricated: LDS mission

This year has been one for the books, not because I did anything terribly exciting or I suffered some great hardship; sure I moved "Up North" meeting amazing new friends, and my higher education consists of dancing for hours on end, but more importantly I was happy. Not that I felt a great void in my life where happiness should be, rather I have realized I was just satisfied with life and going through the daily motions. Humm...perhaps happy ins't the right word, what I really should be saying in alive. I felt alive again! And currently feel so. Yippy!

My little twin brothers left on their missions, and as of Christmas Day when I got to speak with them, they are having an absolute blast. As usual they were full of entertaining stories. For example, Harbor bought a shirt of a guys back! He literally walked up to him, said something along the lines of "I want your shirt. How much do you want for it?" and settled on a price that translates to roughly 25 cents; what a steal! Duran is also have all kind of crazy things happen to him as well. In fact, just the other day when he was about to jump in the shower he notice the shower curtain looked grosser than usual and seemed to be moving, upon further inspection he spotted well over a hundred cockroaches scurrying about. Needless to say, that was the end of that shower curtain. After that he and his companion deep cleaned their entire apartment, which is now dubbed one of the nicest in the mission.

On the blog front: I got an iPhone for Christmas! I can not tell you how long I have waited for these little suckers to come to Sprint (hint: before the iPhone was even released). So what does that have to do with my blog? Well I shall tell you my friend. I have succumb to my hipster counterpart (read: I am in denial of reality that I may just be a hipster, but a much cool version of one), so I now have an Instagram feed. Woo! Be on the look out for wonderful randoms captured on film. Such as...

I feel as if I have been bidding a lot of farewells this week, but I am not the only one saying "au revoir St. George" (or rather ciao). One of Harbor and Duran's best friends, Ali, a girl I consider a little sister, is setting out on the brave journey of being a nanny in Italy. I couldn't be more happy for her! Ali is such a great girl, and considering I have known her since she was in the 4th grade I am completely qualified to make such a statement as to her character. She just graduated high school and with my brothers leaving on their missions come September 7th and nearly everyone else off to school, I think she felt like she needed an adventure. Only, she took it one step further and actually did something about it, which sadly is more than I can say for most of us, my self included. I gave her some of my clothes, some big hugs, and lots of advice on how not to look like a tourist. I am so proud of her and I have no doubt she will do great things! Also, Ali is going to be keeping up a blog (or at least intending to) on all the great things she does so please go check it out and show her some support!

To celebrate her European travels, my departure for school, and Harbor & Duran's leave on a 2 year LDS mission, we gathered the neighborhood kids and took one last trip to Denny's. The midnight outing was bitter sweet, but much more on the sweet side of things. There had been lots of hanging out with family, friends, and even people we don't really know, but it was a joy to have the "neighborhood siblings" together for one last time, well for the next couple of years at least. I am going to miss everybody, but I am not going to morn their loss just because we are separating. Believe me, there will be plenty of communication thanks to good old modern day technology!