why is this post even happening

i put these pictures in a post that has sat in my draft folder for a good month now. don't really remember what the significance of all of them is so i'll just pretend to know.

right: sometimes everyone needs to get on the bus at the same time so even though i make it to the bus stop in time for the bus i want to get on, the bus skips our stop because it is too full. i could feel sad/mad about this or i could just sit down and enjoy some ultimate cheddar munchies (that john drove miles and miles to get for me the sweet thing) while waiting for the next one. i chose the latter.

left: i am in charge of a monthly bbq at work to boost employee morale. I really liked coming into work and finding so many responses to my email!

over the last month or two i have eaten so much pad thai here it is ridiculous

my roommates and i went for some thai food and then had a really nice walk afterwards in a post celebration of my birthday. have i mentioned how much i like those gals? i feel very lucky to live with such good people who i genuinely like and don't even secretly hate! 

i had to go pick up some outdoor games for the bbq in the company vehicle. first time i drove in massachusetts! i was scared out of my mind..the roads here are so stressful to me. 

harvard put out fun and colorful chairs! this means spring really is here. 

i got a square pretzel stuck in the roof of my mouth. that was not pleasant. 

bbq was a huge success and so was the ice cream bar! 

i got the best torn up surprise all the way from taiwan! sister tong sent me a t-shirt of some of her drawings that i always loved. it is a teeeeny bit big for me but i'll sport it one day and take a picture of it for you to see. 

we went to support our friend matt in a musical he was in at a community theater. my two favorite parts were definitely the cake they had for everyone to enjoy and the real classy portraits that were drawn by one of the cast members. her self portrait is in the top right corner, which is the only one that doesn't look retarded. fancy that haha. oh wait, and my third favorite part was the other people in the audience. such a classy production!

one thing we are all grateful for is the one texas roadhouse in boston and friends to go there with

here is something you should know. sometimes when i hang out with john i feel like i'm with my dad. he just loves his tools and being handy and fixing everything. we like this about him. 

to close i would like to say that boston loves raining. and that this post takes the cake for being weirdest and most lame of all the posts i've done and it is taking a lot of self control not to just delete it. 

the end.

A few Mother's Day Thoughts

(taken one week before mother's day laster year)

Happy Mother's Day!

I've been thinking a lot about the mothers in my life this morning and so many have impacted my life but the ones who mean the most to me is my own mother and my sisters. Being the youngest I have had the privilege of watching all my sisters become mothers and have watched my mother become a grandmother. It is a sweet thing to witness. I've seen them all grow in strength and faith and love as they learned what it meant to really be mothers. I've watched the process of motherhood mold them into selfless and Christ-like beings. I've seen the work and effort they put into creating strong families and the mothers of the stripling warriors like consistency they have in teaching their children the gospel. I've seen the absolute exhaustion that comes from giving everything they have to being a mother, and then observe as they somehow muster to give even more. I've seen them work hard to raise their children to be anchored in what is good and right.  I've seen them protect and nurture and hold on so tightly to their children and, in some recent circumstances, I've seen them accept God's will and let their child go.  

As I think about my sisters I can't help but feel that what they have become and what their children are becoming is directly correlated to how wonderful our mother is and what she taught us. We honor and revere motherhood because she does. We want to put our children and family first because she did. We want our children to be able to have the kind of mother we have so we put everything into it that she did and continues to still do. 

 My heart is full of love and gratitude to Heavenly Father for giving me my mother, my sisters who are now mothers, and the sacred privilege to one day become a mother myself. Thank you Mom, Becky, Tricia, Natalie, Mindy, Stephanie, and Kimmy for your example, your strength, your faith, and your zeal for motherhood. I am blessed to have you! I love you all very much. 

birthday weeeeeeek

started out right with some nice facetime with my favorite frei's

(brynne even had her happy birthday sweatshirt on! which was probably just a coincidence but i like to think it was on purpose)

boston began warming up again and blossoms looked great on the trees and on the ground

i began my first full week of work, enjoyed the company bought mandarin oranges, and my new birthday earbuds from thoughtful christine! small eared girls unite. 

i went buck wild on the %50 off easter candy sale 

(and then bought a bunch of other junk which made me feel really good about myself)

the weather threatened to be sad again but got happy again pretty quickly

(can you tell that is the same tree? maybe the different angles have ruined the visual i'm trying to create)

i decided to randomly reconnect with my long lost elementary/junior high/sophomore year crush logan fast. side note: i wish someone would have told me in third grade he liked boys..that is definitely ten years of my life i'll never get back!

friday as i was getting on the subway i saw "april 13th" on the screen and i panicked. i feel like this happens every year. the day before my birthday i realize that i'm never going to be [insert the age i am at that time] ever again and i think about all the things i wanted to do that year that didn't happen or all the things that did happen that i wish hadn't and i get a bad case of the sads. luckily this was remedied fairly quickly as i sat down and saw the handy work of someone on the door inside the subway. i giggled right out loud i think. 

i am thirteen. 

after work i received this thoughtful little email from sister terry!

 i'd like to think this was the beginning of a very successful birthday weekend. 

john was sweet to humor me and take me to riverdance! so many childhood fantasies came true that night. some moments were a little iffy/awesome (depending on how you look at it) i'll admit, but overall it was a nice time. 

afterwards we watched singing in the rain while eating ice cream with grandma moon's hot fudge sauce (that i made and didn't ruin!). i called my mom to see when i was really born and she said it was some time around 1 pm on the 14th. this relieved some of my stress because i technically wasn't really turning 25 until like 1pm the next day! i felt great that i still had a good 12 hours to be 24. maybe this is a good time to tell you that i get anxiety to be a year older with every birthday i have..so this is nothing abnormal. 

the next morning i handpicked my favorite boy friend, roommate friend, and ward friend to travel back in time with me to some revolutionary war reenactments. (does it surprise you that this is what i chose to do on my birthday? if it does, it shouldn't) turns out i didn't really know where we were going so i accidentally told them to go to what turned out to be some sort of petting zoo for children/birthday party for a little boy. we laughed and laughed and felt like such pedophiles. 

after driving and driving and driving (and stopping to climb that tree for a minute) we finally found us some red coats! 

i creeped on those colonials so hard

jackpot!

this really was such a great afternoon with all of our friends! they were all so nice and just as thrilled as i was that it was my birthday. as stressed as birthdays make me - when the day comes i milk it for all it's worth and celebrate so hard. 

happy birthday to ME

after finally finding where everything was we realized we probably needed to go to eat something and get ready for our temple service assignment so we actually didn't see the reenactment but i still think our morning was very successful. my birthday could have ended at 2 pm and i would have felt satisfied. 

luckily, it really wasn't over so we went and ate at my new favorite place "A @time"! best thai food ever and only a mile from my house. while they were making our food we headed over to the russian store across the street and bought some chocolate. i have yet to eat that thing but i'm sure it is delicious.

a

look how happy we all are! 

that is what pad thai/drunken noodles/curry does to people. it makes them happy. 

something else that made me happy were all these surprise packages from people! i loved them all and feel so blessed to have such sweet and thoughtful people in my life. 

i love this tree at the temple. since we cant really take pictures inside these two photos above will represent that part of our day. the first one was taken as we arrived at 4pm and the other one was taken at about 8pm when we left. in those four hours we helped in the cafeteria and the laundry. i was so happy maren and john consented to sign up, i had so much fun with them and felt happy to be in my favorite boston place with some of my favorite boston people. 

my only other request on this day of birth was to head to little italy and get cannoli's so that is exactly what we did afterwards. CANNOLI IS SO GOOD. i just want to eat them every. single. day. 

okay so i guess i had one more request. i really wanted grace to have her baby on my birthday and guess what? SHE DID. so now little alta and i are birthday twins and i couldn't be more happy about it.

the weekend ended with *trying to face time with the whole fam at their monthly fhe. it didn't really work very well and i think we called each other about 15 times but it was still so good to see them all. i love my family, i love my utah friends, i love my boston friends, i love the fact that i've had a really good 24 years and that i have the opportunity to have many more! 

and that concludes my birthday week. thank you for reading.