I have moved!

I started a new family blog. It's sjrigtrup.blogspot.com. It's private so let me know if you want to be added.

wow, wow, wow

So I don't know if anyone still reads this but I have been MIA for a long, long time. The past few months have been crazy! Here is a quick recap:


1. I FINALLY GraDuAtED!!!!

The Summers did it again! We graduated together! It took her a few years to graduate too.

So now that I am not a student naturally I am going to take time to travel a little more.

The weekend after graduation some friends and I backpacked Havasupai Falls. If you have not done it I HIGHLY recommend it. It is so pretty! The water was so warm and clear I felt like I was at the ocean.

The weekend after that the fam went down to Zion. We used to go there every Easter, now we go every couple of years. It was a blast!

The weekend after that I got my tonsils out :( That part was not fun at all! But I can now say I have not been sick for 2 months. That's pretty much a record for me!

Now I am packing my life away and trying to move to Seattle. It's time for a change and this will be a good one. I'm sad to leave all my friends and family but so excited for something new!

Stay tuned for those adventures!

Sorry there aren't more pics. I got a little lazy writing this.

WHAT HAVE I BEEN UP TO????

Well it's been a while since I posted anything, I don't know if anyone even keeps up on this anymore. For those of you who may still follow this blog I will give a quick update. Since I last posted anything I have started my last semester of my bachelors degree and am doing an internship. It is at LDS Family Services adoption agency and I LOVE it! All I can say is WOW those birth moms are amazing. I have had a few friends place their kids for adoption and I was amazed by them, but since I am around it every day I realize even more how selfless it really is. Words cannot explain the lessons I have learned from them. I am also working at the hospital part time so overall I work about 60 hours a week and only get paid for half of them. Gotta love the internship:). I had the opportunity to see a couple of sundance flicks, wasn't too impressed with them but the festival in general is still fun. Went to Seattle for a quick get away. Man I love that place! I think that's about all. Every few weeks I think of great blogs to write but never have the time to write them. Maybe after May I will finally have time to catch up on a few things. Anyway, I love looking at everyone elses blogs so please keep writing :)

Gratitude Journal

When I was a teenager I saw an episode of Oprah where she talked about starting a gratitude journal. All you do is write down 5 things a day that you are grateful for. They can be simple things like the smell of fresh laundry or they can be life altering moments. I have written in this kind of a journal at different times in my life and I have to say it really has made a difference. Whenever I am down or discouraged I start my journal and within a few days things seem to pick up again. The reason I am writing this is because I have had one CrAZy semester! I worked full time at ths hospital, which meant crazy hours, went to school and tried to have a social life on top of that. Basically I had no time for myself. Sadly, now that the semester is over things have not slowed down for me at all. Anyway, I was getting ready for bed the other night and I was dreading having to get up in the morning to go to work. I am burnt out and I want a job that challenges me. I decided I need to have a better attitude because this job really is not so bad, I have had way worse jobs. So on the way to work I made a goal to write down one thing an hour of what I am grateful for or happy about with my job. When I got to work none of us wanted to be there. We were all in bad moods. I knew this would be the best day of any to apply this program. So I told my coworker my plan and she decided to do it with me. Every hour we wrote down or commented on things we were grateful for. And the results were amazing. The time went faster, our moods improved as the day progressed and we weren't drained from being negative all day. My co worker even commented on how pleasant the day was. So if any of you are having a hard time out there just start the gratitude journal and things will look up. Good luck :)

Family Pictures

Why do family pictures cause so much stress? We decided to give my parents family pictures for Christmas. It has been so long since we have had one taken. Since it was my idea to do this, I was in charge of plannning it. I'm sure for most other families when a big event is organized everyone commits and shows up on time and it runs smoothly right? Ha ha I know that's not typical but I always hope that if I plan enough things will work out. This was not the case. I called the photographer and set the date 2 weeks in advance. I talked with all my siblings and we got a color palette figured out and I thought things were running smooth. In talking to the family a few days before pictures I find out that no one had clothes in the colors we decided on. Some said they would buy shirts others said they would find something to work. Sadly I was included in this bunch. At 9:00 PM the night before I talked to everyone to see how things were going and still none of us has had anything to wear. So we decided we would just wear solid colors. We planned on having our pictures taken outside on the Lagoon trail. The morning of pictures it was raining and there were dark clouds everywhere. I was so worried about lighting.
I stopped at Kohls to buy a sweater on my way up to Farmington and hoped for the best.
And...
They turned out pretty good! The leaves were amazing, there was some light for most of the pictures. And our colors still matched each other and everyone had a great time.
Overall I guess it was all worth it, I just wish I didn't stress so much about things.
If anyone needs a good photographer check out jamiandersonphotography.blogspot.com. She did a good job; even with clouds and rain she was able to get some great pics.

I'll try to download some pics later.

KauAi 2009

In June my family had the opportunity to go to Kauai for a week. It was so much fun! We spent a couple of days on Oahu doing the normal tourist stuff such as Waikiki beach and the Polynesian Cultural Center. My friend Bridgette graduated from BYU Hawaii at the same time so I went to her graduation as well. Then we headed off to the beautiful island of Kauai. Kauai is different than Oahu. It is not as touristy and has a lot of open country. While on this island we saw Waimea Canyon, known as the grand canyon of hawaii, hiked the Na Pali Coast, filmed a commercial for the condo we were staying at, my sister, Alya, got engaged and we got to play at the beach a little. It was a fun vacation. I have not been on a family vacation with the whole family in over 7 years! I'm glad we got to go to one of my favorite places.

Proud Parent

I know I have not blogged in FOREVER but I have been a little busy and a little lazy. Sorry. I decided I need to start again and today I would like to talk about how proud I am of my converts. When you go on a mission everyone that you teach suddenly becomes your child. You get so protective of them and you have all these dreams for them and you want them to succeed and be happy. Sometimes you can not control their actions and sometimes they get hurt and it breaks your heart because there is nothing you can do about it. Anyway, I have one convert who has been solid since the day we met him. He told us right from the start that he wanted to be baptized and go on a mission. Well he has gone on his mission and has been home for about 8 months now. Since he left on his mission I have had 2 roommates that served their missions with him. Both of these girls have told me what an amazing missionary he was. They told me how strong and dedicated to the work he was and also how nice he was to everyone, even the sisters. Anyone who has been a sister missionary knows what a big deal it is when the elders are nice to you. Every time that I hear stories about him I feel like a beaming parent. I feel so blessed to have been the missionary to teach him. I don't know what I did to be so lucky.