To the Alps!

When I first moved to Europe, one of the things on my "must-do" list was to snowboard in the Alps. A few weeks ago I finally got to cross that off my list. Me and 8 of my awesome friends packed ourselves into a van at some ridiculous hour of the morning and headed off to Austria.
(I didn't bring my camera on this trip, so much thanks to Paige for letting me steal pictures.)


If you are thinking "my, that van looks awfuly small for 9 people and all their ski gear", you would be correct. Luckily, after many many trips via Ryanair, we are all expert packers, and we made it work. You will notice the back window is completely blocked, and believe me when I say there was little to no floor room inside. What an awesome 5 hour ride it was!

We spent two days up on the mountain. It was perfect weather...although it had been pretty warm all week so the snow was not as amazing as one would hope.


The view from the top was absolutely amazing. The mountains just went on forever.



On the drive home we stopped at Neuschwanstein Castle. It's the super famous one that the Disney castle is modeled after.
And this is just us being awesome - because it's what we do.

Faithful Friends Gather Near To Us

This last weekend I got to go up to Logan and spend time with a lot of great friends.
On the way up I went to a party with my ex-roommates from my freshman/sophomore years. (Still referred to as "the roomies"). Sadly it was only 4/6 of us (plus husbands), but it was still a good time. We try to get together at least once a year.

Me-Ghan and her little man Davin

Mandi and I

Mandi, Me, Chels, and Meghan
I'm so lucky to have been randomly put with such awesome girls - and am glad we're still such great friends.

I LOVE Logan. I have every intention of moving back there someday. It just feels so homey to me.
*disclosure: I managed to not take any pictures while there, so the rest of these pics are stolen from previous events...or from google images

I got to stay with my Wingman for a few days :) It was way fun.
I also got to go to her American Festival Chorus Christmas Concert (which was way good by the way. I recommend it.)
PS - If you hug someone with a glittery shirt, you will be glittery For-ev-er.

I also got to see these crazy cats. These guys are great and I sure miss hanging out with them.

It was a weekend full of many a good time, and few inside jokes which I'm sure will last for years to come :)

An Update of Many Things

It's been awhile since I've updated so this blog will cover a few different topics:

I'll start with a House Update:
I've finally gotten most of the furniture I'll be acquiring for awhile.
The blue chair, coffee table, and end table are all loaner furniture from the AF so they will be going away soon. And I found that rug today at the BX and I LOVE it. It matches perfectly with my couch, chair, and the curtains I am planning on buying. Not to mention my Mexican blanket on my couch.


The bedroom set came in pieces so I had to put it together myself.

I got the bed together on my own but I enlisted the help of Jeremy and the Elders to put the Schrunk (aka wardrobe) together.

This is the final product


So that's the House Update.
I shall now move on to the Work Update:
First, for those of you who are unfamiliar with Air Force structure, I need to give a little lesson. For those of you who are, you can completely skip this part -
The structure is as follows Wing>Group>Squadron>Flight>Unit(or element). The Wing usually covers pretty much everyone on base (that I'm aware of) but here we're different and have 3 Wings cuz we're huge. Then it breaks down from there. When I got here I was working at the Flight level. My flight had about 200 people (which is pretty large for a flight) and the flight commander is a Captain.
Well our Group commander (a full bird Colonel) decided he wanted to take it upon himself to "mentor" all the new LTs in the group. There are 7 of us. Well I happen to be the first "lucky" one to spend 6-8 weeks up at the group. I was not really happy with the idea at first but I have since come to really enjoy it. I don't know that I'm learning much that will help me for tech school, but I am basically the special projects officer and am usually REALLY busy. Just yesterday I gave my first real AF briefing on an new inspection program that I am now the resident expert on. And it went really well. My Chief said it was like I had been giving briefings my whole life :) I felt good about that.
I also have a pretty nice office now.

And the group commander's exec is super awesome. He's a TSgt and I chill in his office a lot when I have nothing to do. And the vice group commander is also way chill. He's a Lt Col and helps me out a lot with all my projects and answering my questions and stuff.
Tomorrow I'm in a golf tournament with the Col. Should be a good time.

Other Things Update
So if you remember my Paris trip, I went with Ariana, who, before Paris, I didn't actually know. Well her and I ended up becoming super tight after that trip. The following weekend we went downtown just to chill and eat and stuff. We ended up chilling at this little restaurant for 5 hours. It was awesome.

Sadly, Ari was only here for the summer and went back home to Utah just a week after our Paris trip :( I'm still trying to convince her she should move back.

I still have a couple more new things of furniture to put up so you'll get another house update eventually.

An Ode to Friends

Today I went to visit an old roommate and I was thinking how great it is that we're still good friends even though it's been almost 4 years since we've lived together.
That got me thinking about all the awesome people in my life that I know I can count on- no matter what. I would just like to pay a tribute to a few of them at this time :)

I will start with the Roomies - since that's what got me started on this whole thing.
These are the Roomies- Mandi, Trina, Chels, and Me-ghan. This was taken at our most recent annual Christmas gathering.


We all lived together our first two years of college. Then they all went off and got married - Crazy kids. None of us knew each other when we first moved in, with the exception of Trina and Meg. Amazingly we all got along, and to this day remain good friends. I love them all very much and know that I could call them up for anything, anytime, and they would be there for me - even if it's been months since we've even talked.

Next I will speak about my best friend from high school - Sarah Carter Joslin

We had our drama back in those high school days, but now we are the best of buds :) We still talk atleast once a week on the phone since she lives in Cedar and I don't get to see her much.

My very best friend is my Wingman.


She is so awesome and I know I can count on her for anything, day or night (if I can get her to wake up ;) ) She has put up with a lot from me over the years, and I am very grateful. I'm going to miss her a ton while I'm gone. You're the best Wingman! WMFL

The other people I know I can always count on are all my AF buddies.


We have spent so much time together over the
last few years we really have become family. I could go on and on about each one of them individually - Colby, my personal psychiatrist. Tolman, my mechanic. Sarah, my neighbor. Kara, my fellow red-head, Echols, the inner child in us all - but I'll stop there because I know this is kinda lengthy, and I'm afraid I'd leave someone out. But you all know who you are and you already know how awesome you all are :) I am excited to continue onto the Air Force knowing that these are the kind of people I'm going to be working with. I definately wouldn't have made it this far without all of them. They have truely turned me into who I am today. I'll miss seeing you all every day. But it's a small Air Force right?

Thanks to all of you. I'm really going to miss all my friends and family a great deal while I'm in Germany. But it's because all of you that I am where I am and where I am going. I'm very grateful for that and am going to make the best out of this opportunity.
See you all in the real world!