Finding Happiness

I've been pondering life a bit lately. In my non-creative writing capabilities, here's the result of my thought process put into words:

Looking back on my childhood and early adulthood, I admit I am guilty of wishing years away and spending time counting down rather than truly enjoying life as it was. The "older" audience of this blog is probably going to laugh when I say that the past always seems so much simpler than the present. I am aware that that will probably always be true no matter how old I get. I'm sure even a few years from now I'll look back on today, this week, this month, and think "life was so simple then" event though it doesn't feel that way.

When I think of simpler times, my mind wanders back 6 years ago to a little city called Rexburg in the great state of Idaho. A freshman in college, living away from home, life was mostly carefree. I lived on a beautiful campus with a beautiful temple in the making:

 There were also some lovely gardens that were so pretty to walk through (when it wasn't cold and snowy which means any time between May and October).

The gardens had some beautiful spots that honestly put BYU's south gardens to shame. 

  In the gardens, there was this cute little house

On the inside of the house was this saying: 

Non-shocking fact: Within happiness is the word happy. There is no way we will ever find happiness in life if we are constantly miserable along the way. Don't get me wrong, ask anyone who has lived with me (family, roommates etc), I can be onery, cranky and miserable. But really, if we spend the majority of our days thinking "Ugh I just can't wait until..." or the classic "I will be so happy and life will be so much easier when..." we will eventually realize how much time we have wasted waiting to be happy rather than just being happy. 

During the summer I spent abroad there were a lot of days I spent feeling sorry for myself, or angry at things going on. With these pictures, you might wonder how could I be anything but happy: 

How I wish I could go back in time and rather than spend many days being irritated or frustrated, realize that I was truly getting a once in a lifetime opportunity and that I should appreciate the good, the bad, and even sometimes heartbreaking for what it was. I love the saying that happiness not a destination, but moreso a way of life.

More often than not, I fail at being content with life as it currently stands. I suppose in a way that's what keeps us progressing to something better. But even when we're waiting for that degree, new car, new house, kids to grow up, etc., we should take a moment to stop and simply just be happy- because misery loves company, not happiness!  

Family Camp-Out

We went camping last weekend with Marks 2 brothers. We couldn't find any friends to go with us, so at the last minute we practically had to beg and plead Mark's brothers to come with us. Since we were just going to get our fill of camping in, we did the basic mandatory camping foods: Foil dinners (chicken potatoes, carrots and onions), S'mores, and Muffins for breakfast the next morning.

We left after the boys finished work at 5 and took the 30 minute drive up Mapleton Canyon to Whiting Campground. It really is only about 10 minutes from civilization. But it's just far enough up the canyon to get dirty, smell like campfire and escape the brutal valley heat for a bit. The campsites were nice (though small) and had a lot of families camping. We were also surprised when the host came up and told us we COULD use sticks and lose brush to kindle our fire. Most places that's a felony. So that was nice, though this time we remembered to pack extra wood. 

 This is Ryan surprised how good the foil dinners taste. (Let's admit it, it's hard to get them to really taste good)

 I figured I ought to get a picture of Mark and I since these were for our blog. He did this one and Ryan willingly put up with the pose. 

 

 After enjoying foil dinners we played a few card games and then figured we might as well start enjoying s'mores. There was quite the debate on how s'mores should be cooked (charcoal outside vs golden brown). This is definitely where I differ from Mark. I believe light brown and bubbly are the best characteristics of a marshmallow where he believes the more burned the better.

 Yummy marshmallows!

After s'mores we sat around and told "Ghost Stories". Really they were just random stories being retold or made to sound scary but weren't. We had a lot of good laughs. I wasn't sure what to expect camping with 3 boys but I was surprised at how much fun we did have. Sure I got a little nostalgic for Girls' Camp and wanted to sing a round of the Jell-O song or Princess Pat but since I would have been singing alone, I decided I could survive and take a more "masculine" (read: normal) approach to camping.

We had so much fun camping and are thinking about going again before the summer is out. There are just never enough weekends for us to do everything we want!