beautiful

My life is beautiful and I am so grateful for it. I feel like I cannot say enough how blessed I am and how thankful I am for every opportunity, possession, family member, and friend that I have. I am so glad we have a holiday dedicated to purely being thankful. Each day is a gift and I love it so much. I have really noticed that life is just about as enjoyable as we make it and that the more grateful we are, the more things we find to be grateful for.

"Happiness is such as we make it"

-Joseph F. Smith.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Here are a few people that I am grateful for..

fun brothers

strong friends

talented friends

fun friends

a wonderful mother

a great brother

an amazing grandpa

adorable nieces and nephews

one of the best men I know

LIFE IS GOOD

Anneliese

I love the fall

So, I am still failing at blogging. Ha but I just wanted to do an update on my life this year so far because it's so wonderful.

First, school has actually been going really well! I've been doing really well on my tests and enjoying what I'm learning. I actually was grateful to take my statistics test a couple weeks ago..weird, i know! I was walking up the hill to the Testing Center looking at the mountains and the pretty sky and the fall air and all the students around me and the campus and all I could think was how grateful I was to be at this school and to be able to go take a test. I honestly love BYU and am so thankful to be getting my education here. There are so many people around me that inspire me and make me want to be a better person. I love having the gospel surround me and having that perspective on things all the time. It really is such a unique experience here. I'm already half way done with this semester and time is flying by way too fast and it's kind of freaking me out! After this year I will be half way done with college. That kind of makes me sad..life just keeps on going! I know I have so much to look forward to, I just wish I could hold on to all my favorite moments forever.

Second, on the note of time flying by...I had my 20th birthday! Now THAT was weird. No longer a teenager and I have to say it's bittersweet! For some reason, (this could be the BYU mentality sneaking in) I feel like I'm going to be an old maid in just a few years. Haha just kidding, I really know that I'm just about to hit my prime! Whoot! But being a teenager was fun and turning 20 is just making me realize those days filled with a lot less responsibility are now over. But, I like responsibility. Right? Right. Anyway, my birthday was SUCH a blast! I really think that I have the best friends and family in the whole world. I am so blessed. I woke up in the morning to a Halloween-wonderland in my apartment. Erin decorated everything with black and orange streamers and purple cob webs. She also drew me a cute picture and birthday note on my mirror and made an amazing breakfast! She is so thoughtful and put so much time into that!Then I went to school and my brothers took me to lunch at Cafe Rio. They are both really busy so it was nice of them to take time out of their day to do it! I went out to dinner with my old roommates from last year Erin and Kathryn and that was so much fun. It was so good just to hangout with those girls again, reminiscing on days gone by. haha but really, they're great. We went to Pirate Island Pizza and Kathryn had just gotten a concussion so it was sweet of her to suffer through it and come. Finally, I had our intramural volleyball game and I was running late so I ran into the gym to find streamers, balloons, posters, and people everywhere. I was confused for a minute and then all of them starting singing happy birthday and I realized it was my friends! haha I was totally surprised and they yelled and screamed so loud for me the whole game. It was so fun and nice! After that we had people over at my house for cake and ice cream and it was so good to see lots of friends. Overall, it was a FABULOUS birthday! I just love birthdays.

Me and some of the girls at the game.

In other news...I got accepted to BYU-Hawaii! I thought about it last year during those freezing winter months when i wanted to die and it sounded like a great plan. So, i applied and literally got accepted the NEXT day. I was really excited/surprised. I'm still not sure if I'm going or not yet because i don't know if i will have housing up there but we will see how that goes..

10 days before my birthday was my Mom's birthday. I was going to sit down and write a little blog note about her but we all know how bad i am at that so i'm going to do it now instead. I am seriously so grateful for my mom. She has so many amazing qualities that I really look up to and hope to someday have. Here are 59 reasons why I love her...(not that 59 is a significant number for any reason)

1. She gave birth to me

2. she had my 8 other siblings that i love so much

3. she was smart enough to marry my dad

4. she loves me

5. she is humble

6. i never hear her say anything bad about anyone

7. she is smart

8. she is a teacher

9. she has a strong testimony

10. she is basically an architect

11. she is hilarious

12. she can laugh at herself

13. she stayed sane while raising all 9 of us

14. she is one of the strongest women i know

15. she is hard working

16. she listens to my problems

17. she is proactive. she figures things out instead of waiting for someone else to do it for her.

18. she is encouraging

19. she expects a lot out of me

20. she is happy

21. she's an amazing seamstress

22. she's an amazing cook

23. she is not a material person

24. she makes the best out of any situation

25. she doesn't complain

26. she is super good at Dr. Mario

27. she is a loving grandmother

28. she doesn't look her age

29. she doesn't act her age (in a good way)

30. she provides our family with a lot of laughter

31. she will do anything for her kids

32. she keeps up with all 9 of us and their spouses and their children

33. she always let me know what was expected of me. Not by saying anything, but by being an example

34. she is a listener

35. she is a counselor

36. she teaches at a school

37. she loves her Mali-beamer

38. she is happy

39. she serves

40. she is healthy and tries hard to stay in shape

41. she loves her wii-fit

42. she can play nintendo games longer than i can

43. she isn't very competitive but will always join in on a game

44. she will always let me know when i'm doing something i shouldn't be doing

45. she let's me know when i'm doing something good

46. she supported me through all my volleyball years

47. she gives each of us kids a code reindeer name on our Christmas presents, even though we're all grown up

48. she's not boring-she spices up life

49. she made me many a sack lunch

50. she knows the Highland Fling

51. she is patient

52. she knows about every answer to any question

53. she has an amazing lexicon

54. she hates when people use apostrophes incorrectly

55. she can get frazzled and it's fun to watch :) haha

56. i see a lot of myself in her as i grow older

57. she is constantly improving herself

58. she is beautiful

59. She is my Mother

I love you Mom! Hope you had a good birthday!

Well, that's more than anyone wants to read (but I mostly do this as a journal anyway) so i'm going to go now.

Life is beautiful.

Anneliese

Soooo...I've kind of failed so far at this whole blogging thing. One more chance? Here it goes..

Well, I'm back up at BYU and it's great. It's funny to be back up here because I can still remember the excitement of last year. I didn't know what to expect and I was just super excited for everything. Going to my first class, new ward, new dorm, new roommates. It's interesting to come back and kind of have a handle on it. It's also crazy to think how much has changed since just one year ago. I really feel like I've changed a lot, for the better. I'm so happy that I made the decision to go to this school and to be where I'm at right now. I feel like I grew a lot more this past year than I ever have before and I can't wait to stretch myself even more this year. I learned so much about myself and others. Overall, it was just an amazing time all around!

So I live in a cute little condo on 9th east with one of my roommates that I met randomly in the dorms last year, Erin Riggs, one of my very best friends since 6th grade, Alexis Flake, and a new and amazing friend Lauren Filichia. I like living off campus so far but I miss the opportunity to meet so many new people all the time like I did in the dorms. Our ward seems like a lot of really great people. Most of them are Juniors or Seniors so I'm excited to learn from their experiences that they share.

One of my favorite things about being up here is that my two brothers Spencer and Stephen (Larry as the rest of the world, besides me and my sisters, calls him) are up here too. Last year Stephen and Spencer lived together South of campus a ways away so I didn't see them that much since I don't have a car. But this year, Stephen lives like a block away and Spencer isn't much further. I love being able to walk over to Stephen's house and hangout with him or go grab something. I love hanging out with their friends, they're hilarious. It's so nice to have them here because I know I always have someone just a few minutes away if I ever really need anything. They are such good brothers and do so much for me and I look up to them a lot. They have a lot of the qualities that I want in a future husband (don't worry I'm not looking to get married anytime soon!) and I'm just so grateful to have them! Here's us at the first football game:

My parents also came down for the game and I was able to get some tickets for them from some friends so they came along too and that was lots of fun. I love my parents so much. I wouldn't be who I am without them. They are amazing and after 9 kids have the parenting thing down pretty good. haha. But seriously. While I was home over the Summer I spent a lot of time with them and after being away and learning to appreciate them a little more I really enjoyed that time. They are so fun, funny, hardworking, honest, righteous and good. I just love them so much. While they were up here they bought lots of groceries for us..YESSS! That's always super nice. Also, I found out that I have like 9 cousins up here plus my two brothers. CRAZY! There are so many of us Mechams out here. I love my cousins! They are a blast to be with! We all got together for Abby's birthday and that was simply hilarious. Here are some pics of me and my parents and then with the cousins.

Die-hard cougs fans.

Anyway...we volunteered to make cookies for our wards cookie night tonight and some guys from our ward are coming over to help us make it so gotta go...

love,

Anneliese

Newbie

Helloooo blogging world!

So, here's the thing...I always thought blogs were something that you did when you were married with a couple of kids (and even then I thought I wouldn't make one). But this Summer I've been reading blogs of friends and complete strangers on my lunch break at work. I always love reading everyone's thoughts, seeing what they're up to and learning from other people. Also, I've noticed that blogs are like a journal with pictures added in. You can post all of your thoughts and feelings and then add in pictures to help you remember what time of your life it was. I love it! Especially since I've always been the worst journal keeper. I feel like knowing that other people are reading will somehow guilt me into updating more often. So that's it..i'm converted. I am now officially a fan of and a participant in blogging! Whoot whoot! I don't have a ton of time because I work a lot and then usually spend my free time hanging out but I will try to be a faithful little blogger. So enjoy and welcome to the fabulous life of Anneliese Mecham!