I'm in love I'm in love and I don't care who knows it!

So my last blog was about Elder Zachariah Miller returning home from his mission and considering he's been home for about 3 weeks now, I guess it's time to blog about him being home. He came home on May 4th at about 7:30 that night. (The picture above is me right before I left for the airport) It didn't feel like it was really happening until right before I left for the airport, then I got REALLY nervous. I drove to the airport and met his family there and we all just hung out and talked for a bit while we waited for his plane to land. It was so fun being there with his family and began to feel real once I saw all the signs and the balloons and candy leis. We went and placed ourselves right by the bottom of the escalators to make sure that we saw him when he came down. I was holding a sign with Rachel and talking to her when she squealed and said, "There he is!!" I could not find him to save my life and I was getting so frustrated! Till Rachel finally said, "Kelsey, he's right THERE!" Then I finally saw him and my stomach did a flip and couldn't believe he was finally here.

Him and his family

His parents

The ultimate handshake

At first it was a little awkward seeing him because neither one of us really knew how to handle the situation. We couldn't hug or touch each other so we both stood awkwardly next to each other. Ha it was pretty funny but I was content just being next to him. He went home that night and got released and it was pretty late and he was doing things with his family so I didn't get to see him. The next day I drove down to Orem and we spent the entire day together. We went shopping, because he has no clothes, then we went to the Provo temple for a little bit, went to his little brother's water polo game, Rachel's soccer game, and ate dinner. He had some people that he needed to go visit so I left after that. It was a great day. (unfortunately we both suck at taking pictures so I have no pictures from that day... sorry)

Lately we've just been hanging out and having a good time. The Saturday after he came home my parents had an extra ticket to the ReAL game because I had to work and Zach went with them. You have to realize that he has never met any member of my family before and he was going to the game without me, with my parents, Lauren, Dustin, Kaley and Paul. What a champ! After the game they came back to the house and I was here waiting and then we just ended up watching a movie and hanging out with my family. He was a little nervous around them at first but he had just been home a few days and he's gotten much more comfortable around them since then.

This is what happens when I'm not around

At the game

In our matching jerseys from my parents

Other than that, we've just been spending time together and enjoying each other's company. We went to church together 2 weeks ago (pictured below) and his homecoming was yesterday (pictures soon to come... hopefully). Those 2 years were very long and waiting was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done, but having him back now has made it totally worth it. :)

FINALLY!!!

Well the time has finally come. This may be a stupid thing to blog about but it's something really exciting that is happening in my life and something that I've been waiting for a long time. Mr. Zachariah Miller is finally returning home from serving his mission in Panama City, Panama. This Tuesday, May 4th, he will fly in to Utah and I can't even wait. It still seems so surreal and I don't believe that he's actually going to be here soon but I'm getting really excited. I don't know what's going to happen but I'm ready to find out! Here are just a few pictures of him since he's been gone. There are only a few on my computer. After 2 long years, just 1 more day!!! :)

Update

Well, I officially suck at this blogging thing. Last night I watched an episode of House where the patient he was treating was obsessed with writing every aspect of her life on her blog and I guess it inspired me to update my blog considering I haven't done it since December! And it's now March! I can't get over that... Time sure is flying by but that's ok, I'm not going to complain about that. So here we go with an update in a nutshell.

I started school at the U and it was definitely a drastic change. It is a massive school that isn't a church school and it was hard to get used to. I really missed Hawaii and I didn't know anybody and to be honest, I wasn't liking it very much at first. I was just doing my own thing and going on with my life, not paying attention to anyone around me. But I can say that I have started to adjust and things are going good now. I still miss Hawaii and all of my friends out there, but you have to move on with your life sometimes. This was just a change in my life that I had to get used to and I'm starting to get used to it. I've met a few people in my classes and I'm getting in to the swing of things so it's not as bad as it was at first. Plus, I got a job so that's been keeping me pretty busy. It's at a place called the Corner Bakery Cafe and I'm a server/cashier there. It's actually really good. It has good food and I like the people I work with, for the most part, and it's fun to socialize with the people that come in. However, it definitely does suck sometimes, not gonna lie. But I guess that's the case with any job right? So school and work are still going good. Just going to class, doing homework, going to work, and going to sleep. That's my life right now!

An exciting thing that happened was the fact that I bought a car!! After 3 weeks of looking everywhere and dealing with car dealers I finally found one that I liked that fit my price range and was approved of by my parents. It's a 2008 Mazda 6 that only had 41,000 miles on it and I actually got a good deal on it so I'm happy. Now that I've driven it more I love it even more! That is what is pictured below. :)

This past weekend I got to spend some time with my 2 little nephews Braxton and Preston and that was a lot of fun. We built a fort in our front room after Kaelyn's mom's wedding (which was my idea haha) and then I got to spend some time with them before and after church. So that was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures. The first is us in the fort and the second is right before I left for church.

As for anything else, today is my 21st birthday and I can't believe it. I feel so old! Sometimes I don't even feel like I should be in college and I'm already in my 3rd year of school and I'm now 21! Pretty crazy... It's been a pretty good day though. Nothing too exciting happening. Just my awesome friends and family saying happy birthday to me, which is great! I'm going out to dinner to the best Chinese restaurant tonight, Asian Star, and I'm so excited for it! I can't even remember the last time I went there, probably in May for Dustin and Kaley's wedding dinner thing! Holy cow! So needless to say, I'm excited. My parents are taking me and my sister-in-law, Kaley, is coming with us too! It should be fun. Then Sunday is my birthday dinner with my family and we're having spatzle. It's going to be really good and fun to see everyone because Lauren is coming down for her Spring Break so it's going to be awesome to see everyone. I think that's pretty much about it! Hopefully I remember to take at least 1 picture of me on my birthday and try to remember to put that on here.

P.S. For anyone out there that's interested, Elder Zachariah Miller comes home in 8 weeks from today!! 56 DAYS!!!! The end. :D

Christmas Break

It's been awhile since I last blogged but not very many exciting things have been going on in my life. The Fall semester finally ended but the next semester is just about to start up next Monday. I did well in all of my classes so it was a big relief to finally get that semester out of the way. However, it was a bitter sweet feeling because with the relief of a semester coming to an end, comes the feeling of having to leave Hawaii for good. :( It was one of the hardest things I've done and it's still hard for me to believe that I'm not going back but a change will be good. Plus, who says that I won't be going back and visiting soon.

The break has been good. It's been fun to be home and spend some time with my family. I haven't done much of anything all break and it's kind of starting to drive me crazy because I don't have anything to do, but I guess I should enjoy the fact that I'm not stressing out and busy because it won't last. The weather has taken some getting used to but thankfully my mother bought me a winter coat so I didn't have to freeze for very long. Here is me and Lauren shoveling snow.

Christmas Eve was nice. This was the off year for my family's Christmas which meant all of the boring married siblings were at the in-laws so it was me, my little sister, and my parents. It was really quiet and frankly kind of strange but it was good. We went and saw Avatar which was AWESOME and I got to talk to Zach on the phone. That was soo good! He got permission from his mission president to call me on Christmas Eve because Christmas was for the family so it was so much fun to talk to him on Christmas Eve. He sounded really good and he's loving his mission and it was just normal to talk to him because he is so close to coming home (less than 4 months left now!!). Me and Lauren opened up our Christmas PJ's so we took some cheesy pictures in them.

Dustin and Kaley stopped by that night to visit and open sibling gifts. This scarf and gloves is what I got from them.

My dad got a marshmallow gun for his gift at his company party so when Dustin got a hold of it he was having a little too much fun. He was trying to shoot a pillow that Lauren would throw in the air.

Then when he went to sit down on the back of his heels, he ripped his pajama pants that he just barely got from Kaley's parents that day.

Then Christmas was just fun and lazy as it usually is and me and Lauren both got sweet new phones so we spent all day playing with them and trying to figure them out.

All in all, Christmas was great and it's been nice to have a break. Next step, get back into college and find a job!