Air shows, cabins and Church talks

Memorial Day weekend was so fun! I'm going to attempt to go through it without boring anyone to death while still hitting on the best points.

Thursday was my last day of work which meant Friday was the beginning of a wonderful weekend. I drove up early Friday morning to Syracuse to meet up with Meg and her family for a quick breakfast before we went to the air show at Hill Air Force Base. This was a fun new experience for me and I loved it! Also Meg and I were called to speak on Sunday with a high councilor from her home stake up in Syracuse.

Lindsey and Adriana - Photo taken by Megan McFarland

Thunderbirds

Photo by Diana McFarland

On Saturday Meg and I went and finished registering, went back to Syracuse, finished our talks for Sunday, had dinner with her family, went to Adriana's piano recital (she did a great job btw), and played a most wonderful game called "Don't eat Pete!" You set out a few M&M's and one person closes their eyes while everyone else decides which M&M is Pete. The person then proceeds to eat M&M's one at a time. When they reach for Pete everyone yells "Don't eat Pete!" It's a wonderful game.

Don't eat Pete

I ended up sleeping up in Syracuse Saturday night so Sunday morning I got up and showered and put some finishing touches on my talk. We then headed off to 11:00 church to give our talks. It was such an amazing experience. I love speaking so much, especially when I get to speak with Meg. She's a wonderful speaking and it's such a joy to listen to her. After church we got ready to head up to drop Lindsey off at Oakcrest girls camp for the week and then continue on to Meg's cabin. It was quite cold  up there. So cold that there was snow on the ground when we got there and tiny snow flurries. We made a great fire and roasted Meg's home-made marshmallows. These were also used in our hot chocolate. So good! 

Meg's Cabin Sunday night

The view off the back porch with snow 

flurry

Diana roasting one of Meg's chocolate-chip marshmallows

Monday we cleaned up the cabin and got it all ready for the summer. Later in the day we went on a walk up to a little waterfall. It was so beautiful up there. I loved it. I spent a lot of time just lazing around, napping, cuddled up to Megan, and reading. It was so relaxing. I also think it's noteworthy to mention that there was a crane up there right off the back porch sitting on her eggs. Pretty neat.

The crane on her nest

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Puck loving life at the cabin

Photo by Diana McFarland

The waterfall - picture by Diana McFarland

Change

I was so excited to be at the University of Utah this coming fall semester. I assumed that I was done with all my general education requirements at SLCC. Once spring semester was over I sat down and looked at the requirements to find that I still need one more class! It was a shocking and stressful discovery. I was really looking forward to having a nice break from school this summer but it looks like I will be taking a class. I looked through for an interesting and easy class to take to fulfill the requirement and decided on Introduction to Music. I'm taking it online which I hope will provide me with the flexibility to take a week off for getting married.

Bishop Curtis at FHE

I am so sad to see my dear singles ward bishop leave us. He and his sweet wife are heading off to South Africa to serve a mission as the executive secretary the the area presidency. I am so excited for them yet so sad that they wont be here for the wedding. On Monday we had a BBQ next door at the Richard's house as a welcome to the new Bishopric and it was really quite fun. Being a ward photographer has been a really fun calling for me. It's interesting to note the different styles of taking pictures. The other photographer is outgoing and gets people to pose and the such whereas I am getting good at taking candid shots of people. It makes me feel like a bit of a creeper as I sneak around FHE taking pictures of people without them even knowing about it. I seriously love photography and I really want to get a new camera and some new lenses. Too bad they're so expensive and I'm so poor right now. All is well however. I am very grateful for the camera and lenses I do have.

Meg at FHE getting ready to roast a mollow

In closing, Meg moved back up to Syracuse to be with her family for these last two months before the wedding. I'm happy that she gets to spend some more time with her family but at the same time I'm just so sad that I don't get to see her as much. It's only been about 3 days since she left and I'm missing her like crazy. tying this back in to photography, she is my favorite person to photograph. Anywho, I am off to bed so I can pass the time more quickly. (I am leaving for Syracuse first thing in the morning for a mothers day breakfast with Meg and her family and I'm anxious to see her)

"Sam, you can do better."

Okay, so this is a post I wrote yesterday (Monday the 5th) and I'm just now getting around to posting it. Enjoy!

Yesterday was such an amazing day filled with my favorite person in the world. My Sunday morning meetings weren't too bad and then it was choir practice. We were supposed to be practicing in the young womens room but some committee from the 1st Ward was using it for a board meeting. We ended up having to meet in a tiny room above the bishops office with a tiny little keyboard. I'm not quite sure what's going to happen with this Christmas program. In Priesthood Cody Lundgreen gave the lesson. He shared a personal experience he'd had while back and it really touched me. He said that he was praying and felt like there was a wall between him and the Lord. As he knelt there pondering why this was happening he had a distinct impression come. "Cody, you can do better." I wonder if that's what I've been feeling these past few weeks/months. "Sam, you can do better." I know that I can. Especially with my gospel study. I love Sunday School and Sacrament because I get to sit with Meg.

After church Meg and I headed up to her home in Syracuse. I was a little nervous because being around her dad stresses me out a little. I feel like I need to prove myself to him and I feel like I'm failing. It scares me because I'm in love with his daughter and I want his approval to be dating her. I feel that I get along with the rest of her family really well even if we do have pretty different interests. One great thing from last night was I being able to listen to Meg and her sisters practice a song they're going to be singing. They all have amazing voices and I was sad that I wasn't going to be able to hear them sing this. I felt kinda bad because I think Adrianna was a little self conscious with me sitting there listening to them especially when they broke it down and had each of them practice their own parts one at a time.

I have a migraine today which is really messing with my emotions and memories. It's really interesting that I have one because I just finished writing a paper for biology about migraine headaches. I think that last night I had a dream about something going horribly wrong between me and Meg and the emotions from that dream and bleeding over.

I'm really stressed about finals. I had my first dream about failing my finals last night and it's got me really worried. I feel like such a bad student because I haven't been studying up to this point and I really need to start. Mostly I'm worried about Math and Biology. In a few minutes I'm going be headed into Biology to start the review days. I missed a good chunk of math this morning because of my migraine and over sleeping. One week from tomorrow I will be done with finals and winter break will have started. Oh what a much needed break that will be.