It's the most wonderful time of the year!

I love the holidays. This past month or so has been a ton of fun. Thanksgiving was fantastic. I went with my Mom and Dad and little brother down to my older brother's house down in Northern California. While we were there we made the trip down to Disneyland. It was so much fun to see my niece and nephews. It was also great to see one of my good friends that came to Disneyland with my family and I. The only bad part of the day was going on splash mountain and getting completely soaked...we knew we would get wet (people were walking off looking a little damp) but we didn't take into account that Lloyds are a little bigger than most...we got off completely drenched. But after a couple of times on Thunder Mountain we were blown dry. :)

So the thing that has been occupying most of my time lately is my new calling. I was called to be the Relief Society President in my Singles Branch. It is kind of overwhelming but things are going well. It is kind of exciting to be working with my counselors and trying to get things going. It is taking up a lot of time...I am very busy. But it is nice. I am never bored. :)

At home we have been working on remodeling the kitchen. The house has been in chaos for the last couple of weeks. I will be excited to see it done if for no other reason than having the dust all cleaned up once and for all.

At work this past month it has been charity-alicious..... we have had tons of different things going on. We had Toys for Tots, Second Harvest and the one that I was most involved with was the Annual Bake Sale that my department did. The proceeds went to buy toys for the Salvation Army Angel Tree. I baked up a couple batches of really good carrot cake and a bunch of Molasses Sugar Cookies. They were delicious! I was however a little silly and forgot that we were not going to have a kitchen to make all of these goodies in and ended up having to spend some time at the church making my treats. Everything turned out and we ended up helping 49 kids this year.

Well I should wrap this up. I hope everyone is having a good holiday season. I am so grateful for my family and friends. It is so fun to spend time with everyone around this time of year and can't wait to see all of my Utah Family and Friends this January. (yeah that's right I will be coming down the 14th for a wedding. :) Merry Christmas!!!

Favorite Things that I can't have.

Here is a list of some of my favorite things. These favorite things however are kinda bittersweet. I love thinking of them because they are in fact some of the best things ever. However due to discontinuing the line, geographical location and other misfortune I cannot have these things. I will start from least missed to most missed.

#5: Bath and Body Works White Tea and Ginger body spray. This stuff smells divine. I discovered it one day on my mission while my companion was in the bathroom...I was checking out her fragrance selection and fell in love. While this is not totally discontinued (you can still get it from outlets and the internet...) it is still hard to come by and it is probably only a matter of time before it goes extinct.

#4Diet Coke Black Cherry Vanilla. Why do they tease us? If you are going to release a flavor and have people fall in love with it why do you have to take it away? Honestly! This is seriously the best stuff EVER!!! I drank a lot of this particular variety when it was around. Then one day...it was gone... :..(

#3 So I am probably better off without this one. Due to my geographical location I am not privy to such things as blue bell ice cream. Anytime I am down far enough south (or at any outback steak house) I can enjoy one of the finer things in life. My preferred flavors are moolenium crunch and chocolate chip cookie dough. Birthday Cake is also delish... if you are feeling a little plain the great divide is also amazing. Anyway...if you have access to this stuff...I might suggest not eating it. It ruins any ice cream that you eat after it.
#2 Curl Life curl cream. This little beauty didn't come into my life for many years. In fact I just happened upon it last year. It is perfect! It makes my hair curly without making it crunchy or gross. Guess what...our relationship is going to be ending...Matrix went and canceled the entire curl life line on me... who does that? Just when we were settling into a normal relationship...

now the moment you all have been waiting for... the number one. Here it goes.
#1 TISH. I miss Tish... She is one of my favorite people ever. If you live in Provo and need someone to do your hair... look no further. She is amazing! She is in fact a beautician and a magician. I haven't gone to anyone else for the past three years. She has always done a great job with my hair and has really reasonable prices. Not to mention that she is one of the only people that I have ever gone to that actually understands curly hair. Oh yeah did I mention that she is a hoot? I love her! And I miss her. I tried to dye my hair myself this last time and ended up with a hot mess... (ok so I just had a killer case of hot roots) but anyway...seriously I will give you her number if you want it. :)

So this concludes my post. I just wanted to share with everyone some of the things that I love and miss. hope you enjoyed it. :)

wow...I thought it had been a while last time I wrote....

So I have been informed that I am not any fun to stalk... this is because I am a lazy blogger. I personally get annoyed when my favorite bloggers are lazy therefore I am boldly supporting a double standard. So a lot has happened since the last time I was on here. I have moved back home to Washington where I got an amazing job. I also have gone back to the singles branch here.... never thought that would happen... So yeah contrary to popular belief (my own included) it isn't bad. I have quite enjoyed moving back. I like living with my fam. I have been working at the elementary school while I waited for my clearance to go through for this job that I just started this last week. The awesome job of which I speak is working in the Field Project Document Control group for the River Protection Project at the Hanford Site Waste Treatment Plant. I worked out there before my mission and I am pretty much doing the same work that I was before. There are still a bunch of the same people that I worked with before out there too. It is nice.
It has been fun hanging out with the fam. We have been working on some different projects. It has been fun.
One thing that is not fun is feeding the calf. Don't get me wrong...Eddie is a good little cow... but his pasture mates are not so good...
Everytime I go out to put him in the pen to feed him his grain the llamas come stare me down... now I don't know if anyone has ever been stared down by a llama but it is creepy! The llama above is just an example llama... not the real deal... Ok so 2 staring llamas is bad enough but then we have a stupid fat cow with horns. This cow likes to be around when we feed Eddie because she is hoping for some crumbs... but she is dumb and just gets in the way and makes Eddie spaz out a little more... Anyway. I get to have these wonderful adventures every other day. Awesome! Can't get that experience in Provo... Actually if you looked you could probably find someone with a bottle fed calf and a couple of llamas. :)
So the thing I miss most about Provo is all of my friends! Tonight I was chatting with a couple of my Provo buddies and we were playing a game of online risk. Nerdy I know. But it really did make me miss everyone. I am excited to go down to visit in January. It will be a short trip but it will be tons of fun. :) Well I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for my next post... If we are lucky it will be in the next month or so... :)

Sssooo.... it's been a while right?

Yeah So I am not the best blogger. But I am sure y'all have figured that out :) So Things have changed since the last time I wrote. I have moved again...Seriously I don't know why I keep moving. There is nothing more depressing than packing all your stuff up and realizing how much junk you have accumulated over time. But I moved to the best place ever! I moved in with my mission companion Christine in Pleasant Grove. It is kind of a long drive to work but I have my own room and it is soooo much bigger than anything I have been in before. Also I get to live with Christine! Plus we have a huge back yard and it is right at the base of the mountains! So besides the moving part I love it. Things at work are alright. I am getting a little bit bored of my job. We did the math the other day and figured out that I have listened to over 10,000 calls while I have worked in this job. Ugh!

Last week my mom came out for Women's Conference. It was a lot of fun! Mom went to both days. I went to the concert on Thursday night and then the whole day on Friday. So the show on Thursday night was kind of funny. We sat by this lady that was super crazy. She was like a 12 year old at a backstreet boys concert. I seriously haven't seen anyone dance like that to an acapella group... yikes! But it was a fun weekend. I liked having mom around. We have a good time hanging out with Josh and Krista.

So yesterday I thought I would spice things up a little bit and go to the Orem Library and get a library card. ( I know...if that is spicing it up I am lame.) But I went right after I went to the plasma center. So I was a little woosey...I was wandering all over the library looking for the books...I never found them! Seriously how is it that I went to the library and couldn't find books. I did however find the amazing dvd section and the cd section. The next stop was the sheet music section. Since when did they have sheet music at a library? Anyway. I walked around for like 45 minutes and found some stuff and then I got all pale and sweaty and felt like I was going to pass out. So I decided that I should get out of there. Anyway. I loved it! I can't wait to go back when I don't feel like poo. :) Well friends. I have to get off of here. I hope everyone has a great week! Love Ya!

Home Sweet Home

This last week I got to go home! It was great. For some reason it is good to go just be a Lloyd for a while. It was funny while I was home to see that my humor is exactly the same as the rest of the members of my family. It is nice to occasionally go hang out with people that know you for you and are completely judgement free. We got some good bike trips in. I got some good hang out time with Adam. Best of all... I didn't have to go to work or school. It was a nice break. It wasn't the best for my diet though...oh well! At work we are doing a biggest loser contest. I am excited! The winner gets a wii and a wii fit. So I have been really good with going to the gym and eating right...however this was disrupted going home. I am back to being good though. :)

Life is Wonderful.

So this last week has been a good one. I am really liking my new apartment. It has been so nice to move into a new place with new people and kind of have a fresh start. I really like my roommates. They have been so wonderful and welcoming. It is finally starting to warm up here. Thank Goodness!!! I have even been able to wear my flip flops! I am so excited to head off for spring break at home tomorrow. I am going with Heather and Brian. I am so looking forward to the break. So this last week it has been kind of strange. I have ran into like 3 people from my freshman and sophomore ward at BYU-Idaho. At work there is this guy that I monitor that I have been trying to figure out where I know him for for the last 4 months or so...I figured that he worked at APX the previous summer. I was up on the call floor the other day and he stopped me and said that he knew me from somewhere. I said that I was thinking the same thing. We played the guessing game for about five minutes till we decided that we were in the same ward at BYU-I. Then when we really thought about it we remembered that we were FHE siblings. Good thing I have such a great memory (yeah right!) Then the other day I was at the Plasma Center getting signed up to give plasma again (give is kind of a loose term here...basically the only reason I am going to do it is for the $$$ oh yeah and I like to save lives) Anyway the girl at the front desk looked at me and was like...I know you from somewhere. She looked super familar too... so we started to play the guessing game. We had it narrowed down to Provo or Rexburg and then she asked where I lived. We then figured out that we were neighbors at BYU-I. It is amazing how small the mormon world is :)
I hope everyone is having a great week! I will post again next week :)

This past week

So this is where I get a little boring and stop blogging...life is pretty much the same ol' same ol'...but things are going well. I am all moved in and situated in my new/old ward. I love it! I don't however love living in an apartment complex. I forgot about the stinking parking lot lights, the noise and being packed into little apartments. I miss the quiet and darkness of my old room. I have been having problems sleeping and waking up this past week. I made some changes to my bed/room that will hopefully help. I am getting excited to go home next week. Brian was over last night getting his hair cut and we were talking about our plans. I can't wait to go back home. It is weird but every year around this time I just itch to get back to Benton City...So luckily we have spring break :) I am debating if I am going to go over to Seattle while I am home. I love Seattle but have been quite a few times and have done the tourist things several times...the thing that might sway me is that they are going to go to Experience the Music Project/Sci-Fi Museum. Call me a nerd but I really want to go. Speaking of embarassing nerdiness...I keep checking to see if they have rated the new star trek movie. I will admit that I am a closet star trek watcher. This new movie looks pretty good. Well...everyone is probably getting sick of reading this by now...so I will quit. Oh man...one more thing...I have a curse! Whenever I wear flip flops for the first time of the season it ends up snowing....This has been a curse since my BYU-Idaho days... I think it was my castigo for sneakily wearing flip flops to campus. Anyway...I bought some new flip flops for the year (they are pretty cute too!) painted my toe nails a vibrant pink and thought that I was safe due to the warm spring weather...Let me tell you I was not safe...I ended up walking through sicky slushy snow :( it made me very sad. Oh well...it shouldn't be too much longer right?

What the Random!?!

So last night Heather and I went to get some dinner at Jason's Deli (yum!) And we were there filling up our drinks and this guy comes over to fill his up to. Lest you think he was a guy guy...he wasn't he was like a grandpa guy. Anyway. He looks at me and says "Careful don't drink too much you'll pee the bed" I just kind of laughed uncomfortably and tried to hurry up. Then he turns to Heather and says "you too!" and walks off. wow...weird...I know!

The prodigal blogger

So after a long, long break in my blogging...I think I will write a new post. Things have been a little crazy lately. Not terribly so but enough. I just got my last load from my former apartment. I had to move this last week due to a crazy roommate calling the city for zoning violations. It was quite unfortunate. This same roommate has been nothing but drama and problems since day one. I am kind of glad to be done with that. I can't wait for the day that I don't have to live with roommates anymore. I was talking to one of my friends the other day expressing this desire and they told me that I would miss it. Right now...I am not so sure. So yeah I moved back to good ol' reliable cinnamon tree. I moved into the apartment downstairs from the one I lived in before. It is good to be back. I really did miss the ward and am glad to have the same bishopric again. It has been kind of funny to see the look on people's faces when they see that I am back.
Other than the move things have been going well. School and work are pretty much the same. Oh wait...work is quite a bit different than the last time that I blogged (I don't even know if that is a correct term) They did pretty major layoffs. My manager and half of my department got let go. It was sad to see some of my friends leave. I am thankful that my position was secure. Sometimes I sit and wonder what has kept me at APX for so long. I am coming up on 2 years. Crazy!