Spring Break!

This past week has been spring break for me, unlike the BYU students who don't get one. Haha! I love being a UVU student. Anyways, I had a really good time and it was especially fun because Tiff and her family AND Britt and her kids came down to visit for the week. What perfect timing! Even though I did have to go to school two of the days for lab, I got to spend lots of time with my wonderful family. On Tuesday us girls and kids met up in SLC at California Pizza Kitchen for lunch and then went to the Children's Discovery Museum. The kids absolutely loved it and I'm sure they could've stayed there all day long. Then after that some of us went back to mom's home and then had a zumba party. On Wed. we had a girls night out and learned how to make homemade paper from Jeff who works at the shop. I know it sounds weird, but it was really cool!

Those were the mains things I was involved with, but I did do a lot of hanging out with my sisters and kids. I am so lucky to have five amazing sisters (I count Britto as one of my sisters) and for them to be such amazing examples. I love each and everyone of them with all of my heart and especially all of their adorable kids! I can't wait to get married one day so my little kids and play with all of the cousins.

Anyways, that's all for now. Here are some pictures from our trip to SLC and of course pictures of the silly kids.

Galentine's/Valentine's Day

This week I celebrated two holidays: Galentine's Day and Valentine's Day. For those of you who don't know what Galentine's Day is, it's ladies celebrating ladies. My girlfriends and I all got together and went to a delicious sweet shop called the Chocolate. It was nice to hang out with them, since I hardly have time to do so, and to eat delicious desserts.

Then for Valentine's day, mom made a very nice dinner and then I showed her, dad, and Cheri the first episode of Pushing Daisies. That show is beautiful and the best thing of all time. After that, I have a very VERY special date planned. Now this guy who I went with, he isn't the most lively person I've met and he's very laid back. Oh, did I mention that he's a cadaver a.k.a a dead person? Yeahhhh, I spent my Valentine's evening with a cadaver for my anatomy class. So, I think I should win an award for the most unique Valentine's date.

Anyways, that's all for now. I will now leave you with a great quote from Pushing Daisies.

"[A hug is] like an emotional Heimlich. Someone puts their arms around you and they give you a squeeze and all of your fear and anxiety comes shooting out of your mouth in a big wet wad and you can breath again."

I see dead people

Today in my human anatomy class, we finally got to start working with the cadavers! So I literally saw dead people today. I thought I was going to be unsettled by it, but actually I thought it was fascinating. Of course the body didn't look as I thought it was going to be, since it was all dissected, muscles pulled apart, some limbs unattached, and nothing like an actual human being, but it was very interesting. I now feel that if I can observe the cadavers without feeling sick then I can be a nurse!

Now another cool thing that happened today in class was I suddenly got hit by the spirit. As we were talking about the different joints in the body and how some of them, like the synovial joints, are special compared to other joints because they have certain properties that prevent the friction of bones rubbing each other raw, WHICH prevents people from enduring excruciating pain that would lead to the bones becoming pretty much disintegrated. Anyways, it just hit me that there is no possible way that there could not be a God. I cannot conceive any way of how our very VERY intricate bodies could have been made by some explosion or whatever, and not by a very intelligent being. So, it was really neat to have my testimony of the creation and of our Heavenly Father strengthened in my anatomy class. Who knew?!

Anyways, I better get back to studying my million things of anatomy.

Quote of the day

Here's a quote from a tv show I adore called Pushing Daisies. I whole-heartedly agree with this quote. Trying to be happy is a very brave thing to do, especially during this day and age where there are a lot of people suffering depression or some kind of sadness in their life. I believe that if we try to be happy, even though we may feel sad for any particular reason, we'll eventually learn to overcome the veil of despair that looms over us and be enlightened by the rays of happiness. Starting now, I want to make a goal to wake up every morning and choose to be happy. Even if school is stressing me out, if I'm feeling sad about something, or whatever may happen, I won't allow myself to be sad. I will constantly try my best to always be happy. Anyways, this is a quote where I think that everyone should have printed out and placed somewhere where they can see it everyday

"I think it's brave to try to be happy. You've gotten so comfortable being unhappy. Wouldn't it be wonderful to wake up in the morning and choose to be happy, to let the water wash everything away?" - Vivian Charles in Pushing Daisies.

Best work day of all time!

So today at work, I had a pretty awesome day. For being a trophy/sports shop we have dealt with some cool items/done some cool trophies, medals, plaques, etc through out my time working there. We've engraved on samurai swords, machetes, and other awesome survival blades. We've made an acrylic award for the rapper Jay-Z and trophies, plaques, medals with color picture that looks like an actual photograph. But the items I got to play with today are supreme compared to anything we've ever dealt with. Ladies and gentlemen, I got to deal with REAL LIFE DINOSAUR BONES. Did you hear me? I SAID DINOSAUR BONES. This has been the highlight of my entire day. We have four authentic dinosaur bones sitting in our plaque room. There are three bones belonging to a Triceratop (a rib section, a vertebra, and a horn), and a metatarsal bone belonging to a Hadrosaur.

In the end, we are no ordinary trophy shop but we are the coolest one in the entire world because we get to have dinosaur bones in our presence. Yeah that's right. real. life. dinosaur. bones.

Why yes, I am holding an actual Triceratop's horn. AWWW YEAH.

Here's a picture of all four bones.

This is the Hadrosaur metatarsal bone.

This is the Triceratop's rib section.

This is a vertebra of a Triceratop.

And this is the grand horn of a Triceratop.

Things I've done

Okay, so here's just a list of what I've been up to since April. I hope that I can remember everything and they won't be in exact order of what I did first.

• Went to the midnight premier of Harry Potter 7 part two, which was absolutely amazing! There were so many feelings and tears during that movie.
• Moved out into Park Plaza apartments with my friends.
• Went on a road trip to St. George with my friends where we went hiking around town and at Snow Canyon, swimming, and other fun things.
• Went to the Tracy Aviary in SLC with my friends where we saw different types of owls, eagles, vultures, peacocks, and a whole bunch of exotic birds. We only had to pay $1 since they had a special offer and I would recommend people to take their little kids to it. It's was pretty cool.
• Marshall Kenney Dutson was born in November. What a wonderful bundle of joy he is.
• Went to the ranch in Fillmore for Thanksgiving.
• Saw lots and lots of movies.
• Had an awesome Christmas party with my friends, which consisted of secret santas, lots of food, hot tubbing, and other fun things.
• Had an awesome Christmas party with my family. It was nice to have most of the siblings over and all the kids running around the house.
• Taylor took my friend Andie and I to St. George for oneday, since he had a meeting to attend, where we went repelling, rock climbing, and went on a crazy adventure in some random place we found off the side of the freeway in the Virgin Gorge.
• Had another New Year's party with my friends, which was fun.
• Diesel Dean Ogden was born. It's so nice to have this little guy only two minutes away from home.
• Started my fourth(?) semester of school. I'm just taking Human Anatomy, but just that class alone is really kicking my butt.

I think that's most of the highlights of my life since April, but I'm not exactly sure. I only have pictures of my two St. George trips on my computer, so I'll just post a couple from both trips.

Here we are about to go climb through the Crack in St. George.

Here we are in Snow Canyon about to climb up some steep cliff to see Pioneer names

This is us after going repelling and rock climbing.

Here I am repelling.

Here's an area we found on our crazy adventures of climbing up two mountains

and then finding our way back down a gorge that risked our lives several times. Pretty

much this was the craziest adventure I've ever been on.

Previously on Amy's life...

Wow, it's been a long time since I've updated this blog. I guess it's partially due to that I forgot my username and also probably because I forgot about this blog. Oops. BUT I really want to get back into blogging mainly so I can document my life since I'm really bad at writing in my journal. Anyways, seeing as the last time I posted was in April 2011, I have a lot of catching up to do. I figure that I would just do another list of things that happened to me, except I do want to talk about a few things that have happened somewhat recently. First of all, back in November my sister Summer had her seventh child Marshall Kenney Dutson. He is an adorable, chunky boy and I just love him so much. The picture I have of him isn't current, so you can't really see how big he's become. Marshall is number 14 out of all the grandkids. Next on the list is about two weeks ago, on January third, my sister Chelsey had her first baby. His name is Diesel Dean Ogden. Oh boy, he is such an adorable baby. It's so nice to have a nephew who only lives two minutes away, so I definitely get to see him a lot. Diesel is number 15 out of all the grandkids. Now, while I'm on a roll with these babies I also want to mention that my sister Lindsey is pregnant, but isn't finding out what the sex is, and also my sister Britt is pregnant with another little girl! It's so very exciting to have so many babies in the family and by June I will have 17 nephews and nieces! WOWZA

Now that I'm done with baby news, pretty much all I've done with my life is started a new semester of school, in which I'm taking Human Anatomy as a prerequisite for the Nursing program. All I can/want to say about this class is it is the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life. It is most definitely not a piece of cake. Besides school I've been working, living on my own with my friends, gone on some crazy adventures, and some other things. I'll make another post that contains all of the things I've done since April so

that this post won't be super long.

Anyways, I'll try my best to keep this old thing updated and I'm sure I'll have some exciting things to post up in the future. Also, these two pictures of my latest nephews are from when they were just newborns. They've already changed a lot, especially Marshall who's grown a lot bigger. I'll have to get some recent pictures to put on here.

This is baby Marshall. Look at cute he

is!

This is baby Diesel. Look at that adorable face!

Kiddies, Weddings, Adventures oh my!

Hey everyone!

After these past three super busy weeks of my life, I felt that I needed to post about the many awesome things that have gone on in my life. Now to start off, two weeks ago on March 20 my sister Lindsey and her hubby went on a trip to South America, which meant that we got to watch her three cute little boys North, Railay, and Rowan. We got to babysit them for an entire week and since it was my spring break that week and my parents were super busy at the shop, I did a lot of the babysitting. It was so much fun to watch those crazy kids and it definitely helped me prepare myself for when I had kids one day, which won't be for a while but still. I enjoyed have little Rowan snuggle with me when he was tired and playing games with the North and Railay. They were a blast to have. Then on the thursday that week, my sister Tiffiny came up with her two sweet little kids, Weston and Hailey, because they had an appointment at Primary Children's Hospital for poor little Hailey. We had a lot of fun playing with those kids and it was so cute to see all of the cousins playing together. So, that's what happened the first week. Then on the second week, which was the last week of March, we had Chelsey's family bridal shower and that was a lot of fun. She sure got a lot of cute things! And now for these last couple of days.

On April 1 2011, Chelsey Elizabeth Wilkinson married Taylor Dean Ogden in St. George. It was a beautiful wedding and Chelsey looked absolutely stunning. It made me a bit sad to see my sister get married and leave, but I am super happy that they are finally together. I am sure that they are going to have a wild, adventurous marriage. Then after the wedding on Saturday, my family and I went up to this canyon area that had this small slot canyon thing called "The Crack". It was really cool walking through it and boy was it claustrophobic! The walls were squeezing me tight, but I made it through! After that we had a picnic in the park by the temple and then we all made our way back home. I had an amazing time with my family at Chelsey's wedding and Taylor's family seems like a very awesome family. I'm glad that I got to know them.

OH, also this weekend was General Conference. Sadly I wasn't able to see Saturday's sessions, but todays sessions were amazing! There were many powerful talks today and I especially loved Elder Scott, Elder Holland, and Elder Utchdorf's talks today. They were very good.

Anyways, that's all for now. Here are a few pictures from this weekend. I could have put up a lot more, since my mom had over a thousand pictures, but I am too lazy to put a lot up. ^^;

Here I am entering "The Crack"

Tuesdays With Morrie

I've just finished a book that I've read before called Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom and pretty much it is one of my all time favorites. This book is based on a true story that the author experienced and to me it was a life changing experience to read it. It's a really short book, but extremely powerful. So, if you haven't read this book and have time for a quick read, then I highly suggest reading it asap. If you have read it before, then I suggest you read it again to remind yourself of the good lessons it teaches. Anyways, I thought I would post that up here. Also, here a few of the many awesome quotes I love from it.


"So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they're busy doing things they think are important. This is because they're chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning."

"Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people to trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too–even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling."

"Do the kinds of things that come from the heart. When you do, you won’t be dissatisfied, you won’t be envious, you won’t be longing for somebody else’s things. On the contrary, you’ll be overwhelmed with what comes back."

"Be compassionate, And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place."

Eat it, Art History!

A couple of weeks ago I had my first test in my Art History class and it was the craziest test I've ever taken for class. It consisted of eight essay questions and with each essay there were two paintings. Now with those paintings I had to first identify them, which meant I had to know the artist, title, exact date, style, and medium. Then after I identified both paintings, I had to answer four or more compare and contrast questions dealing with the paintings. So, this meant that I needed to know the symbols, meanings, advancements, techniques, reasons why it was a specific style, and pretty much every little detail about every painting. As I prepared for this test I was very nervous and when I actually took it, I spent 3 1/2 hours writing the eight essays.

Finally after waiting for two weeks, my teacher handed back the tests and guess what? I got a 99% on it! I couldn't believe that I had actually done that well on it. The only reason that I missed one point was because I forgot to mention on one of the paintings that its patron was the Medici family. So, pretty much I knew every stinkin' detail.

Anyways, I just wanted to update this little triumphant moment. Hopefully I will be able to do as well on my next art test, which is next week.

26 family members and counting!

At this current moment I have 26 members in my family, but in a couple of months I shall have 27 members! The reason why is because my sister Chelsey got engaged to Taylor! And you know what? It's about time! I am so excited to have Taylor be a part of my family, especially getting to know him after who knows how many years. Chelsey and Taylor will be an awesome, crazy, adventurous couple and I'm glad that they're finally getting married. They are good for each other and I'm happy to be able to call Taylor my brother soon.

Anyways, I thought that I would just share this piece of exciting news. I'm pretty stoked about it. :)

Soldier Hollow

On Monday, February 14, my dad's singles ward went to Soldier Hollow for FHE and I was able to go with them. Also, Garrett and the four oldest Dutson kids (Austin, Harrison, Missy, and Ashton) and the Rusts came with us as well. Pretty much, it was a blast! We went tubing down the hills a lot and they had some delicious doughnuts and hot chocolate for us to eat. It was a lot of fun to see the little kids go tubing as well as us adults. :)

So, here's some pictures from it and a video.

Here's little Railay on the tube. He wasn't too sure if he wanted to be on there.

North and Missy waiting in line to go up the hill.

My momma grabbing her tube.

North and I had just gone down the hill for our first time.

Josh, North, and Missy about to go down the hill.

Harrison, Austin, Mom, Dad, and I ready to go down.

Grandmama with her two oldest grandkids.

Here I am kissing little Rowboat (Rowan).

Another picture of me and Rowan. He was a very tired little guy.

Grandpa and the boys.

Harrison, Austin, and Me.

Here's a video of North and me going down the hill. It may not look like we're going very fast, but it's actually pretty fast. We had a lot of fun. :)

I'm moving out!

So, I've been wanting to move out for a while now and I finally signed my contract to the place I will be living at. I am super stoked about living on my own, especially since I will be moving out with the fantastic Riley and Kylie! Unfortunately I don't move out until August for the fall/winter semester, but I'm sure that it will be awesome. I just wish it was August already! Anyways, I think that's it for now. Have a wonderful day everyone!

Here's a gif that represents how excited I am to move out.

Back into blogging

Hey everyone,

I decided to get back into blogging since several people I know are starting it up again and that way I can actually keep a record of my "exciting" life. So, this post will be a recap of everything that has happened in my life since my last post, which was on July 18, 2009. (Note, not all of these things occurred in this exact order).

• Survived the Swine Flue pandemic.
• Went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter 6 and UP.
• Went to the Stadium of Fire on the 4th of July.
• Had a family reunion in Yellowstone Park.
• Went star gazing and watched comets in the canyon with friends.
• Went to IHOP at 4:00 a.m. several times just for kicks and giggles.
• Had an awesome Star Wars marathon twice with my friends. (Yes I watched all six movies in one day.)
• On New Year's Eve, Andie and I stayed up all night long being crazy.
• Fell in love with some new t.v. shows, especially with the men in the shows. ;)
• Saved my love, Roy Mustang, from the homunculus on my birthday.
• Graduated from Mountain View High School.
• FullMetal Alchemist, a manga series I followed loyally and loved dearly, ended after it had been going on for 8 years.
• Went on an adventure trip to Moab with Chelsey, Taylor, and other people. There I went white river-rafting, and repelling. I also caught my hair while repelling, which caused me to be stuck about 200 ft in the air while a storm came along for several minutes.
• I am an aunt of 13 nephews and nieces.
• Attended the Muse concert in SLC.
• Invited Andie, Meghan, and Riley to Lake Powell, where we had many adventures.
• Started my first year of college at UVU.
• Joined a Singles Ward and got called in the Activities committee in R.S.
• Learned how to drive a stick shift and got my very own car, thanks to my dad.
• Dressed up as Hagrid for a Harry Potter Birthday my friends and I did for Riley.
• Went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter 7.
• Went on my first official date.
• Went on a Mexican Riviera Cruise for Christmas.
• Started my second semester at UVU.
• Got called as a Relief Society teacher.

So, I'm pretty sure that a lot more has happened throughout this last year and a half, but that's all of the main things I can remember. Anyways, I hope that I actually keep up with updating this blog and hopefully I will have pictures to put up. That way for those of you who might read this, it will at least be interesting to look at the pictures.

A Mind Filled With Memories Weigh Me Down

So, lately I've just been thinking about a few things in my life that have been bothering me. The main thing that I can't seem to get off my mind is how I haven't been that good of a friend. I know that some of you will say, "Don't say that, you're a good friend." or something else, but I feel that I can do so much better. I want to be able to do all that I can for my friends, whether it be to comfort them, make them feel happy, talk with them, listen to them, help them with problems, and all of that stuff. I mean, I feel that I've been able to do some of these things for my friends, but...there's one person, who I've failed at being a good friend and example to them...To this day I feel so guilty and ashamed of how I abandoned them just because I was afraid of being judged, and I can't believe I did so, because they really were one of my dearest friends. I honestly want to regain my friendship with this person, but I'm afraid...afraid that they won't forgive me for the things I've done, which I'm pretty sure they won't...If I could, I would go back in time and do anything that was possible to stop me from making one of the biggest mistakes in my life...

Anways, sorry about this rant. I've just been needing to get this out of me for a while, so yeah. Just ignore it. Just me rambling.

Just a hopeless dreamer

So on Tuesday, May 12 2009, I went to the Keane concert at Kingsbury Hall with my friends Riley, Andie, and Meghan. It was a fabulous concert and was so much fun! We had such a good time singing out our hearts at the concert. So, here are just a few of the many pictures I took! :D

This was the opening act, Mat Kearney, and I really like him! He has good music and a good voice! <3

And here's the lovely Keane! Oh man, they were so awesome! Especially the pianist on the right. The whole entire concert, he was rocking out while he played the piano. He is definitely one talented man.