News from Middle Earth

Well here I am. Sitting in my living room. Only its not in Logan or Bountiful. I am kinda in New Zealand at the moment. Every now and again I look at a map and realize that I am about seven thousand miles away from home and it makes me cringe a little bit. How did I get here? Or maybe a better question, why the heck did I do this. Let me explain.

You know that whole Utah bubble thing? Well I grew up in the thickest part of that bubble. Bountiful. I broke out a little bit when I went away to college, but those of us who have lived or still live in Logan know that it really isn't that big of a change. I would like to think that over these past few years I have grown and been exposed to some different aspects of life, but even still I wanted an experience away from home. I wanted to really have to rely on myself. To grow. To do something that I have never done-leave.

So my "normal" student teaching began January and finished the 22nd of February. I was sad to leave my kids, but I was so excited to move away from Logan!! Don't get me wrong, Logan is a great place, but after four years it was time for a well-needed change. I packed up my Logan life for the last time and moved home for the first time in three years. I was at home for five days and slept most of the time there. Wednesday night, Feb. 27th, I packed my stuff and headed, for the first time, to the air port. I was kinda nervous for my first time on a plane but it was only an hour to get to LA. And I was flying with another student teacher Shantel Flannery, which helped a lot. All I can say is turbulence is really freaky. About an hour later we boarded our next flight to Sydney...THIRTEEN HOURS LATER...we got there. Once we did we went to get our next boarding pass and there was a problem getting it so they bumped us back to a later flight. Two hours later we boarded for our flight to New Zealand but there was another problem and we left forty minutes after we were supposed to. At first this didn't seem like a big problem, I got to watch the Hobbit, but once we got in...boy I wish we would have gotten in sooner. So after a long customs line, I found out that my bag with all of my clothes in it was missing. Well it was just on another flight but IT HAD ALL OF MY CLOTHES AND SHAMPOO!! I was a bit upset. So after figuring all of that out we got on a shuttle and a hour and a half ride later I finally got to my host family's home, six hours later than expected.

                         This is how we felt after finally getting off of all of our planes. Just so happy.

Well the rest of the weekend involved church activities and trying to get on a normal sleep schedule. We went to a relief society activity, Institute dance (don't worry they are just as lame here as they are in Utah), drove out to visit the temple and then went to a fireside about dating. So it felt just like home.

Today Shantel and I went to the university to have some sort of an orientation. Really it just freaked us out. We walked around the campus took some pictures, enjoyed the sun and then headed to our school. We got a little tour and was promised with more information tomorrow. Shantel and I are still feeling a lot in the dark, but slowly we are hoping things will fall into place.

So for now. Things are going well. I hope we'll get to the beach soon and I'll have more pictures to share. Just know that I am warm and slowly recovering from jet lag.