Euphoria:

noun, a feeling of happiness, confidence, or well-being sometimes exaggerated in pathological states as mania.

My Sophomore year at Utah State is quickly coming to an end. I am suddenly realizing that I only have a few more weeks left with my wonderful roommates and to share with you the fun things that we have done this year. These are just a few memories that I have made with my family and friends. I am very blessed to have these wonderful people in my life!

The Sunday before school started we were all moved into our new apartment and we headed down to say goodbye to our friend Troy Tongish. He is serving as a full-time missionary in Canada. It was a fun reunion at the beginning of the year but we were definitely missing the rest of the boys that had already left to serve the Lord.

The next day was the first day of school and as Alyssa and I were leaving our apartment we were talking about how our moms always took a picture of us as we walked out the door. We decided that we would take that tradition and continue it for ourselves.

Not too many weeks into the semester it was time for the Idaho State Fair so I made a quick trip to Blackfoot and spent the day with David, Torie, John and Zak. I LOVE walking through the animal barns and it just so happened that the work horses were out getting a quick little bath as we walked. It was lovely!!!

The same weekend as the fair was my 20th birthday. I had a good time and we had a LOT of food. Plus, Grandma Murdoch made that delicious cake you can see. Banana Cake, my favorite!!

One nice thing about not living at home is that you get to have two parties for your birthday! All my roommates and some of our neighbors loaded up and we headed to Angie's to clean the sink. It was also Hillary's birthday later that week so we had a joint party.

We ordered our own Bountiful Basket and we were up way earlier than either of us wanted to be on a Saturday morning. The bonus was that we just immediately went home and back to bed.

We attended quite a few of the Aggie football games. All dressed in blue so that we could show our Aggie Pride!

Before the game started Hillary and I wanted a picture with the field in the background. Heather, Mollie, and Kelsey just couldn't find the urge to weasel their way into our photo.

We were absolutely overjoyed when the sun finally went down enough that we weren't afraid that we were going to be fried to our seats. It was probably the hottest game of the year but we stayed for the whole thing. Yup, we're troopers!!

To start off the year we wanted everyone to know that we were an apartment of extremely dateable, available women. We felt the best way was to make an announcement to the world through a bright blue road sign.

Torie and I went to Smith and Edwards with David and Julie when we found these epic hats!!

In honor of fall we decided that we should probably make some carmel apples so we invited the neighborhood and had a little party.

We headed down to West Jordan once again to say goodbye to another one of our missionaries. Our group is slowly getting smaller and smaller. All three of these young men are now gone and we are loving hearing from them as they are out being God's messengers.

Josh Hall is in Spain and they are extremely blessed to have him!! I am already looking forward to him coming home and he still has over a year and a half left of his mission. I may have to take a summer vacation to Spain...

Michelle and Alyssa showed me around their hometown of South Jordan. We made a quick stop outside of the temple. Sure do love these girls!!

Sadly, most nights this is what we can be found doing. Yes, you guessed it.... HOMEWORK! There seems to be an endless supply of it.

Every fall the town of Logan puts on an event called the Pumpkin Walk. There are many groups of people that put together a display using pumpkins and whatever else they can think of. This one was of the movie Madagascar. We loved it and spent quite a while in front of this one.

Hillary and I share a childhood love for the Smurfs. When we saw this display we couldn't walk past without jumping into for the perfect picture!

This was our whole group as we left. We were all getting ready with our best smiles when I heard my name coming from the distance then suddenly Megan was in our picture. A great addition I would say!

One weekday night with nothing to do but homework we turned to our dressup trunk and then headed to visit Heather at work.

Halloween! Utah State holds one of the biggest dances the weekend of Halloween. None of us had been so we got all dressed up and headed to dance the night away. My personal favorite is Steve Erwin on the right.

The Institute put together a 1000 member choir and we were privileged to be a part of it. Unfortunately this was the only picture that we took and it was a VERY windy day. We met in the Stadium parking lot and then loaded on to 21 yellow school buses. We then traveled to Provo and sang our hearts out. It was a great experience to be a member of that choir and to see how many people were willing to come out and sing their beliefs.

We love us some Jumba Juice!

A weekend spent home, well some of it was spent in Rexburg. We went out for breakfast and we all looked ravishing if I do say so myself.

This was the Harry Potter premiere. Naturally we all knew that we couldn't miss it but we failed to purchase tickets for the midnight showing so we went for the next best and bought 2 a.m. This was before the movie so we were all still thinking that it was a good idea.

After the movie and on the drive home we were a little less enthused when we realized that we had classes in less than 4 hours.

I spent Thanksgiving break at home and we all got together to spend the weekend out at the cabin. What you can't see in this picture is that we had woken up to 2 feet of snow and we really weren't sure if we were going to make it out that morning. However we decided that before we left we might as well eat breakfast.

We did make it out that day with the help of the Grube family and we continued our weekend at Marianna's house and ate dinner at Big Jud's.

My very favorite tradition of Thanksgiving doesn't take place on Thanksgiving day but rather the day before. I have named this day, Pie Day. As you can probably guess from the name all day is focused on the making of pie. The boys aren't allowed to participate unless they are as cute as Orrin then somehow they can sneak in. It is a tradition that I have come to cherish.

In December there was a group of us that decided that it would be fun to go to the local nursing home and sing to the residents there. We sang 10 songs and were blessed to have those people share their evening with us.

This was taken as my family and I headed to go and watch Despicable Me. We snuck A LOT of candy into the theater!!

For F.H.E we had a snowman building contest that quickly turned into a snowball fight. We were all smiles before...

and smiles after just a lot wetter and soooo much colder!

Occasionally we have late night trips to Wal-Mart that end like this. They are usually my favorite trips because we never leave with the things that we needed but some pretty entertaining purchases.

We all went out to Jessica's house to have our roommate Christmas party. This is all of us with our new presents. It was a fun night well spent!

We went out to lunch at the Bluebird and ate way too much. The rest of the afternoon was spent in sweatpants and sleeping on the couch.

Over Christmas break I went to Christina's reception and we had a great time hiding out in the back by the refreshment table.

This was our attempts to try to vacate the birds that had taken up residence in our bathroom fan.

We had a movie night and ate Grasshopper Shots before hand. It was a COLD night!!

Jessica was privileged to get to experience the joys of Ashton. I brought her home with me and surprisingly enough her favorite part of the trip was going to the annual Dog Derby. She thought that it was one of the greatest things in the world.

She fit in really well and acted like a natural on the sleigh!

We were lucky enough to have friends that came over to read us a quick bedtime story to help us fall asleep. Miles read us 'More Spaghetti'

Naturally we had to wear our jammies. We pulled out all the stops and went straight for the feeties!

The weather is finally getting warmer so we all went up to the Quad and played some Ultimate Frisbee.

Jessica is taking a social dance class so we all headed up to campus to watch the performance that they had put together.

The next night was spent Disco Skating.

This was the nice group that we showed up with. We were definitely the best dressed there.

This was Conference weekend spent at the cabin. Here we were both trying our first oyster....

this is our feelings about it! It was one of the nastiest textures that I have ever been unlucky enough to have in my mouth.

I am very blessed to have these and many more people in my life!! My roommates have made this year bearable and listened to my endless complaints about school. My family is awesome whenever I come home! They are always willing to rearrange their schedules so that we can make everything fit in, and Rhet is the best to let me steal his bed for the weekend. I love them all so much!! Marianna is never more than a phone call away and full of endless entertainment. I am going to miss our crazy times while she is off in California. But I am getting a pretty long list on missionaries and by the time she leaves I will be a pro at writing letters. I couldn't be more proud of the decision that she has made and I know that she is going to be a fabulous missionary. She has always been a tremendous example to me and I am sure that that is something that will continue throughout the rest of my life.

Simple Kindness...

I am soooo grateful for thoughtful people! Today I opened my door to a cute little lady holding this rose asking if a 'Kera Clark' lived in this apartment. I responded and told her that it was me. There was a card but no signature so a big thanks to the mysterious person who I hope one day will know they single-handedly changed my attitude today. You should probably also know that today I took my very first Anatomy test of the semester and even though I have no idea what my score is, I'm a little nervous. The timing was great and you made me smile!!

Day 2: Meaning of the Name of My Blog

My roommates and I tend to have super serious, deep conversations in the late hours of the night. Ok, not really we usually just laugh and laugh but who knows the difference! :) During one of our late night chats we were talking about how if someone saw how all of us acted all of the time they would think that we were ridiculous. One of my roommates said LIFE! and I said LIFE, this is mine and that's how it is. I then realized how great of a saying that was and have since have tried to bring that into my life more. Even though sometimes life isn't quite what I thought it would be or working out exactly how I wanted it to it's still my life and there's always some joy to be found.

LIFE, THIS IS MINE!

15 Things You May or May Not Know!

Well I have stolen the 30 posts idea from Marianna, thanks! It is such a cute idea I just had to participate. The first one is that you have to tell 15 things about yourself. These are things that you may or may not know but here we go. We'll start slowly...

#1- I have the CUTEST nephew! His name is Mathew Orrin and was born on June 18, 2010. We took him Black Friday shopping with us and he didn't cry one time. I think that it may be in his blood, yes a male that didn't complain the entire that we were shopping. I love, love going shopping on Black Friday it's such a great tradition that the girls in my family have started.

#2-I have a slight obsession with suckers. I attribute it to the fact that Arleigh and I use to crave them while we were rehearsing for the play but couldn't ever find them in Ashton. Now I have bags of them. I am beginning to think that maybe it's becoming a problem

#3- I actually am capable of drawing something that resembles the object I'm trying to draw. This semester I took an interior design class with my roommate Alyssa and we have to sketch furniture for each period of history and surprisingly they actually look pretty good. They even have to be done in ink, ridiculous!

#4- Until I was in eighth grade I thought that 'corn on the cob' was called 'cob on the corn'. Apparently my parents thought that it was cute that I called it the wrong thing and never corrected me. I was giving a presentation in Ms. Chantrill's eighth grade History class and was discussing that fine yellow vegetable when everyone started laughing at me. It wasn't until after complete humiliation and my project was done that someone broke the news to me. Occasionally, to this day I still catch myself saying the wrong thing. Thanks Mom and Dad!

#5- I have a very keen sense of smell, especially when it comes to cologne. After a guy leaves the room I can smell him for minutes after he leaves. Thankfully guys try to wear ones that smell good so it's not bad unless they wear a stinky one, then it's not ok!

#6- I hate ears! Anything to do with ears absolutely grosses me out. Actually typing this about them is almost more than I can take. I think that I have this problem because when I was a baby I got a million ear aches until I finally got tubes in my ears. I don't actually ever remember having an ear infection but apparently my mom does.

#7- My favorite feeling is when you have laughed so hard that not only do your abs hurt but your cheeks are cramping, your back is having spasms, and you're dehydrated because of the tears that are streaming down your face. Then when you finally get yourself under control it can all start up again with just one look.

#8- My big toe is as long as my pinky.

#9- I have an obsession with t-shirts. I didn't realize this until my roommate Malerie was watching me unpack some of my clothes and she asked me "What are you going to do with all of those t-shirts?" When I looked at what I was doing I had filled two drawers of my dresser with them. You will be glad to know though that this year when I moved in I only had one drawer full.

#10- I like to give really strange presents for every occasion. I think that a present should represent some part of the relationship that you have had together. Usually some super great memory that we have had together.

#11- I won't go to bed without telling all of my roommates goodnight. Usually we all say apartment prayer together but sometimes someone is on a hot date or something and I don't get to say goodnight then. This usually leads to me writing some great poem telling that they need to have a great sleep and that I hope that they had a great time. It's just better that way when everyone is told that they are suppose to have a good night.

#12- I have a new love for dying my hair. I don't like to dye it any color that isn't natural, no blues, purples, or pinks but I do like to change it. I think it's fun to change things around and I love the looks that people give you when they are trying to decide if you have done something different.

#13- I LOVE lists! I don't know if it's more the fact that I like to know exactly what I need to do or the pure satisfaction of crossing something off. I have a to do list for everyday of the week and then ones for long term life goals. Don't worry though if I don't get something done it's not the end of the world I just like it to know exactly what I need to have done.

#14- When I go somewhere I have to take a clean pillowcase with me. While traveling your pillow gets super dirty and I just can't sleep on it, so I take a clean one with me. Also I don't remember the last time that I slept on a store bought pillow case. I don't know when it started but my mom started making me pillow cases out of fleece and I still have every single one. I won't sleep on anything else. I just like to sleep on something cuddly I guess.

#15- My favorite holiday isn't one that is recognized by... well basically anyone outside of my family. I don't remember when the tradition started but I have since named it "Pie Day". The day before Thanksgiving all of my aunts and girl cousins who are going to be at my Grandma Murdoch's for Thanksgiving Day come over and we make pie. I don't really know or particularly care what all of the boys do but I do know that I absolutely love Pie Day. This year we made 15, pie crusts and all. We use Grandma Alta's recipe for pie crust and then we just go crazy!

I hope that you have enjoyed learning about me if you thought that you already knew everything about me. I hope you learned something new!

Phew!

Here's a collection of things from the last day I posted until today, I hope you enjoy!!

First of all we DID NOT steal this sign! I just wanted to clear that up for everyone. I love this sign for two reasons. 1-For the obvious, that's it's fantastic! 2-For the comments that we get to overhear when the people walking by don't know that our window is open. My favorite so far is "I wouldn't say available, I would say desperate."

Oh the HORRORS of homework!!!

This is my FAVORITE picture of this post!! We were driving to Wal-Mart when we saw these girls. They were selling Kool-Aid, but the thing that you can't see is that they were using old clearly pre-used water bottles. They told us that they needed to raise $40 and when we asked what they needed it for their one word response was priceless, "CANDY!" We still have our bottle of Kool-Aid sitting in our apartment completely full.

Yes, that is me eating chocolate pudding straight from the big bowl I made it in. No, I didn't eat the whole thing in one sitting.

David and Julie came up for the day so that David could go to Dad's Day with Torie. We went to the lunch, the bridal fair on campus, bought a new vacuum, went to a couple of different fruit stands and ended our day at Smith and Edwards where we found these great hats.

We went to Costa Vita one night and ate a delicious dinner.

Lisa had never been privileged enough to experience Spud Harvest so when we were all home for Conference we took her out to see it. We rode out to the field in David's truck. Can't you tell how much we are loving it?!

For Chase's birthday we made him this FABULOUS hat!! I know it was his favorite part of his birthday.

The neighbor boys were in an intramural volleyball team so for their last game we went and watched them. They lost, well worth it though.

Midnight Ab Session!! We all decided that we needed to do some ab workouts and I needed to document it so here's that day's picture of the day. My favorite part is Jessica, doesn't she look like it's just so easy for her?

I hate to admit but sometimes my life is real boring. Today's great moment was when we took out the garbage, the pink garbage can at the bottom, and we got the mail. There wasn't even anything that great, just an add. :(

Heather decided that we needed to make Carmel Apples so we got everything together and started. Notice that I am holding an apple in the Carmel but observe that stuck into it is a knife. We were waiting for the sticks and were improvising.

Slowly our group just began to grow. We don't know if people were just telling everyone to come over or what but they just kept coming. Luckily we had enough and it was a great night. I did however have to mop that night because it was SOOOO STICKY!!

I went home for the weekend and I stopped to play with Marianna, Kayla, and Arleigh. I bought stuff go make caramel apples, they were delicious!! After that we went to Big Jud's in Archer (I know we all felt that we were cheating on the one in Ashton, but what can you do?) Then we headed to the straw maze. Marianna failed to mention that it was haunted and when we got there a SCARY MAN was at our doors. Needless to say I was NOT happy!

David and I went and looked at new horses. He really wants to buy this colt right in front of me, the roan.

The next day Torie and I went wedding dress shopping with Julie, Val, and her grandma. It was a good day but I can't post any pictures yet. More to come though.

This is all of us (well the ones that are left) at Josh Hall's farewell. We had a great day and spent most of the day at his house.

I am going to miss him so much!!!

Afterwards Michelle, Me, and Alyssa went to Day Break. We threw a few rocks into the river and then headed off to temple.

This is us outside of the temple. So CUTE!!!!!!!!

Tonight we did do something fun but I failed to take my camera with me. We went to Mr. USU and it was super fun. This is us trying to catch up on our homework after running around being crazy, well they are doing they're homework and I am updating my blog. ;)

This week was a good one!!

Cleaning the sink at Angie's!! My roommate Hillary and I's birthdays are less than a week apart and since I was home for my birthday we decided to all go out and celebrate together. Hillary is that beautiful blonde sitting next to me. We each received a visor that had been custom made by Alyssa and Heather, what sweethearts. The boys that went with us are our neighbors.

I went home again the next weekend because Tyrel and Lisa were going and I wanted to spend some time with them. They picked me up Friday night and we got home pretty late. Saturday we spent the day watching the BYU game, well I did homework in the same room that everyone else watched the game in. What can I say? That night we decided to go Geocashing and this was what we found once we got there. It was very far from our house, it was just on the opposite side of the river from David's on the bridge going over Fall River.

We came home Sunday after church and while Orrin was awake (which was for about fifteen minutes) he was all smiles. We had just stopped so that Lisa could feed him in Pocatello then he fell right back to sleep. I had to share this super cute one of him smiling though.

This year has had it's changes that have come with it. New roommates, new apartment, new classes, and having to meet our new neighbors. BUT, the two things that hasn't changed is that the boys FLOCK to my roommate Heather and the fact that we have to embarrass her as much as possible because of this. We left this note on the door for her and her date to read when she got home. You may be thinking that I am exaggerating when I say that they FLOCK to her, but she was getting home from her third date of the week and still had another one to go on that week and it was only Wednesday!

We felt that the only solution to the problem was to let people know that we were...available. So when you walk past our apartment this is what you see, however, I'm a little worried that people might really be reading desperate. :)

Saturday morning bright and early Alyssa and I could be found picking up our Bountiful Basket that we ordered. We are sharing with everyone in our apartment and I think that it may still be too much food. No, we are actually really excited to have so many fruits and veggies.

There is quite the story to go along with this picture and this is it. Heather wanted to hook Alyssa up with one of her friends named Miles (Alyssa and Miles are the couple on the right end of the group) so they set it up so that Alyssa and Miles could go together and then Miles would set Heather up with one of his roommates, his name was Nick. (Nick and Heather are the second couple in from the left, both wearing blue) Then Mollie, who also knows Miles, wanted to go too. She asked a boy that was in our ward last year to go, Jared. (Jared and Mollie are the couple in the very middle) Heather then insisted that Hillary and I come too, so we set Hillary up with Kaley another boy from our ward last year. (Kaley and Hillary are the couple on the left side) Then Heather asked Miles to set me up with another one of roommates. The date was all set and we were all ready to go when Heather got a phone call saying that my date wasn't had bailed out on the date. Well I was just going to stay home but half of the guys were already there and they decided that that wasn't going to work so they started calling to see if someone wanted to come with us. Kaley got a hold of his friend Brian and he said that he wanted to come so I was back in on the date. (We are the last couple that you haven't looked at yet :) We went to Smith's and bought stuff to make a picnic then we went to the park and ate. We finished out the date by playing a little bit of sand volleyball. Now, you may think that the story is over but you would be mistaken. That night my roommates and I went to a birthday party. We were talking to a guy that Hillary knows and somehow it came up that we had been on the date with Miles. When we bought up Miles name Andy (the guy that we were talking to) said "Oh Miles, he's my roommate!" At that point we all made the connection and I asked him if he was suppose to have come with us.... He was! That was the moment that he realized that I was the girl that he had stood up. We talked for a little bit and I told him that it was fine because we had fun without him when he called to apologize, but I also gave him my number because he felt bad and wanted to make it up to me, so this story is to be continued...

USU vs. Frezno State!! We all get dressed into our Aggie blue and headed to the game.

This is all of us gone crazy because it was so HOT!!! At this point the sun had finally gone down behind the stadium and wasn't baking us all to the bleachers.