Reminiscing on Resolutions from 2018

I was never one for making big grand New Years Resolutions.  Of course I always have goals that I am working towards year to year but I have never thought making a Resolution was crucial. But on New Years Eve 2017 I decided to write out my goals for once and hang them up.

Obviously some goals were easier than others and some were more measurable than others. But what I learned was that most of these goals are and will always be lifelong traits to develop. I wanted to share some of my progress on these goals.

One of my goals for 2018 was to apply to physical therapy school. This was a daunting task. It was time consuming, expensive, tedious and nerve racking. But I am proud of accomplishing this and excited to have seen the fruits of my labors. I am lucky to have received acceptance into several programs and will be deciding soon where my next journey will begin!

Another goal was to have more meaningful prayer and scripture study. One of these I felt great about and the other not so much. I am usually really bad about both of these when I am on breaks from school and my routine is different. But I tried a lot harder this year and though I was not perfect I was better. I decided to take the challenge to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year and take the time to mark all of the scriptures about Jesus Christ. This was an amazing experience and I gained so much more about of the scriptures this time.

Have more adventures. This was an adventurous year and I made lots of fun memories. I spent time in the prettiest place ever, Lopez Island, and enjoyed time in the beautiful weather lounging on the porch reading, which is like heaven for me. I traveled down the Washington, Oregon, and California coast seeing many beautiful sights and eating the most delicious cheese and ice cream in the world at the Tillamook factory. I spent time at lake Roosevelt enjoying the skiing, sun and family. I also had another wonderful year as an MDA camp counselor and had an absolute blast getting to know some of the most special kids. I also did something new and went on a six-day river trip down the San Jaun River in southern Utah. I learned I lot from this experience. And had a very fun and memorable trip to Disneyland. These adventures and many more made 2018 a great year full of new experiences. 

I set a goal to be more positive and less judgmental. All I can say
about these ones is that I worked harder on these and can still try harder.

On my goal to gain knowledge and read many books I felt I progressed. I learned a lot from the classes I took this year and enjoy my education immensely. I read 52 books in 2018. This was a lot less than in years past where I reached over 80 books in a year. But I cherished every book I read.

Goals I still need to work on:
feel better about myself
do more service
get in shape
build meaningful friendships
share kindness
have good blood sugar levels

New goals for 2019:
Graduate from ASU
Start physical therapy school
Experience new things
See more national parks
Grow closer to Jesus Christ

As I start my final semester of my undergraduate degree I am excited and sad. There will be many lasts but I am excited for all of the big and small moments that 2019 may bring.



Love,
Hailey

The Ups and Downs of Summer

 Another summer is gone and it has been one full of memories, so many that I felt it was time for another post in order to record as many of them as I can. As with my last post (and life in general) there have been some pretty great things to happen these past months and some also not so great things. So here is a few of the Happenin's of Hailey for the summer:

Spring semester of school went well, I enjoyed my classes, especially ASL and am happy with how my grades turned out. Following finals week I got to enjoy a week with my best friend visiting. Our adventures included hiking, volunteering at the Special Olympics, going to the Phoenix Temple and just treating ourselves. 

The first week of June was spent at Roosevelt Lake with the Persons family as is our yearly tradition. I love this time of getting to ski and tube, play canasta, and hang out with family. 

The next week of summer was spent at the MDA Summer Camp where I got to become best friends with my camper Maddie and build friendships with many other of the wonderful campers and awesome councilors. This was my second year with the camp and I LOVED it. It is so great to work with these kids and help them have a fun time and I look forward to more years of being able to volunteer and recommend this opportunity to everyone. It is a truly rewarding (and exhausting) experience spending the week focusing primarily on the needs of others and am grateful for the things I learned from this opportunity. 

After getting back from camp my family and my bestie took a drive down to Tuscan for the Temple Open House. I love these opportunities to see inside the House of the Lord and all of the blessings that temples bring into my life.

On July 2nd my Grandpa Persons left this world and it was difficult to have to say goodbye to a man who made such an impact on my life.

These photos represent just a few of the great memories I have of my grandpa. Some of my favorite include:

• going to Kids Club and my grandpa buying me a McDonald's hash brown every time
• his insistence that I was always out "looking for some boy"
• him answering the phone in a high voice saying "this is grandma"
• trying to come up with a decent answer to his standard question "did you learn anything today" to  prove to him that I could be smarter than him (as he claimed no one was as smart as him)
• sending him countless emails of pictures that he would turn into collages or put in the newspaper
• his standard goodbye of "I'll see you in the funny papers"

My grandpa ALWAYS had a camera and was there to document every special occasion or family gathering. I often would make faces at him and was always curious to see if any photos of me made it into the newspaper. But, often times I would steal the camera from him and take photos of him so that there were some of him too. 

I really never expect many people to read my blog, but I knew I could always count on my grandpa to view it. 

I miss a lot of things about my grandpa.

I miss him claiming that I am going to school to "become a water boy" and that he won't be here to see me prove him wrong. I miss hearing his stories (even if I'd heard it several times before). I  miss telling him about my life and the interest he always showed. And I miss his teasing and our banter that would ensue. 

But, it just shows what a great person he was for his absence to be felt so acutely. I am so grateful for the memories I have to cherish and the legacy that he left behind.

To conclude the summer adventures, I took a trip to Idaho!

I was fortunate to be able to tag along with the Cammack family on a trip to Oregon and Washington. We made a stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and I got to taste the most heavenly cheese and ice cream on the planet. It was basically a dream come true. 

We got to explore the Oregon coast and spend time in Vancouver which were both so beautiful and the weather was fantastic.

To end the trip we were able to sneak in a trip to the Boise Idaho Temple. There were a lot of things standing in our way to be able to attend the temple, the biggest fact being that it was technically closed and I had a flight to catch, but thanks to many wonderful miracles everything fell into place and we had a wonderful experience doing baptisms. 

This summer was memorable and I think in years to come it will stand out in my memory. When I wasn't on trips, I spent my time working, reading, shadowing at two PT clinics (where I learned A LOT!), reading, watching movies and reading. I completed 31 books this summer and learned quite a bit. This summer was similar in some ways to summers past, but also fairly different. I can count on one hand the amount of times I stayed up past midnight or slept in past eight. I had to get sinus surgery and the first few days were pretty brutal, but I am looking forward to actually being able to breath and smell like a normal human being. 

I enjoyed my summer, I grew, I made friendships, I gave service, I tried new things, I traveled, I spent time with family and friends and I experienced the ups and downs of life. I look forward to what the rest of the year has in store for me, I am sure there will be more trials and triumphs to come and I will just have to see what I am meant to learn from each.

Until next time,
Hailey

Not Putting a Label on Things

Thoughts on 2016

When I think back on this year, at first glance it seems like it should be labeled as a “bad” year. And I don’t think anyone would blame me for feeling this way. But, even though some life changing things happened, I still cannot label this year as “bad” because there was also a lot of good mixed in.

In 2016 I said a lot of goodbyes.

I said good bye to many dear friends who are serving missions, or who left for college.

I said good bye to my grandpa who was such a generous and loving servant of the Lord. He was an example to me of how to follow the commandments given to us and to love God with all our heart. His absence in our family is sad, but I am so grateful for the legacy he has left behind.

And the most difficult goodbye of 2016 was to my twin sister Lindsey. This change in our family is felt deeply and makes every other thing that I have experienced that I thought was hard seem utterly trivial. I feel sad because of the goodbye, but when I think of the hello in the next life it brings the “good” back into the memory. I know that Lindsey was given to our family because we needed her, and she has gone back to our Heavenly Father because He needs her spirit there to bless those in Heaven. So, just as there is good and bad in this experience there has also been good and bad throughout 2016.

Here are some of them:

I left the country for the first time (via a cruise!)

I completed my first year of college with all A’s and started my second year

I was able to meet and talk with an apostle

I volunteered at MDA camp and met so many extraordinary people

I had countless prayers answered

I felt my testimony steadily increase during some experiences and grow by leaps and bounds during other experiences

I went to two musicals that I love (and jammed out to musicals in my car 100+ times)

I got my first B and didn’t cry about it

I’ve made a lot of great friends and built deeper relationships with the ones I already had

I started a book club

I completed 81 books this year (surpassing my goal of 75)

I visited the Grand Canyon for the first time

I bought my first car

I met one of my favorite authors

I got to horseback ride on the beach which has always been a bucket list item

I started my job and have grown to love all the people here (I have now been here a year)

And, I became another decade older

So yes, some not so great things happened in 2016, but my list of great things that happened is so much longer (and I’m sure there are many more things that I am forgetting to add). I would say 2016 was a year of change, and I think 2017 will be as well. I hope to improve myself and take the opportunities I am given to become who I am supposed to be. I want to look back at this year and smile about all of the good and not let myself get stuck on the bad. I cannot say that I will always be successful at this but I hope that writing this all down will help. Even if no one reads my little blog, it won’t matter, I am hoping that by occasionally putting all the millions of thoughts always bouncing in my head into words I will be able to look back at this time in my life and see the growth I have made.

(I included this picture so I can document how I change mentally and physically. And also because I think I look cute and I thought it was cool that you could see my sisters in my sunglasses)

Until next time,

Hailey 

Summer Adventures

Graduation!

The long awaited day has finally come and past. Now by no means am I done with school and tests and homework. But it feels nice to have reached this point and be able to look back and see how all of my hard work paid off. I have had so many wonderful memories and friendships throughout high school and now I look forward to all of the new memories and friends that college will bring!  

The best part of it all was getting to walk Lindsey up the stage. It was a very special  moment and am grateful to have been  able to do that for her. 

Processional

Thankful for all the family who came and supported me!

I am so excited to become a Sun Devil this fall and attend ASU!

Whats Happened....

Well obviously I have dropped the ball. Countless times I have thought of posting about all of the many happenings in my life and have failed over and over again to ever construct a post. So in the effort to make up for lost time and start fresh here is just a glimpse of the happenings of Hailey since the last time I blogged. With graduation only a few weeks away and many new adventures to come I want to do a little catch up and make it a goal to be more on top about posting the many happenings of my life. Even if no one reads my silly little blog or I sound like a weirdo I will try to keep this up just for the fun of it and as a place to look back on the fun things of life.

Rewind to the beginning of senior year when I completed my final badminton season and received a varsity letter which was pretty exciting!

Also back in November, I, along with thousands of other youth had the incredible opportunity to participate in the Phoenix Temple Cultural Celebration. The theme was "Be a Light" and it was truly an amazing experience and I made many great memories. 

Along with the temple celebration was the Temple Open House where I not only had the opportunity to walk through but also help out numerous times and I loved every minute of it!

Throughout the fall I helped out with my sports med program and was able to work along side the athletic trainer in the football games. I learned a lot through this and had a lot of fun.

In January we went to Disneyland which is always a super fun time. Highlight of the trip was the scrumptious caramel apple.

Then in February I had such a fun time going to a book signing for one of my favorite authors with my lovely grandma. It was so cool to get our books signed and talk with Sarah M. Eden and share the fun experience with my grandma. 

In March was my third and final Mormon Prom. 

In April I competed in my fourth triathlon. It is always very challenging and yet fun and worth while. 

A couple weeks ago I went to Senior Prom with my best friend. It was a fantastic night full of fun memories.

One of those memories being the crazy fact that Konner and I were nominated for prom king and queen. We did not win sadly but it was still so cool to have been nominated. 

And now finally in just a few short days Lindsey and I will be graduating from high school. 

I am so excited to be closing one chapter and beginning another and look forward to all the adventures ahead!

It's come around again: PROM!

Mormon Prom 2014. Asking and Responding.

On Friday afternoon I found this lovely little package on my door step.

The package contained 2 pieces of paper and a little box.
This first paper is a Divergent word cypher. Each line has a number code which corresponds to a page number, a line number and a word number in Divergent.

So after searching through the book to find out the words the note said: Will you be brave enough to go to prom with me. And then at the bottom his initials were circled.

Now I finally got to open the box since I had been told it had to wait until the end.

Inside the box was this AMAZING necklace.

On the front of the necklace it says Dauntless. If you have not read Divergent ( you are crazy ), in the book there are five factions that the characters are divided into, and Dauntless is one of them and just happens to be MY favorite.

On the back of the necklace is says: A night in NYC 2014. Which is this years Mormon Prom theme.

Divergent is my favorite book which made this all the more awesome and fun. He knew that I loved to read and incorporated that in and so for my response I knew I had to incorporate one of his favorite things which is TV shows.
The tricky part was deciding on what to do. I knew it had to equal the creativness and awesomness but I was at a little disadvantage since I only had one day to whip something up.Here is what I came up with:

I decided to make a cypher of my own, using the show The Blacklist. So what he had to do was look up an episode number, find the specified word in the title of the episode, and then the specified letter in that word, which would spell out my answer so the final note would say: My answer is yes I choose to be brave. Then it would also spell out my initials at the bottom.

Then, with the help of my mom, I found this mug and just personalized it a little bit so it would have the actual prom theme.

I wrapped it up and wrote on it to make sure he would open it last. I also thought it would look better if I personalized the bag a little bit so I stole the logo for the dance. ( I know sneaky right? )

 So here is the final response all wrapped up. On Saturday night I dropped it by his house and that was that.

Now the fun part begins, getting everything together for the actual night which is March 21st. This was a great way to start the fun memories that prom brings. I was genuinely surprised that I got asked on Friday seeing as how he was out of town (...mysterious) and so I just had to make sure my response was all done and waiting for him when he got back. I am so happy with all of this and know that prom will be great!