Beautiful Savior

Fair is the sunshine
Fairer the moonlight
and all the stars in heaven above
Jesus shines brighter 
Jesus shines purer
and brings to all the world His love


Fair are the meadows
Fairer the woodlands
robed in the flowers of blooming spring
Jesus is fairer
Jesus is purer 
He makes the sorrowing spirit sing


Beautiful Savior!
Lord of the nations
Son of God and Son of man
Thee will I honor
Praise and give glory
Give praise and glory evermore


This is one of my favorite hymns. And thanks to a concert I went to tonight, I've been thinking of it the rest of the evening.

ring-a-ling (pictures of my PERFECT "temporary ring")

Here are some pictures of my precious temporary ring. I am completely ecstatic about this ring, but I have a real one on the way. Still I cherish this ring and its meaning. Dalin and I have very similar taste which is so lucky. I am so blessed to have found him!

12 little diamonds = our 12 future children...just playing ;)

eiffel tower. for those of you who didn't recognize it...

You would be surprised about hard this was for me...

SAVE THE DATE.

a whole lot of wedding stuff

Well, here are the ideas my mom and I have been working with currently. Do you notice a theme?...

haha i love lemons

these pom pom flowers are so cool. haha they remind me of the clovers in Horton Hears A Who.

i like the simplicity of this cake. i would change the flowers on top, however

i love the hanging glass bottles. i am all about colored bottles

love these sleeves. so vintage-looking

such a nice, oceany idea

i think that these dresses are so sweet!

i love the buttons up the back!

i love the bicycle and her stylish heels

adorable picture....

i love her tea-length dress. haha, so precious

I guess the things I like mostly are the bright, happy colors (nice and summery as well) and the slight ocean theme. I like the idea of incorporating sea glass, antique glass bottles, and sand-dollars on the tables with flowers. I just love the ocean so much. And Dalin.

Engaged!!!!!! (May 28, 2011)

Dalin asked me! We were in Provo Canyon and he did exactly what I had wanted; kept it sweet and private. I have known that we are getting married for a while now...but it was surreal when he got down on one knee and asked me. (It made me so happy that he did that by the way! I had almost forgotten that was a tradition.) As he was making his little speech before proposing, I thought, "Wow, this is it. This is real! This is the one time this will happen to me." It went by really fast in my mind.

After climbing down from our position, we called and told our moms right away, then walked back to the main park to grab our lunches and eat overlooking the waterfall that was nearby. I felt so happy! Honestly, it didn't feel all that different between us since I had known we were getting married, but it did feel nice for it to be official. And when I say nice I mean spectacular. This was especially because I did not know what to call Dalin beforehand! I hate saying "boyfriend"-- it sounds far too temporary. But now I can say fiance and not feel silly! 

It was really a wonderful day overall. We saw three snakes and Dalin carved an arrowhead (the real way ;) which I am holding on to for display in our future home. We had a good conversation and I truly enjoyed our long walk. Dalin did just what I had requested. He is very sincere. I am so very lucky that he is mine!!!

We climbed to this spot, then he asked me to marry him :)

This is only my temporary ring, but I love it so much!

This is me...officially engaged to Dalin Brent Gunnell !!!

Waiting, waiting, waiting

Much patience is required when the love of your life (life, meaning existence in this instance) asks your father if he could marry you. You know what that means...... (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I think that I have learned to be considerably more patient in the last few months...I do. Because I have not seen Dalin nearly as much as I would like to, for one. And that has been freaking hard enough. Sigh, but I am learning to cope, and I know this must be good for me. Heavenly Father knows what I need to go through, and I am using this time to improve myself before I take the next step. So maybe it is necessary. 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder ~Shakespeare 

(oh, I'm sure, Shakespeare...such a stupid excuse for an idiom)

Dalin and I have grown incredibly close because of the distance in my opinion. I certainly prefer being with him, but since we are in contact daily through multiple electronic devices, the separation is slightly more tolerable. And besides...eternity will hopefully make up for lost time ;)

Let's get married.

OH! And by the way, this is top secret until it's official. So naturally everyone in New Hampshire knows

College

We love each other haha

Okay, well I am basically the worst in the universe at keeping a blog. I'm also slacking with my journal writing. I probably should get myself back on track...particularly because I am very likely getting married this August to the most wonderful man I have ever met. His name is Dalin Gunnell and he is better than anyone I could have ever imagined for myself. 

Not only is he an amazing person and example to me, but he is tannnn guapo. He is steadfast in the gospel, loving, and thoughtful, among many other things, and it is these characteristics that attract me to him the most. I want to be with him every day of eternity and I believe he wants the same. The only conflict in our way is that we are both out here in the west (although technically there is another conflict since he goes to BYU Provo), and my family (whom he has yet to meet) are out in New Hampshire. Not the end of the world, but still a small setback. If it were convenient, we might have decided to get married a little later, say November (which we had originally discussed), but now it seems that it would be too inconvenient to make such a large move and change during the middle of the semester. 

Regardless, we have both been very prayerful and we know that the Lord will watch over us. It is difficult to imagine what is in store for us, but I have never felt more sure about anything. As The Beatles would say, "We can work it out." 
haha.

Latter-day Saint (Mormon) Abbreviations (abbrevs.)

Alright. The LDS (Latter-day Saint) Church has lots of abbreviations and unique words that we use rather often. So to make my life easier (not really, because anyone who reads this will most likely already know...) here are as many as I can think of that may come up:

CTR = choose the right

RM = return missionary 

YSA = Young Single Adult

FHE = Family Home Evening

BYD = Bishop's Youth Discussion

BYC = Bishop's Youth Committee

BOM = Book of Mormon

DOG = Daughter of God

SOG = Son of God

EFY = Especially For Youth

BYU = Brigham Young University

RS = Relief Society

SS = Sunday School

WOW = Word of Wisdom

YM = Young Men

YW = Young Women

These seem so obvious to me, but perhaps this will help someone out there. 

Prophet = The President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is not elected or voted in, but called of God. He conveys to the members of the church any modern revelation from Heavenly Father. 

Stake = A collection of wards and branches of the Church. There are 3 in New Hampshire. Concord, Nashua, and Exeter. They are each led by a Stake President, who is called of God.

Ward = Basically a name for a Mormon congregation made up of a few hundred members and led by a Bishop, who is called of God. 

Branch = This is kind of a baby ward. Some have as few as fifteen members. These are led by a Branch President, who is also called of God.

Priesthood = There is the Melchizedek and the Aaronic Priesthood. At twelve, worthy boys can receive the priesthood, and as they age and remain worthy, they are given higher Priesthood keys (which are like sacred powers) at the following age marks: 12, 16, and 18. 

Seminary = Scripture Study at 6am. LDS youth attend seminary all four years of high school and study different books of the scriptures each year, including the Book of Mormon, The Old Testament, The New Testament, and Doctrine & Covenants with the Pearl of Great Price. 

Book of Mormon = ANOTHER testament of Jesus Christ. Tells about Him visiting His other sheep in the Americas and the miracles that occurred when He did. 

Testimony = A statement of faith and knowledge regarding spiritual things in the church. For example, I know that the Church is true and that the Savior lives and loves each of us. I know He died for us that we may have the ability to repent of our sins and return to live with Him and our Heavenly Father again someday. I also know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that Joseph Smith restored the Gospel in these latter days. He is a chosen prophet of God and so is President Thomas S. Monson. 

Ok, well I could go on and on, but since most of my friends are LDS it would be unnecessary. If there IS something I forgot and someone would like to know more about, however, I'd be happy to add to this...or answer your questions. Oh and by the way, I LOVE being a Mormon.

how come i'm so bad at this????

How typical of me, when I have almost UNLIMITED time, to be so inconsistent with my blog. I go to school in two weeks today. December 30th is the day. Mom and I will fly from Manchester to Arizona, and then to SLC. Obviously I cannot wait. Everyone has been asking me what I've been doing while I wait and whether I'm excited or not. It's sort of a stupid question, at least the second part. Of course I'm excited. I haven't done much for two months. I have watched a bazillion Christmas specials on the Hallmark channel. But that's normal for me. I have also watched more movies than ever. The shows that I have been really into lately include Leverage, The Office, Mad Hungry (I've been improving my poor cooking skills! I made penne and a special sauce for dinner the other night, and made a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting for dessert and was THRILLED at how well they turned out. I'm more of a baker, less of a chef. But I'm working on it.), Property Ladder, Disney, Science shows (like Deadly Descent, for example, which is extremely fascinating to me), and a few of my parents' shows. And sadly, that has been my life lately. 

I have been spending quite a bit of time with the YSA (Young Single Adults) in my ward. We have FHE (Family Home Evening) every Wednesday at 7pm. It's a great deal of fun and much more exciting than watching TV all the live-long day. My cousins Andrea, Whitney, and I, along with some other YSA put together two Christmas Care Packages for two missionaries from our ward. Marissa and Adrian. We are sending letters to the remainder of our friends serving missions in our stake. The care packages are pretty great I must say. I wouldn't mind receiving one myself...maybe I'll send one to myself.

Very Interesting...

I find it very interesting that I am mysteriously missing one of my earlier posts...anyway, the Celtics game on Saturday was quite exciting. I got some close up views of some very attractive Celtics players, and not only this, but I met Kyle Korver from the Chicago Bulls for two seconds. Not gonna lie, he was not as friendly as I would have hoped for a member of the Church. Of course, I was all dressed up in Celtics stuff (I wore a white Ray Allen jersey because no stupid stores had Rajon Rondo...) so it is possible that he thought I was mocking him. He is super hott, though, and has the cutest hair. Anyhow, Donovan and I ditched our seats right from the start and sat down in the FRONT ROW (I kid you not) almost right behind the Bulls' bench. The people around us were really nice, too, because it was rather obvious we were sneaking into those spots, but they were like "Right on!" Haha. It was amazing for the first quarter of the game, that is until Mom decided to come join us and jinxed us because the people who had tickets to our seats showed up at the same time. So we moved to look for other seats but the ticket lady for that aisle caught us and told us we had to go to our seats. Still, I really liked being at the game. I wish I could have met some of the other players. The Celtics won in overtime (thank goodness, they were totally stressing me out in the last minute) and Sarah and I cheered through text. Haha, we were keeping in touch throughout the game.

So the Boston trip was great, and it was even better that we were able to stay at both hotels for free because of a very kind couple that my dad did some work for. I love Boston. I wouldn't live there, but it is fun for a few days.

About Me (Biografia): Everything you could ever want to know.

I love English a whole lot and it is my intention to major in it someday. I also love Spanish. Me encanta espanol muchisimo. I would like to minor in Spanish or at least become completely fluent so that I can teach it to my children someday. Being a Latter-day Saint is the best. The gospel of Jesus Christ is true, and knowing this gives me a feeling of great worth and confidence. I love my Savior.

One of my favorite pictures of the Savior

I have three very best friends. Their names are Sarah Morgan Ayer (19), Megan Louise Wernig (18), and Kyle Vee Vallace (18). I love them. Sarah, born March 18, 1991, attends Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. She is super fun and crazy and awesome. She loves yellow (and green) and field hockey and Spanish. I'm so thankful that her family moved to Gilford from Lehi, Utah when I was in fourth grade. She has a kitty named Sunkist. Megan, born June 21, 1992, attends Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts and loves the color purple and playing field hockey. She is the quiet-but-secretly-hilarious type. Her cat Rocket is a beast. She is really talented in art and English (particularly at comprehending Grendel) and I adore her. Kyle (born September 28, 1992) is a senior at Merrimack High School. He loves football, the Utah Jazz, and Taylor Swift. He is very smart and wants to go to BYU. I'm pretty certain that he'll get in. He is tall and really attractive. And I like him a lot. I do have other friends that I love, too, I promise. Rorey, Matt, Caleb, McKay, Wesley, Marina, Seddrick, Tyler, Ty, Alex, Jared, William, Andrea & Whitney (my cousins), Stowe, and Nathan, to name a few.

Megan, me, and Sarah. Mejores Amigas.

With Kyle, my other best friend.

My parents are Keith and Linda. My dad owns his own business and installs home theaters. Despite this, I am awful at using TVs and remotes. He is funny and extremely generous. He is a good example to me. My mom is a home-maker and is very good at cleaning, among other things. She is very loving and also very generous. I love them both for all they've taught me and for raising me in the gospel. 

Con mi familia

I am the oldest of three children. My brothers are Payson (18) and Donovan (11). Payson's birthday is August 22, 1992, so we are almost Irish twins! He is a good worker and incredibly talented at film-making and water-skiing. He might be famous someday. ;) Donny was born August 28, 1999 when I was eight years old. He is super funny and entertaining. Sometimes I call him Twinky because I'm a mean older sister. Not really. He is so cute, though and I love him and Payson both very much. They both are really into skateboarding. We have a dachshund named Butterscotch, aka Buddy. He is the best dog. Ever. Seriously. I am definitely a dog-lover. Well, a nice dog lover. I don't like psycho or drooly dogs quite as much. Cats are really interesting, but they aren't quite as loving as dogs, in general. Dug from Pixar's "Up" describes my feelings well when he says: "My name is Dug! I have just met you, and I love you." That's what I admire about dogs. I, too, try to love people as soon as I meet them. Similarly, I try very hard to refrain from judging others because we're all children of God.

Buddy and I

Dug :)

I laugh a lot. I'm nearly always happy. It's because I'm LDS. I dislike drama. That's probably why I don't have that many girl friends. I like to be active! I played tennis, soccer, and field hockey in high school. Tennis was definitely my forte, however. I am only 5 feet tall, but I love basketball. Besides tennis, it is my favorite sport to watch people play. The Celtics are my favorite team and Rajon Rondo is my favorite player. And I am so pumped that Shaq is on the team now. But I'm getting off track. I also love to be outdoors. I just love nature! Haha. I love fishing, hiking, camping, star-gazing, bird-watching, clouds, picnics, trees in autumn, downhill skiing, biking, four-wheeling, jetskiing, and trying to waterski. I absolutely love Ultimate Frisbee. I think I'd join a club if there was one. I also love swing-dancing (especially with my official dance partner, Caleb Earnshaw). I hope that I will have the opportunity to swing-dance at BYU-I quite often. Other random things that I like include rollercoasters; playing COD and MW2; DDR; Guitar Hero; Mario Kart; ping pong; the ocean; tye-dye; cooking (I am trying to learn so I will be a legit wife and mom); smoothies; Hawaiian ice; serving others; helping people; being physically fit...; coloring books; playing; children; dance parties; basically having fun. I would like to think that I'm brave and willing to try new things, but sometimes I need some convincing.

I'm related to Daniel Chester French and Frank French. They are both pretty great artists. DCF carved the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. and the famous Minuteman statue. I would assume that's where I got my artistic talent from. Well the two of them, and my grandfather, Charles French, and his son (my uncle), Andrew French. They are amazing artists, also, and I look up to them both. I was voted "most artistic" in my high school class. It's a pretty cool superlative, I guess, but it doesn't feel like that fascinating of a talent to me. Not that I am ungrateful for it! But it seems to me that my art is not anything extraordinary. I just observe carefully and copy what I see. Everyone should be able to do it...I love to paint, specifically with watercolors, which is a medium I never thought that I'd be able to utilize successfully. But drawing is alright, too. My favorite subjects to paint are animals, the reason being that it is not hard to make an unfamiliar animal appear realistic. In contrast, humans and pets are much more of a challenge because of their familiarity to the viewer. I don't mind painting landscapes, also.

Like pretty much everyone, I love music. My iPod is always on shuffle because I like everything. I listen to the radio all the time. I like oldies music, a taste acquired from being around my dad. I love classical music and some opera. I like most country. I like to sing, but it's not like I'd go and perform a solo anywhere...other than in the shower ha. I listen to Christmas music almost year-round. It makes me feel so happy! I wish I could play an instrument but I struggle with reading music. I've tried to play the flute, the piano, and the violin. I just can't. Listening to the violin makes me want to cry. I think it is a beautiful-sounding instrument. To sum this up, I guess that the only music that I dislike is screamo and heavy rap.

I am a nerd. I love to read and write. I write in my journal every day. I am currently on my 23rd one. I read the Book of Mormon almost every day. I love to read it. I like several other books, too, though. There are too many to name, but some of my favorites include: Harry Potter, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Warriors Don't Cry, Three Cups of Tea, The Awakening, A Christmas Carol, This Side of Paradise, House of the Scorpion, Wuthering Heights, Ethan Frome. I love classic literature. That's why I am going to study it. Roald Dahl is one of my favorite authors for children. He has an imagination like a child, and I like that. And okay, I admit that I like Twilight.

I am much too easy-going. I like almost every movie I've seen which is kind of sad, but I'm just easy to please. I like comedies and am a big Disney fan. Any Disney classic, Pixar, or Dreamworks movie is one I will most certainly love. As for televison, I particularly like The Office, Leverage, Phineas & Ferb, Fuel TV, What I Like About You, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Survivor, Disney, and Discovery channel. Not going to lie, I am a big fan of corny and sweet Christmas specials on the Hallmark channel, too.

So that's pretty much all I can think of. And that is a whole lot. I like the colors blue and green and bright orange. My birthday is August 9, 1991. I like being nineteen. I like the numbers 9, 91, and 67. I like to go on dates. Tortoises and turtles are my favorite animals. My favorite foods are lobster, steamers, and strawberries. I love English. I love the Church. I love my family. What else do you need to know?