A REVIEW OF THE PAST FOUR YEARS: Freshman part 2

On with the events of that first year in college. Mom broke her foot, and still to this day it brings her much pain. It was a traumatic event for me too because it made me realize that although I knew that I was growing up, so was everyone else. And my mom was no longer indestructible. Neither of my parents were, they both had frailties and faults and some of my world had to be reconstructed because of the events of my parents in those first few months of college.This here is a picture of Maya's fifth birthday get-together. She is so cute, and in the past four years has grown up so much. I am really going to be very sad when this October rolls around and I'm not there to celebrate her ninth birthday with her.Mason, Brendan, and all the boys were starting to head out on their missions or at least get their mission calls about this time of the year. It was so exciting for me to watch them find out where they were going to spend the next two years of their lives. Where they were going to serve the Lord and where they were going to learn and grow so much. I'll admit I wasn't excited to have them leave me, that would mean that I would have to go outside of my comfort zone, but it was good for all of us. We were all in that stage of life.

Brynn's birthday came and went too, she has always been so much fun. Always full of life and personality. I was grateful to live so close to my family, to go there to do laundry, to get a break from school and life at college, to laugh, giggle, and play.

Tate, and Peach came with April to pick me up each week for piano lessons. I have to admit that there were days that I forgot that it was piano lessons and I would come in to find that I had missed it and they had come and gone. And other times they were there waiting for me to head off for the night. This is a picture of Tate on my bed, I don't know if this was a time that I was tending them, or if it was one of those times that I forgot what day of the week it was and got caught up in my school work. either way, it was a cute picture of a very cute kid.

Well, that first year of college brought lots of new things with it. I seemed to spend more and more time with Joey, enjoying the laughter and company. I enjoyed having someone to talk to online while I was doing my homework 'til all hours of the evening. And found that I really didn't like it when he went out of town because I missed him too much. Shortly after this realization I had to empty out a few of my pop can lids from my jar.

Christmas time was so much fun this year. Joanna and Doug came into town I swear on Santa's sleigh. We had a wonderful nativity narration that year with Tate and Brynn as Mary and Joseph. And had such a great time all together.
Over Christmas break Joey and I became official about dating and spent every moment together. That next semester Joey and I took a ballroom class together and Joey took me with him to the dances at BYU (a fact that BYU had dances I had forgotten about until I was looking through my old pictures because they only time I went was this semester with Joey).

Joey and I spent all of our time together. We knew he was preparing for a mission so we made a goal to even read the Book of Mormon together before he headed out. As roommates we grew closer together this semester too, they didn't always like the fact that Joey was always taking me to do things and I wasn't around to do it with them, but I didn't mind. I think the thing they (Hill) didn't liked the most was that there would be nights that I forgot to bring my keys with me and when I was coming home some days at 12:30 or so I would knock on our windows to ask someone to let me in. The night depicted here in this picture I did remember my keys though. I think we left at 11 or 11:30 and then went hiking up the mountain. It was so freakin' cold though. We were talking and Joey spooked me out talking about mountain lions and gravitating to body heat in the winter, and being so low in the mountains that we didn't really get anywhere of note up the trail, just that we did it and were so cold. On the way back I was trying to get that awful imagery of us getting eating by a mountain lion out of my head and trying to think of ways to get warm that I mentioned Eskimo kisses and how I could totally understand why they would rub their noses together..... it was to get warm. We (really meaning Joey) decided to get a picture of us kissing as we were testing out if this folk lore was true or not.

Joey got is his mission call they same day that Mason went into the MTC, February 14th. I think this mission call was the worst for me. I knew that it meant that it was real. I knew that it meant that Joey was going to leave me and I didn't like that idea at all.

This semester was pretty good for me. I figured out what it was that I wanted to do when I grew up. I spent lots of time with family and yet didn't feel like I needed to be with them every weekend to be happy. This is at Easter. Grandma and Joey were there with us too celebrating time together and family traditions. This might have been the first year that we did egg wars, but since, it has been incorporated. We worked together too. Mom and Dad decided to develop the land in Mapleton and so we had to take out the fence there. I think this was a closing chapter in Mom and Dad's life. I know that when I was born they put up that fence, and here we were taking it down. That is how all of life is though. We do one thing and then need to move on, grow, change. It is hard, not denying that. But that too is part of life.Court was baptized and Joey was ever coming closer to heading off on his mission. We took mission photos and everything. I still can't believe that Court was baptized four years ago, I remember it so well.