The US Postal Service gets a whole lot of my money..

Ok, so I was thinking today how much I use the USPS.. and how much money of mine they get.
Here's a few of my big things
1. I send a letter to Levi EVERY week.. That is 42 cents a week, which is soon going up to 43 cents p.s. so.. by the time the two years is up, we will both have spent 43.63.. that's not to mention the packages I send for holidays and just because.. adds up to about 10 holidays total.
2. Last week I mailed a package to Jenny and Katie for their birthday
3. Today I mailed Tanner a package for his birthday
4. I also mailed baby Kennedy a being born present today
It was pretty funny, the mail lady in the Westminster mall and I are good friends. Her name is Dorothy. She's nice. I went today for a job interview( I now work at Bath and Body works) and I mailed Tanner's gift. Then I was browsing in Gap and found something for Kennedy, so I decided to just mail it while I was there. Well Dorothy says, " you come in here often enough I figure I should ask your name." ha ha, thus started the friendship of Dorothy and Marissa.

One strange morning...

So... this morning I hear a knock on the door, David comes in and says quietly and quickly, " Marissa, did you leave the back door open?" I say "no" and he says, "ok, stay in your room." and he leaves.. I then hear him ask Mimi if she left the door open. At this point, I am really creeped out! I then hear him moving through the house, opening doors and looking in closets. Ok, at this point, I am just really glad that David was here! Somebody broke in last night. At about five, David was in a dead sleep and woke up and had this feeling that he should get up. He went downstairs and the back sliding door was flung all the way open. We rarely use it.. and it stays locked pretty much all the time. Luckily, no one was still in the house, and as far as we can tell, nothing is missing. If they had wanted a quicky grab, my brand new pointe shoes were sitting right there on the table, and so was Tanner's birthday present from AE.. but those were still there.. David is convinced they were after the TV, and when they noticed it was too big and fat for them, they left. :) Anyway.. the cops came it it was all fun and games after that. The cop asked David and I if we would have had any boyfriends or girlfriends sneaking in or out.. ha ha.. no. So, they took down some names... our names, unfortunately no one got hauled into the station. A little creepy indeed..Lucky we had a guy here!

As promised.. sorry it took me forever!

So, below are the fun pictures from the cruise. The Pedersens are the awesome family I went with. They paid for EVERYTHING. My flight to Utah to get on the flight to Florida, and my whole cruise cost. And then paid me for my help with the kids. I was so lucky to be able to go. Oh, and we ate a lot of steak and got two massages! You can't get better than that! It was great to get a break from real life and soak up a little sun. The kids are so much fun, so we had a blast playing walkie talkie hide and seek, swimming with dolphins and in the pool, exploring, playing in the arcade, eating lots of good food.. and relaxing! Then the end of the trip was a lot of fun too.. we got to the airport in Salt lake and my flight back to Long Beach was supposed to leave in two hours. Well we had tossed around the idea of me staying for one more night to hang out with Rachael.. so I called Delta when we got there to arrange it. Well, since the flight was bought with sky miles they said they couldn't do a direct change. So, I told Rachael that it wouldn't work. Well then I called them back and we figured it out while Rach had to run back on the plane for something. I changed the flight to fly into Orange County instead and we got it all worked out for a 60$ fee, which Todd happily supplied. So, Andie said that we should keep it a surprise. We went down to the baggage claim, and they got their bags, we said goodbye, and they all left. So then Todd & Andie just came back around to the pick up and I went with them while Rach was in the other car. Well they were going to dinner at Cafe Rio, so we got there and I waited in the car for 5 minutes, so Rach didn't expect a thing. So I came inside, came up to them in line. It was like Rachael was seeing me, but not actually looking at me as I came in. So I walked over and said, " Hey while you're in line, will you get me a steak salad with both kinds of dressing like I like it?" She freaked out and was all kinds of excited and it was all really fun! So I spent the night, went to church the next day, and at the start of sacrament I get a text from Brady that says, "I'm here call me when your flight lands." Whoopsies.. he thought I got in at 10 AM and it was at 10 PM! So I called him and he said, ok, I will just wait here till you get here tonight. Ha ha.. (thanks for the effort Brayd) So then we ate dinner with the Pedersens, then drove to Kaysville to squeeze in a few (very few) minutes seeing Levi's mom. Oh, and then I almost missed my flight! As we were leaving his house, Rach slipped on the ice in the driveway and almost died, I thought she had a concussion. Anyway, I made it. And I didn't even have to butt in the security line this time. What can I say, I like to live on the risky side of life! All in all.. it was a GREAT week!

The Cruise!

The simpleness of this word

To those of you, which is most of you, who I do not use this word with often enough. I hope you know that I love you all. Funny, it's such an easy word to let slip from your lips, yet carries so much impact, I feel that it shouldn't be over used. But I do, love everyone who has influenced my life for the better. I love you. After all, "Love doesn't make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile. " Franklin P. Jones Thanks for making my ride worthwhile.

The FUNNIEST thing about today.

RECENT GOVERNMENT HEALTH WARNING:

DO NOT SWALLOW BUBBLE GUM

I'm going on a cruise!

Finally I have something somewhat interesting to post about... hallelujah! :) I'm going on a cruise to Mexico and Belize for the next week, the best part? Wait for it.. totally free!! I'm not going to pay a dime! I will explain, and post some pictures when I get back, mostly because I want to hold all ya'll in suspense! :)

For lack of anything better to say..

Just thought I would post some pictures of the end of Fall semester and Disneyland fun.. Yeah, this guy FORCED Megan, Kearis and I to participate. I'm pretty sure he thought Megan was cute.
I do my best work on a park bench at Disneyland.. Ok, this was after like 14 hours in Disneyland!
I LOVED this red and gold Belle dress. Seriously, if they had it in my size I would probably buy it. And, it was reversible for heaven sakes! Two dresses all rolled into one. One side is gold the other is red. I made Kearis try it on then spent like 15 minutes trying to get her to buy it. I wish I was 6 again dang it!
Ha ha this is outside the Haunted Mansion, I can find him everywhere I go! The whole thing says LEVI TATION. Ha ha Love it.
This is one of my very best friends Zane Gray, if there were no Levi Williams, there would most definately be a different kind of Zane Gray in my life.
Our Goodbye/ Birthday/ Graduation Party..
We are a bunch of posers and mom LOVES it, I know she does.
Oh look a Happy.. slightly odd family. I wonder what people wonder about all of us sometimes..
Ok looks like Levi, and Texas wins. :)
That's all folks! I feel that I do my best writing in pictures.. lets see I wrote 1,2,3..9000+ words tonight, phew, I am tired.

BJ's, My Home For The Next Nine Months

See.. I love this place already. It's like going to a party every night for work. Luckily, I got right back into the swing of things and most of the old people still work there, so no new friends to make! Yipee! Pretty fun stuff. Hope it stays that way for nine whole months!

A wedding, funny married people, and a college Christmas.

So... I know that 20 is not all that old. But when SO many of your friends are married, it starts to feel like that! We went down to Logan this weekend for my old roomate/friend from home's wedding. It was a lot of fun. After the reception we went to stay at my friend Kera and her husband's apartment. Yes, her husband (this is awful dress Ohio wedding friend Kera) Anyway, they have turned into adorable married people. So funny story she told us that I just have to share. One morning she was getting ready for school and decided that she was hungry and wanted spaghetti o's for breakfast. Strange, but true. So he, thinking he would be a sweet husband snuck downstairs to heat some up for her. Well, on the way back up, he tripped and spilled them all over the stairs. She freaked out and they cleaned it up frantically, but the damage wasn't bad. She said, "Nice thought honey, but I am not sure I am hungry for those anymore." So, he dutifully started down the stairs will them and a wad of sauce soaked paper towels in his had. Yeah, then he tripped on the way down, fell flat on his face, the bowl went flying, and the paper towels painted the wall! He spend two hours cleaning it up. Spaghetti o's on carpet, the wall, the ceiling, the front door, and back up the stairs he came down. HA HA laughing so hard at them. The funniest part is he is pretty reserved and quiet and as she was telling this story he turned as red as spaghetti o sauce. ha ha. well that is my story.. hm.. other funny stuff from this weekend.. I think I'm all out for now.. I have some photos however..

Oh yes, this is what Levi is getting for Christmas. I feel that I did a pretty darn good job this year. He's getting a Red Sox signed baseball, perfect because they are his favorite team, a sweet t-shirt, a lovely album, and of course, a card that sings "Let it snow". Lucky boy he is. P.S. I'm almost to 13 months ya'll!

This is the Christmas tree we cut down. WITH AN AX. I am not quite sure why that is important... But, how many people do you know have a REAL Christmas tree in their college apartment!?

Ok so here is our college Christmas decorating. We did pretty darn good this year. Tonight is Christmas eve. We are all taking a pair of our PJ'S wrapping, exchanging, and wearing them. Ha ha it will be great! Then we will have a sleepover in the front room, watch Christmas movies and drink hot chocolate.. then Santa will come.

Funny Kids

So the kids that Rachael Nannys came up for a visit last week, and we had a blast with them. They are the funniest kids. Here are some videos of the amusing things they do.

Halloween is so Fun.

So we had a little early Halloween fun last night at the "Shelbourne South Tower" Party. Actually.. we had more fun making our costumes I think! The party was filled with immodest boys and girls who think that Halloween is a good excuse to be a skank. How nice is that. Even at BYU- Idaho we can't be mature enough to wear sleeves and follow the fingertip rule! Oh well.. Rach and I had fun till the cops came.. and it turns out that being Pixies is pretty darn fun. I haven't dressed up for Halloween for like 5 years. We are going trick-or-treating with Katie and Matt this week! :)

Heated floors. WHAT?

Yeah what apartment to any of you guys know of that has heated floors? Mine. :) Crazy! We woke up this morning and one of our roomates had turned the heat up to 85 degrees. A little excessive don't you think?! Me too. But, the floors were HOT. That will be nice come winter.. Maybe I will just sleep on the floor.

Crazy, Funny, College Boys

OOPSIES

Here are some of my oopsies from the last few days. :) It has been a great weekend!!
Oopsies. Fell asleep in the last 20 minutes of afternoon conference today...

Oopsies. Brought a dead fish in the house. It reeked. ( I used it for a business presentation)
Oopsies. Told some guys to jump up and down and make our neighbors hate us at 12:30
Oopsies! It snowed like six inches today!!

Why I love Rexburg.

Bonfires Rock
Yeah we are tight.
I am a pretty straight shooter.
Demo Derby is a requirment.
Classic

Here are a few visual reasons that I love Rexburg. Yes, it is seemingly quite boring, but you can find all kinds of fun here. I love it here!!

Things I just realized.

For one, I keep doing this.. I copy and paste my words so they end up twice. But it is good because then if you miss anything, you get a second chance to see it. But also, I was just reminded of a funny story. I was noticing how prominent my dimples are in these pictures and had to chuckle about a story about Merlynn Jensen. For those of you who know her, this will make complete sense. For those of you who don't, all you have to know is that she is a very small, unbelievably sweet old lady. But she is one of those old people who has been through so many years, that she believes that most rules of common courtesy (not to mention rules about foul language) don't apply to her. So once I went to her house, and as I walked in the door the first thing she said ( no hello or anything) " Wow! You are a very pretty girl. But wait, you have really big dimples. Did you know that dimples are a muscle defect? So I guess that means that you have defective cheeks. You poor girl you. I only know this because I was a nurse once you know. You should be a nurse. The world is having a shortage of nurses. What ARE you going to school for? Oh, heck with that girl, you need to be a nurse." So in essence, wouldn't that make me a defective cheeked nurse? :) Can't help but giggle at that one can you.

Good News

So I went to the doctor last week. The final result was well.. positive.. but still undetermined. I don't have cancer. That is great news, but I still have hyperthyroidism and I still have a lump in me that shouldn't be there. There is still a good possibility that I will need to have it removed sometime in the future, but not right now. Which is so good. I am headed to school on Tuesday, and not so much excited for the school part, but still need to stay on my education schedule. To also accomplish this, I will be taking twenty credits, AHHH! I hope I can survive it. I am so excited to be back in Rexburg with all my buddies. I can't say I hated California, but Rexburg is definitely my first choice. So I am off to the Iceburg with a whole new perspective on life. I am grateful and excited to be alive.

Why I love today.

Mimi woke me up at 7:00 Am to do odd jobs for her and remind me to take out the trash. Which see does EVERY Monday. And then says. "Well I wouldn't remind you, but you ignore me all the time." Funny, I have lived here for two summers now and NEVER forgotten the trash on Mondays. So then I went to work, and realized that I was pretty lucky not to get hit by a tornado in Ohio. I found out that it touched down in the employee parking lot of the Midway Airport. They de-boarded every plane, and told us all to get away from the windows, against a wall, and even better under a doorway, or hold on to something for dear life. So our flight left an hour late. Which meant 5 minutes in the Vegas airport to get from Gate A to Gate B. I barely made it. The lady acted all huffy at me when I asked if I was too late. It was the last flight of the night and I really didn't want to spend a night in Sin City. She said, "I guess we will have to let you on, but they are about to leave." Well I got on and promptly realized that there were a total of about 10 people on the whole plane. As if I was holding up the Army. Geeze. So then I decided to take a nap on my row of seats. Since it was only a 40 minute flight, the lady walked real fast and skipped me on the peanuts. So when she came back the other direction. I very politely asked if I could have some peanuts. She looked at me, looked at her watch and said,"I'm sorry, my service has ended." Gag. What is wrong with the service industry these days!? Oh, and on our previous flight, one of the flight attendants thought Rachael and I were mixing drinks with our Dr. Pepper and Dt. Coke because we asked for extra ice and limes. Ha ha. He kept our secret safe. Ok, ADD has taken over. Back to things I love about today. I was driving home from work and in about 3 seconds flat, my temperature gauge went from normal to HOTT. And my feet almost lit on fire. So yeah, my personal(along with Robert's Dad's diagnosis) is that my fans aren't working, and neither is my water pump. Love that. When it rains it pours right. So in an effort to ignore my problems, I decided to go to a Dodgers game instead. So, that was fun! I will think about the issues in the morning. Or next year when I have time for this.

So you all may know the details...

I am sure that all of you know about my thyroid issue. I figured I would put in on here so I don't have to explain all the details to everyone! Ok, So I have hyperthyroidism (basically it is producing too many hormones). So, I am on medication for that. It is an ity bitty pill that packs a punch of a STRONG, BITTER, aftertaste for about 2 hours after no matter what I eat to suppress it. So, that in and of itself is a joy twice a day! So on top of that, I have a nodule.. a lump. The nodule is not causing the hyperthyroidism, which means there is a one in six chance that it is cancerous. As opposed to the other option, if it were causing it, it would be one in two hundred. So, mine is more likely to be cancerous. I have had about 12 blood tests, an ultrasound, and a thyroid uptake. If any one ever has to have one.. they are not fun! Basically they strap you to a table, head and all. And then press these two gray plates down on your face. Since there is no point of reference, you feel like they are about to break your nose off. Then you have to sit like that for 30 minutes. Yeah, I decided to take a nap. Anyway, this week I am having a needle biopsy. It shouldn't be too bad. It's an outpatient procedure, they just numb the area and stick a big old needle in the cyst and suck crap out of it. Ok, so from that, they will determine if it is cancerous or not, which means surgery and thyroid replacement medication. The other option is.. well I don't know yet. They doctor keeps saying, lets go from there. Which is really annoying because I am starting school on the 12th. I should stay here for the surgery because this endocrinologist has been rated as one of the top ten in the country. So there you have it. No need to panic. I am cool as a cucumber. Just thought ya'll wanted to know the details. I am most stressed about the scar it will leave on my neck. Cause gosh dang it, I have a nice neck!