Insight!

The other day we were watching the movie "Evan Almighty" and one of the characters on there said something that really got me thinking. He said that sometimes people pray for patience or courage or faith or whatever and God does not just give them that attribute and say "oh there you go, you now have patience." But He gives them situations in which they can practice that attribute. I've never really thought about that before. I realize that we must work for what we pray for, but I didn't realize that we need to recognize the situations that the Lord has given us to practice those characteristics that we are praying for. As I've looked back on my life, I see that this is true. Meaning when I have prayed for courage to talk to people, it's not just that I suddenly have courage, but that I have the chance to practice my courage by being put in circumstances where there are a lot of new people and I must act courageous to talk to them.


This was the wise character in the movie that got me thinking :)

Dear Dad,

Happy Father's Day yesterday! I'm pretty sure I'm the child who called you the most yesterday to wish you a Happy Father's Day. I just wanted to say, in this post, thank you for all you do for me.

You always let me hog your computer although sometimes you really did not want to :)

You always supported me through school, whether it be financially or mentally. You made sure I stayed in school.

You gave me your silliness and my occasional humorousness :)

You instilled in me the love of traveling.

You and Mom ingrained in me a love of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

You always listen to me complain about life.

Thanks for supporting me throughout the years! I love you a lot and Happy Father's Day!

I Bought a Suit!

This is the only picture I got with my suit so far, so this is the one you get:) I was going to get a picture with my hair all done and my glasses on, but that has not happened yet.

I bought a suit! The other week I had an interview scheduled at a temp agency, and I thought it would be a good time to buy a professional suit. I really wanted a skirt suit set. I talked to Heather and she recommended some good brands of suits and told me where I might find them. Spencer (yes with Spence, since Lara nor Cami could come with me) and we set out to Tyson's Corner Mall and went in a few stores, and immediately ruled them out as their suits on clearance were still over $500 (literally).
Then we went to Macy's and found that they had a huge selection of suits and they were reasonably priced. YAY! Now the hard part was finding the right suit. I picked up three suits and one of them was a brand that Heather highly recommended and it was a size smaller than I normally wear, but I tried it on anyway and it ended up being the one that fit the best and I loved it. And it was on clearance! It was normally $320.00, the price tag said $119.99 but it rang up at $99.99! I was way excited:) So now I have suit for interviews and wearing to work once I get a job. YAY! Oh and by the way the interview with the temp agency did not go through because they called me up to say that I did not have enough experience for their temp agency. So that did not quite work out the way I thought.
Thanks Heather for the suit recommendations and thanks Spence for coming with me!

AnnaLisa hates looking for jobs!

So I just graduated, as you all know, and now I am looking for a job, a "real" job. Most of my past jobs have been in retail and now I am looking for clerical/ administrative assistant type jobs. It's something I've never really done before. I mean I worked at Agel Enterprises for a while as a customer service rep, but that is all in that field. I'm scared. At times I feel that I won't be good at it or I won't know what I'm doing (which at the beginning I won't know, as it is with any job.) But I'm just nervous. I hope and pray that I will be able to find a job that I will enjoy (or at least somewhat enjoy), that I will be good at, and that will pay enough so that I can support myself. I don't need a lot of money, just enough for housing and utilities, food, transportation costs, tithing and fast offerings (of course) and eventually loan payments and maybe a little extra for miscellaneous things that might come up. I'm trying to stay positive, but it can get frustrating at times. I think that I need to trust in the Lord more and just let things happen. Of course I have to work hard and do all that I can do, but I just need to not be so nervous about it and just tell myself that I can do whatever I put my mind to. Thanks for letting me write about this.

Scenic Canada!

Once upon a time there was a lovely young maiden who went on a trip to a new and beautiful land...
while there she and her nephew stood in awe at the Butchart Gardens

and the wondrous totem pole just about the color of sand.


And she wished she could bring this back to her home so dry and hardened.


This beautiful flower blossoming up from the ground!

This peaceful land where there n'er was a sound.



These logs laid here lonely in the wilderness not knowing where next they will be found.

My sister, Lara, is a poet and I bet you did not know it. One part I wrote myself, but the rest explains itself.

AnnaLisa's View of Canada in Self-Portraits

This was the view from our hotel in Victoria, British Columbia! Except the view of me is not included in the room:)

On the whale watching boat! I thought it would be cool to get a whale in the background, but alas that did not happen.

Wait can you believe how long my arms are?! :)

I might have gotten a little bored in the car a few times :)

I got sunburned a bit while we were on our trip. It doesn't take a lot for me to get burned.

California Dreamin'!

I've had a pretty eventful past month or so. A couple of weeks after I graduated from BYU, Nate, Spence, Dad and I went on a 2000+ mile driving journey through Canada. ( I will post about the trip at a later date). After we returned to Utah from our trip, we had a day's rest and then just Nate, Spence and I drove to the Bay Area in California to visit Kristina and Tom and their cute kiddos:) Nate lives in Cali too so he was going home. Spence and I flew out of San Francisco to Virginia, so that's why we went with him. Our little stay in California was a ton of fun! The first day after we got there. Krisitina, Spence, Andrew, Madeline and I went bowling! After bowling we went to downtown San Francisco.

We went to Ghiradelli Square and got ice cream :)

We went across the Golden Gate Bridge, which I'm pretty sure I've never been across and we saw the cute and probably very expensive town of Sausalito right on the other side of the bridge.
We also went to the famous part of Lombard St. and we walked around Pier 39. San Francisco is a cool city to visit! Thank you Kristina for showing us around!

On the second day after we got there, we went to the beach!

And Nate, Spence and I got to see "Wicked!" Yay! It was amazing! I loved it! Once again thank you Kristina!

Yes these are my toes and Spence in the background getting ready to boogie board!

My adorable nephew, Andrew! I miss you guys! Thanks for letting us come and thanks for entertaining us!