CONTEST!

My sister, Laura is doing a contest. Go to her blog and do it too. www.6lalas.blogspot.com

Yesterday Erica and I made a

double batch of cookies. It was her fathers famous chocolate chip cookie recipe.



They were so good that today I ate ten! :-/ I've eaten more cookies since I came to school this term than I have in my whole life. I am really starting to hate cookies.

With that said, I've been inspired by one of my high school friends, Melissa. She has lost 74 lbs and is still losing weight. She blogs about it every week including her weight. She also includes a before and after picture bi-weekly. It is inspiring. So I'm going to do the same.

Last week I weighed myself at 212. With my cookie binging, I think I'm up to 215 this week.

I have the help of my personal trainer, Erica. I am planning on getting down to 200 by the end of the term.

Once I reach my goal I will post a before and after picture. I'm making my goal the end of the term(April) because I don't want to lose weight by merely exercising like crazy and eating healthy but rather change my lifestyle where I can maintain that weight.

I am going to be eating smaller portions, drinking lots of water, exercising a healthy amount each week and a taking any and all advice that my personal trainer gives me.

Erica and I went snowboarding

Erica and i were invited to go snowboarding with some of our friends. We went to Kelly Canyon, where Erica's uncle is the manager. It was a lot of fun. It would not stop snowing though and it was way cold.

Here are the slopes

This picture doesn't do it justice, but it was a beautiful sunset. The pink was reflecting on the hills of snow and I had to take a picture.

Here is my snowboard

Erica was cold when we were getting ready to leave. Like a good boyfriend, I gave my sweat shirt.

and my coat

and my snow pants

She wore my coat over her winter clothes. We wrapped my sweatshirt around her head and tied my snow pants around her waist. She was finally warm. It was a really cold night.

And here is me :-)

Along with my heart she took all of my clothes. I don't know what was up with me though, I wasn't really cold at all.

Overall we had a really fun night. Before we left, I made us dinner while we did homework together and after we got home, she made us some hot cocoa for dessert and we did some more homework. We're trying to get all of our homework done before Sundays. We're going to try and not do homework on Sundays. I think it's going to be good.

These are quite possibly the most delicious things I have ever eaten

One of the New Year's resolutions Erica and I made was to not eat candy. We have done great so far. For Christmas Ardith and Brian gave us all some gummi vitamins. These vitamins are amazing. They taste a lot like candy and have helped me get through my times of weakness. I think they may even be laced with nicotine.

Erica told me about a guy who ate the whole bottle in one day and had to get his stomach pumped. I believed her, but I didn't realize how bad that would of been until one day I ate six in one day. I took two in the morning. Around lunch time I was home and I popped a couple more and then that night I took a couple more without thinking.

The next day I almost died. I had the worst stomach ache I had ever experienced. I only had six, imagine if I would have taken the whole bottle.

Anyways... I've never been so faithful in taking my multivitamins. I'm about 2/3 of the way done with my bottle and I think when I finish I will buy another.

My hat goes off to you One Source Gummi Bear MultiVitamins. You have achieved what no other multivitamin company has been able to do. I am now a devoted consumer for life.

Random Stuff

This has been a fun week. I've been really busy. I have a free moment tonight though and so I'm going to update my blog with a bunch of random things.

I found this note just now. I wrote it during business stats and passed it along to Erica,

"Hey good looking. How 'bout you and me head out of town this Saturday and kick it? Kick it real good."

She replied, " Sounds good sugah!"

I love that woman. :-)

Here is a picture of a small date Erica and I went on. I made a fort out of a snow bank. From the road you can't see it, it just looks like a pile of snow, but I made a path that goes around the back and i made bleacher style seats. We went there bundled up and had some hot cocoa. It was pretty cool. The temple was behind us and it was really bright and in front of us we were able to see the city.

My roommate Eli went to Salem for the weekend to propose to his fiance. As a welcome home gift I made his bed. Here is a tutorial and how to short sheet a bed.

1.Take off the comforter.

2. Pull the sheet that goes over his body all the way to the front. Fold it over and tuck in the bottom half.

3. Put comforter on and add pillows. The level is how far his feet can go when he gets into bed.

4. Add cookies so he doesn't suspect that you did anything to his bed. If your cookies are in the shape of Mickey Mouse it's an added bonus.

He got home around 3 in the morning and I was like a little school girl. I was still awake because I was too excited to go to sleep. he got home and I was peaking through the covers waiting for him to get into bed. I laughed so hard. I then made his bed because I felt bad. I'm a good roommate.

Now Eli is leaving. He is packing up as I write this. Tomorrow morning he is driving home so he can be with his fiance before they get married. I'm going to miss that guy. I now have a room to myself and no one to have pillow talk with. I know I should be excited that I don't have to share a room, but I am actually rather sad. I've known Eli since 2nd grade. He is one of my best friends.

This is Eric. I didn't know him really before we came up to school. He's from Keizer and we have a lot of mutual friends. I really started to like him and felt like we could of been really good friends. After coming up here, he decided to take the term off so he can go home and get married to his fiance. Our apartment started with 6 people and now we are down to four.

Oh! I have good news though. It's kinda useless me telling all of you because I have to speak in generalities. Today I finalized the gift that I'm getting Erica for Valentines day. Now all of you can wait in anticipation until February 14th so you can find out what it is.

It's 10:30 pm...

It's 10:30pm on a dark and dreary night in Rexburg Idaho. My eyes are continually having to readjust to the flickering library lights. I try to keep my concentration on the task ahead of me but I feel as if some unknown force is inside me trying to escape. My friends are back at the apartment playing games, being on facebook and eating top ramen while I spend my nights in isolation from the rest of the world. Why you may ask? What terrible thing have I done which would constitute me being confined the library on a Thursday night? I chose to be here.

I'm spending this night exploring my text books trying to comprehend the material my teachers are continually throwing my way. I don't enjoy this. I can't, however, go home where my friends are having fun while I'm experiencing an internal Armageddon.

My heart was torn in two the other day as I looked on Erica’s blog and noticed that she had over 1600 hits. My measly blog just barely has over 1500 hits. My hit counter only raises when I bribe my family with candy bars. In an attempt to glue back together my shattered heart, Erica offered to make me dinner. I gladly accepted.

I am done moping though! I am resolved. I know what my viewers want and so I’m going to give it to them. If I can reach 1000 hits with a candy bar. What will it take to get my families help to reach 5000 hits? Well…

My dear friends and family,

If I reach 5000 hits before the end of the term. One of you, whomever is the 5000^th hit is will win a one night stay in Rexburg Idaho.

God bless each and everyone one of you.

I learned something very important today.

First of all, I'll tell you what I learned, and then I will tell you how I learned it:

I learned that men are supposed to be strong:

Comfortable with themselves:
Hairy:

independent:

and a bunch of other attributes that I don't care to list:

I found all of this out today while Erica was at the movies with her sisters. I was at home making lunch in the kitchen and watching "say yes to the dress"



I like TLC and it was the best thing on.

So...I'm cooking lunch and watching a show about girls picking out wedding dresses and then I hear a knock on the door. I open the door and my roommates sister is there with two of her friends. All three of them gave me a weird look and said, "what are you doing watching "say yes to the dress?"" I told them I like the show and by that time Zak walked on and all of their attention was drawn to him.

First of all: the shows not all that bad and secondly I have a girlfriend who loves to watch TLC with me :-) I am a lucky man.

I figured out my minor

So I've been going to different academic offices and asking a bunch of different people about different minors. Today I figured it out.

My major is Financial Economics and my minor is Public Relations. I'm sticking to it too!

That's it. :-)

Love ya, bye

I got done with my homework before Erica did.

So I have 15 extra minutes that I can update my blog.

School has been killing me. Everyday after school I go to the Library and usually stay there until the sun goes down. My classes are tough.

I'm taking

1. Accounting
2. Micro Economics
3. Music 104 (it teaches you how to sing)
4. Middle East
5. Business Statistics.
6. Old Testament

I signed up for a tutor in Accounting and I think I may need one sometimes in Business Stats as well.

I've been also thinking a lot about what minor to choose. Any input all of you want to give me would be appreciated.

I could either get one minor or two emphasis or clusters.

I'm thinking about going for two emphasis because I'm closer to achieving those. I saw an academic advisor and he suggest doing either accounting, communications, or CIT (Computer Integrated Technology)

I'm two classes away from an accounting emphasis, here are three options for that.

1. Financial Accounting

2. Accounting Information Systems

3. Tax Accounting

My other option is for me to get an emphasis in communications. Here are my options there.

1. Organization Communication

2. Public Relations

3. Broadcasting

4. Interpersonal Communication

5. Advertising

6. Journalism

7. Visual/ Digital Media

Other emphasis which interested me, but not sure how they would fit in with my degree are:

1. Real Estate
2.Culinary Arts
3. I could do a Fijian Emphasis. I'm only one class away. It'd be an easy out but completely useless.

Do emphasis really matter? Will my future employer be looking at those or is it solely for my benefit?

If it doesn't really matter then I want to do Culinary Arts as one of them. If it does matter I think I'm going to pick an accounting emphasis as well as a communications emphasis.

I don't know. Maybe I'll just choose two that I'm already close to achieving.

I'm in the library too...:-/

I've been studying for the past 3.5 hours straight. I'll be here atleast another 2 and then maybe a little more tonight. I need a break so I'm going to copy Erica and write in my blog.

So today was a crazy day.

It started off with economics, accounting and then my singing class. My accounting class is going to be insane. We have to read all of chapter 1 and do two homework assignments before next class starts. The teacher hasn't given us a lecture at all. We just went over the syllabus.

So after my singing class I started walking to my old testament class and I really didn't want to be there. I had a stressful day and I was worried that I wouldn't have enough time in the library. I go to class anyways. I walk in and all the seats are facing the door. I'm standing in front of the class looking at everyone. Everyones looking at me. I shake my head a little turn around and I left.

I then went to the library and changed to an online Book of Mormon class.

So that's my story for the day. Love ya! :-)

I am at college :-)

I am finally at college. I actually got here on the 2nd but have been really busy. We spent two days driving here. We stopped and spent the night near Boise with Erica's aunt. They were amazing hosts and they cooked us two great meals. For breakfast they made waffles and a buttermilk syrup which I fell in love with.

Once in Rexburg we got all settled in. We've done our Winco and Wal*mart trips and have bought all the supplies that we'll need for a little bit.

I called my cousin Kim, I'll be going over there with Erica sometime to have dinner. I'm excited to meet them.

Oh! funny story...

So Rexburg has a thing called a starving student card. It's a compilation of coupons which we can use all around the city and even some places in Idaho Falls. It costs $20 but you save a lot more than that. I think it's an investment and I've gotten at least one every term so far.

Erica and I were walking out of Wal*mart the other day and this guy stops us and tries to sell us the starving student cards. He tells us that there is a special married price so if we bought two then he'd knock five dollars off of each.

Erica says, "yea I'll get one for 15 bucks."

We start pulling out our cash and he gets a skeptical look on his face. He then asks, "you two are married...right?"

Erica, "Uh...Uh... no! but we're almost married ... see look ... Derek! Kiss me!"

We got the special married price. It was really funny. The guy told us that we are not allowed to tell anyone that he gave us the deal and I just posted it on my blog.

Here is a picture of my room.

Here is a picture of my roommate.

Ardith has been in town helping all of her children get settled in. It's been fun hanging out with the Haws family.

Here is my post of college thus far. I'm going to bed. I have class starting tomorrow morning followed by an afternoon in the Library.