ROADTRIP!

So I went on my very first road trip in my little RAV4 all the way up to Idaho by myself :) I was kinda nervous because I had never actually been the one driving for the whole way, I usually drive about an hour maybe 2 or 3 hours if I'm lucky so 10 and a half hours was a little scary. That and I have never driven straight to Idaho on my way up to school. I have always gone over to Utah to see my Gramps and then up from there. So totally new experience. So I snapped some photos while I was driving they are all really bad because I was driving and its through the windshield, which to be honest wasn't very clean...

My Car all packed and ready to go (oh and newly tinted windows)

The Budweiser Building on I-25

Long straight road in WY not much there to keep you awake

Ooooh look some animals!

Pretty mountain scene near the Hoback River

Finally! Idaho

Palisades all covered in Ice and Snow

In Swan Valley I think...

So... I got a "New" car

This blog post is almost 3 months over due... I got a car on February 10th. Its kinda weird how it happened... I had been having troubles with my car my parents were letting me use. It just was not working right at all. Earlier that day my dad had taken a look at it to see if he could make it more bearable to drive, but he couldn't he said the words "it probably about time we start looking for something else" or something like that. So I jumped on it even though I really didn't have the time to look for a car, I had TONS of homework to do. I just couldn't think of anything else so of course I start looking for my "dream" car a RAV4 I have wanted one of these since high school. So in my looking around on Craigslist I found a RAV that was being sold at Boulder Toyota, so I went to their website it was on sale! It was a 99 RAV 4 manual 5 speed. moon roof power locks and windows. It looked nice and was priced very well. So I tried to have my dad look at it... he only asked if I could afford it (I know valid question) but that was his only criteria for even looking at it. So I waited until my mom came home from work. I told her about it and showed it to her on my computer. She said well I have one piano lesson and then I was going to go to Boulder tonight anyway so we can go and look. Well that look turned into a lets test drive it and then almost an ultimatum buy it now or risk having it sold before my dad could take a look at it... My mom decided that she would buy it and I would pay her back since at the time I had no money saved to buy a car. I was REALLY nervous to bring the car home for my dad to see... He was at the Temple that night with the youth so he was unreachable at the time when we were buying the car. The look on his face when we drove up was classic. It wasn't a mad look, it was a confused look. He asked my mom what she did and she said "I BOUGHT A CAR" very matter of fact. So he looked over the paperwork that came with the car like all the services that were reported, and the car fax and he wasn't mad at all! He was actually happy! Imagine that.
So since I have gotten my car, my dad has kinda spoiled me, he bought me new windshield wipers for the front and the back, he upgraded the bolts that were on my spare tire to locking bolts. He got my tires siped (sp?) and the last thing that he did for me 2 days before I left to come up to Idaho was tint my windows.

So here my friends is my new car!

Moon Roof!!!

Just some things that I've been reading

So I received a grant this year for school, and in order to receive it, I had to complete a financial course on-line called "Peace in Your Hearts". I learned a lot from this course, obviously things that I already knew, but just needed to remind myself about it. I also had to read 5 articles written by chruch leaders on financial managment. My favorite talk that I read from here was "Earthly Debts, Heavenly Debts".
He outlined some great goals and guidelines
1st Pay your tithing- Do this before you pay the bills, and other expenses
2nd Spend less then you earn- "All too often a family's spending is governed more by their yearning than their earning. They somehow believe that their life will be better if they surround themselves with an abundance of things. All too often all they are left with is avoidable anxiety and distress." Doing this helps the next guideline.
3rd Learn to save- "Too often, people assume that they probably never will be injured, get sick, lose their jobs, or see their investments evaporate. To make matters worse, often people make purchases today based upon optimistic predictions of what they hope will happen tomorrow." I've read somewhere while doing this assignment of people that expected a bonus, or a large tax return, and before they received the money, made purchases like they had already received it, and they ended up either not getting the money, or not getting as much as they expected.

He outlined two more guidelines that are just as fantastic as these three. If you want to learn more about what I learned, I will let you read it yourself. I really suggest reading some of the talks and completing the on-line course, even if you feel you are financially stable, there might be something that you could learn from and start using in your life. As a student I learned a lot and there are things that I am going to use starting now and in the future.

Winter Semester

I'm a tad behind... so bear with me as I play catch up.

We had a finger nail painting party...


And the finished product:






We went sledding/ tubing down at the dry farms for a ward activity Here we are on our way there




And this video is really should be a picture... Its better as a picture




Later that evening we had a blast playing Rock Band




Megan and I went to a Drew Danburry Concert. Oh and Flat Stanley came too




Olivia, Xanthe, Katie, and I went to Jackson Hole Wyoming to pick up Shelley

What I did during the fall semester home.

So I know this is quite belated, but I am doing it anyways... This past fall I had 2 jobs. My main job was working for the City and County of Broomfield in the Parks Department for the Horticulture Division. I had such a blast. I got to drive and operate many pieces of equipment.
The first and primary thing that I drove was a Ford F-350 with a hydraulic lift bed.

My Pretty Truck :)

The next thing that I "drove" more like steered... I wasn't the one controlling the speed or the brakes, just the direction. Is what we called the CASE. The CASE is a front end loader pretty much. It was really fun to be able to see what construction workers saw when they were up that high.
Ok so towards the beginning of October we found out that we needed to clear a space to put solar panels for our building. We also needed to lay sod in one of our parks, So we cleared a spot in front of our building where the panels were going to go. Our foreman decided that it would be a massive project for our division to do. So we rented a sod cutter, because one just wasn't enough, and the one we had didn't work very well either, and we cut, rolled, loaded, unloaded,and laid sod. It was a pretty intense workout. My forearms had tons of little cuts on them, they stung so bad! So after we got all the sod that we needed for our parks, and people's houses and such we needed to clear up all the little strips of sod left from cutting and the sod that was never cut, so what better way than to get out a tractor, skidster (bobcat), and the dingo. All of the seasonals in my division were trained on the tractor and the skidster, I was the only one that really used the dingo. So here are pictures of the bobcat, and the tractor that I drove and operated.

I was also able to drive and operate a trash truck! It is a Ford F-55o Diesel engine. I first learned how to use it because it was the easiest way to get rid of the roses that we were chopping down for the winter. We didn't want to get stabbed by them 40 million times. Then after we did the long stretches of roses we went and worked on a shrub bed along side the Aspen Creek fence line on Aspen St. We didn't want to take lots of truck loads so... we used our "chip" truck with the chipper attached. I sadly wasn't able to get a picture of it, because it was being used. I learned how to back it up into the parking space, and realized that it isn't the best idea to take it into narrow, small parking lots. It takes a long time and a lot of patience to try to manuver yourself around and ya, not the brightest move on my part. This truck is an F- 350 Diesel engine.The trash truck...

My second job wasn't as exciting, I worked at the Flatirons Mall in The Children's Place. Not too exciting... I liked my other job way better.
Hopefully I was able to catch you up to at least December 2008 in my life. I will hopefully post more often.

What Jenna Does When She is too Busy to Blog...

Hi, this is Megan here, Jenna's witty older sister. Since Jen is obviously too busy to keep her family and friends updated on her current events I though I would take the liberty and inform everyone on what she has been up to.

She bakes... well, this is actually the first time I have ever seen her do it... So I should say, she baked.

She primps... sometimes. Not when she has to be at Maverik super early. Like 5am early.

She obviously does NOT clean her room.
I have no excuses for her on this one.

She mooches dinner off of the bishop's wife. Wait... I may gave taught her that.

She practices the piano faithfully. Look closely.

She practices looking hard-core gansta' with me. She almost has it down. Just has to perfect the "screw you" sign that is pasted on my forehead.

She entertains me. Which is a full time job. As you can see I made her play crack the egg over and over again. Till she was tired of jumping.

We love our little Jenna-loulou-face. But the next post is all her.

I've Been Tagged!!

5 Things I have on my "To Do" list this week:
1. Laundry
2. Work out not just dance
3. Clean room
4. Homework
5. More Homework

5 snacks I enjoy:
1. fruit popsicles
2. Chips and salsa
3. snow cones
4. dried cranberries
5. Triscuits/wheat thisn

5 things I would do if I suddenly became a billionaire:
1. Invest
2. Pay off all my schooling that I will rack up
3. shopping spree
4. travel everywhere on my private jet
5. buy my dreams... make them reality

5 places I've lived:
1. The small bedroom now known as the "Office"
2. The bigger upstairs bedroom where Katie sleeps
3.The downstairs bedroom
4. Barnes 156/256 at the same time
5. American Manor A9

5 jobs I've had:
1. Volleyball Ref
2. Dry Cleaner
3. Nanny...
4. Retail- The Children's Place - Love that job
5. Adventure Guide, and Assistant Bakery Manager

5 things people may not know about me:
1. I am an aspiring gymnast
2. I really don't know what I want to do with my life
3. I love to dance... I like to think that I am pretty good... not amazing but good
4. I am kinda crazy... just get me out of my shell...
5. I am thinking about having a minor or cluster in Nutrition

5 favorite musicians/bands:
1. Chantal Kreviazuk
2. Sara Bareilles
3. Regina Spektor
4. Yail Naim
5. Jimmy Eat World