209 in 2009

This Thanksgiving was a VERY different experience for me. This is my first major holiday that I've been away from home for. China doesn't celebrate it so on one hand it wasn't a huge deal to miss it because there's been no build up to it so in a way it felt just like any other day. The school was super nice though and took us out to dinner tonight when we were done teaching. I will never be so happy to eat normal, YUMMY, typiically holiday food as what I will be when I get home! As we ate we went around saying what we were grateful for.

When I first found out that I was going to be in China for Thanksgiving, I was extremly disappointed. About a month after we got here, we had one of our talks and I saw that I've never actually thought about just how much I really have been blessed with. SOOOO naturally a little "project" starting forming in my mind. I started September 13th and had to finish it before I went to bed on Thanksgiving: I came up with 209 different things that I've thankful for or never realized that I had before coming here. I wanted them to be as specific as possible. Let me just say that this has been a HUGE eye opener! When you're trying to come up with that many you hit a point where you have to start digging reallllly deep! It was great though! I would reccomend this to everybody. Here are just a few of the things copied out of my notebook that weren't super personal:

#15: Moving to Provo whenw e did. I needed to get out of Price and go through it to gain a testimoney and make me the person I am now. I changed COMPLETLY from that experience! I was rude and immature and I didn't like myself in Helper.Moving made me grow up and have a new view on life.

#8: WASHING MACHINES! Washing machines that do the work for you, where you don't have to haul buckets of water into it. I miss machines that actually got your clothes clean and didn't beat the crap out of them in the process.

#28: I have been able to see a ton of "momumental" places: Pearl Harbor, Alcatraz, Ellis Island, The White House, all D.C. war memorials, Ground Zero, Lincoln Memorial, FOX Studios, Great Wall of China, Tiennaman Square, Washington Momument, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty and many many more!

#67: My parents always made a big effort to go to everysporint game of mine that they could. There are very few games or tournaments that they didn't make it to. Most of the time, mine would be the only parents there all day or early in the morning. Especially thankful for all the games dad went to since he was busy with work and traveling a lot. He made it to the majority of them and took a lot of time off to be able to do so.

#79: I adjusted to "China life" very quickly. I came here with the mindset that things were going to be extremly different. I knew taht the food would seem weird to me at first. But I have done great with the culture, the language barrier and have been open to different types of food here. With only 1 month left, many girls still haven't been able to do this.

#85: Country music! :) I LOVE country! If I could only listen to 1 genre for the rest of my life, this is what I'd choose. Its almost creepy sometimes how much I'm able to connect with it. I love hw it seems to tell a story or have a real purpose behind some of them. In Helper I listened to 98.3 ALL THE TIME and nothing else. There's still songs taht I hear now that remind me of certain things or people from back then.

#90: I'm really grateful that I have never tried drinking! I tend to get addicted to things fairly easily looking back now. I don't even want to think about the kind of life I'd have if I was addicted to that crap.

#91: I'm so thankful that I have grown up, always having the gospel in my life. I look back now and see all the blessings I've had because of it. I honestly don't know where I'd be without it. It's because of the Church that I do what I do and believe what I believe. My life revolves around it A LOT mroe than I thought it did.

#145: I'm thankful that the church is becoming more and more important to me. I definetly still have a LONG way to go on a lot of aspects of this, but at least I'm making slow progress on it and that I have a desire to change things for the first time in a long time. I think a big part of it obviously is growing up and another part to it is having all "my boys" gones on missions. It's changed my perspective a lot.

#147: I'm grateful I've never seen my parents fight! In 20 years I can think of only 1 time taht I had ever seen them have any sort of significant argument. I still have no idea what it was about but there was 1 night that they went without talking. It's such an example to me how happy you really can be in a marriage and that marriages do still work out sometimes.


Obviously there's A TONNNNNN more! But that will have to do for now. My friends were a big chunk of the numbers. They were always the people I've turned to when I had my breakdowns, or stressing out, or freaking out or going crazy or just having an amazing day! Thanks for always answering my calls at 4 am! Thanks for sticking by me when things were crazy and you didn't even know what was going on in my life. Thanks for just smiling and laughing and going along with my stupid ideas that I randomly get on wims. I truly have the GREATEST friends and am so grateful for each and every one of them!

I left the last 9 for my family: Dad, mom, Ashlee, Jake, Brittany, Taylor, Tanner and Keznee.

To say that we haven't always seen eye to eye would be a huge understatement. But I am incredibly thankful for them and am becoming more and more so everyday! I have had so much fun with them and can really say that my siblings really are turning into my best friends. From dressing up the boys and spraying them with the kitchen sink, to spies in the backyard, to making boats out of bunkbeds, to riding bikes "fast as a boomer", to Rascal Flatts concerts, to random roadtrips to Price, to hitting trees while sledding behind dad's truck, to taking Zoey up to the ditch and the back hills, to Sally Mauro Singers, to driving late and night in the canyon and accidentally turning off the car lights, to driving to school together laughing hysterically, to breakin the van doors, to Sunday night memory lanes and game nights, to sleeping out on the patio every Christmas Eve, to driving around Cedar City blasting the ipod and eating pizza and McFlurries,to Castle Valley Pagenat, to school lunch and swimming, to irrigation days and everything in between....it has been a blast! I don't think I'd survive in a small family! I love you all and can't wait to see you again!


I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and takes a little time to realize what you really are blessed with! I've never done it before, but I think that it really is benefical and like I said, huge eye opener!