Why I love my family part 3: Daddyo

1) He and I can talk about things together that I don't feel like I talk to anyone else about.
2) He loves my mom more than anything.
3) He is a pillar of strength and hard-work.
4) He's got great hands for massages.
5) Like Clayton, he's a big tough guy on the outside, but a softy on the inside.
6) We rock out to oldies together in the car.
7) I think his number goal in life is to make his family happy.
8) He's almost as goofus of a dancer as I am.
9) I love listening to stories from him growing up.
10) He would do anything for me.

Love you, Dad!!! See you tomorrow :)

Why I love my family part 2: Claymeister

1) His name is Claymeister
2) He is my other best friend.
3) He likes to show off his muscles and peach fuzz to make him feel manly.
4) We know how to tease each other.
5) The kid is strong as an ox and will help you with just about any chore that proves this.
6) He is super athletic, and we can go play anything together.
7) Even though he's got the manly exterior he's a softy on the inside.
8) He never sings the lyrics right to songs, and it makes me laugh so much!!
9) He has a powerful drive to do his absolute best at everything he does.
10) We can talk about anything forever!

LOVE YOU, BUD!

Why I love my family part 1: Janelle

1) She loves her family more than anything in the world!
2) She is a best friend!! -->stay tuned for who the others are
3) She made my totally awesome blog layout for Christmas :)
4) She makes the best grilled cheese sandwiches and other stuff, but I just can't make grilled cheese sandwiches like her!!
5) She thinks stupid things are funny with me when no one else thinks they're funny.
6) She gave me a niece.
7) She is brilliant!
8) She has such a solid foundation in the gospel...that goes along with her brilliance.
9) We tend to go crazy together when no one else is going crazy, like when we broke a bed from bouncing around too much on Christmas Eve, haha
10) She loves to share joy. Whether it is learning to make something new, sharing a YouTube video, telling funny stories, or serving others, she loves to SHARE THE LOVE!!!!

For your Christmas viewing pleasure, part 2

This was the Disney special on ABC this week. I thought it was really funny and super creative :) It's about 20 minutes, watch it!!

For your Christmas viewing pleasure

This will make you laugh, I promise. If doesn't, you are too stressed out :)

Calm before the storm

I got to go home for Thanksgiving this year, well sort of. I went to Cleveland and the family was there and then we drove back to Connecticut for Thursday and flew back to Utah on black Friday. Being with family was so nice. I think the older I get the more I love them! Not that I didn't love them before, but I am appreciating them and yes, loving them more than I think I used to :). Miss Julie (19 months now) is growing so fast. She looks JUST like Janelle did. She loves to be a big kid and drink out of adult cups, and in this case a water bottle. She actually did pretty good at swallowing the water and not letting it all dribble down, so cute :) This little video also has Gramps doing his Donald Duck which I hadn't heard in years, I love you dad!!! Julie, wasn't sure what to think of it:

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Here's some pictures I've posted from the semester

The reason I came back to Utah on Friday was because I REALLY wanted to go to the BYU-Utah football game. I am so glad I did. It was the best football game I have ever been to, hands down! I couldn't have asked for a better game as my last as a student! I hope to some day be able to go to another BYU game at Lavell Edwards Stadium, if I don't get to go, I can die happy. I watched BYU beat Utah, at home, in overtime! Wow! Wow!! My favorite picture from all the post-game stuff:

The fans rushed the field as soon as Andrew George was into the end zone with the winning touchdown, it was incredible! I couldn't believe it. The stadium literally exploded!!!! I was a little too far up so I didn't rush it but I took some sweet pics of the whole field. I lost my voice for the next two days...I can die happy :) :D

Other good news (almost as good as the 26-23 win) is that I know where I'm going to be for clinical next semester and I got my first choice!! I'm going to be on a Thoracic ICU, which is exactly what I want to do after graduation! YES!!!!!! I super stoked about that!

Finals are almost here, and I'm feeling the pressure, so don't be surprised if I don't post until Christmas :)

The little things in life

This is post to help me vent, and then to help me be grateful.

THINGS THAT BUG ME:
-People that drag their feet (literally and figuratively)
-People who think they know what they're talking about when they don't
-Alarm Clocks
-Cold french fries
-Busy work
-Ingenuine people
-Vegetarians
-Vampires and everything associated with them
-Open majors
-People that don't wear blue to football games
-Baseball


THINGS THAT BRING ME JOY:
-Packages from home
-Sweatshirts
-Lemon poppy seed bread
-Sleeping in and just waking up, and not to an alarm clock
-Doing favors for people
-Tennis
-Christmas movies
-Chocolate covered Oreos
-Getting mail
-Having actual free time, when there is really no work for me to do (this RARELY happens, but it's a joy when it come around :) )
-Spontaneous dance parties
-Good veins (yes, if I'm staring at your arm, I'm checkin out your veins!)
-Looking through old pictures

I got the SWINE FLU...

...SHOT. Don't worry, I just have swine flu viruses floating around inside me. My white blood cells are hard at work producing antibodies. If you don't hear from me within a month, I've died of Guillain-barre syndrome from getting a completely untested vaccine.

Christmas Trees

I went to the library today to get some work done, and I looked up to see a Christmas tree in corner. I haven't decided whether or not I like this. I love Christmas and I love the season it brings and everything that comes with it. This year I feel even more excited for Christmas because it is the last one that I have to travel for since next year I'll probably be at home already. I am really excited, but remember how I just blogged about how much I love fall? I don't want Christmas to be here yet because I want to enjoy the rest of fall. Come the week of Thanksgiving, or even the weekend before I will be happy to welcome the Christmas decorations but not quite yet :)

FAN

I am not a fan of Halloween. I think it's a dumb holiday. I think it will be fun when I have kids that are under the age of 10, but anything other than that, it's dumb.

That being said...

I am a fan of FALL!!
I love fall for these reasons: the colors, pumpkin flavored everything, sweatshirts, college football, cool weather, Thanksgiving, the beginning of Christmas, crunchy leaves, scarves, back at school with friends, and Clayton's soccer games (at least when I'm home...)

Back to school

At this point, the semester is at the half way point. I have been in the ICU this semester so far. There are a few different units that we get to be on: Thoracic (any patients that had an open chest surgery), Cardiac, Shock/Trauma, Neuro, and Respiratory. I went into nursing school thinking that I was going to go into emergency. Well, this semester I have changes my mind. I am definitely more interested in ICU. I have fallen in love with it, in fact! Thoracic or Cardiac is my thing. I already knew that I loved heart stuff but I've had it confirmed to me this semester. I have just really loved my nursing classes this semester. ICU is my thing. My other nursing class is Psychiatric nursing. I will have psych clinicals starting in November until the end of the semester. This class is nice because it's kind of chill. It's not really demanding on time and the professors and pretty relaxed.

Football is in full swing also and I have had lots of fun going to the games and having parties during the away games. Unfortunately any chance at doing well nationally this season went down the toilet when we lost to Florida State. But it's been really fun. This upcoming weekend is Homecoming and we are playing TCU. It going to be a really good game because TCU is a legit team, a definite challenge. ESPN is broadcasting College Game Day from Provo this weekend too, so Provo going to be a party this weekend. I'm excited though. It should be fun.

There hasn't been a whole lot else that's been going on. Football and school is all that happens in the fall :) But if anything exciting happens, I'll let you know!!!

I love AMERICA!!!

England and Europe were amazing. I am so blessed to have experienced that, but the truth is: family is the greatest. My time at home this summer was the best! When I got home these were my feelings, a poem by Henry Van Dyke explains it:

'Tis fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down
Among the famous palaces and cities or renown,
To admire the crumbly castles and statues of the kings,--
But now I think I've had enough of antiqued things.
So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and flag is full of stars.

I learned on this trip to be grateful for the wonderful blessings that we have in America. The wonderful culture, government, people, and history that we have. I love it!!!

The rest of the summer...

I realized that I have put up pictures from Europe, but I haven't really updated much on what's happening right now. First I'll give you a quick recap of the summer. I got home from England on June 24. Janelle and Julie were in Connecticut visiting. I was home about 18 hours before the Pioneer Trek started for our stake. I was one of the camp nurses (still very jet lagged) but it was so much fun. I mostly just dealt with blisters and headaches, nothing too big. Except on the last night. I good friend that I go to church with brought her little boys to camp to see their dad and be with the youth, and one fell and hit his head on a rock and bled all over, he was okay and luckily one of the visitors in the camp that night was a doctor and bandaged him up real good, even though I could have handled it :) Just kidding, it was great fun though!

Hosing down as soon as I got home. (PS: check out the sweet sandal lines on my feet)

After trek, the family basically just played with Julie the whole time. We taught her to not be afraid of the "splish splash pool" that Grammy bought her. We also tried to get her walk, to no avail. They were in Connecticut for fourth of July. It was a beautiful day and we spent it at home playing Frisbee, barbecuing, and taking naps out on the grass. It was so much fun and so relaxing. I loved being home with the fam this summer. One of Julie's favorite new things to do was drink out of our drinking glasses instead of her sippy cup. She would dive face first into the glass and then latch onto the glass with her little teeth and the water would spill everywhere but she wouldn't let go and it was the funniest, cutest thing ever!!

I took a weekend trip up to Palmyra, NY for the annual pageant. It rained and the show got cancelled about 15 minutes into the performance because of the thunder and lightening directly over our heads, but luckily I kind had just gone for the fun social aspect of it, and not the show. I had seen in about 5 times already. We got really wet that night though, the tent, not so waterproof after all :) But no worries. It was way fun to spend time with my girls: Lauren, Kyra and Jolysa. It was really muddy and we played frisbee jumping in giant mud puddles. It was great!

Napping in the one dry spot out in the parking lot :)

Mom and I did some cleaning. Clayton and I did some tennis playing. I went to a bunch of Clayton's summer soccer league games. We also went to the midnight show of Harry Potter with some friends, and dressed up. Yes, I dressed up for Harry Potter. We also had picture parties, where I went over my pictures from the summer adventures. I never really got unpacked from England until the day before it was time to come back to Utah, mostly because unpacking and packing are my favorite thing ever! (Please note the sarcasm).

Mom and I then took a road trip out to Cleveland. We visited Janelle, and Julie and Ben for a week. I got to see the church history sites in Kirtland, which I'd never been to. I flew straight to Utah from there and mom drove back to Connecticut.

Spending time at home was so great. I wasn't really ready to leave (as I have been in the past). It was so nice to spend time with the people I love most in the world. The summer was relaxing and was exactly what I needed!

When I got back to Utah, I went on a trip with some friends down to Zion's National Park. We did an overnight trip, and besides the ants crawling on me night, and the gastrointestinal-challenging hot dogs, it was so fun!!!! Nothing beats 80 mph speed limits on open roads, In'n'Out, Matt Nathanson music blaring and great friends in a beautiful place on earth! It was a super fun time.
I have a couple friends that are AMAZING photographers, so I stole these pictures from them :) Not my talent.

We found this really sweet swimming hole that took about an hour of our time. It was way fun!!
School started shortly thereafter and well, I haven't stopped running since, but what else is new? Right?

PS: Sorry the spacing with the pictures and the text is all weirded out.

A successful week

So luckily that little outburst on Monday only lasted a couple hours, luckily because I had a TON of stuff to do this week. But I am happy to report that it all went really well. Even if I complain about work, I seriously LOVE this semester. ICU is the mostest awesomest thing everest!!! I love it and am going to be really sad when it's over and I go to psych clinical. I'll keep my fingers crossed for capstone though. This upcoming week is my rotation in the ER for the semester which I am really excited about, but I honestly think it's going to take a lot of blood and guts to make me fall in love with it more than ICU. I'm so morbid, somtimes I worry myself....a true nurse in the making (7 months and counting...)

Over all life is going pretty good right now: love my classes, won the football game this weekend, in love with Robert Langdon, and fall weather is coming in. I am more than content. :)

It's happening

I just crashed....into the motivation wall. It's not gonna happen.

TV shows premier this week
+
new Dan Brown book
+
Grades don't really matter anymore (yeah, yeah, don't lecture me, I know)
=
Serious lack of motivation

Santorini

Have you ever seen the movie, "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants"? The parts that were filmed in Greece, were filmed on the island of Santorini, where was spent three days. It was so glorious. Doing nothing, laying on the beach, cruising all around the island on 4-wheelers, swimming in hot springs, hiking volcanoes, watching world famous sunsets. It was UNFORGETTABLE!!!!! Here's the pictures from our couple days in paradise:

SANTORINI PICTURES

The SANTORINI Airport
When we were booking flights back to London, we saw a lot of flights that went back to Athens, but luckily found a direct flight back to London. We didn't realize until travel day how lucky we were. First of all, the airport is only in operation twice per week, and there is only one flight per week directly to London, the others went back to Athens. Well we get the airport and immediately as we walk in the door, we have to put our bags through a security belt thing, manned by one guy that was no older than me. Heidi had the hair dryer and straightener at the bottom of her backpack and I guess how they were situated it looked like a gun. The guy got really nervous and asked Heidi to empty her bag. When we finally got through "security" checkpoint 1, we went to the counter that had a neon green construction paper sign with "London" written with a Sharpie on it. We checked in and then went through a second security point run by a bunch of high school age kids. I had put a whole tube of toothpaste in bag, hoping I could get it through because I had just bought it. I had forgotten that I had my water bottle in there. They stopped me and told I had to throw away my empty water bottle, didn't say a word about the toothpaste, or the gallon sized plastic bag full of liquid containers. We show our passports to the security guard that was at the "international terminal" (there was only four gates in the airport). He wasn't happy that we didn't have a stamp for Italy because they didn't give us one of the sleeper train, but he got over it, stamped, and lit up a cigarette as we went into the gate area. Everyone in the area was sitting on the ground because there was 5 chairs for a full flight worth of people. About 20 minutes after the flight was supposed to take off (the plane had been sitting out there, and nobody was doing anything important) they cleared us all out behind the passport counter, and then told us to line up, yeah right. It was a pushing and shoving match to show the two teenagers our ticket and passport to go line up again. Really organized. They let the "preference passengers" board the shuttle bus first, then once they drove us 50 feet to the airplane. We finally got on the plane. We had to show our ticket to the flight attendant. Michelle didn't and she pulled on Michelle's backpack as she started to go down the isle to make sure for a fourth time that she really was supposed to be on the plane. The special people that got to sit down on the be us ended up being the last ones on the plane, so they paid $15 extra, to sit down for a 30 second shuttle ride. Wow. The funniest part about the whole story is that Santorini is an international airport. :)

The video:
The second clip in the video I had to take, it was just too funny. These group of locals were standing around all shouting at the same time at each other. I have no idea what they were saying, but it was pretty entertaining :)

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

What happened in Athens?

Dear Athens,
Why did you hate me so much? It wasn't very nice that you made my life so difficult. But that's okay, I still love you. I think you're awesome and think it would be totally cool if we hung out again sometime. No hard feelings, ok?
Love, Candice

To reread the crazy adventures from Athens, click here.
To see pictures from Athens, click here.

I didn't take too many pictures in Athens because I was sick and I looked it and was just feeling kind of crappy all day, (pun intended) :)

RRRRRRoma!

We went from Paris to Rome on the sleeper train and it was hell on earth, but luckily the traveling wasn't a predictor of what the city would be like.

For all the pictures, CLICK ME!!!

THE SLEEPER TRAIN
When we were making plans to go to Europe, I had read people's travel blogs and the suggestions were to take a sleeper train from Paris to Rome because you would be to see the Alps and it was just a more fun experience. We found tickets that were about the same price as airline tickets so we got them. Well if anyone is reading this and thinking about doing sleeper trains, DON'T!!!! It was the worst thing ever! We got there are there was this lady dressed in full tradition African gear sitting on the bench, taking up the whole thing with her bags and her, instead on putting them on the racks or under the bench. We put our stuff out of the way and pretty sure our other bunk mates came (6 people in total). The French couple that came in were friendly and kind of annoyed with the African lady too. She decided to take her shoes off (PEW-EE!) and start massaging her feet. It smelled, and it was about 85-90 degrees in there. We went down the "snack car" and they had dried out sandwiches and...oh wait, that was it. The bathrooms were the size of airline bathrooms but smelled like a combination of cows, burned broccoli, and throw-up. So in the morning when we were stopped in Milan, there was a group of high school students from Texas that got off the train, the African lady poked me really hard to wake me up, "your people leaving, get up. Your people leaving." My response, "no, we're going to Rome. Those aren't our people." She left the room and we never saw her again. I had set my alarm to get up at about 4am so that I could go out and see the Alps and there was nothing. So overall the sleeper train, no good. But it makes a great story!! :)

Rome was truly amazing. I had mixed feelings about it though. Of all the cities and places that we went, it was the place that I felt the least safe. But overall I am so glad that I got to see what I did. I am so blessed to have been able to go on this trip and see what I did.

My favorite thing in Rome: THE SISTINE CHAPEL
...which is actually the Vatican City, but oh well. I know that there has been a lot of preservation and restoration over the years, but it AMAZED me at how vibrant the colors were and just how amazing it was. I knew I was in the presence of greatness.

Here's the videos I took during our trip to the Vatican.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Education Week

Brigham Young University hosts a campus Education Week once per year right before the school year starts. It is a week mainly designed for educating adults on MANY different topics. Here's what the website describes it as:

Campus Education Week, begun in 1922, is a program unique to adult continuing education in the United States. For one week each August the program utilizes the campus of Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah) to present approximately 1,000 classes on education, religion, marriage, family relations, health, history, genealogy, science, youth interests, and many other areas. The program is designed primarily for adults, although anyone age 14 and over may attend. It is believed to be the largest continuing education program of its type.

It is truly an amazing opportunity for me to be able to attend. This was my 5th or 6th time going, I can't remember but it is always so powerful. I love the timing as well heading straight into school for the semester. It rejuvenates me and inspires me to be the best that I can be.

The classes that I went to this week, probably not by chance, had an overwhelming theme of LOVE. The love of our Heavenly Father has for each one of us individually, the love of Christ and his sacrifice so that we might return to him, the love each one of us needs to continually develop for our family and all those around us. I learned numerous times through different speakers that love is indeed the most powerful force in the world. We learn in the Book of Mormon that charity, the pure love of Christ, NEVER FAILETH. President Hinckley said this: "Love is the only force that can erase the differences between people or bridge the chasms of bitterness."

One of the teachers of the classes I went to shared this video clip with us that reduced everyone in the room to tears. It was so powerful and sent such an important message.

Think about who you need to say, "I love you" to and who needs a hug today.

I <3 U !!!!

Understanding Automatic Door FAIL

One of the websites I check everyday for a daily dose of laughter is failblog.org. It basically is a website of "what were they thinking?" videos, pictures, newspaper articles etc. Some are funny, some are crude, this made me really laugh! Enjoy :)

PARIS!!!

Paris was an absolutely beautiful city. I went into it thinking that it was going to be my least favorite because I was never really interested in French history, and I'm not a super artsy-fartsy kind of girl and I always pictured Paris as that. I quickly changed my mind. The city was beautiful! The buildings had beautiful architecture and detail, and not just the famous touristy ones, but everywhere! While we were there is was cold and rainy. When you look through the pictures you'll see that I am wearing the same sweatshirt in basically all of them. We were in Paris for three days but I kind of look like I was only there one because I'm wearing the same thing in all the pictures. It was cold and that was the only sweatshirt that I had with me.

For ALL the pictures, CLICK HERE.

My favorite thing that we in the city was see the Eiffel Tower at night. It was so AWESOME!!!
Every hour, on the hour the tower would sparkle for 10 minutes. We were up on the Arc looking out at the Tower for 9pm. We decided to take the subway down to the base for the 10pm. And it was so cool!

My second favorite thing that we did was The Pantheon. The Frenchies liked the one in Rome (pictures to come later) and so they copied and made their own in Paris. It didn't really look anything alike on the inside, mostly just on the outside. The reason it was my favorite was the crypts down below. There were so many famous people buried there, it was pretty neat!


The Laundry Story
On our last night in Paris at about 9:30 we needed to do laundry. We asked the guy at the front desk and he pointed us in the direction of the closest laundromat. We find it no problem, and we go in and start to read the signs to figure we we need to do since they are all in French (none of us speak French). At 10pm sharp, as we are still trying to figure out what we do, the lights automatically turn off and the door to the shop is closing. I RUN over to the door and catch it before it closes, scared that we are going to get locked in or something. Of course after we gather up our laundry and leave we see the sign that says (we think) not to start laundry after 9pm. So we are kind of standing around looking stupid and a cute elderly couple is walking down the street and they start talking to us French. We realize that they are trying to tell us where another laundromat is. Talk about a language barrier! We kind of get the drift of what they are saying to keep going down this street and then take your 3rd or 4th right and it would be there. Please try and picture this, three 20-something girls walking around in t-shirts and gym shorts carrying a huge duffel bag of clothes at 10pm in a residential area of Paris. We looked awesome. About 15 minutes later by some MIRACLE we find this Laundromat right as we were about to turn around and head back to the hostel before we get ourselves lost. Well, of course it was closed. So we go back and decide that we are just going to have to do it all in the morning. We get the the original place early enough so that we don't waste the day away and there an overflowing washing machine. There was soap seeping out all over :) The person that had that load didn't come in the whole time that we were there so we didn't get to see a reaction or anything, but it was fun to watch! It was quite the adventure!!!

Videos of Paris:

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Troubles with pictures

I've been having some troubles uploading pictures from Scotland and from our first trip to London. The reason is because those pictures got transferred to CDs and the CDs got damaged in all the moving around. I am trying to salvage what I can, but it's taking a long time. I don't want to put up pictures of some of the trip without the whole thing so I'm skipping over those pictures and will come back to them later. I've decided to move on to the rest of Europe and then when I'm done with those, I'll upload what I have of Scotland and London.

FINALLY!!!

I realized that I haven't posted anything on the blog in well over a month. The reason: I have been having the summer of a lifetime and haven't stopped to blog! But I'm back in Utah now and have some time on my hands before school starts so I'm updating now and hope to be able to get all my pictures up from this summer!!! First, we'll finish up my study abroad experience. Many of you may have already seen these pictures via facebook, but if not here are the links. I'll post some videos from our adventures too!

A Saturday afternoon in England

SEE PICTURES HERE
Carianne and I went for an adventure to a park that had some hiking trails in it. We hiked out to a old mill and then decided to take a turn that we weren't completely sure where it led to. We ended getting lost, but it was tons of fun. We knew the general area of where we were, but it was still adventurous and we found our way back safe and sound. Here are videos of some sheep that we had fun with and the view of where we were :)

Sheep Video

Getting Lost Video (sorry about the noise, it was windy)

Pride and Prejudice

SEE PICTURES HERE
Pemberly is Mr. Darcy's home in Pride and Prejudice. In the long 5 hour version from A&E, Pemberly was filmed at Lyme Park. In the newer version with Kiera Knightly it is filmed at Chatsworth. The movie The Duchess was also filmed at Chatsworth. We got to visit both locations and they were truly beautiful estates! Lyme Park is owned by the government and is in the National Trust. Chatsworth is still home to the Duke and Duchess of somewhere that I can't remember, but they open part of their home to the public for tours and the grounds were open too! It was awesome!


The Lake District

SEE PICTURES HERE
This was quite an adventurous day! We had made plans before we even came to England that we were going to spend a weekend in the Lake District, spending the night in a hostel somewhere. We booked our hostel the night before we went. When we got to the Lake District is was raining, hard, a lot. We had been planning on doing hikes, so that was sort of out. We then decided to go see the Beatrix Potter house (she wrote The Velveteen Rabbit). We got the visitor's center for the town that we had taken the train into, and found out that the house was closed that day. They were showing us some other things that we could do even thought the weather stunk. Michelle and I were immediately sold on the "Cars of the Stars" museum that was in a town about 45 minutes away. We jumped on the bus and got up to this town of Keswick. We were mostly excited about seeing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. We take the bus up to the town and the museum end up being on this strange side street that we barely found. We go in and find out that we aren't allowed to take pictures, yeah right. We didn't just come all the way up there to see these famous cars and weren't going to take pictures. So we snuck some out of the pockets of our coats. :)
We wander around this town for a bit and find out that this is the place that pencils were invented and they had a Pencil Museum and the largest pencil in the world at 8 feet long, who knew? We also mosied over to the 007 James Bond Museum. It was owned by the same guy that owned Cars of the Stars so we figured we wouldn't be able to take pictures so we just went over and took pictures outside. When Michelle and I were done with our adventure in Keswick, the other girls had called us and said that they were going to cancel the hostel and go back to Huddersfield because of the rain. Michelle and I figured that would be fine. We got back to the bus stop to meet Carianne so we could go home together and we found this trail that ended leading up to a beautiful overview of a lake. We walked through a sheep field. When we finally got back on the train to go back to Huddersfield, we saw the Elders on the train. We talked with them for a while. They asked us if we knew a sister that was serving in their mission that had been in the nursing program at BYU. Carianne knew her because she had dated her brother at one point. SMALL WORLD!!!!! It was a crazy day but it was beautiful there and we got to see a lot!

Our crazy day:

the U S of A

I'm back in the USofA. It's been 8 weeks, and I've loved the whole thing but am SOOOO happy to be home! I was home sick for sure! But I have thousands of pictures to go through to pick out the best to show you. Don't worry, I got lots of time this summer and will be posting things as soon as I'm done oogling over my niece who is here with my sister. Keep checking back!
-Candice

A bittersweet day

Yesterday I made that post about our awesome day. It was truly awesome but it had the potential to be horrendous. Let me tell you what happened. The night before we ate dinner at a restaurant right outside our hostel. It was good food but the whole experience was a nightmare. First of all the guy really wanted us to ate there and had promised us free drinks, dessert and 10% off our dinner. We were looking for a place to eat anyways so we sat down. He totally ripped us off and wouldn't give us our check for 2 hours because he needed the tables to look full. So once we finally got us our check, it was not what he said and we argued but he wouldn't budge and we wanted to get out of there anyways. Well 8 hours later, all three of us are up. Food poisoning. Eww. I wake up with time of month cramps on top of being sick. The next day we were going on a walking tour of Athens and Heidi almost didn't go, but then decided too. On the the walking tour, I got sunburned. During the course of the afternoon we went to an ATM and I put my card in to get money and the machine wouldn't give it back. It said "The transaction has timed out. The card has been captured. Please contact the provider." Well we tried to call the bank I used it at, no answer. They don't open until Monday and we will be half way to Santorini by then. I wasn't too worried about for the rest of the day because I knew the card was safe in a machine and not out wandering the streets. Later in the day, we still all have serious gastrointestinal problems going on (I'll leave it at that), and decided not to eat anything. We each downed two bottles of Gatorade though and immediately felt better. We were really dehydrated. Last night we went to the movie theater. Here that means on a rooftop with the lit up Acropolis on one side of you and watching the movie on a big projector screen. It was so fun! We saw Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (I wouldn't reccommend it) in English with Greek subtitles. But the whole experience was fun! After the movie I started making phone calls and it was like pulling teeth to try and explain the situation. I had to by a calling card to talk with the bank and another credit card company. It had 222 minutes on it and now only about 40. I think I'm all sorted now, but I will still have about $120 in fees to pay in order to cash now. But what's done is done. Oh well.

As you can see it COULD have been a really horrible day. But luckily the Lord blessed me with patience, beautiful weather, and the opportunity to be in Athens so I was okay with it all. Miss you all, I'll be back to the states before I know it!

The place of Gods

I am in Greece. We flew into Athens yesterday and I absolutely love it here! We did all the touristy stuff today, the Acropolis, Temple of Zeus, original Olympis sites, my favorite The Theatre of Dionysis. It is so beautiful here, and wicked hot!!!!! But I love it. We'll have fun tomorrow again and then take a ferry early Monday morning out to the Greek island of Santorini. I am so PSYCHED!!!!!! I can't believe that the trip is coming to a close. I have had so much fun and seen so much. Today was completely surreal for me. The places I saw today were places I have dreamed of visiting since I was in fifth grade!!! WOW!!! It was awesome. Talk to you later!

all roads lead to rome

paris was awesome! im in an internet cafe right now and the keyboqrd is totqlly different. and it*s really hard to type, so im sorry if you cant read this, haha. were gettin on a train to rome tonight, yay!!! ok this is too hard to type, see you later!!!

paris

(phone post again) hey everyone. i've been in london for the last couple days. heidi, michelle and i took a 5:25 train to paris this morning. weare now in our hostel waiting to get into our room. it's in a pretty part of town it feels pretty good so far. i probably won't get around to posting any pics for a couple weeks, sorry. but i'll let you know where i am :) BONJOUR...ps: i don't speak a lick of french, oh boy!!!

I'm in Scotland!!!

Fair warning, im typing this on my phone so i may use abbrreviations and the grammer will be terrible. i just wanted to give everyone an update that im in scotland and i absolutely LOVE it here. it beats out england in every respect!!! the people here are sooo friendly and love talking to us and finding why we are here. in nurse i went around with today is one of the nicest ladies i've ever met! the scenery here is breathtaking. no nessie sighting yet, but we did look for her yesterday :) we went to a castle that was down on the loch and it was beautiful. i only have wonderful things to say about scotland!!!! we have been in Inverness for a couple days and tomro we are going to do some touristy stuff and go to erin's sister's house in blackford for the weekend before heading to london for a couple days and then off to paris!!! i can't believe that this stidy abroad is coming to a close so soon. i have learned so much. today was the last nursing day and now we are on holiday!!! well, my hand hurts from typing on this tiny keyboard, so i'm heading off, but best wishes to all from SCOTLAND!!!! cheers

April showers bring May FLOWERS

This weekend's trip I was on a flower kick. I took a lot of pictures of flowers. These are quick, easy uploads and don't require explanation so I decided to put these up. I don't update the blog too often because I'm too busy having fun and I don't want to spend the time putting pictures up and writing captions. Don't worry, you'll see them all eventually!!

Cheers from England!!