I too am grateful

Everyone's gratitude posts really inspired me and made me reflect on what I hold most dear. The older I get the more I realize it's my relationships that have the most profound affect on my happiness and give me satisfaction. Specifically my relationship with The Lord, my family and my friends. But I would like to go into specifics of a few things and people that I am particularly grateful for at this time in my life.

• My family. I am really blessed that although I have lived thousands of miles away for the last 15 months I have been able to see my family quite a bit. I have been able to go home to Utah four times and then my parents have come to DC, New York and my entire family went to Italy in this time. Just spending time with those that you are most comfortable with is refreshing and it was a special treat to have my entire family reunited over Thanksgiving when Brian came home from his mission in Jackson, Mississippi. And our neighbors took the liberty in decorating our house, part of the decoration includes 200 helium balloons that we gathered because we wanted to try to see if we could put our cat in a pillow case to see if it would float. Unfortunately/fortunately the cat must have caught wind of our plan and by the time we gathered all the balloons it had disappeared. But we still decided to use the balloons for a great family photo.
• Wonderful friends. Of course nothing can replace family, but I've found a pretty good substitute while I live on the other side of the country. I have been blessed to live with a lot of amazing girls since I moved to DC. The last two houses that I lived in have really felt like home. The girls of Joyce and Uhle Street have made me feel loved and taken care and have helped my transition to the east be a surprisingly easy one. They all came together, along with Ogreid (Odie, Grayden and Reed), to treat me to a birthday dinner last month and helped take the sting out of turning 26. 26 was a surprisingly hard age, it marks the transition to the late twenties and for once I really do feel old. But this is not the only time in my life that I have been surrounded by great friends. All of you from my childhood to high school, Utah State, The Mission, BYU and now DC have been with me through a lot of adventures and good times as well as difficult times and I really appreciate it.
  

The girls of Joyce and Uhle - (Back to front, left to right) Courtney Mecham, Jenny Corry, Leanna Kowallis, Sarah Stancliff, Erika Borgquist, Jeanette Lyman, Stephanie Sonksen, Jocelyn Sparks, Staci Wheeler, Alison Aikele, and Hollie Pollan.
Ogreid and the Dice at Halloween: Odie, Jenny, Grayden, Courtney and Reed

• Fall, it has become my favorite season. In DC fall lasts two or three months. The leaves change in phases and stay on the trees much longer than in Utah. The humidity decreases and there is so much to see and do. I love that from my desk, I can walk down the hall and overlook the white house and monuments and seeing them surrounded in color is really a treat. Perfect for Saturday hikes and bike rides and road trips to West Virginia, New England, and Boston.
  

• My Job. I still don't know exactly how I ended up where I am, and I know it's not where I want to be forever. But my job has taught me a lot, exposed me to new ideas and given me freedom and flexibility. I have to take flack, I think mostly in jest, for the fact that I am working for the unions. And the Jimmy Hoffa jokes do get a little old, but overall it's been a really good place for me. I'm grateful that my work will help pay for my school and that I work with people that are supportive of me, truly care about me, and appreciate my contributions even if they are small. I also just got finished working at a conference that was the brainchild of my departments director and we did most of the work on. Even though I am the peon in the office, I did have some input and contributed to this conference and it turned out great. We had over 200 union leaders from 83 countries, and got some good press coverage in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and the Chicago Sun. It was fun and rewarding to see a huge event like this come together. If you are interested here is the article from the post.
• My testimony. This is the last point I will expound on, but certainly not the least important. I read a lot of the articles on Romney's candidacy and I find it really interesting. Of course I, like most fellow Mormons, am somewhat sensitive to what is being said. My religion is what identifies me more than any other characteristic that I have. I identify with my religion even more than I identify with my nationality. And when taken out of context a lot of the criticisms that are made do make mormons sound a little crazy. But all I have to do is open the scriptures, pour my heart out in prayer, or visit the temple to again feel peace and comfort and know that indeed my Savior is Jesus Christ. When Brian gave his welcome home talk in Sacrament meeting he reviewed the "first discussion" and I cannot hear the account of the first vision without being touched by the spirit, which reminds me that he is a true prophet. I am grateful for my testimony and for the direction and purpose it gives my life.
  

mmmmmmmmmmmm

Yesterday I was feeling a little sick at work. I really did have a little cold and the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet had done a number on my stomach the night before. So I dogged out a little early and went home to make one of my favorite treats. Pumpkin bread. I recently found a recipe that is really good and is copying Great Harvest Pumpkin Bread. Which is my absolute favorite thing. In High School Natalie worked at Great Harvest and she would occasionally bring the day old bread to my house, I became addicted. There is a Great Harvest in Arlington Virginia. I was surprised thinking it was only a Utah thing, but I have never made it there on the day when they sell the pumpkin bread. So thanks to the world wide web I was able to duplicate the recipe. And creating this divine bread yourself makes it even more satisfying (which I never thought was possible).
So I want to share this recipe with all of you. It was the perfect food for a rainy November afternoon in.

GREAT HARVEST PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP BREAD

2 1/2 cups white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
16 oz cooked or canned pumpkin puree (not pie filling)
1 cup oil
4 eggs, beaten lightly
2/3 cup water
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two (9x5 inch) loaf pans or three (8x4 inch) loaf pans.

Mix flours, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt together in a large bowl; set aside.

Mix pumpkin, oil, eggs, and 2/3 cup water together and stir into dry ingredients. Stir in chocolate chips. Place batter in prepared pans.

Bake 60 or 70 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

A New England and Amish Autumn

After a hot dry summer the last two weekends have actually felt like fall. The leaves are changing, the weather is perfect (light jacket weather), and it's been raining on and off. Last weekend a group of us left DC for Boston to visit our good friend Suzy. She lived in DC, but moved to Boston in the spring to work on the Mitt Romney campaign. We only had two days, but we really packed it in.

Highlights:

• We went on a duck tour where you ride on an authentic amphibious WWII landing vehicle. And let me tell, I was that cheesy tourist that I get so annoyed by in DC, and I loved every minute of it. Our guide called himself "Sergeant Meatball" and made us yell "quack quack!" whenever we saw people walking on the street, he probably weighed 300 pounds and was wearing a hula skirt and a hawaiian shirt.
  
• Canoli in Little Italy
• Street Performers downtown. I especially loved the breakdancers.
• Our VIP tour of Mitt's headquarters.
• Cuddling with all the roommates + Odie in Suzy's bed.
• We went to the Head of the Charles. A crew rowing race where colleges come from all over the country to compete. It's really close to Harvard campus and we wandered over to watch a little bit of a Princeton vs. Harvard football game. And let me tell you the Princeton band's outfits were something else.
• 
• We watched part of the Red Sox semifinals verses the Cleveland Indians in a sports bar in Harvard Square.

I spent this weekend in Amish Country, Lancaster Pennsylvania. A group of us went to ride what has become a tradition here in DC. Dutch Bike Dutch. We did a forty mile ride and it was beautiful. It had rained for three days straight. And stopped right as we began our ride Saturday morning. We were fully prepared with rain gear, but didn't end up needing it. We crossed wooden bridges, saw amish children and buggies, llamas, and pumpkin patches.
Pictures from this will have to be forthcoming, I didn't do the best job of documenting this trip.

Oh mother nature

You may think that this moose is just a sweet and innocent animal wandering through the mountains looking for food and family. That may be your impression now, but when he is staring you down from ten feet away he will make you want to wet your pants. On my trip to Utah last weekend Des and I went biking in American Fork canyon. We had been going for no longer than five minutes when I slammed on my brakes because directly in front of me on the path was this moose. I know, the picture isn't as impressive from fifty feet away. But it's the best I could do because I was so scared and didn't want to do anything that would startle it when it was close. Des and I really aren't up to par on our wilderness survival skills and so when we both realized we had no idea what to do, retreat, play dead, climb a tree....we decided to do the only thing we did know how to do. After our friend Bullwinkle took a few more steps towards us we decided to pray. And of course no sooner had we started praying that the moose turned away from us and got off our bike path and walked around us. My testimony grew, the crisis was averted, and the bike ride was spectacular.

I've been home a month, and really feel like I need to write about my trip Europe, but what I want to write about isn't the beauty of Michaelangelo's David, the deliciousness of the gelato, the enchantment of Venice and the grandeur of the Alps. I want to talk about spending ten days with your family in a nine passenger van traveling through three countries where you have no hotels booked, speak none of the languages, have no itinerary, and have lost the debit card. That my beloved readers, may seem like a recipe for disaster, but to the contrary it was delightful, stressful of course at times, but all in all a really great trip.

Spending time with those who love me most taught me a lot about myself and how at 25 I've matured more than I thought despite my childish tendencies. I remember in junior high I was a completely different person around my family and friends. I was trying so hard to be cool and impress my friends that at times I would end up treating my family horribly as I struggled to find an identity. We have all been through this awkward time and can relate to each other. Now after serving a mission and having lived with over twenty different girls I realize that I can't hide and that my true self begins to emerge as a person that is neither the person I was when I was fourteen and changing personalities as I switched between Jenny who was trying to impress (friends) and the Jenny who knew she was loved unconditionally and could act however she wanted with her family.

My point is that on this Europe trip all of this came together for me in my head. I realized that I am myself around my family, but it's that same myself that I am around my friends. My self-confidence has grown enough to stand up for myself when I'm with my friends, and my feelings of charity and love for my family have grown so much that I want to show that when I am with them and not just take advantage of their unconditional love which forces them to put up with my cranky moods. They still see my crankiness, but hopefully in smaller doses.

I'm not writing this to say I'm not hypocrite, I definitely still do many things that are fake to my friends and inconsiderate to my family. But spending a concentrated time alone with my family was great for me to see this evenness that is a part of my emergence to adulthood, expounding more on my theme of adulthood from my last post. And I'm interested to hear if you had similar experiences or if I'm just a little slow with my epiphanies.

And now a few pictures:

Here we are in front of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence. We had an awesome bike tour by our friendly tour guide Marco. One of my favorite facts I learned from Marco is that all the industries in Florence are being taken over by the Chinese because the Italians just like to take naps.

Steph and I in Venice. Love her, a great travel companion and she is so non confrontational. She would be absolutely mortified by my dad when he would haggle about prices and demand tap water from the Italian waiters who tried to convince us that Italian tap water just wasn't fit to drink.

Cute, yes they are. The family in the Austrian Alps.Our beloved van. This was at church in Salzburg, I think it took about twenty minutes and an 83 point turn to get out of this predicament.

Today it finally happened. I was walking back to my office from lunch looking so professional in my black pin-striped dress pants and heels. And then, as I elegantly strode to the front door, thinking in my head how beautiful the sound of clicking heels is, I lifted my foot and my shoe didn't want to come with it. I fell forward and just smiled as I looked back at my shoe stuck in the crack between the two pieces of tile and the people around me who seemed to look more embarrassed than I felt. For some reason it just reminded me that I am now an independent adult in our nation's capitol, wearing heels, giving directions to people on the street who ask me how to get to the holocaust museum, paying into a 401K retirement plan, buying things like band-aids and neosporin instead of just stealing them from my parents house, and having a desire for the first time to buy things like furniture.

Don't get me wrong the silly part of me tends to come out more than the super serious, but it is refreshing once and awhile to be reminded of my continual emergence into adulthood.

*Disclaimer*

Sorry I just realized that the post below this is the longest post known to man.....I don't think even my mom will have the patience to read that, but have fun scanning through the pictures.